Mercilessly killing innocent young boys is nice and all, but the Kayneth gore scene in this episode was by far the most effective gore scene in this episode so far. Gore isn’t just abut blood, but also about making it look very painful. Breaking a finger may not be as bad as stabbing someone in the heart, or hinting at a bloody corpse off-screen, but the way it was portrayed in this torture-like way definitely paid off.
In fact the entire part around Lancer, Kayneth and that wife of his was one of the best parts of this series so far, because of how much change there was compared to the previous episodes. Seeing a suddenly helpless Kayneth with his wife now taking over worked as a really good development. Lancer’s pas was also excellent. We didn’t really get to see exactly what happened to him, but the hints were plenty to give him some new depth, and add that to his strong convictions of not betraying Kayneth, and yes: these are three characters who improved a lot in this episode.
The development of Rider and Waver is more slow and gradual. These two have banter, and over the episodes they grow closer together. It’s the standard stuff, but it works. Rider in particular still has some great lines, and he’s really well acted.
Also, I keep praising series for picking settings that aren’t overused. So of course I really like how Lancer dates back from the Celtic legends. In fact, nearly all the servants come from interesting times in history. There is a lot of interesting stuff in history, so it’s great that there are series like this that aren’t just “let’s glorify our history”. While interesting, I want to see them glorify the history of other areas in the world as well.
Oh, and what I also liked was how this episode turned magic into a science.It was a clever little trick to set up a systematic map of the town’s river and its magic use. But are sewers in Japan really big enough to fit in Rider’s entire carriage?
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Fate/Zero – 09
Lancer, Kayneth and Melloi really seem set on a course for some sort of tragic end. Even though Kayneth’s a pompous ass, you can’t help feel sympathy for him when his wife, who he seems to have some genuine feelings for, shows how badly beguiled Lancer’s mole has her.
I definitely agree with your blood and gore statement. Too many shows/movies east and west think oceans of blood make for more impact. But the scenes with the most impact don’t show everything and get across the emotional pain of what happens.
Just want to clarify one thing, sola isn’t kayneth’s wife yet, they’re still in the engagement stage, but despite being arrange by their family&kayneth’s arrogant self,he does sincerely love sola,unfortunately sola didn’t feel the same ne^-^but, poor lancer is stuck up w/ those two as his master,which definetely going to cost him another tragic end just like hist past, while the only thing that he wants in this life/chance is to serve his master(Kayneth)loyally till the end, but obviously Kayneth&Sola can’t see that>.
Ugh…next episode looks annoying. Very annoying.
from the preview, it looks like kariya is going to make his move and attack tokiomi? i wonder what role rin is going to play in this whole thing.
“Rin’s adventure”? hmm….
Posted this on Guardian Enzo’s blog:
Kayneth has to shoulder the blame for this clusterfuck of a scenario. Once he decided that his fiancee Sola would participate in the Holy Grail war (extra command seals or something) and he learned the identity of his servant, he should have seen this possibility, that his curse would charm any female, no matter who, and prepared for it (give the fiancee some protection, some trinket that negates the charm spell).
That he left it to chance, despite the knowledge, despite being a master level mage, is entirely his fault. Yes, Kayneth is arrogant, but this is irrational to a fault.
@ Oroboros
Looks like someone didn’t read the novel…
@anotes
Looks like some people prefer not to spoil themselves.
Moreover, the enjoyment of the anime is utterly lost with foreknowledge of the original material, so I’ll be perfectly content with my perspective. 🙂
Woah… I feel sorry for Lancer. Tragic D;
I really enjoyed the episode though. 20 minutes flew by so fast. Rider is freakin’ awesome as always. And although I dislike Kayneth, I feel a bit sorry for him (Sola’s a bitch!) as well. That finger breaking scene made me cringe.
On a lighter note, Rin is in the next episode! I was afraid I’d only see her at the beginning, she’s one of my favorite characters ever ^^
So far the best episode for me. #flashback done right: without expectation, and woven later on with lancer’s decision to follow sola (BITCH MODE X 10!!) Lancer’s no fool, but he’s worse off for no reason of his: A powerdigger using his sense of denied loyalty against him. that’s hard.
I really don’t want to wake up an argue-fest (commenst for ep8) concerning Saber/Lancer’s “understanding of chilvary” vs “practicality of war” (the kayneth using command spells), but the fact kiritsugu pointed this out so verbatim to irisvel really blew me away. For such a strategic war veteran who’ll use underhanded tactics to achieve his goal, you really expect nothing less of Kiritsugu. On top of that, earlier episodes have shown he’s internal conflict between been cold-blooded and having what he loves so dear he’ll protect really pushes him far in the character development.
Kayneth is just flawed, sola’s a power digger, lancer’s bound by code (and command spells XD), but the one who impressed me in second place is the boy (the King of conquerors’s master). Tracking down caster with such a scientific means in a world of magic as emphasized by psgels adds quite the unexpected flavor.
@Oroboros
Maybe you want to avoid reading my comment now if you insist on your point of view. Actually, a few people already answered to your comment in the other blogs, but I’ll repeat what they say. Lancer’s curse is nothing against trained magi. And Sola is also the child of the pretigious Sophia-Ri family, she is blessed with talent and enough magic resistance. Maybe not like Sakura or Rin, but she is should still me better than an average magus.
The scenes with her and also Kayneth’s thoughts suggest that she willingly lowered her guard to be affected by Lancer’s curse, so if you want to blame someone, then maybe Sola’s family or Sola herself. I personally blame both Sola and her family. Her family who only used her as a pawn and Sola for bitching on her own will. She deserves to get punished and oh… how I’m looking forward to it…
However, Kayneth is not , I repeat NOT entirely at fault, though I admit that most of the problems come from a lack of communication. That goes to both Sola, Kayneth and Lancer and the rest of the cast.
Just in case you’re complaining about why Kayneth took Sola with him then: We could discuss it until judgement day, but we don’t know any background information about this topic. It could be Sola’s father who ordered her to come along, it could’ve been Kayneth or even Sola herself, this discussion would be based on speculation and is thus pointless.
@Civlov, i thought is already been explained that Kayneth took Sola with him as a prana support for Lancer, so he can focus all of his magic most to only attacking, since it’s still quite a task for magus to split his magic for prana&attack, not that it’ll trouble him anyway to do both, but he just choose to focus himself on attacking/battle front anyway. And agree with your assesment of Sola-Kayneth, she’s still a mage herself, so if she want to she can actually resist the curse, but it’s her own choice not to anyway.
That is not clearly stated in the novel. Sola only questions one time why the heck she has to do the mana supply.
It could be the case that Sola’s father insisted on taking Sola with Kayneth to Fuyuki and Kayneth made use of this situation. However, that’s only speculation, we don’t and probably will never know whether Sola intentionally went to Fuyuki or was forced to, either by Kayneth or her family.
But I assume, Lancer was summoned in England, so the mana supply change was already established with the contract. Since I know that Kayneth really cares for her, I can’t easily believe he dragged in Sola(although he thought, the war would be a piece of cake, he expected dangerous magi – especially the three families of the beginning Tohsaka, Matou and Einzbern) without a second thought. She is not combat-experienced, using her as the mana supply doubles the risk of losing Lancer because he has to protect Sola as well. Well, maybe he thought, keeping her in his workshop would be enough to protect her.
Haven’t read the novel, but perhaps the fact, that the original piece to summon Servant was stolen, disrupted Kayneth’s plans. He was planning to get Rider, but when it became impossible had to move to Lancer, while the Sola’s mana support plan was already put in motion.
@psgels
Regarding the finger breaking scene, the painfulness in it came not from any physical pain, but the fact that Kayneth was forced to realize, to his horror, that he’d been damaged to the point of NOT being able to feel any pain from it.
It’s going to be sad seeing Rider and Waver’s story end. They should do a whole comedy show based on those two.
Actually sewers in Japan are massive and a lot of people go to see them.
http://www.crookedbrains.net/2007/07/japanese-sewers-photo-gallery-first.html
Lancer’s curse is nothing against trained magi. And Sola is also the child of the pretigious Sophia-Ri family, she is blessed with talent and enough magic resistance.
Interesting thought. I wonder which it is. Did Sola simply fall for Lancer or was she affected by his mole? I’m guessing it’s the latter though, especially how Lancer seems to recognize her symptoms in his most previous victim. If both Kayneth and Sola knew about Lancer’s history, why do they and even Lancer seem to be avoiding the whole issue? I was kind of expecting Kayneth or even Lancer to just come out and accuse Sola for falling under the mole curse. Also, while I’m guessing Saber’s high magic resistance and Iria’s inhuman magical circuitry protected them, would Maya would be vulnerable?
For such a strategic war veteran who’ll use underhanded tactics to achieve his goal, you really expect nothing less of Kiritsugu.
One thing that bothered me is how Emiya seemed to understand where Saber was coming from yet was willing to go finish Kayneth off alone. He seemed to give the impression that he knew something Saber and we the audience don’t. Reminds me a little of Rider admonishing Waver not to take a closer look in Caster’s lair. Emiya seems almost desperate in his attempt to go after Kayneth (and Lancer) alone, even without Saber or Maya to back him up. It’s not very clear to me what his objectives in the war actually are. If anything, I was kind of expecting him to run away with Iria in order to save her from her fate, although, if Iria is like Ilya, I suppose it wouldn’t really matter. From his statement from the first episode, he should already know what will happen once it’s all over, even assuming the Holy Grail manifests properly as planned. Stuff to be explained in future episodes I guess.
On a lighter note, Rin is in the next episode!
I actually have high expectations about this episode as it may shed some extra light on stuff from the main novel and FHA.
I wonder which it is. Did Sola simply fall for Lancer or was she affected by his mole?
Well, to be precise, it’s both. You know, Sola is not the heir of her family, she is just used as a political pawn and already “gave up” her life when her family arranged the marriage between her and Kayneth. Now she probably really did fall in love with Lancer without the mole and saw him as a chance to flee from her “prison” and willingly lowered her resistance to get affected by the curse. So her showing symptoms like Grainne is reasonable, their situations were also similar(Grainne was also not happy to marry Fionn and threatened Diarmuid with a geis to flee with her. It’s interesting to know that Fionn wanted Diarmuid’s death because he thought Diarmuid seduced Grainne, not vice-versa.)
That’s also something Kayneth suspected in ep 6 already – ufotable indicates his thoughts(which were explained in the novel) by showing Sola’s glance at Lancer with a smile and Lancer’s love spot, together with Kayneth’s bitter face. Kayneth actually talks to Sola about Lancer’s intentions in this war. While he doesn’t want to believe that Lancer really only wants to serve his lord, if he assumes that Lancer really has no interest in the Grail, he came to the conclusion that Lancer’s real goal is seducing the fiancee of his lord again. Kayneth could have resolved this problematic easily by talking to Lancer about his past. Maybe he wouldn’t have been led so much by jealousy, he probably would have reacted more rationally.
Actually, lack of communication is one of the main issues in Fate/zero. That goes to nearly every character in the cast, including the Masters Tokiomi, Kariya, Kayneth, Kirei and Kiritsugu.
Kiritsugu wanting to finish off Kayneth first is somehow reasonable. First, he actually already defeated Kayneth. I am pretty sure, he feared that Kayneth could have handed over the Command Spells to Sola, making him using his 38th(out of 66) Origin Bullet nearly seem like wasted(well, Sola is not so dangerous compared to Kayneth, however, Lancer still is).
If I were talking about Kiritsugu’s methods, I would spoil the fun for all of you, so I won’t. Also, unfortunately, his motives Ãn this war are only slightly mentioned at the moment. You’ll have to wait until Kiritsugu finally talks to Saber or see his past to completely understand him. However, that will have to wait until the second cour next year.
Second, Saber is helpless with only one arm. If Invisible Air(Strike Air) is enough to blow away most of Caster’s monsters and catch him off-guard, then she could easily defeat Caster with an Excaliblast. If Kayneth had died, Lancer would have disappeared, his curse would have been lifted and Saber could both fight with full power and defeat Caster/protect Iri. Saber doesn’t seem to favor victory over chivalry, Kiritsugu understands Saber better than she thinks. And what are a few sacrifices, like all the residents of Fuyuki compared to winning the Grail? Kiritsugu’s thinking is similar, but not exactly what Saber or FSN-Archer think.