"I've shown you mine, so the least you can do is show me yours" and "I am the bone of my sword."
Saber once tells Shirou "you've entered me so many times"... referring, of course, to the fact that he's entered her memories. It doesn't help that at this point in the story, they've already had sex, as well.
Another good one from Saber, to Shirou: "You were my sheath." She's discussing the fact that he's a vessel for Excalibur's sheath Avalon, buuuuut...
Lancer's long, veiny, red and piercing Gae Bolg... or, if you prefer, his "Gay Bulge".
Archer's last act in Heaven's Feel: did he simply give his arm to Shirou in order to give Shirou a fighting chance against the Shadow, being completely unaware of how the arm would slowly kill him, or could he have been aware of what fusing his arm to Shirou would do to him, and thus believed that Shirou killing himself by overusing Archer's Projection could technically count as Archer "killing" Shirou?
Did Gilgamesh really use Ea on Shirou as a simple joke as he states, or was he in fact serious before then deciding to laugh it off as a joke in order to save face after Shirou is barely hurt by it? His venomous scowl after the fact certainly suggests the latter.
Americans Hate Tingle: Sakura in Japan isn't quite on par with the other two heroines in popularity, but she still scores high in polls. While she appears less frequently as herself, she does have even more derivative characters than the other two, many of which are extremely popular. Outside of Japan, though, she's unquestionably the most actively disliked of the heroines and one of the most polarizing characters in the entire story. This seems to be for a few reasons: First, the character type she is presenting to the audience is simply not as popular in the west. She tends towards being passive and reactive in nature while the other two are more willing to act. Second, she has more explicit flaws. Bundled together with this is that some fans cannot relate to her backstory or believe it is overdone. Third, her story is darker in tone, which results in a lot of popular characters dying in her route, some of which she is blamed for.
At the end of Unlimited Blade Works, Archer still being alive, surviving a prolonged period despite his already low mana and being impaled by several of Gilgamesh's Noble Phantasms.note The Archer class has a trait called Independent Action that allows them to depend on the Master''s mana less than other servants do. That might explain the "low mana" part, but not the "being impaled" part.
Kotomine surviving Assassins Noble Phantasm in Heaven's Feel where in the previous routes he dropped like a fly the moment he was hit in the heart by Shirou or Lancer.
Awesome Ego: Gilgamesh takes it as an axiom that the world revolves around him and everything in it exists to serve at his whim, all summed up in his favorite word: "Zasshu". ("Mongrels!") and fans love him for it. In-universe, his ego is so insanely massive that he was able to resist being corrupted by the Holy Grail's black mud, as he considered it only natural for the King of Kings to also take on all of humanity's evils as a burden.
Sakura is easily the most divisive of the game's heroines. Her supporters consider her a deeply sympathetic and tragic character whose flaws are realistic, understandable, and make her a complex and rounded character. Her detractors believe her character relies too heavily on her status as The Woobie in place of more organic charisma and depth, that her romance with Shirou is too underbaked to justify Shirou's Always Save the Girl stance, and that her flaws are extreme enough to make her outright unlikeable. It doesn't help that a lot of the context around her character is subject to Values Dissonance between Japan and the West, which only adds to her divisiveness.
Shinji is a divisive character especially since he was deliberately designed to be a Hate Sink. For a number of fans, this ended up as the Intended Audience Reaction with Shinji's haughtiness making him insufferable. Others regard him with more sympathy as a guy from a bad family being used and manipulated by those around him.
Best Known for the Fanservice: Outside of the series' fanbase, the visual novel is primarily known for the fact that it originally featured hardcore porn scenes, even if said porn scenes were a very small fraction of the overall story.
The DEEN anime adaptation of the Fate route was initially widely praised back in 2006, especially for the fluid animation techniques shown at the time. After 2014, a good portion of the fanbase, especially those introduced to the Fate franchise through ufotable's anime adaptations of Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] criticized the 2006 anime primarily for its plotnote which primarily focused on the "Fate" route, but included elements of "Unlimited Blade Works" and "Heaven's Feel" as well especially when ufotable's animation completely blew DEEN's out of the water in comparison. However, it still has its fans and defenders (including a few that got into the franchise through it), who point out DEEN's version is the only one that avoids Continuity Lockout issues and assumes you have no knowledge of the visual novel and works from there note while Fate/Zero is an adaptation of a prequel that assumes the reader already knows the twists of Fate/stay night and spoils elements from the original game at well, and ufotable's "Unlimited Blade Works" and "Heaven's Feel" assume you already watched said prequel. Those who try to take a middle ground admit that while the 2006 anime may not be as visually stunning compared to the newer series, it was still decent for its time and not a bad place to start enjoying the Fate series even now. Plus, no one on any side can argue with its Awesome Music.
The Heaven's Feel route in general, with its focus on Sakura, also gets this. The route is either the best of the three by far and a literary masterpiece that beautifully tackles complex themes, or a shallow love story that relies far too much on "suffering equals depth" to work effectively.
Speaking of introducing the franchise to newbies, "what to watch first" is a contentious topic. To summarize, the DEEN's series while not as visually captivating as Ufotable's adaptations, is the only adaptation of the Fate route or the visual novel as a whole that doesn't assume you've seen any other source from the franchise; Fate/Zero assumes that you already knew what happens in Fate/stay night and in fact spoils the major plot twists of Fate and Heaven's Feel routes;note Saber is King Arthur, Gilgamesh is allied with Kotomine and remained on Earth, and Sakura is a Tohsaka ufotable's Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feeltake it for granted that you already watchedFate/Zero (and, in case of the Heaven's Feel movies, the Unlimited Blade Works anime as well) but the routes themselves leave several plots of the prequel unresolved. What most people can agree on is that you should read the visual novel first if you can, though it may require a fair deal of patience.
Character Perception Evolution: Shirou was initially despised by many fans who were introduced to the franchise through the 2006 DEEN Fate anime adaptation due to his portrayal there being rather flat and lacking most of the psychological depth explaining his more controversial actions. As time went on, more fans became aware of or were introduced to him via the visual novel fan translation or the later and generally more highly-regarded anime adaptations, where he's significantly more fleshed out, with most fan opinions on him becoming extremely positive.
His Fate incarnation is mainly accused of being a Vanilla Protagonist whose relationship with Saber is unrealistic. Even Urobuchi agrees (although Nasu argued against Urobuchi's opinion), believing that it's mostly a "complicated relationship with a boy who met a girl". A good number of fans softened their opinion on him after finding out that his Character Development and relationship with Saber are more focused on their Survivor Guilt and personal issues in regards to their past failures than his Ideal Hero beliefs. Even the critics look forward to his and Saber's relationship, calling it "interesting".
That being said, works that emphasize his gentler side also end up providing a bit of leeway for Shirou throughout the years. Series like Carnival Phantasm and Today's Menu for the Emiya Family are appreciated for easing up on his issues and focusing more on him as a person, preventing him from becoming too much of a Stock Light-Novel Hero with all the attention modern adaptations give to his feats.
That Archer is from the unproduced Illya route, due to his fondness for Illya. Word of God is that Archer is from a route that most closely resembles the first/Fate route, but couldn't save Saber's heart and that Illya's death after the route added to his misery.
Likewise, another popular misconception is that Archer is from one of the game's routes/endings, but Word of God states that this is false.
While the Studio DEEN anime adaptation was quite well-received when it came out, particularly for animation that was actually pretty good for the time, it was pretty much hit by a freight train of Overshadowed by Awesome in terms of animation by ufotable 's versions of Fate/Zero. A number of fans, especially those who got into the franchise via Ufotable's Unlimited Blade Works adaptations, will tell you to skip the former and watch the latter two, or better yet, start with the original VN. However there are many fans and defenders of DEEN anime's (including those that first got into the franchise partially or wholly through it) who will argue that while the 2006 adaptation hasn't aged that well, particularly concerning the liberties it took during the adaptation, they prefer its overall plot, storytelling, and character development over Ufotable's 2014 Unlimited Blade Works adaptation.
One thing near-universally agreed to have aged well about it, however? The soundtrack. Plus, the 2006 seiyuu cast were also solid enough that most of them continued voicing subsequent incarnations of their characters over the following decade.
Cry for the Devil: Kotomine in Heaven's Feel. While the route gives the audience an idea of just how depraved he is, getting a look his backstory shows that despite it he's an equally miserable person who has suffered throughout his entire life.
Die for Our Ship: As the most divisive of the three heroines, Sakura used to be on the receiving end of this trope due to being seen as a far less compelling heroine than Saber or Rin, who tend to be quite well-liked independently of the routes they're in. Conversely, Shirou/Sakura fans could also get quite hostile and bashy towards fans of the other two heroines, which didn't help. However, as anime adaptations of Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel have helped highlight Sakura's more sympathetic traits, a lot of the hate has died off with time to the point that while she's still less popular than the other two heroines, nowadays you'll rarely find anyone who still truly hates her.
Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The Holy Grail War serves as this, since the previous war was what screwed up Shirou's life in the first place, and how even if he were to win, the wish granted to the winner would be corrupted. The problem is that most of the endings have Shirou come out of the Holy Grail War better off than when he started, hooking up with a cute girlfriend, and even the ending where he Did Not Get the Girl still has him overcome his emotional trauma. Not to mention the idea of Servants proved so popular that they've essentially become the main focus of the overall universe, simply because of how cool and universally adaptable the concept is. Who wouldn't want to hang out with your favorite historical figure or fictional character, upgraded into a gorgeousmagically-empoweredsuperhuman?
Gilgamesh falls into this, even with his more overtly villainous characterization. Fans enjoy his gloriously hammy and arrogant personality, and how he will mercilessly curbstomp Shirou, to the point they get pissed when Shirou wins. It helps that Gilgamesh's most repulsive characteristics are limited to the Fate route — where Saber is the central girl — and Shirou gets the most flak for being a Vanilla Protagonist. In UBW, Gilgamesh's Villainous Crush on Saber is absent, leaving him focused entirely on ruling over a new world, making him into a more straightforward and enjoyable villain.
Because Gilgamesh's villainy tends to revolve around his Villainous Crush on Saber, it should be elaborated upon considering how many fans still like him anyway. Gilgamesh undeniably makes no qualms about wanting to outright rape Saber, but because he makes no actual moves to do so, it is easy to forget about or ignore his threats, unlike Shinji who actually attempts to rape a captive Rin onscreen and actually does rape Sakura in disturbing detail, making the action impossible to ignore. Or the dozens of other attempted and actual sexual assaults by Medusa, Medea, Ilya, Dark Sakura, and Zouken on other characters including Shirou, Rin, and Saber (making her and Shirou potentially the victims of more than one potential assaulter). It is worth pointing out that in both the original myth and the game, Enkidu originally fought Gilgamesh due to him invoking Droit de seigneur, or the lord's right to a bride's virginity, where the consent of the woman didn't matter, and Values Dissonance can't be invoked with this because even in the original myth people thought he was going too far. That being said, Gilgamesh was also a good if flawed king and the point of the epic is for Gilgamesh to learn hubris and to accept that there are some things out of even his reach; ending the tale as a hero worthy of the title. Fate's Gilgamesh has done things far more vile than many other Heroic Spirits but the lack of screentime makes it harder to hold it against him than it is against the other villains who attempt to and/or actually succeed in sexually assaulting their targets. In the end, this works nicely on Gilgamesh. Because of this, laterFate works eventually toned down his villainy and just leaving him with his Awesome Ego, thereby inflicting Gilgamesh with the Characterization Marches On trope.
Kotomine can also fall into this, as he is actually one of the most popular characters in the franchise and has an incredible amount of depth to him due to a very believable backstory while still being vague enough to spark discussion about his character. Is he a Tragic Villain or a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds?
Lancer, who really gets The Worf Effect very hard in the series, but his wit, amiable and likable personality, and interest in fighting compared to the more goal oriented and ambitious Servants made him easily one of the most popular Servants. His glorious send off in Unlimited Blade Works with killing Kotomine after the latter ordered him to commit suicide is very satisfying as well.
Rider and not just for her sheer Ms. Fanservice traits, but also her tragic past (being a unique, non-evil take on the Greek monster Medusa without using literal snake hairs), her moments of awesome in HF, all while being a compelling character. Not bad, when she spent the two first, more popular routes as 'first casualty' fodder all the time.
Fake Assassin AKA Sasaki Kojirou is fairly popular due to being a quite likeable nobleWorthy Opponent towards Saber, his distaste and snarking at Caster, and his Warrior Poet nature.
Saber Alter is a very popular character despite her limited screen time.
Issei, Shirou's Muggle Best Friend get a lot of loves from fans because unlike Shinji he isn't a toxic friend to the protagonist and has a few Ho Yay moments in the Unlimited Blade Works route.
Estrogen Brigade: While the VN was primarily aimed at heterosexual male otaku, it has a fairly prominent female following due to the complexity of the heroines and the tackling of themes some female readers find cathartic/empowering, as well as its many attractive male characters, with Shirou in particular being a Knight in Shining Armor househusband.
Gilgamesh has an ego the size of the world and the power to back it up with one of the most broken Noble Phantasms in the series. Combined with his good looks it's little wonder why he's so popular.
The fandom of Fate and its many sequels/spin-offs holds quite a rivalry with the fans of the Shinza Bansho Series, especially Dies Irae, both in terms of their similarities as well as their differences.
Within the Fate/Stay Night fandom, there's also the debate of which of the three routes is the "best" one. Adding fuel to the fire, thanks to the massive popularity of Fate/Zero, an extra factor is which of the three serves as the better follow up to Zero, providing the most closure and strongest Character Development for Shirou, though it should also be noted that this is a discussion exclusive to anime fans who started out with Fate/Zero, while fans who came from Fate/stay night first will react negatively about said topic. See Fandom-Enraging Misconception below.
Fanfic Fuel: The premise of superpowered historical/legendary figures being summoned to fight in a battle royale has led to large amounts of original character Servants.
Because Archer's Dark and Troubled Past is only told in broad details rather than real specifics, plenty of fanfic writers like to write about what really happened in his life. In particular, because Nasu says that Archer can come from any potential timeline (even one of the three in-game ones), as well as the fact that Archer has a damaged memory (so he can't remember any specific details or characters he encountered in his timeline), Archer's practically a fanfic goldmine.
The Second True Magic that is discussed in Heaven's Feel is the perfect device to justify nearly any crossover you can think of. This is helped by the fact that in the True Ending to the route, Rin becomes an apprentice to Zelretch, the mage who mastered said magic.
Many fans prefer pairing Rin with Archer than Shirou, especially it makes for good Ship Mates with fans of Shirou and either of the other two heroines. Ironically Archer actually is Shirou from the future.
Shirou/Rider is reasonably popular for a non-canon pairing - they like each other, fans like her, and she's the only Servant who survives the story in a True Ending. All the necessary pieces are in place, and while the story doesn't go there outside a bit of Ship Tease, the fans are happy to go the rest of the way. Additionally, the fandisc sequel would later reveal that Rider actually does have a thing for Shirou, but tries to suppress it as not to upset Sakura, who gets extremely jealous seeing the two together.
Fanon: While we've had no official art to confirm this, there are mountains of fan art depicting Shirou after the events of the grail war wearing a Palette Swapped version of Archer's armor.
For a while Shirou got hit with being very dense/stupid, due to doujins playing up his naivete in the Fate route to absurd levels and the original anime going with the Fate route and not portraying his inner thought processes due to the nature of the medium, hiding the fact he's really neither.
Due to a misunderstanding on how magecraft and Shirou's projection work, virtually any crossover with another magically-inclined series in which he travels to their universe will give Shirou a massive power boost.
Shirou's cooking is considered delicious in-universe and it's lovingly described to Food Porn levels. All of his friends and family get extremely excited when he's cooking and even Servants commend him for how tasty it is. But at the same time, Rin and Sakura are on par with him and he's actually worried that Sakura will surpass him at one point. Fanon tends to elevate him to a Supreme Chef who cooks Impossibly Delicious Food that is downright divine in its taste and presentation.
Dismissing it as mere hentai/porn, or implying that said porn scenes are the main reason anyone plays the game, is a quick way to piss off fans. Particularly since the R18 content takes up an extremely small fraction of the story and moreover is often considered the weakest and most Narmy parts of the story, to the point that many adaptations leave it out no worse for the wear.
Fate/Zero is considered the critical high point of the franchise, a Light Novel which served as the Prequel telling the story of the previous Holy Grail World and adding additional world-building to the franchise. The anime released to critical and commercial acclaim and introduced a large number of new fans to the franchise. On its own, that's not really a problem, but the "Enraging Misconception" comes into play where the routes of the original game started to get judged on "which is the 'best' sequel to Zero." This is despite the fact that part of the point of Zero was to flesh out backstories and characters for all three of the routes and that it was always meant to be read after finishing the original visual novel.
Additionally, this has been praised as one of the most interesting aspects of Heaven's Feel. While the other route's sex scenes are mostly remembered for being laughably bad, the hypersexual behavior of Sakura (a realistic symptom of victims of sexual abuse as children) has been remembered for how uncomfortable it succeeds in making readers feel.
Franchise Original Sin: Famously, Saber, Artoria Pendragon is the subject of an Historical Gender Flip, something which has been repeated almost as an obligation in every subsequent installment of the series. However, in this original story, it's practically a deconstruction, focusing on how concealing their gender impacted their life and their relationships with others, and Saber's character design is tasteful and light on Fanservice. Later games and novels repeat the idea of flipping major historical figures' genders, usually in the noble goal of evening out the cast's gender balance and making human history and mythology less of a sausage fest, but are generally either much less interested in seriously exploring the impact of altering a character's gender on their legend, use the flip as an excuse to cram in sex appeal for marketing purposes, or both.
Genius Bonus: Holy shit. At just the absolute tip of the iceberg, every Servant's legend is impressively well-researched, and small tidbits from their backstories very often end up becoming plot points or jokes, often with very little explanation for anyone who's unfamiliar.
For example, Gilgamesh's constant self-aggrandizement, beyond being simply indicative of his universe-sized ego, might be a reference to the actual epic of Gilgamesh, which does, in fact, dedicate entire verses every few chapters to reminding the reader just how ridiculously amazing the main character is.
Growing the Beard: While the Fate route is still well-liked and regarded, the Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel routes are considered much deeper, more complex themes and storylines.
Good Bad Translation: One overly-literal fansub had Shirou saying "People die if they are killed" with an ultra-serious look on his face.note basically a slightly idiomatic phrase equivalent to the English "normally you only have one life to live." or "people usually 'stay' dead when killed" A screenshot of this sub is now a meme when talking about bad translations, even though it makes sense in context.
The "I am the bone of my sword" invocation/chant for the Unlimited Blade Worksreality marble isn't given much weight or attention, and only seems to be there for the Rule of Cool. Until the Heaven's Feel route, that is, where its meaning becomes painfully clear after Shirou uses Archer's arm for projection, catapulting him past his limits and resulting in an eventual rebound that reforges his body into thousands of swords, killing him from the inside out."I am the bone of my sword" indeed. At one point in Unlimited Blade Works, Archer tells Shirou and Saber that he lost his arm the first time he used a projection, which seems to be a lie as Shirou is able to perform projection and still manages to keep both arms throughout both Fate and UBW. But then in Heaven's Feel, Shirou has one of his arms blown off. Archer voluntarily has one of his arms grafted to Shirou, and "losing his arm" at this point enables Shirou to perform Projection for the first time not long after.
Also, Sakura's jealousy. Cute? A funny little argument with Rider about Shirou finding her attractive? Not so much after killing Shinji, going berserk and hitting you with the worst bad ends of the game plus her Villainous Breakdown against Tohsaka at the end, where it's also revealed that no, Sakura did not pick up the little cues that Tohsaka really did care about her all along. This also makes Unlimited Blade Works somewhat uncomfortable, when it's revealed how much Sakura didn't want to lose Shirou to Tohsaka.
Remember the humorous scenes you can get if you nag Saber for "a super move that can defeat a Servant" during training? In one ending of Heaven's Feel, Shirou actually wins against Saber Alter... by using Archer's super move with Kanshou and Bakuya against her. Though maybe it's just Hilarious in Hindsight, since that ending is actually really, really awesome.
Gilgamesh's Entitled to Have You attitude concerning Saber is already creepy enough on its own, but then Fate/Zero elaborates on it even further. Gilgamesh finds the look of despair on Saber's face to remind him of his servant girls.
A throwaway line in Heaven's Feel notes that a gravely wounded Rin is being kept alive by her Magic Crest, which will not let her die if it can help it. This gains sinister undertones near the ending of Fate/Grand Order, which reveals that the Big Bad induced an anti-suicide compulsion within Magic Crests, so that the seventy-two Demon Pillars within them can survive for three thousand years and take over their host magi when the time is right.
In the Fate route, Rin half-jokingly speculates that Archer must have been a skirt chaser back when he was alive. Then comes UBW and we discover who he is. Suffice to say, he didn't chase skirts as much as he was chased by skirts.
Rin mentions in the prologue that there is no way there can be any other masters than her in her school. As it turns out, no less than four other masters from the war were either students or teachers at the school.
In the Tiger Dojo #21, Ilya says to Taiga that she (and Rin) are the only characters with enough age to be Magical Girls. A few years later... hello, Kaleido Ruby and Prisma Ilya.
The whole mispronunciation of Lancer's Gae Bolg as "Gay Bulge" and Archer's Rho Aias as "Raw Ass" becomes this when you realize that in his legend, Cu Chulainn defeated Ferdiad by an Ass Shove with the Gae Bolg.
Illya lacking her own route, which the authors intended to put in the visual novel but did not have enough time, had been the franchise' in-joke for years. Fast forward to 2011, she got a whole show for herself.
This incarnation of Lancer is best rememberedfor dying in every route (and Carnival Phantasm for that matter, to the point where his master takes Grail-kun's advice and chooses to kill Lancer himself and forge a contract with another servant because Lancer kept dying on him). His Fate/Grand Order version, on the other hand, if played correctly, is almost unkillable, and people have been able to defeat the final boss of the game's first arc using him on his own.
At one point, Saber tells Shirou that while most Heroic Spirits can be attributed under different Servant classes, she says that she will only correspond to the class of Saber. Come Fate/Grand Order and you can now summon different varieties of Saber/Artoria under all 7 different Servant classes and more to complete all slots for an entire Grail War all by herself!
Shirou and Kirei's interactions are similarly tension-filled and dripping with this, especially during Heaven's Feel where both men eventually learn how very similar they actually are to each other. It even culminates with Shirou begrudgingly admitting in his thoughts that he actually likes Kirei during their climactic fight.
Rin is portrayed as bisexual in the Fate route when she has sex with Saber and Shirou, and realizes that she swings both ways. Although that is only present in the original Hentai game, which typically aren’t known for consistent characterisations, and was before the Franchise truly decided what it was. It is therefore not present in the finalised Realta Nua.
Saber is King Arthur, Archer is Shirou Emiya from an alternate future, and pretty much the identities of all of the servants honestly. Once Fate/Grand Order came out, their identities became subject to Late-Arrival Spoiler, as did the fact that Saber Alter exists.
Thanks to it being revealed in the 2006 anime despite that not being the case in the original Fate route, and the extreme popularity of the Fate/Zero anime, what was once one of the most major plot twists of Heaven's Feel (namely, that Sakura and Rin are sisters) is known by almost everyone in the fandom now.
Jerkass Woobie: Illya is a seriously damaged child who didn't get to grow up with real familial love, was "raised" and manipulated by people who ultimately just wanted her for her Holy Grail (some of which had their own designs for the Grail besides), and was isolated from the world for most of her life. But while this certainly explains much of her issues, it belies the fact that she is still a possessive stalker and a cruel sadist with very little respect for life. She would easily be the Big Bad in a less meaty story, and is only a Wannabe because her aforementioned manipulators are several leagues worse.
Saber, who gets paired with pretty much everyone, male and female alike.
Gilgamesh, due to the tension he has with a large amount of the cast.
Shirou. It's a given with the female character due to the series' Harem Genre elements, but he's also frequently shipped with Archer, Lancer, Gilgamesh, Kotomine, and occasionally Issei. He's also shipped with swords.
While not as much as the above characters, Rin herself gets to be shipped with a lot of characters. Besides Shirou, there's also Archer, Lancer, Gilgamesh, Saber, Ayako, Luvia, Rider, and even Issei.
Love to Hate: Gilgamesh and Kotomine for some, when they're not liked for being genuinely compelling characters or getting the Draco in Leather Pants treatment. But for the latter, he's more of a Cry for the Devil as shown in Heaven's Feel.
Magnificent Bastard: Archer, the resident Wild Card, is Shirou Emiya from an alternate timeline disillusioned from his dreams to be a "hero of justice." Summoned in the Fifth Holy Grail War, Archer seeks to escape his fate by murdering Shirou. With no one able to get a true read on him, Archer is regarded as one of the best tacticians in the Holy Grail War. Often winning with his well-planned strategies that he often doesn't share with his Master Rin beforehand, Archer weaves out of the Master-Servant pact by pretending to ally with Caster and her Master. Once they are dispatched both directly and indirectly, Archer moves forward with his gambit but cannot go through with it after seeing Shirou's own conviction in the face of reality. He dies content that Rin has set Shirou on a path he won't regret.
Saber is often assumed to have suffered from Power Creep within the Nasuverse due to post-Stay Night works, mainly Fate/Grand Order, introducing Servants with more visually impressive or complicated abilities than hers. This is caused by the Saber-class itself being hyped as the strongest in-universe, with her also being hyped-up as the strongest Saber, but suffering The Worf Effect for much of Stay/Night. In truth, Saber is still one of the most powerful Servants ever when she has proper support, as shown in Unlimited Blade Works and Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star. Finally, the Servants said to be stronger than her either suffer from a critical flaw that can be exploited, or are so powerful that a team of Servants would be needed to defeat them regardless of any other factor.
While Sakura is a very popular character, her relative unimportance outside of the Heaven's Feel route has led to fans portraying her as neglected and being fed up with no one paying attention to her. Even official works have gotten in on this, such as Carnival Phantasm portraying Sakura as an Attention Whore upset about Rider beating her in popularity polls.
Even Gilgamesh gets this treatment sometimes, as despite being billed as a nigh-Invincible VillainIn-Universe, he's a frequent victim of The Worf Effect (most notably getting his ass handed to him by Shirou once he learns to use his Reality Marble in the Unlimited Blade Works route and being devoured by Sakura with almost no fanfare in the Heaven's Feel route), leading many to declare him the "World's Strongest Jobber" instead.
Being Lancer is suffering. Explanation A reference to the "Being meguca is suffering" meme from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the fact that neither Cú Chulainn nor Diarmuid met happy ends in both life and Servanthood.
Since the beginning of history, all Lancers have had Rank E Luck.note A reference to Lancer suffering The Worf Effect and the tragic ends of many spear wielding mythological heroes.
GAR Explanation Came from a post on 4chan where someone remarked that he was "gay for Archer" because of his badassery, only to misspell it as "GAR" instead, and it took off from there.
"Unlimited X Works" as a sort of fill-in-the-blank meme.
Yorokobenote Kotomine's signature line, meaning "rejoice." It's usually used in response to something unfortunate in reference to Kotomine's schadenfreude.
UNLIMITED BUDGET WORKS!note At the time of its airing, ufotable's adaptation of UBW had some of the best animation ever seen in a television broadcast anime.
Dr. Gil's Miraculous Heart Surgery Explanation Played in reverse, the Unlimited Blade Works scene where Gilgamesh kills Ilya turns into Gil ramming a heart into her chest, healing her wounds with a friendly smile, and then moonwalking away and dissolving into golden glitter.
Rin's harem ending Explanation The Unlimited Blade Works route's Good Ending has Saber sticking around the modern era with Shirou and Rin unlike the True Ending where she leaves. Considering Rin's implied attraction towards Saber and her being known as the one wearing the pants in her and Shirou's relationship, fans have argued that UBW's Good Ending isn't Shirou's harem ending, but Rin's.
Gas leaksExplanation The official excuse used by the overseeing Church to the public to cover up the actual causes behind both the Fuyuki Fire and the supernatural phenomenon that's happening in Fuyuki while the Holy Grail War rages on. Fans use this response to jokingly explain away similar coverups in other paranormal happenings in the greater Nasuverse, especially in the Fate series.
As noted in the Complete Materials, Nasu didn't actually write the infamously bad sex scenes in this or any other Type-Moon game. Likewise, a lot of the more notorious metaphors, while certainly awkward to Western eyes, are commonplace and far less Narmy in Japanese erotic text. Hasn't stopped 'Nasu can't write sex' from approaching Memetic Mutation levels - that may, admittedly, be true, but we can't say for sure without any evidence.
At least some of Nasu's reputation for having a stiff writing style seems to have been the product of the early Mirrormoon/TakaJun Fan Sub translation which, on top of being fairly literal, was also forced to shed a lot of nuances based on ruby text or kanji puns that would have allowed the phrases to flow together more smoothly in their native language.
Moe: Sakura and Ilya stand out as the most notable cases, although Saber and Rin have their moments.
More Popular Spin-Off: Hoo boy. This is true in the wider sense of the Nasuverse, and it's made real old-school Type-Moon fans sore for ages. F/SN was just meant to be an interesting one-off that expanded on the idea of magic in Nasu's fictional universe as well as elaborate on the idea of the Counter Force and whatnot before TM moved on to Tsukihime 2 or other projects. However, the reaction to the VN, its adaptations, and then its spinoffs were always so consistently positive and led to newer fans asking for more material that F/SN and the series it spawned ended up becoming the primary focus of the Nasuverse. This makes a lot of very old school, doujin-era fans pretty annoyed, since it means Tsukihime got pushed to the wayside very early, and it means other elements of the Nasuverse tend to get overshadowed by the relentless success of Fate.
Most Wonderful Sound: Saber unleashing "Excalibur!" and Archer's "Unlimited Blade Works" incantation are always awesome regardless of what medium they're depicted in.
Two words: Gay Bulge. (From the anime dub pronouncing Gae Bolg in the worst possible way.)
Similarly, Rho Aias, which sounds like "Raw Ass". Then when you have Lancer and Archer fighting each other with their Gay Bulge and Raw Ass, you're bound to get jokes about Ho Yay between them.
The H-scenes for their "Blind Idiot" Translation, assuming that the writing wasn't already terrible. Much of it is Word Salad and has some... interesting descriptions that are short and unsubtle.If you insist to know For example, "The varying movements are like that of an educated prostitute.", "Her anus is defenseless. It looks like a second reproductive organ. Tohsaka's anus.", "The body is shaped like a mollusk.", "Maybe she can't breathe through her mouth because it's filled with my penis.", "It's [Shirou's penis] like it's crying.", etc.It's about "I release two years worth of semen into Asuna." levels of terrible.
Not to mention the excuse they give for why Shirou has to have sex with Saber in order to recharger her mana and also why Rider seduces him: because mage semen contains mana.
The All There in the Manual explanation for how Mordred was conceived. Because Artoria needed a biological heir (which is obviously not possible in her political marriage with Guinevere), Merlin temporarily gave her a penis. Whatever was supposed to happen next is anyone's guess (why Artoria didn't conceive one with Guinevere isn't explained), but Morgan conveniently comes around during this time and seduces Artoria. Morgan takes Artoria's sperm and uses it with her ovary to create Mordred.
Right after Shirou tells Kiritsugu that he wants to stay with him instead of going to an orphanage, Kiritsugu tells Shirou immediately afterwards while a bunch of other kids with in the same room are within earshot and have nothing else to do other than watch the two of them talk that he's a mage, which makes you wonder if this caused Shirou and the other children to (initially) think he's crazy or messing around.
Shirou will always be known as "that anime character who says 'People die when they are killed'", even when the context of the line is both explained, or pointed out as being a mistranslation of the point.
He'll also forever be called a Stay in the Kitchen misogynist for his stubborn insistence that Saber shouldn't fight because she's a girl even though she's a million times stronger and more experienced than he is (in the context of Shirou trying desperately to come up with a reason for why Saber shouldn't protect him because of his hero complex), and that one awkward time he suggested maybe getting assaulted would teach a tomboyish classmate some femininity.
Is Rin's butt visible in some way? Let's bring up how it's defenseless!
Nightmare Retardant: Heaven's Feel having far more Bad Ends than the other routes loses its impact when many of them have Shirou suffering the same deaths again and again.
No Yay: Sums up a large portion of the hero villain interactions:
When Illya's interactions with Shirou aren't cute, she comes off as a possessive stalker. Special mention to when she asks him to "be mine" in Fate and image looks like she's about to rape him. (Double extra bonus points come from Word of God saying that there was planned to be by far the steamiest H-scene in the game there at one point in the drafting process, which is saying a lot!)
Gilgamesh towards Saber. He claims her as property like he does everything else and most his comments involve trying to rape her. Even his remarks that he's attracted to her more because she's repulsed by him don't help.
Caster and Saber when she has her captured in Unlimited Blade Works. Caster seems to relish in Saber's pain, off-screen stripped her naked and put her in a revealing dress, and the narrations imply she intends to use her Command Spells to make Saber into a sex slave.
Shinji towards pretty much any female character he meets. His interactions with Rin are only the exception because he's too afraid of her to make any advances until the Attempted Rape towards the end of Unlimited Blade Works.
One Bad End in Unlimited Blade Works has Shirou strung up and his limbs stabbed through by Rider's nails as she slowly tortures him, blinds him, and then slits his throat while whispering in his ear that she'll have to kill him now before the torture gives her The Immodest Orgasm in front of Shinji.
One True Threesome: There are Shirou/Saber/Rin and Shirou/Sakura/Rider or Shirou/Sakura/Rin. All are expanded upon at various levels in Fate/hollow ataraxia and many other associated works or materials, and are very popular in fandom.
Shirou/Saber/Rin is based on the Unlimited Blade Works route where in the Good End of this route, some fans believe that this is what was going on behind the scenes (doesn't hurt that Rin discovered that she is bisexual in the original Fate route while sleeping with Shirou and Saber).
Shirou/Sakura/Rider is based on the Heaven's Feel route, where Shirou is mind-raped by Rider disguised as Rin in the original game. Rider also stays with Sakura in the endings, and leaves it ambiguous whether she needs to replenish her mana without Sakura's knowledge, while it's openly stated that Shirou depends on Sakura to live his life.
Shirou/Sakura/Rin is based on Shirou being with Sakura in the True End of Heaven's Feel, while Rin still has feelings for Shirou, even after she leaves for London alone. Interestingly while not confirmed, there are even hints of this occurring in the Normal End of Fate.
Only the Author Can Save Them Now: One common criticism the novel faces from detractors is that Nasu has a bad habit of writing himself into a corner, leading to situations where the main characters, Shirou especially, cannot conceivably win with their present resources. This ends up leading to situations where they win anyways due to either some kind of hidden interaction, some convenient interruption that was never foreshadowed, or sometimes that they just win without any solid explanation given. And that if one is given, it tends be seen shaky at best.
Paranoia Fuel: Servants can be anywhere and attack any given moment, and you will often be dead before you realize. They can even masquerade as normal humans. Unlimited Blade Works highlights the idea that people you have known for years can turn out to be a rival Master.
Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Saber isn't intended as the Love Interest in the Heaven's Feel route, but her dynamic with Shirou still caries a heavy romance subtext even though she has less screen time with him than in any other route.
In Unlimited Blade Works, Illya's death might not have carried as much weight were it not for the fact that you have to play through Fate first (where you befriend her), and watch a particularly heart-rending interlude first.
Heaven's Feel has six simple words: "Save Saber"/"Bring the knife down". Guess which one is the right choice. The Good-Times Montage and the music that accompanies that particular scene makes it hurt even more. Way to twist the knife there, Nasu.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Time has been rather kind to Sakura. While she was originally the least popular of the three heroines and had many people complain about her Damsel in Distress moments in Heaven's Feel as well as her antics with the Shadow and as Dark Sakura, sequels and spinoffs to flesh out her character's positive traits as well as later revisits to her story found her to be a lot more sympathetic. The Heaven's Feel Trilogy was the final stake in the Sakura hatedom coffin, bringing her a huge influx of fans and warming up many longtime haters to at least accept the character.
Replacement Scrappy: True Assassin is widely regarded by fans as a poor replacement of Assassin for not getting much characterization and being pathetically weaker than the rest of the Servants. His expanded characterization in Fate/Grand Order seems to soften the blow for longtime fans, however.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: It's a VN with three potential love interests, each one with an entire route dedicated to them, and devoted fans willing to argue at length on fan forums about why they make the best partner for Shirou. You do the math. And that's only for starters. Include other characters like Archer or Rider and it all goes up to eleven.
Strangled by the Red String: Shirou and Sakura's romance in Heaven's Feel suffers from this compared to the other routes romance arcs, by fault of being the Childhood Friend Romance in a story with three potential romances from the same starting point. The issue lies mainly with Shirou however, as Sakura having a crush on Shirou has been evident since as early as the Fate route. The romances of the previous route develop as a result of Shirou and his respective love interests time in the Grail War, and as a result of something about each other that draws them to their partner; Shirou and Saber are drawn to each other by their troubled pasts, while Shirou and Rin become interested in each other by spending time together, and both opening up to each other when they hit their lowest point. By contrast, Shirou just suddenly finds Sakura super hot and develops feelings for her far quicker than the other routes leads. Within a short time, he's so in love with her, that he's willing to throw his ideals away to protect her. Part of this can be attributed to the nature of their relationship, as instead of seemingly like two people falling in love, it comes across more as a purely sexual relationship compared to the Saber and Rin romances where the romance seems more normal and rooted in genuine affection. It comes across less as Shirou awakening to a Childhood Friend Romance he just never noticed, but instead having a switch go off by the writers to make him fall for Sakura. Notably, the Heaven’s Feel Trilogy heavily focuses on their backstory in an effort to specifically avert this.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The anime soundtrack Yami Ugomeku sounds quite similar to one part of Ghost Town track of Blood.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: A criticism of Heaven's Feel. Between Sakura's exceedingly tragic life, Saber being corrupted into a villain, Shirou's magic in this route frying his brain, and the anticlimactic and often gruesome deaths of many characters beloved in the other routes early on, it becomes difficult to keep caring about what happens to the cast.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: When Caster dies in both the Fate and Unlimited Blade Works routes, the whole thing is treated as rather tragic affair, since she gives her life for Kuzuki and even makes sure that he's alright before passing on. However, her being a borderline Invincible Villain throughout most of her arc and her creepy and unexplained fixation on Saber, which is especially baffling considering her reason for fighting the war is to be with Kuzuki, can negate whatever sympathy some viewer's may otherwise feel for her.
Vanilla Protagonist: A common complaint of the DEEN adaptation is this. Shirou has no history of magic or any desire to compete in the Holy Grail War. This makes him contrast with the other mages, whose pasts are colored by generations.
This trope is Played for Drama in the VN, where he is an inept self-taught magus whose adoptive father turns out to be deeply-tied to the history of the War, particularly for the other two routes the anime doesn't adapt where the player realizes he's so vanilla because he's a borderline Empty Shell.
At one point, it is revealed that Rider feels insecure about being too tall for a girl. This is an issue that a lot of real life girls can relate to... Except for the fact that Rider is only 172cm(about 5'8") tall, which depending on where you live, could be considered as rather short. More than value differences, it shows the differences in physical heights between different societies.
Onii-chan is infamous among anime fans in the West for being Japanese for "big brother", but it's also used in Japan to address strangers who are young men (like calling them "mister"). As a result, Shirou being Illya's long-lost adopted brother comes off as a Captain Obvious Reveal for Western fans that aren't aware of this term's broader usage in Japan, while this is a Double MeaningForeshadowing for anyone that knows better Japanese.
Sakura's entire situation is potentially rife with this. In Japan, while attitudes about both are changing, abuse is often seen as a private, internal matter for families to sort out within themselves without involving outsiders, and rape and sexual assault are often seen as permanently staining a woman and reducing her desirability as a partner, especially if it means she's no longer a virgin, since a lot of stock is still placed on that. For instance, while Western audiences can appreciate Shirou (who is aware of the physical but not the sexual abuse) trying to create a safe haven for Sakura from her family and confronting her abusers but being frustrated by his inability to actually change anything on his own, they might not understand why he doesn't bring up domestic abuse charges with proper authorities. And in the Heaven's Feel route, where Sakura takes center stage, it's a plot point that Sakura is driven into despair by threats of revealing her checkered history of sexual abuse to her partner, while Shirou's own willingness to look past it is all the more heroic, romantic, and remarkable to a Japanese audience of the time, while a Western audience, especially a modern one, might just see that as the normal, decent thing to do and not fully understand what all the fuss is about.
The Woobie: Practically every character in the game is this, to some extent, even before the events of this series.
Shirou's original family and home neighborhood were destroyed in the fallout of the Fourth Holy Grail War and his adoptive father, Kiritsugu, who had saved him from the wreckage followed some years after. During the Fifth Holy Grail War he was confronted with a future version of himself who had grown disillusioned with the ideals they both fought for and does everything in his power to destroy Shirou's idealism in an attempt to Ret-Gone himself.
Saber's kingdom was destroyed by in-fighting, causing her to doubt her own worth as a king and struggling to understand what it really meant to be a king. Following her summoning in the Fourth Holy Grail War (noticing a pattern here?), a fellow Servant she greatly respected (Lancer) was forced to kill himself and died cursing her and everyone else, while another Servant (Berserker) proved to be her once best friend and greatest knight, Lancelot, whom she was then forced to kill all over again. During the Fifth Holy Grail War she's kidnapped and tortured by Caster and once again forced to confront the futility of fighting for the Grail.
Just before the Fourth Holy Grail War, Sakura was given away by her father to the Matou to ensure the future of her sister. Her new family horribly mistreated her and even when she found someone she could look up to in Shirou he was Oblivious to Love and managed to form a bond with Rin instead. And this gets worse in her own route.
Despite the appearances, Rin also qualifies since her father died when she was young in the Fourth Holy Grail War, essentially leaving her in charge of the Tohsaka household before even coming of age. As revealed in other entries, she was also separated from her sister before the War and had to tend to her mentally unstable mother after she was left with brain damage before dying not long after, all the while Kirei, who was the killer of her father, squandered her family's fortune until she was old enough to inherit whatever was left of it.
Illya's mother died in the Fourth Holy Grail War and her father was barred from seeing her by her family. She managed to form a strong bond with her Servant during the Fifth Holy Grail War, only to see him completely destroyed by Gilgamesh.
WTH, Costuming Department?: The Dress of Heaven. At first sight it is kinda a love child between Catholic (stole, pellegrina, tiara) and Shinto (enlarged kosode sleeves) religious costumes until one glances downward and sees the miniskirt and stockings that destroy any sense of sanctity. Later Fate works only turn up the ridiculousness by showing how much being worn by a fully grown adult accentuates its bare midriff and chest holes. Justeaze supposedly sacrificed herself wearing it.
, or the lord's right to a bride's virginity, where the consent of the woman didn't matter, and Values Dissonance can't be invoked with this because even in the original myth people thought he was going too far. That being said, Gilgamesh was also a good if flawed king and the point of the epic is for Gilgamesh to learn hubris and to accept that there are some things out of even his reach; ending the tale as a hero worthy of the title. Fate's Gilgamesh has done things far more vile than many other Heroic Spirits but the lack of screentime makes it harder to hold it against him than it is against the other villains who attempt to and/or actually succeed in sexually assaulting their targets. In the end, this works nicely on Gilgamesh. Because of this, later Fate works eventually toned down his villainy and just leaving him with his Awesome Ego, thereby inflicting Gilgamesh with the Characterization Marches On trope.
