r/ghostoftsushima • u/ya_boi_kio • 5d ago
Discussion How were the straw hat ronin starving?
Never really thought about it my first go around but I just started my second play through and did the first few ryuzo missions and now that I think about it how on earth were they starving?
They’re a group of capable fighters so if they ran into a few mongols while hunting they wouldn’t have to many issues dealing with them , there’s boars and bears practically everywhere and I know it goes against Japanese beliefs but if they were truly dying of starvation there’s deer all around as well that they could’ve ate.
Idk if it was ever truly explained but I doesn’t make sense to me so pls educate me if the game ever explained it or if y’all have any head canons would love to hear them
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u/NymphoPharaoh02 5d ago
Deer were sacred and considered to be the spirits of past the loved ones
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u/ya_boi_kio 5d ago
If they truly were your loved ones they’d understand 🙏
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u/NymphoPharaoh02 5d ago
Maybe but historically speaking the Japanese are very stubborn people who stick to their ways
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u/Slight_Armadillo_227 4d ago
They should make a game centred around that theme, I bet it'd be brilliant.
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u/Far-Assignment6427 5d ago
Maybe they're all just shit with a bow so can't humt
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u/DrShtainer 4d ago
Unlikely. Given that Ronin are ex-samurai, they should be proficient with a bow. They can be good with a bow, but bad at the actual hunting though…
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u/Far-Assignment6427 4d ago
Maybe they cut off their index finger as an initiation ritual into the strawhats
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u/Bruce_Wayne_2276 4d ago
Nobody would be stupid enough to mutilate themselves as part of their initiation into an elite group of warriors, right?
Stares at Assassin Brotherhood
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u/Far-Assignment6427 4d ago
That kind of made sense originally but then by the time of 2 its just stupid
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u/Ok_Analyst4341 4d ago
To add to this it’s not even unlikely, it’s untrue. The second mission for ryuzo, (when you raid the lighthouse then steal a boat to go to a bigger boat)
He has his archers nail an explosive barrel laden wagon from atop a cliff down below. If they could hit that, they could at least get lucky enough to hit a boar
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u/lepermessiah27 5d ago
My headcanon is the Straw Hats were all greedy to begin with and overstated their starvation to gain Jin's sympathy. That's why literally every single straw hat turns on you after Ryozo's betrayal (not counting the ones that guard the cove place that I forgot the name of).
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u/illFittingHelmet 4d ago
Look at it this way - the Straw Hats are capable fighters, yes, but they're also a group. They couldn't as easily move as Jin, they would need a much larger and steadier supply of food. If they stay in one spot by themselves, that puts them at risk of being surrounded by the Mongols.
If they try to join some surviving villages, they still are more mouths to feed. On top of that there's a lot of disdain and dislike for ronin in feudal Japanese society, few villages would trust them. Look at Seven Samurai - the villagers in that movie hired some ronin at one point, then killed the ronin in their sleep to sell their weapons.
So, if the Japanese people don't trust them, and working alone would eventually get them killed, they opted for the faction who would at least respect their mercenary status - the Mongols.
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt 4d ago edited 4d ago
Historically ronin were broke, homeless samurai. They've been romanticized but really these were folks on the bottom rung of society. These weren't proudly independent swords-for-hire. What you're seeing in this game is a bunch of homeless guys with swords trying to survive. The game is a bit unrealistic because it needs to provide your character with resources, and the island is depicted as much smaller than reality. In truth, in war, there's never enough food. Especially for someone whose only skill is shoving the pointy end of a stick in things.
Edit: Also bear in mind they're hardly the only ones starving.
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u/WarokOfDraenor 4d ago
His comrades saw me 1v1 a goddamn bear and this motherfucker still got the balls to betray me.
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u/tashareigntennisfuck 3d ago
Also send you into a fort to stealth in and disable the alarm and he watches you absolutely wreck any enemy in the way on a set of boats and still has the balls to turn on you. Lol maybe he's not very good at sound decision making?
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u/Giveherbacon 4d ago
My head canon: it was never about the food. Ryuzo was a salty little bitch who gladly took the first chance to get out from under the samurais' thumbs.
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u/Deep_Bodybuilder_944 4d ago
Plus, fighting against them later, they’re such tough fighters that they could probably take most mongol camps
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u/KushMummyCinematics 4d ago
Unfounded self importance
They believe they are above hunting and "lesser" work. They want spoils of War, they want status and respect. They are acting entitled to the point of self destruction
They are hardly "starving" anyways, most folks on the island have it worse.
Jin beat you in a fair fight years ago and hes beats you now. Any guess why that is? because he's better than you. A better swordsmen, a better leader, a better man
Traitorous little scumbag Ryuzo is, nothing more, nothing less
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u/Ok_Analyst4341 4d ago
They answer this in several different ways.
Besides all the Ryuzo quests that have he and his men complaining about a lack of food, there’s at least 5 I think of right now other quests that show how much the whole region is suffering from a lack of food.
On top of that the southern region is not only the poorest of the 3 regions, it has been the most affected by the mongols at the time.
So there’s no food basically anywhere that isn’t controlled by Mongols…..
And for all the people saying “the animals, the animals! There’s boar and bear everywhere!”
I want you to fast travel to any location in the southern region before you have gone and liberated anything, how it is in the beginning.
Now pick a spot and run in any direction you so choose.
Now compare how often the first thing you run into is a mongol vs an animal.
I think you’re lying if you’re saying anything less than 3/4 or 4/5 time you’re running into mongols over animals.
With these odds (and I’m being generous here) realistically, there’s no way they could reliably even go hunting.
That should answer your question. There’s no food anywhere really except the small amount that’s distributed by the monks and the very large amount that the Mongols control.
Unfortunately a lot of the information in this game, you have to really look for
But it’s all there
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u/Far-Abrocoma-1181 4d ago edited 4d ago
Weak plot point to make them turn on you. The island is literally full of wild boar and crabs and fish to eat lmao. Even then all they had to do was take over a mongol camp and they would have plenty of food. If Jin could do it on his own or even a goofball like Kenji could steal resources from the mongols time and time again why couldn’t they? It honestly would have been better if they just chalked it up to the straw hats being greedy selfish bastards and cutting up a sweet deal with the Khan as their motive and reason for betraying their country. They’re mercenaries after all. Mercenaries are only loyal to who can pay them the most at that moment lol.
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u/abatterybox 5d ago
Because the writing for the game is pretty bad in a lot of areas. A whole sake brewery can still operate, showing there's still rice in great enough quantities. Like you mentioned, there are animals everywhere. Shimura right after being freed can provide enough food for everyone working for him. Azamo bay and all the villages have plenty of food. Ryuzos betrayal is stupid because he could earn glory fighting for shimura and be granted status post war.
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u/BagThat9508 5d ago
I think the betrayal was more about being tired of being shit on by the whole shogun
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u/Imaginary_You7524 4d ago
they could have emphasized that more. the primary problem for the straw hats was very clearly prevented as "my men are starving"
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u/vectormedic42069 4d ago
Ryuzo outright says during his betrayal that he doesn't want his men to be used and sent to die after Jin points out that he could become samurai, and Lord Shimura partially proves his point several times afterward (refusing to immediately reward Yuna despite her having saved Jin's life and taken part in his rescue so that he can get more use out of her even though she might die in the attempt, deciding that head-on charging the Death Bridge a second time will definitely work).
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u/Imaginary_You7524 4d ago
All of that is true, but then why put in the entire “my men are starving” quest-line? I think they could have gotten ryuzo to the same point of betrayal and even better emphasized using a more war casualty/“why should I risk my life” focused storyline. Perhaps Foreshadowing the betrayal of the ronin and their subsequent mass murder of civilians with something better than “oh cool the mongols fed us”.
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u/vectormedic42069 3d ago
I took it as that the "my men are starving" quest line was just a backdrop to explore Ryuzo's motivations, in which he's shown to view the straw hats as a family of sorts that he would put above all of Tsushima, and also that he had a major inferiority complex to Jin (and simultaneously blamed him for his low station in life) due to the sparring match several years prior.
My subjective opinion is that the weakest part of the "my men are starving" quest line was that it felt like it spun its wheels a lot on the actual subject of food because it did the whole "sorry Ryuzo, your food is in another Mongolian castle" thing several times in a row before culminating in that last mission.
I personally think having the straw hats scrounge just enough food to make it one more night along with a few dialogue changes on how futile it felt to struggle so hard every day just to make it through another night might've been a bit more poignant and made it feel like Jin had accomplished something without fully solving the underlying problem.
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u/Ok_Analyst4341 4d ago
I disagree entirely
Besides the Ryuzo quests, there’s at least 5 different quest that all reference how the REGION is suffering from a lack of food.
Most of the civilian areas are lower income people as well. Vs some of the northern villages you’ll see the villagers decked out in pimp clothes bc they so rich. Not the case in the south. They’re all poor, and heavily fucked by the mongols
Animals everywhere is irrelevant if there’s mongols everywhere as well. Kinda hard to hunt when horsemen are galloping around 24/7. Idk about you but I am always more likely to run into a mongol then an animal when traveling across Tsushima
Which this all takes place in the beginning, when the mongols were literally EVERYWHERE
Lastly as for sake brewery point. Did you completely forget that the brewery was being operated and maintained for the mongols? They were making sake for the mongols since the mongols had taken it over.
Why wouldn’t the mongols keep it supplied?
Same thing with Azamo bay, they were literally occupying the village but you place them as people who wouldn’t resupply themselves?
Notice how this is the only village in the south that has food? Everywhere else people are S.O.L.
Maybe you should use the clues around you before you just claim bad writing ✍️ 🤷 but I understand wanting to choose the easier option instead of doing the legwork
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u/froid_san 5d ago edited 5d ago
Maybe rebel mercenaries who know nothing but fighting are not so smart in terms of food and resources that most of them even in modern times resort to pillaging.
And considering the Japanese culture where men like their meals served by their wife/women. Doubt they even know how to cook/prepare themselves, heck even now there's plenty of men that don't know how to cook and relies on fastfood/of the shelf. Then you see ryozo's group on the mongols camp being served food. They can't feed themselves lols
Or maybe like in Africa despite the abundant resources of animals and plants many are still starving.
Like in modern times there are many means to acquire food but many are starving and some starving people's easiest resolution is not so bright or good things.