ufotable's Fate/Stay Night

Spear, like "sword", is a fairly generic term for an entire class of weapons. Basically, as long as it's got a long haft and a pointy bit at the end, then it counts as a spear. It's also been around basically as long as humanity has, so there are a lot of variations.

The generic term "spear", though, most often refers to an infantry weapon that's essentially a dagger mounted on a pole. It can be used for both slashing and thrusting attacks (and some types also including using the other end of the spear as a bludgeon, as well). See Blade On A Stick (though that also includes things like poleaxes and halberds, which are more like axes and hammers mounted on poles).

A lance is a cavalry weapon that's used exclusively for thrusting attacks. They're essentially used to impale targets as you charge past them on horseback, and are designed exclusively for that usage, so they're more or less impossible to use any other way. See Jousting Lance.

Other spear-type weapons:

• pikes: basically the infantry version of lances, extremely long and useful only for thrusting attacks, almost exclusively used in mass formations like the phalanx
• javelins: spears designed exclusively for throwing, generally lighter and shorter than "melee" spears
• naginata: a Japanese type of spear with a longer blade than many other types, basically a sword on a pole instead of a dagger on a pole
• trident: a spear with three (sometimes barbed) prongs, originally a fishing tool
• pitchforks: generally similar to tridents, but without barbs on the prongs, and used to move large quantities of loose material, like hay
• harpoons: large, heavy spears used when fishing for large things, up to and including whales; generally attached to the boat with a rope or chain and then thrown at close range to prevent the target from escaping by diving or swimming away
• bayonets: daggers mounted on rifles to make what are essentially fairly awkward, somewhat shorter than usual spears.

edited 7th Feb '16 8:52:52 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yup, almost all are grouped into "lanza" here.

On the second half of this... Illya can be heard calling it a "Reality Marble". It's a concept that had been previously introduced in the Nasuverse, but I've spoilered it just in case:

A kekkai is any magical effect which encloses or divides off a space - it's usually translated as "barrier", or in F/SN as "bounded field". A koyuu kekkai (innate kekkai) is the ability to project an extremely powerful kekkai in which the user's inner world overwrites the laws of the world around them, allowing them to do something normally impossible. It's referred to in English as a Reality Marble, because of an anecdote that involves drawing from a bag of black and white marbles: certain high-level Nature Spirits can choose whether the marble is black or white^note This power is referred to as Marble Phantasm, and amounts to having admin access to the great Reality Marble maintained by Gaia itself so that Earth can support life., but within a Reality Marble you can draw a marble that's red.

Some characters have active Reality Marbles which conjure castles or the like, while others have passive ones that are restricted to their own body and turn them into Humanoid Abominations. In Archer's case his "inner world" is a graveyard of countless swords, with a sky clouded by the gears and molten metal of an endless steel mill.

edited 8th Feb '16 12:22:34 PM by Prime32

Actually the analogy I've seen was that in a jar with 100 marbles, 99 white and one black, a Marble Phantasm allows one to pick the black marble every single time while a Reality Marble lets you turn all the marbles black.

That's the metaphor that comes up in Tsukihime. It doesn't really matter how it works anyway.

Tldr you create your own little pocket dimension.

Made of swords. Seems legit.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

By the way, its use against Berserker was largely pointless and mostly just a waste of mana, so it boils down to anime fanservice. Didn't happen in the VN because the first time he uses it properly is in UBW.

I'm honestly not sure what the point of ever using it would be, given that he can apparently summon swords more or less at will without creating the Demiplane of Infinite Swords. What does taking a trip to Swordland do for him that just creating swords in reality doesn't?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Not much. There are a few very specific cases where it's worth using but overall the official word of god on the matter is that most Servants would consider it a minor annoyance.

He was fighting a losing battle anyway and he knew it.

He probably figured If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die historic in Unlimited Blade Works and just decided to go balls out anyway.

One Strip! One Strip!

It's implied that while inside UBW he can make swords rain from the sky and things like that, though.

Typemoon Wikia makes it sound like deploying the Reality Marble lets him do whatever with as many as he wants all at once, vs just projecting them into the physical world one at a time. I've only seen F/Z, UBW, and just started the visual novel, so I can't necessarily speak for how accurate that is.

edited 8th Feb '16 9:03:48 PM by TheAirman

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They

It's a question of where he wants to expend his mana.

Projecting a sword costs mana. More powerful the sword, more mana it costs. For a Servant, though, that level of mana is a pittance.

Activating UBW takes a metric boatload of mana, and it can't be activated indefinitely, but within UBW, it costs Archer nothing to summon and rain swords down on his opponent.

Like others have said, the benefits of the full Reality Marble are generally not worth the cost, but in certain rare situations, it can be the more effective choice.

edited 8th Feb '16 9:25:31 PM by DarkHunter

Such as a battle where you aren't really trying to win (or know that you can't win) but just want to fuck up your opponent as much as possible so holding back is pointless?

I'd imagine it'd be useful for a fight like that.

One Strip! One Strip!

It's also faster than normal projection, since he only needs to call the swords into his hands/pick them up, instead of wasting time with the actual summoning.

Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!

IIRC that feature is what makes it a good counter to Gil's Gate of Babylon sans Ea.

Edit: forgot we have someone watching the show in the thread.

edited 9th Feb '16 12:44:31 AM by 32ndfreeze

So, finished the series. Hulu didn't sub the last line of the series (when Bedivere is talking to Saber). What the complete fuck, Hulu? I had to check the comments on the episode, where other people had the same complaint, and other people thankfully provided a translation.

Honestly, I feel like the second half of the series didn't live up to the first half. The payoff didn't quite match the buildup. The wasn't a whole lot of emotion in the Gilgamesh/Kotomine fight, and the ultimate resolution was just Shirou and Saber... accepting things. They didn't Take a Third Option. They didn't even take a second option. It was just "this is the way it's going to be? Oh, okay."

That said, they seemed to be leaving the door open for Saber's permanent return, what with the "oh, I was having a dream" "you should go back to sleep so you can dream again" "can you go back to sleep and dream the same thing you were dreaming before?" "yeah, that's totally a thing that happens, I promise" "okay cool, lemmie give you my sword to take care of them I'm going to be dreaming for a really long time, kay?" exchange. But that also could be referencing about 10,000 other things, and what we see of Shirou during the epilogue doesn't really suggest that she came back, so whatever.

Overall, good stuff, even if the ending was a bit eh. I'll probably watch Fate/Zero next before moving on to Unlimited Blade Works.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Edit: I'm silly, you were watching Fate, not UBW.

Fate is just kind of bittersweet in general, yes. There's a kind of epilogue to it in the Realta Nua version of the VN, but I don't like it.

edited 12th Feb '16 10:06:30 AM by Arha

A Bittersweet Ending I would have been okay with, the problem was that it felt more like a Milquetoast Ending to me. They built up Gilgamesh into this huge deal who had history with Saber, but he goes down fairly easily to Saber + fully unlocked and accessorized Excalibur, and the history turns out to be "they fought in the last Grail War" and that's about it. Then the big question they've been raising for half the series about how to end the Grail War without Saber disappearing permanently is answered with "they can't, but it's okay because everyone's fine with that". It had all the emotional impact of a weather report.

Lancer going all tsundere was funny, though. "D-don't think that me sacrificing myself to allow you to escape means I like you or anything, baka Saber! I'm just doing it because I want to!"

edited 12th Feb '16 12:18:08 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

You should really read the VN.

Shame you didn't like the Fate ending, it was the best bittersweet in the original.

Tbh, you've got good instincts and really a lot of what you're looking for should be in the ufo series.

Just a warning that Fate/Zero assumes that you're familiar with the entire Visual Novel, so don't be surprised if it casually reveals some details you think should have been a more weighty reveal.

edited 12th Feb '16 2:26:38 PM by DarkHunter

Likewise UBW seems to be written with the assumption that the viewer already saw Fate/Zero beforehand. I don't think it spoils anything extra as a result, but be aware that there will be some references to stuff that wasn't present in the original VN.

If Fate/Zero assumes you've seen everything, and UBW assumes you've seen Fate/Zero, which makes more sense to watch first?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Fate/Zero. The two big things casually revealed in it are Saber's identity, and stuff to do with Heaven's Feel (third route). Which is only now being adapted into an anime film (and hopefully a series of them, because just one will be a fucking abomination).

UBW doesn't require seeing F/Z first, but the climax-y episodes do reference it a number of times, and the epilogue episode has one scene in particular that was made specifically for people who have seen F/Z.

edited 12th Feb '16 3:36:05 PM by TheAirman

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They