History WMG / FateStayNight

** Not really: one of Hokuto Shinken's ability is [[PowerCopying learning any martial arts move after seeing it once]], and he has copied ''thousands'' of techniques, including the armor-piercing thrusts and slicing knife hands of Nanto and the energy beams of Gento. What's even worse, that PowerCopying is just AwesomenessByAnalysis UpToEleven: Kenshiro, or any Hokuto Shinken fighter, can analyze the opponent's fighting style during combat and learn how to block and dodge their attacks and penetrate their defences with embarrassing ease. Just look at Kenshiro's battles with Souther: in their first battle Kenshiro nearly got killed in the first few seconds due Souther's immense speed and Nanto techniques only to ''completely turn the tables on him'' after seeing him once (Souther won only because his medical condition annulled standard Hokuto techniques and he didn't know how to adapt), and in the second he could give Souther a desperate run for his money even before discovering the trick by simply dodging Souther's attacks and punching him ''hard''. The only way a Servant could defeat Kenshiro is to either overwhelm him before he can adapt (first battle with Kaioh, and what Souther tried) or to ''improvise everything on the fly'' (how Yuuza gave Raoh such an hard time: in the end Raoh won by sheer superiority in strength and speed, but his inability to adapt put him to disadvantage).

*** Monohoshizao ''is'' a noble phantasm. It was the catalyst Caster used to summon Assassin. The caveat was that the sword's actual wielder wasn't a heroic spirit, so the Grail summoned a random, nameless guy who kinda/sorta fit the legend behind the weapon (who was technically only a Wielder of the sword, rather than a User; hence his ??? ranking in Noble Phantasm). Its only special property was being absurdly long (and shows what would happen if Shiki were stupid enough to try ''blocking'' a sword with his knife...besides death by idiocy), meaning it ''is'' possible for a weapon to become a noble phantasm through fame alone, rather than special ability. This was also the case with the Houtengeki halberd...unless ''VideoGame/FateExtra'' counts as canon enough to retcon that (the Fate/Stay Night description says it was the only halberd to become an NP, because it was used by a famous general; Fate/Extra says it was powered by the God of War and given to [[spoiler:Lu Bu]]). If Satsujinki became famous enough to become an Assassin, his antique, signature knife would undoubtedly go along for the ride (though probably D-ranked; its special property seems to be not requiring maintenance or sharpening). But no, Satsujinki still counts far more. Shiki Ryougi's not an assassin, let alone an Assassin; she's a [[{{Determinator}} Determinating]] KnifeNut (secretly a MasterSwordsman), more of a hunter (or Saber). Stealth was never the Ryougis' game, the way it was with the Nanaya. She wouldn't have handled the events of Prelude the way Satsujinki did...i.e. sneak through his entire heavily-warded and guarded castle [[StealthRun entirely undetected]] (by the vampires ''and'' the magi assault force outside) and OneHitKill a newly-promoted Dead Apostle ''Ancestor'' so silently Louvre didn't even realize he'd been killed before death took him.

This isn't referring to Archer or anything related to that (well kinda). I'm referring to who he may have been before the Fuyuki fire; [[FightingIrish a half-Japanese, half-Irish boy]]. His red hair lends credence to the theory, since red hair is typically a European trait (albeit Sakura's hair is ''[[YouGottaHaveBlueHair purple]]''). But nobody ever says that he doesn't look Japanese, so he must have a Japanese face in-universe (since the art style has difficulties showing anyone's ethnicity). Another factor to this is that Archer has the sword Caladbolg in Unlimited Blade Works, and Cú Chulainn was supposed to be under a geas to lose against any Ulster-born warrior who wielded it. While Archer never ''used'' the sword against Cú, notice that Lancer never once ''won'' against Archer in a direct fight. While circumstances limited them from going all out against each other, it was shown repeatedly that Lancer had difficulties actually getting ahead of Archer. What makes this different is that Lancer has shown keeping up with enemies who were superior to Archer, at least stat-wise. While it could be chalked up to Archer's techniques and skill bridging the gap, it could be that since Archer only has copies of weapons and not the real thing, the geas may have only partly activated. Thus, Lancer was hindered somewhat, but not enough to realize what was happening, and Archer managed to use that hindrance to his advantage.

** ...doesn't the existence of the Second Magic (or hell, the [[{{Multiverse}} very nature]] of the {{Franchise/Nasuverse}}) contradict all of this? Or at least the existence of Fate/Hollow Ataraxia and Realta Nua: Last Episode? The fact that there are three timelines to begin with (none of which are Archer's) means that a paradox is flat-out impossible. Also, what's so paradoxical about Shirou's UBW? He specifically points out in the incantation that the reason he can do it is because he's faced the embodiment of his future ("Withstood pain to create weapons, waiting for one's arrival") and firmly rejected hopelessness while embracing his ideals ("I have no regrets, this is the only path"). Sounds like a pretty good prelude to projecting your soul on the surrounding area...

There was a scrapped route where Shirou befriends and contracts with a stray Shielder Servant(Tachie). Tachie could've been a genderflipped Ajax the Great and sometime in Archer's original timeline during or after the war she bequeathed her shield, the catalyst for her summoning in the 4th Holy Grail War to Shirou as a conceptual weapon to protect him, not unlike Avalon, allowing him to use it albeit at a reduced performance. Archer's throwaway line towards Lancer regarding Rho Aias implies that it is the genuine article rather than a disposable copy he created using Unlimited Blade Works.

Yes, originally she was only a Servant because of a magical deal she made with Gaia. When she gives up on the deal, she stops being a Servant....but she's still ''freaking Main/KingArthur''. She goes back to her own time and dies, and her Legend lives on. Given the immense amount of reverent storytelling, she's a shoo-in for the Throne of Heroes, whether she wants to be or not. Of course, whether this would be her consciousness or some kind of magical clone depends on your interpretation.

* Magi hate and fear the Counter Force, though. They're the ones who tend to show up when they're not wanted and screw up your experiment to get to the Root (if I heard [[LightNovel/KaraNoKyoukai Touko and Souren's conversation]] right). I guess that doesn't totally preclude her willingly joining the Counter Force, but it would still require a non-UBW route (she knows Archer's story in that, and he admits out loud that she's smart enough to keep Shirou ''reined in'') and for something really strange to happen to her motivation; she's not a total pragmatist like she wants to be, but neither is she the unquestioning, hardheaded idealist that Shirou, Saber, or Joan of Arc (the only Counter Guardians or equivalent we know of) were. Becoming a Heroic Spirit is right out. The last one to do that was 150-200 years ago; it's near impossible for someone in the present to do something that is literally so ungodly exceptional and awesome that the world considers them perfect enough to set aside. Rin's more likely to become the full practitioner of Kaleidoscope before that.

* No need of a game for [[spoiler: Akasha/the Root]]; Nasu's already wrote about it, his very first, in fact. [[spoiler: It's called ''LightNovel/KaraNoKyoukai'']].

[[WMG: Saber is Really Lawful Evil by D&D standards in spite of what the info screens say]]
"More valid for BoED than BoVD - given the long list of evil actions, and "evil for a good cause is still evil" it's quite easy for a character who would be an antihero elsewhere, to be Evil by BOVD/Champions of Ruin rules."

Given the following quote, apparently from the D&D Book of Vile Deeds, Saber is LawfulEvil. She committed the "evil" act of looting her own towns for supplies, thus dooming the residents. However, it allowed her to mobilize her army to protect against imminent invasion and in the end, she saved many more towns than she would have been able to otherwise. That doesn't matter though, because "evil for a good cause is still evil", so her evil actions supersede her intelligent planning and good intentions. Thus, in addition to Saber being LawfulEvil, we can also conclude that StupidGood is the only true good alignment in D&D.
* That just meant she was committing evil acts, not that she herself was evil. If she believed that sacrificing people to save even more people was not her best option, but her ''single viable'' option, she herself can still be considered Good-aligned. And considering her angst over her kingship leads to her wanting to ''erase everything she did as king'', we can conclude that she really wasn't thrilled with what she was doing. Besides, even in D&D, there's a difference between a Good/Evil act and a ''justified'' act.
** It wasn't her ''single viable'' option. It was her ''best'' option because it saved the most lives. She could've done like her knights wanted and not looted her own villages, and in doing so let some of her other villages be destroyed by the invading army. The game goes into great detail about how Saber was hated because she made the hard decisions that were in the country's best interest, even if they presented a moral ambiguity. Her knights would've rather let the villages be destroyed by the enemy army because that way they could pretend it wasn't their fault. Saber, on the other hand, made whatever decision saved the most lives, even if it involved her taking some.
** Thanks to the poorly implimented Alignment Modification System in D&D with many GM's out there who don't put Plot over Mechanics, she could've burnt england to the ground and killed everyone living there, and then found a temple to donate gold at and been 100% Chaotic Good.

* Instead, when Kotomine wished for a distraction, the corrupted grail created a fire *and* summoned an orphan to distract Kiritsugu for the rest of his life. Shirou is a native of the Naruto universe, and is partway through developing the Rinnegan (see his ring eyes in the UBW movie).

[[WMG: In the Fate and Unlimited Blade Works routes, Caster killed Zouken and freed Sakura from the Crest Worms]]
In the myth, Caster was an ''healer'' before anything else, and the non-Greek language spells of Nasuverse!Caster's magecraft can be linked to healing (yes, even the [[EnergyWeapon Rain of Light]]: corrective laser surgery on steroids). Myth!Caster was also rather nice with children, and the one thing that made her snap in both myth and Nasuverse was having her children taken from her.\\
Her Master is a teacher, and may have guessed that something bad is happening at the Matou household but was unable to intervene due to Zouken being a mage.\\
In Heaven's Feel, Caster is forced on the defensive early on by the loss of Assassin and then killed by Saber, but in the other routes Zouken failed to summon True Assassin, leaving her with enough time to take a peek.\\
Now, what would happen if a psychotic medic, possessing healing magecraft beyond what modern magi can even imagine, stumbled on Sakura and Zouken?
* This is effectively [[Tropers/RoarkTenjouin this troper's]] headcanon as of now.

[[WMG:The True Ends of ''Heaven's Feel'' and ''Unlimited Blade Works'' are the only routes with [[SequelHook true sequel hooks]].]]
In UBW True End, Rin and Shirou are both going to ''England''. Do you know where King [[strike:Arthur]] Arturia is supposed to be resting until [[strike:his]] her return?

Also, HF True End is the ''only'' ending where we don't find out the conclusion of Shirou's character development from his perspective, and has things like Rin dealing with her conflicting feelings for Shiro, and musings on the nature of the Second and Third Sorceries that they now have experience in.
* No argument on Rin and Shirou going to England (in fact, isn't there a sidestory about Shirou in England helping Luviagelita with something?), or Rin and Shirou's possible experiments with Kaleidoscope and Heaven's Feel...but as a minor nitpick, Arturia is supposed to be resting in Avalon, not England. In fact, that's what makes it possible for the Fate True Ending to have an actual sort-of sequel (Realta Nua Last Episode).
** Avalon's location is supposed to be in or near England or Wales, in a place where there's a lot of apples (Geoffrey of Monmouth specifically called it ''Insula Pomorum'', "Island of Apples", in one of his works, and Avalon apparently derives from the Celtic word for 'apple'). Search an area with both apple orchards and an island, or with orchards that used to have some kind of wetland (where a dry point could have been called an island), and you'll find a possible location for Avalon.
*** Same from the writer of above: I just discovered that a good candidate for Avalon would be '''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury Glastonbury]]''': the county of Somerset has apple orchards (not sure if they had them before that publicity stunt of Arthur's grave), and Glastonbury is on a dry point of the Somerset Levels. Given the unbelievable level of realism done by the Nasuverse (just crosscheck the dates for the RealLife Inquisition and the creation of the Burial Agency that is supposedly part of the Inquisition, or what the Real Life counterpart to Luvia's "[[ProfessionalWrestling Lancashire Martial Combat]]" is), a sequel could have Rin and Shirou go at Glastonbury to pay homage to Saber at the thing closest to her grave that they could find... Only for Avalon (the scabbard) to signal Arturia's presence.
*** About possible locations for Avalon... The Arthurian mythos includes him conquering not just the Roman Britannia but also Scotland, Ireland, the Orkney Islands, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, parts of Gaul (with Brittany taking name from historical settlements of Britons escaping the Anglo-Saxon invasion, and Lancelot coming from what is now south-western France), and even invading ''Italy'' (the Roman emperor Lucius Tiberius, possibly based on Eastern emperor Tiberius II Constantine and his attempt at reasserting Roman authority in the west, had demanded tribute from the Britons, with the Britons reacting badly due the Roman lack of assistance when they needed it the most. This was the campaign interrupted due Mordred's rebellion), with the addition of a Briton settlement in northern ''Spain'' (Britonia, settled in this era by refugees from the Anglo-Saxon invasion).
* HF does give the best sequel hook/most room for expansion, but it also dropped a rather inglorious bridge on Saber. Dying in battle or dying at the end is okay, it's not necessary that she lives. Turning evil and being forgotten is probably not. Also, to judge by FHA, they decided to hell with going by any specific ending and took a third option. No need to tie themselves down so strictly.
** There's a way to bring back Saber for a sequel too! Remember, Saber's actually ''alive'', even if she's manifested as a half-spirit, so TheCorruption of Angra Manyu might have infested her actual self. Shirou killed her without removing TheCorruption, so since the deal failed, she could have been sent ''back in time'' completely evilified. So, in a hypothetical sequel, evil King Arthuria could be a villain! And then Shirou must try and use Avalon to free her. Dramatic conflict, important moral choices, unresolved sexual tension, ba-da-bump-tish.

In the myth, Caster was an ''healer'' before anything else, and the non-Greek language spells of Nasuverse!Caster's magecraft can be linked to healing (yes, even the [[FrickinLaserBeams Rain of Light]]: corrective laser surgery on steroids). Myth!Caster was also rather nice with children, and the one thing that made her snap in both myth and Nasuverse was having her children taken from her.\\

There was a scrapped route where Shirou befriends and contracts with a stray Shielder Servant. That Servant could've been a genderflipped Ajax the Great and sometime in Archer's original timeline during or after the war she bequeathed her shield, the catalyst for her summoning in the 4th Holy Grail War to Shirou as a conceptual weapon to protect him, allowing him to use it albeit at a reduced performance. Archer's throwaway line towards Lancer regarding Rho Aias implies that it is the genuine article rather than a disposable copy he created using Unlimited Blade Works.

[[WMG: Ayako and Issei would've gotten more coverage in a scrapped route.]]

** Its pretty simple: Each archer is a separate archer. Why does Heavens Feels archer decide that Shirou isn't worth killing? Because he is in the very least has enough faith in him self to believe that he could be talked out of a bad idea. Which is much more in line with a Shirou who had a somewhat gratifying life that came to a tragic end despite having been satisfied for a while: Say, Unlimited Blade works Shirou living a happy life with Rin, but succumbing to whatever catastrophe that made him a counter-guardian due to him being too nice, and suffering through thousands of years of major catastrophes where he has no choice but to sacrifice someone for the greatest good, or what would be his own personal hell. Whereas Unlimited Blade works Shirou could easily be a Fate route archer who didn't say faithful to saber, and thus didn't reach Avalon. Fates archer is rather reminiscent of what an Illya route Shirou could have been. Ultimately, he regrets his mistake, and he accepts his new past self when he sees that his intervention has prevented him from wasting himself on Illya. This is reinforced by the fact that its implied that archer would have been able to remember anything that happened in a grail war due to being a counter guardian, Thus, he would be able to cite a good 4-5000 routes by the time Heavens Feel came around, and would have gotten smart enough to completely avert any of the routes. In Heavens feel, hopefully, the cycle was broken (Or, at least, that Shirou produced a timeline where Shirou staying faithful to Saber would be viable. Thus, breaking the cycle.)

*** There's a difference between Deus Ex Machina and Chekov's Gun...

** Not really: one of Hokuto Shinken's ability is [[PowerCopying learning any martial arts move after seeing it once]], and he has copied ''thousands'' of techniques, including the armor-piercing thrusts and slicing knife hands of Nanto and the energy beams of Gento. What's even worse, that PowerCopying is just AwesomenessByAnalisis UpToEleven: Kenshiro, or any Hokuto Shinken fighter, can analyze the opponent's fighting style during combat and learn how to block and dodge their attacks and penetrate their defences with embarrassing ease. Just look at Kenshiro's battles with Souther: in their first battle Kenshiro nearly got killed in the first few seconds due Souther's immense speed and Nanto techniques only to ''completely turn the tables on him'' after seeing him once (Souther won only because his medical condition annulled standard Hokuto techniques and he didn't know how to adapt), and in the second he could give Souther a desperate run for his money even before discovering the trick by simply dodging Souther's attacks and punching him ''hard''. The only way a Servant could defeat Kenshiro is to either overwhelm him before he can adapt (first battle with Kaioh, and what Souther tried) or to ''improvise everything on the fly'' (how Yuuza gave Raoh such an hard time: in the end Raoh won by sheer superiority in strength and speed, but his inability to adapt put him to disadvantage).

** Not really: one of Hokuto Shinken's ability is [[PowerCopying learning any martial arts move after seeing it once]], and he has copied ''thousands'' of techniques, including the armor-piercing thrusts and slicing knife hands of Nanto and the energy beams of Gento. What's even worse, that PowerCopying is just AwesomenessByAnalisys UpToEleven: Kenshiro, or any Hokuto Shinken fighter, can analyze the opponent's fighting style during combat and learn how to block and dodge their attacks and penetrate their defences with embarrassing ease. Just look at Kenshiro's battles with Souther: in their first battle Kenshiro nearly got killed in the first few seconds due Souther's immense speed and Nanto techniques only to ''completely turn the tables on him'' after seeing him once (Souther won only because his medical condition annulled standard Hokuto techniques and he didn't know how to adapt), and in the second he could give Souther a desperate run for his money even before discovering the trick by simply dodging Souther's attacks and punching him ''hard''. The only way a Servant could defeat Kenshiro is to either overwhelm him before he can adapt (first battle with Kaioh, and what Souther tried) or to ''improvise everything on the fly'' (how Yuuza gave Raoh such an hard time: in the end Raoh won by sheer superiority in strength and speed, but his inability to adapt put him to disadvantage).

This isn't referring to Archer or anything related to that (well kinda). I'm referring to who he may have been before the Fuyuki fire; [[FightingIrish a half-Japanese, half-Irish boy]]. His red hair lends credence to the theory, since red hair is typically a European trait (albeit Sakura's hair is ''[[YouGottaHaveBlueHair purple]]''). But nobody ever says that he doesn't look Japanese, so he must have a Japanese face in-universe (since the art style has difficulties showing anyone's ethnicity). Another factor to this is that Archer has the sword Caladbolg in Unlimited Blade Works, and Cú Chulainn was supposed to be under a geas to lose against any Ulster-born warrior who wielded it. While Archer never ''used'' the sword against Cú, notice that Lancer never once ''won'' against Archer in a direct fight. While circumstances limited them from going all out against each other, it was shown repeatedly that Lancer had difficulties actually getting ahead of Archer. What makes this different is that Lancer has shown keeping up with enemies who were superior to Archer, at least stat-wise. While it could be chalked up to Archer's techniques and skill bridging the gap, it could be that since Archer only has copies of weapons and not the real thing, the geas may have only partly activated. Thus, Lancer was hindered somewhat, but not enough to realize what was happening, and Archer managed to use that hindrance to his advantage.

Self-explanatory, really. "Makiri" was just his own botched attempt to write his name in Japanese. Alternately, it's an obscure variation used in some remote corner of Medieval Russia.

Kirei wanted Lancer to gather information about Servants but he couldn't figure who this guy was. He was probably with Gilgamesh who instantly knew he was a faker hence why he calls him that in UBW despite never having meet him. So Gil probably told Kirei to make Lancer end the fight.

From there it's fairly simple - it was simply the only set of weapons to satisfy his requirements. The only remaining question is "why do traced Kanshou and Bakuya lack their anti-monster properties". But that one can easily be answered with "after he became more experienced, he was good enough to use specialised Noble Phantasms for that and having protective charms on his primary weapons instead seemed like a good idea" with "protective charms" meaning warding (anti-magic) spells he inscribed on them (much in the same way he changed Kaladbolg into an arrow) - once he could trace fast enough it wasn't really a problem to make specialised arrows for monsters, whereas some passive defence against magic (considering his natural defence against it is [[{{Understatement}} bad]]) is always useful.

*** This was ''supposed'' to go into PoisonOakEpilepticTrees. I'm not sure how it got here... I blame too many tabs.

*** Presumably Shinji has stopped even in UBW, and by this point she hates Zouken too much to really care about any more abuse he throws on her as Zouken himself notes. As a side note, that's a ''really'' depressing form of good news, isn't it? Er... Anyway, Shinji and Shirou were the only ones who could break her, the Shadow is gone so all she has to deal with are worms and a Zouken who probably won't last too much longer. Seems likely that considering how well she does with the worms active it doesn't really matter if she's still infected or not. Except she has no ovaries, but yea!

* You do realise Emiya has C rank knowledge in Magic and you need A rank MGI knowledge or is it A Rank AGI?But then considering who Caster(Fate/Zero) was I guess Emiya can be a Caster.

[[WMG:Saber is Really Lawful Evil by D&D standards in spite of what the info screens say]]

** ''Fate/Zero'' confirms that you don't need to have a catalyst to summon a servant (as we saw with Ryuunosuke, who summoned Caster without even knowing about the holy grail war), and the grail pairs you up with a servant who matches your personality - since Caster wasn't summoned in the war, it's likely Shirou would've summoned a Saber regardless of if he had Avalon in his body. So that raises the question: just ''how'' differently would the war have gone had Shirou summoned a different Saber?

*** {{Jossed}}. Though Lancelot comes in ''Fate/Zero'', when the novel gets a Drama CD treatment, who voices him? RyotaroOkiayu. The man behind [[VideoGame/MegaManX Zero]] or [[Manga/{{Bleach}} Byakuya Kuchiki]]. That's one damn manly voice.

[[WMG: The Einzberns had connections to the [[NazisWithGnarlyWeapons Nazi Party.]]]]