Blogpost 4: Some Ninjas are Samurai?

Do you really agree that some ninjas are samurai? Yes, an example of that is Hattori Hanzo. He managed to be a ninja and samurai at once. But do you know what's the difference between a samurai and a ninja? Well to be concise, samurai were soldiers who had a code of honor while ninja were strictly assassins.

Ninja and Samurai

As I read an article entitled "Yes, Some Ninja Were Samurai" by Ishaan Tharoor from worldtime, it stated there that ninja are usually regarded as the anti-samurai. The samurai were extremely overt and colorful personalities. Ishaan also answered a question if ninja could be samurai at the same time, he said "You could, theoretically. There would have been some sort of distinction, because samurai were often extremely high class, but ninja not necessarily so. But there was an overlap in the middle."

It's not clear to me if ninja could be samurai at the same time because of the fact that their personality was contradicting on who they are or what they are in life. Well, I somehow agree because of Hattori Hanzo, but that doesn't mean that I'm convinced on what Ishaan said.

As I googled more about ninja and samurai, I found the same article entitled "History of the Ninja" by Kallie Szczepanski from asianhistory, he said that the samurai lords could not always prevail in open warfare, but they were constrained by bushido. So, they often hired ninja to do their dirty work. Kallie also said that "Secrets could be spied out, opponents assassinated, or misinformation planted... without sullying a samurai's honor. This system also transferred wealth to the lower classes, as ninja were paid handsomely for their work. Of course, a samurai's enemies could also hire ninja. As a result, the samurai needed, despised, and feared the ninja, in equal measure."

Now it's clear to me that a ninja could not be samurai at the same time but the ninja was hired by the samurai to clean their dirty works. I think that samurai was more powerful than ninja but the ninja was more skillful than samurai.