All-Purpose Nasuverse Fanfiction Thread

That's not really explaining why though. Are you sure you're not mistaking protagonist with 'character I enjoy watching more'?

But in UBW he isn't just the viewpoint character he's the character who gets the lionshare of character development and story arc while Rin is mostly there to be awesome and snark at Shiro and Archer.

I understand the concept that you're talking about Max is not the main character of Fury Road rather its Furiosa but that just doesn't seem to apply here.

edited 4th Sep '16 8:19:45 AM by Archivist10

He enjoys Shirou more than Sakura at least, so no, I think he doesn't.

But in UBW he isn't just the viewpoint character he's the character who gets the lionshare of character development and story arc

But, again, that only really works if you consider Archer and Shirou to be functionally one and the same. Otherwise they only have two different halves of the same development, where they both eventually come to an acceptance of his/their situation coming from opposite directions.

edited 4th Sep '16 8:20:20 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Having a lot of character development does not make you the protagonist of the story.

Not even having the most character development in the story makes you the protagonist.

Shirou is the viewpoint in a first-person narrative, naturally, if you can't dissociate "viewpoint" from "protagonist", you'll think he's the one the story is about, but if you can, you'd realize that the story's about Rin. Just like Fate is about Saber and Heaven's Feel is about Sakura.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Ok this might be because I watched the anime instead of ever touching the game so maybe Shiro is just a viewpoint in the game but once transitioned into the anime by ufotable he became the protagonist.

In the anime I just don't see how its about Rin, at most she falls in love with Shiro and finds out who killed her dad. Those are the biggest things that I remember happening to her and those hardly compare to Shiro's existential crisis which overshadows any character arc she has.

Why do I keep hearing people hate Sakura, especially after what I've seen her go through in Zero. Does she just spend every second of Heaven's Feel kicking kittens?

edited 4th Sep '16 8:39:33 AM by Archivist10

Le sigh.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

I have my own thoughts about protagonism and main charactercy... however some of them can be summed up by saying that in this argument I side with Archivist.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

I never said he hates Sakura (it doesn't seem that way to me at least), just that he finds Shirou to be more interesting.

The thing about Sakura is she's a victim character; she's full of awkward connotations and interpretations, she isn't funny or lends herself to comedy, and she's designed to appeal to a very Japanese mindset, which sadly implies a lot of the backward and clumsily sexist views of Japanese society. She isn't hateable, but she's uncomfortable to handle, and it doesn't help she's immediately surrounded with characters who *are* hateable and very easy to Flanderize without even trying.

I think Sakura's just kinda boring to be honest. She's basically a prop.

I don't think she's bad, I think that she's just infinitely inferior to Rin.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Sakura is a character that has to be moved along by others.

Most of the other characters can move along on their own, spurred by their own motivations, but Sakura has to be pretty much dragged along by the nose by someone else or an inside influence, and that makes her more problematic to root and write for. Again, it doesn't make her hateable, just frustrating to work with.

You know that reminds me.

I actually find Rin to be the most boring of the three heroines, but I considered for a while now that this may be because in Fate she gets saddled with being Miss Exposition and I never really paid much attention to her other personality traits.

Makes me consider re-reading the story when I get the time.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

I mean I can see why one would see Waver as the protagonist since he's the character with the most complete character arc that doesn't result in him becoming broken inside. However, although Zero is more an ensemble story than Stay Night its still more Kiritsugu's story.

That's weird, because of the three, Rin is the one who has the most personality from the get go. She's the prologue's player character, so she's literally the first character we get a feel for in the VN.

So even with her reduced role in Fate, you should still get an idea of what Rin is actually like, and be able to say whether you like her personality or not.

Honestly, I think she's the most human of the three heroines. Fitting, since she's the only normal human of the heroines. She's, imho, the most complex and interesting of the three heroines. And the ruling queen of Zettai Ryouiki.

Zero is a lot of stories actually.

It's the story of Emiya Kiritsugu's last job as he attempts to finally find a way to save everyone, something he knows it's impossible.

It's the story of Irisviel von Einzbern, a homunculus discovering what life is like, finding love and heading towards inevitable tragedy.

It's the story of Kotomine Kirei, a man born unable to find joy in acts of good, only able to find it in acts of evil, who is desperately trying to find an answer and a path.

It's the story of Waver Velvet, who grows from an immature young man desperate to prove himself into a grown, mature and adult man, who has found someone to devote his loyalty to.

Thing is, this is an anime. In an anime, you can't really separate it into routes or different plots to follow. Ostensibly, the main character of Zero is Kiritsugu, as the main plot of the anime revolves around him, but if this was a VN, Kiritsugu's would be the equivalent of the Fate route, the first one you play through.

Zero is not an anime that is just about a single story, though. From the outside, it looks like Kiritsugu's the main character, because from the outside, it looks like his is the only story being told. It's honestly one of the Urobutcher's best works, in my opinion, in that he balanced four stories that could very well have an entire 13 episode anime made about them and didn't make any of them feel rushed or incomplete.

Everyone is the main character of their story. Even Sola-Ui is the main character of her subplot with Deermud, even though literally her purpose in life is to be her husband's sidekick, as she has been trained to do.

It's the same with Fate/Stay Night, only with the added benefit that it is a VN and can thus separate the plot we focus on more than an anime can. Fate is Saber's story. UBW is Rin's story. Heaven's Feel is Sakura's story.

Everyone is the main character of their story.

If Illya's route had been made, Illya would be the main character in it.

This is very often how visual novels work. The viewpoint character is not frequently the main character. It's usually the female lead of whatever route you're currently following.

edited 4th Sep '16 9:27:24 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Eh, she just didn't come across as very compelling for me. It actually took someone complaining about her not being as much of a troll in the anime than she is in the vn to make me realize that she did tended to troll people a lot.

Then again, I have a terribad memory and I took long (As in, weeks or even months) pauses while I read the thing so that might have something to do with it.

And when I said I never paid much attention to her other traits I also meant I couldn't get past my first impressions on her, sorry for not adding that.

edited 4th Sep '16 9:24:05 AM by SaintDeltora

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Back to my idea of the Servants being Stands, to make it more of a mashup, the summoning process still exists. While there are people who exist with Stands outside of the HGW, the Grail will summon a Heroic Spirit to act as a sort of Super Stand, if you will, based on either a catalyst or compatibility with the summoner. However, once summoned, the Servant still acts like a Stand does. They're just extensions of the Stand User and have no personality of their own (so Artoria decided to lend her power to Shirou but that's the only thing she does in the story).

Naturally, Servant Stands have different stats and some, like those with Independent Action, can go farther away from their User than others and, of course, any damage sustained by the Servant Stand will be sustained by the Stand User (although it's not quite 1-to-1 like a regular Stand due to the Servant Stand's nature).

Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!

I had an idea a while back where the Holy Grail was actually a userless Stand (akin to Anubis, actually - Justeaze would have been its user, but it's still around after she died) that has a built in function to find a worthy user. It grants seven people Stands of their own (via a built-in Arrow), at the same time giving them the knowledge of what it does (substitutes energy for cause to create effects) and how to get it (be the only person with a Grail-granted Stand left).

It would get significantly trickier when it becomes apparent that both Kirei and Zouken have Grail-granted Stands (Zouken has two! At least!), and therefore are still contenders.

Shirou, Rin, Kuzuki, Illya, Shinji, Sakura, and....I dunno. Not Bazett, her "punch-fun" times is already covered by Kuzuki. Maybe go for a wild-card and pick Ayako. They're granted Stands, and thus begins the Holy Grail War.

I've got solid ideas for what most of the cast's Stands would do, and vague ideas for what the general shape of the plot would be.

Unfortunately, I cannot "like" that post. Fortunately, I can express myself with a post of my own. Yeah, there's tragedy, and there's inevitability, which feels less tragic and more "circumstances"

Rather than smart, I'd prefer to be wise. It would let me be silly more often.

I am really fond of Ayako, so I'd love that.

edited 4th Sep '16 12:39:34 PM by SaintDeltora

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

But that is not necessarily how a Stand acts. Anubis, Cheap Trick, Spice Girl, Echoes Act 3, Yo-Yo Ma, possibly others that I'm forgetting, they can all at least talk on their own initiative.

I mean, if you wanna cut down on the cast size or avoid Servant-Master conflict or something, feel free, but being Stands does not actually prevent them from having their own agendas.

edited 4th Sep '16 12:43:00 PM by rikalous

It's worth remembering Zero started as a prose novel. And prose allows for even more flexibility in narrative viewpoints than comics, animation or live action film, which are more linear by nature. With prose, it's easier to weave different plotlines and arcs at the same time, going back and forth between them. So yeah, that gives more room for multiple protagonists.

Thinking about it over lunch, I realized you could say Shirou is the protagonist of the visual novel as a whole, but not of any of the single routes. Shirou is sort of a puzzle character, and the pieces are scattered across each route. You only get a good view of Shirou through all three routes. Fate is his immature and naive side, UBW is his loss of that naivete through becoming more like Archer, and HF is going further away from his innocence, but by a different way than Archer's- by changing his outlook radically and forsaking his goals rather than reaching a compromise to reach them.

The three heroines are the protagonists of each route taken on their own— each route pretty much provides you with a complete portrait of their respective heroine, but do little to nothing for the others. In that, however, Rin is the most Shirou-like in that she gets the most equal treatment between routes, while Sakura is a nearly non factor in Fate and Saber is pretty much the same in HF. Shirou, on the other hand, is the 'big picture' protagonist, but only in that regard. In each route he's incomplete and he's only fully seen for what he is when you look at all three.

edited 4th Sep '16 12:47:28 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

That's a pretty interesting perspective.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Yeah, one Stand idea I have (unrelated to the aforementioned Holy Stand War idea) would almost basically be the Big Bad - not it's user (who would have no control over the Stand due to the Requiem nature of said Stand), but the Stand itself.

I'm not sure if any of the Stands for said Holy Stand War would be sentient, though. At least none of the ones I've come up with are. Maybe Illya's could be, so she can basically point it at an enemy and let it do it's own thing while she's off shopping for cool clothes and practicing posing or whatever it is that Jojo characters do in their spare time.

@Nobody: Exactly.

Its like the difference between Titanic and Moulin Rouge. The former is tragic because the whole situation could have been avoided but the latter, the end result was inevitable.

@rikalous: I've only seen up to the end of Part 3 so, other than Anubis, I haven't seen any sentient Stands. The only thing I know is that Stands can kinda act on their own in order to preserve the self (like SP catching the bullet Jotaro shot at himself without Jotaro commanding it to do so).

Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!

You've just scratched the surface, then. There are Stands that have conversations with their user, Stands that change users, Stands that try to kill their user, Stands that are born from their user's death.

We Persona now.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari