Katsumoto, who sees his rebellion in the service of the Emperor, has dedicated his life to defending the dying code of the samurai; “out of loyalty to the tradition that the emperor represents, he would sacrifice his life in an instant… if the emperor requested it” (Ebert). The fact that the emperor did not ask Katsumoto to commit the ritual suicide known as seppuku reveals his divergent views of modernizers and traditionalists; perhaps reflecting The Last Samurai's message of trying to reconcile modernism and tradition to create a new cultural identity, one that Nathan Algren has achieved by the end of the film. Although Katsumoto himself fails to achieve this goal, dying by his own hand as samurai tradition dictates, he initiates the catalyst for the renewal of Algren's identity and purpose; he “recognizes in Algren something of the warrior nature” and has “philosophical conversations with [Algren] about the ethnicity of war and warriors” (Schickel). These conversation styles between Algren and Katsumoto, along with the panoramic views of nature surrounding the village and temple, "breaks the convention that the Western hero is always superior to the local culture" (Ebert); Algren finds himself impressed and respectful of the cultural heritage that Katsumoto passes on to him,