John Blackthorne is the hero of James Clavell

James Clavell

James Clavell, born Charles Edmund DuMaresq Clavell was an Australian-born, British novelist, screenwriter, director and World War II veteran and prisoner of war...

's 1975 novel Shōgun

Shogun (novel)

Shōgun is a 1975 novel by James Clavell. It is the first novel of the author's Asian Saga. A major bestseller, by 1990 the book had sold 15 million copies worldwide...

, and is loosely based on the life of the 17th century British trader William Adams

William Adams (sailor)

William Adams , also known in Japanese as Anjin-sama and Miura Anjin , was an English navigator who travelled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach that country...

, who was the first Briton to visit Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. The character also appears in the 1980 TV miniseries Shōgun

Shogun (TV miniseries)

Shōgun is an American television miniseries based on the namesake novel by James Clavell. As with the novel, the title is often shown as Shōgun in order to conform to Hepburn romanization. The miniseries was broadcast over five nights, between September 15 and September 19, 1980 on NBC in the...

, played by Richard Chamberlain

Richard Chamberlain

George Richard Chamberlain is an American actor of stage and screen who became a teen idol in the title role of the television show Dr. Kildare .-Early life:...

.

In the novel, Blackthorne is a British pilot working for Dutch traders in 1600, who navigates his ship, the Erasmus, to Japan where he and the surviving crew are immediately imprisoned. A Protestant like his crewmates, Blackthorne is branded as a heretic by the Portuguese Jesuits who control all foreign trade in Japan, though the Jesuits are powerless to kill him outright due to local political considerations. Blackthorne is taken to Lord Toranaga (also based on an historical figure, Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu

 was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara  in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...

), the daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

 in control of the territory in which Blackthorne and the Erasmus first landed. Toranaga quickly realizes that Blackthorne and his ship present a great opportunity, not only in his dealings with the Portuguese, but also in his struggle with his main rival, Lord Ishido (Ishida Mitsunari

Ishida Mitsunari

Ishida Mitsunari was a samurai who led the Western army in the Battle of Sekigahara following the Azuchi-Momoyama period of the 17th century. Also known by his court title, Jibunoshō...

), over future control of all of Japan. Toranaga orders Blackthorne's imprisonment, not to punish Blackthorne, but to keep him out of Ishido's hands. While in prison Blackthorne meets a Franciscan priest who gives him a much greater understanding of the political and economic situation in Japan, and how the Portuguese and the Jesuits fit into it. The priest also begins teaching Blackthorne the rudiments of the Japanese language.

Having been told by the priest that all who enter the prison are eventually executed, Blackthorne is prepared to die when his name is called (like the historical Adams, the Japanese call him "Anjin-san" - Mr. Pilot - because his English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 name is too difficult to pronounce, there being no sounds or characters in Japanese for much of his name). Instead, the guards take him to a castle where he is cleaned up and told by Mariko - the Christian wife of one of Toranaga's samurai who, like Blackthorne, is fluent in Portuguese and Latin - that Lord Toranaga wishes to know more about England and its war against the Spanish and Portuguese.

As a result of a series of events, Blackthorne eventually finds himself very close to Toranaga, saving his life occasionally. He is awarded the titles of hatamoto and samurai, as he begins to understand and deeply respect Japanese culture. But to complicate matters, he starts to fall in love with the interpreter, Mariko, and they eventually become lovers. Though Blackthorne asks Toranaga to sever Mariko's marriage so she will be free to marry him, Toranaga refuses and orders Blackthorne never to speak of the matter again. In spite of this, Blackthorne becomes a trusted friend of Toranaga.

At the end of the book Toranaga defeats Ishido's forces (this is reference to the Battle of Sekigahara

Battle of Sekigahara

The , popularly known as the , was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 which cleared the path to the Shogunate for Tokugawa Ieyasu...

) and becomes shogun. Though Toranaga quietly had Erasmus burned and beached, he permits Blackthorne to begin constructing another ship as a way to keep him occupied, but also determines that he will never be allowed to leave Japan for the rest of his life. It can be assumed that Blackthorne eventually dies in Japan without ever having returned to England.

Although Blackthorne's later life is never covered in any real detail in Clavell's later Asian Saga novels, Gai-Jin

Gai-Jin (novel)

Gai-Jin is a 1993 novel by James Clavell, chronologically the third book in his Asian Saga, although it was the last to be published. Taking place about 20 years after the events of Tai-Pan, it chronicles the adventures of Malcolm Struan, the son of Culum and Tess Struan, in Japan...

mentions that Blackthorne later built ships for Shogun Toranaga, and had families in Nagasaki and Izu

Izu

Izu may refer to:*Izu Province, a part of modern-day Shizuoka prefecture in Japan**Izu, a city in Shizuoka prefecture**The Izu Peninsula, near Tokyo***The Izu Islands, located off the Izu Peninsula...

. One of Blackthorne's Nagasaki descendants, Shin Komoda, is mentioned as having been a samurai who died in a brawl shortly before the events in Gai-Jin take place (during the early 1860s). Komoda and his wife Gekko had one son, who was sent to live with his grandparents shortly after Komoda's death.

It is also revealed that Blackthorne is later used by Toranaga to destroy Osaka Castle after the Battle of Sekigahara.

In Noble House

Noble House

Noble House is a novel by James Clavell, published in 1981 and set in Hong Kong in 1963.It is a massive book, well over 1000 pages, with dozens of characters and numerous intermingling plot lines. In 1988, it was adapted as a television miniseries for NBC starring Pierce Brosnan...

 (also by Clavell), a minor character named Riko Anjin makes a brief appearance. When main character Ian Dunross

Ian Dunross

Ian Dunross is a fictional character in James Clavell's novel Noble House, and a minor protagonist behind the scenes in Whirlwind.Dunross is the 10th tai-pan of Struan's, who rose to that office in 1960 and took the company public. Prior to this, he was a lifelong Struan's employee, a son and...

notes her blue eyes, she relates a family legend that she is descended from a shipwrecked Englishman who became a samurai. Dunross considers the story implausible.