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sureiAlright! You guys get another ramble from me, this time courtesy of Naruto 283.
It's not one of those things you can just look at and say, "of course that's how it is," because it's not immediately obvious. It may not have originally been planned that way, even. But the instant I was aware of Elders, my suspicions came alert, and I'm beginning to think that I'm right. In which case, I've got the politics of Konoha pretty much down, because I know what they're modeled after.
Tokugawa.
The Hokage (火影, fire shadow/phantom) is the Sei-i-tai Shogun (征夷大将軍, barbarian-subduing great general), a title given to, supposedly, the strongest person. In RL, the title originates from a time when a great general was needed to subdue the barbarians along the boarders, and would have been given by the Emperor. In Narutoverse (henceforth NV), there is no Emperor, so I'm guessing... the gods? or the Elders, which would show a much faster corruption of the system then actually happened.
Shoudaime and Nidaime(sp?) (一代目、二代目、first and second generation eyes) are the first three Tokugawa shoguns, who set up the system/order, and who truly held all the power themselves.
Sandaime and Yondaime (三代目、四代目、third and fourth generation eyes) don't really have exact RL counterparts, but they're both people who follow along with what previous people did, instead of making the rules themselves, so in a way they could go with the various shoguns who let things slip because they were doing exactly the same thing and letting people who wanted power (but didn't officially have it) grab onto that, making them (the shoguns) weaker and more dependent on their staff.
The time after Yondaime dies when Sandaime takes back command could sort of be equivalent to the 4th shogun, the "so be it" shogun who came to power as a 10 year old boy and who signed away much of his power to the Elders (real title, there) because they came to him and said, "this must be done," and he said, "so be it." Too young to understand, too late to try and take power back when he did.
So then Tsunade, Godaime (五代目、the fifth generation eyes) would be very approximately equivalent to the fifth Tokugawa shogun, who came to power much later in life (RL=35ish, NV=50ish) knew what he wanted to begin with, and was determined to wrest power away from the Elders who were trying to do his job, dammit! Tsunayoshi was also known for his love of pleasure, which has connections to Tsunade's gambling and drinking, and certain fans will also tie her (fanon) lesbian ties with Shizune to the fact that Tsunayoshi was sometimes known as the "gay shogun" because he was very very very fond of men. Sexually. *ahem*
Besides which, there is also the similarity in names, although I wouldn't say anything strongly about that without the kanji in front of me.
By the end of the Tokugawa period, the Elders had succeeded in taking pretty much all of the control from the shogun for themselves. Oh, the power was still his, he could still decide to fire them all and start over from scratch with a new bunch of people and send of edicts and so on and so forth, but if it seemed like the successor was likely to be that kind of person, well, he didn't succeed. The Elders had taken over the decision of who was the heir, with three supplying families at least and always a healthy amount of competition. Usually young, inexperienced, underage shoguns were chosen, so that an Elder could be appointed his regent - sort of like when Sandaime takes control after Yondaime's death, although he wasn't regenting for anyone. At that point, chances are he was more Elder than Hokage by then.
The other thing is that 代目 (daime) by itself doesn't have any meaning, so we have to take it in pieces. 代, while it means generation, age, period (the meaning I've given in my above rough translations) it also means 'substitute' and 'to replace'. Then we have 目 - it's probably always first taught to mean 'eye', and it can mean 'experience' or 'class' as in rank, but it's also possible that its meaning here is 'piece' as in a piece on a Go board. So while Tsunade's full title - 五代目火影 - could translate to: The Fire's Shadow's Fifth Generation of Eyes, it could also mean, The Fifth Replacement Piece for the Ninjas belonging to Fire Country, which is nowhere near so pretty.
So.
The Elders chose Tsunade. She is, or was supposed to be, controllable. And if there were problems, then ideally they'd be able to cause enough of a problem elsewhere that she'd have to go out herself and get killed, thus letting them choose someone else to rule through. However, Tsunade's been using an uncontrollable, unpredictable element - that is, Naruto - to get things and she's managing to actually do it, while staying safe, so she's becoming unpredictable herself, and therefore uncontrollable.
See, the other thing about the Tokugawa order was that it ran on overperformance. Two or three different positions, none of them accountable to each other, all did the same job, lords were sent out to their holdings and brought back to the capitol for no reason other than regulation, everything possible was done to make sure that no one person could wrest control for themselves. And to that end, about half the offices in the order were designed to spy on someone or other - the lords, the lords' retainers, the officials spying on the lords, the Elders, the chamberlains (the Elder's counterpart and the group of people who struggled for power with them the most - aside from the shogun himself, of course), the townspeople, the magistrates (who managed the townspeople) and so on and so forth. Supposedly, however, everyone eventually answers back to the shogun. Needless to say, if the Elders were to hold the power they'd taken (from the shogun) for themselves, they'd need to play the game as well.
Therefore Sai.
Sai is, I believe, the Elder's spy on Naruto. Or at least, that's what he's supposed to be. Dunno if he will be, though.
Aaagh, I can't explain it! I can see so clearly what's going on (or at least, what I think is going on) in the NV politics but I don't have the words. I'd do better drawing neon lines, or something.
It's not one of those things you can just look at and say, "of course that's how it is," because it's not immediately obvious. It may not have originally been planned that way, even. But the instant I was aware of Elders, my suspicions came alert, and I'm beginning to think that I'm right. In which case, I've got the politics of Konoha pretty much down, because I know what they're modeled after.
Tokugawa.
The Hokage (火影, fire shadow/phantom) is the Sei-i-tai Shogun (征夷大将軍, barbarian-subduing great general), a title given to, supposedly, the strongest person. In RL, the title originates from a time when a great general was needed to subdue the barbarians along the boarders, and would have been given by the Emperor. In Narutoverse (henceforth NV), there is no Emperor, so I'm guessing... the gods? or the Elders, which would show a much faster corruption of the system then actually happened.
Shoudaime and Nidaime(sp?) (一代目、二代目、first and second generation eyes) are the first three Tokugawa shoguns, who set up the system/order, and who truly held all the power themselves.
Sandaime and Yondaime (三代目、四代目、third and fourth generation eyes) don't really have exact RL counterparts, but they're both people who follow along with what previous people did, instead of making the rules themselves, so in a way they could go with the various shoguns who let things slip because they were doing exactly the same thing and letting people who wanted power (but didn't officially have it) grab onto that, making them (the shoguns) weaker and more dependent on their staff.
The time after Yondaime dies when Sandaime takes back command could sort of be equivalent to the 4th shogun, the "so be it" shogun who came to power as a 10 year old boy and who signed away much of his power to the Elders (real title, there) because they came to him and said, "this must be done," and he said, "so be it." Too young to understand, too late to try and take power back when he did.
So then Tsunade, Godaime (五代目、the fifth generation eyes) would be very approximately equivalent to the fifth Tokugawa shogun, who came to power much later in life (RL=35ish, NV=50ish) knew what he wanted to begin with, and was determined to wrest power away from the Elders who were trying to do his job, dammit! Tsunayoshi was also known for his love of pleasure, which has connections to Tsunade's gambling and drinking, and certain fans will also tie her (fanon) lesbian ties with Shizune to the fact that Tsunayoshi was sometimes known as the "gay shogun" because he was very very very fond of men. Sexually. *ahem*
Besides which, there is also the similarity in names, although I wouldn't say anything strongly about that without the kanji in front of me.
By the end of the Tokugawa period, the Elders had succeeded in taking pretty much all of the control from the shogun for themselves. Oh, the power was still his, he could still decide to fire them all and start over from scratch with a new bunch of people and send of edicts and so on and so forth, but if it seemed like the successor was likely to be that kind of person, well, he didn't succeed. The Elders had taken over the decision of who was the heir, with three supplying families at least and always a healthy amount of competition. Usually young, inexperienced, underage shoguns were chosen, so that an Elder could be appointed his regent - sort of like when Sandaime takes control after Yondaime's death, although he wasn't regenting for anyone. At that point, chances are he was more Elder than Hokage by then.
The other thing is that 代目 (daime) by itself doesn't have any meaning, so we have to take it in pieces. 代, while it means generation, age, period (the meaning I've given in my above rough translations) it also means 'substitute' and 'to replace'. Then we have 目 - it's probably always first taught to mean 'eye', and it can mean 'experience' or 'class' as in rank, but it's also possible that its meaning here is 'piece' as in a piece on a Go board. So while Tsunade's full title - 五代目火影 - could translate to: The Fire's Shadow's Fifth Generation of Eyes, it could also mean, The Fifth Replacement Piece for the Ninjas belonging to Fire Country, which is nowhere near so pretty.
So.
The Elders chose Tsunade. She is, or was supposed to be, controllable. And if there were problems, then ideally they'd be able to cause enough of a problem elsewhere that she'd have to go out herself and get killed, thus letting them choose someone else to rule through. However, Tsunade's been using an uncontrollable, unpredictable element - that is, Naruto - to get things and she's managing to actually do it, while staying safe, so she's becoming unpredictable herself, and therefore uncontrollable.
See, the other thing about the Tokugawa order was that it ran on overperformance. Two or three different positions, none of them accountable to each other, all did the same job, lords were sent out to their holdings and brought back to the capitol for no reason other than regulation, everything possible was done to make sure that no one person could wrest control for themselves. And to that end, about half the offices in the order were designed to spy on someone or other - the lords, the lords' retainers, the officials spying on the lords, the Elders, the chamberlains (the Elder's counterpart and the group of people who struggled for power with them the most - aside from the shogun himself, of course), the townspeople, the magistrates (who managed the townspeople) and so on and so forth. Supposedly, however, everyone eventually answers back to the shogun. Needless to say, if the Elders were to hold the power they'd taken (from the shogun) for themselves, they'd need to play the game as well.
Therefore Sai.
Sai is, I believe, the Elder's spy on Naruto. Or at least, that's what he's supposed to be. Dunno if he will be, though.
Aaagh, I can't explain it! I can see so clearly what's going on (or at least, what I think is going on) in the NV politics but I don't have the words. I'd do better drawing neon lines, or something.