Kurulus Osman
Season 2 Wrap--"If we Win, Our Enemies will be Scared"
Season 3 of Osman is underway—as it is predictably every October, a new season hits the televisual Turks once a week on TRT. I am now watching it in real time—foregoing the long wait to see if Netflix will pick it up.
When season 2 ended, I went back to watch some of the more notable episodes. Unfortunately, a coordinated copyright attaq commenced. All of Mehmet Bozdag’s full episodes of Ertugrul and Osman were removed. Other channels where one might watch the series had also removed the episodes.
So, this post took some time to write. Before I had all the scripts at hand. Not so for season 2.
Like all other Bozdag endeavors—Ertugrul, and the new Bozkır Arslanı Celaleddin/Mendirman Jaloliddin—Osman is over 2 hrs each per episode. To remind, they are in effect full length movies, soap operaish with a manly patriotic twist. If you think Turkey is an anomaly, you should see what China did some 10 years ago with Three Kingdoms. However, in Turkey, this method has been reproduced by Bozdag copycats and there are several series now shown on Turkish TV praising in not exact historical fidelity, the Greatness of the Turks—Erdogan is a genius (it bears repeating). He is engaged in the recovery of the Ottoman spirit in order to counter the effeminate goal of GAE. China is as well. The west has succumbed to all of it. Advantage East.
Erdogan is engaged in informational warfare to make Turks men again, and the women fierce and feminine. GloboHomo does not sit well with people who reject their demands of their subservience. Many are awakened to the attempt to enslave them for the sake of a world-wide oligarchy. Only Turkey has responded to counter them in any real/successful way. Not a Bozdag series, but the Turkish limited series The Last Seljuk (Uyanis Büyük Selcuklu) is one of many along these lines.
Like Ertugrul and Osman, the soundtrack is quite excellent: 👇👇👇
Most of the beloved characters return in Osman, especially Bala, Gonca, Selcan, Bamsi, Cerkutay (begins as Mongol in this season, Muslim convert late in season 2), Boran, Goktug (ex Mongol, Muslim convert in season 1).
In the first season, Osman was young and impetuous (his long black hair was shorn into a short-haired scalp cut, with a trimmed beard for season 2). He thought more with passion than reason. Spiritedness also clouded his judgement. The caution for all of us is that thumos must needs be directed to the right ends. The open of season 2 is important: Osman’s mind is sharper than his sword. The White Beards understand this. The State is imminent, though not assured. Imams, Scholars, Awliyahs, all will have a place to call home if it is established (Hu!): The State needs an “unbending wrist, unbreakable mind, and courage” to come to fruition. Unity is the theme, with unity comes victory—disunity means the death of a people and a faith. Season 2 is about how that unity comes about.
The Season opens with a rather daring rescue attempt because cowardly and cruel Christians torturing Turks of the Kayi (Oghuz) have raided a tribe. Osman attempts to save the few remaining captives. The Christians killed men, women, and children in a preemptive strike because they worried of Kayi’s influence in the region. When you are strong, you invite more attaq.
But that scene is the tease for what happens later. Bozdag quickly cuts to Kumral Abdal—a real character in history but not likely alive at the time of Osman. His role is fictional.
The Dervish Kumral is Seyah Edebali’s most talented student. He announces that the time has come to solve the secret—the wolf will come to peace with the lamb. The establishment of the State is religious in inspiration. Osman has to solve the religious quandary of how to make the land and the wolf friends. He is that answer. More on that later.
Season 2 Episode 1 (really Episode 28 overall) accounts for the determination of Osman to seize Inegol (and the castle there) which is the stronghold of the Byzantines. A lot gets in his way to delay that real historical event, especially the Mongols.
The “world is on fire,” says one White Beard to Osman. Turks are trapped by Mongol on one side, and Byzantines on the other. And Byzantines and Romans are fighting among themselves for preeminence in the region of Anatolia (they loathe each other). Mongols are in post Genghis civl war as commanders fight for notoriety, and their own greed. Osman is plagued by his own internecine problems—his extended family is the biggest obstacle, but warring Turkish tribes (some of them Christian converts) also impede his progress. These are all political high stakes games with many moving parts. Division and disunity plague the forces opposed to the Turks, yet they manage to do much damage in spite of it.
Osman’s task is great and demands much personal sacrifice. He is the symbol of unity, and his fate belongs to the people. His life is not his any more—he belongs to Allah (as we all do—to God) but his is a special mission. His Faith, and Courage, his defiance toward evil requires his action for the creation of a state safe (nay the guiding light of) for Islam. Osman has to persuade the people they need a State for their own happiness, for their own safety. But, the State must not discriminate against other faiths. This is why in one scene, he orders his Alps to protect the captives after a battle with Christians. One Alp protests—”they did not treat us this way.” Osman replies: “we are not the same. We need to be different from them so that the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would be proud of us.” They then pray to Allah that they never become arrogant, and thank Him for the victory. However, as in all episodes in this tall tale (Ertugrul and Osman) those who defy the State (cheat, steal, lie, murder, are not honest), there is no place for them. They face ruthless judgement. The sword is their end. Unity comes from cleansing the state of the duplicitous and evil.
Tall order? Yes. Evil is always around us. This can lead to a certain radicalism, but, hard as it is to understand, Erdogan is not about radicalizing Islam, he wants to moderate it.
Multitudinous Turkish Tribes (not all Muslim, some Christian!), disunity, laziness, and ambition amongst Beys, all threaten the cohesion needed to build a political people. Osman vows to do it—and he did really do this in historical fact. To do this, he has to first dream bigger than his tribe—Kayi (IYI) sanjak must be replaced (see above)—tribes must lose their particularism. A State requires unity and unity means a forgetting of your tribal roots in a way.
Bozdag has a talent not seen in many scripts regarding historical events that being he develops intricate stories of the planning not just for the hero’s of the series (Osman/the Turks) but their enemies. The narrative works so that we know what each side is planning and why. He does not paint the Christians, for example, as unfaithful (generally, there are exceptions). Nor are the Mongols simple inhuman aumotans. Everyone has their motives, and their faith, and while it is true Bozdag picks sides, the Muslim is the most powerful and most true; it is the light of the world and the source of victory. Most opponents are portrayed as worthy and brave. There are exceptions to this rule as men are men, and no mater the man—Turk, Mongol, Christian—cowardice and treachery are displayed as common human weaknesses. There are plenty of fake Muslims to go around in this series too. The most damning portrayals are of the treacherous “Muslims” who seek their own gain.
Season two centers on Inegol Castle, as I wrote above, was taken by Osman in real life. The season ends with Inegol still in the hands of the Byzantines—though to be fair it is run by a non-Byzantine warrior, homosexual(?), who talks to the bust of Ceaser constantly like a swooning artist. He is Roman at heart, and completely pagan. Perhaps this is the point—to portray the Roman Christians as completely bankrupt in soul and faith that they turn to a talented, albeit, chaotic soul to protect the frontier, a frontier which, if it falls, leads to the Hagia Sophia. In all this, there is a certain respect for the Eastern Orthodox, that never is paid in kind to the Roman west. Rome is despised, and no good character of that faith comes from the script.
One of the most important parts of season 2 is the meeting where, Dundar (Ertugrul’s brother, and Osman’s uncle) tries to cheat his way into the Beylic, by buying off other beys with gold. He even misled Savci (Osman’s brother) that he would support him for Beylic all the while going behind his back and lobbying the tribe for his own good. Savci was caught unaware, and was angry n the meeting. The vote between the bribed, and those legitimately for Osman split even. Savci was the final vote. He gave an angry speech: it is better to support the one who confronts me rather than the one who stabs family in the back. He reluctantly and in visible anger (along with his shameless pride on display in defiance) throws his vote to Osman, thus giving him the Beylic by one vote.
Osman is displeased with the vote. Most men would take the W and run. Not Osman, who engages in a chastising speech at the conclusion of the vote, as Dundar tries to slither from the meeting.
Osman: Stop, right there uncle!
This election is unacceptable.
I won’t accept a boyhood that’s been won like this.
It seems some people were bought off with gold
And some people were promised beyhood.
But they were deceived.
Beys….we are electing a Kayi Bey here!
A Kayi Bey is the embodiment of a people’s approval and will
Now listen to your conscience
How can you accept this election?
One deceived the other…and votes someone else because he resents the other.
A man who accepts such an election cannot rule the Kayis
And he shouldn’t!
When there is an election and our children asks us about it, what will we tell them?
Tell me, what will we tell them?!
Is this the foundation of the state on which we all establish our political rule?
Is this the first work of a lineage who dreams of conquering far away lands?
Is this our testament?
I…son of Ertugrul Ghazi…Osman Bey…want you to elect me for the state I will establish…cities I will conquer and for the grand civilization I am eagerly waiting for.
Elect me…because i am worthy.
Bamsi Bey [chair of the meeting] The votes should be counted again.Bamsi: Evallah my brave son.
The votes were recast. Osman won in a landslide. He said, “Now I will accept it.” But, he is clearly not happy. He is disgusted by the folly and deceit of his own tribe. His face does not elicit joy, but absolute disdain for the manner of this event.
Normally, we could account the honor and political astuteness of Osman here—he trapped those who would try to claim the throne by retaking the vote to make it unanimous after he shamed them. But his greatest act is the immediate removal of Dundar and Savci from any authority in the tribe. He acted immediately, and decisively, and cut them out of the political rule of the tribe. It, is a Machiavellian move out of the Prince, minus the death, but no less effective.
Still, Dundar is undaunted. He goes behind Osman’s back and tries to undermine him and his beylic. Eventually, he engages in a plot to rid Osman even of his life. He expresses privately to his shrewish wife that if they die in the process, they die! I will be bey, he intimates.
Season 2 therefore ends as we might expect. Dundar is caught red handed, and, Osman sentences his own uncle to death. The Tore demands he not be beheaded, so, Osman has a choice of how to kill him by not shedding blood. A bow around the neck would do the trick, but, Dundar, with whatever shred of decency and honor he has left, asks for an arrow through the heart. Osman acquiesces, and as Dundar walks away from him in the middle of the tribe, Osman kills his traitor Uncle with a single shot from an arrow that killed one of his own alps (Savci’s son) because of Dundar’s betrayal to his own people and family. Dundar is no different from the enemies, but, he worse because he betrays in a cowardly fashion through tricks. He does not face his enemy; he pretends to be their ally. This is unmanly; and it also is representative of a fake Muslim.
Now, Osman carrying out the sentence on Dundar is The Prince on display, and it is on display for the entire tribe to see. The public sentence of Dundar is not merciful, but it is merciful to the innocent, who will never suffer from Dundar’s evil. Osman, is also, now, firmly in charge. He will eliminate his enemies even if the enemy is a relative. Al-haq hoo Allah.
At the end of the season, which comes soon after the sentence on Dundar, Bamsi finally dies, honorably in battle. This is an irreplacable loss. He is a beloved character, and to be honest, I loved his character. His passing offcially ends the connection to the 5 season behemoth of popularity, Ertugrul. Osman will now fly on his own without any connection to his father’s allies. But, Bamsi was not only a manly alp, he was a friend. His soul and Osman’s soul were similar. As Cicero describes friendship in De Amicitia, he was not exactly subordinate to Osman, though he was in fact of political authority. Bamsi was a fellow traveller and someone who had the same greatness of soul, of character, to do justice, and be Good. These are friends who rarely come along in our lives, and if they do, they are but few. When gone, they are gone. We are left alone, longing for friends who have the same soul of virtue and its pursuit, and who can, if need be, correct us in private with frankness, when we err.
The few episodes remaining deal with Osman marrying his second wife—commanded from the will of his father—so as to provide for an heir. It is a political arrangement. His true love, Seyh Edibali’s daughter (both are factual historical character and contemporaries of Osman), Bala, cannot have kids, or can she? Edibali blesses the marriage as politically prudent. Without an heir Osman’s position as bey is unstable. Without an heir, the new State cannot come to be and the Muslim faith will not be secure. With no heir, it will command all sorts of challenges—this is something Monarchical Moldbug always seems to overlook as a chief cause of instability.
The final episode notes Bala is in fact pregnant. The wounds she suffered to her womb in season 1, have healed (suffered while saving Osman). Now there’s two heirs. Season 3 will no doubt focus a bit on this personal conundrum, and of course the jealousy between the two wives.
There is nothing in the United States that compares to what other potentially rising nations are doing; Hollywood has thrown in the towel; they submit to their superiors. Ertugrul/Osman deal honestly with the greatness and limitations of human nature, while Hollywood deals in fantasies of man that never were and never will be. Turkey will not be relegated to the pod.
We end this rather lengthy review with the viewership numbers through season 2. Impressive. Mashallah!