Lady Eboshi. She really is a deep character. Like the two sides of a coin, there are two interrelated personalities that she has.
The first question you ask when you see her is, “Is she evil? Is she one of the bad guys?” Quite soon in the movie, you come to the conclusion that she is. She’s the one responsible for cutting down the trees. She’s the one responsible for turning Nago into a demon, and therefore the one responsible for Ashitaka’s curse. She’s an evil human.
Yet you become torn as you watch the movie further. Eboshi turns out to be an understanding person who tries to stop discrimination against women, as well as helping lepers. She even apologizes to Ashitaka, saying that it should’ve been her that the “brainless” boar cursed.
And this is when it can be realized that she is both good and evil. To humans, she is a wonderful, caring person that wants to help her people live as well as they can. Yet on the flip side, she can be a murderous, horrible, selfish person, that cares only about herself and humans, and nothing for nature. She wants to kill the Deer God just so that she can see the Emperor’s true intentions. She thinks of the Deer God as nothing more then bait. She thinks of Moro as an annoyance that must be dealt with.
On her good side, she is loved by all of her people, especially the women whom she has helped so much. Women think of her as their friend, and both men and women think of her as a protector. She will allow them to lead good lives.
She also helps out lepers, whom are seen in turn helping her, by developing new guns for Eboshi to use. Lepers were seen as disgusting people, who had no right to live, yet she did not discriminate against them; she helped them, she did what she could to heal them, and gave them something that even they in their diseased bodies could do, giving them a purpose in life.
And yet this side of her is directly related to her other, darker side. She wants to destroy the forest so that she may mine more iron, therefore making life better for her people. Eboshi wants to kill Moro because she is killing Eboshi’s people. She wants to kill the Deer God so that she may see if the Emperor is in fact trying to attack her village, not to mention the fact that there are the rumours that the Deer God can heal all diseases, and therefore may be able to help the lepers. In this light, she seems to be nothing more than a self-centered human, doing whatever she wants to do, even if it involves destroying and killing nature itself. Nature is below her; it is something to be taken advantage of as to better her and her people’s lives. She thinks nothing of the lives that nature holds, for she is selfish in her caring. She cares deeply for her people, and is therefore selfish about everything else.
This is why Lady Eboshi cannot be placed in the spectrum of good and evil. She is beyond the basic concept that is good and evil. She is both. She cannot be seen in one light, for the other shines just as bright. When looked at as a good person, you see that she is in fact quite evil. When looked at as an evil person, it can be seen that she is in fact good. She is a continuous loop that when followed, leads only back to where you started. In a way, she is neither good nor evil. She is not a person that can be understood simply. She is but a person that does things in a way that can be seen in both lights. She is a character with a personality that is so believable, so realistic, that she is beyond the idea that is good and evil. She is a spectrum of morals unto herself. She is Lady Eboshi.
