 How does the author feel San's relationship with Ashitaka changed her?
The Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki, who spent three years on Princess Mononoke and is reported to have done 70 percent of its paintings himself, seems to work from the outside in: to begin with the curve of the earth, then the mossy hills, the watercolor foliage, the nubby stones, the whorls on the wood, the meticulous carvings on a teacup. Miyazaki is after nothing less than the moment in our history (the film is set in the 14 th and 15 th centuries) when the power shifted from a "natural" world to one shaped by human technology. It's the beginning of what Bill McKibben called "the end of nature"--that is, when nature became no longer an autonomous, self-regulating force but one touched (and, in Miyazaki's view, poisoned) by human industry. The wolf god, Moro, is slightly more sympathetic, but that's because her adopted "daughter," San (a k a Princess Mononoke), is human. San is first seen sucking a wound of her huge wolf mother, then, as the gore drips from her mouth, training her dark eyes on Ashitaka with feral hatred. It's a shame that the wolf princess warms up to Ashitaka and spends the rest of the film either saving him or being saved by him.
 The originally ferocious character loses some of her edge as she comes to care for Ashitaka.
 The character becomes bland as she comes to care for Ashitaka.  She becomes soft as she comes to care for Ashitaka.  The originally ferocious character loses some of her edge as she comes to care for Ashitaka.  San becomes slightly more sympathetic as she comes to care for Ashitaka.