Fate/Zero

Saberfaces being a real thing in canon is so goofy and great.

Edited by Moth13 on Jul 4th 2018 at 10:41:32 AM

To be fair, the only not Artoria Saberfaces are Mordred, Nero, Jeanne and Okita. One is her kid, one doesn't really look much like her and one is a self deprecating joke, meaning only Nero is really unexplained.

Edited by Arha on Jul 4th 2018 at 10:21:35 AM

The fact that the female saber we saw throughout the original visual novel ended up being the canonical template for female sabers will always make me lol.

Ryougi, Fran, Suzuka, Altera, d'Eon, Liz, Musashi.

Really the actual trend Artoria kicked was the whole genderbend thing.

It hit its zenith when we got Miyamoto & a joke with her is how she’s a dimensional traveler who came from a universe where the famous samurai & figures are guys so she freaks out over how many genderbends there are here.

Never fails to make me laugh.

Sounds about right. Or possibly even more sensible than what we did get. I noticed that the writing staff seems to very conspicuously avoid mentioning Mordred's absurd origin as much as possible.

I have to ask would Artoria just being turned into a man for the time being be less bizarre than just being given the right junk?

I can imagine the fact that Mordred being a child of incest without any actual sex (you all decide if this makes it weirder) due to Morgan stealing her sister's semen is something that they prefer not to think about. And hey, Artoria technically did as Merlin said. It is just that her semen got put in crazy.

And going back to the whole genderbend thing, I rationalize it (and it is apparently canon for Drake) that a bunch of people felt insecure about the genderbent Servant in question and let everyone believe that they were actually dudes. I just sometimes wonder about the intention since it sometimes comes of as an excuse to add waifus.

Edited by Kakuzan on Jul 4th 2018 at 12:13:14 PM

From what I remember Mordred was either conceived by Arthur accidentally bedding Morgan due to confusing her in the dead of night or Morgan enchanted him & then had her way with him.

Actually now that I think about it, Mordred being the product of latex gloves & a turkey baster means they really are half-assing it. Like they want the incest but they don’t want Artoria actually sleeping with her blood-sibling.

Honestly it just makes them look like a bunch of pussys for making everything more convoluted than it actually needs to be because they don’t want their mascot to be a hillbilly.

Actually, while it's a little hard to tell exactly since she's wearing a veil, but Morganna's brief appearance via flashback in Apocrypha suggests that she's got a case of Saberface going on as well. But like Mordred, probably fairly justified by being Arturia's half-sister.

I'm not familiar with Arthurian legend so...

What did we get? Nevermind. Found it on the wiki.

Edited by Soble on Jul 5th 2018 at 5:47:13 AM

Meanwhile, with Nero Saber:

...umu.

Way nicer than the real Tamamo, who would have called it shit before Nero even asked her to look at it. And then went off to try to bone Hakuno.

Not that it matters, really. Just that the 'ha ha Nero is bad at art' thing is really old at this point.

Edited by Arha on Jul 14th 2018 at 6:04:07 AM

Brought it up in the discussion page, but is Kariya as beloved as the page makes him out to be? It's surprising to me because a lot of what makes him interesting is stuff that makes him very much not a good person.

From what I've seen, dislike of Kairya does exist. However; not only is it contained to smaller fan websites with vocal minorities, they routinely go Ron the Death Eater by insisting he's little more than a jealous cuck. I think for fairness sake he should be moved to Base-Breaking Character, especially since a lot of what makes him likable comes from what fans dislike about the other base breaker Tokiomi.

I like Kariya and I don't see humans "not a very nice person", but I am very much in Urobuchi's Misaimed Fandom. I admire characters he makes as criticisms. After all, Saber is my favourite character and I see the feast of kings as demonstration of how utterly unworthy of respect Gilgamesh and Iskander are.

Gilgamesh and Iskander aren't supposed to be totally right at the Feast of Kings, just that Artoria is supposed to see that she isn't either. Basically every entry in the franchise points right up through FGO point out that her approach to leadership sounds good in theory but isn't something normal people can actually appreciate or get behind, which is bad when you need to lead them.

Kariya... from my understanding, people who see him fall into three camps. The first who just look at his goals of saving Sakura and think '100% good person, only sane man, why can't everyone be this good,' one camp that sees his flaws destroy him and at least appreciate the point of his character and then finally those that only see or care about the flaws and thinks he's trash as a result. I don't think that final group is particularly large, but group two also has a certain amount of contempt towards him, which I think is intentional.

I may not like Urobuchi's writing but I don't think he's bad at it. All these characters have complex flaws that screw them over or make them rather crappy people no matter how interesting or charming they may be otherwise. Saber has no charisma despite her skill, Iskander is just a brutal thug, Gilgamesh at least claims to basically be a bandit who robs and abuses his people as his right and Kariya's desire to help Sakura is undermined by his own hidden desires and inability to prioritize her over them.

Edit: But I'm still going to call Urobuchi a hack because just like his characters his writing has a lot of flaws!

Edited by Arha on Nov 25th 2019 at 11:34:18 AM

Kariya's issue is that he was ultimately way over his head on the issue of Sakura, from not warning Tokiomi about what happened to her, only speaking to Aoi about it and, though omitted from the anime, inability to understand why she was sent to the Matous in the first place, which was because she was at risk from being given a sealing designation and being dissected for the rest of her life just for being born with the imaginary numbers element.

That last point is somewhat vindicated in the Lord El-Melloi II series when the viewers get to see how amoral and borderline sociopathic is the magus society at its core.

The point of Kariya is showing how even the most "decent" master was not without flaws, and said flaws eventually come to the fore by the end of the story, mostly because he refuses to see them for what they are, and consume him.

Remember, Aoi's criticism of Kariya for being at fault for Sakura being sent away is not wrong since Kariya himself choose to run away from the Matou residence even though he was the only capable magus left that could be a proper heir. In fact, Kariya could have struck a deal with Zouken to become the Matou successor in return for Sakura's release, agreeing to obey him just to keep her safe.

Edited by raziel365 on Nov 25th 2019 at 5:28:31 AM

So Kariya is a truly tragic character.

To be a tragedy in the literary sense is to receive a sad fate that could have been avoided had they learned a lesson & changed.

It's not wrong if you choose to defend Mage culture at all, which I don't. That's tantamount to saying everything that happened to Sakura is fine, and its only a problem because Kariya didn't want to become one of Zouken's pawns.

at least no one has the worst kariya take in that he and sakura should've gotten together

I don't defend mage culture, but I don't really blame characters who can't break away from it either mentally or physically. Like Tokiomi giving up his daughter is certainly bad, but there were genuinely no good options available for him so he picked one that seemed safe and in her best interests. Why did he think it was in her best interests? Because he believed being a mage was the greatest honor and that while it carries suffering and pain with it, it's a choice that he himself willingly made and therefore his daughters probably would too. And he was half right. His elder daughter believes the same thing but simply has the awareness that not everyone agrees. Which I suppose is like her paternal grandfather, who offered Tokiomi a choice that Tokiomi assumed his daughters didn't need.

As someone who rejects those values from the start, though, you can see why Kariya wouldn't understand and wouldn't feel the need to press Tokiomi on why he felt it was a good idea even if it would have ultimately been in Sakura's best interests to do so.

In short, the point is that they're both wrong: They both mean well, but their assumptions and flaws undermine their efforts and lead to Sakura's over the top backstory.

Edited by Arha on Nov 25th 2019 at 1:21:17 PM

A noticeable aspect of Kariya and Sakura is that both are characters who initially seem to be victims of external tragedy, only to be later revealed how part of it was also self-inflicted and caused by their flaws.

Edited by raziel365 on Nov 25th 2019 at 1:29:13 AM

I also watched Fate/Zero before I really got into the rest of the franchise, so it helped me to connect with a bunch of other things that I wouldn't have gotten before. Of course, I still have my issues with it, like Iskandar calling Saber a failure of a King when, if anything, he was worse.

And it also just made me hate Tokiomi all the more, regardless of his intentions. Seriously, every single problem in Heaven's Feel is because of him.

Edited by theLibrarian on Nov 25th 2019 at 5:19:23 AM