天幕のジャードゥーガル

Not a terrible situation to be in, honestly. If Fatima still feels strongly about avenging her family and reacquiring their heirloom/book, IF she plays her cards rights, she could either reveal her employer's treachery to the proper authorities and ask for the book as her prize; OR she could earn her employer's everlasting trust and gratitude by accepting/fulfilling their request, then asking for the book as her reward

It’s neat how she has to keep reminding herself of her anger even in the face of the sources of it being relatively nice and kind to her from what we’ve seen. It gives a kind of sadness for her situation. In a sense her anger is the only thing she has left of her loved ones and she can’t let it go even as it’s clear her anger is one sided. “Holding grudges is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” and all that.

However, her anger is completely justified. The show has done a really good job of conveying Fatima’s feelings, because I feel them too. The Mongols being so nice to her, without a shred of guilt or empathy in sight, after destroying everything she loved and cared for, is almost like spitting in her face. It’s like they’re trying to erase the scale of her trauma, and the trauma of everyone else whose lives they destroyed.

Even if Tolui never told her that rather personal detail, this still strikes as very naive and self-centered from Sotghaghtani. There is absolutely no way she doesn't know how Mongols get their riches and servants. Best case scenario she could hope for is that Sitara restricts her resentment to those that personally attacked her city or ordered the operation. But she's asking her to spy for her without even seeking a clear understanding of her feelings on the matter. She just assumed Sitara is loyal because she hasn't done anything yet. Even though she should know intellectually how Sitara came to be in her service, I don't think she has dedicated any effort to reflect how one would actually feel in such a position.

That's just it, "princess" Chigahtani is from a conquered tribe, the Keraites. She was surrendered to Genghis Khan, along with her sister, as terms of a peace treaty after her tribe lost it's war with the Mongols. Genghis Khan actually married her older sister while giving the younger sister, Chigahtani, to his own heir, Tolui. Which means that father and son technically became brothers-in-law 😆 But then Chigahtani's father broke the truce with Genghis, and once again, the Keraites lost a war to the Mongols. Having lost all trust in the tribe, Genghis dissolved the Keraites tribe as a distinct political entity within the greater Mongol Tribal Confederacy. Their remaining people were then dispersed into several other tribes to ensure they wouldn't rebel again. So, yeah, Chigahtani knows exactly how the Mongols operate. Ditto for Ogedei's main wife, Toregene. She was shown a few episodes back deeply resenting her husband. Once again, she was a captive taken from yet another conquered tribe, the Merkits. As was Genghis Khan's own mother... who was born into the Onggirad tribe but had married into the Merkits when Genghis's father "acquired" her. Forcibly. Before marrying this already married woman. Forcibly. "Kill the men and take their women" was pretty much standard operating procedure for the Mongols. EDIT: Because I'm a dumb dumb

What the other guy said. It's the right of the strong to conquer the weak. Multiple times throughout the last few episodes, we've heard the phrase "Everything the sun touches belongs to the Great Khan!" That's why it wasn't stealing for Tolui to take Euclid's Geometry from Fatima's household, or even murder for killing them all: the right of the conquerer. (Note, this is just how the Mongols justified their actions, not a serious ethical statement. Because this is the internet, I just wanted to make that clear.) Mongol elites would take many wives and many more concubines. Ogedei, for example, had some 60 total concubines by the time of his death. Their children would grow up proud that their fathers were such 'great' men that won many battles and claimed many women. And not just any women, but princess and other high-born ladies as trophies. And remember Shirat? That guy that convinced "Sitara" to roll over and play nice with the conquerors for her own benefit? If you can't beat them, join them. Assimilate, cooperate, and help the assholes that now control every aspect of your life. The only other path is to remain as the oppressed. Mongol women were also given a great deal of political power. Mongol men spent most of their time fighting each other and... well.. literally everyone else. This meant their wives would directly govern the lands they left behind or even recently conquered. A Mongol man that truly mistreated his wives is just asking for trouble. That said, "You killed my family, humiliated my people, and forced your way with me" doesn't exactly engender good will. It's honestly surprising the Mongols remained united as long as they did. Mostly through their sheer overwhelming military might and brutality that pushed risk/reward calculations pretty strongly into "cooperate or die." It didn't hurt that they were religiously open (Chigahtani's entire tribe were Christians, and a few other major tribes were as well) and an actual meritocracy... partly on account of how there just weren't that many Mongols to begin with. The harsh terrain of the steppes can't support much population density, so as the empire continued to expand, they routinely found themselves needing to rely more and more on conquered peoples that were willing to cooperate... who were then rewarded with riches and high positions within Mongol society. Mongols were actually a curious and open people, despite how brutal they were. As seen last episode when Genghis Khan wished to learn from a great Taoist Sage, that alleged immortal. When Master Changchun shared the secret of immortality with The Great Genghis, he laughed and rewarded the man for his honesty. Genghis respected this sage, spoke at length with him. He even took notes! That he shared with his kids! He took the lessons he learned from this learned man to heart. In return for entertaining the Khan's curiosity, Master Changchun's disciples were spared all taxes and conscription. Resist, and perish. Cooperate, and prosper. Mongol men wanted to emulate their 'successful' fathers, and conquered women cooperated to ensure their own safety and standing within the empire.

The carrot and stick is such a simple concept, I don't get how most people in the west don't seem to understand that. This is what it looks like, it's better for them to accept their lot in life than risk fighting. The mongols were simply too powerful, resisting is inviting certain death for you and your family, some even their entire kingdom if they offended the Khan enough. The risk/reward ratio was way too heavily skewed towards let's not fuck around and find out. That's not all they did though, the carrot was that the mongols practised meritocracy. The Mongols had no use for nobles they conquered, many skilled jobs were filled with commoners that could rise to powerful positions in the mongol empire as the mongols were unusually tolerant of foreign cultures and religions. Yes many of their wives were forcibly taken but they also grew to prominence and were actively invested in the preservation of the empire and didn't fight to change it. People are not simple beings, they could clearly see what is happening and are simply betting on the horse thats gonna win.

There is a fine line between wives and concubines. Although, the children of both were considered Mongol Princes. And if the child of a foreign concubine takes over the throne, he would be considered worthy of it... as a Mongol. The children tend to side with the cultural group of the much more powerful father than the people of the conquered mother. The Empire would dissolve, sooner, rather than later, but it was due to political infighting and not foreign subversion. Wives hold political power and typically represent political unions. When Tolui first married Sorghaghtani, it was part of a peace treaty at the end of a war. A couple years later her family betrayed that treaty and were officially dissolved, and that could have been grounds to dissolve the marriage. But he chose not to. For example, Genghis Khan was married to her sister, as part of that same peace treaty. After the Keraites betrayal, he divorced that wife and handed her off to one of his generals. Concubines are mostly taken as trophies, to show off the power of the man that claimed them. And to be used as he saw fit. This did include children as well, who would be potential heirs. But the mother has less power and influence than if she were a proper wife. And as a consequence, princes born of concubines were likely seen as lesser princes than those born of wives. But I'm not deep enough into Mongol lore to say this definitively. It does seem like the sons of concubines were still considered princes and given command of troops in battle, but the children of wives were considered the primary heirs. As I mentioned, WIVES were the women entrusted to govern by their husbands, so wives held much greater status. As for the "risky heir" argument... the risk is diluted if the husband has, like, a dozen kids all considered higher in the line of succession. That and the mother's kingdom/tribe is just one of hundreds beaten into submission by the Mongol horde. That, and I'm believe WIVES were either Mongols, or from other related tribes in the greater Mongol tribal confederacy. Those recognized as being "in groups" as opposed to "out groups." Thus, power wasn't as freely given out to conquered peoples.

From digging around far too many Wikipedia pages, the root problem is that there is no standardized conversation of Mongolian characters to the roman alphabet. As such, there are often multiple translations of Mongol names. The wikipedia page lists five variations on the name that have been used in scholarly articles. And I still somehow got all of them wrong >.> I'll fix my above post. But even Genghis Khan is sometimes written as Chinggis Khan, as again, there isn't standardized spelling in English. Which is probably why so many mispronounce the name, primarily by pronouncing "Genghis" with an initial hard "G." Which is what I did for years before first hearing JINghis Khan on some documentary one day.

I think at this point, Sorghaghtani is too far removed from the struggles of ordinary people like Sitara to care about her feelings. Despite her resentment, Sitara has been a reliable servant thus far and for a noble in Sorghaghtani's position, that's all that would matter. Maybe her behaviour would be different if she were closer to the war like Toregene was, but by nature she seems more detached and cunning.

Sotghaghtani REEKS of privilege. She as well as the other Mongols have sufficently dehumanized the Persians that she seriously thinks that they would be grateful to them after all the pain they caused. Sure we got ppl like Shira who are fearful of their fates in the empire and go with the flow with the vain hope that they will get a cushy life, but it feels more like the Mongols contradictarily see them as both idealized wise men and insentient livestock. I was fuming with Sitara as I heard her speak in the same way as Fatima did. Her motives aren't out of religious duty, but for her dream.

Some people try to paint the Mongols as inclusive, tolerant, and accepting, but their motives had nothing to do with altruism. Religion, traditions, and ethnicity simply didn’t matter as much when it came to exploiting the local population. They would kill anyone who wasn’t useful and spare those who were. It was extractive rule that treated conquered populations as resources to be exploited. Your observation of them dehumanizing their conquered subjects is absolutely correct. Ironically, [Sorghaghtani's background that might become relevant later] Sorghaghtani herself was from a conquered people. However, she was a Kerait princess who was married into the Mongol ruling family after the Keraits were defeated. She was indeed privileged, and probably did not feel the full effects of war in the same way ordinary conquered people did.

..or it could just be that she does have the risk factored in and yet continues to pet her anyway, because she thinks her powerless. For better or worse, Sitara revealed herself to be of sound and rational mind to the Mongols, meaning they now know she can be trusted not to do anything stupid no matter how much resentment she has. Understanding consequences is what makes intelligent people meeker than dumb ones, and that sometimes works against their favor.

I think that Fatima has been feigning pleasantry towards Sorghaghtani this whole time. This has mislead her to believe that she is truly loyal to her I think Sorghagthtani is observant enough to notice she's being lied to. She knows perfectly well that Sitara was enslaved by the Mongols - she literally calls her part of ther gift alongside the book- and, hence, knows her pleasantries are inherently dishonest. What makes Sitara valuable to her is that she's obviously intelligent, has no political allegiance, and has been able to serve her despite hiding a deep resentment for years. Moreover, I think she can sense they are not unlike each other.

With a historical series like this things like Tolui’s support for his brother can be hard for me to analyze because I have no idea what was a conscious bit of character writing by the author vs what is just what happened in actual history. I think historical series can be neat like that, because things that one might see as curious writing decisions in a fictional story can have the surprise of actually being what happened in real life.

I don't think it is a historical spoiler to note that historians STILL have no consensus as to what the actual (personal) relationship of these two brothers was like after Ogedei was named the great Khan (in accordance with Genghis Khan's preference). There are certain historical facts that will presumably need to be honored -- but the interpretation of events leaves an immense amount of room for historical fiction writers. Different chronicles record different versions and interpretations.

Actually, there's plenty of examples of successful partnerships between a man holding civil authority and another holding military authority, as long as the two are personally loyal to each other. The first Roman emperor, Augustus, basically had this with his chief general, Agrippa. As long as the personal bonds are strong, the arrangement is stable. Usually it breaks down when one or both parities die, and thus that personal bond is lost.

I think it more as a fragile balance than the general rule as we see many military coups across history. In the Mongolian empire perspective it seems that their society is built mainly by their military achievements, so my point in this is looking at a possible conflict of interests caused by the involvement of Sorghaghtani as someone close to the military authority vs the civil authority. Maybe nothing happens while Tolui is alive and in good terms with his brother, but who knows

The problem with the Mongol empire is that it's held together by nothing else but sheer brutality. Rewards for loyalty only go so far (and hand in hand with the big stick), and they needed a more cohesive identity to hold it together much longer. The moment they lost the monopoly on violence dividing up the empire between themselves, the loyalty disappears with it. Which is also why the various parts of the divided empire ultimately assimilated into the local dominant cultures, whether Turko-Persian for the western khanates or Chinese for the Yuan (with questionable success).

Late to the party, but there's another example from Egypt with Thutmose III and his stepmother, Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut technically usurped the throne, but she'd then go on to raise Thutmose into a stellar warrior and amazing pharaoh, even granting him control of her armies. They ruled together until Hatshepsut's death, after which Thutmose became the sole ruler, eventually becoming known as Thutmose the great.

A good choice on Genghis’ part was him basically sitting all of his sons down and deciding together who would be the best fit for next Great Khan. He gave them an example of how one arrow (which he was holding) would break with no resistance, and then grabbed a bundle of them to show how being together would make them stronger. So they all talked about it instead of Genghis not getting it settled before his death and everyone starts fighting. He didn’t want what he had built falling apart from infighting the second he passed away (look at Alexander the Great for how that can go).

Right after Ögedei gets crowned Khaan, we hear Tolui say "[...] and I'm finally free from governing duties". Seems like, in the period he was filling in as regent, Tolui quickly realized he isn't as much into governing as he is into military conquests... So pretty much Tolui's mindset there was "Heck yeah, big bro can do all the governing so now I can finally go back to what I like doing the most!"

It makes me curious about how much of Tolui’s reaction to not being made emperor is historically accurate vs how much was added by the series. It’d be neat if it turned out that him being perfectly fine being passed over for his brother for the throne is accurate to history. Would be neat if a real aspect of history broke the mold of “jealous noble mad his relative was given the throne over him” that you usually see in stories.

It's difficult to tell. Certainly, sources near to the events (like Secret History of the Mongols ) tend to portray Tolui as a dutiful son that didn't rebel against Genghis Khan's wishes on this matter. Of course, how much of that is truth and how much of that is propaganda is difficult to tell. [Mongol history] While Tolui didn't become khan in his lifetime, his sons successfully inherited the empire and divided it among themselves. Already in this episode we see little Kublai , future founder of the Yuan dynasty, and little Hulegu , the first Ilkhan. There were good reasons for later generations to portray Tolui as the perfect son, and fraternal alliance as the pillar of the good old days before other branches (and their associates, coughFatimacough) fucked up.

his sons successfully inherited the empire and divided it among themselves. It was actually precisely because of this that the Mongol Empire broke up. The displacement of the line of Ögedei by the line of Tolui led to conflict between the Toluid faction and the Ögedeid+Chagatayid factions that tore the empire apart, while the Jochid faction was happy to let it all happen so they could keep control over their portion of the empire.

There were good reasons for later generations to portray Tolui as the perfect son, and fraternal alliance as the pillar of the good old days before other branches (and their associates, coughFatimacough) fucked up. And that portrayal, real or fabricated, did fuck all in the face of dynastic politics. Fraternity goes out the window when power is involved. And power isn't just a reward sought after, it's also a means of survival against those who actively seek it. Game of thrones and all.

Sorry, your comment has been removed. Your comment looks like it might include untagged or wrongly-tagged spoilers. When spoiler-tagging comments, you'll have to use [] before the spoiler tag to indicate the context of the spoiler, for example [Work title here] >!tagged text goes here! to tag specific parts of your text. Find more information here. A recent ruling regarding historical discussion for this series (see also the top post text for this episode) has decided that out-of-episode discussion of future historical events must be enclosed within spoiler blocks. Questions? Reply to this message, send a modmail , or leave a comment in the meta thread . Don't know the rules? Read them here .

Given that the rule is extremely recent, not in effect last week, and easy to miss for someone who only goes to r/anime to comment on a handful of series per season, I wish to apply to have my comment reinstated with the appropriate spoiler tags. Nothing in my paragraph is based on knowledge of the series, but world history (I even include a link to the historical source). Of course, for that I also need to know which counts as historical "spoilers" in the eyes of the mod team so that I can use the spoiler tags correctly.

If you do edit your comment with spoiler blocking it can be restored. With the new rule in place it would be a matter of [covering] everything from "While Tolui... on down, given that those historical events have not yet happened in the series yet. And reiterating that it isn't that you cannot mention that at all, but that if you do, [spoiler tagging must be used to cover it] until such events have aired in the series .

The entire episode was built up for Tolui to inherit the throne only to show up Ogedei who we have not seen much of This is historical fiction. For those of us that brushed up on our history, today's episode was just a bit confusing. I kept wondering if they were going to fork the timeline, with how heavily "Tolui Khan" was baited, but I otherwise knew that Ogedei was the successor of Genghis. Ogedei was also a raging alcoholic. One of his brothers tried to curb his habit, and Ogedei responded by vowing to drink "one less cup a day." Only to have large cups custom made for himself, purportedly double the size of standard fare 😛 When he finally dies after a night of heavy drinking, the general consensus amongst Mongol elites was "Yeah, sounds about right. We're honestly surprised he survived as long as he did." That said, two of his brothers feuded with each other relentlessly (Jochi and Chagatai, largely over lingering suspicion of Jochi's paternity), which is supposedly why Genghis removed them from the line of succession. Perhaps worried about the feud that already existed between two of his sons, he tried to groom Ogedei and Tolui to take separate paths in the greater Khanate. Oh, and Jochi died offscreen. His cause of death is officially "ill health," even as he died two years before his own father. This would mean he died in the first half of hte episode, shortly after the narrator warns us about the storm that was about to follow the death of Genghis. Jochi's own son and successor, Batu Khan, will be an important figure in later Mongol politics. Considering how this has been hewing so close to actual history, is discussing the Wikipedia pages for the Mongol royals considered "Source material spoilers?" 😆

Tolui only has two brain cells: "Unspeakable violence to all the Clan's enemies" and "I WUV MY WIFE it’d be better for everyone if they didn’t have to deal with paranoid relatives trying to backstab each other for power. Pretty much everyone, universally, agrees that infighting is bad for the group. Except for the odd psychopath that thinks brutal infighting produces strong enough successors that it will offset all the destruction they cause with a mini-civil war every generation. The devil is in the details, though, when everyone thinks they are the one that "deserves" to rule, while everyone else is being the hateful shitter playing spoiler. "There'll be peace when you're dead" kinda thing. It's why we, as a species, can't have nice things.

This is historical fiction. Would be this an accurate term, though? It is true that ultimogeniture was the norm among the Mongols, and it is also true that Tolui inherited a lot from his father and became regent until a successor to the empire was decided. Many a historian nowadays believes that Tolui had a real chance to become the next khan, and might have desired so, but ultimately Ogedei was the chosen one. I suppose it's a bit anticlimactic for those who know history to build up expectations that you know will never be fulfilled, but as this thread shows, not everyone knows who was Genghis Khan's direct successor. Considering how this has been hewing so close to actual history, is discussing the Wikipedia pages for the Mongol royals considered "Source material spoilers?" 😆 Good question. I'd argue that historical knowledge shouldn't be considered spoilers, and in fact it enhances the understanding and enjoyment of any given historical series. It's only when the story deviates from history, or adds details that history doesn't explain, that it should be counted as spoilers.

WARNING, WARNING, WARNING Do NOT, under any circumstances, read the Wikipedia article on Ogedei's wife Toregene or the briefer article on Fatima (who is actually a historical figure in her own right), unless you want to undergo total spoiling of (presumably) the end of the story. I am sort of glad I did, in a back-handed way, as I can work on mentally preparing myself. But for most people reading this is probably unwise.