The old innkeeper: the decent human being

I thought the old man in Yojimbo was pretty interesting.  As with most of the movie, he fills an archetype of the old and good man who cannot perfectly understand the hero.  I think that he is the only human in the film.  The rest of the characters are divorced from their humanity, whether because they are evil and we can’t accept them because they are evil, or in Sanjuro’s case, because he is a force of nature.  The old man is the only decent human being in the movie.  Even the family Sanjuro frees makes him sick, as the husband lost his wife through gambling.  And when they mess with the decent old man, that’s when Sanjuro gets really pissed off.  I think Sanjuro goes to save the old man immediately because the old man is the only person Sanjuro encounters that doesn’t make him sick.  The town is his toy until the innocent and the good are threatened: then Sanjuro gets deadly.  The old man reveals Sanjuro’s morality.  I’d like to be a little weird and go on to say that the old man is most directly tied with the audience.  He often says exactly what we are thinking, things like “you fool!  you shouldn’t do that!”  Of course, we are thinking something more like, “you fool!  you shouldn’t do that!  But I’m going to really like watching you do that!”  Our faith in Sanjuro and the action movie makes us less human than the old man, wanting to see Sanjuro go lay down some slayin’ on the evil men of the town.  Because really, the old man is the only one who seems to want the town to heal.  We the audience are like Sanjuro: only interested in watching the surgery without sticking around to watch the slow recovery.