Fate/Zero

Still wouldn't be able to kick Hanuman or Sun Wukong's asses if they were ever summoned as servants, though.

I assume Sun Wukong is probably at that same 'nerfed from their original mythical showing but still top tier' level that Karna and Rama are at. So like even serious Gilgamesh might lose to them. Unless he's just flat out Grand Lancer in which case he has a better Saint Graph, but I expect them to give that to Scathach for some insane reason.

I would expect Hanuman to be weaker than Rama.

I do wonder if we will see more Grand Servants anytime soon.

Edited by Kakuzan on Jul 3rd 2018 at 12:30:27 PM

I’m rather sad at the idea we might never summon Solomon.

..Will he want some pants when he's summoned, too?

I don't want to summon Solomon. Not unless he doesn't remember us at all.

Episode 22: Why is everybody dying!?

• No, seriously, what's the deal with Mayu and Irivyiel and Kiritsugu? Does Iri know about Mayu or...
• Waver goofed.
• Saber and Kerry have to endure some Teeth-Clenched Teamwork now, eh? I like it.
• Iri, nooooooooooooooooooo!
• nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! no! no! You were too pure for this world!
• Waver and Rider are BFF's now. I don't care what this anime says. They won. I will write a fanfic where these two win.
• Creepy Iri. Creepy pile of Iri corpses.
• Yeah I wasn't clear on this from the UBW anime either - what is the Holy Grail and what is wrong with it? It's a wish-granting object that appears at the end of the Grail War but... people can tamper with it, dolls have to be built to be a "vessel" for it, and apparently replicas can be made. Who designed the Grail War and why does it always get FUBAR? Doesn't Rin win the grail in at least one version of FSN? What does she wish for?
  • For that matter how have their been five Grail Wars? At least three reality-altering wishes have been made - if not by Masters than by Servants. Saber wants to rewrite history. Rider thinks it's foolish to alter reality, even for the betterment of others. Gilgamesh wants... to repossess the Grail since it's already his. Did anybody else have a wish as dramatic as Saber's, or are most Servants just fighting for the hell of it like Rider?

Edited by Soble on Jul 4th 2018 at 6:00:18 AM

I got the impression that the majority were like Saber from the UBW anime.

I also had to look up on a wiki what had happened to the Grail, apparently it got corrupted in a previous war and will try to answer every wish in the most destructive way possible.

The Tohsakas, Einzberns, and Matous designed it together by bringing in various components for the ritual.

None of the wars actually succeeded in getting the Grail which is why the Einzberns decided to try to game the system in the last three wars but they're really bad at it.

Why is the Grail designed this way? Is she going to be conscious? Does she turn into the Master Emerald?

So then they went to the trouble of creating a magical Mcguffin that grants wishes but only under the condition that they fight in a city-wide deathmatch for it? And they've somehow stalemated three times in a row?

"Design flaw" just doesn't cut it.

Edited by Soble on Jul 4th 2018 at 6:54:59 AM

They then went on to hack this deathmatch so badly the wish granting thing is now psychotic and evil. Did they install Valve Anti Cheat or something?

See, the Grail isn't actually the point, those three families wanted to activate a different magical ritual but they needed a way of getting more participants so they just said "Come down to Japan the magical equivalent of the boonies because we have a for real magic wish granting device".

Well last war the Einzbern’s tried summoning the Devil.

I’m not kidding here, they literally tried summoning a God of Evil but they messed up & accidentally summoned an average Joe who was tortured by his village because they blamed all the sins & evil in the world onto him cause they wanted a patsy.

The guy then managed to trick the Einzbern’s into thinking he really is the Devil & long story short his sheer unrelenting hatred against everything ended up corrupting the grail when he went back to it.

Edited by slimcoder on Jul 4th 2018 at 6:01:52 AM

The Einzberns are just really bad at being munchkins

1. "ah shit we could summon a literal god of evil in this super special class we modded. Wait why is this dude so weaksauce"
2. "Okay so summoning literal god of evil who wasn't actually a god and just some rando may have fucked us over but it's okay let's hire this guy who's super good at killing magi and also while we're at it let's get one of the famous heroes on our side. wait what do you mean they have terrible compatibility"
3. "well that was a failure, let's just have one of our own go fight and also since Saber was a failure, let's have another super famous hero on our side but as a Berserker so they won't destroy the Grail. *five minutes later* turns out giving a child control of a super obedient monster may have been a bad idea"

Edited by Nouct on Jul 4th 2018 at 6:02:03 AM

So then they went to the trouble of creating a magical Mcguffin that grants wishes but only under the condition that they fight in a city-wide deathmatch for it? And they've somehow stalemated three times in a row?

A lot of the answers to these questions are spoilers for the Heaven's Feel route of the original FSN.

But to answer the non-spoilery parts, the three families (Tohsaka, Einzbern, and Makiri [Matou]) wanted to build a wish-granting super-spell and had to combine their three areas of magical expertise to do it.

The first two "wars" were really more free-for-all bloodbaths: when the three families realized they'd only be able to get one of their respective wishes granted, they all turned on each other. The first one was pretty small in scale, since the betrayals kind of caught everyone off-guard. The second one was a massacre of epic proportions, now that the families had time to plan for it. The system of deathmatches and rules overseen by the Church was set up, I believe, in the Third Holy Grail War in order to keep things "fair" (as much as they can be) and contained enough that the Church and Mage's Association could keep the non-magical public in the dark. A way of limiting the damage.

They managed to stalemate so often because, originally, the Grail's vessel was just an ordinary goblet. Every time the conclusion of the war approached, someone screwed up and obliterated the vessel in the crossfire. That's why the Einzberns created a homunculus to be the vessel this time around: they figured that if the "Grail" was a self-aware, living thing, then it could protect itself and hopefully not get blown up before the War's conclusion this time.

As for why there's a darkness in the Grail... that's a spoiler. Probably the biggest spoiler for the original FSN.

Edited by DarkHunter on Jul 4th 2018 at 7:20:56 AM

That is actually hilarious.

And the Einzbern have the cursed Rhinegold which played some role in their creation of the Grail, so you know, the whole thing was pretty fucked from the beginning.

It’s really incredible that despite the sheer amount of stupidity that goes on in this war it’s still continuing a hundred years latter.

Edited by slimcoder on Jul 4th 2018 at 6:57:02 AM

Never underestimate how moronic and pigheaded people can get when they know magic.

How are these people still alive

Okay, thank you for clearing that up. At least the progression of events makes sense now.

Edited by Soble on Jul 4th 2018 at 6:58:25 AM

the hilarious thing is that even when the einzberns achieve the conditions for winning the world steps in and tells them to fuck off because of the tainted grail

Edited by Kakuzan on Jul 4th 2018 at 10:08:39 AM

The thing about the Einzberns is they're tragic robits who cannot understand the futility of constantly going through their preprogrammed initiatives to make homunculi to get grail

But ngl it's way more fun to dunk on their incompetence

They robbed Iylla of her family.

Why should I feel bad for them?

Grail is cursed twice over. You access the Greater Grail where all the power hangs out by using the Lesser Grail. Servants get boiled down into energy after killed and sent into the Greater Grail. During the third war the Einzbern family tried to cheat and summon a god but instead got some random dude who was the closest you can get but was otherwise completely normal. However, that guy himself represents a wish made by people long dead, so the Grail was like 'okay, got it, you guys want me to become All Evils Of This World.' That's the first curse. What slim said was wrong.

Second curse is older. Namely, the Grail was also originally made using Das Rheingold, Siegfried's cursed treasure that brings ruin. So yeah, it was kinda fucked from the start.

First grail war was a bunch of mages killing each other willy nilly. Second was the first proper grail war, which derailed. Third either ended with A. Angra Mainyu (that random dude) getting summoned and tainting the grail or B. getting stolen by Nazis and messed with for about sixty years, which leads to Apo instead. And also there's a gag comic about a third possible outcome for that war but whatever, ignore that.

Diarmuid just wanted to serve a lord properly and faithfully until the end and be acknowledged as a loyal knight. Doesn't need the grail to do that, so will give it to Kayneth
Iskandar wants to be given a physical body via the Grail so he can stick around after the war, then conquer the world in blood and carnage because, you know, Neutral Good.
Gilgamesh just wants the grail to throw it into his treasury and forget about it. He already has at least one but he wants all the shinies!
Hundred Faced Hassan's body splitting thing is a sign of several mental illness. He wants to be cured using the grail. Poor guy.
Artoria wants to redo the pulling of the sword. This would be impossible even if the Grail wasn't corrupted
Lancelot doesn't have a wish that I know of, but upon being summoned he's like MUH KING, PUNISH ME I AM A MASOCHIST because she never held a grudge in life
Gilles was summoned with a kind of 'fuck you God' attitude and wanting to spit in his face but upon seeing Artoria was like 'Yeah I decided you're Jeanne even though you're really just both blondes with blue eyes.

The Grail ritual is technically not flawed. The war itself is actually largely unnecessary and is just a way for the three founding families to decide who gets to make the one wish.