Characters / Lord El-Melloi II Case Files

Characters that appear throughout Lord El-Melloi II Case Files. There may be overlap regarding Lord El-Melloi II, Flat Escardos, and other pre-established characters from the Nasuverse; go to the pages for Fate/Zero, Fate/strange Fake, Tsukihime, etc. for tropes regarding their appearances in those works.

• Lord El Melloi II Case Files Support Characters^note Caules Forvedge, Hishiri Adashino, Luviagelita Edelfelt, Yvette L. Lehrman, Inorai Valueleta Atroholm, Melvin Weins, Kairi Sisigou, Olga Marie Arsimilat Animusphere, Trisha Fellows, Karabo Frampton, Jean-Mario Supinerra, Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri, Iskandar, Touko Aozaki
• Lord El Melloi II Case Files Book Characters^note Heine Istari, Rosalind Istari, Jiroubo Seigen Tokitou, Flueger, Orlocke Caesarmund, Atrum Galliasta, Zepia Eltnam Atlasia, Magdalena, Sister Ilumia, Father Fernando, Bersac Blackmore, "The Knight", Rufleus Nuada-Re Eulyphis, Magdanel Trambellio Elrond, Shirou Emiya, Mikiya Ryougi, Mana Ryougi, Akira Yakou
• Lord El Melloi II Case Files Anime Original^note Barzan, Mary Lil Fargo, Alec Fargo, Fernando Li, Claire, Ernest Fargo, Gurdoa Davenant, Wills Pelham Codrington, Waletta Codrington, Camus Peligor
• Lord El Melloi II Case Files Antagonists^note "Hephaestion" / Faker, Dr. Heartless, Corpse King, Latio Crudelis Hiram (and Tangere), Wuzhiqi, Bai Ruolong

Main Characters

Lord El-Melloi II (Waver Velvet)

Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (Japanese), Lucien Dodge (English)
Live actors: Yuya Matsushita (older Waver), Shinichiroh Ueda (younger Waver)

The title character of the series, having grown in the ten years since his life-changing experience in the Fourth Holy Grail War as the current professor of Modern Magecraft and acting head of the El-Melloi house.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Though it's not as if he's outright ugly, his portrayals in older character materials and other franchise entries^*Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, Fate/strange Fake, Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], Fate/Grand Order tend to depict him rather haggard-looking, making his status as a Chick Magnet more of an Informed Attribute. Meanwhile, due in part to Depending on the Artist, his features in the Case Files novels and especially its various adaptations aren't quite so harsh, stress lines notwithstanding.
• Adopted into Royalty: Waver comes from a working-class background but was formally adopted into the El-Melloi II family by Reines, mostly so she could ruffle other lords' feathers by forcing them to treat a third-generation mage as a peer. It also conveniently put the responsibility of paying off the family's rather terrifying debt onto him, which Waver isn't exactly happy about.
• Adult Adoptee: As a young adult, he was adopted by Reines as her elder brother. He did happen to be an orphan, but a family like hers was really the last thing he needed.
• Amateur Sleuth: Though a magic professor by profession, he spends quite a bit of time solving mysteries.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Waver is entirely uninterested in women to a level that Gray comments on, and which Adashino links to his obsession with reuniting with Iskandar.
  • When Flat offers him a strategy guide for a bishoujo game to cheer him up under the assumption it's the kind of thing men like him would enjoy, he's downright offended to the point of physical violence.
  • In the anime, Melvin wonders if he lost his virginity during Zero (i.e., thanks to Iskandar), which an embarrassed Waver angrily denies; when Reines asks him if he's a virgin three years later, his response is an annoyed "who cares?".
  • Likewise, Kairi draws explicit parallels between him and Wills, who is noted to be in love with and captivated by a supernatural being bound to another realm^note although Kairi is one to speak, considering he experienced a similar situation with his daughter in another timeline.
  • This continues to get a nod in the Special Episode, where Waver's video game avatar of an elven warrior is a near-facsimile of Iskandar's own getup.
  • When Waver is forced to break Camus's heart to break her out of her Shell Projection spell, he does so by telling her that he can't reciprocate her crush on him because he already dedicated his life to another, stopping just short of stating that he is in love with Iskandar. On the other hand young Waver gives himself a small Dope Punch right after realizing Camus's infatuation just too late, with the ambiguous implicaton that he might not have been entirely incapable of reciprocating her feelings at some point.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Zig-zagged. He was not born into nobility and, in fact, comes from a very undistinguished background. But after surviving the Holy Grail War and being named Lord El-Melloi II by Reines until she comes of age, he is easily the most moral and scrupulous of all of the Lords of the Clock Tower.
• The Atoner: He picks up the pieces that were left behind after Kayneth was killed and the El-Melloi faction was on the brink of ruin, as he acknowledges that he was partially responsible for the death of Kayneth and Sola. The heir to the El-Melloi faction, Reines, eventually makes him restore the Archibald family's Magic Crest, pay off their debts and become her personal tutor. To bind him to her, she also adopts Waver into the family as her step-brother and grants him the title "Lord El-Melloi" until she comes of age.
• Attack Reflector: He wears his hair long so that he can cut off parts of it to redirect magical attacks towards the ground in a hurry.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Lord El-Melloi II can "dissect" the symbolism of a magus's magic - what system it uses, what power sources it uses, what kind of power it uses. He then deduces what the magic can do and what it has already done. He usually does this to solve cases. Most mages feel this destroys the "Mystery" of magic and damages magic in general, but he can also instruct a mage in how to use their personal magic far more effectively.
• Badass Bookworm: After he returns as a lecturer at the Clock Tower, he quickly gains a reputation as a practical and superior instructor. The El-Melloi heir eventually recognizes his achievements, orders him to serve her as her personal tutor and makes him Lord El-Melloi II, the youngest Lord of the Clock Tower in its entire history.
• Boomerang Bigot: Waver is a mage who is openly contemptuous of mages as a class, both out of justified disgust for their frequent sociopathy and out of intense jealousy of their power.
• British Accents: In Accel Zero Order Kayneth notes that he has traces of a working-class accent (i.e. Cockney or Estuary) in his speech. Neither his Japanese nor English voice actors actually give him one, though.
• Byronic Hero: Flat invokes this, insisting that Waver is basically a protagonist from the tradition of Romantic literature, "just like Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper." Neither Waver nor the other students are flattered by this comment.
  Svin: Did you just compare our professor to a serial killer!?
• The Cameo:
  • He makes an appearance in a bonus chapter of Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 2wei. It was early on adapted in the anime of the first season, making it his first anime apperance as Lord El-Melloi II.
  • Appears briefly in the 2015 Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] anime (as Lord El-Melloi II) to have a short conversation with Shirou. Despite not managing to exchange names, Shirou and Waver seem to mutually understand and respect how their experiences of participating in the Holy Grail War made them realize their ideals—and what they should do to attain them.
  • He also appears in the first episode of the Fate/Apocrypha anime alongside Flat Escardos to provide exposition for the concept of the Great Holy Grail War. He returns in the final episode to take Caules Forvedge Yggdmillenia under his wing as his newest student after the war is over.
• Celibate Hero: Waver has no interest in any romantic relationship and is more interested in living his life in a way that lives up to Iskandar's legacy as his loyal follower.
• Character Development:
  • Much of the first half of the anime involves El Melloi II/Waver's attempts at living his life the way he feels honors Iskandar best. However, his ways of going about it leave him frustrated and feeling inadequate (much like Shirou Emiya struggling with his inherited "hero of justice" ideal from Kiritsugu, especially as shown in Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] and Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel). His supportive students, friends and colleagues being around him slowly but surely break him out of it, such that by Episode 12, he can face Dr. Heartless and "Hephaestion"/Faker, finally realizing that Iskandar's life and actions aren't as insurmountable as he made them out to be, and declare that beating them both is about as good as surpassing Iskandar himself.
  • Waver starts the series desperately trying to find a way to enter the Fifth Holy Grail War in order to meet Iskandar again and realise his King's dream due to his guilt over Iskandar's death. This is in spite of the very real possibility that Waver could die and despite the fact that the Iskandar summoned of the war would have no memory of their time together. By the end of the Rail Zeppelin arc Waver willingly withdraws from being selected for the war and instead of focusing on his past mistakes decides instead to embrace the future, as his king would have wanted, and resolves to do so by defeating Dr. Heartless and Faker, who are both using Iskandar's power for nefarious ends.
• Chick Magnet: Is noted to be extremely popular with the female students of his class, and has the affections of at least Yvette and possibly Gray (at least in the anime).
• Cigar Chomper: Rarely seen not smoking a cigar. The cigars he carries are actually a type of Mystic Code he created, with the tobacco inside them having different purposes depending on the cigar. The reason why he specifically uses cigars is because when he was looking for ways to appear more Lord-like, a drunken magus told him that "A cigar and a suit are a man’s weapons".
• Classy Cravat: It helps him fit the image of a Lord of the Clock Tower, although in private he'd rather wear a t-shirt for hanging around in his tiny, unkempt apartment playing video games.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Bore a heavy resemblance to Severus Snape in his original appearance◊, along with the surly disposition to match. Adaptations maintain this to varying levels, although from Case Files onward he's migrated away from this due to Depending on the Artist and Takeuchi's own Art Evolution. That said, his character motivation of living to honor the memory of Iskandar is surprisingly a propos, considering Snape's ultimate motivations in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
• The Constant: A meta example. No matter what alternate timeline in The 'Verse he appears in - whether it be Fate/Apocrypha where the Fourth Grail War never happened, or Melty Blood Type Lumina where Servants and Grail Wars don't even exist - Waver seemingly always becomes El-Melloi II.
• Defective Detective: He's haunted by grief for Iskandar, drinks heavily when stressed, and has such poor self-care skills that he needs Gray to brush his hair for him. At the beginning of the Adra Castle case, he's tempted to commit suicide rather than face the possibility of being killed by another mage (the fact he's the weakest mage in the building doesn't help). Psychologically, he's in rough shape. Plus, he has the typical troubled-detective quality of being brusque and prickly even with the people he cares about.
• The Dreaded: His ability to almost instantaneously deconstruct magic and rob it of its Mystery has certain mages wary of his presence.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Justified. His students tend to love him, but his colleagues almost univerally despise and dismiss him, despite the fact that he has the rare honor of having survived a Holy Grail War. He's seen by his peers as inept, having achieved his position through Melvin's money and by riding the coattails of a disgraced noble house. Mage society is often shown to be like that across the board, though, not just to Waver, a bickering pit of vipers each seeking to elevate themselves at others' expense no matter the cost.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Much to Waver's chagrin, Flat's nicknames like 'Professor Charisma' and 'Great Big Ben London Star' have made their way throughout the entire school.
• Experienced Protagonist: Lived through life-or-death situations in the Grail War a decade ago, and came out alive.
• Expository Pronoun: Usually refers to himself in the first person with the neutral formal watashi, but slips back into the boyish and more immature boku when particularly annoyed.
• Geek Physique: Described as being scrawny from preferring his studies to exercise back in Fate/Zero, and the same holds up into adulthood. Even before he gets his shirt off he's on the thin side, and definitely not in the best of shape considering that a simple walk leaves him winded.
• Genre Savvy: Waver is a fan of detective novels, and even uses detective novel jargon when speaking about his investigations. He's also genre-savvy enough to know that, in a magical world, there are many detective novel tropes that don't apply to the situations he gets into and thus should be eschewed.
• Gratuitous English: Tends to swear in English when he gets especially angry, and utilizes colloquial English detective terms for his investigations.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Part of his annoyance with Flat is that Flat is unbelievably talented but uses said talent to mess around which aggravates Waver due to his own lack of talent.
• He Is All Grown Up: Following the 4th Grail War, Waver hits a major growth spurt that turns him from a short, mousy nerd into the Tall, Dark, and Handsome lust object of many a female student.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Prominently wears form-fitting black leather pants as part of his main outfit as an indication of his strong sense of fashion.
• Hero-Worshipper: Essentially the crux of his relationship with Iskandar. Waver has spent his life after the Fourth Fuyuki Holy Grail War trying to live up to Iskandar's legacy so he can hold his head high as Iskandar's follower.
• Heroes Gone Fishing: He's an avid videogame player.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: He believes that his experiences during the Fourth Fuyuki Holy Grail War were a complete wash due to how he was of only nominal use to Iskandar and wishes to vindicate his perceived failure vis-a-vis joining the Fifth Fuyuki Holy Grail War.
• History Repeats: As it was with Kayneth, the enemies of Lord El-Melloi wind up putting Waver into a wheelchair albeit temporarily.
• Hot Teacher: If one of Flat's other nicknames is to be believed, he has apparently become very popular with his female students; they even voted him the number one man they'd have a relationship with. A Drama CD reveals that Flat wasn't making the nickname up as all female students are annually given a poll sheet of which Clock Tower man they'd want to bed, with Waver being placed third in 2004 and first place in 2009 according to Flat.
• Humble Hero: He's outright annoyed with the prestige and popularity he's gained as Lord El-Melloi II after the War, because he wants to be recognized for his personal efforts as a magus rather than a teacher with extraordinary students.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Despite being able to explain magic and even explain to other magi how to make their magic better, Waver is not particularly special. He seems to have accepted his lot in life by this time in the series.
• Identical Stranger: Turns out that Waver looks extremely similar to Iskandar's general Eumenes◊. It's heavily implied that part of Faker's animosity towards Waver was due to her dislike of Eumenes in life, but she's also quick to add that comparing him to Eumenes doesn't do it justice.
• In Spite of a Nail: He somehow becomes Lord El-Melloi II even in timelines where the Fourth Grail War doesn't occur, but it's not mentioned how.
• Incompatible Orientation: It's not stated explicitly whether it's because he's gay, Iskandar-sexual, or just asexual (although it's implied he might not be a virgin anymore), but Gray and Reines seem to think his lack of interest in women is categorical. He mentions being nervous around beautiful women the first time he meets Adashino, but it's mostly an excuse to not have to talk to her, and she immediately thinks he's full of it.
• Inopportune Voice Cracking: Usually he speaks in a very smooth, low voice, but from time to time his voice cracks back into the higher-pitched one he had as a teenager. Possibly symbolic of how he still holds onto a spark of youthful hope and innocence, or a reminder that he only recently finished going through what seems to have been an unusually delayed puberty... or maybe it's just really funny.
• Internal Reveal: Was unaware Sola-Ui had also died in Fuyuki until Reines informed him three years later. As far as he (and most anyone in the Mage's Association) knows, Saber killed both Kayneth and Sola as participants in the Grail War.
• It's All My Fault: Episode 1 reveals that he feels Kayneth's death was his fault for stealing Iskandar's relic that Kayneth planned on using. As a result he bought Kayneth's class, because while he hated him, he did learn a lot in that class and wanted to give future students a place to learn like he did.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is very bitter and insulting. Nevertheless, he tries to do what is right from a human standpoint and not a Magus's, no matter what he says otherwise.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: Has grown considerably, both physically and mentally, since his time in Fate/Zero.
• Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: Waver is a first-rate teacher and magecraft analyst — traits that make modern magi despise him because of his tendencies to figure out and blabber about the principles behind their magecraft's Secret Art, which is antiethical to mage society for both cultural and metaphysical reasons. And that's when they're not riffing on Waver for being a subpar magus that somehow claimed a position of prestige (even if he didn't want to), or on how his faculty is looked down upon for Hard on Soft Science reasons because it is an extremely recent field. Waver is just so good at his job that no one wants to risk invoking the consequences of Vetinari Job Security by getting rid of him.
• Knight in Sour Armor: As much as he despises the brutality of mage culture and realizes that his own quest to reach the Root is futile, and as reluctant as he is to rock the boat too hard, he nevertheless continues on as a teacher so that he can inspire others the way Iskandar inspired him.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: His hair grows longer and longer as the years go by after Fate/Zero, he's on the slim side, and he's quite popular with the ladies (and Flat). Unusually, the long hair has practical purposes as he can use it to store and channel mana, much like Rin explained in the original Fate/stay night
• Mentor Archetype: Takes on this role for his students in the classroom, guiding them both in magecraft and personal growth. He's renowned for how good he is at teaching, with all of his students becoming first-rate magi before they turn 21. He's less interested in this and more in his own personal growth, but that doesn't stop him from earning accolades for his work.
• The Mourning After: Still suffers from the guilt and trauma of Rider's death a decade ago. Kairi actually calls him out on it, telling Gray to watch over him due to his preoccupation with a dead man.
• Mr. Exposition: The primary source of world building on magic and the mystic as his analytical skills and wide berth of knowledge allow him to pretty much explain the fundamentals of any given topic.
• Muggle with a Degree in Magic: Not that he can't use magecraft, but his abilities are average at best. However, as a teacher he's first-rate, and has an unusual aptitude for figuring out the secrets of others' magecraft.
• My Greatest Failure: Towards the end of the Grail War, he could do nothing but see Iskandar get killed by Gilgamesh. When alone, Waver laments he didn't help Iskandar see his dream of world domination come true.
• Neck Lift: While Waver is not a strong man by any means, he has learned how to use reinforcement magecraft just well enough that he can lift Flat a foot off the ground with an Iron Claw just to show how mad he is at him.
• Non-Action Guy: Waver is not especially athletic, and his natural capacity for magecraft is far below that of most magi, so it's up to Gray to handle more physical confrontations.
• Not a Morning Person: He very much isn't. In one scene, he tries changing his clothes in the morning without standing up, opening his eyes, or apparently waking up at all. When Gray tries to wake him on the Rail Zeppelin he curls up in his blanket and asks for more time.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: One of the All Around TYPE-MOON drama CDs has F/SN's Rider attempting to seduce him. He's completely disinterested... until she starts quoting Iskandar, at which point his ears perk up.
• Oblivious to Love: Waver had no idea that Cammus had a massive crush on him during their student days due to being so obsessed with writing his thesis and proving his detractors wrong. When he sees a memory unfold of their younger selves interacting, he even gives himself a light punch to the cheek over how blind he was back then.
• Occidental Otaku: He has a well-known preoccupation with Japanese video games. He was quite excited to learn that one of the students he was sponsoring was actually Japanese... until he discovered that she knew absolutely nothing about Akihabara or otaku culture. Said student was Rin Tohsaka.
• Older and Wiser: Has it much more together than a decade previously, easily weathering snide comments and mage politics. This doesn't mean he's any less hot-headed in private, however.
• Only Known By His Nickname: Waver is almost never referred to by his real name, even in narration.
• Parental Substitute: To Flat and Svin. While Waver teaches most students, he functionally raised those two from the age of nine.
• Perpetual Frowner: His most noted characteristic is his sour face. Between his status in magi society and his responsibilities therein, including troublesome/overly affectionate students. few things make him smile.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Gray. He doesn't have any romantic feelings for her, being largely uninterested in anyone that way (which is suspected to be down to Iskandar), but he does sees her as his student and apprentice.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: He's that type of otaku that loves what Japan has to offer, but doesn't quite like the Japanese themselves. The above incident mentioned in Occidental Otaku ends with Waver exclaiming that she's "the worst Japanese there" after she tells him what he didn't want to hear.
• Precision F-Strike: He uses one when he finally reveals how he'll beat Touko's monster. It's in Gratuitous English just to make sure even the audience knows what's intended.
• Self-Made Man: A major cause of tension between Waver and the rest of The Magocracy is that he comes from a very undistinguished background in a society that takes class matters to the point of eugenics, and yet he is both a lord of the Clock Tower in addition to being a department head, (even if said department is merely Modern Magecraft Theory).
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Festered resentment for years over the notion that Iskandar should have won the Fourth Holy Grail War, tragically ignorant of the fact that the prize was literally a poisoned chalice.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The origin of a lot of his psychological baggage. He went to a Grail War seeking glory and fame through Wizard Duels, but bit off more than he could chew, instead coming home with bucketloads of trauma, Survivor's Guilt, and PTSD.
• Shoe Phone: Some of his cigars are disguised Mystic Codes that he can innocuously carry on his person with his regular kinds.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Tends to curse in Gratuitous English whenever he gets pissed off, which is pretty often.
• Stern Teacher: Do NOT cause trouble in his class! You'll get the Iron Claw, especially if you are Flat, his most disruptive student. But when Flat causes trouble, Waver might go so far as to triple everyone's homework. Nonetheless, he actually cares about his students' education and well-being, unlike his colleagues.
• Student–Master Team: While very intelligent and well-versed in magical theory and technique, Waver's powers as a magus are completely dwarfed by most of his students. As a result, he regularly has to rely on his students to be the muscle that takes down the enemies that he susses out through his investigations. He generally provides tactical support by explaining enemy powers and weak points, when he isn't able to talk the monster to death.
• Surpassed the Teacher: Nope. At least not as a mage. Kayneth wasn't wrong when he said that one cannot overcome the generational gap between mages just with proper education, as Waver stays a mediocre mage. He inherits Kayneth's Mystic Code, Volumen Hydragyrum, reworks and upgrades it into a Meido Automata bodyguard for Reines and widely becomes known as a great instructor and the youngest Lord the Clock Tower has ever seen, but his most famous work is also just him finishing Kayneth's research and organizing it into a single encyclopedia.
  • It's noted that Waver is better suited to being a magecraft teacher then he is a mage, as he has an excellent grasp of theory and book study, but lacking the ablity to pull it off. He's able to bring out the best in his students, to the point that becoming his student is a big deal. This is compared to a sports coach who, while unable to physically pull off the feats they're instructing, is able to bring out the best in a natrually skilled athelete. In this regard he greatly surpasses Kayneth, even if his own feats are lackluster.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's very tall, prefers dark clothing, and is considered attractive by most of the Clock Tower and just as insufferably arrogant, particularly by the aristocratic faction.
• Team Dad: While he's rather gruff and sometimes even physically abusive with his students, he also notably took in Flat, Svin, and Gray when their own families wanted nothing good to do with them. Gray also notes from his interactions with Rosalind that he's rather good with children.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: He dislikes when people address him without the "Second" suffix because the name is unbearably grating without it.
• Token Good Teammate: He's the most moral and honorable of all of the Lords of the Clock Tower. He refuses to involve innocents unless absolutely necessary and keeps collateral to a minimum. He imparts these ideals onto his students, who are all more moral than the average magus as a result.
• Tragic Keepsake: He kept Iskandar's belongings with him, and even occasionally wears Iskandar's t-shirt at home.
• Trauma Button: Seeing Altria, or anyone who looks like her, a result of his run-in with her in Fate/Zero. His reaction to reading about Gilgamesh in episode 6 strongly suggests most anything that reminds him of Zero is this for him, aside maybe from Iskandar.
• Tsundere: Though he's naturally surly and acts exasperated by his students, especially Flat, he cares a lot about them and is very proud of their accomplishments, almost crying in happiness when Svin graduates. He also has a habit of berating Iskandar in narration even when he's speaking fondly of him to others. Somehow he manages to pull this off towards a cat.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Having actually seen the real Hephaestion in Iskandar's Reality Marble, Waver knows that Faker isn't who she claims to be, but is almost at a loss when she summons a dark version of the Gordius Wheel to attack him and Gray.
  • On the other hand, most other aristocrats assumed he'd be a weak-willed puppet of Reines', but he ended up being quite deft at the position and inspiring loyalty in his students to protect him from the various assassination attempts since.
• Undying Loyalty: To Iskandar. He calls himself Iskandar's loyal follower and wants to enter the Holy Grail War to both meet Iskandar once more and grant his wish this time.
• Unwanted Harem: A large percentage of Clock Tower's female students want to sleep with him. Despite that, it's actually downplayed, because it's not the focus of the series and is mostly implied, but Waver appears to draw quite some attention, both platonic and romantic, from his friends and students regardless of gender, although he's not interested in a relationship (or at least not with them).
• Walking the Earth: After the events of Zero he traveled the world until he was taken in by Reines.
• Weak, but Skilled: Is notably very untalented in magecraft and thus forced to rely on mundane strategies, observation, and the abilities of those he's mentored. Also applies to him physically, as he gets easily winded by long walks.
• When He Smiles: Considering what a dour man he usually is, the rare moments when he's genuinely smiling in the anime are all the more notable for it, as Gray herself comes to appreciate.
• Working Off the Debt: He is forced to aid in working off the debt Kayneth incurred after conning the Clock Tower out of several Mystic Codes, that were destroyed by Kiritsugu Emiya.
• You Are What You Hate: While he resented Kayneth's severe teaching methods during his youth, he finds himself being similarly harsh (if more open-minded) towards his own students to the point that he's liable to physically assault them.
• You Remind Me of X:
  • For the worse, since Gray's resemblance to Zero's Saber makes him not want to look at her.
  • Meanwhile, Faker describes Waver as reminiscent of Eumenes. She mainly cites his temperament, highlighting his bookish, meddlesome and morose attitude, but it also happens that they look remarkably alike◊.
• Younger Than They Look: It's difficult to tell due to the wrinkles and his general cantankerousness, but Waver is in his late 20s for a majority of the series.

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Gray

Voiced by: Reina Ueda (Japanese), Kayli Mills (English)
Live actor: Saho Aono

El-Melloi II's apprentice from the countryside.

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• Action Girl: She's the primary physical combatant among the main cast.
• The Ageless: One of the effects that Saber being summoned in Fate/stay night had on her body was to halt her aging, just as Saber's was halted. In the sequel series The Adventures of Lord El-Melloi II, Gray still looks 15 even though she's actually 18.
• Ambiguously Bi: Gray's great admiration towards Waver includes what seems to be a crush in the anime (non-existent in the novels). She also finds Adashino and Luvia's beauty quite arresting on multiple occasions, and thinks to herself about how handsome Melvin is.
• The Apprentice: She's Waver's magic apprentice.
• The Artifact: Apart from having the Saberface character design typically displayed in all Fate anime, she is also the only one of the main cast that fights like a Servant rather than a magus through pure strength and a mystical weapon of legendary repute. In spite of being a series not directly connected to the Holy Grail War, her appearance and existence make it clear the Holy Grail War is still important in Waver's life besides his expressed urge to fight in it once more as an active reminder of the sacrifices and trauma created ten years ago.
• Battle Butler: Not only does she fight Waver's battles, she also gets his groceries, shines his shoes, makes his tea, and generally does everything Waver's too busy or can't be assed to do himself—up to and including brushing his hair.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason for her loyalty to Waver. Oh, the people of her village may have been nice to her, but that was because they saw her as a vessel rather than a person. Despite (or because of) Waver's disdain for her face and original intention to recruit her as a soldier for the Grail War, he's the first one to acknowledge her as an individual, which spoke more to her than her family's false kindness.
• Bit-by-Bit Transformation: She's been slowly transforming to be more like Altria in every aspect after Fate/Zero. She's terrified of fully succumbing to the transformation because of the potential Loss of Identity from Altria taking over her body.
• Body Horror: The transformation process that turned Gray into a Saberface is described as excruciatingly painful and includes the bones of her skull audibly cracking and twisting themselves to resemble Altria's. In volume 3 she recalls how ten years ago while it was occurring she stayed up all night in agony, hugging her pillow.
• Book Dumb: Gray has a bit more trouble keeping up with her fellow students when it comes to understanding magecraft. Justified in that she isn't even a Magus and had no real idea about the Magus world due to her Gilded Cage past.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Her experiences with the dead and her childhood mean she's not particularly perturbed by situations like eating breakfast with a pair of disembodied eyes watching her the whole time. However, she does kinda feel bad when watching horror movies with Reines because she has the feeling that she should have actually reacted to the horrors.
• Country Mouse: Grew up in the countryside and thus a bit uncomfortable in the crowded metropolis that is London.
• Culturally Religious: Doesn't personally believe in God, but she's familiar with Christian prayers and practices due to being educated by the resident priest of her village, and sometimes prays for others and performs the sign of the cross out of habit.
• Dark Is Not Evil: She dresses all in black and her preferred weapon form is a Sinister Scythe, but she's unquestionably one of the good guys.
• Dragon Ancestry: Although she has a family connection to Altria, it's so distant she gains none of Altria's Dragon Factor. However, in the last volume when Altria is summoned in Fuyuki, Gray finally inherits her Dragon Magic Core in the process of becoming the perfect copy of King Arthur.
• Expository Pronoun: She uses "setsu" as a first-person pronoun, which is considered self-deprecating and old-fashioned.
• First-Person Smartass: She mostly acts like a Shrinking Violet out loud, apart from occasionally suggesting Waver might be on drugs and such, but in her narration she's mercilessly critical of most people: mages are just looking for excuses to be shut-ins, Waver is unlikeable, Melvin has an Oedipus Complex, etc.
• Freakiness Shame: An odd example. Most people don't know the story behind Gray's face or why she hates it (namely that it's not her original face and it prompted the villagers of her hometown to groom her as a sacrificial vessel for the second coming of Altria) or recognize her resemblance to Altria Pendragon at all, so they simply assume she's just a very pretty girl who is inexplicably convinced she's ugly. The one exception is Waver, as he fought Altria in the fourth Holy Grail War and now finds her face to be a Trauma Button. As a result, Waver is the one person who can't stand looking at her any more than she can, a fact she quite appreciates.
• Gilded Cage: Grew up in one, as she was groomed to be the host of a resurrected King Arthur. In the prologue of volume three, she recalls a "pampered" life where she was treated as "special" with parenthetical readings that indicate she really means something much more sinister.
• Gratuitous English: Speaks in English while using her Invocation.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: She really doesn't think very highly of herself, berating herself for being clumsy or ignorant of a topic at hand.
• I Owe You My Life: The people of her village were going to have her soul overwritten with Altria's. Waver looked for her after he heard about it and he took her under his protection. For this, Gray considers Waver her savior.
• I See Dead People: She's a Sibyl, especially versed in spiritual possession; as one of the side-effects of this, she found herself dreaming about Hephaestion's memories. This nature also makes her much more sensitive than others to the negative thoughts and emotions of ghosts, which leads to her aforementioned fear of them.
• Identical Granddaughter: Gray is the descendant of one of Altria Pendragon's distant relatives and basically looks like a grey-haired version of her. She didn't always look this way, but, in fact, started transforming into a copy of Altria after Altria was summoned as Saber in Fate/Zero.
  • The material book's glossary explains that while it's not a handwave, it would be more accurate to say her family was imprinted with the essence of Altria's physical body (that is, magical genetic engineering).
• Idiot Hair: Along with having the same face as Altria's, she also has her ahoge.
• I'm Not Pretty: She hates it when other people see her face and gets flustered when Reines calls her cute, asking Reines to stop teasing her.
• In the Hood: She wears a cloak with a hood, which she uses to hide her face from others out of shyness and El-Melloi II's discomfort from seeing Altria's face.
• Invocation: She has one for invoking Add's scythe form and Rhongomyniad's powers. It's written with Alternate Character Reading similar to a Noble Phantasm, saying two things at once.
  Gray (Dark), Rave (Unsteady), Crave (Desire), Deprave (Degradation)
  Grave (Engrave) me (in me)
  Grave (A grave) for you
• Ironic Fear: A gravekeeper scared of ghosts. The villain of the Adra Castle case starts laughing at the irony when he finds out.
• Locked into Strangeness: By the last volume her hair has started to turn blonde as her body grows closer and closer to being a perfect clone of Altria's. It was caused by Saber being summoned by Shirou, which happened on the same night as this series' final battle.
• Loss of Identity: She's terrified of the possibility of Altria taking over her body as she gradually becomes more identical to her.
• Magic Enhancement: Through the use of Add, she can absorb magical and spiritual energy (such as from spells or spirits) in order to boost her strength, durability, and speed beyond what Reinforcement magic can achieve. And when Altria is summoned in Fuyuki, Gray transforms further and inherits her Magic Core, allowing her to use Mana Burst.
• Magic Skirt: Despite often fighting in a skirt, the manga and anime take care to only go in so much as having a Male Gaze of her legs and never compromising Gray's modesty.
• Morality Pet: Gray appears to be the only person Reines seems to sincerely like rather than view as an object of amusement.
• Morph Weapon: Her Mystic Code, Add, can transform into a variety of different forms. The ones we know about include her iconic scythe, a bow with arrows, a jet-powered hammer, a tower shield, a lance/halberd, a giant bladed boomerang, and a large kusarigama/grappling hook. Though it hasn't been seen, her profile in Grand Order Material also mentions a greatsword form that's an imitation of Excalibur. This is all in addition to Add's true form of Rhongomyniad.
• Mystical White Hair: As if her silver hair didn't make her stand out enough, she has a family connection to Altria Pendragon, better known as King Arthur. Because of her striking resemblance to Altria, she was believed to be a vessel to resurrect the legendary king.
• Nice Girl: Although she can be aloof and shy, Gray is a sweet girl who gladly puts her life on the line to protect the people she cares about and shows deep concern for others.
• No Hero to His Valet: Though she respects his ability as a teacher, Gray tends to find Waver exasperating rather than impressive, what with being the one who has to drag him out of bed in the morning.
• Oblivious to Love: The way Svin acts around her makes her think he hates her when it's obviously the opposite.
• Only One Name: 'Gray' is the only name she goes by. Whether she has, or had, any other names is unknown. It seems to be a family thing, as her mother's only known name is Magdalena.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With El-Melloi II, as her mentor and professor.
• Raised as a Host: The people of her village, including her own mother, groomed her to be a vessel for Altria Pendragon after her face became identical to her ancestor's. They would have performed a ritual to summon Altria's soul and place it in Gray's body if Waver hadn't intervened.
• Reused Character Design: Her family has a distant connection to Altria Pendragon, and she looks exactly like her. Waver keeps her In the Hood because her face brings him traumatic memories. Having a reused design was not the case prior to the events of Fate/Zero, as when Saber was summoned Gray began changing to look like her.
• Running Gag: Gray has a tendency to rattle around Add's cage whenever his chattiness or trolling tends to overtake any situation—especially when he says something embarrassing about her or El-Melloi II.
• Servile Snarker: While Gray oftentimes gets exasperated by Waver's less than admirable traits and will sometimes give him various backhanded remarks, she still has a deep respect for him since he saved her from her village, and as such has developed Undying Loyalty towards him.
• Shipper on Deck: Much more so in the novels than in the anime. After catching Waver mournfully talking to his mantle and realizing what Iskandar means to him, Gray considers her desire for the two to reunite is the first earnest wish she's had since coming to London, and frequently speaks in defense of or ruminates on Iskandar's importance to him.
• Shrinking Violet: Reserved, timid and lacking in the self-esteem department.
• Sinister Scythe: She wields one formed from Add, her Mystic Code. It can absorb spirits and boost her physical abilities. She also happens to be a gravekeeper and one who is sensitive to the emotions of spirits.
• Smells Sexy: Svin finds Gray's scent to be wonderful. He often describes it as having certain colors and textures.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Gray's upbringing didn't exactly prepare her for socializing, and she often spends discussions hiding behind Waver and hoping no one tries to address her directly.
• Spell My Name With An S: Though she was raised and lives in the UK, Gray's name uses the American spelling in official translations. The author has explained that he ultimately picked the American spelling to emphasize that she's an exact middle between black and white rather than being paled out.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Usually, Gray's eyes are teal/aquamarine. Whenever she chooses to deploy Add's scythe form or fully release Rhongomyniad, her eyes turn gold. Together with her near-monochromatic fashion sense and hair, she looks the near-spitting image of Saber Alter, further emphasizing her connection with King Arthur.
• Undying Loyalty: To El-Melloi II, who rescued her from her village and who also shares her dislike of her reconfigured face. As such she is devoted to helping him however she can, sometimes to unhealthy extents, and gladly serves as his muscle.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Although she always tends to wear concealing grey clothes with a skirt and hood, she has worn numerous unique variations of her outfit, changing outfits for each volume arc. Even the outfit she wears in Fate/Grand Order is a new one that only appears there. Also, Reines like buying new clothes for her, typically cute and frilly stuff.
• The Watson: Because of her sheltered upbringing, other characters need to exposit about magecraft, magic society, or any other subject that's been brought up for her. She explicitly acknowledges her role is similar to Watson in the prologue to volume 1.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ghosts. As said above, she's conditioned to a lot of other traditionally scary stuff and doesn't get scared watching horror movies, but due to her sensitivity to them ghosts absolutely terrify her. When attacked by a swarm of them at the end of volume 1 she's so scared that she can't even move her body, and just keeps repeating over and over in the narration how terrified she is.

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Add

Voiced by: Daisuke Ono (Japanese), Greg Chun (English)

Gray's chatty and very annoying Mystic Code.

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• Ancestral Weapon: He has been passed down for generations of Gray's family, dating back to the reign of King Arthur. According to Case Files Material his creator was Morgan le Fay, Altria's archenemy sister.
• Godzilla Threshold: It's revealed that he's El-Melloi II's last resort, as Add's true form is Rhongomyniad, a Noble Phantasm at least as powerful and destructive as Excalibur.
• Living Weapon: He transforms into a scythe that Gray uses in combat, as well as a bow with arrows, a jet-powered hammer, a tower shield, a lance/halberd, a giant bladed boomerang, and a large kusarigama/grappling hook. This is in addition to Add's true form: Rhongomyniad, the spear of King Arthur.
• Meaningful Name: Rhongomyniad.
• Only Friend: Rather depressingly, Add was Gray's one friend before she joined the El-Melloi classroom because he was the only one who would regularly talk to her after her transformation.
• Power Limiter:
  • Add keeps Rhongomyniad's power from leaking out and deteriorating; without him it would have run out of power a long time ago. According to Grand Order, he also prevents Rhongomyniad from turning Gray into a goddess like prolonged exposure to the spear does to Altria in Grand Order.
  • And of course, Rhongomyniad itself has thirteen seals placed on it by the Knights of the Round Table—much like Excalibur Proto has in another universe. In Rail Zeppelin, Gray undoes the seals left by Lancelot, Kay, Bedivere, Agravain, and Gaheris in her clash with Faker.
• Shipper on Deck: He's not afraid to take jabs at Gray regarding her admiration of Waver. He even tells her to kiss Waver while he's asleep on the couch.
• Talking Weapon: He's a unique Mystic Code in that he has a personality and can talk. And unlike Trimmau, Add isn't running on a very basic personality program; he can uniquely react to the situation with his own barbs and jabs. He only started talking after Gray's transformation, which was a sign that the cult was making good progress in their plan to bring King Arthur back.
• Uncanny Valley: In-universe. His movements are described in the narration of the novels as looking like CG from a movie.
• Verbal Tic: Frequently uses "ihihihihi" at the beginning of a sentence. Kay uses it in his first appearance and ascribes that to his personality mixing together with Add's.
• Virtual Ghost: Add's personality is based on a replica personality of Sir Kay, one of the Knights of the Round Table and Altria's big brother. During the Atlas Contract arc, Kay is summoned from within Add, but he's not exactly a Servant and more an example of this.
• Walking Spoiler: As you can see, saying pretty much anything about Add that isn't his Morph Weapon nature is a spoiler.

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Reines El-Melloi Archisorte

Voiced by: Inori Minase (Japanese), Allegra Clark (English)
Live actor: Kaho Amasaki

Kayneth's niece and heir apparent to the El-Melloi family, her inexperience and young age has led to her appointing Waver as her new "brother" and lord in her stead to manage affairs.

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• Awesomeness by Analysis: Her mystic eye specializes in precise analysis which grants her greater manipulation of Trimmau's form and enhanced calculation prowess.
• Ambiguously Bi: She thinks Gray is very cute and, if nothing else, seems to be going for a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship dynamic with her even though Gray is too shy to actively reciprocate. But she also thinks Svin is very, very good-looking and considers Melvin to be frustratingly attractive. In contrast to her prurient teasing of her adoptive brother, though, it's all very innocent and young-teenager-ish.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: She treats Lord El-Melloi II as her elder brother and takes every opportunity she can to make him miserable.
• Ascended Extra: Originally only hinted at in El-Melloi II's profile in Character Material and making a very minor appearance in Fate/Apocrypha, Case Files bumps her up to one of the lead characters and fleshes out her character substantially.
• Aura Vision: In volume 6 she uses her Mystic Eyes to see the normally-invisible mana in her surroundings, and even faintly sees the spirits of the dead at a graveyard.
• The Baby Trap: She casually propositions Waver with fathering a child with her during the second volume. Reines claims it would serve as extra insurance in case he went and got himself killed during a Grail War. She points out to an exasperated Waver that the child wouldn't be her primary successor and in all likelihood would be her Puppet King for a new branch family as she is curious about the result of combining his charisma and talent with the magic circuits of the Archisorte family. Granted, it's mostly an attempt from Reines to get a kick out of Waver, but the fact that she put so much thought into it does make one wonder just how seriously she considered this plan.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: In the second volume, Reines compares her enjoyment of Waver's suffering to the pleasure she felt when first dismembering a frog as a child.
• Big Brother Worship: She is a weird, zigzagging case. In their first meeting, she tells Waver that she is a "secret fan" of his because of what he was able to achieve with the El-Melloi class, entrusts him with the "Lord" title of her family, assigns him several Impossible Tasks, such as paying off the massive debt that the family incurred in the aftermath of her uncle's death, and gives him difficult cases that stumped other magi. Granted, much of this is just taking advantage of him and having fun at his expense, and she refers to him as "incompetent" on occasion, but she does seem to believe that he won't let her down, regardless of the case, and doesn't seem to mind helping him on said cases.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: Reines is proud to be a complete asshole, to the point that the very first words of the book she serves as the perspective character for are: "I am, quite frankly, a terrible person".
• Control Freak: Like every Lord, she has an innate desire to be in control.
• Crazy-Prepared: Early life as a magus has taught her to always carry requisite emergency supplies on hand in case of whatever danger shows up.
• Devil in Plain Sight: She makes it no secret that she loves making other people suffer, causing almost anyone who knows, especially Waver, to refer to her as a demon.
• The Don: Reines is basically a magic mafia boss in the body of a fifteen-year-old girl.
• Enfante Terrible: Reines has been an unrepentant little hellspawn from the day she was born and was acting like a heartless crimelord by the age of nine.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: She is a sadistic demon in the form of a beautiful young girl who feeds on negativity.
• Family Theme Naming: Reines's name is similar to Kayneth's name, especially in Japanese (Kayneth is ケイネス, Reines is ライネス).
• First-Person Smartass: When she serves as the POV character in volume 2, Reines proves herself to be just as caustic (if not moreso) in her head as she is outside it.
• Force and Finesse: She doesn't have the raw power of Kayneth's excellent magic circuits, but she has an incredible talent for precise control in her magecraft thanks to her Mystic Eyes, which specialize in precision analysis. This is why Trimmau has so much more variety in her shapeshifting under Reines than she did as Volumen Hydrargyrum under Kayneth.
• Friendless Background: Unsurprisingly, being an unrepentant asshole has not earned Reines many friends. This isn't a source of angst so much as some embarrassment, as it's one of the few things Waver gets to needle her about. Her arc throughout the series consists of her slowly getting friends like Gray and Olga, and admitting to herself that this is what they are to her without her pride getting in the way.
• Hime Cut: Although if you look closely her bangs seem to be slightly asymmetrical, so she can get that pinned-back bit. She's often referred to as a "princess", so it fits.
• Impoverished Patrician: The death of both Kayneth and his fiancée in Fuyuki has led to massive losses for the El-Mellois as they've taken a great hit to their reputation and accrued huge debts. With interest. The family's most valuable and precious item in the form of their magic crest is almost completely obliterated because of Kiritsugu and requires decades to fully repair. As such, Reines tasks Waver with taking on the responsibilities of safeguarding what's left, including the position of lordship in the Clock Tower, until she can properly take on the role.
• It Amused Me: It's clear that everything in life is a game to her and that she never bothers to take anyone seriously.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Though she likes to provoke and bully others, she's also willing to cheer up Gray and remind her of her worth as a person and a friend.
• Lost in Translation: The spelling "Reines" obscures how her name in Japanese (ライネス) is almost identical to Kayneth (ケイネス). Reines came from an Apocrypha fan translation originally and grew so prominent among the fanbase that years later it became official when the anime released with official subtitles.
• Love Redeems: Her relationships with Waver and Gray gradually inch her out of Enfant Terrible territory.
• Magical Eye: Reines has Mystic Eyes which react to the presence of magic energy. Unfortunately for her, they do this by burning and thus function more like an allergy than a superpower. That said, as shown when she first met with Waver, she has some demonstrated capability of generating that fire for her own uses.
• Manipulative Bastard: She is naturally quite adept at manipulating information out of others or coaxing them into doing what she wants them to do.
• Never Gets Drunk: It's noted in volume 4 that Reines has a downright insane tolerance for alcohol, with Waver noting that she often downs around ten glasses of wine—a potentially lethal amount for a girl her size—before going to parties, and Gray recalls an incident where she annihilated half of Waver's department in a drinking game. Apparently, she considers it a power play.
  • We see her down 5 glasses of wine in the Special in that many seconds. She stumbles once after this and then just shakes it off.
• Poke the Poodle:
  • Even though she's mean to most people, she's actually nice to Gray. She only teases her in harmless ways like patting her on the head or embarrassing her with compliments. But Reines' narration claims that this is totally part of her usual sadistic behavior.
  • Similarly, as she and Luviagelita Edelfet are close friends, she merely teases Luvia in pretty light ways, though it's suggested that she and Luvia have pranked warred with each other on numerous past occasions just for the enjoyment of getting one over on the other.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: As fitting for a rich lady, she wears black tights with her dress.
• Properly Paranoid: Ate exclusively from military rations as the El-Melloi succession crisis was ongoing due to the high likelihood of getting poisoned. It's not unjustified considering just how ruthless magus culture is and the other murder attempts in the series.
• Sadist: By her own admission. She even appointed Waver to his position of El-Melloi II purely to make him miserable.
• Satanic Archetype: Because of her sadism, she's referred to as the Devil itself.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: She has a calm and gentle voice to emphasize her sadism.
• Superpower Disability: Reines' Mystic Eyes tend to act more like magic hayfever than an actual ability, and she even has to take medication.
• The Tease: She jokingly proposes Waver to help her produce an heir when they're sharing a room together just to make him more uncomfortable than he already is.
• Tiny Tyrannical Girl: She practically rules over Waver's life and has him work like a slave for her own amusement.
• Token Evil Teammate: While most of Waver's students have managed to avoid falling into mage society's worst habits, Reines is self-professed Card-Carrying Villain and Troll even if she's technically on Waver's side.
• Token Heroic Orc: On the flipside however, Reines's cruelty isn't motivated by greed, power, or malice; she's just an absolute sucker for schadenfreude, and she knows where the line is between schadenfreude and tragedy. This ironically makes her one of the most moral Magi seen in the franchise.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: When she was about eight, she was already a bit of a sadist, knew that you could kill someone by dangling them upside down long enough, understood concepts such as virginity, and wanted Waver to be her tutor so people would wonder about the implications of her being so close with her not-blood-related brother. You can kind of see visually in the anime that she's trying to fill the role of a grown adult at the age of eight — she has a special tall chair to put herself on an adult's eye level despite being practically pocket-sized. At fifteen, she occasionally drinks alcohol and can even handle "ten times" (supposedly) as much as it takes to make Waver (twice her age and size) see pink elephants on parade. And her inappropriately sexual remarks have escalated to propositioning Waver to get her pregnant (much to his disgust).
• Tsurime Eyes: Her sharp eyes match perfectly her dominant and sadistic personality.

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Trimmau

Voiced by: Inori Minase

Originally Kayneth's Mystic Code, the Volumen Hydragyrum, it was... appropriated and reprogrammed by El-Melloi II and Reines (with unwanted assistance from Flat) to become something more suitable for their tastes and purposes.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • Flat interfered with its programming at the last minute by showing it The Terminator so it now occasionally goes on the rampage under the delusion that it was sent from the future by Skynet.
  • Flat also went on to show it several more movies like Full Metal Jacket so its algorithm now randomly selects film quotes to comment on things, a trait Reines is annoyed with when in public.
• Ascended Extra: Like Reines, Trimmau originated as a footnote in a profile of a material book (in her case, Fate/Zero Material's entry on Volumen Hydrargyrum) and had a cameo in Fate/Apocrypha before becoming part of the cast in this series.
• Combat Commentator: It activates a wrestling commentary mode the moment Luvia starts wrestling in episode 6, which Reines immediately assumes is Flat's work at play.
• Meido: With the input of Waver, Reines used the Volumen Hydragyrum as the core for an all-purpose golem maid.
• Mundane Utility: It primarily uses its mercury body for cleaning the household.
• Retcon: Fate/Zero Material stated that Waver was the one who turned Volumen Hydragyrum into Trimmau. Several years later, Fate/Apocrypha Material changed it to Reines creating Trimmau while Waver gave her advice.
• Slime Girl: Since it's made of mercury. Little ambient blobs of mercury tend to float around it, and it can even change forms, although it sticks to the "cute maid" look most of the time.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: It rarely says more than a couple of words at a time except when it busts out the "I DIDN'T KNOW THEY STACKED SHIT THAT HIGH!"
  • According to the glossary in the material book, Reines tolerates this because she learns other secrets via Flat's "magic hacking."
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Although its combat abilities mostly come up when it starts rampaging.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Later in the series, a small part of Trimmau gets split off for Waver to use for long-distance communication, with it manifesting as a tiny mercury Waver.

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Flat Escardos

Voiced by: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Japanese), Khoi Dao (English)
Live actor: Takeru Naya

Simultaneously the brightest and dumbest student in El-Melloi II's class, Flat is an upbeat lad with a wide-eyed outlook on life. He frequently indulges in many of the same hobbies as his dear mentor, but his eccentricities tend to get on everyone's nerves.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: Much of his magecraft can generally be described as simply doing something because he thought he could, even if for other mages, it would be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible.
  Touko: This isn't working off of any existing Foundations, is it? He's using the spell itself to serve as an impromptu Foundation. That's like inventing a new CPU for every spell he wants to cast. So he's one of those idiots who does ridiculous things just because he doesn't know they're supposed to be impossible.
• Ambiguous Innocence: While almost relentlessly sunny and cheerful, Flat occasionally shows a disconcerting Lack of Empathy that unnerves most people. As it turns out, he doesn't really have much empathy or conscience. However, a sense of love and Undying Loyalty towards Waver has led him to consciously adopt Waver's principles to make his own (somewhat janky) moral compass.
• Ambiguously Gay: When Svin asks him if he thinks Gray is cute in episode 0, he says he thinks Waver is cuter.
• Armor-Piercing Response: At one point, he receives a call from Gray on his cell phone. A furious Svin demands to know why he never gets calls from her, manhandling him into the ground. A nonplussed Flat just tells him that, to start with, it's because he doesn't have a cell phone.
• Badass Adorable: Bright-haired, blue-eyed, and relentlessly cheerful. His usage of magecraft is already first-rate despite his ditzy tendencies and he can easily bypass a dozen Bounded Fields and rewrite the wards of others without breaking a sweat.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Well, not exactly nice, but Waver was the first person to treat Flat as human rather than a case study or possible existential threat to humanity.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: No one's quite sure what's wrong with Flat, just that there is something seriously not right with him. His parents even entertained the idea that he might be a changeling and repeatedly tried to have him assassinated. There's also the implication that he doesn't value humans as humans. While he says that human lives are worth more than the Earth itself, he also says that it isn't efficient to sacrifice them for the sake of reaching the Root, rather than considering the moral implications of the deed.
• Boring, but Practical: His magecraft often has no visible effects, but does what he wants it to do, hinting at his obscene reserves of power.
• Canon Immigrant: Flat Escardos originally comes from Fate/strange Fake, which itself started off as a cheeky April Fool's joke story that wound up becoming canonized and expanded upon.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Flat is generally flighty, airheaded, and prone to Insane Troll Logic that makes the people around him question his sanity.
• Commonality Connection:
  • He befriends Shirou Emiya over a love of video games. It helps Shirou gave Flat japanese video games he couldn't get in London.
  • He bonds with Claudes over their love of computers, something rare for Mages.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The combination of his talent and his personality has given him a lot of grief over the years. His parents treated him like a monster and repeatedly tried to have him assassinated. When that failed, they shipped him off to the Clock Tower in order to be rid of him. By the time he meets El-Melloi II, he has to fake smiles by using magecraft.
• Entropy and Chaos Magic: His specialty, as his elemental affinity is Ether.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Flat is very over the top when it comes to his emotions, yet even he gets embarrassed by how obsessive Svin can be with his crush on Gray.
  • Even Flat, one of mage society's biggest deviants well outside the paradigm of what's considered normal, is shocked that Touko Aozaki would casually burn a sacred relic to render its ashes as usable only once for a spell.
• Expelled from Every Other School: Or rather "Dropped by every professor", but the connotations are the same.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: The one thing Flat does better than magecraft is getting on everyone's nerves, especially Svin and Waver's.
• The Gift: Flat was born with an innate understanding of magecraft and fantastic Magic Circuits to use it with. But his unusual temperament and ditziness squander his potential.
• Grade Skipper: While the Clock Tower is generally a secondary and post-secondary school, Flat was sent there at age nine. Ironically, he winds up Held Back in School in Fate/strange Fake, mostly because Waver's worried it's not safe (mainly for Flat, but also for anyone else) to release him into the world without supervision quite yet.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He approaches life with childlike naivete and enthusiasm despite being a teenager. He's always upbeat and cheerful, heaping praise on his friends (even if they don't like him for it).
• Hero of Another Story: Is one of the main protagonists in Fate/strange Fake, which takes place in another timeline.
• Humanoid Abomination: It's regularly implied that there's something inherently wrong or alien about Flat's existence, and that he has more in common with the Lovecraft pantheon than other people. He's been the target of multiple assassination attempts by his own parents for this very reason, as they're convinced he'll become a threat of apocalyptic proportions if left unchecked. Ryohgo Narita, in an interview about Fate/strange Fake, confirms that Flat's power and instability grows to the point that he has to be eliminated by either the Mages' Association or the Counter Force itself in every timeline where he doesn't meet El-Melloi II. Strange Fake eventually reveals that he (or rather his family's Magic Crest) contains the template for the next Prime Ones who shall rule Earth once mankind leaves for the stars. It can only be released when the "future is sacrificed for the past" (meaning that the heir of the Escardos family is killed), and is so powerful that it's treated as a Servant.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: Says this when surrounded by Gueldoa Davenant's monstrous thunder rabbits and telling Gray to make a break for it.
  Flat: This doesn't look good... I'll make a distraction, so you flee in the meantime, Gray!
  Gray: But what about-
  Flat: [beaming] I've always wanted to say something like that!
• Idiot Savant: Regularly regarded as one, as his talent and uncanny understanding of magecraft on an intuitive level are far beyond anyone's understanding, much less his own. He may be able to decipher the Voynich manuscript with ease, but good luck getting him to explain how he did it.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: His bright blue eyes emphasize his innocence and childish exuberance, but they also belie just how alien he is beneath the surface.
• Innocently Insensitive: Flat is not very good at recognizing when people are annoyed with him or why they are and will just keep on doing whatever it is that annoys or angers them no matter how much they tell him to knock it off.
• Iron Butt Monkey: He's often assaulted or manhandled by his professor and peers, taking it all with a cheerful grin. On the other hand, these people often abuse him so because of just how weird or annoying he's being.
• It Only Works Once: According to the Materials, Flat never uses the same spell formula twice. Whether this is "can't" or "won't" isn't clear.
• Keet: Exceedingly cheerful and talkative, which annoys everyone else on a regular basis.
• Kicked Upstairs: Normally, becoming Lord El-Melloi II's student is a great honor reserved for the best and brightest. Flat is only with him because literally no other teacher wants to deal with him.
• Mundane Utility: Flat muses about using the Servant Summoning System to bring back the author of a Manga series he liked, so he can complete it himself.
• Mythology Gag: Echoes his own words from strange fake in episode 3, saying "Human lives are more important than the Earth".
• The Nicknamer: Is prone to giving everyone silly nicknames (especially El-Melloi II) like "Great Big Ben London Star" no matter how much they may protest them. It is mentioned that he believes if he uses the nicknames enough, they will be added to everyone's souls and make them more important.
• Parental Abandonment: Flat was sent to study at the Clock Tower at a much earlier age than most less because of his talent for magecraft and more because it was a convenient way for his parents to get rid of him without public embarrassment.
• Perpetual Smiler: He's always seen with a smile on his face even while in life-or-death situations.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Like his teacher, Flat is up to date on pop culture and the use of electronics, chattering away with Caules about the latter's new PC and its specs.
• Precocious Crush: Seems to have one on Waver if his comments about finding him cuter than any of the girls are any indication.
• Squishy Wizard: For all his talent at magecraft, the main reason he can't graduate is because he keeps flunking his physical education classes.
• Teacher/Student Romance: He seems to have a (very, very) one-sided crush on Waver, whom he describes as "cute" and constantly fanboys. He tells Svin that he prefers looking at Waver over looking at Gray. (Waver, for his part, seems to see Flat as something between an adopted son and a huge thorn in his side.)
• Waistcoat of Style: Wears a blue-green one in contrast to his usual magenta in this story.
• Wrong Context Magic: Capable of performing ridiculously powerful and difficult magecraft with ease, but (or possibly because of) zero understanding of how he actually does it.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Flat appears to have some vague awareness that he's in a detective series starring his professor. However, Flat being Flat, this primarily leads to bizarre conclusions such as that this means Waver must be a secret Baritsu master just like Sherlock Holmes.
• Youthful Freckles: Only in the manga, he's got some faint freckles, emphasizing how childlike and cute he is.

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Svin Glascheit

Voiced by: Seiichirō Yamashita (Japanese), David Errigo Jr. (English)
Live actor: Ryūjirō Izaki

One of Waver's more prominent students in the Modern Magecraft Department.

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• Animal Motifs: Dogs, with his ability to sniff out things like a dog, his Beast magecraft giving him the aura of a dog, and he is frequently compared to one whenever he appears. Flat even gives him the nickname of "le chien" because of this.
• Birds of a Feather: The main reason for his attraction to Gray is because he sees her as a kindred spirit, since both were the subjects of unethical magical experiments by their families to transform their natures.
• Cast from Sanity: Beast magecraft is very detrimental to the user's long-term mental health, eventually turning them into a wild animal trapped in a human body.
• The Dark Arts: As it's well-known to inevitably drive its practitioners insane, beast magecraft is an all but extinct tradition. Just about the only known family who still practices it is Svin's—not because they're uniquely resistant to its drawbacks, but because they figured any given family member going insane didn't really matter as long they could keep passing the Magic Crest on.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Shaggy, clad in dark blue, and easily riled up, Svin is nonetheless a sweet, awkward, and shy young man.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Towards Gray. Unlike most, however, he is rewarded with Waver ordering him to stay several feet away at all times instead of returned affections.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Svin tends to show affection for someone much like a dog would, which is part of why he's no longer allowed within five meters of Gray.
• The Nose Knows: Can pick up the scent of pretty much anything near him, even distinguishing between them by using distinct details.
• "Not So Different" Remark: As much as Svin would like to believe he's the sensible one of the Flat-Svin duo, Gray is quick to point out that he's just as weird and responsible for nearly as many headaches as Flat.
• Perverted Sniffing: The particular behavior that got him banned from being within five meters of Gray.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Often appears together with Flat throughout the series, and Svin is the much more serious and restrained person of their duo.
• Super-Speed: Easily catches up to a speeding car while using his magecraft.
• Surpassed the Teacher: During the series, Svin gets promoted to Pride, one of the ranks in the Clock Tower and a rank above Waver himself.^note To further elaborate Pride is the same rank as Zouken Matou, though that doesn't necessarily mean Svin is actually on Zouken's level. This ranking system is a separate system from the Lords of the Clock Tower though, so Waver still has that over Svin.
• Totally Not a Werewolf: Despite giving off an extremely werewolf-like vibe to the point that Flat invoked Werewolf Theme Naming immediately upon meeting him, Svin is simply a practitioner of Beast Magecraft rather than any sort of lycanthrope.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He absolutely can't stand Flat (when they first met, Svin wanted Waver to kill Flat outright because he could sense how dangerous he could be), except he always ends up hanging out with him anyway.
• Werewolf Theme Naming: Invoked. While Svin's actual name doesn't have much to do with canines, Flat immediately dubs him le chien.
• Wolverine Claws: Gains these while using his magecraft, which are sharp enough to easily bust the tires and tear off the headlight of a speeding car.

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Rin Tohsaka

The "Red Devil" who joined the El-Melloi classroom a few years after participating in the Fifth Holy Grail War in her hometown of Fuyuki. She is introduced in the sequel series, The Adventures of Lord El-Melloi II.

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• The Dreaded: Played for laughs. She's referred to as the "Red Devil" due to the problems she causes for Waver.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She was first mentioned in this series in the Material book, which came out a year before her in-story debut. It described her as the new cause of chaos in the classroom, now that Svin and Flat are separated after Svin's graduation.
• Experienced Protagonist: Like Waver, by the time she is introduced in this series she has already lived through a Holy Grail War.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend: Although Shirou did come to the Clock Tower with Rin, when Waver asks if they're a couple, she denies it... but in a way that makes it clear she wishes they were.
• Hero of Another Story: It should go without saying, but she was one of the three main heroines of Fate/stay night.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She had no idea that Gray resembles Saber, as Waver was careful to keep Gray out of the classroom whenever Rin had a class. Before the first volume of Adventures Rin and Gray had never even met, though Rin knew about her as the student she'd never gotten to see. When they do meet she freezes up upon seeing Gray's face.
• She Is All Grown Up: Just like how she appeared in both of the epilogues of Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] and Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel, Rin has grown into a beautiful young woman by the time of her debut in Adventures.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: With some aspects of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors to it. This is the core concept behind Fünf Sterne im Unlauf, Rin's main power-up for this series. Mystery is negated by greater Mystery, so her only tool against opponents a tier above her is to avoid this direct clash on equal terms and constantly aim for the conceptual compatibility advantage, using her Average One to her advantage, as it put pretty much every option at her disposal.
• Took a Level in Badass: Her prowess as both a fighter and a magus has grown immensely since Fate/stay night and this is first demonstrated when she quickly overwhelms Gray in their first encounter together, with only the shock of seeing Gray's face close up preventing her from landing the finishing blow. Keep in mind that Gray is strong enough to fight weaker Servant-level enemies and as of Adventures, is enhanced even further after Artoria was summoned in Fate/stay night, inheriting some of her abilities as a result.
  • Even so she isn't able to stand against their stronger foes like Wuzhiqi and Bai Ruolong, and in volume 2 she complains to Waver that she wishes she had her family's Jeweled Sword so she could be more help. In volume 3 this results in her developing new abilities. The first is Pseudo-Edelsteine, where she uses Projection to create temporary elemental gems. The second is Fünf Sterne im Umlauf, a circle of five elemental gems created by Pseudo-Edelsteine, serving as a telescope to analyze the opponent's magecraft and pre-set attack platform to quickly counter the enemy's attack with any element as the situation demands. She also develops a pseudo-Rho Aias, though using it uses up a year's worth of her savings.

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Ergo

A strange man who Rin found drifting in the ocean near Singapore, with a history involving the Atlas Institute, the Wandering Sea, and the Louxuan Guan (China's mage organization). He is introduced in the sequel series, The Adventures of Lord El-Melloi II, where the mysteries surrounding him play a central role.

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• Big Eater: He gets hungry often.
• Cannibalism Superpower: As part of his creation he devoured the flesh of three gods to gain their factors. When Gray uses Altria's Magic Core, he also becomes hyperfixated on wanting to devour her.
• Character Title: He is the "man who devoured god" referred to in the title of the first volume of Adventures.
• God-Eating: The origin of Ergo, who at an unknown point in the past was made to eat the flesh of three gods to absorb their powers. The central Ontological Mystery of Adventures is the identity of said gods.
• Historical Domain Character: He's eventually revealed to be Alexander IV, Iskandar's son. Or rather, he has his body: in actuality, Alexander IV is long gone and only his corpse, prepared to eat gods, remain, and due to the memory saturation it causes, Ergo is basically a completely new person.
• I'm a Humanitarian: In the climax of volume 1, he tries to eat Gray after Wuzhiqi eggs him on.
• Identical Stranger: Ergo's facial features make him look like a Gender Flip of the female protagonist of Fate/Grand Order. Who in turn was loosely designed as a gender flipped Shirou.
• Like Brother and Sister: Gray starts to think of Ergo as a little brother over the course of volume 1. By the end of volume 3, Ergo now outright calls her "nee-san".
• Line-of-Sight Name: Rin was the one who started calling him Ergo, as it was the only word he could remember when she found him. It comes from the phrase "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"), which is his magecraft incantation.
• Loss of Identity: Every time he uses the divine powers in his Phantom Hands part of his mind is vacated to make room for the 'information' of the gods within him. This is the cause of his amnesia. If he does this too much his personality will be completely overwritten by the gods, similar to Gray and Altria. As of volume 5 he's already started to forget the beginning of the series, such as not being able to remember when Rin found him.
• Many Spirits Inside of One: Similar to Alter Ego Servants in Fate/Extra CCC and Fate/Grand Order, Ergo has the powers of multiple gods within him. The two known so far are Sun Wukong from China and Set from Egypt.
• Mind-Reformat Death: This is why Ergo is not exactly Alexander IV. He was already dead and Ergo essentially came to life from the ritual of having the corpse ingest organs of gods.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He can project six Phantom Hands from his back. Each hand has a different power, and each pair comes from one of the Divine Spirits inside him.
• Omniglot: He learns languages at an incredible rate just from making conversation. When Rin first found Ergo he couldn't speak anything but in only half a day was speaking English, and by the time he meets Gray and Waver he can also speak Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. In addition his English initially had a Singaporean accent, but over the course of his conversation with Waver he started speaking in a proper British accent. It is later revealed that it was probably a natural ability of Alexander IV, who was also known to learn languages fast.
• Power Copying: With Set's Noble Phantasm Per Djet, he can copy a divine enemy's Authority. In his rematch with Bai Ruolong he copied Typhon's Nega-Keraunos, a blast of lightning stolen from Zeus.
• Tell Me About My Father: After learning his identity as Alexander IV, Ergo asks Waver about Iskandar. Waver says it's a long and boring story, which Ergo wrongly interprets as Waver calling his father boring.
• The Reveal: Volume 4 reveals that he looks just like Alexander IV, Iskandar's son. Volume 5 goes on to elaborate that he's a new personality inhabiting the dead body of Alexander IV.

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