Forgive me for my lack of updates with the series I am blogging but as I am sure you all know, holidays tend to keep us busy for one thing or another. Believe it or not i only recently got around to finishing this series last two episodes and they didn’t really surprise me all that much. Truth be told I actually prepared for an ending far worse than this so that’s a positive of some sort at least. It was a good thing to bundle these episodes into one post as the previous episode boiled down to a debate between Joan and Shirou over what is truly salvation for humanity and that actually is rather interesting as Shirou has a very Eastern version of religion which attributes sin to the body and believes shearing the mortal coil will allow people to transcend sin. Meanwhile Joan and Wish believe that true goodness only comes from people overcoming trail and suffering which is a very western style to religion. Only for it to result in Joan pulling out her last noble phantasm in an effort to destroy the holy grail. A suicide beam attack that sadly accomplishes not all that much really. Well the name does not make it apparent but that attack did have a pretty devastating effect on the grail and Shirou himself but was highly played down in the anime.
Thus begins the downward path for this ending and much like most of the things wrong with this anime, it begins with Sieg. There is a admittedly cool fight scene between Sieg and Shirou but it does beg the question that if Sieg could fight Shirou, then why do it after Joan unleashed her suicide attack. Got to say Sieg that your anger over her death is pretty hypocritical when you could have helped at least not make her death worthless. Why can Sieg somehow match Shirou? Well on top of getting the power to transform into Siegfried, it appears that SIeg also absorbed the power of Fran’s Noble Phantasm. And to add insult to injury the holy grail throws Sieg a freebie after he defeats Shirou. Never have I seen a plot bend over backwards to accommodate the needs of a single character. Almost as if he was originally the surrogate of a player character from an MMO game that was never made. Like say what Apocrypha was originally. I will also note that Suicide attacks don’t work in this series, unless you happen to be Sieg. You can even survive them as an extra bonus.
Semiramis and Shirou have one final scene together which shows they have better romance that the two actual leads of this series. Shakespeare finishes his story before disappearing, wishing he was the protagonist.(Me too Shakespeare, I wish that too.) But Shirou’s wish is in effect and cannot be stopped. So Sieg turns into a dragon and takes the grail to the other side of the world where it can grant immortality to that place instead of the human world. I would love to say that this whole “Other side of the world” business is totally established lore and a good explanation but let’s just cut the bullshit and be blunt. This is just a cheap deus ex Machina and I don’t see how the hell Sieg could think of this when not even I knew about this other side of the world until now. I mean I knew about Avalon, which appears to be related but this other side is news to me. And honestly this kind of stuff is just supplementary material rarely put to any story use besides justifying plot bullshit like this. I mean Nasu has established stuff in this universe like the archetypes(Ultimates) and yet has done diddly squat with them besides a small short story. (Case in point, if the archetypes make an appearance in Fate Grand Order, that would be amazing.)
So world is saved, the remaining people live happily ever after, even Astolfo who is getting supplied mana somehow, despite not having independent action…screw it, there’s no point in questioning it. The girl Joan was possessing reaffirmed that it wasn’t her that fell for Sieg, she just respected his way of life which is…um…whining about your existence like a little bitch till the world bends over backwards for you? Yay, Joan was feeling true love…for cardboard…isn’t that just something. (I am never rolling for you or your Alter form. Ever.) And she reaches the other side of the world..somehow..screw it, I don’t care. Overall my experience with this series hasn’t been a hateful experience. Certainly this series didn’t live up to my expectations and part of the blame lies with A-1 adapting it poorly and just the source itself having its own problems. Hard to dismiss and yet hard to recommend, this will be a polarizing series indeed. So far the year of Fate Adaptations has proven to be a poor one with only Heaven’s Feel and Fate/Extra’s adaptations to prove that wrong.
Sad at how good Shakespeare’s last scenes and Shirou/Semiramis’ romance was and the fact that they’re just side characters, while the main romance is forced as hell (come on, nobody Jeanne fought with for years was good enough to make her fall in love, but some soulless boy she knows for a day is exactly that?) and really bad at being romantic or emotional at all.
Didn’t help that Astolpho loves Sieg more than everything too, the selfinsert part isn’t very subtile in this series. The problem is that the most important scenes want to make me root for Sieg, or fear to see him die, but I just don’t care. Astolpho’s shocking reaction when Sieg tells the Grail his self-sacrificing wish felt rather comical to me.
Anyway, still liked the episodes and, as said, the villains and side characters like Mordred have really awesome scenes. It’s just sad how they end up getting kicked away to make room for more awesomeness of the MC. I think I will never understand why authours even like characters like these.
Mostly to appeal to the audience. In japan these kinds of Self inserts are quite popular. If you look at Japan male character polls you do find a number of self insert characters.
I do think it’s mainly cause Sieg was intended to be the player character of an MMO so this story was originally trying to make the player feel powerful.
“Shakespeare finishes his story before disappearing, wishing he was the protagonist.(Me too Shakespeare, I wish that too.)”
THIS! Either Shakespeare or Mordred would have made a much more interesting main character. They had interesting characters, and yet they choose to focus on the most boring ones. Why? It’s a pain they couldn’t have done some rewrites when this went from a potential game to an LN, and either made Seig an interesting character, if that is even possible, or trash his character and make one of the better characters be main character. What may work in a game doesn’t always work in book or anime form.