| 1 | !Per wiki policy, Administrivia/SpoilersOff applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned. |
| 2 | !!FridgeBrilliance |
| 3 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 4 | [[folder:Gameplay-Specific]] |
| 5 | * Recursive example: amongst die-hard fans, some may wonder why there are so many historical figures among the legendary characters. The Throne of Heroes takes those who are well known for their feats in our reality, no matter what time period or universe they come from-- and just what franchise could provide them with the proper moveset and notoriety worthy of being called a legend? |
| 6 | * Some Noble Phantasms aren't usable, weaker, or act differently in this game, most notably passive and defensive [=NPs=]: |
| 7 | ** Heracles is summoned without his God Hand. While in-game this NP will be a literal GameBreaker, the in-universe explanation is that the protagonist and Chaldea can't afford Herc's mana requirements for invoking the God Hand. The living Herc at Okeanos, however, can use God Hand as a recurring boss, due to directly relying on the Grail for power. |
| 8 | ** Nursery Rhyme's powers are completely different from ''VideoGame/FateEXTRA'', despite explicitly being the same one Alice summoned in the Moon Cell. Your reason to summon her is different from Alice's, and Nursery Rhyme is an extremely abstract Servant whose form and functions depend on the Master's needs. Alice wanted someone to play with forever, so EXTRA Nursery has poor combat stats, but a Reality Marble to play in. You need a combat-capable Servant, so Grand Order Nursery has no Reality Marble, but better stats. |
| 9 | *** Her appearance, incidentally, is another bit of brilliance: Alice wanted someone who enjoyed the same things as her to play with, so Nursery Rhyme manifested as a replica of her (having interpreted this as "I want to play with a copy of myself"). Chaldea's Master, on the other hand, doesn't care much for such things so long as the Servant is willing to fight for them, so it manifests in the same form it took in its last summoning- which happens to be Alice. |
| 10 | ** Altria, her alter alt, and Mordred have a NP refund effect when they use their Noble Phantasm. While it seems like a gameplay element, their Noble Phantasms involve charging up a powerful SwordBeam that they then throw at the enemy. As shown back in ''Fate Zero'', Altria there was able to store her Excalibur to use when she needed to, which translates here in gameplay as them having some of the extra power left over. |
| 11 | ** If you realize that the player Ritsuka has 100% Master Affinity, it actually explains why some servants can't use their abilities or that they work differently. Ritsuka is capable of working with any servant, but has little skill as a mage. Because they can't supply as much mana, even with Chaldea doing most of the work their affinity as a Master could change a servant's Saint Graph to make them as effective as possible with the current limitations. Like how Karna's armor lacks the ability to reduce all attacks to 1/10 and his absolute kill spear doesn't grant a guaranteed kill anymore, but in exchange can be fired off repeatedly. Achilles Noble Phantasms being made into Personal Skills and being able to interact effectively with one another would also apply. Other examples would include Armor of Fafnir, God Hand, and other Noble Phantasms described, but not shown in the game. |
| 12 | * Aww, you use cards with the little mascot Fou to power up your Servants! It's just a little bonus, and it's soooo cuuuuute~. Actually... no. The end of the first campaign makes it clear that this is all, in fact, completely in-universe; the Astral and Stellar Fou cards are you, as a Master, using the tiniest slivers of the magical power Fou has gathered over many, many centuries to empower your Servants beyond their normal limits. You are drawing on the power of a (potential) Beast to fight other Beasts. |
| 13 | ** Additionally... you can see Fou's tail get fancier and fluffier on the rarer power-up cards! Awwwwww! This is one of the subtlest bits of {{Foreshadowing}} in ''history'' as to the true nature of Fou. At the end of the Solomon campaign, you get to see that "tail" unleashed in full. |
| 14 | ** There is a bit of overlap with FridgeLogic, to boot, as you would imagine you would stop getting Fou cards on beating Solomon Temple, since Fou explicitly depletes all his power to resurrect Mash. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation That would be a real pain in the butt]] for any ''Epic of Remnant'' Servants you pick up, though, so the Fou cards continue to be available from the FP gacha and Da Vinci's shop. |
| 15 | ** An alternative explanation could be the Fou cards are his leftover power that scattered after his Heroic Sacrifice and that we are currently just picking those up. |
| 16 | *** Alternatively, Fou could be building up power again and we now use the cards as a form of maintenance to keep his power from getting out of control. |
| 17 | * With BB's introduction as a Moon Cancer, it could seem pretty random and forced that she was vulnerable to Rulers, and was mostly just to give Rulers something to be effective against. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense - Moon Cancers like BB, who derail the normal progress of a Grail War, even a virtual one like the one in the Moon Cell, are the ''exact'' kind of being Rulers are meant to stop. |
| 18 | ** As for why Avengers are strong against Rulers? 2 possible reasons: First is Aŋra Mainyu corrupting the grail in ''Stay Night'' prevented a Ruler to be summoned and stopping any abnormalities involved with the war. Second is the phrase "What is a king to a god? What is a god to a non-believer?" - As we see with Jeanne D'Arc, most Avengers have given up on God, whereas with the possible exception of Sherlock Holmes (who would normally qualify as a Caster), all playable Rulers either believe in the Christian god or are their own god (Quetz, QSH). |
| 19 | ** And to finish the triad, Avengers are Heroic Spirits who have given themselves over entirely to rage at the wrongs committed against them in life or legacy. The original Moon Cancer, BB, is an internet {{Troll}}, perfectly suited to goading others and using their rage against them. |
| 20 | * The class affinities make sense when you think about it long enough. |
| 21 | ** Archer beats Saber because of sheer range; having high overall stats doesn't help when your opponent can kill you before you can even see them. Lancers, meanwhile, are fast enough to get in close to Archers without getting hit; most Archers are rather weak in close quarters. However, Sabers tend to have more stamina than Lancers, and would thus tend to win battles of attrition against them. |
| 22 | ** Casters beat Assassins because they likely have access to scrying or other forms of sensory enhancement, and can thus find them even when they don't want to be found. Riders are good against Casters because they can charge in and trample them before they finish their spells. Assassins ambush Riders while they aren't mounted, which is when they're at their weakest. |
| 23 | *** Another way to look at the triangle is this way; Riders beat Casters because the Rider class inherently has Magic Resistance, making it easy for them to plow right into their bases and take them out head on. Casters beating Assassins because most Casters have Territory Creation, allowing them to create Bounded Fields that warn them if intruders are entering, and while some Assassins may bypass it, Casters have enough tools to protect themselves. Assassins beat Riders because Assassins are best at killing the Master, if a Rider charges out to battle, what can the merely Human Master do against an Assassin? |
| 24 | ** Avengers beat Rulers because Rulers are prone to the "forgive and forget" mentality (if Jeanne is any indication), while Avengers are incapable of forgiveness and thus catch them off-guard. Moon Cancers beat Avengers because they trick them into going after someone else. Rulers beat Moon Cancers because they're able to force them to obey the rules. |
| 25 | ** Berserkers are good offensively and terrible defensively because they're BERSERKERS, and thus [[AttackAttackAttack entirely focused on attacking]], leaving themselves wide open to retaliation of any kind. |
| 26 | ** Berserkers are defined by both their madness and how they gave into it for power. Thus, who better to face them than Foreigners, who not only gained power from contacting mind-rending eldritch horrors but overcame the insanity to bring out their full power? |
| 27 | ** Why do Foreigners lose to Alter Egos? Because most Alter Egos are incarnated programs of one sort or another, and are thus able to endure their sanity-eroding powers with minimal psychological damage (plus VideoGame/SuperRobotWars and the like empowering them to fight {{Eldritch Abomination}}s). |
| 28 | *** Also, in the case of the [[VideoGame/FateExtra Sakura Five]] and their creator, [[AIIsACrapshoot they weren't entirely sane to begin with]]. |
| 29 | ** Servants within the Pretenders class are described as an enemy to the world through spinning impersonations. Because of this, the Foreigner class would be a good weakness to them. After all, they get their power from ''outside'' the world, and thus Pretenders would be far less likely to deceive them. |
| 30 | *** Another possible explanation is that Pretenders have to spend time and effort creating a "cover identity" in order to gain new powers, while Foreigners [[RealityWarper flat-out override reality]] and thus either acquire new powers that counter them faster than they can compensate for or forcibly strip them of their masks (and thus their powers). |
| 31 | *** Another, simpler alternate explanation: It's hard to keep the details of your cover identity (and thus a Pretender's power set) consistent when you're a gibbering lunatic, and the nature of a Pretender's powers implies that they're weak to mental attacks such as a Foreigner's insanity. This could mean that a Foreigner's mere presence is able to force a Pretender into the class least suited to fighting them: Berserker. |
| 32 | ** Alter Egos, as mentioned previously, are primarily incarnated programs; thus, it makes sense for Pretenders to be their weakness, because falsified data (a Pretender's specialty) will foul up their calculations or even crash their OS. Essentially, Pretenders are to Alter Egoes what ''[[https://hightouchtechnologies.com/9-common-types-of-computer-viruses/ Viruses]]'' are to Operating Systems/Programs. |
| 33 | ** A good explanation for the Alter-Ego/Pretender/Foreigner class interactions takes into account the core idea of the triangle, that being “Identity”. |
| 34 | *** Pretenders usurp their original identity (and the world’s order) with another, while Alter Egos embody a subset of the original. Therefore, the greater “false” identity beats the lesser “true” identity. |
| 35 | *** Foreigners hold onto their original identity in the face of the inexplicable in order to do great deeds, while Pretenders cast theirs aside in favour of another to achieve those same deeds. Thus the more resilient identity defeats the weaker one. |
| 36 | *** Finally, Alter Egos are a wholly new identity comprised of a subset, making them purer than the original and reinforce the world’s order. Foreigners, however, have their original identity tainted by eldritch influence, so their powers rely on that otherworldly order. Therefore, the untainted, worldly identity trumps the tainted, unworldly one. |
| 37 | ** Pretenders have partial advantage over the Saber-Archer-Lancer triangle because they can pick whichever tool is most appropriate for the situation, but are less proficient than a specialist because they're only faking it. Meanwhile, they do reduced damage against the Rider-Caster-Assassin triangle; a likely explanation for this is that a Rider or Caster who isn't proficient at it is generally more of a danger to himself than his enemy, while a bad Assassin would quickly lose the element of surprise, and thus their only advantage against other Servants. |
| 38 | *** It's much easier to fool someone that you're a Saber/Lancer/Archer at first meeting or glance just by using said weapon ([[ImprobableWeaponUser or whatever amounts to that]]), and any eccentricities can be explained away as them being self-taught/having natural flair like Izo or Hajime. But a "Rider" who doesn't know how to properly ride a steed or steer a vessel, an "Assassin" that can't sneak or hide, or a "Caster" that doesn't know how to use magecraft/mystical powers is very easy to weed out as an impostor. |
| 39 | *** And a “Berserker” who doesn’t lose all semblance of control when someone presses their [[BerserkButton Berserk Button]]. |
| 40 | ** Shielders both deal out and receive normal damage from all enemies. Why? Well, [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe shields are fantastic for defense]], not so much for offense. |
| 41 | * Another reason the Class Affinities could be the way they are is because they match up with events in the stories before Grand Order, namely in Stay Night, Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel, Zero, Apocrypha and Extra. |
| 42 | ** The Saber>Lancer>Archer Triangle fits because in the beginning of the Fuyuki Grail War, Shirou summoned Saber who proceeded to fend off Lancer. Lancer, on his end, had a fight with Archer where he was the victor despite letting him live in the end. Archer may be a wonky case, but he did manipulate events so that Saber would lose her contract with Shirou and go with Rin in the Unlimited Blade Works route. Not to mention since he is a future version of Shirou, one could say his connection makes it fitting why Archers trump Sabers. |
| 43 | ** The Rider>Caster>Assassin Triangle fits because in Zero, Rider served as one of the integral parts to taking out Caster as well as destroying his hideaway. Caster trumps Assassin because in the Fuyuki War, Caster managed to summon Assassin and forced him under her thrall. Assassin trumping Rider might seem like the odd one out of the bunch, because in Heaven's Feel, Rider was capable of throwing off True Assassin and in Zero, Rider easily dispatches Assassin in that war too. Perhaps it's the exception that proves the rule? |
| 44 | *** Kuzuki (an assassin) killed Rider in the UBW route. Additionally, in Apocrypha, Semiramis (a.k.a. the Assassin of Red) managed to blast-off Astolfo (a.k.a. the Rider of Black) off the Hanging Gardens when he tries to invade it with his hippogriff. Though while Astolfo ended up have a much more successful invasion after that as he went on to provide a NoSell to the attacks Semiramis tried to land on him during his second invasion attempt, it can also make sense as thanks to the Assassin of Black's Double Summon skill, she was summoned both as an assassin and a caster. |
| 45 | ** The Avenger>Ruler>Mooncancer Triangle fits because as we know, Avenger's corruption of the Grail in Zero and Stay Night was capable of altering what servants could be summoned, including evil servants who hate humanity like Gilles De Rais. It's plausible that his corruption was capable of overriding the rules that Rulers are meant to preserve. Rulers trump Mooncancers because they're meant to uphold the rules of the Grail War and not allow the system to be messed with. Alongside the fact that they wouldn't tolerate the original Mooncancer BB's actions, one could say the fact that near the end of CCC when BB was being hijacked by Moon Cell, it's trying to implement it's rules over BB's own, hence why Rulers could work over them. Mooncancers trumping Avengers is also a potential odd fit, but it could also be chalked up to how BB was described as "a new Evil of Humanity", akin to what Avengers are. But unlike Avengers, she's capable of causing greater changes than the Avengers are. |
| 46 | *** It's also notable that Rulers take less damage from Saber, Lancer, Archer, Caster, Rider and Assassin, while Berserkers can still deal advantage damage to them. This is fitting because Rulers are meant to contain the Grail Wars and rule over them, though Berserkers prove to be nigh uncontrollable as per normal. |
| 47 | ** Alter Egos deal double damage to Riders, Assassins and Casters, while they deal less damage to Sabers, Archers and Lancers. Why is this? It could be chalked up to how Extra's playable Classes consisted of a Saber (Nero), two Archers (Nameless and Gilgamesh) and Tamamo (Caster), who all beat the Alter Egos Passionlip, Meltryllis and Kiara (who is an Alter Ego in game). Yet Tamamo seems the odd one out...before you consider her ending in CCC involves how she accidentally created eight additional Alter Egos from her tails, with her attempt to seal them failing and them all going after her blood. They also deal double damage to Foreigners, which could fit in how the original Alter Egos were created within Moon Cell. Including Extella into the mix, Moon Cell had dealt with a Foreigner Classed being (Sefar aka Altera) as confirmed by Archimedes in Extella Link by sealing her away. This makes Moon Cell, the thing that spawns Alter Egos, capable of dealing with them and granting Alter Egos extra damage against them. |
| 48 | ** Foreigners for their part only deal less damage to Alter Egos, but uniquely resist Berserkers. The former is explained above. The latter fits in two possible ways. The first and obvious one is that Berserkers have given into their madness, unlike the Foreigners who control madness or instill it. The other is that the first potential foreign being, Sefar, had created a body on earth and became known as "Atilla the Hun". Most would think he'd fit as a Berserker, but in Fate's lore, "Atilla" is really a foreign being who took a human form. The reason why Foreigners don't affect anything else differently (and others to them) is because they're too alien to grasp by most human conventions. |
| 49 | ** When one thinks about it, Goetia was the first "Pretender" servant in some ways. Enemy to the World? Goetia was the one to incinerate the world in the first arc after all. Tricking others and deceiving them? Goetia spends most of the first arc pretending to be Solomon. Gaining more power than they would normally not get in the midst of their deception? Goetia has access to most of Solomon's rings in which he would normally not get if he didn't impersonate Solomon. Because of this, it makes sense that Pretenders have a similar class advantage to Goetia. |
| 50 | *** Atop of this, we have the first proper Pretender, Oberon. Considering he was trying to bring about the downfall of Fairy Britain and everyone he managed to kill by proxy (Berserker Morgan, Saber Barghest, Archer Baobhan Sith, Lancers Melusine and Percival), it makes sense that he and other Pretenders would deal extra damage to Knight Classes and Berserkers. As for why he deals halved damage against Cavalry Classes and why he has complete class disadvantage against Foreigners, consider who played a major part in his defeat: Koyanskaya (the Assassin/Foreigner who shielded the Shadow Border from Cernunnos curses and letting Chaldea survive), Habetrot (the Rider who held onto the Black Barrel for Mash, letting her regain her full strength), Altria Caster and Caster Cu Chulainn (who was destined to save Britain and sent to defeat Cernunnos respectively). As for why they deal extra damage against Alter Egos and take halved, it could be chalked up to how he was able to force Muramasa, who was an Alter Ego at the time, to become Castoria's servant. |
| 51 | ** Finally, Shielders don't deal extra damage, nor take any from any of the other classes. This fits because Shielder is a new type of servant, and thus doesn't have any weaknesses nor strengths against others. |
| 52 | * The class affinities for the various beasts can make a lot of sense as well. |
| 53 | ** Goetia is strong against the knight classes while weak against the cavalry classes (in addition to doing half-damage to Avengers). Throughout most of Part One, Goetia has been impersonating a Caster servant who already have a weakness to Rider servants. In addition, Goetia's defeat only ended up happening thanks to the efforts of the Grand Assassin (King Hassan) and both of the Grand Casters (The ''real'' Solomon and Merlin) as King Hassan and Merlin helped out in taking down the final singularity Goetia created while Solomon used Ars Nova to interfere with Goetia's existence (thus weakening him in the process). As for Goetia's disadvantage towards Avenger servants, Goetia wants to create a world where all humans are immortals while most Avengers want a world where the humans that did them wrong are ''dead''. |
| 54 | ** Tiamat has no class advantage nor disadvantage towards any servants. As Tiamat is considered to be "the mother of all life", it makes sense that no servant have any sort of advantage/disadvantage against "their own mother". |
| 55 | ** Kiara's beast form is weak against Alter Egos and Moon Cancers. This is probably the most obvious as Kiara's defeat can only happen thanks to the efforts of BB, Meltryllis, and Passionlip. |
| 56 | ** Kama's beast form has a weakness to Foreigners and Alter Egos. Her weakness against Alter Egos is very obvious due to her rivalry with Kiara (to the point where Kiara sacrifaced herself to give the protagonist and their party a chance of winning against Kama) while her weakness to Foreigners makes a ''load'' of sense from her own exposition: if she is the universe itself/intrinsically linked to it, then naturally she'd have a much harder time fighting something not ''of'' this universe. |
| 57 | ** Koyanskaya has full class disadvantage against Demonic Beast Caster Servants (which basically includes the likes of Tamamo-No-Mae). As somebody who's name is somebody from the Tamamo Nine, but actually somebody different, it only makes sense that that she is weak to the person that created the authentic Tamamo Nine. Also, since Koyanskaya has bunny ears instead of fox ears, Tamamo having class advantage over her is basically a fox going after a bunny prey. Additionally, she is the Tunguska Explosion itself after being deified by the prayers of the animals that died in the disaster, it makes sense that is she is also weak to Non-Hominidae servants (more specially, the Demonic Beast servants). After all, she's not here to fight her own "animals". |
| 58 | ** Beast of Sodom having full disadvantage against Extra classes is a nod to Nero’s debut game, ''VideoGame/FateEXTRA.'' |
| 59 | ** Camazotz has class advantage over Foreigners due to him defeating ORT in the past while having class disadvantage against Moon Cancers, likely due to how Archetype: Earth was summoned in that class. |
| 60 | ** U-Olga Marie having absolutely zero class advantages makes sense once the ending of the 7th Lostbelt revealed that she was brainwashed by the Foreign World into being a cold, calm and dispassionate tyrant, meaning that it is likely that she doesn't want to harm humanity, and have an "advantage" over them. |
| 61 | * Gameplay-wise in Salem for those who managed to get the welfare Alter Ego, we have a foe with the power of an EldritchAbomination best beaten with a walking VideoGame/SuperRobotWars reference. Now, what is the latter franchise in question [[LovecraftLite most famous for again]]? |
| 62 | * Certain OriginalGeneration human characters featured in the Craft Essences tend to have very ''a propos'' effects, especially if you choose to equip them to their partner Servant in their original series: |
| 63 | ** ''"Limited/Zero Over" (Shirou)'' and ''"Verdant Sound of Destruction"'' (Illya): Being Buster power-up cards, they are very good choices to use for their servants, Altria and Heracles. This also thematically extends to Rin/Ishtar, whose host is Rin, one of Shirou's main love interests. |
| 64 | ** ''"Projection" (Shirou), "Formalcraft" (Rin)'' and ''"Another Ending" (Female Hakuno)'': Arts Power-up cards which coincidentally work best for EMIYA (due to his 3-Arts setup). The last one even works really well for the other main Servants from ''VideoGame/FateEXTRA'' (i.e. Nero and Tamamo) |
| 65 | ** ''"Imaginary Around" (Sakura)'' and ''"Gandr" (Rin)'': The Quick buff they offer fit very well for Quick-based Servants like Medusa and Cu Chulainn--the former having been Sakura's Servant and the latter having chosen to help Rin during ''[[Anime/FateStayNightUnlimitedBladeWorks Unlimited Blade Works]]''[[note]]They actually also become a Master/Servant pair in ''VideoGame/FateEXTRA''[[/note]]. Adding to this further would be the Lancer Parvati, (who is coincidentally hosted in Sakura's body) and the Rider Ishtar (using Rin's). |
| 66 | ** ''"The Imaginary Element" (Sakura)'': Having her serve as an NP battery for any Servant makes a whole lot of sense when you take into account her role in ''[[Anime/FateStayNightHeavensFeel Heaven's Feel]]'', where her unlimited mana supplies all the darkened Servants she controlled (most notably Saber Alter and Medusa). Using this to fill up Berserker Lancelot's NP bar is also thematically appropriate, what with Kariya's fight precisely about (unsuccessfully) saving her, and the fact that she also used Lancelot's power in ''Manga/FateKaleidLinerPrismaIllya''. |
| 67 | ** ''"Art of the Poisonous Snake" (Kuzuki)'': A perfect fit for Medea, being a heavily Arts-reliant Caster. |
| 68 | ** ''"500-Year Obsession" (Zouken)'': In the unlikely event that any fight with Cursed-Arm Hassan leads with him being taken out, having this slapped on him causes NP seal and curse--a massive inconvenience to your potentially-overpowered enemy (and which can help you stall after losing your main star generator). |
| 69 | ** ''"Seal Designation Enforcer" and "Paradox Ace Killer" (Bazett)'': Star generation not being Cu Chulainn's strongest suit (despite his Quick deck), having something ensuring he can land critical hits is a very good idea. For that matter, Aŋra Mainiiu's low star absorption rate is handily addressed by this. The 2nd card, in contrast, is a straight Quick card buff, which they both handily need. |
| 70 | ** ''"Bitter Black" (Kiritsugu)'': Despite their horrible rapport in ''Literature/FateZero'', Altria never had sustainability and mana issues with Kiritsugu as her master--and this CE helpfully replicates it with its HP recovery and NP gain effects. Similarly, even Assassin EMIYA's own semi-fragility (and need for NP spamming capability) could be addressed by this. Finally, placing this on Dress of Heaven/Irisviel is not entirely a bad idea to keep her spamming her healing NP. |
| 71 | ** ''"Be Elegant" and "Duke of Flames" (Tokiomi)'': Star Generation being Gilgamesh's best suit, having Tokiomi's first CE increase this trait fits really well. With the ''Accel/Zero'' event, you can even add Cursed-Arm and Hundred-Faced Hassan here. The second CE, by contrast, pumps up the power of a Noble Phantasm--which if used on Gilgamesh guarantees no enemies will be left standing. In addition, nearly every buff given to Gilgamesh also fits either the Archer Ishtar or Parvati--coincidentally hosted by Tokiomi's daughters. |
| 72 | ** ''"Volumen Hydrargyrum" (Kayneth)'' and ''"Innocent Maiden" (Sola-ui)'': The first CE's damage plus and 3-turn invincibility would help Diarmuid's middling skill-set a lot, allowing him to survive and hit on Cu Chulainn's level on his own. The latter would strengthen his Quick cards and his poor NP gain as well. |
| 73 | ** ''"His Rightful Place" (Iskandar and Waver)'': This card is just about tailor-fit to their Servant units, with starting NP and star generation helping them fire their Noble Phantasm. |
| 74 | ** ''"Holy Night of Learning" and "Beyond the Distance" (Waver)'': The additional NP generation and strength is a welcome addition to Iskander, who lacks the means to properly fill the NP gauge by himself. |
| 75 | ** ''"Art of Death" (Ryuunosuke)'': The increased damage against humanoids compliments both Gilles's skills, which are oriented against Servants, as well as his buster Noble Phantasm. |
| 76 | ** ''"Before Awakening" and "Iron-Willed Training" (Kirei)'': These cards buff the power of a Servant's attack cards or increase their defense, respectively. Kirei's Servants for most of his life (Hundred-Faced Hassan, Gilgamesh and Cu Chulainn) would benefit well from such buffs, considering their lower-end attack stat, or make them even more overwhelming in the case of Gilgamesh. |
| 77 | ** ''"Awakened Will" (Kariya)'': His CE's benefits are not entirely great (what with the health demerit), but he does help in loading the NP gauge of his Servant. Placing it on Lancelot (while probably not a good idea in-game) definitely mirrors how Lancelot ate up Kariya's mana too much and killed him--leading to his Servant's defeat against Saber. |
| 78 | ** ''"Heaven's Feel", "Angel's Song" and "The Black Grail" (Irisviel) '': Adding more firepower to a Noble Phantasm is of great benefit to servants like Altria, Ilya, Chloe and Kiritsugu. |
| 79 | ** ''"Covering Fire" (Maiya)'', "Freelancer" (Natalia) and ''"Bygone Dreams (Shirley)"'': The damage plus effect and critical strength (Maiya), Quick cards + crit buff (Natalia) or NP buff (Shirley) effect would serve an Assassin with a relatively low-end attack stat--like, say, Kiritsugu himself. |
| 80 | ** ''"Victor of the Moon" (Male Hakuno)'': It is actually very helpful to equip this on either EMIYA or Gilgamesh--especially as their damage output relies on their Buster Noble Phantasms and the critical stars they will use. |
| 81 | ** ''"Victor's Complacency" (EXTRA!Shinji Matou)'': Despite the usual lackluster stats of any CE with Shinji in it, it does increase critical star generation, which is the specialty of Francis Drake. |
| 82 | ** ''"Knight's Pride" (Dan Blackmore)'': The critical buff would help Robin Hood to fill Arts-based NP gauge easier, especially considering his 3*-level stats. |
| 83 | ** ''Rhythmic Verse (Alice)'': NP generation and NP level overcharge is a best fit for Alice, especially considering her usual function for wave-clearing and crit-based damage. |
| 84 | ** ''"Ideal Holy King" and "Twilight Holy King" (Leonard Harway)'': Between max HP increase (1st) or Buster card buff (2nd), either actually works for his canon Servant, Gawain, whose gameplay does require increasing the damage of his triple-Buster deck or making sure he lasts long enough in battle. |
| 85 | ** ''"Sweeper" (Julius Harway)'': Providing Arts and critical buffs, this could aid either version of Li Shuwen (Lancer/Assassin), who would require such to follow up their single-target [=NPs=]. |
| 86 | ** ''"La Folia" (Lil' Ronnie)'': With Buster card buffs and increasing heal rates, it is tailor-fit for EXTRA!Vlad's skills and card layout. |
| 87 | ** ''"The Infant of Atlas" and "Tsukimihara Student Council" (Rani)'': It makes perfect sense to provide ignoring defense and attack buffs against Berserkers (1st) or provide Buster/Arts buffs (2nd), especially for the master of Lu Bu. Coincidentally, they also help Chen Gong (should he be used as the main wave clearer of the team). |
| 88 | ** ''"Room Guarder" (Jinako)'': One potential concern with Karna would be his inability to attract the critical stars he needs (especially if he is with other Servants with higher gather rates). This one handily plugs it. Not surprisingly, Ganesha/Jinako's own skillset can be helped by it, especially considering she has no way of making her own stars. |
| 89 | ** ''"Necromancy" and "Heading towards Trifas" (Kairi)''. A fixed chance of Guts can be useful for servants like Mordred, who lack any means of evasion or invincibility and/or have low-rates of NP charging. |
| 90 | ** ''"Vessel of the Saint" (Laeticia)''. The debuff ignoring ability synergises with Jeanne's main drawback in using her Noble Phantasm, moreso if it's required to use it in succession. |
| 91 | ** ''"Golden Millennium Tree" and "Dawn of an Ambition" (Darnic)''. The first card's biggest effect would be to add up to max HP to the equipped unit. This responds to one big problem any Berserker has (like, say, ''Apocrypha'' Vlad) in this game--an HP pool not large enough to compensate for their relative fragility. The second card is an outright Arts card buff, which Vlad's loadout is directly based on. |
| 92 | ** ''"The Final Narrator" (Caules)''. Frankenstein's biggest gameplay problems would be NP generation and damage power (at least compared to [[Characters/FateGrandOrderBerserkers her class-mates]]). This CE's effects handily plugs most of these issues, ideally making her more viable in combat. |
| 93 | ** ''"Basking Under The Sunlight" (Fiore)''. This card provides evasion and damage cut--which, coupled with Chiron's own evasion and defense skills, can help in making him harder to kill and lasting longer. |
| 94 | ** ''"Light of Intellect" (Roche)'': While definitely plainer (and easily-superseded) compared to the other ones here, Roche's CE helps in buffing Arts cards and increasing NP gain, something nearly any Caster (like his own Servant, Avicebron) would prefer having. |
| 95 | ** ''"Gentle Affection" (Reika)''. The enhanced effect of healing makes Jack's Surgery skill more effective and, if used on her, increases her survivability, which is vital for the members of the squishy Assassin class. |
| 96 | ** ''"Mystic Eyes of Distortion" (Fujino)'': While it definitely looks redundant, equipping this very CE on Fujino's Servant unit still does increases her damage output, and the defense demerit also reinforces her GlassCannon attributes (as potentially counterproductive that is). |
| 97 | ** ''"Grand Puppeteer" (Touko) and "Mature Gentlemen" (Mikiya)'': These two [=CEs=] are just about tailor-fit for both versions of Shiki (Assassin and Saber), giving them either Arts cards buffs or death resistance--both of which protect them and help their damage output. |
| 98 | ** ''Mission Start'' (Erice): Since Voyager has a QQAAB deck as well as having skills that focus on critical hits, this CE can help-out with the cards that Voyager use most often as his critical potential. The starting 50% NP Gauge at max level can help Voyager clear-out a wave with his own 50% NP Charge |
| 99 | ** ''Mixed Juice'' (Karin): A craft essence that can increase a servant's Buster effectively as well granting them a bit more survivability in terms of a "Heal Per Turn" effect can help-out a Berserker servant like Kijyo Kōyō very well. The healing effect also works nicely well with Kijyo's third skill. |
| 100 | * The boss fights with Saber Empíreo in Shimosa, Sigurd in Götterdämmerung, and Surtr are male Sabers, but they all have charm immunity. They are not only resistant being charmed by the opposite gender lore wise, it also prevents the infamous double Euryale and Stheno strategy that involves charm locking a male Saber or Berserker opponent to death (particularly in the case of Saber Empireo and Surtr boss fights where the player is forced to bring a fixed support Servant into the battle). Not that it matters anyways since bringing Euryale [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman is always a good idea for the Noble Phantasm damage against male Sabers]]. |
| 101 | * Olympus is, by far, considered to be the [[ThatOneLevel hardest of the Lostbelts]] but it completely makes sense if you look at it closely. You're up against [[TheAce Kirschtaria]], TheLeader of Team A and someone who averts UnderestimatingBadassery when it comes to facing the protagonist (as shown when he sends an entire fleet and Caenis to intercept the protagonist while having Artemis ready to shoot them down from the orbit). Of course it would be hard as Kirschtaria is basically pulling all stops to defeat the player. |
| 102 | * Kirschtaria's attacks in the game are identical to those used by the Trees of Emptiness. If you recall, his magecraft is the same as the Animusphere Families who focus on astronomy and space, which is where the Trees of Emptiness came from. When the Foreigh God descends, it adds even more context. |
| 103 | ** This becomes even more justified when you learn that the Foreign God ''isn't'' actually from space, but is another Disciple of the Foreign ''World'', [=CHALDEAS=] - and that the entire plot was masterminded by Marisbury Animusphere. It only makes sense that the creatures he created would have the same fighting style as his protege. |
| 104 | * The Mystic Codes you get all have fitting powers for what they are supposed to represent. |
| 105 | ** The default Mystic code, Chaldea, provides an attack buff, one turn of evasion, and a basic heal. Its BoringButPractical, just like a basic uniform for any of the potential recruits Chaldea would have used would give out. No matter how skilled you are as a Magus, its something anyone can use with ease. |
| 106 | ** Chaldea Combat Uniform gives a party wide attack, a stun, and allows you to swap one Servant with another. All of these are abilities that fit a battle focused Mystic Code and would naturally fit for any time Chaldea is expecting an intense battle. |
| 107 | ** Mage's Association Uniform gives healing to the whole party, charges a Servants NP, and shuffles the users deck. As the Mage Association is one of the primary sources of magic, its abilities all line up with the ideas of researching and higher magic usage and providing support. |
| 108 | ** Atlas Academy Uniform gives one Servant a one turn use invincibility, debuff cleanser, and reduces a single Servants cooldown by two. It also has one of the longest cooldowns for any Mystic Codes. As one of the most esteem parts of the Magus society, it naturally would have the most powerful effects that have the highest cost since its more elite. |
| 109 | ** Anniversary Blonde gives one Servant a Mana Burst buff, critical stars, and a one turn guts. Its all abilities that fit perfectly for Altria, the original wearer of the outfit. |
| 110 | ** Royal Brand gives one Servant a Quick card buff, sure-hit, and extra crit star absorption. All of these fit an Assassin, the class most likely to be a CombatPragmatist, just like Kiritsugu. |
| 111 | ** Memoria of Lunar Mare gives one Servant a Arts buff, increase crit star generation, and a buff block debuff on the enemy. All three of the playable ''Extra'' Servants are Arts focused Servants, but the other two abilities match Mystic Codes you can use in ''Extra'' to stop the enemy, such as stunning the enemy to stop them from using a buff or attacking. |
| 112 | ** Memoria of the Far Side of the Moon gives a party wide Arts buff, debuff protection, and reduces the enemies NP charge. Like with the previous one, they all fit as abilities you can use in ''CCC''. |
| 113 | ** Fragment of Year 2004 gives an NP damage buff, Buster card crit absorb, and increase NP generation. All three of these fit for both Altria and Emiya, the Servants of Shirou and Rin, two students from the school the uniform is from. |
| 114 | ** Arctic Region Chaldea Uniform has the same basic abilities as the default Chaldea uniform, except with additional effects. Its designed to be focused on battle, as with how desperate Chaldea was to defeat the Crypters, they needed to take the offense now. |
| 115 | * When breaking the first two of Kama/Mara's Break Bars, she responds by healing your party and buffing herself. As she states repeatedly, as one half of Beast III, who represents Love, she is trying to give her love to humanity, so when you break her HP bars, she's still trying to convince you to join her by healing your team, but due to her own annoyance at humans is powering herself up to defeat you. When you get her to her last bar though, she gives herself a powerful buff and doesn't heal you, because you've pushed her to the brink of defeat, and so she stops trying to convince you to accept her love, and instead now has to kill you if she has a chance at winning. |
| 116 | * Triple Buster decks with Buster Noble Phantasms are typically associated with over-the-top brute force like a Berserker, but they can also be used for skilled combatants who're so used to killing in a single strike that they see no need for a follow-up attack. Case in point: King Hassan and Musashi. |
| 117 | * Mechanically speaking, the Emiya males are significantly more powerful than should be expected of relatively lackluster Servants from the modern era. While this is likely related to them being main characters in their respective original works, it actually has a reasonable in-universe explanation: They are Counter Guardians, summoned for the explicit purpose of defending humanity; thus, they are empowered far beyond their normal limits by the Counter Force. |
| 118 | * Many of the characters Third Append Skill, while seeming random, perfectly fit their character, either as a reference to their history within the wider Fate franchise, or their history as a figure from history: |
| 119 | ** Altria's is Anti-Rider. Two of her biggest fights across the wider Fate series are against Medusa and Iskander, whom she easily defeated thanks to Excalibur. |
| 120 | ** Mordred's is Anti-Saber. Given how much she hates her "father" Altria, this makes sense. Furthermore, thanks to her NP, it gives her a huge damage up against any Saber Altria alts. |
| 121 | ** Both forms of Altera are Anti-Foreigner. As part of Velber, which was basically an otherworldly being, it would stand to reason that it would [[TakesOneToKillOne take someone like her to defeat an alien being]]. |
| 122 | ** Gilgamesh's is Anti-Rider. One of the only times in any Fate work Gilgamesh has ever gone full power was to defeat Iskander, a WorthyOpponent. |
| 123 | ** Ishtar's is Anti-Ruler. In her myth, she was basically the favorite among the Mesopotamian Pantheon, allowing her to essentially override the rule of her father and others because they liked her so much. |
| 124 | ** Scáthach's is Anti-Lancer. As a famous teacher who taught others how to use a lance, naturally she'd be good at taking down other Lance users. |
| 125 | ** On the other side, Cú Alter's is Anti-Lancer (Crit-Resist Up). During the American singularity, Cú Alter managed to kill Scáthach by using a technique Scáthach never taught Cú. |
| 126 | ** Lancer Vlad (Extra Vlad) is Anti-Avenger. As a firm GoodIsNotNice KnightTemplar, the Avenger class, which with only one or two exceptions, are AlwaysChaoticEvil, they would naturally be the class he is strongest against. |
| 127 | ** Lancer Medusa's is Anti-Avenger. Her role in Bablyonia was to kill Gorgon, who was an Avenger. |
| 128 | ** Romulus=Quirinus', Europa's, and Caenis' are all Anti-Ruler. They all helped out defeating the Lostbelt version of Zeus, who was a Ruler. |
| 129 | ** Achilles and Chiron are Anti-Archer and Anti-Rider respectively. Given the importance they placed on their duel in Apocrypha, they'd both be adept at fighting the others class. |
| 130 | ** Caster Altria's and Morgan's are both Anti-Saber. Not only the former is an alternate form of Altria and the latter is Altria's biggest enemy, they actively reject completing their task for most of Lostbelt 6, where they would have needed to forge Excalibur, and become "Sabers" themselves. Caster Altria's refusal also contrasts her Saber self's willingly to lead Britain with Excalibur. |
| 131 | ** First Hassan's is Anti-Saber. His first fight in the story was to duel Gawain in Camelot, who he easily was stalling. |
| 132 | ** Heracles gets Anti-Saber (Crit-Resist Up) which makes him sturdier when facing sabers and who does he keep changing blows with and taking blows from in the three routes consisting Fate/stay Night? Altria, a ''Saber''. |
| 133 | ** Qin Shi Huang's is Anti-Assassin. Jing Ke, both in history and in the story, failed to assassinate Qin, making Assassins something the Emperor is good enough to counter. |
| 134 | ** Oberon's is Anti-Caster. The reveal he hates Merlin already serves as a reason he would potentially do more damage to them, but the reveal he is Vortigern also means he would be in opposition to Caster Altria, who is the will of Britian. |
| 135 | ** Jeanne's and Amakusa's are both Anti-Ruler. While Jeanne is the BigGood of ''Literature/FateApocrypha'', Amakusa is the BigBad of that light novel; making clash with each other. |
| 136 | ** Mysterious Heroine XX's is Anti-Moon Cancer. Considering that the Foreigner servant she was hunting down in her debut event is actually a Moon Cancer all along, this makes sense. |
| 137 | ** Avenger Jeanne Alter's is Anti-Avenger. After all, she was the one to take down Hessian Lobo in Shinjuku, and it also corresponds to her statement that whenever you see an Avenger, you should kill them for their own good. |
| 138 | ** Berserker Jeanne Alter's is Anti-Archer (Crit-Resist Up) as she wants to ultimately outdo the actual Jeanne d'Arc who is an Archer servant for the summer. |
| 139 | ** Medea's is Anti-Saber. Taking aside her beef with Jason, Medea managed to take control of Altria in the "Unlimited Blade Works" route in the original ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. |
| 140 | ** Emiya's is Anti-Caster. Also within the "Unlimited Blade Works" route in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Emiya ends up out-gambitting Medea as while Medea intended Emiya to be a disposable pawn in her attempts to get the Grail, he ended up riddling her with swords while she's occupied with Rin. |
| 141 | ** Jack's is Anti-Archer. In ''Literature/FateApocrypha'', Jack managed to corrupt Atalanta, and make the Archer of Red go off the deep end. |
| 142 | ** Semiramis is Anti-Saber. In her debut work, her most notable fight is her against Mordred and her master, which ends in a MutualKill (though Mordred ends up perishing before Semiramis). |
| 143 | ** Both forms of Nightingale are Anti-Avenger, tied to her relationship with Edmond Dantes in their debut event. |
| 144 | ** Rider Medusa's is Anti-Saber. Her most notable victory is her against Altria Alter in the "Heaven's Feel" route of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. |
| 145 | ** Salome's is Anti-Ruler. Salome's obsessed with getting John the Baptist's head, and [[GameplayAndStorySegregation if you exclude the Rulers made because of FGO's plot and/or game balancing]], the Ruler class is supposed to be exclusively for Christian Saints (or close to it) and significant characters in the Bible, like John the Baptist. |
| 146 | ** Rasputin's is Anti-Caster. In the Lostbelt Prologue, he ended up killing Caster Da Vinci. |
| 147 | ** Stheno's is Anti-Rider. Her favorite bullying-target is her sister Medusa, a Rider, and being an Assassin makes it super-effective towards her and the Riders in general. |
| 148 | * Many players have noted that the Woodwose boss fight in Lostbelt 6 is extremely easy if you use Ivan the Terrible, specifically. Despite having no direct connection in-story, the thematic similarities are no doubt there: Woodwose is a ruthless ruler with a short temper and an elite military force, while Lostbelt Ivan dwarfs him in terms of both ire and his military. Woodwose is a bestial fairie who looks down on humans, while Ivan was a human who made his people more bestial to survive in the horrible circumstances Lostbelt Russia had become. Even mechanically, Woodwose focuses on debuffing his enemies and buffing himself to widen the gap between himself and his opponents, and Ivan not only directly counters him by being a Rider to Woodwose's Caster, but is also one of the ''very'' few Servants who can both cleanse his own debuffs but strip Woodwose of his buffs. |
| 149 | [[/folder]] |
| 150 | [[folder:Character-Specific]] |
| 151 | * '''Sabers''': |
| 152 | ** Void Shiki is in a league of her own and is one of the strongest beings in the Nasuverse (other than Servants). But she isn't effective for fighting Servants since she's in a human body. Just like her Assassin counterpart, her gameplay stats fit with the statement that she can only fight defensively against Servants: she's a Saber-class Servant, which is almost always guaranteed to have solid in-universe statistics, and she has very high HP but rather low ATK for the standards of a 5* Servant. |
| 153 | ** Mordred's third ascension may look like WTHCostumingDepartment at first glance, but going by how Servants trust their Master as their Bond and Ascension levels rise, it indicates that Mordred has become more comfortable in her Master's service that she feels free to be herself. She was also your ally in London, so that may have something to do with her outfit change (also her Summer version) as well. |
| 154 | ** Why is Proto Arthur's Excalibur so underwhelming compared to it's finished counterpart despite it's SuperPrototype status? In gameplay, the damage modifier is a paltry 300% compared to Altria's 400% and Saber Alter's 450% at Level 1. The reason is because if you hear closely, only 6 out of 13 seals were unlocked meaning that it just got ''through the bare minimum requirements'' just to be able to do it's trademark SwordBeam. Not only that, Altria's 400% multiplier was due to her Interlude quest where she has to get rid of the 13 seals to tap into more of Excalibur's power more freely. Now what was her damage multiplier before the Interlude again? 300%. |
| 155 | *** Also, if Arthur undoes 7 seals, Excalibur can defeat an Anti-World Noble Phantasm, as seen in Fate/Prototype OVA. |
| 156 | ** It makes sense that Musashi would panic about falling in love with the main character, considering that the person she's based on never married or had a romantic/sexual relationship of any sort. |
| 157 | ** Why is Sigurd considered a much better servant in gameplay while Siegfried was primarily focused towards Dragon Slaying and required boosts later on? Siegfried's legend was a variation based off of Sigurd and came after the latter and in Nasuverse the older something is the more strength it gains. |
| 158 | ** Jason was the ArcVillain of the Okeanos chapter, and most of the player's allies in that chapter are part of the Archer class. Thanks to his plans ultimately failing thanks in large part to the efforts of said archers, it's only natural that he is in the class that archers have an advantage against. |
| 159 | ** When it comes to Barghest, she notably has one of the biggest bust sizes in game. While it's far from the norm, given the various art styles or characters (like Passionlip and Raikou), there may be actual FridgeBrilliance for why Barghest has it. She is a member of the Fang Clan, a clan of fairies who are based on animals with Barghest being a black dog in particular. Considering dogs have ''six'' of them...well, it's likely that with her human form, they're all compressed into her human bust. |
| 160 | ** With Muramasa (a character that is hosted in Shirou Emiya's body), one can get the impression they [[InvokedTrope explicitly tuned his skillset and NP]] to be enabled by Caster Altria, if only as an inverse of their relationship in the ''[[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Fate]]'' route (i.e. Shirou enabling Altria's combat prowess). |
| 161 | ** Altria Alter's Noble Phantasm is called Excalibur Morgan. With the reveal that Vivian (a.k.a. the Lady of a Lake) is a SplitPersonality of Morgan, it makes sense why the Alter servant's Noble Phantasm is given that name. Since Vivian gave Excalibur to Altria, the SuperpoweredEvilSide for the King of Knights has her own Noble Phantasm be named after Vivian's own SuperpoweredEvilSide. |
| 162 | ** Gawain is the only summonable Knight of the Round Table who can still use his Gift from the Lion King. While he justifies it as [[TheAtoner a deliberate reminder of the atrocities that version of him committed]], it's likely that he's the ''only'' one who retains it at all; of the others, only Mordred had a Gift ([[DeadlyUpgrade Rampage]]) that was remotely compatible with her, and without the desperate craving for approval from a spiteful god the Camelot version had she has no reason to call upon it. Tristan got Inversion, which caused him to revel in the suffering of others rather than lament it, while Lancelot, the knight who doomed Camelot by acting on his emotions, was given the Gift of Impartiality, which compelled him to do what must be done regardless of his own feelings. Gawain's, though? He merely got Nightless, an enhancement to a blessing he already had. |
| 163 | * '''Archers''': |
| 164 | ** Two particular Servants' personalities are different from their portrayals in the original work: |
| 165 | *** EMIYA being his LighterAndSofter personality since he isn't burdened by his Counter Guardian duties in this work and it's consistent with his portrayals in Fate/Extra (where he is not a Counter Guardian with an eternal contract to Alaya, just a nameless hero with a contract to the Moon Cell). Thus he mainly acts like his young self, Shirou. This also explains why Altria is [[ShipTease kind of attracted to him.]] |
| 166 | *** In the Lostbelts, the necessity of destroying alternate realities with people you've befriended for the sake of Proper Human History is similar to Emiya's duty as Counter Guardian being to slaughter the many for the salvation of ''more''. So he might find you more relatable because of your similar experiences. |
| 167 | *** Gil also is not as jerkish as his Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero portrayals because humanity is at stake. This is because in his lore (from Fate/Extra CCC, at least), Gil considers humans ''his'' property and thus cannot abandon them. [[{{Tsundere}} He actually loves humanity]]. |
| 168 | ** David's hair being green originally struck me as "Fate failed the lore again", since the Bible spells out that he's a RedHeadedHero ("he was ruddy, a youth handsome to behold"). King Solomon's human incarnation is the ''red-headed'' Doctor Roman. So... did Fate character designers fail the lore again, or did they dodge a ''massive'' HairColorSpoiler by [[ObfuscatingStupidity only pretending to fail the lore again]]? |
| 169 | ** Many players found EMIYA to be extremely lackluster for a 4-Star Servant and a favorite among long-time Type-Moon fans. He was considered weak for his rank, his skills were not the best, his animations were lacking, and Unlimited Blade Works did abysmal damage, requiring the player to use unconventional tactics to maximize his efficiency and perform several quests to upgrade his skills and Noble Phantasm, as well as needing buffs in later updates. However, this makes total sense when you take his origins into consideration. In life, Shirou/EMIYA was a third-rate magus and only became such a badass from years of training and improving the skills he already had and developing a very unconventional fighting style. The player's struggles to make him viable are a reflection of this. |
| 170 | *** It should also be noted that Unlimited Blade Works is mainly used by players for generating Crit Stars rather than for raw damage. Then, you realize that the Reality Marble has always been a setup rather than an attack in and of itself (such as when Shirou uses it to counter Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon). With Unlimited Blade Works up even for a moment, Archer's damage output rises significantly. |
| 171 | *** This could also explain why Kuro is so much more effective as a Servant than EMIYA, despite her powers being derived from him. Unlike her alternate dimension older brother, Kuro had EMIYA's skills from his peak installed (pun not intended) into her very being since she was given a body thanks to the Archer EMIYA Class Card. EMIYA's max potential is something she was gifted with at "birth" as opposed to through years of training. |
| 172 | ** Artemis comes of as really odd for her legend, namely TheDitz personality she has, but that's the thing: she isn't an airheaded bimbo despite her body type, she is a [[{{ManChild}} child]]. This makes a lot of sense because she is a goddess of childhood, her personality is like that of a spoiled princess, which kind of fits her legend: when she first met her father Zeus, she asked for a bunch of things just like any little girl would to her father. It also explains how Apollo got her to shoot Orion, he likely did a simple SiblingRivalry trick ("Bet you can't hit that rock") and she didn't even think about besides proving her stupid brother wrong. |
| 173 | ** Swimsuit Altria uses an Arts Noble Phantasm rather than her standard Buster because she's ''on vacation'', and is thus doing all she can to get away from the {{Troll}} that is Merlin. Having an incompatible Noble Phantasm means that Masters have less reason to put them in the same team, so she can actually relax rather than deal with reining in such an infuriating advisor. |
| 174 | ** Chiron being Four Star rarity seems odd when you consider he's arguably the most famous Centaur in mythology, and trained many great heroes like Heracles and Achillies. However, given how famous ''all'' of his students became, and how they essentially became heroes known forever in history and culture, it makes sense why Chiron would be below several of them in rarity; he's OvershadowedByAwesome by his students (which he himself is happy with). |
| 175 | ** Combine the concepts of "couple" and "day at the beach" and you'll probably conclude "they're on a date." No wonder Anne and Mary's Summer variant are so affectionate! |
| 176 | ** William Tell gets Sure Hit from his Noble Phantasm. Not too strange... but Special Attack vs. Evade? That represents his ''second'' Noble Phantasm: If Apfel Schießen somehow misses, he fires Zweite Schießen (an even more powerful attack that is only usable if his first shot misses) at the same target. |
| 177 | * '''Lancers''': |
| 178 | ** Why are the breastplates used by Altria Lancer and her Alter counterpart sloped? Two reasons: It gives them room to breathe while avoiding the structural weakness of a BreastPlate, and will more easily deflect blows when they're charging the enemy on horseback. |
| 179 | ** Leonidas isn't one of the characters that Penthesilea gets bonus damage against. Aside from the obvious one, him being based purely in history, there's one other reason: his claim to fame is defending against a Persian invasion - much like how Penthesilea was defending against a Greek invasion of Troy; she'd probably see that they are not so different. |
| 180 | *** Furthermore, most of the Greek heroes she gets bonus damage against were ones that she has either encountered, or ones that were so influential that they would effectively go down as more then just a man. Leonidas was a BadassNormal king who lived roughly around six hundred years after her, meaning she wouldn't have any reason to have beef with him. Leonidas didn't do anything to her nor was he involved in any of affairs related to those she can deal extra damage to. |
| 181 | *** Penth's BerserkButton is being considered a woman first and a warrior second. Leonidas is from a culture where young girls and women were trained to fight as much as the men were. He would care more about strength than gender anyway! |
| 182 | *** Not just any culture, both the Spartans and the Amazons consider Ares their patron deity; [[ValuesResonance The two cultures are practically siblings]]. |
| 183 | ** Brynhildr's voice lines in which she loves people who remind her of Sigurd two of the most notable ones are Siegfried and Archer EMIYA. The former is understandable because he came from a variation of Sigurd's original myth. The latter makes more sense when you consider that Archer EMIYA and Sigurd are blacksmiths who create swords, use magic, and are tragic heroes. |
| 184 | ** Ereshkigal's Noble Phantasm replicates the conditions of Kur in the area, which manifests as a massive sinkhole that drops the entire battlefield into her domain. The animation for this sometimes includes the First Hassan as a cameo. Since this is basically how you deal with Tiamat, and the cameo was with you at the time, this rather strongly implies that you, the player, were personally involved in the creation of her Noble Phantasm (especially since the summoned Ereshkigal is explicitly the same one you met in Babylonia). |
| 185 | ** As Valkyrie raises through Ascension levels [[PowerMakesYourHairGrow their hair get's longer]] and their spear more detailed. Now take a look at Brynhildr, the eldest of the Valkyries and whom the rest were modeled after, who has long hair and an incredibly intricate spear. Each successive Valkyrie is more powerful because they're closer in design to Brynhildr. Case in point, Thrúd, the strongest of the three normal Valkyries, has the longest hair among them, a spear whose design is evocative of Brynhildr's, and even has a sash draped behind her similar to the one Brynhildr gains in her third Ascension. |
| 186 | ** Romulus-Quirinus famously redeemed Boudica's borderline useless anti-Roman skill by having one which gives enemies the Roman trait. Romulus-Quirinus also has a dialogue line acknowledging the ransacking of Boudica's nation by his empire and taking personal responsibility for it. [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration Maybe he chose to have a skill that supports her so well as a way of making amends]]. |
| 187 | * '''Riders''': |
| 188 | ** For those who were repulsed by [[{{Otaku}} Blackbeard's]] behaviour and characterization, this [[https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/a90hwb/fates_take_on_blackbeard_is_genius/ post]] might actually provide insight as to why he is like that. |
| 189 | *** In addition, Blackbeard being a lolicon can be considered historically valid. His wife, Mary Ormond, was 16 years old when she married him. |
| 190 | ** Why does Red Hare need a lot of Magical Cerebrospinal Fluid for his ascensions and skills? Because from a distance, they look a lot like carrots. |
| 191 | ** Like Swimsuit Altria with Arts, Maid Alter uses a Quick NP in order to get away from Merlin. No matter her form, Altria needs a break from Merlin. |
| 192 | ** At a glance Saint Martha appears better suited for the Caster class: she's a canonized nun firing [[HolyHandGrenade holy blasts]] from a MagicStaff, has a QAAAB deck, and has good utility as a SupportPartyMember. However, she's also a DragonRider (courtesy of the dragon Tarasque), a very rare ability that requires a specific skill aside from Riding to preform; a skill which she does not possess. Being an exception to this rules is likely more than enough to qualify her as a Rider. |
| 193 | * '''Casters''': |
| 194 | ** Why is Mozart only a 1-star Servant? Because he wrote [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mich_im_Arsch a canon about a place where the stars don't shine]]. |
| 195 | *** And why is Mozart's kit and NP completely geared toward support? Since he was very [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]] in life, you would expect him to have a more selfish and self-indulgent kit. Come Lostbelt 1, we meet Antonio Salieri, who not only is a fellow musician, but was Mozart's IRL friend [[HoYay and maybe even more than that]] who even taught Mozart's son when Mozart himself passed away. Unfortunately, bad rumors and the Throne warped Salieri into being a rage-filled, fully offensive Avenger despite having no such combat prowess in life. It's possible that when Mozart found out that his fame and legacy in history came at the cost of demonizing his arguably best friend, [[TheAtoner he made it his purpose as a servant to be in the background and support Salieri]] with a kit and NP that meshes VERY well with Salieri's, as Salieri did for him in their lifetimes. |
| 196 | ** The story support Da Vinci has Chaldea in her background art because she stayed there for several years and it's like a home for her, whereas the one you summon is directly from the Throne so she's not too familiar with Chaldea to the point where she'd call it a home and thus doesn't have Chaldea as her background. |
| 197 | ** Caster Gil is 4 star rarity while Archer Gil is 5 star rarity. This seems like a weird switch, but Caster Gil is explicitly stated to be not that powerful of a Mage, and relies on his naturally high power to boost his skills as a Servant. Gil as an Archer however, is naturally suited to the role because he can use Gate of Babylon freely, without a need to worry about his lack of combat skills compared to other Servants. Furthermore, its stated that Caster Gil basically is using a weaker Gate of Babylon because he needed to use it to defend Uruk, so naturally his skills as a Caster are weaker because he himself is weaker. His Archer self doesn't have this weakness. |
| 198 | ** While Hans Christian Anderson and Nursery Rhyme may not get along, Hans is actually a great support for her on critical hit based teams. While itself a nice bit of {{Irony}}, it makes sense in two ways: |
| 199 | *** It's an author playing support to a book, and a book is only as good as the work it's author puts into it. |
| 200 | *** Hans was specifically an author of children's literature, so a good chunk of the stories Nursery Rhyme is composed of came from Hans, which means he knows what he's working with when playing her support. |
| 201 | ** Cu Chulainn (Caster)'s insistence that you need to summon a Lancer version of him takes a different slant with the growing clues that he's actually Odin, another legendary spear-user... |
| 202 | ** Once Altria Caster reaches her mature form in her Third Ascension she comes to loath Merlin and created a way to kill him (albeit not permanently) should they meet again. This is reasoned as being resentment for Merlin leaving her, but with the reveal that she's an alternate version of Morgan created by Gaia, it could be that her hatred of Merlin is actually a trait that was built into her and only takes affect around the age it did with the original Morgan. |
| 203 | * '''Assassins''': |
| 204 | ** Shiki being able to fit in the Assassin class is surprisingly congruent with the infamous answer to the oft-asked question about whether or not she can kill Servants. The WordOfGod answer amounts to: while she ''can'' see their lines of death, she isn't strong enough that she can maintain a head-on fight against them and actually cut the lines. Assassin-class Servants are also notable for being unable to fight Knight-class Servants head-on, so they instead rely on tricks and pragmatism to be able to kill them. With both of those in mind, Shiki as an Assassin when compared to other classes is very fitting; her combination of a low ATK but a specialization in inflicting a OneHitKill Noble Phantasm also reinforces this. |
| 205 | ** Shuten-douji is portrayed as a scantily-clad woman with slurry, alluring voice. That is very consistent with her legends, where she charms young men to her lair... to make them drunk senseless and then eat them. Also, this explains Kintoki's weakness against women in revealing clothes, because his ex-girlfriend is a woman in revealing clothes, herself. He won't be allured again! |
| 206 | ** Why does Li Shuwen use three strikes for his NP when fighting against the party in SIN when his playable version just has the one? This one's from an AlternateTimeline where the emperor and their needs are prioritized above everything else, especially with the several centuries of indoctrination of the emperor's teachings. Of course, he doesn't care about how many hits he does when the entire nation and emperor's well-being is at stake! |
| 207 | ** While not officially classified as such, Carmilla is essentially Elizabeth Alter. She's Liz who had been dominated by her darkest impulses, has gold eyes and pale hair, and hates her other self. |
| 208 | ** Historically, Mata Hari was extremely flat-chested... and [[IAmNotPretty had an inferiority complex about it]]. The voluptuous version of her in ''Grand Order'' could be seen as either padding her top generously or as magical self-modification, either of which is justified by her poor self-image. |
| 209 | ** Kojirou has always been a weird Servant, not technically "existing" due to the historical character being fictitious. However, this may be changing. In Camelot, it was revealed through Bedivere's unique situation that while the events in a Singularity or similar event may be lost to the true timeline, the Throne of Heroes remembers and may even enter new Heroes and aspects of those heroes should they be of proper magnitude, such as Jason gaining a perpetual disdain for the player just from the events of Oceanus. Now, Kojirou - whether he started as a wraith Servant or not - has not only appeared in more seasonal events than most, but has also become the renowned champion of the Roman Colosseum (via his Interlude) and even appeared as an alternate version in Shimosa (the same location that the Musashi we know entered the Throne of Heroes). Kojirou, whether he realizes it or not, may be just as much a True Servant as anyone else at Chaldea if only because of the events ''at'' Chaldea. |
| 210 | ** In Yu's Interlude she is shown to be incompetent at using Servants with them being weak when she tries. However if you consider her nature it makes sense, she is a Zhenren modeled after the True Ancestors which created the Dead Apostles. Dead Apostles are considered an Antithesis to Heroic Spirits which leads to different timelines of dominance and her nature inadvertently rejects their existence. |
| 211 | ** Mysterious Heroine X has two potential reasons for her Quick NP: |
| 212 | *** She's trying to dissociate herself from the other Saberfaces; the original prefers Buster, while Nero usually uses Arts, which just leaves Quick for her. |
| 213 | *** She wasn't raised by Merlin, and thus has no reason to have an NP that he can support. |
| 214 | ** Cursed Arm Hassan is the lowest rarity of the Hassan characters, despite being gameplay wise arguably the best that isn't First Hassan. His time as the Old Man in the Mountain was stated to be the most forgettable one of them all, naturally his fame and status is beyond all the others, reflecting his status as a measly one-star despite being gameplay wise good. |
| 215 | ** Jack's friendship with Nursery Rhyme seems strange, until you consider Jack's nature: She's an amalgamation of abandoned children, that are, at their core, desperate for a mother's affection. And what's one of the most common ways a mother spends time with her child? ''Reading stories'' to them. Of ''course'' Jack would like the embodiment of childrens' stories! |
| 216 | *** Her [[{{Stripperific}} fashion sense]] also makes a lot of sense when one considers [[TheOldestProfession the abandoned childrens' mothers' jobs]], and becomes a lot more tragic: She's probably trying to emulate the mother she's searching for. |
| 217 | ** One has to wonder, why does Koyanskaya of the Light have long tails in her third form when she's confirmed to be a ''bunny'' spirit rather than a fox spirit like Tamamo? Well as it turns out, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNt7gd_P_AE bunnies have much longer tails than first expected.]] |
| 218 | ** Why does Kiichi Hougen manifest as an Assassin rather than a Lancer, despite using a polearm and outright stating she wished to be summon as one? Because the whole reason she came to Chaldea in the first place was to punish Ushiwakamaru, a Rider, so naturally she materialized in the class that has an advantage over her. |
| 219 | ** Why does King Hassan, the first of the Hassans and the Grand Assassin, have a skillset built around tanking ludicrous amounts of damage and being an all-around [[ImplacableMan Implacable Man]], rather than a [[StealthExpert Stealth Expert]] like every other assassin? He’s the Hassan who kills other Hassans, a group of individuals who have ultimate techniques explicitly designed to kill others! By having Battle Continuation EX, he has a fighting style that completely counters other Assassin’s greatest techniques, making him the Assassin of Assasins! |
| 220 | * '''Berserkers''': |
| 221 | ** Despite many upgrades and his Saber version using Arondight as his Noble Phantasm, Berserker!Lancelot still uses an M71 Vulcan in his NP attack. This is because the Noble Phantasms of a Servant are dictated not only by the weapons and deeds they did in life, but also by the legends, stories and even mistakes and mistaken associations that sprang up around their original myth. The more famous the story, the greater the influence on the Servant. [[Anime/FateZero Now, isn't there a famous story about Lancelot using a machine gun?]] This actually piles up in his animation update: no way would the fighter jet be part of his Noble Phantasm if it hadn't contributed enough to his legend as well. |
| 222 | *** If you remember that Quetzalcoatl's love for Lucha Libre surpassed time space and imprinted itself on the Throne then it makes perfect sense on why Berserker Lancelot has guns and a jet. He must've really loved those things even when insane! |
| 223 | ** Just before the arrival of Lostbelt #4: Yuga Kshetra, Minamoto no Raiko gained a skill enhancement that further empowered her already impressive-set, which caused no small amount of surprise/comment. Gameplay-wise, her buffing is justified with the arrival of Arjuna Alter, who is nearly-superior to her in execution and survivability. While the meta-game explanation is pretty clear, it also works on an in-story sense: remember, Raiko and Arjuna are technically half-siblings, being borne of equivalent deities (Gozu-Tenno and Indra). It should definitely make sense that they are near-equal in power and performance. |
| 224 | ** MHX Alter, while not particularly trying to distinguish herself from other Saberfaces, uses a Quick NP both because she's an Alter of Mysterious Heroine X and because, like her, she wasn't raised by Merlin and thus can't synergize with him in battle properly. |
| 225 | ** Some things about Morgan that end up making sense once you consider her backstory. |
| 226 | *** Morgan being in the GlassCannon Berserker class makes sense from a gameplay standpoint once you consider her backstory along with her plan to topple Altria's Britain in PHH. She is noted to be extremely powerful as Chaldea weren't able to defeat her in battle. However, she is still a CosmicPlaything as she has been killed in many time loops beforehand. So, she is in the same class of [[GlassCannon servants that can land really powerful attacks but can die really easily]]. |
| 227 | *** She mainly uses ''spears'' as part of her arsenal like the spear she wields, Rhongomyniad and the various spear projectiles she summons when using attacks and Lordless Camelot. Spears are the designated weapon of the ''Lancer'' class, who were known for being unlucky. |
| 228 | * '''Extra Classes''': |
| 229 | ** Avenger of Shinjuku can only manifest as a proper Servant when Lobo and the Hessian work together, as they are only able to reach the level of an UrbanLegend otherwise. This makes sense, given that even in ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow'', it was hinted that the Headless Horseman wasn't real. |
| 230 | ** Mash having the Riding Trait might seem a bit odd - she's a StoneWall, so she doesn't have much use for crit stars, her deck only has 1 quick card, and her Noble Phantasm, on top of not being a damage-dealing one, is an Arts card. What's one common trait of the Knights of the Round Table in F/GO? They all have the Riding Trait. |
| 231 | *** Mash has another clue as to her true identity from early on. Mash's shield is capable of holding the Grail and bringing it back to Chaldeas. There are two main Knights of the Round Table who are considered "The Grail Knight" - originally, it was Percival, but later stories introduced the pure and perfect Galahad as the Grail Knight. |
| 232 | ** XX going after Foreigners makes a lot more sense when considering her hatred of octopi and that all Foreigners (and BB) currently are plugged into Outer Gods with octopi appendages, so she's just going after another of her pet peeves. In addition, her hatred stems from Gilles summoning several Cthulhu related entities in ''Fate/Zero'', giving her another reason to go after Foreigners! |
| 233 | ** One common complaint of anyone who uses Angra Mainyu is how hard it is to get his Interlude in order to make him plausibly useful: namely that his occurs at Bond 10 which is also when he gives you a useful Craft Essence that makes him powerful against Beasts, beings he'd supposedly support. He also notably requires greater levels of bond points before he reaches new bond levels for his two star stat line, having the same amount as a four star servant instead. But consider this: He's ''Angra Mainyu'', a man who was [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds forced to take on the sins of mankind through ritualistic torture, cursed by his once fellow friends and family until he outlived them and died of old age]]. Of course it takes greater levels of bond for him trust you, he's still dealing with those mental scars and it takes loads of time and effort before he comes to realize you won't betray or hurt him like other humans have. |
| 234 | ** Voyager being a Foreigner was a rather odd choice of class given that other members of the class were all EldritchAbomination who’s mere existence could shatter the minds of those who see them. But then again, much of Creator/HPLovecraft 's work involved the unknown and the fear of the unknown, particularly the ocean. And what’s something Mankind doesn’t know about yet? The Deep Ocean and Space, because despite how much we know about the stars and how they work, the existence of other planets that could support life, there is still much we do not know, things that would make people afraid. Especially back when Voyager was first sent into space. |
| 235 | *** Alternatively, considering that Voyager's mission is to explore alien worlds, another way to interpret his Foreigner classification would be [[HumansThroughAlienEyes looking at him from an alien's viewpoint.]] Foreigners as a class are defined by their connection to [[EldritchAbomination Outer Gods]] (with the exception of Mysterious Heroine XX), and to alien life Voyager is a machine created by [[HumansAreCthulhu strange beings from another would.]] |
| 236 | ** The extent to which Jeanne Alter becomes a lot less villainous as a summonable servant can seem a bit odd if examined closely. Her antagonizing her master and fellow servants actually just consists of childish, relatively harmless pranks, and even during the Da Vinci event, where she still hasn't yet joined Chaldea, her "evil plan" was just gathering people to love her one way or another. A far cry from the outright cruelty she displays as the Dragon Witch. Well, Jeanne's third Interlude reveals that the one hidden facet of her character that Jeanne Alter was able to find and connect herself to in order to stabilize her own existence as a "what-if" variant of Jeanne was her deeply buried wish to be saved from being burned at the stake. So at her core, she is not "the Jeanne who wished for vengeance" but rather "the Jeanne who wished she was saved", which is a much softer origin. |
| 237 | *** Even though her primary class is Avenger, that's actually from her own indignation at the humiliating experience she underwent at the hands of Santa Alter, making her motivations as an Avenger much more laughably petty. |
| 238 | ** While it's normal in most games for characters to have odd hairstyles and colors, Edmond Dantes seems a bit weird. He's young, and yet his hair is stark white. Normally hair follicles turn white with old age or extreme amounts of stress, because the pigments gradually die out either way. However, it's quite fitting in the latter portion and it's even a case of ShownTheirWork. Dantes suffered in the [[HellholePrison Chateau d'If]] for 14 years, and in the book, he made one of the people who sent him there suffer the same level of imprisonment as he did, which turned their hair white! It would be fitting for Dantes for his hair to be this color to mirror what happened to him! |
| 239 | *** It can also serve as an indicator that he's a StrongAndSkilled OldMaster - he's not exactly a young man anymore, as he'd be summoned at the age of his vengeance when he'd be around 44. Considering how he's middle-aged and still spry enough to run circles around nearly anyone, you really shouldn't underestimate him - he did, after all, fight and [[DeaderThanDead perma-kill]] ''[[{{Immortality}} Michael Roa Valdamjong]]'' while ''still a human'' in the ''Fate'' timeline, all on his own. |
| 240 | ** Why isn't Summer BB a Foreigner despite being allied with Nyarlahotep? Well, despite the obvious and in-game explanation she gives, that no matter who she allies with or how she changes herself, she will always be BB, aka a Mooncancer, but she has one other reason to remain a Mooncancer. Consider one bit of the class advantage system: Foreigners are weak to Alter Egos. Given that the Sakura Five (who are all Alter Egos) ''hate'' BB, she couldn't just give them an advantage over her, can she? |
| 241 | *** She also seems aware that Chaldea and Mysterious XX are specifically hunting for a ''Foreigner'' in connection with the singularity. So by not being a Foreigner, she escapes suspicion until she can get the Grail. |
| 242 | ** Space Ishtar's final ascension design makes loads of sense if you have some knowledge of Astrophysics or Astronomy. In those fields, there is an observation over galaxies and their status as either being "Dead" or "Alive". Living galaxies are categorized as galaxies that are still creating stars faster than they're dying, and tend to be more blue in color. Dying galaxies on the other hand are galaxies whose stars are dying faster than they're being created, and are more red in color. Considering how in the Servantverse, Ishtar Ashtart is the only remnant of the Origin Universe (the universe before the Shining Blue Universe, which itself means their galaxy is still living), it's incredibly fitting how her body is depicted as being overly red in color given she's the still living remains of the old Galaxy. Meanwhile, Ashtoret Origin is blue in color, symbolizing her revival into the world. |
| 243 | ** Why does BB Summer decide to include Pele into her Saint Graph, beyond the control it allows her over Hawaii? Given the type of person she is and the fact that Nyarlathotep is beyond most earthly gods by status alone, she could likely do what she could've done without Pele. But then consider who Nyarlathotep's enemy is: Cthugha, a living ball of fire. Adding in Pele, a ''lava'' goddess wasn't just for using Hawaii, but also for giving herself some protection against Cthugha in case he was summoned in a Foreigner Class! Then lo and behold, Yang Guifei is summoned with that exact Outer God and the gimmick of spreading burns to foes alike, something made useless thanks to the immunity Pele gives BB! |
| 244 | * '''General/Other''': |
| 245 | ** Everything we've seen and been told about Fou's character makes sense once his true nature comes to light. He is called a "Beast of Comparison". He was raised by Merlin, so he naturally reflects off of his master, gaining a similarly fussy personality (as well as a few CovertPervert tendencies gained from prolonged exposure to a half-incubus). The reason he and Merlin tend to argue is because, as Shirou and Archer have proven, OtherMeAnnoysMe quite often (another way in which "Comparison" comes to light). Conversely, if he were raised by Altrouge Brunestud, he would gain a more spiteful view of humanity and grow into Primate Murder rather than Cath Palug. |
| 246 | ** The Limited/Zero Over craft essence has ''"Convergence is the proof of the ideal. As if forging a sword, as if burning up your own life, you will continue to strike steel."''' Guess what happens in the climax of the Shimosa sub-singularity: Sengo Muramasa -- a pseudo-Servant in Shirou's body as depicted in Limited/Zero Over -- burns up his life force to forge the Sword of Totsuka. |
| 247 | ** Sengo Muramasa raises the possibility that Shirou could be a descendant of his. This leads to the question of why would the Muramasa clan move to Fuyuki. This however makes sense with what happened after the Sengoku Jidai: Once the Tokugawa Shogunate was established, they began to hunt down their enemies and perceived threats across Japan, amongst their targets were the clans that opposed them and the UsefulNotes/{{Japanese Christian}}s, who were thought to be in league with the European powers; it would make sense for the members of the Muramasa clan to seek protection from the Tohsaka as both were in the same situation of persecution and thus were allowed to live in Fuyuki, probably becoming Christians themselves in the long run. |
| 248 | *** If their relation is confirmed, this would also make Shinji a {{Foil}} of Shirou on another level: The former's family came from a prestigious background in the Magus world and was one of the founding members of the Holy Grail War; however, the land of Fuyuki rejected the Makiri and sent their clan to magical decline, ending in their latest heir being born without magic circuits. In contrast, the Muramasa were likely outlaws by the time they arrived to Fuyuki, on the run from the Tokugawa's persecution of Christians and political enemies alike; yet it was from this family that Shirou would be born as a first generation magus, something uncommon in the world of lineages that is the magus world. |
| 249 | ** In one particular dialogue, Archer EMIYA notes that he has a weakness for Gold Archers and Blue Lancers, and suggests that the player keep them away from his team. While he is technically referring to Gilgamesh and Cu Chulainn, Ishtar and Parvati can also count as a "gold archer" and "blue lancer" respectively. Ishtar was summoned into the body of Rin, and Parvati into the body of Sakura, both of whom were two of Emiya's love interests in his former life. In other words, he is weak towards the two women he cared for in his previous life. |
| 250 | *** Muramasa, Ishtar and Parvati's place in the Class triangle (as Saber, Archer and Lancer respectively) makes quite sense if you know the source material: Sakura was Rin's MoralityChain for a long time, being the ultimate reason for why she revived Shirou with her supercharged pendant at the start of Fate/Stay Night; Shirou, on the other hand, was Sakura's LivingEmotionalCrutch, something exploited by Zouken in "Heaven's Feel"; finally, Shirou tends to follow Rin's lead and admired her before the story begins while falling for her in ''Unlimited Blade Works'', not to mention that he was a servant of her in all the routes. |
| 251 | *** Ereshkigal and Kama should also be noted here as both of those servants are pseudo-servants of Rin and Sakura respectively as well. While Muramasa does have class advantage against Ereshkigal despite the above explanation, it can make sense if you think of it in a different perspective as Rin and Shirou are respective [[{{Foil}} Foils]] to one another as they lack each other's FatalFlaw[[note]]Rin lacks Shirou's recklessness and Shirou doesn't try to hide his kind side the way Rin does[[/note]]. So, it makes that Muramasa has a class advantage against one Rin servant (Ereshkigal) and a class disavantage against another Rin servant (Ishtar). As for Ereshkigal and Parvati, since Ereshkigal is Ishtar's sister, it makes sense that Ereshkigal shall be in the same class as the pseudo-servant for Rin's actual sister. Kama might be the odd one out since she doesn't fit into the Saber/Archer/Lancer class triangle until you realized these things- Ishtar was a welfare Rider servant for Summer 2017; Shirou uses a Caster servant's Noble Phantasm in order to sever Sakura's contract with Angra Mainyu and "defeat" Dark Sakura; and while not applicable to regular Muramasa, he actually has manifested as an Alter-Ego throughout his Lostbelt appearances--something that handily has an advantage against an Assassin like Kama/Dark Sakura. And with an Archer-class Sakura-face released (Durga/Kali), the reverse class triangle is completed. |
| 252 | ** Considering that Tesla and Edison were famous rivals in real life, it might seem odd that the two aren't part of the same triangle - that is, of course, until you realize that the two developed competing electrical currents, AC and DC. Since each one has advantages the other doesn't, it makes sense that the classes each one is reflect this - thus, neither has a class advantage over the other. |
| 253 | *** Furthermore, the reason why Edison and Tesla are in their respective classes is reflective of their approach to electricity: Edison was quite the business man and is the one who managed to make the light bulb profitable to sell and easy to mass produce, which fits with the Caster's ability of Item Construction; meanwhile, Tesla became infamous for his DeathRay, which would allow him the qualify for the Archer class. |
| 254 | *** There's also an additional myth-based angle with Tesla's Archer. One of his {{Blasphemous Boast}}s tends to involve comparing himself to Indra, the chief lightning-wielding god of Hindu myth (and is also the father of Arjuna, another Archer). Now to whom was Indra forced to lend his spear because of being shown his hypocrisy? Karna, who is primarily a Lancer. |
| 255 | ** The Alters and rarity: |
| 256 | *** Altria's Saber and Lancer alts are both Five Star rarity Servants, while the Alter variants are Four Star rarity despite being considered better gameplay wise. Excluding seasonal alts which are almost always Five Star rarity, due to the nature of the Alter form this makes sense: the Alter form is a perversion of the Heroic Spirits original being by essentially causing them to change alignments, even if they still have the same beliefs overall. Their essentially a EvilKnockoff of the original Heroic Spirit that normally shouldn't exist, meaning that they are a lower rarity because they are a "less pure" variation of the Heroic Spirit summoned. |
| 257 | *** Cu Alter and Jeanne Alter are both Five Stars, with Cu's alts all being Three Stars and Jeanne's being also Five Star. As both Orleans and America show us, both of these Servants are not natural, they were created by someone else (Giles and Medb) wishing for their own version of the person. They are high rarity because they are technically beings not supposed to exist, and so are indeed rare to find. |
| 258 | *** Emiya Alter, Okita Alter, and Arjuna Alter are in the same rarity as their normal forms, a Four Star Servant for Emiya Alter and a Five Star Servant for the latter two. All three of them are a mere AlternateSelf to their regular counterpart than just a mere "evil" verson of a different servant. They are different forms of those servants, but they are still Emiya/Okita/Arjuna from a different universe, not the same as ours. |
| 259 | *** Atalante Alter's form is created by using Agrius Metamorphosis to become a Berserker class Servant. Unlike the others, she is essentially turning into another class through a Noble Phantasm, so she isn't a separate being from the regular Atalante in terms of her Alter form. Furthermore, her Alter title is more of a title since in ''Literature/FateApocrypha'', she was essentially in a powered up form instead. |
| 260 | * When one initially faces Tiamat in her "Femme Fatale" form, she does no attacks and only serves as a debuffer to both her Lahmus and your party. It's commonly theorized that she was holding herself back from actually murdering everyone, but how was she able to do that? Simple, she's the Beast of ''Regression''. It's within her nature to try and turn things back to how they were and she's no exception. Therefore, Tiamat has the ability to keep herself within the form where she loves humanity. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Until you kill that form to make her conceivably killable.]] |
| 261 | ** Speaking of Tiamat, take a good look at her [[MsFanservice "Femme Fatale"]] form. [[StatuesqueStunner An amazing body perfect for attracting mates,]] [[HartmanHips wide hips well suited for giving birth,]] and ample breasts ideal for nursing large amounts of offspring; she's the Primordial Mother, and her body is built to reflect that. |
| 262 | * On American Servants: |
| 263 | ** Despite the massive presence the United States have in the modern world it's represented by only a handful of Servants (Billy the Kid, Geronimo, Tesla, Bunyan, Abigail, and Edison). Broadly speaking, the USA is a young country at less than 300 years old, meaning not enough time has passed for their legends to build up significant mystery, which is further hampered by how well documented its historical figures are. Because of this the six Servants given are either icons of their era (Billy and Geronimo), heavily influenced the world (Tesla and Edison), or came about due to extenuating circumstances (Bunyan[[note]]The Nameless Master allowing a Phantom spirit to possess a ball of udon dough mixed with a Holy Grail[[/note]] and Abigail[[note]]Made contact with an Outer God[[/note]]). |
| 264 | ** The rankings of most Servants reflect the legacy they left behind: Billy and Geronimo are both 3* as they are famous icons but only for the WildWest,[[note]]Geronimo may not be as well known, but his name is part of the public lexicon as a way of expressing excitement, e.g. "Geronimo!"[[/note]] Edison is a 4* as he brought easily obtainable light(bulbs) to the world and is backed by the Presidents of the United States, and Tesla is a 5* for changing the world completely by providing it with electricity. As for Bunyan and Abigail, their ranking is indicative of their true nature; Bunyan is a 1* as under normal circumstances she's just a Phantom and could never be a Servant (with Super Bunyan only being a five-star servant thanks to the efforts of ''Manga/LearningWithMangaFGO'' Rider and Assassin), while Abigail is a 5* due to serving as the host to an Outer God. |
| 265 | * King Solomon had the wisdom of God to rule Israel well, but his successors saw Israel into decline, civil unrest, secession, and conquest by the Persians within three generations. He never convinced Ars Goetia that mortality and strife are necessary for humans to grow stronger. As Doctor Roman, he does everything at Chaldea himself and never trains anybody else to do so much as monitor your vitals. All these things imply he ''just can't teach''... because with the knowledge of God directly into his brain, he doesn't know how learning works! |
| 266 | ** After becoming Director, the first thing Leonardo da Vinci does in Shinjuku is train Mash on the vitals monitor, wondering why Roman was such a control freak that he had to do everything himself. She doesn't realize he lacked the ability to teach others, because s/he had students and apprentices h/ir entire career and took it for granted. |
| 267 | * If you take [[https://twitter.com/maro_obcs/status/1521511642684485633 a close look]] at the third ascension sprite animations for Altria Caster and Oberon respectively, you'll noticed they are actually quite similar. This makes sense as Oberon was the one to teach Altria Caster in the British Lostbelt after all. |
| 268 | * When the NA version got the long-awaited Lostbelt 6 update, the Fairy Knights were instead given the rather unusual title of "Tam Lin". The name Tam Lin is for [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_Lin a folk tale]] and not really a title given to a person. However, looking deeper into said folk tale reveals a lot regarding the characters's intentions with the Master. |
| 269 | [[/folder]] |
| 270 | |
| 271 | [[folder:Story-Specific]] |
| 272 | * How Mata Hari is saved from execution and smuggled out of Salem in Epic of Remnant's Salem arc becomes more of this when you realize it's almost identical to Romeo and Juliets plot. In Romeo and Juliet, a plan is hatched to have both tiuular characters flee from their families when Juliet is forced to marry someone she does not love. This is done by having Juliet drink a potion that would induce a temporary death like state. In the Salem arc, Mata Hari is given a dose of poison that makes it so that it looks like she is no longer living. To add to this, the cast in Salem are pretending to be a troupe of actors performing stage plays, something proposed by none other than... you guessed it, Shakespeare. |
| 273 | * The Fake Richard I who led the False Crusaders at Jerusalem is said to be "monstrously strong" even if his enemies are [[BadassCrew the Knights of the Round Table]]. This apparently stems from his (as for now) small display of abilities in Fate/strange fake with his 2 powerful Noble Phantasms and the fact that he, Saladin, and a Hassan fought a Dead Apostle in the Third Crusade. It was said that fake Richard is so different from the real Richard... but we can guess what happened if Richard had forgone his royal, knightly manners. |
| 274 | * The 'Camelot' we see isn't the real Camelot, it's essentially just a magical replica. In other words, [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail it's only a model!]] |
| 275 | ** It gets even better with Mash's Noble Phantasm for ''Cosmos in the Lostbelt'' as she has to use a simulation of it, and it's ''literally'' called ''Model'' Camelot. |
| 276 | * A little bit of delayed FridgeHorror with this too, but with the revelation that Dr. Roman is actually Solomon, who was originally summoned in the 5th Grail War and is generally a great guy, a lot of Roman's previous actions in the previous Singularities, notably his breakdown after London, come in a very different light. |
| 277 | * Ishtar shrinking at the gates to the Underworld was a good way to censor the myth where she has to strip her clothes off. However, in English translations, it becomes a rather clever StealthPun. Ishtar must ''belittle'' or ''diminish'' herself, since both of those words can be read as either "to shame (someone)" or "to reduce in size". |
| 278 | * After the Babylonia chapter, Gil's dismissiveness of Angra Mainyu in Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night makes much more sense. Angra Mainyu is just a "knockoff" of Tiamat... and we all know what Gil thinks about fakes and imitations. No wonder he assumed it couldn't affect him! |
| 279 | * When Gorgon told Mash and Fujimaru to leave, Mash told Fujimaru: "But Gorgon is A-" (Avenger or Ana). Fast forward to the anime where Ana's voice was used with Gorgon's, and Mash may have felt Ana was pretending not to be there. Fujimaru stopped her from saying anything though. |
| 280 | * Why was Tiamat still unkillable after being brought into a realm where no other living things existed? Because three living souls followed her there: Mash, Merlin, and the protagonist. |
| 281 | * While it is likely a coincidence, this [[https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/a8x4m0/from_a_story_perspective_were_taking_down_these/ post]] says that the order of the Demon Pillars killed in the NA version of the Solomon raid actually makes sense in a story perspective aside from obvious greed. |
| 282 | ** Barbatos being the first to go is due to being the Control Tower aka the command centre. [[StraightForTheCommander Crush it first and the rest of the pillars will fall into disarray.]] |
| 283 | ** Secondly, Flauros is next to fall. Being the information hub, the lack of information will result in them being unable to analyse and form a counter-attack. |
| 284 | ** Thirdly, Forneas is the observatory. The Master can no longer be tracked. |
| 285 | ** Fourth, Sabnock's defeat will weaken the remaining pillars' regenerative properties, as it was the hospital. |
| 286 | ** Last to fall will be Halphas and Amon. At this point, the armoury (Halphas) is as good as useless due to the lack of intelligence while Amon's ability to infer requires the Observatory Forneas which was destroyed earlier. |
| 287 | ** Another post, which will be linked when it can be located, contains a brief lecture on the Ars Goetia and the role correspondence of Fate's named Demon Pillars to their original counterparts, whether straight (Barbatos is [[ItemFarming keeper of treasures]]) or ironic (Zepar [[EpicFail advises lovers]]). |
| 288 | * Continuing from the above, the Demon Pillars make sense in the form of what time periods they appear within according to their descriptions in the Ars Goetia. Still in progress, feel free to add your ideas. |
| 289 | ** In the Eternal Madness Empire: Septem, we face Flauros. Flauros is a demon who gives true answers of all things past, present and future, and who gladly speaks of divinity, creation of the world, other fallen angels and himself, and who also commands fire to burn his foes. However, unless compelled to stand within a circle, he will lie and betray his summoner. As most people know, Lev Lainur was really Flauros in disguise. He betrayed essentially all of Chaldea, causing the firey explosion that killed most of the Masters and seeks to cause the incineration of humanity. Furthermore, he does give true answers on the Pillars' plans. The period we fight him in is also fitting, as Septem is focused on the time of Nero's rule over Rome, in which one of the biggest things that occurred was the Great Fire of Rome. |
| 290 | ** In the Sealed Ends of the Four Seas: Okeanos, we face Forneus. He focuses on giving men a good name, and makes them be loved by their friends and foes, and it's also depicted as a giant sea monster. During the chapter, Jason is focused on becoming a God and developing an empire, a feat that Medea Lily leads him on with. And of course, a demon depicted as a sea monster is fitting as a boss for the sea based chapter. |
| 291 | ** In the City of Demonic Fog: London, we face Barbatos. Barbatos is said to give voice to animals, give good counsel to friends and kings, speak true of past and future, and lead men to hidden treasures. It's within this singularity that we learn that Solomon is the main threat (who is really Goetia hijacking Solomon's body, the original Solomon being your good ol' friend Romani), which fits Barbatos connections to friends and Kings. His connection to treasures also befits how he was popular as a raid boss due to dropping loads of materials. |
| 292 | ** In the North American Myth War: E Plurubus Unum, we face Halphas. Also known as Malthus, Malthas, or Maltous, he is said to speak with a rough voice, and specializes in producing weapons for war and creating soldiers. The entirety of the Singularity was essentially an eternal war between Medb and Edison who were birthing and manufacturing warriors to fight eternally. |
| 293 | ** In the Divine Realm of the Round Table: Camelot, we face Amon. Though he doesn't seem to fit at first given the description of him in the Ars Goetia, it bears mention that Ramesses fuses himself to the pillar for a time to turn it into ''Amun-Ra'', what Amon was originally named after in the Ars Goetia. The Egyptians viewed Amon as their supreme god, and as it just so happens, he gets hijacked by a Pharaoh. |
| 294 | *** In the case of the sub-singularities, the relationship is to a villainous servant, not the time period: |
| 295 | *** In the Quarantined Territory of Malice: Shinjuku, we face Baal. Baal isn't related to the time, but he is mentioned as having many shapes he can appear as. Kind of like Assassin of Shinjuku. Furthermore, he is associated with the sciences and garnering favor, which befits Moriarity's plan in Shinjuku. |
| 296 | *** In the second Guda Guda event, we face Andras. He's described as sowing discontent, and teaches those he favors to kill their enemies, masters, and servants. While Hijikata doesn't specialize in the field of sowing discontent, his reputation as a TortureTechnician to get answers usually led to the deaths of those he got information about. |
| 297 | *** In the Subterranean World of Folklore: Agartha, we face Phenex. He's described as an excellent poet and obedient, neither of which matches with his depiction here, but a ''perfect'' fit for the one secretly serving him, Caster of Nightless City, given that she's Scheherazade. He's also said to want to return to Heaven after 1200 years, but his hope is mentioned to be foolish. This is mirrored by how Scheherazade's plan is to make it so that she can't be summoned from the Throne of Heroes ever again, but said plan is ultimately selfish and foolish. |
| 298 | *** In the Forbidden Advent Garden: Salem, we face Raum. Raum's generally depicted as a crow that takes on a human form, can also tell things past, present and future, and destroys cities and the dignity of men. The Salem witch trials had many of the accused have their dignity destroyed due to suspicions of being a witch. And as it just so happens, one of the other main threats we face here is Abigail Williams, who had a hand in accusing several people of witchcraft. |
| 299 | *** In the event only Deepsea Cyberbrain Paradise SE.RA.PH, we face Zepar. He causes women to love men, and bring them together in love. He befittingly corrupts FGO's Kiara Sessyoin into becoming like her CCC Self, who was befittingly an avatar of lust and desire. This comes to bite him when she instead becomes uncontrollable and evolves into Beast III/R as an aspect of Pleasure. |
| 300 | ** Though it's a one off mention, Amadeus Mozart mentions offhandedly that he was once a Demon Pillar candidate for the demon Amduscias, however he lost that qualification once he "sold his soul to music". Amduscias, fittingly enough, is written to be able to create concerts on demand and lords over the cacophonous music that sounds throughout Hell. |
| 301 | ** Within the final singularity, three of the Demon Pillars are noted to have defected from Goetia and have discussions with the heroic spirits. These Pillars are Gusion, Eligos and Caim. Gusion is said to "reconcile friends and bestows dignity", Eligos attracts the favor of lords, knights and other important persons, and Caim is a good disputer. They have the skills that would possibly allow them to deal with Heroic Spirits. |
| 302 | ** Within Dante's first interlude, we deal with the Demon Pillar Andromalius. Andromalius is said to bring back thieves and stolen goods, as well as punish the wicked and thieves, and sees through all evilness and dishonest dealing. Befittingly enough, there was a theory that Dantes was originally supposed to become the Pillar, and who better to embody him than a man who had everything stolen from him and wrongfully imprisoned, and who sought to punish everyone who made him suffer? |
| 303 | ** In Medea Lily's second Interlude, we face off against the Demon Pillar Hagenti. While there aren't any connections to food or cooking (as Lily had intended to turn him into an infinite pancake), Hagenti is known for changing metals into gold and wine into water (and vice-versa) - in other words, transmuting things...which makes his death at the hands of Medea Lily extremely ironic, since she ends up transmuting him into ingredients for her pancake. |
| 304 | ** While the first demon pillar we faced in Solomon, Naberius, didn't appear in the singularity he would correspond to (Orleans), said pillar does reappear in Assassin Emiya's Interlude. Naberius is known for making men cunning in arts (the type of card Assassin Emiya's Noble Phantasm is categorized as), and he commonly appears as a crow, a bird associated with death - which as an Assassin, Kiritsugu Emiya is quite capable of causing. For that matter, the Noble Phantasm of Jeanne D'Arc, our ally for the chapter, also happens to be an Arts card and the singularity takes place shortly after her death. |
| 305 | *** Similarly, another of the pillars we face in Solomon, Sabnock doesn't appear in Babylonia (the singularity he corresponds to), one of his specialties is building high towers, castles, and cities, all 3 of which would fit right in with Babylon's defenses. Also, class-wise, he's an archer, similar to Ishtar and the [=SSR=] version of Gilgamesh. |
| 306 | *** Although not fought or mentioned, it's worth noting that both times you fight Solomon-possessed-by-Goetia, Goetia doesn't use any of Solomon's special attacks or even Noble Phantasm. Instead, he uses an "Incineration Ritual" like the other pillars, often followed up by the pillar's name. What does he use against you? "Incineration Ritual: Beleth". It's worth noting that Goetia-As-Solomon's disposition changes with whom they speak to, with different pillars taking charge. For an unseen pillar who possesses Solomon when fighting you, who does Beleth correspond to...? Well, it's obvious: ''The Player and the Main Character''. Both fights involve you using your servants to fight while Solomon is surrounded by Demon Pillars, mimicking you! His debuffs can be seen as similar to the effects of Mystic Codes! As well, Beleth is a demon king of hell who was the first one invoked by Noah's son, Ham, after the Biblical Flood, and that Beleth must be summoned with proper rituals or compelled into loyalty by paying respect to him, and in return, Beleth can grant the love of all the men and women he is compelled to grant until the summoner is satisfied. Out of all the Goetic Demons, Beleth is the most qualified to be the one who fights the Last Master of Humanity, who commands all sorts of men and women as Servants and who grants them respect and earns their loyalty! |
| 307 | * In Shinjuku, it's a plot point that all the Hassans are practicing Muslims and are not allowed to get drunk on alcohol. However, in Camelot, we saw Hundred Personas visibly intoxicated on sake. Hundred Personas' superpower is a direct result of mental illness, so she/they may have [[INeedAFreakingDrink a medicinal excuse]]. In addition, Hundred Personas received the name of Hassan-i-Sabbah as a LoopholeAbuse to prevent the Zealot Assassin from getting it-- she/they might be an exception altogether. |
| 308 | ** Additionally, having a personality that can drink alcohol could be a useful "disguise" for Hundred Personas. After all, if people know that the murderer is a Muskim, they'll be unlikely to suspect the alcoholist. |
| 309 | * In the Babylonia Singularity it's said that Ishtar is attacking Uruk every day she can, yet she's treated more as an annoyance. There's a good reason: Ishtar is ''Uruk's guardian deity''-she's just going through the motions. |
| 310 | * There's a level of brilliance and beauty in how it's Sengo Muramasa with his vessel, Shirou Emiya, to ultimately defeat the Avenger Shirou Amakusa in Shimousa. The first thing we see in the latter's Shimabara Hell Reality Marble is a field in flames. The Avenger's world was only this despair and hatred. Yet, what cuts right through him and that hopeless world is someone whose vessel was born in a city in flames. Shirou Emiya had gone through the same kind of hell just like Amakusa had, and yet, even after abandoning everything until he had a Heart of Glass, losing his identity and becoming a Sword, he overcame that despair. And that's why Amakusa's world of flame was no match for the Hero born from the same circumstance. |
| 311 | * Why is the Protagonist so exhausted and sleepy at the start of Part 1, even falling asleep in the hall? Because he's been in transit from Japan to an unspecified point in Antartica as revealed in Part 2's prologue, meaning he's both jet lagged and exhausted from the absolute minimum almost an entire day's worth of traveling, as he's the last Master Candidate to reach Chaldea before the initial briefing. |
| 312 | * The reveal of Grand Servants explains a lot about the summoning chant 'I shall be all that is good' 'I shall defeat all evil'? That always seemed a bit weird given that most magus seemed to be immoral scientists who wouldn't hesitate to disect a child but now that we know it is a corruption of the Grand Servant summoning system it makes perfect sense. Summoning Servants to fight against the seven Evils of Humanity. They would be all that is good, the best of humanity and the Beast would be all that is evil, to be destroyed. |
| 313 | ** It also confirms what was thought for a while, that the Holy Grail War hijacks a system of the Counterforce, and sacrifices the mana refined by Servants to punch a hole through reality to reach the Root. The Fuyuki Holy Grail War ends up being a threefold corruption of that system too, because Angra Mainyu might have the potential to evolve into a full-fledged Evil of Humanity of its own! |
| 314 | * It's no wonder the Greek Lostbelt is so big that it needs to be split into two parts, Myth/ClassicalMythology is the mythology with the largest influence on the world, with most people being able to name some of the gods or heroes from the myths. |
| 315 | * The reveal of Lostbelt 5: Atlantis, is that it actually is just part one of the real Lostbelt: Olympus. Atlantis is a fictional city that has been disputed to ever exist, and has been used in history as an ideal concept of a city, or in some cases, a cautionary tale of one. The BaitAndSwitch was in the name all along. In hindsight, the fact that the Lostbelt subtitle is [[InterfaceSpoiler completely different from the one shown in the PV]] should already be a giant red flag showing that you haven't scratched the surface yet. |
| 316 | * In the Olympus Lostbelt, it's revealed that there was a war between the Olympians over whether or not to live amongst humans or to continue their ascension into godhood and creating a forced Utopia. The ones who voted to create the utopia were Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Artemis. The ones who wanted to keep a level ground with humanity were Hades, Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Hestia, Apollo and Poseidon. While the story may showcase how the Gods split because of ideals, one must also consider the fact that if Zeus had his way, the gods who voted against him, or at least their concepts, would eventually ''cease to exist''. |
| 317 | ** Hades is the God of the Underworld, responsible for shepherding the souls of the dead. If Zeus had his utopia, humans would become evolved and undying, depriving his underworld of any real purpose. |
| 318 | ** Ares and Athena are both Gods of War, with Ares being the bloodshed and violent side while Athena was the more tactical side. Not to mention Athena was also associated with wisdom. Zeus's utopia would have no need for war or wisdom due to peace and perfection, and Zeus was clearly lacking the latter half. |
| 319 | ** Hephaestus is the God of Blacksmiths, and master crafter of Olympus. If Zeus had his way, there would be no more need for any new machines, improvements or the like because everything would be perfect. Which makes it ironic because he plays a huge part in ending the Lostbelt. |
| 320 | ** Hestia is the goddess of the hearth, home, family, and the rightful ordering of the state. At first, it looks like Hestia would actually side with Zeus given his plans. However, once one takes into consideration the fact that Zeus was ultimately planning to leave humanity to die so he and the remaining Olympians could live in space, it makes sense why she'd go against him: he violates everything she stands for! |
| 321 | ** Apollo is the god of Archery, Prophecy, healing and diseases. If Zeus had his way, everyone would have no need for healing or disease because every human would be perfect. Furthermore, the future would become entirely ordained by Zeus and thus removing the need for any oracles. |
| 322 | ** Poseidon is the god of the Sea, Earthquakes and Storms. Somewhat like Hestia, Poseidon at first seems like an ally to Zeus and actually is in the Olympus Lostbelt. But it's then revealed that he was made BrainwashedAndCrazy by Zeus, to serve as a guardian for the Olympus Lostbelt in the Atlantis portion. So the question that remains is why would Poseidon go against Zeus? For the same reasons as Hestia, actually: Zeus would eventually abandon humanity to take Olympus in space with him, which would deprive Poseidon of any Seas to control as the Earth was left to die. |
| 323 | * Koyanskaya appearing in each Lostbelt seems to be to give Chaldea a recurring enemy since the other disciples of the Foreign God only appear sporadically at first. Then you learn she needs to collect something from each Lostbelt to achieve her goals, and it starts making sense - given Lostbelts Chaldea visits tend to have short expiration dates, she needs to grab something from there immediately or lose her chance forever. |
| 324 | * Pseudo-Servants, a mixture of human and Heroic Spirit conjoined by similar personalities, also share similarities in their backstories as well as their character traits. |
| 325 | ** Rin Tohsaka serves as the vessel to both Ishtar and Ereshkigal, Babylonian Goddesses of Beauty, War, Justice and Power, and of the Underworld respectively. |
| 326 | *** For Ishtar, Rin's tsundereism matches up well with Ishtar's, with her both threatening Babylon while protecting and loving it at the same time which is similar to how she treats Shirou at first. As well, Ishtar is known for her many lovers, up to where she wanted Gilgamesh as her next one. In one of the routes, Rin does get with Shirou and Altria, the latter of whom is a King. Both of them also get screwed by Gilgamesh in different ways, Ishtar by simply being rejected, and Rin with her father killed by Gil's manipulations and her closest teacher Kirei corrupted by him. |
| 327 | *** For Ereshkigal, her cold, regal nature befits Rin's persona as the inheritor to the Tohsaka family. Not to mention Rin's Bounded Field around her home is cold and solitary, something she personally dislikes. Ereshkigal similarly dislikes how depressing her underworld is, and tries to make it better. |
| 328 | ** Sakura Matou serves as the vessel to both Parvati and Kama, Hindu Goddess of Love, Fertility, Marriage and Harmony, and God of Love, Pleasure and Desire respectively. |
| 329 | *** For Parvati, she was originally incarnated as the goddess Sati. In that life, Sati grew to love Shiva and disliked the idea of marrying anyone else. Her father did not approve of this, so as she got with Shiva against his wishes and was later humiliated by him, Sati burned herself alive to both honor her husband and to break all ties to her father. This mirrors how Sakura grew into the Archery club to be with Shirou, and was tortured underneath Zouken's "care". Sakura similarly breaks all ties with him in the ''Heaven's Feel'' Route through purging her body of his worms and crushing the one he possessed. Her devotion to Shiva also mimics Sakura's devotion to Shirou, with Shirou's associations with Swords befitting the Destroyer God. |
| 330 | *** For Kama, his sarcastic and bitter demeanor fits Sakura's overall bitterness with her own life. Kama was forced into making Shiva notice Parvati, which ended up incinerating him and transforming him into a formless body of passion that can both qualify as and spread throughout the Universe. Sakura was likewise forced into her position in the Matou family, with their treatment causing her great pain throughout her life, eventually culminating with her turning into the Lesser Grail. It's also worth mentioning that Kama would normally be an Archer, but manifests as an Assassin due to his connotations with Mara. Sakura was within the Archery Club, and as of ''Hollow Ataraxia'' is the Captain of it which fits with Kama's use of a bow. Likewise, the fact that Kama is an Assassin fits how Kama took after Sakura possessed by Angra Mainyu, in which state she killed loads of people. |
| 331 | ** Shirou Emiya serves as the vessel to Sengo Muramasa, the founder of the Muramasa School of Swordsmithing whose swords were viewed as accursed or synonymous to demonic. They both share an association with the concept of Swords and how their lives were based around that concept. They both also share notions of perfection, Muramasa seeking to create a sword that can sever Karma while Shirou seeks to be a hero of justice. They both also have tragic endings to their lives or are viewed as bad people by those around them, with Muramasa being seen as a creator of demonic swords while Shirou in timelines that he ends up as the Counter Guardian EMIYA ends up being executed as he was viewed as starting a war that he personally stopped. |
| 332 | * In the 4th Lostbelt, most people's attitudes shift with the yuga (i.e. being happy when everything's beautiful, then becoming miserable as things get worse), with the exception of Asha and her father Ajai, whose personalities stay the same. Ajai remains a pessimist even in the happier yuga. Why? Well, considering that even though Arjuna Alter's purges take away the memories of those erased, they don't take away the feelings of loss (or even the objects connected to the erased), and we know from Asha's Memorial Craft Essence that her family was much bigger than it is when you first meet her, it's not hard to connect the dots that he's aware that he's lost not just his wife, but presumably other children. The fact that he's quick to take up arms when the people of Dival (who began rebelling because they realized that they'd lost people) show up suggests that he'd been thinking of rebelling himself. |
| 333 | * It rather fitting that Solomon's Grand Temple of Time was destroyed by Chaldea in here. In real life, the temple was destroyed by the ''Chaldean Empire''. HistoryRepeats indeed. |
| 334 | * In the Olympus Lostbelt, Caenis was so amused by Goredolf's offer of a ''croissant'' that they accepted that they owed Chaldea a debt and was willing to repay it with a service that was within their power. The acceptance of food was not only because Caenis was tickled beyond words by Goredolf's sheer ballsiness; by the standards of Caenis' time they had been healed by Chaldea's arts, slept in their bed and now had partaken of their food. In other words, Caenis had been extended [[SacredHospitality xenia]] by Chaldea and owed them proper courtesy. It would be beneath the dignity of a King to harm their host and a stain on the name of a hero not to repay the hospitality shown to person that was adrift. |
| 335 | * While TheReveal of the Chaldean being Roman's body might seem unusual after erasing himself, it was actually foreshadowed, though subtly. When Roman used Ars Nova, he stated that the erasure of Solomon from existence didn't mean that he'd die, but he also faded away right afterward. It looks like an immediate self-contradiction, but it isn't; Solomon cast aside his wish and gave up on being Dr. Roman, so while ''Solomon'' was erased, ''Roman'' wasn't. |
| 336 | * Izcalli's status as a "year-long Tezcatlipoca" actually has mythological and religious precedence in the worship of Tezcatlipoca, and it also perfectly explains his role in Daybit's plan. The Festival of Toxcatl involved a young man who was a prisoner of war being chosen to become Tezcatlipoca for a year. This avatar of Tezcatlipoca, called an ''ixiplta'', would be treated like a prince for a year, being revered as the physical embodiment of the god of providence, and when the year is up and the next Festival of Toxcatl is nigh, the ixiptla ascends the steps of the Tlacochcalco temple and has his heart ritualistically removed. Izcalli is a "one-year Tezcatlipoca" who was intended to have U-Olga Marie's heart implanted into him so that when the year was up, he would be sacrificed in order to awaken [=ORT=]. |
| 337 | ** For bonus points, an ixiptla wears the flayed skin of the previous year's ixiptla as a cloak. When Izcalli rebels against Tezcatlipoca and is killed and thus absorbed, Tezcatlipoca enters his Second Ascension form, where he wears Izcalli's former outfit - not only wearing what was essentially considered Izcalli's "skin" for that year but also reclaiming his role as Tezcatlipoca, as Izcalli is no longer serving as his avatar. |
| 338 | * While some may feel the reveal that Chaldea summoning Extra Class Servants has marked them as "foreign" to the planet is odd, this makes sense when you consider the three classes in question, Ruler, Avenger, and Alter Ego, are not technically supposed to exist. All three came about because someone decided to say "ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem", and rip out people who should not have been summonable and stick them in classes outside the original seven. Anyone who choses to use those classes is going against what the Grail system was made for, and would naturally be seen as foreign by that logic. Each of them debuted like so: |
| 339 | ** In Fate/Stay Night timelines, the Einzberns summoned Aŋra Mainiiu as an Avenger in an attempt to gain the ultimate killer. While he was too weak in combat to amount to anything, his essence tainted the Grail with All the World's Evil, which twisted the Fuyuki Grail so that any wish made upon it would be interpreted in the worst way possible. In all three routes, the curses within are nearly unleashed in some form or another, forcing the protagonists to stop it by any means necessary, and several years later, Lord El Melloi and Rin Tohsaka end up dismantling the Greater Grail altogether to keep it from causing any more problems. |
| 340 | ** In Fate/Apocrypha, Rulers are actually a built-in class with a purpose: to uphold the rules of the Fuyuki Holy Grail War. To that end, they are automatically granted Command Spells and the authority to use them on any Servant in order to assist them in their capacity as impartial mediators. For this reason, the Einzberns chose to illegally summon a Ruler as a combatant, and ended up with Amakusa Shirou Tokisada. His being summoned into the Ruler container specially set aside by the Greater Grail meant that when it initiated the Great Holy Grail War, Jeanne D'Arc the Ruler it chose to adjudicate the conflict had to be summoned into the body of a human. In the end, the Greater Grail was removed from the human world in order to keep Amakusa's wish from affecting the human order. |
| 341 | ** In Fate/Extra CCC, B.B. merged facets of her personality with aspects of various gods and Divine Spirits to create the Sakura Five Alter Ego Servants and employed them as powerful minions to trap people on the Far Side of the Moon Cell to keep the Moon Cell Grail War from being able to continue. B.B. herself might technically be part of the Moon Cell system, but the Sakura Five are essentially products of hacking. |
| 342 | |
| 343 | [[/folder]] |
| 344 | [[folder:Event-Specific]] |
| 345 | * In the Saber Wars event, it's mentioned that Lancers are extinct and Archers are imprisoned as criminals. Of course that would be the case: [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration Lancers are weak against the Saber class]] (plus this is a joke event, so the Carnival Phantasm running gag of Lancer dying at the drop of a hat is no doubt in play) so in a world overrun by Sabers it makes sense they've been killed off, while Archers are strong against the Saber class. Sabers likely wouldn't want to have people that can kill them easily running around free. |
| 346 | ** Also, MHX's profile mentions that her ultimate nemesis is the Great Emperor Cosmo Gilgames. Sounds familiar? Why of course, it's Gilgamesh and he won't be imprisoned like those mongrel Archers! It's likely that Gil is the ''only'' Archer running amok in that future. |
| 347 | *** It could also be some form of foreshadowing to the fact that Gilgamesh has a ''Caster'' version - after all, she doesn't mention the fate of any of the other 5 classes that are available when Saber Wars takes place[[note]]Rider, Assassin, Caster, Berserker, and Ruler[[/note]], and Caster! Gilgamesh would be a good choice for taking down an Assassin... like MHX. |
| 348 | *** Due to a translation error, in the North America version of the Saber Wars event, MHX's cosmic nemesis is ''Gilles''. Talk about FromNobodyToNightmare! The "brilliance", however accidental, is that Gilles de Rais is both Saber (in which form MHX easily wins) and Caster (theoretically giving him a class advantage, although by stats alone MHX still [[Memes/StarWars has the high ground]]). |
| 349 | * The first run of the Da Vinci and the Seven Counterfeit Heroic Spirits event coincided with Leonardo da Vinci's actual birthday, April 15th. Cute or what? ABirthdayNotABreak for Da Vinci-chan! |
| 350 | * In the ''Fate/Zero'' event, it's mentioned that due to Irisviel receiving upgrades to be Altria's Master, the two of them form an unbeatable team said to be guaranteed to win the Fourth Holy Grail War, to the point that the World is even sending a Counter Guardian after Irisviel to stop the horrible consequences of the Einzberns regaining Heaven's Feel. With a Servant like Gilgamesh in the picture, why is it that Altria and Irisviel are predestined to win, but in the Fifth War a similarly-powered team of Illya and Heracles were easily brushed aside by Gilgamesh? Because with Irisviel upgraded and Kiritsugu out of the picture, there was no reason for Irisviel to keep Avalon from Altria, meaning that she would be in possession of a Noble Phantasm capable of halting even Ea. In addition, unlike Heracles, Altria lacks divinity, meaning that the Chains of Heaven wouldn't have as much of an effect on her than they did with Heracles. |
| 351 | * The Onigashima event, being a Japanese-themed event gives damage boost for "Japanese" Servants, including the Type-Moon original characters who are explicitly Japanese like EMIYA and Shiki Ryougi. Its rerun about a year later then adds more Japanese Servants who are released after the original event, although Pseudo-Servants whose human vessel is a Japanese person like Ishtar (Rin Tohsaka) and Jaguar Man (Taiga Fujimura) are not included. One may wonder why Illya and Chloe are included in this list of "Japanese Servants", since Illya is usually considered as being from ''Germany'' and Kuro is her... [[BuffySpeak magic clone... sister-thing]]. And then you realize: Illya's father (and thus Kuro's, by association) is Kiritsugu Emiya, a Japanese man, making the two half-Japanese and thus a perfect fit for the list. (It even works extra hard for this Illya, since it's the ''Prisma'' version of Illya, meaning she lives in Japan, too!) |
| 352 | * At the beginning of SE.RA.PH, Nero suggested the protagonist to have an island vacation with Servants but Tamamo-no-Mae objects, saying it is a bad idea and recalled the events in Chaldea Summer event, implying that this Tamamo is the same Tamamo who becomes Lancer and stuck in swimsuit after Scathach forgot the runes to undo it. How did Lancer Tamamo revert back to Caster if the runes to do it are forgotten? Since she is originally a Caster and never lost her abilities upon turning into Lancer, it's possible for her to use her own magecraft to find a way to undo it and even transform again at will. It is evident later in the post-story section of SE.RA.PH in MICOON Battle where the player faced Tamamo and transform into swimsuit Lancer mid-battle. And unlike Nero who stays as Bride after she is defeated in her battle, Tamamo reverts to Caster after being defeated and later assist the player against BB. |
| 353 | * During the Valentine's Event for Space Ishtar you get killed twice by the Evil and Good Halves of Space Ishtar, but are brought back to life and have time reset by Fou. Then during your meeting with the Fused Space Ishtar she manipulates time so that you can spend the day with all 3 versions of her at once. These events also explain how you survived/escaped BB, Summer BB, Kiara (when you piss the latter off), & Kamadeva/Mara (when you accept her sinister offer). Somebody at Chaldea is using their abilities to save you from these bad situations whether it's Fou or another Servant. |
| 354 | * During the Dead Heat Summer Race event, Charles Babbage has been booted from Chaldea for the summer since his constant steam turns everything into a sauna, forcing the female Servants into wearing swimsuits everywhere and subjecting them to [[DirtyOldMan Blackbeard's]] leering. So he went to London, where he says he's been playing with stray cats "and stray Jack." While obviously meant to be a funny joke, it does make sense for her to be playing with Babbage despite his steam. After all, this is [[FanNickname Jack the Stripper]] we're talking about, the girl infamous for her AgeInappropriateDress. She's ''always'' dressed for the heat, so of course a little steam wouldn't bother her. |
| 355 | * Oberon's Valentine gift is a beautifully ornate box containing Void's Dust - the most common crafting material in the game. The gift perfectly represents his own nature,[[note]]The box is white just like his 2nd Ascension costume, and decorated with images of insects - particularly a moth, an insect his "Oberon" persona is associated with. However, the black '''Void''''s Dust hints at his true nature as the black-colored Vortigern and the Insect of the Abyss, the latter of which is essentially an animated black hole.[[/note]] but there's another layer to this. It's heavily implied that Oberon came to like you - but due to his status as an embodiment of lies, he cannot really acknowledge it, lest he ends up ruining this friendship. So, what did he do? He gave you a very pretty box (which he might have made himself), but pretended that the real gift was the cheap Dust and that the whole thing was an elaborate prank. |
| 356 | ** Either way, depending on how large your Chaldea is and how dedicated the Master is to raising them, [[ItemFarming free Void Dust is always appreciated.]] |
| 357 | ** Connected to this, why is Oberon's personal little lair a trash heap of an apartment when the protagonist visit it? Because that would be the kind of environment that insects/Oberon's subjects would thrive in the most. |
| 358 | [[/folder]] |
| 359 | |
| 360 | !!FridgeHorror |
| 361 | [[folder:Character-Specific]] |
| 362 | * From what's been shown, all seven of the Beasts are capable of ending humanity, with Solomon's Noble Phantasm incinerating Earth in an instant and the brutal onslaught that was Tiamat and her Lahmus. Both required extraordinary effort to defeat, so we can only shudder at what the remaining ones are like and what it'll take to defeat them. |
| 363 | * Tamamo says in her second Interlude that her nine-tailed true form's power is on par with Grand Caster Solomon as possessed by Goetia. Considering that Goetia is a Beast, it's possible that nine-tailed Tamamo (which first appeared in Fate/Extra CCC's Tamamo secret garden) is a Beast herself. |
| 364 | ** And in Valentine 2017, Swimsuit Tamamo outright says that her beastly nature is awakening and that she's joined the Tamamo Nine as "Tamamo Shark". Also, after drinking Tamamo's concoction... |
| 365 | ---> '''MC''': "... this girl is truly a Beast, isn't she?" |
| 366 | ** Let's not forget the entity of whom even Nine-Tailed Tamamo is only a splinter fragment: Amaterasu. A '' '''SOLAR''' DIVINE SPIRIT'', who thus isn't an emanation of Earth but of the '''''Universe''''', and thus in the same weight-class power-wise as Velber/Sefar. And who called herself an Evil of Man, which is the moniker of the Beast class. [[FearIsTheAppropriateResponse Be afraid.]] |
| 367 | * Kiara's inclusion as a playable character brings a certain point to the mind. It's her "Independent Manifestation" passive skill, a skill that all Beast Servants have. It would seem that the skill is one of the requirements for a Beast class vessel, just like EX-ranked Clairvoyance for the Grand Caster vessel. Then, who else has "Independent Manifestation" as a passive skill? It's '''Void Shiki'''. The Spiral of Origin as an Evil of Humanity? *shudder* |
| 368 | ** Fortunately, they aren't Beast candidates. Side materials say that she and Merlin simply stole this skill from Beast-class. Phew. |
| 369 | * Noah’s idolizing of Nemo and putting himself down in Nemo’s favor would be a funny quirk… had “Nemo” not mean “no one” in Latin and the “Fighting Captain” is not an {{Ubermensch}}. Noah even sees a name that means “to comfort” in Hebrew as unbefitting for Nemo, and prefers to introduce himself as “Nemo”. Adding that Noah believes he is just one of God’s [[TheChosenMany Chosen Manies]] and a mere successor of Utnapishtim, it begs questions just how deep his SelfDeprecation go for him to prefer being known as no one rather than the he who relieved the world. |
| 370 | ** Oh it gets ''worse''. Nemo gains Noah’s sword in his third ascension, and y’know what it’s design looks like? Mesopotamian! This gives a connection between Noah and Babylon. Another connection between Noah and Babylon is none other than Ziusudra, his name in Mesopotamian religion. Now where have we heard that name before? Oh right! ''First Hassan’s disguise in the Babylonia Singularity''. When you connect the dots between Noah, King Hassan, and the Great Flood, you get one ugly picture. A man with his God-given duty of creating a world free from evil after the Great Flood, so wracked by guilt over his perceived failure, that he went down to Mesopotamia and ''started the single most prolific group of religious killers, pioneered the Assassin class of Heroic Spirits, and achieved the requirements of not one, but '''TWO''' Grand Servant classes from his duel legends, with the second being the first’s very antithesis.'' |
| 371 | [[/folder]] |
| 372 | [[folder:Story-Specific]] |
| 373 | * Fuyuki City in flames is already very disturbing, but compare the map in this game to the map of Fuyuki in ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'', the first area of the map is ''the Emiya residence'', the large crater in the ground is exactly where the Tohsaka residence was and the area where you can fight Heracles as an OptionalBoss is the forest outside the Einzbern Castle. And if you look at a version of the map without game icons, you can see a long city-spanning line of fire that was shot by Excalibur. |
| 374 | ** You can get a more precise measure of what area is what by comparing the "Fate/Zero Accel Order" event map, as it's area per area the same; just [[https://gamepress.gg/grandorder/sites/grandorder/files/2018-04/FateZero%20Accel%20Order_0.png before]] and [[https://cdnen.samurai-gamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/03062151/19619416_1565554760121841_1116342125_o-1024x576.png after]]. |
| 375 | * The BigBad is a Servant who is capable of summoning himself from the Throne of Heroes. Considering how the Throne exists outside of space-time, and a Heroic Spirit who "dies" really just gets sent back there, this means that Solomon is ''completely unkillable'' - even if you do muster enough power to destroy his form, he can just summon himself back into the world without a hassle. |
| 376 | ** Thankfully this turns out to be a bluff in order to intimidate Chaldea. However, we actually learn that it's Beast I Goetia possessing the dead corpse of Solomon, and it's basically immortal until the real Solomon sacrifices himself and his existence in the Throne to even make him vulnerable. |
| 377 | * Also, from the prologue to Time Temple Solomon: So Marisbury Animusphere and Solomon made normal wishes on the Fuyuki Grail? ''Literature/FateZero'', both itself and the ''Zero'' event in the game itself, tells us why that would be a '''terrible''' idea! The Fuyuki Grail at that point, in that state, would implement the wish in the most destructive way possible! Yet it would seem like nothing happened... until you realize that Solomon had that final vision of humanity's incineration right as his Clairvoyance faded, ''after he had made his wish''. Making that wish is probably what prevented Lev Lainur from killing himself as he otherwise does, allowing Goetia to kick off his plan and the entire plot of ''Grand Order''. |
| 378 | ** The grail in Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night only interpreted wishes as destructive because Angra Mainyu had contaminated it from the Third War. There were no previous grail wars in this timeline so the grail would never have had a chance to be contaminated. |
| 379 | ** As a side bit of horror to this: the records on Trihermes in the Atlas Institute during Camelot are pretty clear on Animusphere winning the 2004 Fuyuki War by killing all opposing Masters. If... if Animusphere was the only "new" Master (or is even, perhaps, the otherwise Master of Medea briefly seen during the ''UBW'' anime), then did he... did Shirou, Rin, Sakura, Illya...? |
| 380 | *** He can't be the otherwise Master of Medea, because that master's name is Atrum Galliasta, and from what we know of him, he doesn't match any description that has been given of Marisbury so far. |
| 381 | ** They're probably okay. Remember that no Grail Wars happened in the F/GO timeline until 2004. As such, Shirou would be living a normal life (since the fire would've never happened, at least outside of the Point F Singularity), the Einzberns may've still sent Kiritsugu (so he would've died instead), and Tokiomi should still be alive since Kirei repressed himself until meeting Gilgamesh). |
| 382 | *** Until it was revealed that the Greater Grail War ''still happened'', with Goredolf having met Balmung personally. |
| 383 | * Fou turns out to be an alternate version of Beast IV, better known as ''Primate Murder'', who gained a different perspective of humanity thanks to Merlin's influence. Given what we know about Primate Murder and the other Beasts, we're extremely lucky it's on our side and gave up its power and intelligence to bring back Mash. |
| 384 | ** After the reveal of how Beast III-R was made, which is created by overriding the GO counterpart with a counterpart that became a Beast, who's to say that any other Demon pillar or even Altrouge Brunestud herself might waltz in and pull the same stunt on our dear Fou. Unlike Kiara, Fou is actually aware of his original future as Primate Murder as stated by himself when he was resurrecting Mash in the epilogue of Solomon chapter but still... |
| 385 | * Gilgamesh's statement in Babylonia that people killed in singularities stay dead even after the timeline is "corrected." Consider just how many people have died thus far, from Charles VII (due to Jeanne Alter) to George Washington (due to Medb) to nearly all of Mesopotamia. |
| 386 | ** This is partially mitigated by the later reveal that there's at least some exceptions. For example: all the people in Uruk killed during the Babylonia singularity ended up being resurrected because the proper timeline doesn't have any event equivalent to Tiamat's invasion. |
| 387 | * In the Olympus Lostbelt, we see that the Olympians had a schism between whether to rule as dictators or to live amongst humans. The dictatorship was made up of Zeus, Demeter, Artemis, Aphrodite and Hera, with the rest going against him. This doesn't seem too horrible at first...until the fact that Zeus was explicitly mentioned to have {{Brainwashed}} the other people to serve him. Not only that, but the fact that they're all the ''goddesses'' save Athena and Hestia. Zeus is well known for DoubleStandardRapeDivineOnMortal, in this game he's basically extended it to the Goddesses he's taken a fancy to, only this time he's adding in MindRape into the mix! |
| 388 | ** This interpretation would violate incest taboos (Hera and Demeter are his sisters, and Artemis his daughter). By the source material it was nothing new (he was married to Hera, after all), but to modern audiences it does add an extra level of {{Squick}} to the whole situation. |
| 389 | * The prologue for ''Cosmos in the Lostbelt'', even before the Foreign God's invasion, has the Protagonist and Mash being ''brutally'' interrogated by Mages Association officers. Imagine being in their shoes; after going through countless trials and, in Mash's case, defying ''death itself'', their "reward" was having their benefactors completely turn on them, invade their home, banish almost all their friends, and then shunt them into cramped, barely-lit rooms where complete strangers furiously rant and scream about how their actions were "heretical" and that they would "pay dearly" for breaking the laws of TheMasquerade. |
| 390 | * ''Cosmos in the Lostbelt'' adds an extra layer of horror. Douman's purpose wasn't simply to take advantage of the alternate Amakusa's despair and rage and use it to cause mayhem and suffering (though it was [[ForTheEvulz definitely part of it]]), but was mainly him creating ''a prototype Lostbelt''. |
| 391 | * Though still a bit hotheaded, the summer version of Jeanne d'Arc Alter is significantly more laid-back and even playful compared to her Avenger incarnation. They explicitly state it's because she is no longer an Avenger. This implies that Avenger Jeanne Alter is not, as it might initially seem, simply an extreme case of a {{Tsundere}}, nor that that is how she actually wants to be - instead, it's her class that's causing the behavior. In other words, she doesn't actually enjoy being angry and kinda bitchy to people all the time, she got stuck against her will with a class that makes her miserable and basically forces her to be. |
| 392 | * In FGO Arcade, during their final singularity, Mash is not killed and doesn't need to be resurrected. Proto Merlin comments that this is good, since Cath Palug doesn't exist in their timeline. However, Fou didn't just resurrect Mash in mobile, he gave her a normal human lifespan as well. Arcade Mash's lifespan is near the end. |
| 393 | ** Though, considering the nature of Arcade’s world, Draco could have just prolong Mash’s life if she can entertain her, as indicated by Arcade allowing Mash to be Grailed to Level 120 and achieve Bond 10 through fighting. |
| 394 | * In Avalon Le Fae, Barghest initially wanted to move the Manchester Fae to the Storm Border in order for something to survive from the Lostbelt. However, she arrives ''just in time'' to see them killing all of their human neighbors, gleefully saying how fun it is to torture and eat them, and how they must "get rid of their toys" before they get ''new ones''. Imagine how quickly the story would end if they managed to slaughter their humans, hide the evidence, then get on the Storm Border with Barghest's aid. ''That fate would've happened to Chaldea''. |
| 395 | * After everything Chaldea goes through to "[[DefeatingTheUndefeatable defeat]]" ORT in the seventh Lostbelt, the horror settles in when you realize just what it ''took'' to accomplish this: a past defeat by a literally-immortal god just barely as strong as it in just the right circumstances after genuine ages of non-stop battle to rip out its heart, which only weakened and put it to sleep, followed by the absolute maximum of every single possible thing Chaldea could throw at it, a fully-powered Hume-Barrel Rayproof after weakening it enough, and its own heart sacrificing herself to help destroy it once and for all. This was ''after'' it was not only TheJuggernaut, not only able to resurrect FromASingleCell, not only able to wipe out and shrug off even some of the strongest Servants around as well as Olga's black holes and a full-powered Excalibur, but even ''hijack the Heroic Spirit Summoning system for its own power equal to that of a Grand Foreigner.'' And then you realize that this is only a Lostbelt's ''recreation'', albeit hopped up on a CosmicKeystone; the genuine, real ORT is effectively an inevitability on any still-functioning Earth and dormant on the Earths where humanity never exists or gets wiped out. And without the series of coincidences, historical advantages and tools that managed to come together for this one-in-a-million situation (two key points being that the Rayproof would likely fail to work on it thanks to being an invited guest to Earth, and the lack of its own heart rebelling against it), and with its physical state entirely intact, virtually every humanity across every timeline is doomed if they somehow survive long enough for ORT to wake up. Forget a FinalBossPreview; this merely scratches the surface of what the true ORT could do should it awaken. |
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