Fate/stay night and its ufo(table)-An analysis on Masters and Servants in Fate/Zero

I know I may risk the anger of my beautiful legal housebreaker by upping this type of title. After all, she's most likely the type who enjoy a nice romantic tale sans the dark stuff. Perhaps that's why she prefers songs like this below.

~Tsukihime~

Above vid is fan-made stuff. Therefore, we shouldn't be dumb enough to think this was something official from Nasu Kinoko and his guano loco crew at TYPE-MOON (and no, Urobuchi Gen isn't one of them. He's too crazy to fit in anyway...).

Mr Randy Tan and Mrs Lydia Quek-Tan, I'm gonna tag the two of you in this post. The reason why being that I'm interested in seeing any response from the real Land of Far Far East.

If ufotable can do it... well, then can't the rest...

I apologise for the horrible Engrish above which sounds more Singaporean than angmoh. Anyway, the blokes and ladies at ufotable may have given every Nasuit a glimmer of hope. Before it was made official, it seems that plenty of people were dismissing the likelihood of Unlimited Blade Works being part of ufotable's plans where the Fate/stay night anime was concerned. Out of the three routes, only Heaven's Feel remains untouched. Fate and Unlimited Blade Works, on the other hand, have been covered by the blokes and ladies at Studio Deen. I think it may have something to do with the details in copyright or whatever. Don't we all hate the devil at times, if not always?

Firstly, let me just say chances are that Xiaxue would have known what Heaven's Feel is like. You got Matou Shinji the rapist son. Then you have Matou Sakura the slut daughter (okay, the former is literally true while the latter case is flamebaiting). Secondly, am I the only one who sees Heaven's Feel as a real sequel to Fate/Zero in ways more than one?

Introduction

This post can be seen as some sort of free-of-charge endorsement for the Heaven's Feel anime adaptation for Fate/stay night come next year (unless ufotable decide to do a Mahou Tsukai no Yoru). We all know in Fate/Zero, there are seven Masters and seven Servants. Plot-wise, Urobuchi Gen's personal creativity was truly the prequel to Nasu Kinoko's personal creativity. But it's very easy for us to stop at how Emiya Shirou was saved. Period.

Out of the seven chosen ones and their respective... well, chosen ones, three of them had minimal impact on the next generation with four others having a big say on the same matter.

The three Masters who didn't matter much when comes to the future list as below:

Le Psychopathe, Uryuu Ryuunosuke

An Uasal, Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald

The Elitist, Tohsaka Tokiyomi

The four others who mattered in ways more than one list as below:

The Hero, Emiya Kiritsugu

The Killer, Kotomine Kirei

ο ήρωας, Waver Velvet

The Betrayed, Matou Kariya

Because I tend to be very long-winded when it comes to self-expressing, I decide to use this entire space for Matou Kariya. Come the next part, I will touch on the three Masters who never mattered much. Finally, I will go back to the last three of the list.

Heaven's Feel and the Holy Grail: Both a Curse and Legacy

More than the other two routes, HF is more Grail-centric than what we'd otherwise think. In the Fate route, the Grail was used as a plot device to develop Saber from a tragic heroine to a flawed heroine coming to terms with herself. In UBW, the Grail was merely used as a secondary plot device meant to conclude the story (despite being a jerk by abandoning Rin to Shinji's lust, Archer did save her from the Grail come the end. Ironically, Shinji was also saved because of this).

As for HF, we get to know the evil nature behind the whole wishing fountain. Ultimately, Urobuchi-san merely let us see more of the monster rather than the monster itself.

Case in point? Self-explanatory.

Heaven's Feel has more than one purpose so as to speak. If Fate/stay night is to be an analogy of reality when it comes to life itself, then Heaven's Feel is basically the end where idealism is proven to be nothing more than a farce. When it comes to anomaly named Emiya Shirou, however, it must be stated that Heaven's Feel is the only way to conclude a contradiction.

Ending wise, HF actually has the best true ending out. In Fate, Shirou was left to his own devices. Which was possibly why Realta Nua version has to add in that hidden ending. In UBW, we don't have to think twice on what will happen to Shirou.
In fact, the 2015 anime went one step further and showed us this vid below.

Unfortunately, I can't find the English sub. However, you can switch to French translation. Just don't ask me how my super mignone legal housebreaker and her BFFs will feel over this.

If the Grail has always been the biggest lie, it's because we're talking about reality. Our expectations on reality has always been like how the Grail was seen. Ultimately, understanding what the Grail was all about is basically the same as understanding reality for what it is. In this sense, the Grail is definitely something personal to Shirou. On the first glance, Fate/stay night looks like your standard shounen work. In reality, it's more of a seinen work sans the excessive blood, violence, and... well, sex (last part depends on which version you play).

In HF, we have two dead men walking. The first would be Emiya Shirou. We all know that. What about the second?

Shirou was a dead man walking physically, Kariya was a dead man walking in the sense that there's not much difference between him and his future "son in-law". Sounds confusing? Let's just see this as a dead man made alive by his legacy.

If we're to see Heaven's Feel as a form of legacy plot-wise, whose legacy should it belong to? Matou Zouken? Yes, we all know his backstory by time we finished the playthrough. To him, the Grail was a legacy to his unresolved feelings towards Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern (ironically, the original aim of the Grail was all about creating a utopia where everyone could live happily ever after. Sucks to be Zouken, not so much if your surname is Emiya). In the same way reality has corrupted the Grail, Zouken began being corrupted by time itself. Mayhap more than anything else, 'tis the real curse of the Grail.

In the same way we can easily become the monsters we professed to hate, there's nothing much separating Kariya from the man he hated most. Not in a bad way, but in a humane way. If Zouken's unresolved feelings was towards the head of House Einzbern back then, surely Kariya did have unresolved feelings towards Tohsaka Aoi. In the same way Zouken lost the woman he loved (or at least that how I see it) to the Grail, Kariya lost the woman he loved to Tokiyomi. Both did so willingly, both did so with their blessings given to the other party. Unfortunately, shit will always happen because people will always enjoy stirring up shit.

Spoiler:
It was Kirei and Gilgamesh who double teamed Tokiyomi. Kariya was merely that fall guy.

Years later, the curse of Matou never showed any signs of abating. In fact, it got worse. Shinji was extremely bitter and a misogynist. In fact, we can just put the two together like 2+2=4. He's bitter because of a girl. He's a misogynist for the same reason as well. He wanted Tohsaka Rin, he couldn't get her. He wanted the leadership of the Matou family, Sakura was seen as a better alternative. To make things even more dramatic (definitely more dramatic than the Monday Couple of Gary and his Song), Rin and Sakura are sisters in blood (if not for the tragic circumstances, I'd have called Tokiyomi's fate a verdict by death and karma).

Then enter our not-so-heroic hero. Unlike the Fate route, Shirou chose to forsake his foolish idealism of being an ally of justice (i.e. 正義の味方). Unlike UBW, Shirou chose to embrace reality over a dream he knew was never meant to be. In HF, Shirou would go on to make decisions to save one person instead of billions. It was like what Archer said during his showdown with Shirou in the UBW route, that the ally of justice can only save those whom he sides with. Shirou chose not to side with Zouken, he chose to side with Sakura. This has got nothing to do with altruism even though we know who that big bad ah-kong is. And neither did Shirou use it as an excuse. As an individual, we have to admit the boy has matured into an honest man.

Make no mistakes about it, Shirou's feelings towards Sakura was the same thing when it comes to Kariya's feelings towards Aoi. In the same way Tokiyomi ruined the life of a wife he may not have truly loved, likewise Sakura was running the risk of being ruined. Not by Zouken per se, but the Grail itself. Which is why we have this super badass scene.

Shirou may not know the real Kariya, but I can say he's basically the same type of guy as his "uncle in-law". In reality, many local Singaporean guys will complain about how local girls being the high upkeep type. Which leads to the SPG culture so as to speak. To Kariya, sacrificing everything was never about high upkeep. To Shirou, protecting that one girl he loved was never about high upkeep. As a man, you can boast about earning your first one million SGD or even USD by time you hit 30. But so what? What's the use of earning the entire world at the cost of being a dead man walking? You have money, but you don't have peace. You have status, but you don't have someone to love. Even if you have a Hollywood A-lister as your girlfriend, there's a difference between bragging rights and being right.

At the end of the day, Shirou stepped on the same path as Kariya and Zouken. It's a path of no return since all three were being afflicted by corruption of their own making. Zouken corrupted himself because he couldn't withstand the torture of time. Kariya corrupted himself because he gave himself over to madness. As for Shirou, he corrupted himself knowing full well that the cost may be bigger than death itself. If we're to die without regrets, it's because we know the reason why. For Shirou, forgetting the girl he loved before dying was a fate worse than death. It was exactly the curse Zouken inflicted upon himself, the same kind of demon Shirou risked becoming and the same monster Kirya truly hated. Yet, the only way for him to save Sakura was to risk getting corrupted by that absolute power called his left arm. It was virtually a case of losing himself versus losing his loved one. In terms of having such a mind of steel, there's not much difference between him and Archer. Shirou didn't want to surpass Archer based on his former belief. Rather, he's out to surpass Archer via a new set of standards. And that standard is a selfish one. But so long an ally of justice can save one soul he chose to side with, it's good enough.