21 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Oddly enough, if you do it right (explain the reason, take responsibility, etc.) you end up with a net Honor gain .

Depends on the clan and the mitigating circumstances. Just flat disobeying is always dishonourable, but as noted refusing an order in your lord's best interests or 'creatively misinterpreting' them is less so (and often qualifies for a mitigating honour gain for some other reason).

For a Dragon (who halve the honour loss for Duty) it's a lot more common for 'orders' to be seen as 'guidelines', whilst for the Scorpion (who double it!) things have to be pretty bloody serious (see Bayushi Yojiro's careful tap-dancing around an order he knows is wrong)

There are no extenuating circumstances for Tsuko as hers is no corner case. The silver lining for her and her bandit generals is that Toturi seems disinterested in their crimes.

Quote

“A royal gempuku. Any day now, Prince Daisetsu will graduate and take his new name.”

.... Daigotsu....

Or they could call him 'Bob'....

Quote

Akima : What are you going to call it?

Cale : I think I'm going to call it... 'Bob'.

Akima : Bob?

Cale : You don't like Bob?

Akima : You can't call a planet 'Bob'!

Cale : Oh, so now you're the boss. You're the king of Bob.

Akima : Well, no, but...

Cale : What?

Akima : Can't we just call it 'Earth'?

Cale : Well, no one said you had to live on Bob.

Akima : I'm never calling it that.

So in the follow up we get a continuation of Toturi's theme of having no friends. Even his allies hate him. Though he is in a loving marriage which seems quite rare in the setting. so he's got that going for him.

1 hour ago, Manchu said:

There are no extenuating circumstances for Tsuko as hers is no corner case. The silver lining for her and her bandit generals is that Toturi seems disinterested in their crimes.

I would say that Toturi is more worried about losing their strength.

1 hour ago, phillos said:

So in the follow up we get a continuation of Toturi's theme of having no friends

We have never gotten to see him interact with Hotaru.

In any case, the theme being continued here is Ishikawa's insane jealousy of Toturi. Ishikawa comes off very poorly in this story IMO. With the Emperor assassinated and the Emerald Champion nearly assassinated, the Captain of the Hidden Guard cannot resist a few petty barbs? And accusing Toturi of failing the Emperor is as rich as it gets.

1 hour ago, Radix2309 said:

I would say that Toturi is more worried about losing their strength.

With no current Emperor, Toturi is the commander of the Imperial Legions. If he wanted Tsuko's rebels put down like dogs, he has the power to do so.

1 hour ago, Manchu said:

We have never gotten to see him interact with Hotaru.

In any case, the theme being continued here is Ishikawa's insane jealousy of Toturi. Ishikawa comes off very poorly in this story IMO. With the Emperor assassinated and the Emerald Champion nearly assassinated, the Captain of the Hidden Guard cannot resist a few petty barbs? And accusing Toturi of failing the Emperor is as rich as it gets.

It is a bit odd that there hasn't been any interaction between Toturi & Hotaru since the very early days of the story. As for Ishikawa, one would think that he has more important things to worry about than making idle threats on behalf of a woman he can't have, much less is he in a position to blame Toturi. It's strange to me that there's been no mention, call-out, or consequences of the Emperor's death for him or the Seppun at large, as far as we've seen. I suppose we have to maintain the illusion that nothing untoward has happened, but still, he must know he's on borrowed time.

3 hours ago, DarkHorse said:

With no current Emperor, Toturi is the commander of the Imperial Legions. If he wanted Tsuko's rebels put down like dogs, he has the power to do so.

Theoretically he has the Legions.

And sure he could crush those Lion legions. But if they are still loyal to the Emperor, that would just weaken their forces if he calls them out on their treason and destroys them/forces them to commit seppuku. Not to mention it would weaken the Lion significantly, and Toturi is still nominally their Champion.

There is currently no Emperor to be loyal to. The supreme authority is currently the Emerald Champion. I find it hard to believe in the empire where honour is stronger than steel and all that jazz that at the first test of loyalty, everybody folds like a cheap card table - although that is what seems to be happening.

... "Distain"? Tsk.

And I don't know that we're seeing that Toturi has no friends or allies- we're seeing that the guy who it makes the most sense to work with has plenty of personal reasons to dislike him and that his own clan isn't that wild about him (which we knew).

Moreover, between his wife and the information he has about the dangers of meishodo? With Shahai on the run with the missing prince? Pretty sure the Phoenix will at least say they have his back.

8 hours ago, DarkHorse said:

With no current Emperor, Toturi is the commander of the Imperial Legions. If he wanted Tsuko's rebels put down like dogs, he has the power to do so.

You could argue he would need the regent's permission; there may be no sitting emperor but there is someone with authority to act on his behalf.

More importantly open war between the Imperial Legions and the Right Hand of the Emperor would deliver a massive body-blow to the stability of the Empire. Right now, the problems are internal to the Lion (and Crane and Unicorn, since they're the people on the other side of the fighting)

50 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

I don't know that we're seeing that Toturi has no friends or allies- we're seeing that the guy who it makes the most sense to work with has plenty of personal reasons to dislike him

This. The "oh" moment hinted at at the end of the story is, I assume, him figuring out that Seppun Friendzone-sama is in love with his wife.

I wonder if Shoju would be willing to give up Aramoro & Kachiko to Toturi It might be a good opportunity for him to purge the ‘Scorpion Ascendancy’ faction of the Clan.

18 minutes ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

I wonder if Shoju would be willing to give up Aramoro & Kachiko to Toturi It might be a good opportunity for him to purge the ‘Scorpion Ascendancy’ faction of the Clan.

I think he would drop them if needed, but he has to be careful as them pulling what they did under his nose could blow back pretty badly on him, plus Aramoro's status as a shinobi is something that would have more serious repercussions,

So the guy who over-thinks everything is teaming up with the guy that allowed the kami in the palace wards to get hijacked, the emperor to get kill, and the Emerald Champion attacked, both in the palace...…………...and they are going to go up against Kachiko, Aramoro, and their vast network of spies and assassins...……….?

I hope Kaede started working on her lanterns for the two funerals she is going to have to attend.