Quote:
Originally Posted by Tenchu
Odin, I hardly think to die trying, as a Samurai would had his lord ordered him to do something, is to break a promise. That is pretty poor of an example.
Odin, the Warrior may or may not be killed during his battle to fulfill whatever promises he has made. What is important, though, in order to maintain yourself, it is that you do not compromise yourself. Actually, you are so wrong in what you said about the Warrior that the opposite of what you said, in that, being able to accept the inability to fulfill comands due to death, this was conceded as the most important thing by all true Samurai. A man who changes his plan when he is faced with death, such as a Ninja would, he is the true traitor to his lord. A Ninja was a survivalist, such a man can not be trusted. That is why demonstration of Hara Kiri were used in the faces of lords to prove the quality of the men. Samurai were not survivalists, they were Warriors with immovable hearts. A man who sways like the wind when death is put in front of him can never be a true Warrior, this is so even for masterless Warrior, even if you only have yourself to consider, if you do not stick to your plan when faced with death then you were never worth the title to deal in death to begin with.
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What you have not grasped is that I do understand. However I do not hold one warrior above the other. They are both men of honor in my eyes. Both the samurai and the ninja have a code of ethics, but they are from different philosophies. To the ninja the goal of his oath is the source of honor, he does not want to break his sworn duties any less than the samurai. So he does change his plan and seeks a different path to fulfill his oath.
It is the story of the oak and the willow. The oak says he shall defeat the wind or I shall die trying. The willows say today I can not beat the wind, so I shall bend. Tomorrow I shall battle the wind again.
This is the same difference in philosophies you would see during World War II in the Pacific. The Japanese did not understand why the Americans would surrender alive. To them is was dishonorable not to give your life in the fight. The American was thinking I have been beaten today, so I shall live to fight another day.
I see the validity in both sides and I see honor in both sides.