Hatred

A story that some would say was driven by hate, makes this a fitting word for Princess Mononoke.  I felt that this story was a showcase of how the emotion of hatred can control a person.  Hatred is what drives the characters to do what they do.  Although, from their own perspective it might not seem like hatred.  Just from the perspective of others.  Because when you look at it some of these characters are doing some pretty cool stuff.  But they are also doing something good for other people in the story.  For example, Lady Eboshi has the goal of destroying the forest which if that were her only goal would make her a character filled with hatred.  But she is doing it to protect her own people.  It’s just like in war.  It’s not necessary a good thing to destroy other people but if that’s the only option they have they are probably going to go that path.

Coexistence

Coexistence and Hatred can feed off of each other in this story. This goes back to talking about conflict between all the parties involved.  Each of them have a different goal and the only way to achieve that goal is to ruin the goal of somebody else.  This is where Ashitaka plays a huge role in the story.  He is stuck right in middle of the conflict, and he basically works towards the goal of coexistence.  Obviously he didn’t want the forest spirit to die but that’s what it took for coexistence. And eventually overtime man and nature learned to coexist peacefully without conflict upon one another.