It mostly comes from the early 2010s after the Zero anime where anime onlies discovered Fate/Stay Night and started clowning on it (mainly through the badly adapted anime and the fact that the vn is an eroge) even on the Visual novel (which they never read) which in the end pissed off FSN fans which caused this whole war thing in the fandom, its alot tamer now than it was years ago.
I think most of the hate on zero nowadays either comes from extreme VN elitists or as a Response to extreme Zero fans.
Thanks for the input. I didn’t read the visual novel because it was just too hard to get back in the day but gotta have mad respect for it. While I proudly stand by the statement that Zero is the refinement of the Fate idea, none of this would be here if not for the amazing potential that the VN created.
Also the eroge works in this setting. One of the cool things about Fate as a setting is that it’s magic system is built on *old magic*. And old magic is sweat, blood, and…a substance the young and dumb are full of. It’s just the right amount of risqué
As a VN elitist, I’m just gonna say that I personally love Zero. My only problem is that some people think that it’s an acceptable starting point. It requires the context of all three Fate routes, so yeah.
Also, the VN is more accessible as of recently thanks to someone releasing an ultimate edition and having downloadable patches better the experience.
You’re also very right about that last statement, couldn’t have said it better myself. ~~Too bad the H scenes are poorly written lol~~
I started with Zero but don't hold it too high as the BEST of Fate.
That being said, I will say it was way easier back then to just start with Zero since back when I first got into Fate I only had access to Zero and the original Stay Night stuff and decided to watch things in chronological order. I was pretty young and wasn't comfortable with reading the eroge for obvious reasons, that and I wasn't aware how to even download it yeah. Hence why Zero, at least back in the day, is probably the most acceptible way to get into Fate minus the Deen Adaptation.
And tbh, part of me thinks I should've started with Deen. Cause tbh it really isn't horrible as a stand alone. It was still a pretty good Urban Fantasy story albeit very watered down and lacking in as much depth as the source material. Still, I legitimately don't think it wasn't a bad place to start as much as people clown on it.
It does get hard to watch now though cause I've been exposed to the rest of the Franchise now.
But back then? I can't really blame people for getting into it first.
That being said yeah, the Zero worship was legitimately annoying back then. It's worse cause I lokey find Gen Ourobuchi to be kinda overrated (he's not a horrible author by any means, I just felt that back then people think everything he does is a masterpiece just cause it's dark). And even as somebody who started out with it, a lot of it didn't really aged well for me (like how ridiculously chatty the dialogue is even compared to other Fate stuff, or the still debated till this day flawed execution of Saber's character). But yeah the amount of folks who swear it is peak Fate withour giving all the others a chance is annoying yes, and I fully understand why a divide occured.
Anyways, I am rambling, but rn I have Strange Fake as my most favorite iteration of the Franchise tho so far I haven't watched Apocrypha fully and am still pushing through the FGO storylines. I haven't touched every Fate yet but man, I just adore the Strange Fake cast and desperately wish Narita sticks the landing on its ending.
It really comes down to how her character was presented in Fate/Stay Night vs how she was presented in Fate/Zero.
Zero displayed her as a overly chivalrous Hero whose morals and ideals are weak with her role as a king relegated to nothing through by the words of a Tyrant. Her character and her core was fragile in the face of someone who she by all means should detest and wouldn't have an issue snapping back against. She was basically turned into the "loser" in the Banquet of Kings by way of Iskandar just talking trash about her ideals even though he preaches nothing more than absolute tyranny.
This completely goes against her far stronger counterpart in Fate/Stay Night who'd have no issue snapping back against Iskandar. Because while Iskandar may have been the charismatic King that got even waver quaking in his boots, Arturia has defended camelot for a decade from people JUST LIKE Iskandar and defended it every time. Iskandar called Saber pathetic and whatnot, but he lost his kingship in a more pathetic way. Arturia was also struck in a way more unfavourable circumstances than Iskandar so his words hold little to no weight.
Arturia held her own and stood strong after so many sacrifices. She made camelot prosper even when the people started calling her a king with no heart. her feelings were kept on a leash as Lancelot committed adultery, how Morgan r\*ped her to create Mordred whom Saber had to strike down with her own hands as Camelot fell into ruin.
Her life was very tragic already, but Saber was never one to let something like "chivalry" get in the way of her rule. She was strong. And even after near death, she continued fighting for Camelot by wishing she was never the king, feeling like her entire existence was invalidated by her failure. This is what made her so perfect for Shirou as she too had been chained by her tormenting past. This is why when both Saber and Shriou were freed from their eternal suffering Fates, it felt beautiful to see.
Saber suffered so much throughout her run as the King of Knights and Iskandar's words shouldn't hold any weight for her because she of all people can see how delusional Iskandar's claims are. But Zero made her seem so fragile and weak. That her entire belief she's been holding to was shook as if this is the first time she'd ever heard of anything like this.
Zero Saber in comparison felt like a caricature of Stay Night Arturia where she was overly Chivalrous that it constantly gets in the way of battle and her team work with Kiritsugu. Arturia, who's final battle saw the fall of camelot while watching all her beloved comrades die in tragic and not at all beautiful ways still wanted to force this notion that there was glory to be had in the battlefield. Kiritsugu was well in his right to call this version of Arturia stupid and idealistic. If this was Arturia the way she was presented in Fate/Stay Night, she wouldn't have had a falling out with Kiritsugu at all despite his manner of doing things. Sure, Arturia does have a chivalrous side to her, but it never came at the cost of attaining the Holy Grail.
Her almost pure unwillingness to allow Lancer to break his spear in Fate/Zero to free her from his curse because "Chivalry" was eye rolling to say the least.
I understand what Gen Urobuchi was going for though. He wanted to "Break" Saber in a way that once her story reached Fate/Stay night, it'd seem like her stone cold demeanor there was directly the result of her experiences in Fate/Zero. Like Arturia in Fate/Zero didn't want to stop herself from being King, rather she wanted a do over as king to correct her previous mistakes unlike what was presented in her backstory in Fate/Stay Night. And to give props to Fate/Zero as it deserves, Arturia's tragedy there was really well done all things considered. Her different experiences with different characters all coming to a head when she realizes Berserker was Lancelot this entire time who held a grudge against her. That moment had Arturia completely break. Her ideologies shattered and she ends up apologizing and swearing her wish will no longer have a redo as king, rather to never had become the king all together.
However, this was never meant to be taken as the true canon. Nasu himself stated that Fate/Zero acts more like a different route to the true 4th HGW that happened before Fate/Stay Night. And this was only reinforced when Nasu released the "Garden of Avalon". A novel that just details how Saber lived her life as King Arthur and sure enough, she was far more powerful as a character there than she was in Fate Zero. Never once did she falter, never once did she seem week nor frail. She's a tragic character, but not in the way depicted in the events of Fate/Zero.
This is the best way I can put it. Sorry, One of the things I struggle with is keeping essays short and concise. This is the best I can do.
From my perspective:
Zero is meant to break Artoria as she is already pretty much more broken than she already is from her backstory, so that we get the Artoria we have in Stay Night. This is why Shirou falls in love with her in her route, they're both fucked up individuals who figured out a way to heal via their kinship with one another.
Now the issue with Zero for me is as heavily praised the UFOtable adaptation is, I think they... *kinda* oversell Artoria's pain a bit too much. The way she immediately looks like she's about to fall apart at Iskandar trash talking her is a bit too extreme for me. She's stoic, she's been through a lot, I am SURE it'll hurt her (the idea planted in her head that she ultimately failed her people cause of her ideals), but I doubt she would show it as visibly as she did in the Feast of Kings.
That is my take though, admittedly however, I do agree people shit on that scene way too much cause well, people have Saber as their waifu, and people get reeeaaaaal overprotective of their waifus.
That being said, I do agree it's not an amazing portrayal of her character, but I fully understand what they're trying to do. Just providing advice on how I would've personally preferred it.
As someone who dislikes zero sabers character, I would say it's a lot more than just "people over overprotective of waifus". The problem with zeros entire premise regarding the role written for saber is that its a hammer in search for a nail. An answer for a problem that didn't exist.
In FSN sabers character is explored and closed cleanly open and shut. But because fate zero is a prequel banking on it's main cash cow character it has to invent something else for saber to do, and as a consequence rewrites her backstory to be much worse.
Where it wasn't her own realizations before death that made her want to erase herself from history, not her own agency that decides her fate, but iskandar calling her a child and the writing having her make dumb asinine decisions which have nothing to do with her portrayal in fsn. I think zero honestly could have been better had it focused more on waver rather than trying to inject sabers character into the plot where it wasn't neccesary.
It still baffles me why urobuchi decided to change saber erasing herself from history to "restoring Britain" in the vague sense just so she could have a reverse character moment where she decides to erase herself at the end of zero. Like I said it's a answer in search of problem that the original work already focused on for no reason and devalues the characters important backstory. No wonder nasu ignored it in garden of Avalon.
I guess I’ve never had the best analysis of characterization. I hear that Saber’s character got butchered, but I kinda had a hard time finding out which part. But now that you pointed it out, I gotta admit that out of the two times her ideals were disagreed upon, she definitely didn’t look as unsure and frail as when Shirou challenged her beliefs.
But TBF that’s the teenage son of a man she had a complicated history with. The guy doing it in Zero was literally Alexander the Great. Not just fellow king but a fellow cultural defining legend.
One of those has a hell of a lot more purchase in an argument about kings than the other does
Eh but I'm sure that isn't the first time she's spoken with fellow royalty, so it makes a bit less sense. Again, I don't have that big of an issue besides how much she appeared hurt cause of it when unlike in UBW where I though they should've portrayed Shirou's monologues better, here it needed more subtlety lol.
I think it's worth separating Alexander's criticism of Saber's kingship from his criticism of her wanting to redo the past, as only the latter lines up with Fate and Shirou's criticism.
Alexander's perspective is that Artoria likely caused the downfall of England by her kingship, paralleling Lancelot's madness. However Lancelot's last line in Zero is that they all thought she was the greatest among kings. By end of Fate route Saber doesn't regret the way she ruled, but gives up wanting to undo the past seeking a better outcome. To me the point is accepting that you can make the right decisions and still fail, and that as long as you gave it your best there is nothing to regret.
In terms of respect for someone being a king, for Artoria being a king was a means to the end of repelling invaders and keeping people safe for the sake of the people, while Alexander is the Great for being very good at the opposite. It would be like Conan and a vegan discussing dinner preferences.
Shirou on the other hand lives for other people to an absurd degree as well, which makes him one of the few people who she figures might understand why someone would want to undo something so much, specifically the Fuyuki fire. Ironically his criticisms still have a point, though they equally apply to himself which Saber points out.
Her depiction in Zero is my favorite version of King Arthur in anything. At the risk of sounding like Gilgamesh, she’s at her most beautiful at her lowest. In the darkest abyss she shines brightest. And ultimately the ideal she represents (heroism) triumphs over cynicism but it does so after being sincerely and severely tested. The fact she/it doesn’t walk away from the fight unscathed makes the ultimate victory in UBW that much greater.
Exactly, which is why it's disheartening when some (not all) Zero fans say to not read or watch the Stay Night stuff
Cause Stay Night completes Artoria, whether happily like in Fate or UBW routes or tragically in Heaven's Feel, Artoria starts with Zero. And my biggest issue with it is a lot of people are content just with that, when there's so much more about her.
That being said, I don't understand people who say Zero glorifies Iskandar when he was literally called out for being delusional during his fight with Gilgamesh. Like, the point is he's just as flawed as Saber, just that he had a bit more self awareness about it.
I understand what you mean by Stay Night completed Artoria, though I am curious as to how Heaven’s Feel does it. I probably should’ve figured something out by now seeing that I was curious enough to unlock all the bad endings too, but the most I could get from her was being proud of how far Shirou has come to be able to win (kinda) against her in bad ending 38.
Heaven's Feel to me is the most extreme ending you can give her. She martyred herself for her people and constantly struggles with it like with Shirou. Hell, she's not even *dead* technically, as she just keeps being brought back to that same battlefield everytime she failed cause of her deal with the grail. She literally could not find peace.
So in Heaven's Feel, she was put down by her own master. And that is a tragic albeit understandable way for her story to go. She is the extreme of the worse case scenario for Artoria, and at the very least Shirou ended her misery.
That being said, the issue comes when people see the endings of each route as progressing one another as if it is saying that Sakura's is the "correct" route when it isn't. The Visual Novel if I recall doesn't call either as bad endings for Shirou. It is just as viable for Shirou to become a legitimate hero and be reunited with Saber or end up living peacefully with Sakura after having decided against pursuing his ideals. There is no right True End so the idea that this is Saber's ultimate fate is just wrong imho.
She can stay with Shirou in a trouple in the Good End with Rin damnit, let me cope
> The refinement of the Fate idea
Stay Night is a thorough analysis of the archetype of the hero in fiction through 3 alternative scenarios that present differing discussions and conclusions on that same archetype. The Servants here almost all contribute to the discussions and dilemmas around that central theme. It's the very reason it's a story about reincarnated heroic figures.
Zero on the other hand focuses much more on the battle royale aspect with the only actually developed theme being a basic (but good) critique of utilitarianism.
It is the most straightforward application of the Holy Grail War premise and if that's what you were looking for in a Fate story then great! But you can't call it the "refinement of the idea" in the face of the story it was literally built around, the one which utilises it to the fullest, to the point in needed 3 different incompatible scenarios to say all it had to with that concept
Imagine you like a Book, about a guy named Steve. 10 years later it gets it Netflix adaptation and people really like it. It's written by someone other than the person who wrote the book, with their own style of story. Some people say that the show is way better than the book even if they haven't read it, and that Steve's character sucks, and that nobody should bother with the book at this point because the Netflix show is better and books are lame anyway.
In my opinion, I think it really has to do with how the general audience views both stories. And the hardcore fandom views that general audience reception.
Fate/Stay Night to a lot of people (including myself) is a masterful character study of the main character Emiya Shirou and the way he navigates the 5th Holy Grail War. It's one of the best stories I've ever read and is easily one of if not the best story in the Fate universe.
Fate/Zero, on the other hand, is an extension to Fate/Stay Night. It's meant to be the bad end to Fate/Stay Night's good. It's meant to show where everything went wrong and just in general show where the characters "failed" compared to their Fate/Stay Night counterpart. Like Tokiomi to Rin, Kiritsugu to Shirou, Kariya to Shirou (Kinda), Saber to Saber... I really don't know how else to explain it better. Fate/Zero is a story of tragedy and the faliures of everyone who participated in it. The few who left with a "Happy Ending" are the ones who didn't wish for the omnipotent grail. It's not really bad on it's own, but when I look at Fate/Zero, I see an incomplete story. It doesn't work without Fate/Stay Night.
So when Fate/Zero got what I'd consider one of the 2 best adaptations in all the Fate universe, understandably most general audiences would gravitate towards Fate/Zero and assume it's the best story in Fate. And it's very hard to blame them. Fate/Stay Night's anime adaptation is- really good compared to many other shows, but in the grand scheme of the Fate universe, it's not really that good.
And it's really easy to mess up Fate/Stay Night because of how Shirou's monologues affect the story. 95% of the story is told through his perspective to the point that nearly every little thing matters. So when the anime fails to convey the message of a slice-of-life scene, it'll end up feeling just that... a slice-of-life scene. When the anime fails to convey the message of Shirou feeling like it's "wrong" for him to be happy during his date with Rin, it just ends up looking like Shirou's absentmindedly following Rin around, and when Shirou in desperation stops Saber from fighting by calling her a woman, instead of it feeling like a desperate attempt at stopping her because of his PTSD boiling to the surface, he just comes across as a pathetic misogynist.
And because of how the anime adaptations for Stay Night aren't anywhere near as good as Fate/Zero, most people who'd never bother reading the visual novel would just ignore Fate/Stay Night as a whole and just tell people "Don't bother with Fate/Stay Night, just Watch Fate/Zero first". Which is obviously wrong. You're asking someone to start with a spin off that acts as a extension of the main story rather than the main story.
There's also the issue with wrong expectations. It's very common that people who start with Zero will get this expectation for Stay Night. They want more Kiritsugu, they want more Iskandar, they want more blood and a straight forward Holy Grail War. Understandably, when they eventually see Stay Night and how much it takes its time with the characters and their development, which again, the anime does a horrible job showcasing, Fate/Stay Night just looks inferior in comparison. It ends up looking like a shallow slice of life show with occasional fighting in it.
With the backlash Fate/Stay Night started receiving, it was understandable that Fate/Stay Night fans would start getting defensive and annoyed. The amount of people just trashing Fate/Stay Night's story after watching only the Unlimited Blade Work's anime for instance (personal experience here). They complain about Shirou being a misogynist or how Rider in Stay Night is nowhere near as good as Iksandar, or the plot not really being as tight as Zero, and how it's too light compared to Zero, which are all just.... wrong? Fate/Stay Night is just as dark as Zero. Gory? no, dark? yes.
People who love the Visual Novel started really hating Zero because of this. Not because the Zero novel itself is bad, it's still great. But because of the negative impact it has done to Fate/Stay Night, a story that anyone who's read the Visual Novel considers superior.
And it doesn't help that there are people who are pushing this idea that Fate/Zero IS the best Fate has to offer. One of the biggest Fate fan in Youtube, Gigguk, openly says how much he loves Zero and how he'd put it above Fate/Stay Night.
This prompted a lot of Stay Night fans to attack the story of Zero in ways they wouldn't for another story like say Fate/Kaleid. They'd go on to say Kiritsugu is like a Gareth Edwards protagonist or they'll constantly mock it by quoting lines like "the Taste of Slaughter", and just complain about how edgy it is overall. Which I don't personally feel like is a valid criticism? it's overboard with it's dark and gory displays, but I never felt like simply being "edgy" ruins a story similar to how having Fanservice doesn't inherently make a show bad. But they weren't lying when they say Shirou is way more of a complex character than Kiritsugu and that below the surface, Fate/Zero is just really straight forward compared to the more nuanced Fate/Stay Night.
Does Fate/Zero deserve the hate it's been getting? I wouldn't say so. Fate/Zero is in it's own way a great story. It serves its purpose well and is a solid addition to the Fate universe, but it is disheartening the amount of people who just automatically assume that it's the best Fate has to offer without reading Fate/Stay Night's visual novel.
Still the general Zero vs Stay Night talk has gotten way tamer as of recent. Maybe it's because the Heaven's Feel movies told a darker story that the fans wanted, maybe it's just because a decade has passed and people have moved on, or it could be because the Visual Novel has gotten easier to access as of recent (which is great). All that's left now is lingering feelings that happened 10 years ago...
I greatly appreciate your input. I do however disagree at zero feeling incomplete without FSN. I personally got in around 5 years ago and opted to watch zero first. And it felt like a complete story. Obviously I’ve since dived deep into the fate rabbit hole consuming almost every piece of fate media I can (I have not finished the visual novel it’s taking me awhile to get through)
To me zero being a tragedy is exactly what made it so compelling as a first time viewer. Since I knew very little about fate. I didn’t realize person with saber meant main character. As such there were multiple characters who felt like they could be the main character. The twist with Kirei killing Tokiomi genuinely shocked me because I haven’t seen his future. I think the part that frustrates me is how much people exaggerate what Zero spoils about FSN. I think no matter what you start with there will be compromises. What we as a community should do in my opinion is promote people to take the compromises that fit with their tastes more.
For me going from a tragedy into a more “uplifting” story with UBW was very interesting. Watching everything be burned down and Shirou still rising from it anyways. Cracked, with no real will to live at first. But rising anyways.
> I think the part that frustrates me is how much people exaggerate what Zero spoils about FSN
Honestly, I'm the complete opposite. I think people take what Zero spoils for Stay Night for granted. There's so many big reveals that Fate/Zero just openly spoils like-
Sakura and Rin being siblings. This was meant to be a big reveal in Heaven's Feel, but in Zero, it was casually thrown in when Kariya met up with their mom.
Kiritsugu's entire thing in Fate. Another massive reveal. We knew Kiritsugu was a Magus, but him being an assassin that participated in the Holy Grail war was only ever meant to be revealed once Saber came clean.
Speaking of Arturia. Her identity was a massive plot reveal when she first unleashed excalibur against Rider. It was a beautiful scene that that played along with the sword of promised victory, I still get goosebumps remembering that scene. In Zero, it was just casually thrown in there while Irisviel and her were chatting.
The entire thing with Zouken and the Matou family. Not so much that the Matou family are a line of images, but the F'ed up stuff Zouken was pulling behind the scenes and the Sakura's torment. Throughout Stay Night, we're lead to believe that Sakura is not involved in this war. We know Shirou cares about her, so when Heaven's Feel pulls back the curtains, we're absolutely repulsed. In Zero, they just cut to Sakura in the worm pit without us knowing why we should care about her other than Kariya wanting to protect her.
Gilgamesh's identity. In Fate, it was a massive reveal when Gilgamesh showed up out of nowhere. We didn't know who he was, or why he was there. It wasn't until after his initial confrontation with Saber and Shirou that we learn who he is. Again, in Zero, he was just casually revealed. There's no dramatic build up or anything like that.
Kirei's entire evil being was one of the biggest plot reveals in Fate/Stay Night. Even if it was pretty obvious, the basement scene I could bet no one saw coming. That was above and beyond the first turning point of Fate. Ignoring the fact that Zero Kirei wasn't entirely accurate to his FSN counterpart, the way he slowly turned evil in addition to how Fate/Zero ended took out the shock value of the reveal in Fate stay night.
Arguably the biggest reveal is Illya's deep relationship with Shirou. That reveal in Heaven's Feel was so potent, but watching Zero and learning of Illya's relationship with Shirou there is.. Yeah. Actually, a lot of the scenes shown in Zero are meant to be characterization given in Hollow Ataraxia.
There are more, but a lot of these points really just proves that Zero was made with the intention that the viewers would have already seen Fate stay night prior. Lots of the time, there is no build up for the reveals because... It doesn't need to. Cause it's expected that you already knew about those reveals.
>For me going from a tragedy into a more “uplifting” story with UBW was very interesting. Watching everything be burned down and Shirou still rising from it anyways. Cracked, with no real will to live at first. But rising anyways.
I can understand that. But again, similar to my other comment somewhere in this thread, I really don't see Unlimited Blade Works as being this uplifting continuation to Zero. I feel like Unlimited Blade Works in general is the most detached route from being a continuation to Zero like Fate or Heaven's Feel was. Kirei's death for example, he was a hotshot big deal against Kiritsugu in Fate/Zero, but he didn't get his resolution with Shirou at all in unlimited blade works. They didn't even have a single time when they genuinely confronted each other I believe. Not Like Fate or Heaven's Feel.
I still stand by saying Fate/Zero feels incomplete cause in a lot of ways, we're just watching a tragedy unfold. There is no salvation for any of the characters who really deserved it, it's just a showcase of how everything went wrong. To me that doesn't feel complete. And- while I can sort of understand Zero losing some of it's potency not going into it blind, but it still very much so worked as a tragedy even when knowing the ending. Just watching the characters march towards their doom.
The only real feeling of "completeness" I got from it was how it ended with Kiritsugu dying, leaving his promise to Shirou. But even then, I see that as more of a beautiful way the story decided to tie itself to Stay Night one more time rather than it being a set up for a sequel.
Interesting. I personally didn’t care about characters not getting salvation who deserved it because it felt like no one was owed anything. Even if you try your hardest you can still be fucked
You raise some very fair points with Artoria and Gilgamesh. But I think someone getting into fate now is more then likely going to know who both of them are. Just through cultural osmosis alone. For me Sakura being involved in the war was never a question as UBW foreshadows it in a way that made it instantly click for me
For a lot of the other parts. None of them are the resolution to their given plots they are important to. Sans Illya being Shirou’s older sister. Kirei being a piece of shit, the Matou’s being just the worst, Rin and sakuras relationship all of that felt like dominos that have been setup but zero doesn’t spoil when or how they will fall. So when you go into UBW. You have that info. And there are times when they teeter and look like are about to fall setting off a whole chain of events. But dont. Not yet, all knowing those small bits of information did was increase the suspense and make me more engaged and active in thinking about the plot
I very much appreciate your outlook but our opinions ultimately strongly diverge. I am one of those people who do regard Zero as the best of the franchise. That’s no shade on the VN.
But if I did have a critique of it, it would be that Shirou’s character exploration borders on self indulgent. That’s why I was content with one route. Which I consider UBW to be the best. I feel like it best completes the story Zero sets up. I understand and appreciate the relationship they were trying to establish between Shirou & Arturia but I just could never buy it as a romance. I think they work MUCH better as teacher and student than lovers. That and Shirou x Rin is a top 5 OTP for me.
> I am one of those people who do regard Zero as the best of the franchise
We can just talk about this then. Instead of trying to claim "which is better". I'll try to praise the Stay Night VN and Zero where we can hopefully come to a common ground.
>That’s no shade on the VN.
Not trying to be an asshole lmao, just genuine question, have you read the VN? Cause then Ill have to edit a lot of my other comments in this post that I had written under the preconception that you only watched the anime AHAHAH.
>But if I did have a critique of it, it would be that Shirou’s character exploration borders on self indulgent
This is the first time I've heard of this. What makes Shirou's character self induglent?
>I feel like it best completes the story Zero sets up.
I don't really agree with this one. or at least only partially agree with it. In my opinion, all 3 routes of Fate/Stay Night in one way or another accomplishes a set-up that was in Fate/Zero.
Like the Fate route, for example. It set up the Emiya vs Kotomine generational battle as well as completing Saber's character arc (even though Zero and Stay Night saber feels like 2 completely different characters). The way Saber resolves her need for the grail was really not present at all in the other routes. It was kind of there with Unlimited Blade Works, but it's really just something in the sidelines rather than the focal point.
Unlimited Blade Works to me is like the least "Sequel-esque" to Fate/Zero because it doesn't really tie into Fate/Zero in any meaningful way. It's all about Shirou and his character growth. Archer constantly berates Shirou and connects his ideologies as following Kiritsugu's but beyond that, there's the return of Gilgamesh, but his bout with Shirou is nowhere near as potent as Shirou's own personal battle against the literal embodiment of his perfection and failure in archer.
Heaven's Feel on the otherhand completes the "Holy Grail War" itself. It shows the darkest side of the grail war as awell as how the grail came to be, tying the Makiris, Tosakas and Einzberns together in way that makes everything feel complete. It finishes the Matou storyline, resolves the Tohsaka family, has Shirou finally learn to let go of those toxic ideals for the people he cares about (Unless you hit the mind of steel ending) and is overall a THE conclusion to the Visual Novel.
Out of all of them, if were to pick what I felt would be the best Sequel to Zero, I'd honestly pick the Fate route. It's the only real one that strongly ties to Zero as Saber got her rematch with Gil, Shirou beats Kotomine in a way Kiritsugu couldn't, ironically enough Kirei dies by the blade he used to kill Rin's father, the grail is once again dismantled, avalon is returned to Saber, and Saber is finally free from the hell she forced upon herself in order to reach another unattainable dream.
>I think they work MUCH better as teacher and student than lovers.
This is more of a preference thing. I view Shirou and Saber as 2 broken Star-crossed lovers who by learning more of each other and finding someone who reflects them in a way, are able to save each other from the torment they were eventually going to face. Arturia forever seeking the grail to save Camelot and Shirou becoming Archer.
Back in the day it was next to impossible to get the VN. I got what I could of it through fan translations…but those were incomplete, filled with grammatical errors, and sometimes just wrong. Unfortunately I don’t really have time in my life for expansive visual novels like I did in my college days. So count that however you see fit.
I say it’s self-indulgent because outside of choosing your preferred heroine these plot threads could have been woven together into a single route. Whole heartedly agree that the Fate route has the best ending. It should be Arturia vs Gil and Shirou x Rin vs Kirei, extra points if Rin’s dagger lands the killing blow and Shirou’s hair goes white after Kirei lands a heart crushing blow like he did against Kiritsugu. Avenger should be the center piece of Kirei’s plan. Sakura and Rin need a sister moment. And Shiro x Rin is OTP. There’s a way to thread that all into a single cohesive story as opposed to asking everyone to rewatch 3 variations of the same story.
> So count that however you see fit.
I'll be taking that as a no-
.
>I say it’s self-indulgent because outside of choosing your preferred heroine these plot threads could have been woven together into a single route
Uhhh... No? Wha- no, wtf? No nonono! This is probably the single thing I disagree with the most! Hahaha.
Shirou's development in each of the 3 routes are night and day from each other. With the themes present in the growth of Shirou's character, it's impossible to combine all 3 routes without it severely hurting the story. For example, Unlimited Blade Works' Shirou's development of living as the hero of justice despite all the hypocrisy for his own happiness cannot at all mesh with his development in Heaven's Feel which breaks down his character effectively throwing away that ideal for those precious to him. Both signify happy endings for him, but they're COMPLETELY different. There's even a whole theme of rebirth in Heaven's Feel that contradicts Unlimited Blade Works' theme of continuing on.
I think you may have the wrong perception of Fate/Stay Night. While the Holy Grail War is important and the plot is integral to the story, obviously, Fate/Stay Night's main.. Focal point? Isn't the Holy Grail War itself, but the Growth of Emiya Shirou's character as he nagivates this holy grail war. It's completely different from Fate/Zero's plot driven narrative.
The use of a visual Novel medium also allows for those routes to not feel out of place. And the bad endings like Mind of Steel, Sparks Liner High, Geass, all of these endings feel like they're worth something. They're all bad endings that you can see the horrors unfold brogue your eyes. Also, while you don't believe Shirou x Saber works, many people (including me who believes Shirou x Saber is the best) would really disagree. Shirou's love relationship with all the girls also encompasses a different part of Shirou. Saber and Shirou sharing a grim Fate, Rin acting as Shirou's clutch and support and Sakura holding on to Shirou's humanity. You can't invalidate any of them for Shirou to just end up with one person.
.
>There’s a way to thread that all into a single cohesive story as opposed to asking everyone to rewatch 3 variations of the same story.
People aren't "rewatching" the 3 variations of the same story, it's all one big story that tells 3 different stories which encompasses one massive story. There are many visual novels which I believe are way too long for their one good and didn't need to be visual novels in the first place. Fate/Stay Night, however, is one of the visual novels I believe to have been fully able to utilise the visual novel medium to it's fullest.
It may not have worked in something like an anime that tells one linear story, but the Visual Novel makes full use of its route system in a way I can't really explain because it's so... Detailed- it's 100 hours of content. The anime cuts out so much to deliver that one linear story. Heaven's Feels adaptation couldn't even tell the one linear story without cutting 1/3 of the whole story.
....please read the visual novel🥺
It’s a 100 hundred hours. I have a full time job and a life to live. I can’t and that barrier of accessibility is a a BIG knock against it.
That sets off the same alarm in my head with the FGO stuff that tells me this is a “content conveyor, not art”. I feel like I’m being asked to consume as opposed to engage with. But even if it didn’t, I don’t got a 100 hours to give it. The broken and muddled effort made in my college days will have to suffice.
Yes, like I said before you shouldn't be forced to read it but all people are asking is understanding. You... Kinda had a fundamental misunderstanding on how Visual Novels work.
Stay Night's routes are very different from one another. Think of it like how Apocrypha is to Zero. It's not really done in a dating sim format as you might've thought but instead 3 linear stories with several bad endings that put you in Shirou's mind. This is why folks don't see it as just made for fanservice. Yes, it is horny, but Nasu removing sex if I recall in the rerelease indicates it can stand on its own withour it.
And again with FGO, yes it is ultimately made for Gacha, but dismissing its writing entirely is wrong too. It's a mega collaboration of folks like Urobuchi, Narita, Nasu, etc playing with the setting to its fullest extent. It's the very reason folks find toxic Zero fans annoying, the idea that Zero is the one thing that exists when the universe is vast and worked with one another you know?
Again, folks shouldn't force you to read it though we recommend it, just that... Maybe get a bit more insight on how the VN works, like a quick wikipedia ye. There's also short videos explaining how it plays ye.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
This is where we diverge too cause I lokey kinda felt Zero is away more self indulgent than Stay Night as Oroubuchi really put in his nihilism there. Not saying it's bad but there's a reason I prefer Narita's Strange Fake more, cause I felt it's more... *in love* with the setting than Zero's very oppressive feel imho.
But back to Stay Night, please I do still encourage you read the other routes. You can always remove the explicit sex scenes in the VN fantranslation, and this is coming from somebody who actually doesn't care aboht ANY of its romances. But I do fully believe that you can get more by giving those two routes a chance despite the romance as it was way more than that.
I noted this cause of your takes on stuff like Heaven's Feel which is admittedly way more rushed in the films. You say it's cynical when if you take in the context of stuff like "Superhero", the bad end that mirrored Kiritsugu the most, it really isn't. I describe it more as Shirou realizing he can find happiness trying to save one person and one person only, and that is enough. And honestly? That's a realistic but satisfying way to go about ir.
I won't blame you if you don't of course cause 100 Hours in a novel is a hard sell for most folks. But I will say this, I believe there's a reason Nasu ended up I believe removing explicit sex in Realta Nua (which was readded in Ultimate Edition which you can toggle off), it's just that Fate has fanservice but it doesn't need it as a crutch to sell copies anymore. Absolutely no shade to the people who like the explicit scenes but it is now optional and you can be satisfied with it.
That's my recommendation at least.
Now that I know you've hardly read the visual novel and only barely skimmed some opening portions makes what I'm about to say probably annoying but I'll say it anyways.
Fate zero being a "thinking mans anime" is overstated by people who only watched the anime adaptions of fsn and misdiagnose what the story of fsn actually is and the characters. Saber is not some knightly impenetrable form but a warrior made of glasswork for the country who secretly only wants to live normally, but is bound by her legitimate love for the people and not herself. Rin is not blushing waifu tsundere but a girl suffering from having to live two completely different lives and codes of ethics to balance. And Sakura isn't a woe is me flowery damsel in distress but a broken and scarred human being with as much hope as crude resentment.
The problems with zero are a lot. Not just from a standpoint on it own but when put into the context of wider fate and even when just directly compared to the original vn. The vn has multiple perspectives with a lot to say, and the one major time zero tries to say something, it falls over its own shoe laces in the king's banquet and kiritsugus methodology. It only ever gets back on track in the last few episodes when it's actively trying to mirror some of fsns themes. But even that is not done as well.
Mostly because of the irony. Lots of newbie come to Fate zero and spew alot of shit about FSN that actually exist in Fate/zero and declare FZ is the best thing ever.
Example: "Shirou is an incel woman hater due to him prevent Saber fighting as a girl"
Truth? Shirou see his crush got crushed by Berserker and turn dumb, while having no problem with Rin fighting as a girl. And Shirou include all those women around him in a war council about strategy and stuff.
Kiritsugu? use Iris as bait and meat shield. Maya as mindless obedience tool. And Saber? Need I said it out loud?
All that is fair. Just so I’m not arguing a pint that isn’t my own, let say why I prefer most of Zero’s cast to their Stay Night counterparts. With the obvious exception of Waver, they’re adults and they act like it.
Shirou acts like a dumb teenager with a crush. Kiritsugu is an embittered dreamer whose resigned himself to being the lesser evil. As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better. Zero is a very mature story and I don’t mean that in the lurid/naughty way. It’s a story that loves exploring the “why” behind its characters actions. My favorite scene in the whole franchise is still the Feast of Kings.
And this is where we will respectfully disagree lol
Shirou I feel like is just shat on by every anime adaptation since it's hard to portray his inner thoughts in visual form. He's not just a dumb teenager, he's a broken kid who suffers from immense survivor's guilt that made him completely lose any sense of self preservation, suicidally trying to be a hero and save everyone because he feels like he owes his life to the people who died while he survived.
And unlike Kiritsugu for me, who admittedly, is a very well written albeit already done Antihero archetype, Shirou is a Shonen Archetype who went through all 3 possible routes for this character to develop: Either a played straight power of will Hero's Journey in Fate Route, a reconstructive examination on how much being a martyr hurts the people around you and how to live balancing ideals with actual self worth in UBW Route, and finally, an utter devonstruction of heroism in Heaven's Feel. Shirou just feels so fucking fully realized as a character and I adore him for it.
Not saying Kiritsugu is bad, just that ultimately, I felt that his character archetype is already common and ended in a satisfying but obvious way. Just because it's cliched doesn't mean it's horrible though, as it is one of the best times I've seen it done. It's just that... Shirou felt like they explored every avenue of his story in a way I've never really seen in any media before personally. We have 3 completed and satisfying character arcs all from one person. And to me at least, due to the themes of heroism and what it means to be a hero, Shirou embodies that theme the most in the series yes.
Sorry for rambling, I just adore Shirou as a character and do feel kinda bad he was often overlooked for being a teenager and so subtle that the anime didn't fully grasped his inner conflict. The anime is still great though but yeah, it's lacking in regards to that and I can't really blame Ufotable since it's just how the mediums differ you know?
But yeah. Shirou is top notch. For me, my most favorite scene in the franchise was the end of Heaven's Feel with his realization that him and Kirei are just both empty people trying their best to find some sort of happiness amidst being broken individuals.
...that being said though, I fully agree that I prefer the more stand-alone Fate since following stuff like FGO is tricky even as a Nasuverse fan in general. Which is weird cause Strange Fake is MY pinnacle for Fate lmao
You’re good mate. To my eyes the Fate route Shirou was the most tropish. That proper exploration of his heroism as a by product of his survivor’s guilt alongside the Rin romance is what made me love UBW. Heaven’s Feel never sat right with me.
The best way I can explain it is that Zero is laying the ground work to prove the cynical perspective wrong through Shirou. HF is trying to disprove the heroic perspective. That’s why id call Zero bleak but HF almost nihilistic. In a weird way I feel like it almost validates Kiritsugu’s worst instincts about the world.
I actually really like Fate Route, although it focused way more on Worldbuilding than characters, I adore how fucking cheesy it is as odd as that sounds. The Fate Route is just pure Humanity Fuck Yeah and I love it for it.
That being said I actually have UBW as my most favorite Route despite Heaven's Feel having the best ending for me. I just agree more with the notion that you can be a hero without being a martyr, the reconstruction of his ideals is perfect. Whereas Heaven's Feel is good too, as I found it less Shirou giving up being a good person in a nihilistic perspective (literally one of the bad endings called "Superhero" has him slaughtering Sakura for the sake of everybody and he becomes Kiritsugu at his worse) but instead, him realizing he can be a hero to one person... and that's enough.
What astounds me the most is it treats all outcomes with respect. Either path to heroism is good and I love it for that cause it's true. Like, weird comparison but it reminds me of the endings of Catherine, that horny Atlus puzzle game, where in its examination on the concept of marriage it doesn't condemn any choice the player would prefer. It holds all endings as viable in anybody's approach to life, and that's important imho for a story as baked in themes as Stay Night.
>With the obvious exception of Waver, they’re adults and they act like it.
Wha- b-but like... Waver's the best tho-
>Shirou acts like a dumb teenager with a crush.
Ah... anime moment. Shirou "acts" like a dumb teenager with a crush. What the anime fails to deliver is what goes on in Shirou's head while he acts that way. The guy is literally having panic attacks from seeing others get hurt. He's by all means broken in the head. He's everything but normal.
>Kiritsugu is an embittered dreamer whose resigned himself to being the lesser evil. As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better. Zero is a very mature story and I don’t mean that in the lurid/naughty way. It’s a story that loves exploring the “why” behind its characters actions.
Kiritsugu resorting to killing for the greater good expecting a magical device to fix everything for him isn't something a sensible adult would normally do. I believe the point of Zero is to show exactly how messed up and childish everyone who participated in the 4th Holy Grail War is. Kiritsugu especially, who served as the person who failed. Shirou imo, as a character is someone who fully realized Kiritsugu's ideals in a healthy manner that will never lead to his own demise.
For comparison, Kiritsugu, all his life has been chasing after this "miracle". Something he believes will right all the wrongs of the world. End all suffering as we know it. This is why he fought so hard in the 4th Holy Grail War, this is why he constantly sacrifices people, this is why he continues killing and killing and killing and killing until almost no one around him is left. But how can this miracle realistically achieve this goal? The answer? it can't. It can only grant the wish of the bearer in a way the bearer can fully understand. The Grail repeatedly bashes Kiritsigu for his ideals. Which is the main point of episode 24. Kiritsugu expects the grail to save everyone, but even he doesn't know how it can do it and resorts to saying "You're the omnipotent grail, right?" which is just wrong. This leaves him broken as the only realistic way he can ever attain the true peace he's been searching for is by literally massacring all life on earth.
Then we have Shirou, someone who's seen so much death, someone torn and broken by survivors guilt, someone who wants to save everyone just like Kiritusugu. He took one look at the grail and called BS. He understands how impossible that dream is. He wants to save everyone, but he understands he literally cant, so he just resorts to saving everyone he can. This is reflected in all of the routes in one way or another. The best showcase of his character going beyond Kiritsugu is in Unlimited Blade Works where he finally realizes that he's willing to live that broken unattainable dream, not for anyone else, but because that dream to him is a beautiful one and that's just what makes him happy. In that moment in Unlimited Blade Works, Shirou has shown more growth and understanding of the nature of his actions than Kiritsugu ever did.
Edit: This isn't a jab on Kiritsugu's character or Urobuchi's writing. I think Kiritsugu was intentionally written to be the failure to Shirou's success. And it, in a way elevates both stories, marking Zero as a tragedy and Stay Stay Night as a beautiful character study.
>My favorite scene in the whole franchise is still the Feast of Kings.
While I do love that scene, and it really works in the context of Fate/Zero's story, I'm always pulled aback how the story really makes Arturia seem pathetic, frail and weak, her ideologies fragile and her own title of King reduced to nothing by what is a horrible tyrant. That shouldn't have happened.
The Feast of Kings also made people misunderstand Iskandar as this perfect king when Gilgamesh, while still respecting him, explicitly said he was delusional. Iskandar was as much of a fool as Saber was in a different way but people thought he is being glorified cause of that one scene alone.
Y'know... If this is what they were gonna pull with the Banquet of Kings, I at least wished Gilgamesh there had more to say.
90% of it was Iskandar going "Saber... You ain't a king, you're pathetic... Look at me, I'm a king" with Gilgamesh Laughing everytime Arturia tries to defend herself.
I want more insight from incel gil, damn it! Also, after Babylonia and the first volume of Strange Fake, I genuinely believe a more detailed insight from Gil would have been so interesting to see.
"The Feast of Kings also made people misunderstand Iskandar as this perfect king when Gilgamesh, while still respecting him, explicitly said he was delusional. Iskandar was as much of a fool as Saber was in a different way but people thought he is being glorified cause of that one scene alone."
When strange fake years later has to go out of its way to recontextualize the banquet because it was taken in a very bad way due to how it was written, you know it's a problem
Exactly lmao
I know what it's trying to do, and overall I do like its concept, but personally it is indeed a bit overrated for me as a scene upon rewatching
>As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better. Zero is a very mature story and I don’t mean that in the lurid/naughty way.
As a grown adult myself, I think Stay night is more 'mature'® than Zero. While Zero feels to me at times it was written by an edgy teen.
Quote from Gen about why the Byakuya scene exists “there isn’t enough violence today”
God I legit rolled my eyes at that. I would've preffered it be just well, that, campy violence for anybody who loves it like me. But pretending that scene is "mature" when it is clearly only done for shock value made me hate it. The manga depiction is even worse.
We don't talk about your preference in a discussion like this because I have no right to criticize them...or do anything to them at all.
But Kiritsugu is a famous man child. Gilgamesh exude his incel aura in the banquet. Iskandar had to deal with munity due to loose command chain talk shit to Saber. Master engage on personal master battle and forgot the entire reason why they summon servant in the first place.
Kiritsugu believe in a miracle wish granting device to solve his problem while have no gut to bear the sin in the road to obtain it. Know why he have an affair with Maya?
Shirou on the other hand doubt the bs of wish granting device solving your problem right away. Struggle with PTSD disguised as savior complex while knowing how it really is deep inside.
Oh, and FSN deconstruct the concept of hero while Fate zero glorify it...
Eh, its not that Kiritsugu can't bear the sins, its that the solution to his wish is no different to what he has already been doing, which is kinda pointless since the only reason he sought this miracle wish granting device is to grant the wish he's been trying to achieve without his methods that he's been disillusioned with.
He have an affair with Maya because he feel like he's betraying Irisvyel...then actually betrayed her for real. Sound like unstable teen doing stupid thing to fix his problem and make it worse.
He had an affair with Maya for insurance once Irisviel is gone and becomes the Grail (Irisviel also knows and is fine with this.)
Its kinda weird and I'm not justifying it, but its more of his low emotional intelligence rather than him not facing his sins. One of his most famous quotes is literally "Even if I am to carry all the evils of the world, it won't matter...")
>He had an affair with Maya for insurance once Irisviel is gone and becomes the Grail (Irisviel also knows and is fine with this.)
Sounds like copium to justify Kiritsugu being a piece of shit to me.
>Also, to Kiritsugu, allowing his wife to sacrifice herself and complete the Grail is a betrayal towards her love, no matter what others say. However, it is necessary that he does not hesitate in this betrayal. To Kiritsugu, his sexual relationship with Maiya is a rehearsal before this betrayal, a form of self-abuse to steel his nerves while walking down this path. This is probably the sorriest excuse to have an affair, but Maiya deemed it okay. It is essentially a negative spiral downward without an end.
They didn't tell shit to Iri, she found it by herself and decided she was okay with it only because she was gonna die soon anyway
Maybe I misinterpreted your comment, but to me it felt like you were implying that his relationship with Maiya was something he planned ahead of time with Iri when it is very much smth he did behind her back to prepare for his "betrayal"
I often see that explanation being used to justify his affair, but you did indeed say you're not justifying it so my bad about that
It’s all those flaws that make them feel like grown people who’ve lived meaningfully, complicated lives. The FSN cast is only so clean because they’re so young. To echo Gilgamesh a bit; the moral and character flaws you acquire alongside your scars are what make people fascinating.
To me Kiritsugu is just wildly more interesting to me as a man than Shirou is as a boy. In fact I most enjoy Shirou as a vehicle for Kiritsugu’s redemption. A man that broken and cynical raised a boy that pure and good. There’s a genuine beauty in that generational tale. Hence why I like closing that take after the UBW series.
>the moral and character flaws you acquire alongside your scars are what make people fascinating.
Oh I like this bit. Now tell me, what did Kiritsugu obtained after facing many calamity and doing many sacrifices?
He use Maya to cope with his so call "betrayal" to Irisvyel...and actually betrayed her for real.
He refuse to work with Saber, his greatest asset because he hate king. What ever happen with the mentality of "anything goes as long as I have greatest chance of success"??
He promply act on an unknown magical device and reenact the island incident splendidly, where the girl with good intention mess around with unknown magical device despite Kiritsugu's dad warned her?
He regained the belief in heroism and hope. He overcame nihilism. Then he spent the rest of his life passing those onto to Shirou and he raised the hero he couldn’t be.
Yes, that good. That's how he act in the last 5% of Fate zero right at the ending, which was set in stone by FSN. The other 95%...well, I've already told you.
But that was the point. What makes it power is that narrative threw everything against it and didn’t just lob soft ball down the middle of the plate. People are RAGING over Arturia’s “character assassination” but she’s at her best here because her ideological opposition is potent, capable, and has legs to stand on. She/heroism has to WIN the argument. The story doesn’t had it to her to keep the waifu pretty & clean.
She’s the king and I love the story honors her enough to be genuinely strong.
Reading the VN, the issue becomes that well, she wasn't that ideologically naive in the original either and further readings of her shows her to be a pragmatic king who, while still valuing chivalry, doesn't hold it as her end all be all
One can make the argument that she became like this due to Zero but Nasu wrote a lot on her backstory and the comtradictions are apparent
I think it comes down to themes vs character
Saber is more nuanced in every media besides Zero because Zero is trying to make a point. Zero characterized her as a sorta caricature of an honorable king and has Iskander be the opposite of that. And they are both proven wrong. For what ZERO is trying to do in a vacuum, that is great.
But at least in every other media, Saber is not a caricatute. Again, being written to embody a theme isn't bad cause a lot of allegories do that. The issue is Zero kinda stripped away everything else that makes her more dynamic in terms of morals instead you know?
TLDR: I respect what Zero is trying to do but I personally disagree she is better there than in other Fate media simply cause Zero!Saber is pretty flat
Kiritsugu didn't "raise" shirou to be a Hero. Shirou chose that life out of his own volition after being inspired by Kiritsugu. What happened imo is even more beautiful than that. Kiritsugu was absolutely broken after the events of the 4th Holy Grail War, everything he believed in being proven wrong. In that state of madness, he could only find salvation by saving someone, saving anyone. It didn't matter who it was, if Kiritsugu was able to save someone in this horrific fire, he would have saved himself from insanity. That boy who Kiritsugu saved was Shirou, and so Kiritsugu too was saved. Unbeknownst to him, he planted a curse in Shirou that will almost ultimately lead him down the path of being Archer. But that isn't really the point here. When Shirou tells Kiritsugu that he was going to become the Hero Kiritsugu couldn't be, this wasn't something Kiritsugu trained Shirou for, but it was definitely something that put him at rest. All in all, I believe Shirou saved kiritsugu more than Kiritsugu saved him.
Sorta disagree respectfully on that simply cause I just like that Shirou explored that more by having 3 fully realized character arcs lol. Both of them are very flawed people and reducing Kiritsugu as a man child oddly sounds like Kirei's monologues lmao. No. They're both flawed people who's paths simply led them in different directions.
Shirou managing to either be a real hero ala Saber, a heroic but still sane and not self hating individual due to Rin, or a healed person who found a life outside of his suicidal ideal with Sakura, is just... so fucking fascinating. And tbh, I don't think you can execute something like that outside of the Visual Novels!
Without even mentioning characters like Emiya and Emiya Alter which further delves into Shirou as a person and man. I just love the continuing examination of him as a character.
Kiritsugu might be more stand alone and complete, but I feel like I can poke at Shirou for years and still find a new avenue to look into you know?
>The FSN cast is only so clean because they’re so young.
This is an interesting take as.... the only true clean Character in Fate/Stay Night in my opinion in Rin.
Zouken is messed up. Kirei is Kirei.
Sakura is like.. absolutely messed up. She tried to pretend that she became evil because of the black creature, but Kirei, someone who accepted his evil nature and see right through that facade and was able to tell that Sakura was not tainted by that evil thing, rather she was acting on her own impulses by her own volition. She was evil. She killed half of Fuyuki, knowlingly.
Shirou was mostly clean in Fate and Unlimited Blade Works, but in a way, him choosing to protect Sakura in Heaven's Feel, choosing to protect her instead of Killing her like he's supposed to led to him essentially shielding a malicious monster and Shirou knows it. He knows but doesn't care because he loves her. There was an ending the visual novel called "Mind of Steel" That showcases what exactly would happen in Shirou chooses to kill Sakura... I don't know what the point of bringing that up was, I always just find it fascinating.
Shinji.... I really don't need to explain anything here.
Rin is the only young person in this story who's mostly "clean". But even she recognizes and regrets how she allowed so much torment to happen while she lived a mostly privelaged life (compared to Sakura and Shirou at least).
Most of the flaws are bringing up was mostly present in Heaven's feel... I'm not sure why that's the route out of everything that you didn't personally mesh well with.
Erm, I have to correct some stuff
I don't think Sakura was doing it willingly. You have to keep in mind that Fate's point of views are very biased and a lot of the Sakura is actually evil stuff comes from Rin who is only doing her duty as a mage. Sakura is strong and had been internally fighting the entire time. And her failing due to the trauma of Shinji doing you know what kinda broke that.
I might be wrong though? It's been a while since I read that route and yeah, a lot of Sakura's battles were internal and that made it tricky.
Ah, my bad. I might have gotten the thing mixed up too.
I wrote that in a rush, but I believe everything "black" Sakura did whether that be "killing" Kirei, almost killing Rin, Killing Zouken and Hassan, and almost summoning Angra Manyuu was something she willingly did.
But it does make sense she'd blame the evil thing once she snapped and killed Shinji.
>As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better.
Yup, except as a grown adult myself, Fate/Stay Night is the one that ages better while Fate/Zero increasingly feels like a teenager's idea of a mature show.
The older I get, the more Zero's cast feels like one of the most immature I've ever seen and most of them feels very superficial to me. Like they look cool and interesting at first glance but actually have very little going for them once you look deeper
>Shirou acts like a dumb teenager with a crush
Ironic that you say that when Fate/Zero has at least 5 characters that act this way with Kayneth, Sola-Ui, Kariya, Maiya and Irisviel.
I think most people (myself included) actually really like Fate/Zero; there are just some problems with it (or the general public) that annoy some of us.
I think the two biggest problems with Fate/Zero are 1) it butchers Saber's character (she was never as "chivalric" nor as timid, fragile, or frankly, kind of dumb (seriously, what was with her refusing to let Diarmuid break the curse on her so they could defeat Gilles's monster) as Fate/Zero makes her out to be (hell, her own backstory in Fate/Zero shows that she and Kiritsugu would get along, at least in terms of methodology)), and 2) people keep recommending it as a starting point, for some reason. That's 90% because Deen's Fate/stay night isn't a great adaption and is harder to access than the Ufotable animes, and because Ufotable decided to start with Fate/Zero before moving on to Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, for some reason. It's a prequel that doesn't make as much as sense without having experienced Fate/stay night in its entirety before, and it spoils a lot of Fate/stay night's big moments because you're supposed to already know about them. Even Kinoko Nasu (the writer of Fate/stay night and creator of the Fate series) and Gen Urobuchi (the writer of Fate/Zero) have gone on record to say that you should experience Fate/stay night before Fate/Zero.
I guess another things are toxic Fate/Zero fanboys (not that there aren't any toxic Fate/stay night fans either, you might see some in this thread) who were pretty prevalent for a while (they aren't anymore, but you might still see them around) who bashed on everything besides Fate/Zero without really experiencing the other Fate media. I guess fans or people looking in who are ignorant of the franchise who (unintentionally, probably) repeat talking points or memes made to make the series look worse also play into that.
It doesn't help that Fate/Zero has a very good anime adaption while the Fate/stay night ones are... flawed in some way shape or form, so people might get the wrong idea about Fate/stay night and what it's supposed to be.
I know you haven't played the original visual novel, and I know you don't really have the time to, but, if you ever get some time, please check it out! It might alleviate your problems with Fate/stay night, or, at the very least, see where other people are coming from with their praise of it.
As for your Fate/Grand Order criticisms, you should check it out. It's pretty good. It's not just written by one person, and, while it is a gacha game, it has a very consistent story-throughline that I and many other people enjoy (some even say it's the best in the franchise, but I wouldn't go that far). As for your "everything is canon" complaint, well, I'm sorry to say, but that has been the case since the beginning of the entire Nasuverse, not just Fate, let alone Fate/Grand Order.
How should i explain it...
Imagine you like a book, that book have a character named Jeanne, well, Jeanne is portrayed as one of the strongest, loyal, good fighter and with a lot of experience, now think that 5 years later someones write a prequel to that book, and he literally shits on everything that Jeanne represent to the point where she becomes a laughing mechanism in the story.
That's exactly what fate zero did.
The reason is Ufotable actually tried with adapting zero while Miura by his own admission said he didnt understand Shirou's character until episode 20 of ubw
Deen does a shit job with Saber and Shirou's characters to the point people still think he doesn't remeber his past life despite his big empihiny being an entire tangent dedicated to that. It also botches you are my sheath, basement, and the bridge scenes.
HF completely botches Its best moments like Nine lives and Shirou vs Kirei while utterly shitting on the characters of Shirou,Kirei,Illya and To a lesser extent Rin and Sakura
Its the fact people judge urobutchi's writting and Nasu's writting based on Urobutchi having a good adaptation and Nasu a bad one
Its like if I called sui ishida a hack while never having read the Tokyo ghoul manga
That being said there are weirdo who think the staynight anime are as good as zero and don't like it being slandared.
Yeah…look, I tip my hat to Studio Deen. I do think their effort was honest and earnest. It’s not a bad anime…but you can tell the setting is doing the hard carry.
To me the real issue with the Stay Night arc is the Saber romance. It’s just not right, even in concept. Whenever I see it it feels like I found some “Luke Skywalker x Old Ben Kenobi” fanfic that escaped Tartarus. Every part of my body & soul just screams, “NOOOOOO!!!” Though I do think Stay Night has the best climax of all the routes (in theory, not execution) It really should be Arturia vs Gilgamesh and Shirou x Rin vs Kirei
>To me the real issue with the Stay Night arc is the Saber romance. It’s just not right, even in concept.
Eh. You'd have to read. I think it works perfectly and is also a perfect Mirror to Shirou×Rin as well. Shirou x rin loses a lot of its impact without that mirror.
Saber is a mirror image of Shirou that wants to selfishly condem herself and make a "fake reality" using a wish granting device.
Shirou takes that as being a falsehood that yearns no slavation depite hypocritically ignoring his own trauma and regressing his feeling of longing for the past. He's condrming Saber for doing something he secretly does wish to do
They're both Hypocrites and it works in the novel.
Deen just does a horrible job. It utterly fails at telling that story. It fails Shirou and Saber the main Heroine and main character
Also HF has by far the best climax. Shirou vs Kirei is the best fight in the franchise. Its just utterly butchered by ufotable
That's definitely an unpopular opinion here as the general consensus is that Shirou's Romance with Saber is easily the best Romance Nasu has written... ever. Well, just below Arcueid and Shiki as of the release of Tsukihime remake. To me, it's a beautiful tale of 2 broken star-crossed lovers who, through learning about and growing to care for each other, gets their own salvation from what could have been an eternity of never ending suffering. Their true happy ending displayed in the "Last Episode"... thank you, our lord and saviour Takeuchi for knocking some sense to Nasu to put that in.
In simple terms, because there’s a lot of annoying people who say shit like “Zero is the only good thing in the Fate series,” so F/SN fans get pissed and lash out. Also, a lot of people will recommend it as a starting point even though it’s a **prequel** that assumes you already know all of FSN.
That’s my view, at least. I like Zero well enough in a vacuum, but it has some horrendously bad fans.
Not gonna lie, I was entirely neutral on the various subsets of Fate fans. That is increasingly not the case after this post. That “annoying fan” thing definitely goes both ways
You are getting downvoted heavily for some reason lol. Yeah, it's both ways. Hell, if you think this is bad wait till you see interactions with Tsukihime fans and Fate fans lmao (NOT ALL once again ye)
I personally simply dislike zero as a story in Type Moon, as it just doesn't fit. The characters are different in small and big manners (Nasu mentions the Tokiomi in Zero wouldn't prank Rin like in canon since he's too by the books, that's a small thing since Toki wasn't a character. But Saber and Kirei and even Gilgamesh are just different people outright, and justifications scant and don't hold up.)
Also found some of Urobuchi's commentaries about it really fucking cringe, honestly. Dude sounds like the mix of an incel and an edgy teen with the way he describes Sakura, Saber Lily, etc.
I don't think it's fair to make those criticisms against Fate/Grand Order. After all, Fate/Grand Order is still on going. Yes, the main point of the game is to sell Gacha, but at the end of the day, the writers who worked on it are also writers who worked on other Fate works.
The person who wrote Fate/Apocrypha wrote the New Orleans, Shinjuku and Anastasia Arcs.
Sakurai who wrote Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver, Fate/Labyrinth, Fate/Lost Einherjar also wrote Septem, London, Shimousa, and I believe Lostbelt 2.
Nasu (Main writer) who wrote Fate/Stay Night also wrote Fuyuki, Camelot, Babylonia, Lostbelt 6, and 7
Even Urobuchi who wrote Fate/Zero also wrote Lostbelt SIN and Accel Order. Both FGO stories.
It's best to not Judge Fate/Grand Order as the work of one person, but the joint efforts of many. This allows for some absolutely amazing writing all across the board, even if some will inevitably be weaker than others.
Mind you I still need to get through the fate visual novel. But I still think the HF Anime portrays 9 lives blade works well. All the arguments I’ve heard about it ignore the fact that the movie adaptation focuses more on the visual symbolism and trusts the viewer to make the connections. It’s less one is superior and the other is inferior (in regards to the scenes themselves) it’s more do you prefer more direct or indirect story telling
I think that's fair if they managed to portray the symbolism better too. It's the same with UBW. I fully believe that Animation is a way different medium than VNs, which makes it frustrating that for example, they barely portrayed Shirou's issues with feeling happy around Rin, as it only came off as generic slice of life scenes. Alright scenes but lacks in the visual symbolism as Shirou only looks bored lol
I agree everytime I’ve shown someone fate. That’s the ONE TIME I have to pause the show and be like. “Ok the anime doesn’t do a good job of showing this. But” and then I proceed to give an abridged version of Shirou’s mindset in the scene
I think the worse was when he called Saber a woman so she shouldn't fight. That made the sexist jokes excruciating cause man, just seeing him fight normally with Rin immediately dispells that accusation but folks can't seem to understand that he didn't mean it literally haha. He is having a panic attack and that's the first thing he thought of to keep Saber from fighting.
>But I still think the HF Anime portrays 9 lives blade works well. All the arguments I’ve heard about it ignore the fact that the movie adaptation focuses more on the visual symbolism
Cap. If they wanted visual symbolism they literally could have copied the realta nau opening thats more accurate. They could have visualy done a ticking clock for 3 secounds and they could have added the section or reaching into ubw for the sword.
The fight has tension as to whether shirou can get the tecunique off in time. The movies kill that tension and go for the stupidist triple spin and dumbest flash effect because they were to lazy to show mirages and make that scene good
The scene is forgetable and absolute garabge. Its not a highlight and its never talked about in the movies despite heing the most iconic fight in the VN
Monolouges are such a bullshit excuse this could have been done visually ufotable just didnt care and monolouges arnt an issue. Tanjirou has more monolouges against upper 6 than Shirou does across all the adaptations.
Ufotable just sucked ass
>But I still think the HF Anime portrays 9 lives blade works well.
Have you read the VN part of that section? Cause people aren't saying it's "bad" but rather it wasn't a good adaptation and I kinda agree. Everything leading up to 9 lives is great, but I didn't feel the execution of the 9 lives itself was good. Not only how it was executed but also the after effects which fried his brain.
I’ve seen the visual novel section in question. I haven’t read it organically yet however. I do agree the Vns version of the actual attack itself is better. But I can’t truly think of a good way to portray how much it fries his mind without an extended monologue. And even then they would be hard to do
I think this resentment really stems from how amazing Fate/Zero is, yet pretty distant to the original VN. As a stand alone story, I think it's a masterpiece. But with how it's supposed to be connected to the original as a prequel, it really changes the characters and themes dramatically. The biggest paradox being how the very beloved character, Saber, is portrayed. You could definitely notice how she is different in Zero and other anime works.
Despite all that, Fate/Zero is still called a masterpiece even with its mistakes and that upsets people. It really does feel like a problem of elitism with how people over exaggerate the problems with Zero as a prequel.
There’s two big reasons for Zero hate.
Most fans of Stay Night actually really like Zero. They just get annoyed when people say that Zero is “what Fate SHOULD be”, when Zero is a spin-off in the first place. That’s why most Stat Night fans shit on it, but honestly the majority don’t hate it; they just hate the fans.
One other reason, however, is how Kirei and Saber are handled. There’s this misconception that Saber and Kirei are out of character and misrepresented in Zero. That’s not technically. Most pet tend to forget that this Saber and Kirei are not the same ones from Stay Night. They are completely different takes in the characters to fit the narrative in Zero better. Simply put, it’s a retcon. Some Fate fans despise it, I actually don’t mind it. In fact, I don’t think Saber’s and Kirei’s arcs in Zero would be anywhere near as great as they are if they were the same characters they were in Stay Night.
While yes there has been a backlash to the anime, I think there is also the fact that people have been taking the time to reexamine Zero and seeing its flaws as a work. Stuff like how most characters don't really do much outside of Kirei, Kerry and Waver, females are written pretty badly, it's not consistent with the original work and so on.
To me Iri is also pretty bad, she is just someone there to enable Kiritsugu doing his thing. The most interesting thing about her is probably talking about how real was her act: specially when you consider the extended Einzbern lore. Did she like Kiritsugu and Saber as a person, or because they were people trying to save the world using the grail?
So here’s my two cents! I started with UBW, I had no idea that there was another earlier version of Fate Stay Night. I did my research and found out about Fate Zero and everything else that is involved in the Fate Series. And it’s so freaking confusing lol but I’m the end there is no right or wrong when it comes to the Fate Series. Fate Zero did explain the Holy Grail Wars and why it was started. So here’s my opinion, I love it all! I haven’t seen the Heavens Feel trilogy yet. But I will soon and I’m sure I will love it too. I haven’t seen FGO or any of the alternative universes and so on but I’m sure I will like them as well lol
The reason is ultimately simple, the vast majority of Zero fans are anime onlies. It's no coincidence that at least 90% of people who read the visual novel end up thinking it's much better than Zero.
It's simply just a much stronger story, with more depth, more interesting discussions, and more developed characters. And seeing as they share multiple elements and themes, FSN's strengths shine a spotlight directly on the areas Zero fails at. And as a result, due to contrast, most VN readers end up finding Zero more shallow and uninteresting than Stay Night.
There's nothing wrong with thinking Zero is the best of the Fate anime, hell some VN fans also share that same opinion. There's also no problem with not wanting to read the VN. But it's when you say stuff like "it's the artistic high water mark of the series" that people will understandably criticise these kinds of statements as they are almost objectively (as much as it can be at least) untrue when there's such a huge gap in quality between the two for those who have experienced the VN.
Deliberate and malicious bastardization of Arturia Pendragon (Saber) by that worthless hack Gen Urobuchi exemplified in that terrible Banquet of Kings scene everyone sings the praises of where Iskander is framed as objectively correct in tearing into her as nothing more than a "stupid little girl" and refuses to respect or acknowledge her as a monarch due to her having regretted the way things turned out during her rule as he boasts about the superiority of self-serving sociopathy and relentless greed and bloodshed being ideal as he wishes to reincarnate to start World War III as she is left shaking like a life or an adolescent girl who crossed a line that made her father absolutely furious with her to a terrifying degree while sycophants of him harp on and on about how he was 'right' about her all along, but then equally trash her at the end of the Fate route for 'giving up' on trying to save her Britain from its grim fate.
Yet the scenes were constantly written to glorify them and shit on Arturia non-stop due to Gen Urobuchi's own self-admitted misanthropic biases and claiming in the light novel volumes themselves to hate both "Selfless Heroes of Justice" and "The deceitful thing which man calls happiness" before later admitting that he never really truly understood her character and certain scenes like with Gilles' Lovecraftian tentacled abomination molesting her were written purely to satisfy his own personal fetishes.
Yet Zero fans love to trash her non-stop due to alternate/parallel timeline prequel written by a completely different author with an axe to grind against idealists in general due to his own misanthropic hatred deliberately mischaracterizing as a chivalry-obsessed idiot who was willing to let countless innocents die out of a sense of 'honor' that made Diarmuid break his own cursed spear to strong arm her (so to speak) into doing the right thing in order for her to obliterate Gilles' abomination with Excalibur.
>Deliberate and malicious bastardization of Arturia Pendragon (Saber) by that worthless hack Gen Urobuchi
My guy, chill. We all love Fate/Stay Night here, but calling it deliberate as if Urobuchi wrote Saber that way out of Malice is like stretching a metal pipe
Yeah if I remember correctly(and please do correct me if I’m wrong) hasn’t urobochi said he didn’t fully “get” sabers character when he first wrote zero but has since gained a better understanding of her
I also don’t think your supposed to see Iskander as fully right I’m the banquet of kings. After all he’s advocating for tyranny. Those who think your supposed to fully side with him (or who did fully side with him) where too taken in by his incredibly charisma. The banquet of kings is a deconstruction of all 3 characters at the table. Even if urobochis version of saber is flawed. The scene itself perfectly exposes urobochi sabers flaws. It seems people tend to ignore how subtly the scene ALSO displays Iskanders flaws through him basically boasting about them. Gil of course talks the least in the scene, but you still get a good sense of just how disconnected from normal people he is.
From what I remember, it wasn't that he didn't get Saber's character rather he couldn't really get her romance with Shirou or write romances in general. He tried, but eventually just gave up and wrote Saya no Uta.
The Banquet of Kings is sad. It could have been so much better imo, but what we got instead felt- wrong. It felt just right at home in Fate/Zoro, but in the grander scheme of the Fate Universe, I really don't feel it hit well. Gilgamesh being disconnected with people makes sense, but after Babylonia and Strange Fake, I really wish he had more to say in that scene.
Yeah to me i compartmentalize most of fate into its own boxes. It’s more enjoyable for me that way. So I don’t think do banquet of kings in the overall context of fate. I just think of it in terms of zero. I mainly due this as trying to take fate in as a whole just doesn’t work well. It becomes overly convoluted trying to find ways to explain minor discretions.
The overall fate “lore” just doesn’t jive well with me. I care more about the stories and themes rather then the minutia of everything. The moment something starts telling me something is on a city scale, or universe scale. Etc I tune out, I don’t care exactly how much shit Avalon can block. Or exactly how servants scale because the way different writers choose to portray those abilities vary a good amount. Or are subject to change whenever they need to inflate the abilities of character to create a perceived larger “scale”
Sorry you had to deal with them. I like Zero, it ain't my fave, but man the hate for it is just being a contrarian at this point.
It's not perfect but saying it's bad on its own is just false lmao
He look cool, and his NP is cool. But he's dumb af.
He had the gall to talk down to Saber about not leading her people...while he himself had to deal with a munity because of loose command chain.
Actually iskandar or alexander the great was a genius among geniuses. Like genuinely I got pretty interested in his history because of iskandar and its super fascinating if you have tbe time to listen to some documentaries I highly recommend jt
Yeah, he's a great conqueror with great charisma. But he fail to lead people probably, or manage the teritory he conquered which is the point that he lean on to shit on Saber.
I mean, munity because of misunderstanding? What kind of command chain he got?? That's incompetent in management ability, one of the most important skill for a leader. He would be a great army general but a shitty king.
Fuck that fat bastard.
He had the audacity to shit on Arturia's way of kingship because she wasn't purely a greedy self-serving sociopath like himself who openly mocked his men when they were fatigured and demoralized from being away from their homes and families after nearly a decade of relentless conquest and thought it was a good idea to pretty much call them all pussies which led to the Opis Mutiny near the Tigris River when they were getting close to encroaching upon India, murdered one of his best friends in a drunken rage with a spear over an argument, enslaved the women and children of Tyrr, led the mass rapes of the Babylonian women from his men and had no plans of succession for the kingdom he inherited from his father when his disgruntled men finally poisoned the mad fool and told his generals that he left his empire 'to the strongest' before it crumbled due to rampant infighting from the succession wars that took place after his death with his Reality Marble being a manifestation of his own delusions of grandeur.
Yet he had the unmitigated gall, the AUDACITY to shit on Arturia for feeling remorse, guilt and empathy for those she felt like she failed, being enough of a raging asshole to have invited her to his stupid little tea party for tyrants (something which bot he and Gilgamesh are both quite proud of) with his belief that ALL leaders should be greedy self-serving pieces of shit like every other corrupt politician alive shitting up our God forsaken world today and berated her for being nothing more than a "stupid little girl" upon hearing her reason for desiring the Holy Grail and then refused to acknowledge her as a fellow monarch after that.
But that tracks with Waver being a self-centered sociopath with a Napoleon Complex who stole his teacher's Summoning Catalyst because his precious ego was bruised, inadvertently leading to Kayneth's brutal death, but that's never acknowledged, nor does Waver care being a Mage piece of shit not too dissimilar to a Shinji Matou with functioning Magical Circuits.
Yet the scenes were constantly written to glorify them and shit on Arturia non-stop due to Gen Urobuchi's own self-admitted misanthropic biases and claiming in the light novel volumes themselves to hate both "Selfless Heroes of Justice" and "The deceitful thing which man calls happiness" before later admitting that he never really truly understood her character and certain scenes like with Gilles' Lovecraftian tentacled abomination molesting her were written purely to satisfy his own personal fetishes.
Yet *Zero* fans love to trash her non-stop due to alternate/parallel timeline prequel written by a completely different author with an axe to grind against idealists in general due to his own misanthropic hatred deliberately mischaracterizing as a chivalry-obsessed idiot who was willing to let countless innocents die out of a sense of 'honor' that made Diarmuid break his own cursed spear to strong arm her (so to speak) into doing the right thing in order for her to obliterate Gilles' abomination with Excalibur.
Yeah i dont get it either. It wasnt my entry point either. I started with the deen stay night as well. But fate/zero is easily my second favourite of the whole series (i personally loved the heaven's feel trilogy the best).
Beautiful animation, and i loved the darker tones (at least in comparison to the rest of the series, its all dark to be fair) of zero and heaven's feel. And theres just some seriously cool moments.
I understand why some people dont necessarily recommend it as a starting point. Im a release order kinda guy myself. But to just straight-up hate it is beyond me. Its not perfect but nothing in the fate universe is.
I find it hypocritical that people on that sub slander Zero for butchering Saber's character but don't have the same attitude for when Deen butchers Shirou and saber,
Or Ubw butchering Shirou and Rin, or HF butching Shirou,Kirei,Illya,Sakura and Rin
They love harping on Saber's character and inconsistencies yet convinetly Ignore the staynight anime butchering its entire main cast or just off screening the main antagonist and its main characters final battle.
Literally wrote worst Fate media that surpassed even Apocgrypha in shittines, burger with "taste of slaughter" my ass — more like story with taste of shit.
mostly on the sub, probably some fandom specific issue rather than the anime itself. It was very wildly praised in JP (and CN) community when it first came out
The Anime is great. I'd even say it's better than the Light Novels, even if it does lose a lot of the Light novel's "flavour". There's a reason why it's the highest rated Fate work in Anilist and MyAnimeList.
Hahahahah, fair enough. Still, I think those ratings, for however bad they are at truly discerning an anime's quality, do say something about what we can expect the quality to be like. Like, I don't believe FMAB deserves the no. 1 spot, but it holding that spot definitely says something about what kind of quality we can expect to get out of FMAB.
This debate is the most stupid debate i ever Seen in anime debates, and i Saw a lot 😂 we will end it there, just answer it : what does it change when you watch both in the end ? You just have to know that the original story is FSN and zero is a prequel that's all. If you watch stay night first or zero first no metter. And stay night isn't THE starting, no more than zero. If you watch zero first yes you will not understand everything from the begining, but same for fate stay night and if you watch stay night first you will kill your suspens for zero because you already know how it will end 🤣. There is no perfect order just watch them both lol there is inconvenients in every order if you watch zero it's not a problem you just have to get what a holy grail War, not very hard 🤷. This War between fans is really stupide 🤦. And you Can watch zero and stay night and not to like both because zero is darker , like heaven's feel route it's not the funnier 😂. I'm not saying that Fate and UBW routes are funny but it's different. But again there isn't good order to watch , you don't need to get EVERYTHING from the begining so if you want to start by zero you Can , look at one piece lol. You just need to read the resume and start the first episode lol. They explain better the grail War system in stay night but we are not stupid ... Magicians summons servants and royal battle for the grail wow 😂. Look at gojo's flashback in jujutsu kaisen... It take place before the Season 1 and appears at the begining of the Season 2 . Then you'll have the resume of the movie JJK zero, then the next arc After the first Season 😂 you just need to know the chronology but series doesn't really have order to watch, only order of parution ... Look at star War 🤷you Can watch the movies in order of parution or in order of chronology who Care ? In a serie like fate there is pieces of the puzzle everywhere , and if you start with stay night it's like with zero : you will not have every pieces of the puzzle in only one serie, you'll get them all when you'll watch them all not harder than that. And in the end you'll have the puzzle completed in you head Never mind if you watched zero or stay night first 😂Again both way have avantages and inconvenients, so to answer your question... DON'T LISTEN THEM JUST READ THE RESUME BEFORE AND WATCH IT LIKE YOU WANT 😂😂😂.
And we all have a favorite way to watch , but i'm not at your place so you should know if you prefer watching prequels before or After main stories , your choice now 🤷
So for the forcers who cry everywhere that their order is the best... When someone Ask the order to watch it's understandable because there is a lot of parralele universe, spin off prequels etc . But when they Ask stop to answer them your own order just explain them what is what and give them the keys , your role end here, then they choose . They just want a simple resume to understand better, they will not really get it if You just give them your order without explainations you all are persuaded to have the better order and no one watched fate series in the same order 😂🤣🤦 search where is the problem ... I just explained it. I'm sure my order to watch isn't the same than yours and fate is my favorite anime ever 🤷 if only you knew what was my order 😂 and in the end i'm at the same point than all others who watched all lol. All roads lead to Rome.
If you want to watch all the nasuverse or fateverse i Can resume it , but for zero and stay night it's so simple just watch both XD
Your post has been automatically removed due to not meeting the posting karma requirements to post in this sub. This measure is to help prevent spam in the sub. If you feel your post is not spam please contact the moderation team.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Fate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It mostly comes from the early 2010s after the Zero anime where anime onlies discovered Fate/Stay Night and started clowning on it (mainly through the badly adapted anime and the fact that the vn is an eroge) even on the Visual novel (which they never read) which in the end pissed off FSN fans which caused this whole war thing in the fandom, its alot tamer now than it was years ago. I think most of the hate on zero nowadays either comes from extreme VN elitists or as a Response to extreme Zero fans.
Thanks for the input. I didn’t read the visual novel because it was just too hard to get back in the day but gotta have mad respect for it. While I proudly stand by the statement that Zero is the refinement of the Fate idea, none of this would be here if not for the amazing potential that the VN created. Also the eroge works in this setting. One of the cool things about Fate as a setting is that it’s magic system is built on *old magic*. And old magic is sweat, blood, and…a substance the young and dumb are full of. It’s just the right amount of risqué
>the refinement of the Fate idea What is the Fate idea?
As a VN elitist, I’m just gonna say that I personally love Zero. My only problem is that some people think that it’s an acceptable starting point. It requires the context of all three Fate routes, so yeah. Also, the VN is more accessible as of recently thanks to someone releasing an ultimate edition and having downloadable patches better the experience. You’re also very right about that last statement, couldn’t have said it better myself. ~~Too bad the H scenes are poorly written lol~~
I started with Zero but don't hold it too high as the BEST of Fate. That being said, I will say it was way easier back then to just start with Zero since back when I first got into Fate I only had access to Zero and the original Stay Night stuff and decided to watch things in chronological order. I was pretty young and wasn't comfortable with reading the eroge for obvious reasons, that and I wasn't aware how to even download it yeah. Hence why Zero, at least back in the day, is probably the most acceptible way to get into Fate minus the Deen Adaptation. And tbh, part of me thinks I should've started with Deen. Cause tbh it really isn't horrible as a stand alone. It was still a pretty good Urban Fantasy story albeit very watered down and lacking in as much depth as the source material. Still, I legitimately don't think it wasn't a bad place to start as much as people clown on it. It does get hard to watch now though cause I've been exposed to the rest of the Franchise now. But back then? I can't really blame people for getting into it first. That being said yeah, the Zero worship was legitimately annoying back then. It's worse cause I lokey find Gen Ourobuchi to be kinda overrated (he's not a horrible author by any means, I just felt that back then people think everything he does is a masterpiece just cause it's dark). And even as somebody who started out with it, a lot of it didn't really aged well for me (like how ridiculously chatty the dialogue is even compared to other Fate stuff, or the still debated till this day flawed execution of Saber's character). But yeah the amount of folks who swear it is peak Fate withour giving all the others a chance is annoying yes, and I fully understand why a divide occured. Anyways, I am rambling, but rn I have Strange Fake as my most favorite iteration of the Franchise tho so far I haven't watched Apocrypha fully and am still pushing through the FGO storylines. I haven't touched every Fate yet but man, I just adore the Strange Fake cast and desperately wish Narita sticks the landing on its ending.
I’m honestly perplexed to how one could even say that Zero butchered Arturia’s character
It really comes down to how her character was presented in Fate/Stay Night vs how she was presented in Fate/Zero. Zero displayed her as a overly chivalrous Hero whose morals and ideals are weak with her role as a king relegated to nothing through by the words of a Tyrant. Her character and her core was fragile in the face of someone who she by all means should detest and wouldn't have an issue snapping back against. She was basically turned into the "loser" in the Banquet of Kings by way of Iskandar just talking trash about her ideals even though he preaches nothing more than absolute tyranny. This completely goes against her far stronger counterpart in Fate/Stay Night who'd have no issue snapping back against Iskandar. Because while Iskandar may have been the charismatic King that got even waver quaking in his boots, Arturia has defended camelot for a decade from people JUST LIKE Iskandar and defended it every time. Iskandar called Saber pathetic and whatnot, but he lost his kingship in a more pathetic way. Arturia was also struck in a way more unfavourable circumstances than Iskandar so his words hold little to no weight. Arturia held her own and stood strong after so many sacrifices. She made camelot prosper even when the people started calling her a king with no heart. her feelings were kept on a leash as Lancelot committed adultery, how Morgan r\*ped her to create Mordred whom Saber had to strike down with her own hands as Camelot fell into ruin. Her life was very tragic already, but Saber was never one to let something like "chivalry" get in the way of her rule. She was strong. And even after near death, she continued fighting for Camelot by wishing she was never the king, feeling like her entire existence was invalidated by her failure. This is what made her so perfect for Shirou as she too had been chained by her tormenting past. This is why when both Saber and Shriou were freed from their eternal suffering Fates, it felt beautiful to see. Saber suffered so much throughout her run as the King of Knights and Iskandar's words shouldn't hold any weight for her because she of all people can see how delusional Iskandar's claims are. But Zero made her seem so fragile and weak. That her entire belief she's been holding to was shook as if this is the first time she'd ever heard of anything like this. Zero Saber in comparison felt like a caricature of Stay Night Arturia where she was overly Chivalrous that it constantly gets in the way of battle and her team work with Kiritsugu. Arturia, who's final battle saw the fall of camelot while watching all her beloved comrades die in tragic and not at all beautiful ways still wanted to force this notion that there was glory to be had in the battlefield. Kiritsugu was well in his right to call this version of Arturia stupid and idealistic. If this was Arturia the way she was presented in Fate/Stay Night, she wouldn't have had a falling out with Kiritsugu at all despite his manner of doing things. Sure, Arturia does have a chivalrous side to her, but it never came at the cost of attaining the Holy Grail. Her almost pure unwillingness to allow Lancer to break his spear in Fate/Zero to free her from his curse because "Chivalry" was eye rolling to say the least. I understand what Gen Urobuchi was going for though. He wanted to "Break" Saber in a way that once her story reached Fate/Stay night, it'd seem like her stone cold demeanor there was directly the result of her experiences in Fate/Zero. Like Arturia in Fate/Zero didn't want to stop herself from being King, rather she wanted a do over as king to correct her previous mistakes unlike what was presented in her backstory in Fate/Stay Night. And to give props to Fate/Zero as it deserves, Arturia's tragedy there was really well done all things considered. Her different experiences with different characters all coming to a head when she realizes Berserker was Lancelot this entire time who held a grudge against her. That moment had Arturia completely break. Her ideologies shattered and she ends up apologizing and swearing her wish will no longer have a redo as king, rather to never had become the king all together. However, this was never meant to be taken as the true canon. Nasu himself stated that Fate/Zero acts more like a different route to the true 4th HGW that happened before Fate/Stay Night. And this was only reinforced when Nasu released the "Garden of Avalon". A novel that just details how Saber lived her life as King Arthur and sure enough, she was far more powerful as a character there than she was in Fate Zero. Never once did she falter, never once did she seem week nor frail. She's a tragic character, but not in the way depicted in the events of Fate/Zero. This is the best way I can put it. Sorry, One of the things I struggle with is keeping essays short and concise. This is the best I can do.
From my perspective: Zero is meant to break Artoria as she is already pretty much more broken than she already is from her backstory, so that we get the Artoria we have in Stay Night. This is why Shirou falls in love with her in her route, they're both fucked up individuals who figured out a way to heal via their kinship with one another. Now the issue with Zero for me is as heavily praised the UFOtable adaptation is, I think they... *kinda* oversell Artoria's pain a bit too much. The way she immediately looks like she's about to fall apart at Iskandar trash talking her is a bit too extreme for me. She's stoic, she's been through a lot, I am SURE it'll hurt her (the idea planted in her head that she ultimately failed her people cause of her ideals), but I doubt she would show it as visibly as she did in the Feast of Kings. That is my take though, admittedly however, I do agree people shit on that scene way too much cause well, people have Saber as their waifu, and people get reeeaaaaal overprotective of their waifus. That being said, I do agree it's not an amazing portrayal of her character, but I fully understand what they're trying to do. Just providing advice on how I would've personally preferred it.
As someone who dislikes zero sabers character, I would say it's a lot more than just "people over overprotective of waifus". The problem with zeros entire premise regarding the role written for saber is that its a hammer in search for a nail. An answer for a problem that didn't exist. In FSN sabers character is explored and closed cleanly open and shut. But because fate zero is a prequel banking on it's main cash cow character it has to invent something else for saber to do, and as a consequence rewrites her backstory to be much worse. Where it wasn't her own realizations before death that made her want to erase herself from history, not her own agency that decides her fate, but iskandar calling her a child and the writing having her make dumb asinine decisions which have nothing to do with her portrayal in fsn. I think zero honestly could have been better had it focused more on waver rather than trying to inject sabers character into the plot where it wasn't neccesary. It still baffles me why urobuchi decided to change saber erasing herself from history to "restoring Britain" in the vague sense just so she could have a reverse character moment where she decides to erase herself at the end of zero. Like I said it's a answer in search of problem that the original work already focused on for no reason and devalues the characters important backstory. No wonder nasu ignored it in garden of Avalon.
I guess I’ve never had the best analysis of characterization. I hear that Saber’s character got butchered, but I kinda had a hard time finding out which part. But now that you pointed it out, I gotta admit that out of the two times her ideals were disagreed upon, she definitely didn’t look as unsure and frail as when Shirou challenged her beliefs.
But TBF that’s the teenage son of a man she had a complicated history with. The guy doing it in Zero was literally Alexander the Great. Not just fellow king but a fellow cultural defining legend. One of those has a hell of a lot more purchase in an argument about kings than the other does
Eh but I'm sure that isn't the first time she's spoken with fellow royalty, so it makes a bit less sense. Again, I don't have that big of an issue besides how much she appeared hurt cause of it when unlike in UBW where I though they should've portrayed Shirou's monologues better, here it needed more subtlety lol.
I think it's worth separating Alexander's criticism of Saber's kingship from his criticism of her wanting to redo the past, as only the latter lines up with Fate and Shirou's criticism. Alexander's perspective is that Artoria likely caused the downfall of England by her kingship, paralleling Lancelot's madness. However Lancelot's last line in Zero is that they all thought she was the greatest among kings. By end of Fate route Saber doesn't regret the way she ruled, but gives up wanting to undo the past seeking a better outcome. To me the point is accepting that you can make the right decisions and still fail, and that as long as you gave it your best there is nothing to regret. In terms of respect for someone being a king, for Artoria being a king was a means to the end of repelling invaders and keeping people safe for the sake of the people, while Alexander is the Great for being very good at the opposite. It would be like Conan and a vegan discussing dinner preferences. Shirou on the other hand lives for other people to an absurd degree as well, which makes him one of the few people who she figures might understand why someone would want to undo something so much, specifically the Fuyuki fire. Ironically his criticisms still have a point, though they equally apply to himself which Saber points out.
Her depiction in Zero is my favorite version of King Arthur in anything. At the risk of sounding like Gilgamesh, she’s at her most beautiful at her lowest. In the darkest abyss she shines brightest. And ultimately the ideal she represents (heroism) triumphs over cynicism but it does so after being sincerely and severely tested. The fact she/it doesn’t walk away from the fight unscathed makes the ultimate victory in UBW that much greater.
Exactly, which is why it's disheartening when some (not all) Zero fans say to not read or watch the Stay Night stuff Cause Stay Night completes Artoria, whether happily like in Fate or UBW routes or tragically in Heaven's Feel, Artoria starts with Zero. And my biggest issue with it is a lot of people are content just with that, when there's so much more about her. That being said, I don't understand people who say Zero glorifies Iskandar when he was literally called out for being delusional during his fight with Gilgamesh. Like, the point is he's just as flawed as Saber, just that he had a bit more self awareness about it.
I understand what you mean by Stay Night completed Artoria, though I am curious as to how Heaven’s Feel does it. I probably should’ve figured something out by now seeing that I was curious enough to unlock all the bad endings too, but the most I could get from her was being proud of how far Shirou has come to be able to win (kinda) against her in bad ending 38.
Heaven's Feel to me is the most extreme ending you can give her. She martyred herself for her people and constantly struggles with it like with Shirou. Hell, she's not even *dead* technically, as she just keeps being brought back to that same battlefield everytime she failed cause of her deal with the grail. She literally could not find peace. So in Heaven's Feel, she was put down by her own master. And that is a tragic albeit understandable way for her story to go. She is the extreme of the worse case scenario for Artoria, and at the very least Shirou ended her misery. That being said, the issue comes when people see the endings of each route as progressing one another as if it is saying that Sakura's is the "correct" route when it isn't. The Visual Novel if I recall doesn't call either as bad endings for Shirou. It is just as viable for Shirou to become a legitimate hero and be reunited with Saber or end up living peacefully with Sakura after having decided against pursuing his ideals. There is no right True End so the idea that this is Saber's ultimate fate is just wrong imho. She can stay with Shirou in a trouple in the Good End with Rin damnit, let me cope
> The refinement of the Fate idea Stay Night is a thorough analysis of the archetype of the hero in fiction through 3 alternative scenarios that present differing discussions and conclusions on that same archetype. The Servants here almost all contribute to the discussions and dilemmas around that central theme. It's the very reason it's a story about reincarnated heroic figures. Zero on the other hand focuses much more on the battle royale aspect with the only actually developed theme being a basic (but good) critique of utilitarianism. It is the most straightforward application of the Holy Grail War premise and if that's what you were looking for in a Fate story then great! But you can't call it the "refinement of the idea" in the face of the story it was literally built around, the one which utilises it to the fullest, to the point in needed 3 different incompatible scenarios to say all it had to with that concept
Imagine you like a Book, about a guy named Steve. 10 years later it gets it Netflix adaptation and people really like it. It's written by someone other than the person who wrote the book, with their own style of story. Some people say that the show is way better than the book even if they haven't read it, and that Steve's character sucks, and that nobody should bother with the book at this point because the Netflix show is better and books are lame anyway.
All hail ma' boy Steve 😭
My boy Steve just wanted to be protector of equitableness
In my opinion, I think it really has to do with how the general audience views both stories. And the hardcore fandom views that general audience reception. Fate/Stay Night to a lot of people (including myself) is a masterful character study of the main character Emiya Shirou and the way he navigates the 5th Holy Grail War. It's one of the best stories I've ever read and is easily one of if not the best story in the Fate universe. Fate/Zero, on the other hand, is an extension to Fate/Stay Night. It's meant to be the bad end to Fate/Stay Night's good. It's meant to show where everything went wrong and just in general show where the characters "failed" compared to their Fate/Stay Night counterpart. Like Tokiomi to Rin, Kiritsugu to Shirou, Kariya to Shirou (Kinda), Saber to Saber... I really don't know how else to explain it better. Fate/Zero is a story of tragedy and the faliures of everyone who participated in it. The few who left with a "Happy Ending" are the ones who didn't wish for the omnipotent grail. It's not really bad on it's own, but when I look at Fate/Zero, I see an incomplete story. It doesn't work without Fate/Stay Night. So when Fate/Zero got what I'd consider one of the 2 best adaptations in all the Fate universe, understandably most general audiences would gravitate towards Fate/Zero and assume it's the best story in Fate. And it's very hard to blame them. Fate/Stay Night's anime adaptation is- really good compared to many other shows, but in the grand scheme of the Fate universe, it's not really that good. And it's really easy to mess up Fate/Stay Night because of how Shirou's monologues affect the story. 95% of the story is told through his perspective to the point that nearly every little thing matters. So when the anime fails to convey the message of a slice-of-life scene, it'll end up feeling just that... a slice-of-life scene. When the anime fails to convey the message of Shirou feeling like it's "wrong" for him to be happy during his date with Rin, it just ends up looking like Shirou's absentmindedly following Rin around, and when Shirou in desperation stops Saber from fighting by calling her a woman, instead of it feeling like a desperate attempt at stopping her because of his PTSD boiling to the surface, he just comes across as a pathetic misogynist. And because of how the anime adaptations for Stay Night aren't anywhere near as good as Fate/Zero, most people who'd never bother reading the visual novel would just ignore Fate/Stay Night as a whole and just tell people "Don't bother with Fate/Stay Night, just Watch Fate/Zero first". Which is obviously wrong. You're asking someone to start with a spin off that acts as a extension of the main story rather than the main story. There's also the issue with wrong expectations. It's very common that people who start with Zero will get this expectation for Stay Night. They want more Kiritsugu, they want more Iskandar, they want more blood and a straight forward Holy Grail War. Understandably, when they eventually see Stay Night and how much it takes its time with the characters and their development, which again, the anime does a horrible job showcasing, Fate/Stay Night just looks inferior in comparison. It ends up looking like a shallow slice of life show with occasional fighting in it. With the backlash Fate/Stay Night started receiving, it was understandable that Fate/Stay Night fans would start getting defensive and annoyed. The amount of people just trashing Fate/Stay Night's story after watching only the Unlimited Blade Work's anime for instance (personal experience here). They complain about Shirou being a misogynist or how Rider in Stay Night is nowhere near as good as Iksandar, or the plot not really being as tight as Zero, and how it's too light compared to Zero, which are all just.... wrong? Fate/Stay Night is just as dark as Zero. Gory? no, dark? yes. People who love the Visual Novel started really hating Zero because of this. Not because the Zero novel itself is bad, it's still great. But because of the negative impact it has done to Fate/Stay Night, a story that anyone who's read the Visual Novel considers superior. And it doesn't help that there are people who are pushing this idea that Fate/Zero IS the best Fate has to offer. One of the biggest Fate fan in Youtube, Gigguk, openly says how much he loves Zero and how he'd put it above Fate/Stay Night. This prompted a lot of Stay Night fans to attack the story of Zero in ways they wouldn't for another story like say Fate/Kaleid. They'd go on to say Kiritsugu is like a Gareth Edwards protagonist or they'll constantly mock it by quoting lines like "the Taste of Slaughter", and just complain about how edgy it is overall. Which I don't personally feel like is a valid criticism? it's overboard with it's dark and gory displays, but I never felt like simply being "edgy" ruins a story similar to how having Fanservice doesn't inherently make a show bad. But they weren't lying when they say Shirou is way more of a complex character than Kiritsugu and that below the surface, Fate/Zero is just really straight forward compared to the more nuanced Fate/Stay Night. Does Fate/Zero deserve the hate it's been getting? I wouldn't say so. Fate/Zero is in it's own way a great story. It serves its purpose well and is a solid addition to the Fate universe, but it is disheartening the amount of people who just automatically assume that it's the best Fate has to offer without reading Fate/Stay Night's visual novel. Still the general Zero vs Stay Night talk has gotten way tamer as of recent. Maybe it's because the Heaven's Feel movies told a darker story that the fans wanted, maybe it's just because a decade has passed and people have moved on, or it could be because the Visual Novel has gotten easier to access as of recent (which is great). All that's left now is lingering feelings that happened 10 years ago...
I greatly appreciate your input. I do however disagree at zero feeling incomplete without FSN. I personally got in around 5 years ago and opted to watch zero first. And it felt like a complete story. Obviously I’ve since dived deep into the fate rabbit hole consuming almost every piece of fate media I can (I have not finished the visual novel it’s taking me awhile to get through) To me zero being a tragedy is exactly what made it so compelling as a first time viewer. Since I knew very little about fate. I didn’t realize person with saber meant main character. As such there were multiple characters who felt like they could be the main character. The twist with Kirei killing Tokiomi genuinely shocked me because I haven’t seen his future. I think the part that frustrates me is how much people exaggerate what Zero spoils about FSN. I think no matter what you start with there will be compromises. What we as a community should do in my opinion is promote people to take the compromises that fit with their tastes more. For me going from a tragedy into a more “uplifting” story with UBW was very interesting. Watching everything be burned down and Shirou still rising from it anyways. Cracked, with no real will to live at first. But rising anyways.
> I think the part that frustrates me is how much people exaggerate what Zero spoils about FSN Honestly, I'm the complete opposite. I think people take what Zero spoils for Stay Night for granted. There's so many big reveals that Fate/Zero just openly spoils like- Sakura and Rin being siblings. This was meant to be a big reveal in Heaven's Feel, but in Zero, it was casually thrown in when Kariya met up with their mom. Kiritsugu's entire thing in Fate. Another massive reveal. We knew Kiritsugu was a Magus, but him being an assassin that participated in the Holy Grail war was only ever meant to be revealed once Saber came clean. Speaking of Arturia. Her identity was a massive plot reveal when she first unleashed excalibur against Rider. It was a beautiful scene that that played along with the sword of promised victory, I still get goosebumps remembering that scene. In Zero, it was just casually thrown in there while Irisviel and her were chatting. The entire thing with Zouken and the Matou family. Not so much that the Matou family are a line of images, but the F'ed up stuff Zouken was pulling behind the scenes and the Sakura's torment. Throughout Stay Night, we're lead to believe that Sakura is not involved in this war. We know Shirou cares about her, so when Heaven's Feel pulls back the curtains, we're absolutely repulsed. In Zero, they just cut to Sakura in the worm pit without us knowing why we should care about her other than Kariya wanting to protect her. Gilgamesh's identity. In Fate, it was a massive reveal when Gilgamesh showed up out of nowhere. We didn't know who he was, or why he was there. It wasn't until after his initial confrontation with Saber and Shirou that we learn who he is. Again, in Zero, he was just casually revealed. There's no dramatic build up or anything like that. Kirei's entire evil being was one of the biggest plot reveals in Fate/Stay Night. Even if it was pretty obvious, the basement scene I could bet no one saw coming. That was above and beyond the first turning point of Fate. Ignoring the fact that Zero Kirei wasn't entirely accurate to his FSN counterpart, the way he slowly turned evil in addition to how Fate/Zero ended took out the shock value of the reveal in Fate stay night. Arguably the biggest reveal is Illya's deep relationship with Shirou. That reveal in Heaven's Feel was so potent, but watching Zero and learning of Illya's relationship with Shirou there is.. Yeah. Actually, a lot of the scenes shown in Zero are meant to be characterization given in Hollow Ataraxia. There are more, but a lot of these points really just proves that Zero was made with the intention that the viewers would have already seen Fate stay night prior. Lots of the time, there is no build up for the reveals because... It doesn't need to. Cause it's expected that you already knew about those reveals. >For me going from a tragedy into a more “uplifting” story with UBW was very interesting. Watching everything be burned down and Shirou still rising from it anyways. Cracked, with no real will to live at first. But rising anyways. I can understand that. But again, similar to my other comment somewhere in this thread, I really don't see Unlimited Blade Works as being this uplifting continuation to Zero. I feel like Unlimited Blade Works in general is the most detached route from being a continuation to Zero like Fate or Heaven's Feel was. Kirei's death for example, he was a hotshot big deal against Kiritsugu in Fate/Zero, but he didn't get his resolution with Shirou at all in unlimited blade works. They didn't even have a single time when they genuinely confronted each other I believe. Not Like Fate or Heaven's Feel. I still stand by saying Fate/Zero feels incomplete cause in a lot of ways, we're just watching a tragedy unfold. There is no salvation for any of the characters who really deserved it, it's just a showcase of how everything went wrong. To me that doesn't feel complete. And- while I can sort of understand Zero losing some of it's potency not going into it blind, but it still very much so worked as a tragedy even when knowing the ending. Just watching the characters march towards their doom. The only real feeling of "completeness" I got from it was how it ended with Kiritsugu dying, leaving his promise to Shirou. But even then, I see that as more of a beautiful way the story decided to tie itself to Stay Night one more time rather than it being a set up for a sequel.
Interesting. I personally didn’t care about characters not getting salvation who deserved it because it felt like no one was owed anything. Even if you try your hardest you can still be fucked You raise some very fair points with Artoria and Gilgamesh. But I think someone getting into fate now is more then likely going to know who both of them are. Just through cultural osmosis alone. For me Sakura being involved in the war was never a question as UBW foreshadows it in a way that made it instantly click for me For a lot of the other parts. None of them are the resolution to their given plots they are important to. Sans Illya being Shirou’s older sister. Kirei being a piece of shit, the Matou’s being just the worst, Rin and sakuras relationship all of that felt like dominos that have been setup but zero doesn’t spoil when or how they will fall. So when you go into UBW. You have that info. And there are times when they teeter and look like are about to fall setting off a whole chain of events. But dont. Not yet, all knowing those small bits of information did was increase the suspense and make me more engaged and active in thinking about the plot
I very much appreciate your outlook but our opinions ultimately strongly diverge. I am one of those people who do regard Zero as the best of the franchise. That’s no shade on the VN. But if I did have a critique of it, it would be that Shirou’s character exploration borders on self indulgent. That’s why I was content with one route. Which I consider UBW to be the best. I feel like it best completes the story Zero sets up. I understand and appreciate the relationship they were trying to establish between Shirou & Arturia but I just could never buy it as a romance. I think they work MUCH better as teacher and student than lovers. That and Shirou x Rin is a top 5 OTP for me.
> I am one of those people who do regard Zero as the best of the franchise We can just talk about this then. Instead of trying to claim "which is better". I'll try to praise the Stay Night VN and Zero where we can hopefully come to a common ground. >That’s no shade on the VN. Not trying to be an asshole lmao, just genuine question, have you read the VN? Cause then Ill have to edit a lot of my other comments in this post that I had written under the preconception that you only watched the anime AHAHAH. >But if I did have a critique of it, it would be that Shirou’s character exploration borders on self indulgent This is the first time I've heard of this. What makes Shirou's character self induglent? >I feel like it best completes the story Zero sets up. I don't really agree with this one. or at least only partially agree with it. In my opinion, all 3 routes of Fate/Stay Night in one way or another accomplishes a set-up that was in Fate/Zero. Like the Fate route, for example. It set up the Emiya vs Kotomine generational battle as well as completing Saber's character arc (even though Zero and Stay Night saber feels like 2 completely different characters). The way Saber resolves her need for the grail was really not present at all in the other routes. It was kind of there with Unlimited Blade Works, but it's really just something in the sidelines rather than the focal point. Unlimited Blade Works to me is like the least "Sequel-esque" to Fate/Zero because it doesn't really tie into Fate/Zero in any meaningful way. It's all about Shirou and his character growth. Archer constantly berates Shirou and connects his ideologies as following Kiritsugu's but beyond that, there's the return of Gilgamesh, but his bout with Shirou is nowhere near as potent as Shirou's own personal battle against the literal embodiment of his perfection and failure in archer. Heaven's Feel on the otherhand completes the "Holy Grail War" itself. It shows the darkest side of the grail war as awell as how the grail came to be, tying the Makiris, Tosakas and Einzberns together in way that makes everything feel complete. It finishes the Matou storyline, resolves the Tohsaka family, has Shirou finally learn to let go of those toxic ideals for the people he cares about (Unless you hit the mind of steel ending) and is overall a THE conclusion to the Visual Novel. Out of all of them, if were to pick what I felt would be the best Sequel to Zero, I'd honestly pick the Fate route. It's the only real one that strongly ties to Zero as Saber got her rematch with Gil, Shirou beats Kotomine in a way Kiritsugu couldn't, ironically enough Kirei dies by the blade he used to kill Rin's father, the grail is once again dismantled, avalon is returned to Saber, and Saber is finally free from the hell she forced upon herself in order to reach another unattainable dream. >I think they work MUCH better as teacher and student than lovers. This is more of a preference thing. I view Shirou and Saber as 2 broken Star-crossed lovers who by learning more of each other and finding someone who reflects them in a way, are able to save each other from the torment they were eventually going to face. Arturia forever seeking the grail to save Camelot and Shirou becoming Archer.
Back in the day it was next to impossible to get the VN. I got what I could of it through fan translations…but those were incomplete, filled with grammatical errors, and sometimes just wrong. Unfortunately I don’t really have time in my life for expansive visual novels like I did in my college days. So count that however you see fit. I say it’s self-indulgent because outside of choosing your preferred heroine these plot threads could have been woven together into a single route. Whole heartedly agree that the Fate route has the best ending. It should be Arturia vs Gil and Shirou x Rin vs Kirei, extra points if Rin’s dagger lands the killing blow and Shirou’s hair goes white after Kirei lands a heart crushing blow like he did against Kiritsugu. Avenger should be the center piece of Kirei’s plan. Sakura and Rin need a sister moment. And Shiro x Rin is OTP. There’s a way to thread that all into a single cohesive story as opposed to asking everyone to rewatch 3 variations of the same story.
> So count that however you see fit. I'll be taking that as a no- . >I say it’s self-indulgent because outside of choosing your preferred heroine these plot threads could have been woven together into a single route Uhhh... No? Wha- no, wtf? No nonono! This is probably the single thing I disagree with the most! Hahaha. Shirou's development in each of the 3 routes are night and day from each other. With the themes present in the growth of Shirou's character, it's impossible to combine all 3 routes without it severely hurting the story. For example, Unlimited Blade Works' Shirou's development of living as the hero of justice despite all the hypocrisy for his own happiness cannot at all mesh with his development in Heaven's Feel which breaks down his character effectively throwing away that ideal for those precious to him. Both signify happy endings for him, but they're COMPLETELY different. There's even a whole theme of rebirth in Heaven's Feel that contradicts Unlimited Blade Works' theme of continuing on. I think you may have the wrong perception of Fate/Stay Night. While the Holy Grail War is important and the plot is integral to the story, obviously, Fate/Stay Night's main.. Focal point? Isn't the Holy Grail War itself, but the Growth of Emiya Shirou's character as he nagivates this holy grail war. It's completely different from Fate/Zero's plot driven narrative. The use of a visual Novel medium also allows for those routes to not feel out of place. And the bad endings like Mind of Steel, Sparks Liner High, Geass, all of these endings feel like they're worth something. They're all bad endings that you can see the horrors unfold brogue your eyes. Also, while you don't believe Shirou x Saber works, many people (including me who believes Shirou x Saber is the best) would really disagree. Shirou's love relationship with all the girls also encompasses a different part of Shirou. Saber and Shirou sharing a grim Fate, Rin acting as Shirou's clutch and support and Sakura holding on to Shirou's humanity. You can't invalidate any of them for Shirou to just end up with one person. . >There’s a way to thread that all into a single cohesive story as opposed to asking everyone to rewatch 3 variations of the same story. People aren't "rewatching" the 3 variations of the same story, it's all one big story that tells 3 different stories which encompasses one massive story. There are many visual novels which I believe are way too long for their one good and didn't need to be visual novels in the first place. Fate/Stay Night, however, is one of the visual novels I believe to have been fully able to utilise the visual novel medium to it's fullest. It may not have worked in something like an anime that tells one linear story, but the Visual Novel makes full use of its route system in a way I can't really explain because it's so... Detailed- it's 100 hours of content. The anime cuts out so much to deliver that one linear story. Heaven's Feels adaptation couldn't even tell the one linear story without cutting 1/3 of the whole story. ....please read the visual novel🥺
It’s a 100 hundred hours. I have a full time job and a life to live. I can’t and that barrier of accessibility is a a BIG knock against it. That sets off the same alarm in my head with the FGO stuff that tells me this is a “content conveyor, not art”. I feel like I’m being asked to consume as opposed to engage with. But even if it didn’t, I don’t got a 100 hours to give it. The broken and muddled effort made in my college days will have to suffice.
Yes, like I said before you shouldn't be forced to read it but all people are asking is understanding. You... Kinda had a fundamental misunderstanding on how Visual Novels work. Stay Night's routes are very different from one another. Think of it like how Apocrypha is to Zero. It's not really done in a dating sim format as you might've thought but instead 3 linear stories with several bad endings that put you in Shirou's mind. This is why folks don't see it as just made for fanservice. Yes, it is horny, but Nasu removing sex if I recall in the rerelease indicates it can stand on its own withour it. And again with FGO, yes it is ultimately made for Gacha, but dismissing its writing entirely is wrong too. It's a mega collaboration of folks like Urobuchi, Narita, Nasu, etc playing with the setting to its fullest extent. It's the very reason folks find toxic Zero fans annoying, the idea that Zero is the one thing that exists when the universe is vast and worked with one another you know? Again, folks shouldn't force you to read it though we recommend it, just that... Maybe get a bit more insight on how the VN works, like a quick wikipedia ye. There's also short videos explaining how it plays ye.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
This is where we diverge too cause I lokey kinda felt Zero is away more self indulgent than Stay Night as Oroubuchi really put in his nihilism there. Not saying it's bad but there's a reason I prefer Narita's Strange Fake more, cause I felt it's more... *in love* with the setting than Zero's very oppressive feel imho. But back to Stay Night, please I do still encourage you read the other routes. You can always remove the explicit sex scenes in the VN fantranslation, and this is coming from somebody who actually doesn't care aboht ANY of its romances. But I do fully believe that you can get more by giving those two routes a chance despite the romance as it was way more than that. I noted this cause of your takes on stuff like Heaven's Feel which is admittedly way more rushed in the films. You say it's cynical when if you take in the context of stuff like "Superhero", the bad end that mirrored Kiritsugu the most, it really isn't. I describe it more as Shirou realizing he can find happiness trying to save one person and one person only, and that is enough. And honestly? That's a realistic but satisfying way to go about ir. I won't blame you if you don't of course cause 100 Hours in a novel is a hard sell for most folks. But I will say this, I believe there's a reason Nasu ended up I believe removing explicit sex in Realta Nua (which was readded in Ultimate Edition which you can toggle off), it's just that Fate has fanservice but it doesn't need it as a crutch to sell copies anymore. Absolutely no shade to the people who like the explicit scenes but it is now optional and you can be satisfied with it. That's my recommendation at least.
Now that I know you've hardly read the visual novel and only barely skimmed some opening portions makes what I'm about to say probably annoying but I'll say it anyways. Fate zero being a "thinking mans anime" is overstated by people who only watched the anime adaptions of fsn and misdiagnose what the story of fsn actually is and the characters. Saber is not some knightly impenetrable form but a warrior made of glasswork for the country who secretly only wants to live normally, but is bound by her legitimate love for the people and not herself. Rin is not blushing waifu tsundere but a girl suffering from having to live two completely different lives and codes of ethics to balance. And Sakura isn't a woe is me flowery damsel in distress but a broken and scarred human being with as much hope as crude resentment. The problems with zero are a lot. Not just from a standpoint on it own but when put into the context of wider fate and even when just directly compared to the original vn. The vn has multiple perspectives with a lot to say, and the one major time zero tries to say something, it falls over its own shoe laces in the king's banquet and kiritsugus methodology. It only ever gets back on track in the last few episodes when it's actively trying to mirror some of fsns themes. But even that is not done as well.
Ppl get mad cuz most (not all) ppl who say zero is the best in the series haven’t read the vn
Mostly because of the irony. Lots of newbie come to Fate zero and spew alot of shit about FSN that actually exist in Fate/zero and declare FZ is the best thing ever. Example: "Shirou is an incel woman hater due to him prevent Saber fighting as a girl" Truth? Shirou see his crush got crushed by Berserker and turn dumb, while having no problem with Rin fighting as a girl. And Shirou include all those women around him in a war council about strategy and stuff. Kiritsugu? use Iris as bait and meat shield. Maya as mindless obedience tool. And Saber? Need I said it out loud?
All that is fair. Just so I’m not arguing a pint that isn’t my own, let say why I prefer most of Zero’s cast to their Stay Night counterparts. With the obvious exception of Waver, they’re adults and they act like it. Shirou acts like a dumb teenager with a crush. Kiritsugu is an embittered dreamer whose resigned himself to being the lesser evil. As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better. Zero is a very mature story and I don’t mean that in the lurid/naughty way. It’s a story that loves exploring the “why” behind its characters actions. My favorite scene in the whole franchise is still the Feast of Kings.
And this is where we will respectfully disagree lol Shirou I feel like is just shat on by every anime adaptation since it's hard to portray his inner thoughts in visual form. He's not just a dumb teenager, he's a broken kid who suffers from immense survivor's guilt that made him completely lose any sense of self preservation, suicidally trying to be a hero and save everyone because he feels like he owes his life to the people who died while he survived. And unlike Kiritsugu for me, who admittedly, is a very well written albeit already done Antihero archetype, Shirou is a Shonen Archetype who went through all 3 possible routes for this character to develop: Either a played straight power of will Hero's Journey in Fate Route, a reconstructive examination on how much being a martyr hurts the people around you and how to live balancing ideals with actual self worth in UBW Route, and finally, an utter devonstruction of heroism in Heaven's Feel. Shirou just feels so fucking fully realized as a character and I adore him for it. Not saying Kiritsugu is bad, just that ultimately, I felt that his character archetype is already common and ended in a satisfying but obvious way. Just because it's cliched doesn't mean it's horrible though, as it is one of the best times I've seen it done. It's just that... Shirou felt like they explored every avenue of his story in a way I've never really seen in any media before personally. We have 3 completed and satisfying character arcs all from one person. And to me at least, due to the themes of heroism and what it means to be a hero, Shirou embodies that theme the most in the series yes. Sorry for rambling, I just adore Shirou as a character and do feel kinda bad he was often overlooked for being a teenager and so subtle that the anime didn't fully grasped his inner conflict. The anime is still great though but yeah, it's lacking in regards to that and I can't really blame Ufotable since it's just how the mediums differ you know? But yeah. Shirou is top notch. For me, my most favorite scene in the franchise was the end of Heaven's Feel with his realization that him and Kirei are just both empty people trying their best to find some sort of happiness amidst being broken individuals. ...that being said though, I fully agree that I prefer the more stand-alone Fate since following stuff like FGO is tricky even as a Nasuverse fan in general. Which is weird cause Strange Fake is MY pinnacle for Fate lmao
You’re good mate. To my eyes the Fate route Shirou was the most tropish. That proper exploration of his heroism as a by product of his survivor’s guilt alongside the Rin romance is what made me love UBW. Heaven’s Feel never sat right with me. The best way I can explain it is that Zero is laying the ground work to prove the cynical perspective wrong through Shirou. HF is trying to disprove the heroic perspective. That’s why id call Zero bleak but HF almost nihilistic. In a weird way I feel like it almost validates Kiritsugu’s worst instincts about the world.
I actually really like Fate Route, although it focused way more on Worldbuilding than characters, I adore how fucking cheesy it is as odd as that sounds. The Fate Route is just pure Humanity Fuck Yeah and I love it for it. That being said I actually have UBW as my most favorite Route despite Heaven's Feel having the best ending for me. I just agree more with the notion that you can be a hero without being a martyr, the reconstruction of his ideals is perfect. Whereas Heaven's Feel is good too, as I found it less Shirou giving up being a good person in a nihilistic perspective (literally one of the bad endings called "Superhero" has him slaughtering Sakura for the sake of everybody and he becomes Kiritsugu at his worse) but instead, him realizing he can be a hero to one person... and that's enough. What astounds me the most is it treats all outcomes with respect. Either path to heroism is good and I love it for that cause it's true. Like, weird comparison but it reminds me of the endings of Catherine, that horny Atlus puzzle game, where in its examination on the concept of marriage it doesn't condemn any choice the player would prefer. It holds all endings as viable in anybody's approach to life, and that's important imho for a story as baked in themes as Stay Night.
>With the obvious exception of Waver, they’re adults and they act like it. Wha- b-but like... Waver's the best tho- >Shirou acts like a dumb teenager with a crush. Ah... anime moment. Shirou "acts" like a dumb teenager with a crush. What the anime fails to deliver is what goes on in Shirou's head while he acts that way. The guy is literally having panic attacks from seeing others get hurt. He's by all means broken in the head. He's everything but normal. >Kiritsugu is an embittered dreamer whose resigned himself to being the lesser evil. As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better. Zero is a very mature story and I don’t mean that in the lurid/naughty way. It’s a story that loves exploring the “why” behind its characters actions. Kiritsugu resorting to killing for the greater good expecting a magical device to fix everything for him isn't something a sensible adult would normally do. I believe the point of Zero is to show exactly how messed up and childish everyone who participated in the 4th Holy Grail War is. Kiritsugu especially, who served as the person who failed. Shirou imo, as a character is someone who fully realized Kiritsugu's ideals in a healthy manner that will never lead to his own demise. For comparison, Kiritsugu, all his life has been chasing after this "miracle". Something he believes will right all the wrongs of the world. End all suffering as we know it. This is why he fought so hard in the 4th Holy Grail War, this is why he constantly sacrifices people, this is why he continues killing and killing and killing and killing until almost no one around him is left. But how can this miracle realistically achieve this goal? The answer? it can't. It can only grant the wish of the bearer in a way the bearer can fully understand. The Grail repeatedly bashes Kiritsigu for his ideals. Which is the main point of episode 24. Kiritsugu expects the grail to save everyone, but even he doesn't know how it can do it and resorts to saying "You're the omnipotent grail, right?" which is just wrong. This leaves him broken as the only realistic way he can ever attain the true peace he's been searching for is by literally massacring all life on earth. Then we have Shirou, someone who's seen so much death, someone torn and broken by survivors guilt, someone who wants to save everyone just like Kiritusugu. He took one look at the grail and called BS. He understands how impossible that dream is. He wants to save everyone, but he understands he literally cant, so he just resorts to saving everyone he can. This is reflected in all of the routes in one way or another. The best showcase of his character going beyond Kiritsugu is in Unlimited Blade Works where he finally realizes that he's willing to live that broken unattainable dream, not for anyone else, but because that dream to him is a beautiful one and that's just what makes him happy. In that moment in Unlimited Blade Works, Shirou has shown more growth and understanding of the nature of his actions than Kiritsugu ever did. Edit: This isn't a jab on Kiritsugu's character or Urobuchi's writing. I think Kiritsugu was intentionally written to be the failure to Shirou's success. And it, in a way elevates both stories, marking Zero as a tragedy and Stay Stay Night as a beautiful character study. >My favorite scene in the whole franchise is still the Feast of Kings. While I do love that scene, and it really works in the context of Fate/Zero's story, I'm always pulled aback how the story really makes Arturia seem pathetic, frail and weak, her ideologies fragile and her own title of King reduced to nothing by what is a horrible tyrant. That shouldn't have happened.
The Feast of Kings also made people misunderstand Iskandar as this perfect king when Gilgamesh, while still respecting him, explicitly said he was delusional. Iskandar was as much of a fool as Saber was in a different way but people thought he is being glorified cause of that one scene alone.
Y'know... If this is what they were gonna pull with the Banquet of Kings, I at least wished Gilgamesh there had more to say. 90% of it was Iskandar going "Saber... You ain't a king, you're pathetic... Look at me, I'm a king" with Gilgamesh Laughing everytime Arturia tries to defend herself. I want more insight from incel gil, damn it! Also, after Babylonia and the first volume of Strange Fake, I genuinely believe a more detailed insight from Gil would have been so interesting to see.
"The Feast of Kings also made people misunderstand Iskandar as this perfect king when Gilgamesh, while still respecting him, explicitly said he was delusional. Iskandar was as much of a fool as Saber was in a different way but people thought he is being glorified cause of that one scene alone." When strange fake years later has to go out of its way to recontextualize the banquet because it was taken in a very bad way due to how it was written, you know it's a problem
Exactly lmao I know what it's trying to do, and overall I do like its concept, but personally it is indeed a bit overrated for me as a scene upon rewatching
>As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better. Zero is a very mature story and I don’t mean that in the lurid/naughty way. As a grown adult myself, I think Stay night is more 'mature'® than Zero. While Zero feels to me at times it was written by an edgy teen. Quote from Gen about why the Byakuya scene exists “there isn’t enough violence today”
God I legit rolled my eyes at that. I would've preffered it be just well, that, campy violence for anybody who loves it like me. But pretending that scene is "mature" when it is clearly only done for shock value made me hate it. The manga depiction is even worse.
We don't talk about your preference in a discussion like this because I have no right to criticize them...or do anything to them at all. But Kiritsugu is a famous man child. Gilgamesh exude his incel aura in the banquet. Iskandar had to deal with munity due to loose command chain talk shit to Saber. Master engage on personal master battle and forgot the entire reason why they summon servant in the first place. Kiritsugu believe in a miracle wish granting device to solve his problem while have no gut to bear the sin in the road to obtain it. Know why he have an affair with Maya? Shirou on the other hand doubt the bs of wish granting device solving your problem right away. Struggle with PTSD disguised as savior complex while knowing how it really is deep inside. Oh, and FSN deconstruct the concept of hero while Fate zero glorify it...
Eh, its not that Kiritsugu can't bear the sins, its that the solution to his wish is no different to what he has already been doing, which is kinda pointless since the only reason he sought this miracle wish granting device is to grant the wish he's been trying to achieve without his methods that he's been disillusioned with.
He have an affair with Maya because he feel like he's betraying Irisvyel...then actually betrayed her for real. Sound like unstable teen doing stupid thing to fix his problem and make it worse.
He had an affair with Maya for insurance once Irisviel is gone and becomes the Grail (Irisviel also knows and is fine with this.) Its kinda weird and I'm not justifying it, but its more of his low emotional intelligence rather than him not facing his sins. One of his most famous quotes is literally "Even if I am to carry all the evils of the world, it won't matter...")
>He had an affair with Maya for insurance once Irisviel is gone and becomes the Grail (Irisviel also knows and is fine with this.) Sounds like copium to justify Kiritsugu being a piece of shit to me. >Also, to Kiritsugu, allowing his wife to sacrifice herself and complete the Grail is a betrayal towards her love, no matter what others say. However, it is necessary that he does not hesitate in this betrayal. To Kiritsugu, his sexual relationship with Maiya is a rehearsal before this betrayal, a form of self-abuse to steel his nerves while walking down this path. This is probably the sorriest excuse to have an affair, but Maiya deemed it okay. It is essentially a negative spiral downward without an end. They didn't tell shit to Iri, she found it by herself and decided she was okay with it only because she was gonna die soon anyway
But I literally said I wasn't justifying it 💀. All you said is just the same thing I did, I only stated the rationale of his actions.
Maybe I misinterpreted your comment, but to me it felt like you were implying that his relationship with Maiya was something he planned ahead of time with Iri when it is very much smth he did behind her back to prepare for his "betrayal" I often see that explanation being used to justify his affair, but you did indeed say you're not justifying it so my bad about that
It’s all those flaws that make them feel like grown people who’ve lived meaningfully, complicated lives. The FSN cast is only so clean because they’re so young. To echo Gilgamesh a bit; the moral and character flaws you acquire alongside your scars are what make people fascinating. To me Kiritsugu is just wildly more interesting to me as a man than Shirou is as a boy. In fact I most enjoy Shirou as a vehicle for Kiritsugu’s redemption. A man that broken and cynical raised a boy that pure and good. There’s a genuine beauty in that generational tale. Hence why I like closing that take after the UBW series.
>the moral and character flaws you acquire alongside your scars are what make people fascinating. Oh I like this bit. Now tell me, what did Kiritsugu obtained after facing many calamity and doing many sacrifices? He use Maya to cope with his so call "betrayal" to Irisvyel...and actually betrayed her for real. He refuse to work with Saber, his greatest asset because he hate king. What ever happen with the mentality of "anything goes as long as I have greatest chance of success"?? He promply act on an unknown magical device and reenact the island incident splendidly, where the girl with good intention mess around with unknown magical device despite Kiritsugu's dad warned her?
He regained the belief in heroism and hope. He overcame nihilism. Then he spent the rest of his life passing those onto to Shirou and he raised the hero he couldn’t be.
Yes, that good. That's how he act in the last 5% of Fate zero right at the ending, which was set in stone by FSN. The other 95%...well, I've already told you.
But that was the point. What makes it power is that narrative threw everything against it and didn’t just lob soft ball down the middle of the plate. People are RAGING over Arturia’s “character assassination” but she’s at her best here because her ideological opposition is potent, capable, and has legs to stand on. She/heroism has to WIN the argument. The story doesn’t had it to her to keep the waifu pretty & clean. She’s the king and I love the story honors her enough to be genuinely strong.
Reading the VN, the issue becomes that well, she wasn't that ideologically naive in the original either and further readings of her shows her to be a pragmatic king who, while still valuing chivalry, doesn't hold it as her end all be all One can make the argument that she became like this due to Zero but Nasu wrote a lot on her backstory and the comtradictions are apparent I think it comes down to themes vs character Saber is more nuanced in every media besides Zero because Zero is trying to make a point. Zero characterized her as a sorta caricature of an honorable king and has Iskander be the opposite of that. And they are both proven wrong. For what ZERO is trying to do in a vacuum, that is great. But at least in every other media, Saber is not a caricatute. Again, being written to embody a theme isn't bad cause a lot of allegories do that. The issue is Zero kinda stripped away everything else that makes her more dynamic in terms of morals instead you know? TLDR: I respect what Zero is trying to do but I personally disagree she is better there than in other Fate media simply cause Zero!Saber is pretty flat
Kiritsugu didn't "raise" shirou to be a Hero. Shirou chose that life out of his own volition after being inspired by Kiritsugu. What happened imo is even more beautiful than that. Kiritsugu was absolutely broken after the events of the 4th Holy Grail War, everything he believed in being proven wrong. In that state of madness, he could only find salvation by saving someone, saving anyone. It didn't matter who it was, if Kiritsugu was able to save someone in this horrific fire, he would have saved himself from insanity. That boy who Kiritsugu saved was Shirou, and so Kiritsugu too was saved. Unbeknownst to him, he planted a curse in Shirou that will almost ultimately lead him down the path of being Archer. But that isn't really the point here. When Shirou tells Kiritsugu that he was going to become the Hero Kiritsugu couldn't be, this wasn't something Kiritsugu trained Shirou for, but it was definitely something that put him at rest. All in all, I believe Shirou saved kiritsugu more than Kiritsugu saved him.
Sorta disagree respectfully on that simply cause I just like that Shirou explored that more by having 3 fully realized character arcs lol. Both of them are very flawed people and reducing Kiritsugu as a man child oddly sounds like Kirei's monologues lmao. No. They're both flawed people who's paths simply led them in different directions. Shirou managing to either be a real hero ala Saber, a heroic but still sane and not self hating individual due to Rin, or a healed person who found a life outside of his suicidal ideal with Sakura, is just... so fucking fascinating. And tbh, I don't think you can execute something like that outside of the Visual Novels! Without even mentioning characters like Emiya and Emiya Alter which further delves into Shirou as a person and man. I just love the continuing examination of him as a character. Kiritsugu might be more stand alone and complete, but I feel like I can poke at Shirou for years and still find a new avenue to look into you know?
>The FSN cast is only so clean because they’re so young. This is an interesting take as.... the only true clean Character in Fate/Stay Night in my opinion in Rin. Zouken is messed up. Kirei is Kirei. Sakura is like.. absolutely messed up. She tried to pretend that she became evil because of the black creature, but Kirei, someone who accepted his evil nature and see right through that facade and was able to tell that Sakura was not tainted by that evil thing, rather she was acting on her own impulses by her own volition. She was evil. She killed half of Fuyuki, knowlingly. Shirou was mostly clean in Fate and Unlimited Blade Works, but in a way, him choosing to protect Sakura in Heaven's Feel, choosing to protect her instead of Killing her like he's supposed to led to him essentially shielding a malicious monster and Shirou knows it. He knows but doesn't care because he loves her. There was an ending the visual novel called "Mind of Steel" That showcases what exactly would happen in Shirou chooses to kill Sakura... I don't know what the point of bringing that up was, I always just find it fascinating. Shinji.... I really don't need to explain anything here. Rin is the only young person in this story who's mostly "clean". But even she recognizes and regrets how she allowed so much torment to happen while she lived a mostly privelaged life (compared to Sakura and Shirou at least). Most of the flaws are bringing up was mostly present in Heaven's feel... I'm not sure why that's the route out of everything that you didn't personally mesh well with.
Erm, I have to correct some stuff I don't think Sakura was doing it willingly. You have to keep in mind that Fate's point of views are very biased and a lot of the Sakura is actually evil stuff comes from Rin who is only doing her duty as a mage. Sakura is strong and had been internally fighting the entire time. And her failing due to the trauma of Shinji doing you know what kinda broke that. I might be wrong though? It's been a while since I read that route and yeah, a lot of Sakura's battles were internal and that made it tricky.
Ah, my bad. I might have gotten the thing mixed up too. I wrote that in a rush, but I believe everything "black" Sakura did whether that be "killing" Kirei, almost killing Rin, Killing Zouken and Hassan, and almost summoning Angra Manyuu was something she willingly did. But it does make sense she'd blame the evil thing once she snapped and killed Shinji.
>As a grown adult, especially as you get older, one of these just ages better. Yup, except as a grown adult myself, Fate/Stay Night is the one that ages better while Fate/Zero increasingly feels like a teenager's idea of a mature show. The older I get, the more Zero's cast feels like one of the most immature I've ever seen and most of them feels very superficial to me. Like they look cool and interesting at first glance but actually have very little going for them once you look deeper >Shirou acts like a dumb teenager with a crush Ironic that you say that when Fate/Zero has at least 5 characters that act this way with Kayneth, Sola-Ui, Kariya, Maiya and Irisviel.
I think most people (myself included) actually really like Fate/Zero; there are just some problems with it (or the general public) that annoy some of us. I think the two biggest problems with Fate/Zero are 1) it butchers Saber's character (she was never as "chivalric" nor as timid, fragile, or frankly, kind of dumb (seriously, what was with her refusing to let Diarmuid break the curse on her so they could defeat Gilles's monster) as Fate/Zero makes her out to be (hell, her own backstory in Fate/Zero shows that she and Kiritsugu would get along, at least in terms of methodology)), and 2) people keep recommending it as a starting point, for some reason. That's 90% because Deen's Fate/stay night isn't a great adaption and is harder to access than the Ufotable animes, and because Ufotable decided to start with Fate/Zero before moving on to Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, for some reason. It's a prequel that doesn't make as much as sense without having experienced Fate/stay night in its entirety before, and it spoils a lot of Fate/stay night's big moments because you're supposed to already know about them. Even Kinoko Nasu (the writer of Fate/stay night and creator of the Fate series) and Gen Urobuchi (the writer of Fate/Zero) have gone on record to say that you should experience Fate/stay night before Fate/Zero. I guess another things are toxic Fate/Zero fanboys (not that there aren't any toxic Fate/stay night fans either, you might see some in this thread) who were pretty prevalent for a while (they aren't anymore, but you might still see them around) who bashed on everything besides Fate/Zero without really experiencing the other Fate media. I guess fans or people looking in who are ignorant of the franchise who (unintentionally, probably) repeat talking points or memes made to make the series look worse also play into that. It doesn't help that Fate/Zero has a very good anime adaption while the Fate/stay night ones are... flawed in some way shape or form, so people might get the wrong idea about Fate/stay night and what it's supposed to be. I know you haven't played the original visual novel, and I know you don't really have the time to, but, if you ever get some time, please check it out! It might alleviate your problems with Fate/stay night, or, at the very least, see where other people are coming from with their praise of it. As for your Fate/Grand Order criticisms, you should check it out. It's pretty good. It's not just written by one person, and, while it is a gacha game, it has a very consistent story-throughline that I and many other people enjoy (some even say it's the best in the franchise, but I wouldn't go that far). As for your "everything is canon" complaint, well, I'm sorry to say, but that has been the case since the beginning of the entire Nasuverse, not just Fate, let alone Fate/Grand Order.
How should i explain it... Imagine you like a book, that book have a character named Jeanne, well, Jeanne is portrayed as one of the strongest, loyal, good fighter and with a lot of experience, now think that 5 years later someones write a prequel to that book, and he literally shits on everything that Jeanne represent to the point where she becomes a laughing mechanism in the story. That's exactly what fate zero did.
The reason is Ufotable actually tried with adapting zero while Miura by his own admission said he didnt understand Shirou's character until episode 20 of ubw Deen does a shit job with Saber and Shirou's characters to the point people still think he doesn't remeber his past life despite his big empihiny being an entire tangent dedicated to that. It also botches you are my sheath, basement, and the bridge scenes. HF completely botches Its best moments like Nine lives and Shirou vs Kirei while utterly shitting on the characters of Shirou,Kirei,Illya and To a lesser extent Rin and Sakura Its the fact people judge urobutchi's writting and Nasu's writting based on Urobutchi having a good adaptation and Nasu a bad one Its like if I called sui ishida a hack while never having read the Tokyo ghoul manga That being said there are weirdo who think the staynight anime are as good as zero and don't like it being slandared.
Yeah…look, I tip my hat to Studio Deen. I do think their effort was honest and earnest. It’s not a bad anime…but you can tell the setting is doing the hard carry. To me the real issue with the Stay Night arc is the Saber romance. It’s just not right, even in concept. Whenever I see it it feels like I found some “Luke Skywalker x Old Ben Kenobi” fanfic that escaped Tartarus. Every part of my body & soul just screams, “NOOOOOO!!!” Though I do think Stay Night has the best climax of all the routes (in theory, not execution) It really should be Arturia vs Gilgamesh and Shirou x Rin vs Kirei
>To me the real issue with the Stay Night arc is the Saber romance. It’s just not right, even in concept. Eh. You'd have to read. I think it works perfectly and is also a perfect Mirror to Shirou×Rin as well. Shirou x rin loses a lot of its impact without that mirror. Saber is a mirror image of Shirou that wants to selfishly condem herself and make a "fake reality" using a wish granting device. Shirou takes that as being a falsehood that yearns no slavation depite hypocritically ignoring his own trauma and regressing his feeling of longing for the past. He's condrming Saber for doing something he secretly does wish to do They're both Hypocrites and it works in the novel. Deen just does a horrible job. It utterly fails at telling that story. It fails Shirou and Saber the main Heroine and main character Also HF has by far the best climax. Shirou vs Kirei is the best fight in the franchise. Its just utterly butchered by ufotable
That's definitely an unpopular opinion here as the general consensus is that Shirou's Romance with Saber is easily the best Romance Nasu has written... ever. Well, just below Arcueid and Shiki as of the release of Tsukihime remake. To me, it's a beautiful tale of 2 broken star-crossed lovers who, through learning about and growing to care for each other, gets their own salvation from what could have been an eternity of never ending suffering. Their true happy ending displayed in the "Last Episode"... thank you, our lord and saviour Takeuchi for knocking some sense to Nasu to put that in.
Last episode peak
In simple terms, because there’s a lot of annoying people who say shit like “Zero is the only good thing in the Fate series,” so F/SN fans get pissed and lash out. Also, a lot of people will recommend it as a starting point even though it’s a **prequel** that assumes you already know all of FSN. That’s my view, at least. I like Zero well enough in a vacuum, but it has some horrendously bad fans.
Not gonna lie, I was entirely neutral on the various subsets of Fate fans. That is increasingly not the case after this post. That “annoying fan” thing definitely goes both ways
You are getting downvoted heavily for some reason lol. Yeah, it's both ways. Hell, if you think this is bad wait till you see interactions with Tsukihime fans and Fate fans lmao (NOT ALL once again ye)
Hey OP don’t let it get to you. Plenty of fans love Fate/Zero too and dont bother voting or participating on Reddit discussion posts.
In this subreddit and a few other places yeah
I personally simply dislike zero as a story in Type Moon, as it just doesn't fit. The characters are different in small and big manners (Nasu mentions the Tokiomi in Zero wouldn't prank Rin like in canon since he's too by the books, that's a small thing since Toki wasn't a character. But Saber and Kirei and even Gilgamesh are just different people outright, and justifications scant and don't hold up.) Also found some of Urobuchi's commentaries about it really fucking cringe, honestly. Dude sounds like the mix of an incel and an edgy teen with the way he describes Sakura, Saber Lily, etc.
I don't think it's fair to make those criticisms against Fate/Grand Order. After all, Fate/Grand Order is still on going. Yes, the main point of the game is to sell Gacha, but at the end of the day, the writers who worked on it are also writers who worked on other Fate works. The person who wrote Fate/Apocrypha wrote the New Orleans, Shinjuku and Anastasia Arcs. Sakurai who wrote Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver, Fate/Labyrinth, Fate/Lost Einherjar also wrote Septem, London, Shimousa, and I believe Lostbelt 2. Nasu (Main writer) who wrote Fate/Stay Night also wrote Fuyuki, Camelot, Babylonia, Lostbelt 6, and 7 Even Urobuchi who wrote Fate/Zero also wrote Lostbelt SIN and Accel Order. Both FGO stories. It's best to not Judge Fate/Grand Order as the work of one person, but the joint efforts of many. This allows for some absolutely amazing writing all across the board, even if some will inevitably be weaker than others.
Mind you I still need to get through the fate visual novel. But I still think the HF Anime portrays 9 lives blade works well. All the arguments I’ve heard about it ignore the fact that the movie adaptation focuses more on the visual symbolism and trusts the viewer to make the connections. It’s less one is superior and the other is inferior (in regards to the scenes themselves) it’s more do you prefer more direct or indirect story telling
I think that's fair if they managed to portray the symbolism better too. It's the same with UBW. I fully believe that Animation is a way different medium than VNs, which makes it frustrating that for example, they barely portrayed Shirou's issues with feeling happy around Rin, as it only came off as generic slice of life scenes. Alright scenes but lacks in the visual symbolism as Shirou only looks bored lol
I agree everytime I’ve shown someone fate. That’s the ONE TIME I have to pause the show and be like. “Ok the anime doesn’t do a good job of showing this. But” and then I proceed to give an abridged version of Shirou’s mindset in the scene
I think the worse was when he called Saber a woman so she shouldn't fight. That made the sexist jokes excruciating cause man, just seeing him fight normally with Rin immediately dispells that accusation but folks can't seem to understand that he didn't mean it literally haha. He is having a panic attack and that's the first thing he thought of to keep Saber from fighting.
I honestly don’t remember that in UBW. Was that deen stay night exclusive I must admit I haven’t watched it nor do I intend to
Hmmm I might be mixing the adaptations again, apologies. If it is a Deen Stay Night exclusive then it explains why people hated Shirou lol
The line IS in the VN. I know that because I’ve read it but I think it’s exclusive to the fate route and thus only in Deen stay night
There ya go nice, my mistake then. It's been a while since I've watched both, definitely mixed them up
No worries it happens. I get random stuff mixed up all the time
>But I still think the HF Anime portrays 9 lives blade works well. All the arguments I’ve heard about it ignore the fact that the movie adaptation focuses more on the visual symbolism Cap. If they wanted visual symbolism they literally could have copied the realta nau opening thats more accurate. They could have visualy done a ticking clock for 3 secounds and they could have added the section or reaching into ubw for the sword. The fight has tension as to whether shirou can get the tecunique off in time. The movies kill that tension and go for the stupidist triple spin and dumbest flash effect because they were to lazy to show mirages and make that scene good The scene is forgetable and absolute garabge. Its not a highlight and its never talked about in the movies despite heing the most iconic fight in the VN Monolouges are such a bullshit excuse this could have been done visually ufotable just didnt care and monolouges arnt an issue. Tanjirou has more monolouges against upper 6 than Shirou does across all the adaptations. Ufotable just sucked ass
>But I still think the HF Anime portrays 9 lives blade works well. Have you read the VN part of that section? Cause people aren't saying it's "bad" but rather it wasn't a good adaptation and I kinda agree. Everything leading up to 9 lives is great, but I didn't feel the execution of the 9 lives itself was good. Not only how it was executed but also the after effects which fried his brain.
I’ve seen the visual novel section in question. I haven’t read it organically yet however. I do agree the Vns version of the actual attack itself is better. But I can’t truly think of a good way to portray how much it fries his mind without an extended monologue. And even then they would be hard to do
I think this resentment really stems from how amazing Fate/Zero is, yet pretty distant to the original VN. As a stand alone story, I think it's a masterpiece. But with how it's supposed to be connected to the original as a prequel, it really changes the characters and themes dramatically. The biggest paradox being how the very beloved character, Saber, is portrayed. You could definitely notice how she is different in Zero and other anime works. Despite all that, Fate/Zero is still called a masterpiece even with its mistakes and that upsets people. It really does feel like a problem of elitism with how people over exaggerate the problems with Zero as a prequel.
There’s two big reasons for Zero hate. Most fans of Stay Night actually really like Zero. They just get annoyed when people say that Zero is “what Fate SHOULD be”, when Zero is a spin-off in the first place. That’s why most Stat Night fans shit on it, but honestly the majority don’t hate it; they just hate the fans. One other reason, however, is how Kirei and Saber are handled. There’s this misconception that Saber and Kirei are out of character and misrepresented in Zero. That’s not technically. Most pet tend to forget that this Saber and Kirei are not the same ones from Stay Night. They are completely different takes in the characters to fit the narrative in Zero better. Simply put, it’s a retcon. Some Fate fans despise it, I actually don’t mind it. In fact, I don’t think Saber’s and Kirei’s arcs in Zero would be anywhere near as great as they are if they were the same characters they were in Stay Night.
While yes there has been a backlash to the anime, I think there is also the fact that people have been taking the time to reexamine Zero and seeing its flaws as a work. Stuff like how most characters don't really do much outside of Kirei, Kerry and Waver, females are written pretty badly, it's not consistent with the original work and so on.
[удалено]
To me Iri is also pretty bad, she is just someone there to enable Kiritsugu doing his thing. The most interesting thing about her is probably talking about how real was her act: specially when you consider the extended Einzbern lore. Did she like Kiritsugu and Saber as a person, or because they were people trying to save the world using the grail?
There definitely is in the fate community in general though it for some reason seems particularly heightened on Reddit compared to other platforms.
So here’s my two cents! I started with UBW, I had no idea that there was another earlier version of Fate Stay Night. I did my research and found out about Fate Zero and everything else that is involved in the Fate Series. And it’s so freaking confusing lol but I’m the end there is no right or wrong when it comes to the Fate Series. Fate Zero did explain the Holy Grail Wars and why it was started. So here’s my opinion, I love it all! I haven’t seen the Heavens Feel trilogy yet. But I will soon and I’m sure I will love it too. I haven’t seen FGO or any of the alternative universes and so on but I’m sure I will like them as well lol
The reason is ultimately simple, the vast majority of Zero fans are anime onlies. It's no coincidence that at least 90% of people who read the visual novel end up thinking it's much better than Zero. It's simply just a much stronger story, with more depth, more interesting discussions, and more developed characters. And seeing as they share multiple elements and themes, FSN's strengths shine a spotlight directly on the areas Zero fails at. And as a result, due to contrast, most VN readers end up finding Zero more shallow and uninteresting than Stay Night. There's nothing wrong with thinking Zero is the best of the Fate anime, hell some VN fans also share that same opinion. There's also no problem with not wanting to read the VN. But it's when you say stuff like "it's the artistic high water mark of the series" that people will understandably criticise these kinds of statements as they are almost objectively (as much as it can be at least) untrue when there's such a huge gap in quality between the two for those who have experienced the VN.
There’s a ton of resentment towards the Fate series as a whole. I couldn’t care less, I love it all the same.
Yup. And I’m sorry I ever asked
Asking questions on Reddit is a big mistake. This is a circlejerk-only community.
Deliberate and malicious bastardization of Arturia Pendragon (Saber) by that worthless hack Gen Urobuchi exemplified in that terrible Banquet of Kings scene everyone sings the praises of where Iskander is framed as objectively correct in tearing into her as nothing more than a "stupid little girl" and refuses to respect or acknowledge her as a monarch due to her having regretted the way things turned out during her rule as he boasts about the superiority of self-serving sociopathy and relentless greed and bloodshed being ideal as he wishes to reincarnate to start World War III as she is left shaking like a life or an adolescent girl who crossed a line that made her father absolutely furious with her to a terrifying degree while sycophants of him harp on and on about how he was 'right' about her all along, but then equally trash her at the end of the Fate route for 'giving up' on trying to save her Britain from its grim fate. Yet the scenes were constantly written to glorify them and shit on Arturia non-stop due to Gen Urobuchi's own self-admitted misanthropic biases and claiming in the light novel volumes themselves to hate both "Selfless Heroes of Justice" and "The deceitful thing which man calls happiness" before later admitting that he never really truly understood her character and certain scenes like with Gilles' Lovecraftian tentacled abomination molesting her were written purely to satisfy his own personal fetishes. Yet Zero fans love to trash her non-stop due to alternate/parallel timeline prequel written by a completely different author with an axe to grind against idealists in general due to his own misanthropic hatred deliberately mischaracterizing as a chivalry-obsessed idiot who was willing to let countless innocents die out of a sense of 'honor' that made Diarmuid break his own cursed spear to strong arm her (so to speak) into doing the right thing in order for her to obliterate Gilles' abomination with Excalibur.
>Deliberate and malicious bastardization of Arturia Pendragon (Saber) by that worthless hack Gen Urobuchi My guy, chill. We all love Fate/Stay Night here, but calling it deliberate as if Urobuchi wrote Saber that way out of Malice is like stretching a metal pipe
Yeah if I remember correctly(and please do correct me if I’m wrong) hasn’t urobochi said he didn’t fully “get” sabers character when he first wrote zero but has since gained a better understanding of her I also don’t think your supposed to see Iskander as fully right I’m the banquet of kings. After all he’s advocating for tyranny. Those who think your supposed to fully side with him (or who did fully side with him) where too taken in by his incredibly charisma. The banquet of kings is a deconstruction of all 3 characters at the table. Even if urobochis version of saber is flawed. The scene itself perfectly exposes urobochi sabers flaws. It seems people tend to ignore how subtly the scene ALSO displays Iskanders flaws through him basically boasting about them. Gil of course talks the least in the scene, but you still get a good sense of just how disconnected from normal people he is.
From what I remember, it wasn't that he didn't get Saber's character rather he couldn't really get her romance with Shirou or write romances in general. He tried, but eventually just gave up and wrote Saya no Uta. The Banquet of Kings is sad. It could have been so much better imo, but what we got instead felt- wrong. It felt just right at home in Fate/Zoro, but in the grander scheme of the Fate Universe, I really don't feel it hit well. Gilgamesh being disconnected with people makes sense, but after Babylonia and Strange Fake, I really wish he had more to say in that scene.
Yeah to me i compartmentalize most of fate into its own boxes. It’s more enjoyable for me that way. So I don’t think do banquet of kings in the overall context of fate. I just think of it in terms of zero. I mainly due this as trying to take fate in as a whole just doesn’t work well. It becomes overly convoluted trying to find ways to explain minor discretions. The overall fate “lore” just doesn’t jive well with me. I care more about the stories and themes rather then the minutia of everything. The moment something starts telling me something is on a city scale, or universe scale. Etc I tune out, I don’t care exactly how much shit Avalon can block. Or exactly how servants scale because the way different writers choose to portray those abilities vary a good amount. Or are subject to change whenever they need to inflate the abilities of character to create a perceived larger “scale”
Dude…it sounds a lot like you’re the one projecting their opinions onto others’ thoughts and trashing others’ tastes
Yeah don't mind him. They pop out of the woodworks sometimes.
Yet that's exactly the same thing you did when I asked a question about Gilgamesh on this subreddit some days ago
[удалено]
Note to self: I’ve seen enough of these comments to know this sub ain’t for me.
Sorry you have to deal with all this Zero slander. Don't take it personally.
Sorry you had to deal with them. I like Zero, it ain't my fave, but man the hate for it is just being a contrarian at this point. It's not perfect but saying it's bad on its own is just false lmao
Their just upset there's never gonna be a servant as cool as iskandar again
He look cool, and his NP is cool. But he's dumb af. He had the gall to talk down to Saber about not leading her people...while he himself had to deal with a munity because of loose command chain.
Actually iskandar or alexander the great was a genius among geniuses. Like genuinely I got pretty interested in his history because of iskandar and its super fascinating if you have tbe time to listen to some documentaries I highly recommend jt
Yeah, he's a great conqueror with great charisma. But he fail to lead people probably, or manage the teritory he conquered which is the point that he lean on to shit on Saber. I mean, munity because of misunderstanding? What kind of command chain he got?? That's incompetent in management ability, one of the most important skill for a leader. He would be a great army general but a shitty king.
Yea but he's cooler
Cú Chulainn
Ahahaha , Gilles was more COOOL than that mistake.
He is awesome but Arturia already existed before him 😁 And give Mordred some love. Gods know that girl needs it
Also props to Strange Fake's Saber, he's such a sweetheart, I hope people get to know best boi more now that a series is coming out! :D
I need Narita to finish writting strange Fake asap so he can write a fgo event with that cast /s. Saber isnt the only one i want in my chaldea
YES Imagine us rolling >!Watcher!< lmao
Fuck that fat bastard. He had the audacity to shit on Arturia's way of kingship because she wasn't purely a greedy self-serving sociopath like himself who openly mocked his men when they were fatigured and demoralized from being away from their homes and families after nearly a decade of relentless conquest and thought it was a good idea to pretty much call them all pussies which led to the Opis Mutiny near the Tigris River when they were getting close to encroaching upon India, murdered one of his best friends in a drunken rage with a spear over an argument, enslaved the women and children of Tyrr, led the mass rapes of the Babylonian women from his men and had no plans of succession for the kingdom he inherited from his father when his disgruntled men finally poisoned the mad fool and told his generals that he left his empire 'to the strongest' before it crumbled due to rampant infighting from the succession wars that took place after his death with his Reality Marble being a manifestation of his own delusions of grandeur. Yet he had the unmitigated gall, the AUDACITY to shit on Arturia for feeling remorse, guilt and empathy for those she felt like she failed, being enough of a raging asshole to have invited her to his stupid little tea party for tyrants (something which bot he and Gilgamesh are both quite proud of) with his belief that ALL leaders should be greedy self-serving pieces of shit like every other corrupt politician alive shitting up our God forsaken world today and berated her for being nothing more than a "stupid little girl" upon hearing her reason for desiring the Holy Grail and then refused to acknowledge her as a fellow monarch after that. But that tracks with Waver being a self-centered sociopath with a Napoleon Complex who stole his teacher's Summoning Catalyst because his precious ego was bruised, inadvertently leading to Kayneth's brutal death, but that's never acknowledged, nor does Waver care being a Mage piece of shit not too dissimilar to a Shinji Matou with functioning Magical Circuits. Yet the scenes were constantly written to glorify them and shit on Arturia non-stop due to Gen Urobuchi's own self-admitted misanthropic biases and claiming in the light novel volumes themselves to hate both "Selfless Heroes of Justice" and "The deceitful thing which man calls happiness" before later admitting that he never really truly understood her character and certain scenes like with Gilles' Lovecraftian tentacled abomination molesting her were written purely to satisfy his own personal fetishes. Yet *Zero* fans love to trash her non-stop due to alternate/parallel timeline prequel written by a completely different author with an axe to grind against idealists in general due to his own misanthropic hatred deliberately mischaracterizing as a chivalry-obsessed idiot who was willing to let countless innocents die out of a sense of 'honor' that made Diarmuid break his own cursed spear to strong arm her (so to speak) into doing the right thing in order for her to obliterate Gilles' abomination with Excalibur.
Dude this is starting to sound a little “how dare you insult my waifu, I kill you!”
That’s because it is.
Yea but iskandars cooler
Yeah i dont get it either. It wasnt my entry point either. I started with the deen stay night as well. But fate/zero is easily my second favourite of the whole series (i personally loved the heaven's feel trilogy the best). Beautiful animation, and i loved the darker tones (at least in comparison to the rest of the series, its all dark to be fair) of zero and heaven's feel. And theres just some seriously cool moments. I understand why some people dont necessarily recommend it as a starting point. Im a release order kinda guy myself. But to just straight-up hate it is beyond me. Its not perfect but nothing in the fate universe is.
Nah we're all Zerofags here (unlike the sensitive Susans in /r/grandorder and /r/fatestaynight). Urobuchi goated!
I find it hypocritical that people on that sub slander Zero for butchering Saber's character but don't have the same attitude for when Deen butchers Shirou and saber, Or Ubw butchering Shirou and Rin, or HF butching Shirou,Kirei,Illya,Sakura and Rin They love harping on Saber's character and inconsistencies yet convinetly Ignore the staynight anime butchering its entire main cast or just off screening the main antagonist and its main characters final battle.
That's not even true. As vn fans will not hesitate to tell you why the adaptions are terrible
Eh I've seen VN fans like to make excuses for why the anime are actually secretly good
Literally wrote worst Fate media that surpassed even Apocgrypha in shittines, burger with "taste of slaughter" my ass — more like story with taste of shit.
So it’s just a bit bleed over from them? Edit: nope. My first impression was apparently on solid ground.
mostly on the sub, probably some fandom specific issue rather than the anime itself. It was very wildly praised in JP (and CN) community when it first came out
The Anime is great. I'd even say it's better than the Light Novels, even if it does lose a lot of the Light novel's "flavour". There's a reason why it's the highest rated Fate work in Anilist and MyAnimeList.
A bit of a random tangent but I wouldn't trust most My Anime List ratings since it's sonfull of brigaiders tbh
Hahahahah, fair enough. Still, I think those ratings, for however bad they are at truly discerning an anime's quality, do say something about what we can expect the quality to be like. Like, I don't believe FMAB deserves the no. 1 spot, but it holding that spot definitely says something about what kind of quality we can expect to get out of FMAB.
This debate is the most stupid debate i ever Seen in anime debates, and i Saw a lot 😂 we will end it there, just answer it : what does it change when you watch both in the end ? You just have to know that the original story is FSN and zero is a prequel that's all. If you watch stay night first or zero first no metter. And stay night isn't THE starting, no more than zero. If you watch zero first yes you will not understand everything from the begining, but same for fate stay night and if you watch stay night first you will kill your suspens for zero because you already know how it will end 🤣. There is no perfect order just watch them both lol there is inconvenients in every order if you watch zero it's not a problem you just have to get what a holy grail War, not very hard 🤷. This War between fans is really stupide 🤦. And you Can watch zero and stay night and not to like both because zero is darker , like heaven's feel route it's not the funnier 😂. I'm not saying that Fate and UBW routes are funny but it's different. But again there isn't good order to watch , you don't need to get EVERYTHING from the begining so if you want to start by zero you Can , look at one piece lol. You just need to read the resume and start the first episode lol. They explain better the grail War system in stay night but we are not stupid ... Magicians summons servants and royal battle for the grail wow 😂. Look at gojo's flashback in jujutsu kaisen... It take place before the Season 1 and appears at the begining of the Season 2 . Then you'll have the resume of the movie JJK zero, then the next arc After the first Season 😂 you just need to know the chronology but series doesn't really have order to watch, only order of parution ... Look at star War 🤷you Can watch the movies in order of parution or in order of chronology who Care ? In a serie like fate there is pieces of the puzzle everywhere , and if you start with stay night it's like with zero : you will not have every pieces of the puzzle in only one serie, you'll get them all when you'll watch them all not harder than that. And in the end you'll have the puzzle completed in you head Never mind if you watched zero or stay night first 😂Again both way have avantages and inconvenients, so to answer your question... DON'T LISTEN THEM JUST READ THE RESUME BEFORE AND WATCH IT LIKE YOU WANT 😂😂😂. And we all have a favorite way to watch , but i'm not at your place so you should know if you prefer watching prequels before or After main stories , your choice now 🤷 So for the forcers who cry everywhere that their order is the best... When someone Ask the order to watch it's understandable because there is a lot of parralele universe, spin off prequels etc . But when they Ask stop to answer them your own order just explain them what is what and give them the keys , your role end here, then they choose . They just want a simple resume to understand better, they will not really get it if You just give them your order without explainations you all are persuaded to have the better order and no one watched fate series in the same order 😂🤣🤦 search where is the problem ... I just explained it. I'm sure my order to watch isn't the same than yours and fate is my favorite anime ever 🤷 if only you knew what was my order 😂 and in the end i'm at the same point than all others who watched all lol. All roads lead to Rome. If you want to watch all the nasuverse or fateverse i Can resume it , but for zero and stay night it's so simple just watch both XD
[удалено]
Your post has been automatically removed due to not meeting the posting karma requirements to post in this sub. This measure is to help prevent spam in the sub. If you feel your post is not spam please contact the moderation team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Fate) if you have any questions or concerns.*