Three Knight Classes: Sabers (A-F | G-M | N-R | S-Z) | Archers (A-C | D-M | N-Z | Tam Lin Tristan) | Lancers (A-F | G-M | N-Z)
Four Cavalry Classes: Riders (A-F | G-M | N-Z) | Casters (A-F | G-M | Merlin | N-Z) | Assassins (A-F | G-M | N-Z) | Berserkers (A-F | G-M | Morgan | N-Z)
Extra Classes: Rulers | Avengers | Moon Cancers | Alter Egos | Foreigners | Pretenders (Oberon)
Unplayable and Arcade Exclusive: Unplayable | Arcade Exclusive
Other Notable Characters: Chaldea Security Organization (Protagonist | Mash Kyrielight) | Villains (Beasts | Beast I | Observer on Timeless Temple Villains | Epic of Remnant Villains | Cosmos in the Lostbelt Villains (Crypters | Foreign God and Forces | Lostbelt Kings | ORT) | Ordeal Call Villains | Event Villains | Interlude Villains) | Other Characters
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/geronimo1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/geronimo1.png)
Geronimo was a prominent leader and medicine man from the Chiricahua Apache tribe. Ever since the panicked Mexican soldiers shouted "Jeronimo!" (St. Jerome, a saint who was widely known for having fought like a lion) while referring to him, he became more known as Geronimo. It was probably in the battle right before the third surrender that his reputation was highest. His forces outnumbered by the enemy, Geronimo assassinated their commander all by himself.
He's an ally in the Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum and its free Servant, as well as an major ally in the 2nd Anniversary event, "All the Statesmen." He also appears as a minor ally in Pseudo-Singularity IV: The Forbidden Advent Garden, Salem, the -MOONLIGHT/LOSTROOM- OVA, and as one of the protagonist's seven chosen summons during the Fate/Grand Order Final Singularity - Grand Temple of Time: Solomon film.
- Audience Surrogate: He tends to speak what most players think when seeing the other Servants' antics.(Nightingale Leeroy Jenkins after hearing about wounded allies) "Like coyote sniffing blood..."
(Nero shows her Giftedly Bad sides) "Now I understand the reason for Rome's decline..." - Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Downplayed, but he does wear every piece of clothing or hairstyle on that page except a mohawk. At least in Abigail's interlude, where he helps save the protagonist by fashioning a dreamcatcher, he mentions the correct tribe it came from and that it was not his own, only that as a skilled spellcaster he could replicate its effects.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Usually highly friendly and polite, but when he gets pissed off, he gets REALLY pissed off. His bloody rampage against the United States made his legend.
- Captain Patriotic: His bodypaint and clothing in this last Ascenion bear the colors of the American flag, but they're of a much more subdued tone than Edison's similarly patriotic garb.
- Composite Character: The real Geronimo is known more for his guerilla war against Mexico and the United States than any religious shamanism, which is more apparent in another famous Native American Sitting Bull
.
- Determinator: He fights against overwhelming odds without the slightest hesitation. In the Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum, he faces off against Arjuna without backing down, despite the obvious power difference.
- Foil: He shares a Class and red-white-and-blue color scheme with his fellow American Servant Edison, but while Edison is a bombastic man of science with a humongous ego, Geronimo is a quiet and humble mystic.
- Glass Cannon: While he's more known for his hilariously unfocused skillset, he does have a niche use: After his Interlude, his Noble Phantasm jumps from being underpowered to being one of the strongest of all AoE Casters, outshining budget competitors like Babbage and Elisabeth (Caster) for raw power. He still has three offensive buffs (and only one of them practically useful) and no defensive (or utility) skills, but he can clear a wave of Assassins with the best of them.
- Heroic Build: He's pretty buff for a caster and is a heroic individual.
- Irony: For a man whose homeland and people were ravaged by Americans, he is remarkably accepting and proud of modern America and being an American to a degree, happy to restore America to how it is in the present day when thrust into singularities in the past. For example, during the "All the Statesmen" event, he agrees with Edison to call "hamburg steak" as "Salisbury steak" since they're in the States and it's the American name.Geronimo: "Indeed. Even if it is unremarkable, being prideful of one's own culture is important."
Edison: "H-hm. Coming from you, and with a straight face, I couldn't help but laugh aloud..."- Averted in the beginning of the Salem Singularity however, where his response to being asked to join the group going to Puritan New England is... rather sternly worded.
- La Résistance: Leads one of those in the Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum. Not allied to Edison or the Celt side, Geronimo believes Servants should not be taking over a country and instead leave it to grow by itself.
- Magic Knight: His stats make him slightly beefier than most other Casters, and his Bloodied Demon personal skill increases his combat prowess. His profile even states his martial skill is "improper" for a Caster.
- Magical Native American: His Servant incarnation focuses a lot on his shaman heritage, hence the Caster class, and he even constructs a dreamcatcher in Abigail's Interlude. (Taking a moment to mention it's not something his tribe would produce, but he's familiar with the principles behind it.)
- Master of None: To a ridiculous degree. His three skills each boost a different card (hilariously, also boosting his only Quick card), and his Noble Phantasm, Tsago-Degi Naleya: Creator of The Earth and Its People, does damage, debuffs AND heals your team. The idea behind his kit seemed to be to create a Caster who would be able to be a backup should any offensive or support Caster be taken down, but pretty much all the Casters of similar rarity are better than him. At least his Noble Phantasm is pretty good in its own right.
- Occult Blue Eyes: Has blue eyes, representing his shaman heritage that allowed him to be summoned as a Caster.
- Odd Friendship: He gets along surprisingly well with Abigail Williams, despite her initial fear of him due to her being a young child raised in Puritan society, and his aforementioned harsh words when he was asked to go to the Salem Singularity.
- Only Sane Man: In the Riyo manga crossover, the protagonist and Mash are constantly breaking the fourth wall and acting like their manga counterparts while Edison is being Edison. Geronimo, meanwhile, is very worried about how everyone else is suddenly acting insane.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His real name of Goyaalé ("one who yawns") is only alluded in his profile and he doesn't bother mentioning his True Name since it doesn't have that much weight to it and simply uses his more popular name.
- The Power of the Sun: His Noble Phantasm. He summons the coyote who, in a certain Apache tale
, stole the sun's tobacco, causing the sun to run after him. The NP both deals damage by massive light and heat, and protects and reinforces Geronimo's allies through the coyote guardian spirit.
- Renaissance Man: His profile suggests he could be summoned in four different classes: Archer, Lancer, Assassin, and of course Caster. And he shows off his tactical acumen and intelligence as well as his martial and magical skill in America, All The Statesmen, and several interludes.
- Supporting Leader: Twice he acts as the group leader when the heroes go Let's Split Up, Gang!. While it's not explicitly said, people tend to trust him with the leadership because he's capable in many aspects, not to mention being a native in America so he has the terrain advantage.
- This Is Gonna Suck: In Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum, when he realizes that he and Billy are about to go up against Arjuna and they have no chance of victory.
- The Worf Effect: He unleashes Tsago-Degi Naleya against Arjuna in the Fifth Singularity: North American Myth Warm E Pluribus Unum while they're inside Nero Bride's NP, which means Arjuna should be at least somewhat weakened due to being an enemy. Arjuna still stops it just by firing his own normal arrows against it, with no need to use his own NP.
- Worth It: Several people comment on his trying to restore the proper history, which doesn't exactly end well for his people. Geronimo's response is this trope, that he doesn't want to dishonor the sacrifices made by his comrades, even if they were defeated in the end.
- Wrong Context Magic: Going by Ashiya Douman's Valentine's scene, Geronimo's shamanism exists outside of the logic of his spells, leading to the former speculating the latter can resist his curses.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_gilgamesh_1.jpg](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_gilgamesh_1.jpg)
The supreme wise king who returned from the journey of immortality. In legends, he has been described as “the one who saw everything”. At times ruthless, at times approving of human nature. Unlike his Archer incarnation, a hero personifying raging power, this incarnation of Gilgamesh is a great king of Uruk who strictly leads the masses. Because he is much more cautious than when acting as the King of Heroes, his reluctance in combat has drastically increased.
He debuted in the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia as the main ally. He also appears in the -MOONLIGHT/LOSTROOM- OVA and naturally has a starring role in the TV animated adaptation of the Seventh Singularity. In the FGO Arcade version of Babylon, a copy of his Caster spirit origin is used by Nebuchadnezzar II who serves as an antagonist. He has a minor ally role in Lostbelt no. 7, "Golden Sea of Trees Travelogue, Nahui Mictlān".
- Aloof Ally: According to Nasu's blog, Gilgamesh and Merlin aren't allies per se, but that having the same ability (Clairvoyance) makes them colleagues at the same workplace who already know each other and are frank towards each other from the moment they meet.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: He loses his memories for much of the third Summer event, but while he's about as instinctively conceited, he's much nicer and spends his money with jovial abandon.
- Back from the Dead: Played for Laughs version happens in both Ibaraki and Ishtar's interludes when they try to raid his treasure, both times he comes back alive temporarily to stop them.
- Balance Buff: His Rank Up Quest buffs his NP damage and adds the extra effect of a party-wide 20% Critical Strength buff for 3 turns. Particularly noticeable since before this he had all the makings of a Support Party Member for the Critical Hit Class Arts team except for a Critical Strength buff.
- Benevolent Boss: To his subjects, showing concern and compassion to his soldiers and their families as they fight to defend Uruk. He even gives many weapons and treasures from the Gate of Babylon to them in order to help them against the monster hordes of the gods. A good example of this is when Ishtar drops in and attacks during your first meeting with him. His soldiers all panic and flee, and not once does he threaten them or berate them for doing so (considering who Ishtar is, the soldiers couldn't do anything anyway), only leaving a snarky comment towards one of the remaining soldiers about how he could use the chance to finally meet Ishtar in person, with said soldier rightfully declining and leaving.
- Berserk Button:
- He despises it when people willingly do something, yet complain about having to do it. Part of why he gets angry at Ereshkigal right before the boss fight against her is that, she willingly took up the role as the Goddess of the Underworld, but her reason to join the Goddess Alliance was to get out of the Underworld after years of ruling it. It would be one thing if she was forced to do so, but she made her choice to do so.
- Another one is any attempt on raiding his treasury. He will not stand down when anyone tries to steal from him as shown in Ibaraki's Interlude where he comes back from the Underworld just to stop Ibaraki from trying to steal from him. He actually goes to his Archer form during the battle to show just how serious he is on defending it.
- Another thing he despises is pity, especially if it’s for Uruk’s people. Knowing they will meet their end fighting Tiamat, the people of Uruk fight on regardless of that fate. Seeing anyone take pity on that is more like an insult, and one he takes very personally. He even threatens Mash that if she showed genuine pity for him and his people, he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her on the spot.
- Big Good: His role as the main ally in the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia is basically this. He stays for the most part of story in Uruk to give orders to you and his subordinates, and he rarely has the opportunity to travel with you, but he's more than happy to do so when it comes.
- Born Winner: Even if he's less of an egotistical jerk about it, he's still the King of Heroes with all the treasures of the world at his disposal.
- Breakout Character: Having first featured in Fate/stay night as an antagonist with a rather minor role in two of the routes, Gilgamesh has since appeared as a major antagonist in Fate/Zero, as one of the four playable Servants in Fate/EXTRA CCC and as one of the Servants in Fate/strange Fake, as well as other minor features. He's also the main character of the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia.
- Call-Forward: His Interlude's release coincides with the prologue for Part 2 and is a year after Part 1 has already concluded, but it's chronologically set after the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia and right before fighting in the Final Singularity: The Grand Temple of Time, Solomon. The Interlude is chock-full of setup for post-Part 1 events. During the Interlude, Gilgamesh discusses how integral Dr. Roman is to Chaldea and encourages Romani to take a break from overworking, helping look for him when he later turns up missing while da Vinci notes that Chaldea wouldn't have gotten as far as they have without his help (and if she were the director, they'd accomplish more but with much greater losses). Gilgamesh forces Mash to stay behind to operate the Rayshift equipment after seven operators are rendered unconscious, noting that the remaining operators should teach her since it'll "probably be useful later" while personally accompanying the Master during the Interlude's Rayshift without Mash. The end of the Interlude reveals that it was just a drill and that the Servants that they fight (except Aŋra Mainiiu, who is an unregistered Spirit Origin at the time) had faked defection from Chaldea... but Gilgamesh is dumbfounded that the Master hadn't believed it was a betrayal at all, even though he had picked Servants most likely to defect (Amakusa Shirou, Paracelsus, and Jack the Ripper). This last bit being Foreshadowing instead for Part 2's developing plot.
- Came Back Strong: He gets killed in battle towards the end of the Seventh Singularity... but his dying act was to summon himself as a Heroic Spirit, using his own body as a catalyst. He appears in his full Archer might, his access to the Gate of Babylon no longer inhibited, and with no intention of holding back anything to save what is left of his kingdom.
- Character Development: His profile notes that this iteration of Gilgamesh has all the maturity he acquired after his adventures. He still is arrogant, but his arrogance is nowhere near prominent as his Archer version.
- Critical Hit Class: What differs him from Tamamo-no-Mae is that Gilgamesh is capable of increasing the party's Star Drop Rate by up to 100%, making him the optimal support for Arts teams that focus on Critical Hits. While he doesn't buff Critical Strength before his Balance Buff, the ability to buff the party's Star Drop Rate is enough to significantly increase the amount of Critical Stars an Arts Servant with self-built Critical Strength buffs can ask for (which include Lancelot Saber, Shiki Assassin, Li Lancer, Hokusai Saber, Kagetora, etc.). And after his Balance Buff that provides said Critical Strength buff on his NP, suddenly he can support those Servants even further while providing the same to Arts Servants with no built-in such buff.
- Death by Irony: His Archer version is infamous in the Fate franchise for holding back his immense power to toy with his opponents, and then paying the price for it; in all the routes of Fate/stay night he's been killed because he didn't put in enough effort. Midway through the Babylon singularity, Caster Gilgamesh ends up overworking himself governing Uruk and commanding a three-front war to the point that he literally dies from stress and overexertion - in other words, he was killed for putting in too much effort. He gets better, fortunately, since the metaphysics of the Underworld allow the Protagonist to fetch his soul and revive him one time.
- Death Is Cheap: As shown in Ibaraki's Interlude, him dying in the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia doesn't mean much since he can quite literally walk out of Kur so that he can look over his kingdom.
- Discard and Draw: Within the story, Gilgamesh is considerably weaker than he might otherwise be because he emptied most of his Gate of its weapons and gave them to his soldiers to help defend Uruk, in addition to sealing away Ea. In their place, he primarily uses magic staves to launch powerful magic blasts. This in addition to summoning seven Servants from the Throne of Heroes to help fight the siege.
- The summoned version, however, claims that he's simply in the Caster vessel to ward off boredom (and to make fun of Solomon, the current owner of the Grand Caster vessel). However, when first summoned he claims he's in that form in response to Uruk's crisis, so he might not be entirely truthful.
- Foreshadowing: The idea that Gilgamesh could be summoned as a Caster was first introduced in the Fate/Ace Royal card game included in ninth volume of Type-Moon Ace magazine series in Japan.
- The Good King: Is treated as this by his subjects in the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia. It's telling that Uruk is thriving and all of his citizens are happy and utterly loyal to him despite pressure from incoming refugees from other cities and warding over thousands of demonic beasts a day for the past six months.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": In the 2018 summer event if you make a Slice of Life AU doujin about on the Knights of the Round Table taking care of a baby Lion King, Gilgamesh in his Establishment Spiritron Dress suggests the sequel include the rich neighbor called "The Oldest King" who becomes the Lion King's new tutor and they fall in love.
- Hyper Space Arsenal: While he is capable of Instant Runes spells using his "spellbook" (it's a tablet, they didn't have books back then), his main method of attack is, as usual, to summon a bunch of stuff from the Gate of Babylon. Though this time he mainly uses multiple wands and magic staves (which shoot ancient Uruk magic) rather than just shoot swords at everything.
- Instant Runes: These appear around his tablet whenever he attacks. Presumably, said runes are what control the wands and staves he uses from the Gate of Babylon (and why his Archer version can't shoot spells from them the way Caster can).
- Ironic Episode Title: His Interlude is titled "The King's Day Off", and one would think it's another lighthearted picnic or whatever instead of the sudden and dangerous Singularity investigation that actually happens. It's released on the eve of Part 2's release despite chronologically taking place right before the end of Part 1, and features many Call Forwards. While the title as King Gilgamesh's Interlude implies that it's his day off (and he starts the Interlude taking a break), it ends with Dr. Roman AKA King Solomon finally getting some rest.
- It Amused Me: According to him, he didn't decide to become The Good King of Uruk out of any kind of obligation or sense of duty, he did it because he found it entertaining.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's still as sharp-tongued and prideful as ever, but he clearly cares for his kingdom. He won't become the best friend of anyone who just asks, laughing at the protagonist despite knowing of their accomplishments and telling them to prove themselves as beneficial for Uruk to get his help, but to those he trusts he shows a more relaxed and amiable side. Throughout the singularity, it's made clear that his abrasiveness is mostly because of the stress of commanding a three-front war that he and his kingdom are badly losing.
- Kindness Button: Despite demanding respect and reverence when addressing him, he still enjoys seeing defiance. Notably when the Protagonist calls out King Gilgamesh for hiding the fact many citizens were kidnapped including Siduri, if the protagonist chooses to call him a jackass he merely smiles, mentioning that he likes to see them fired up and orders them to save the civilians who were kidnapped. Also shown with his own citizens. Every life saved that keeps on fighting is in its own way a triumph. Gilgamesh saw in his clairvoyant vision that he would be alone when fighting Tiamat at Uruk’s fall, the fact 500 citizens still stand at all is in his eyes a testament to the power of humans and especially the Protagonist, who commends them for being able to Screw Destiny.
- Lawful Good: His in-universe alignment. His character development since Enkidu's death has shifted him from his Archer incarnation's Chaotic Good. He is now a genuinely caring and responsible king.
- Leitmotif:
- The game's remix of his Fate/stay night's theme "Golden King
" plays nearly everytime he makes an appearance.
- The anime introduces a new one for him; "The King who Reigns
", used during a Rousing Speech and his return as Archer Gilgamesh.
- The game's remix of his Fate/stay night's theme "Golden King
- Loophole Abuse: Gilgamesh in life was never any sort of mage. He just technically qualifies for the class due to his possession of every magic item ever created by humanity and his clairvoyance.
- Loved by All: The people of Uruk love their king and are able to be optimistic even in the face of impending danger as a result. Even when they're given full knowledge that they will inevitably fall to Tiamat and that Uruk was doomed from the start, Gilgamesh's citizens continue to fight to the last man out of pride in their homeland and loyalty to their king.
- Magic Knight: Gameplay-wise, this is where he is justifiably classified. While it may take a while for him to build NP, his skills guarantee that he will do so anyway (since they increase ATK, C. Star Drop Rate and Arts Card Effectiveness—and these buffs are party-wide). Couple this with the AoE multiple hit of Melammu Diĝir and you're basically enjoying an Arts-version of EMIYA's Unlimited Blade Works/Atalante's Phoebus Catastrophe, which could be used by any Arts-based and support Servants to crit/build their own Noble Phantasms. Amongst all Arts-based Servants, this Gilgamesh is hands down one of the best DPS/support hybrid alongside Nero Bride. Put him in a team with a main boss killernote and a healernote , and you'll be spamming NP and stars like nobody's business.
- Mr. Fanservice: He is an extremely attractive and handsome-looking man who is also a Shameless Fanservice Guy that spends the majority of the time wearing revealing outfits or just being straight up shirtless to show off his fit and very well-built body
- Occidental Otaku: well, "Ancient Near -Eastern Otaku". He summons nine servants to Babylonia, seven of them Japanese, causing some joking among fans that he is clearly some kind of Japanophile.
- Older and Wiser: While older Fate materials show that Archer Gilgamesh isn't actually any younger than Caster Gilgamesh, the latter actually has the maturity and wisdom that comes with all their experiences, and it shows; Uruk's citizens are really capable, content, and happy with his rule. In his first meeting with the heroes, he is shown making several tactically smart choices with his army (such as sending out patrols led by people familiar to the area, in addition to using it as a chance for the person familiar with the area to see his home), and he even listens to the heroes despite not agreeing with them.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Subverted in a Black Comedy moment in the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia when Tiamat blows a hole through his chest, where he laughs off the protagonist's concern by stating it is only a mortal wound.
- Other Me Annoys Me:
Word of God is that he and his Archer counterpart find each other's priorities to be an implied object of ridicule and both versions of Gilgamesh would mock the other if they had a chance meeting in Chaldea.
- Pet the Dog: His appearance in the seventh Lostbelt is to freely offer the protagonist his youth potion free of charge with no strings attached. Gilgamesh also amends his low ranking of their status as Master from third-rate to growing to at least second-rate with little fuss after Mash asks him on why he'd assess them so lowly. Rasputin/Kotomine lampshades this, commenting that such a generous king is a far cry from the one he knew. Gil's response is to warn them to get rid of Kotomine when they can before he betrays them.
- The Power of Friendship: If anything, his Noble Phantasm Melammu Diĝir: The King's Signal is implied to run on this—and is the biggest indicator of how this version of Gilgamesh is different from his Archer version. As a king, he relies less on how awesome/powerful he individually is, and is more trusting and enabling of his subjects—much like how Iskandar's Ionioi Hetairoi worked.
- Quit Your Whining: When Ereshkigal complains about the price of upholding her duty - isolation, an ugly world, hatred of the living and so on - Gilgamesh scolds her by saying that it's fine to hate her duty, but since she chose to do it herself she should be proud of her accomplishments. Whether or not she feels unhappy about the consequences is her own business, but she shouldn't complain.
- Rain of Arrows: His new Noble Phantasm summons both the mighty walls of Babylon and their defenders wielding his ballistae to rain death upon his foes. That's right, the guy has a Rain of Arrows when he's NOT an Archer.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Albeit his initial dismissal of Chaldea because he deems them insignificant, he allows them a chance to prove themselves worthy of his acknowledgment, and assigns Siduri as their aide.
- Red Baron: The Wise King and still the King of Heroes.
- Red Mage: Gilgamesh's skills all benefit his team and he has an offensive AoE Noble Phantasm that also buffs the party's DEF, making him a hybrid of a supporter and damage dealer, not unlike Helena Blavatsky.
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: He's Older and Wiser than his Archer counterpart, and it shows in his much better rule, but he has the same arrogant temperament (though thankfully no longer to the point of being a tyrant).
- Sarcasm Failure: The only time he's rendered speechless in the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia is when Ishtar admits that she can't bring out Gugalanna to use against Tiamat because she somehow managed to lose him. Even he wasn't expecting that level of carelessness from her. Once he gets over his shock though, he blows his top.
- Secret Test: In his Interlude, he arrives to Chaldea, tours the facilities, and asks the protagonist numerous questions about how everything works. Everyone even notes that, rather than seeming curious, it seems like he's just testing the Master while criticizing how dependent Chaldea is on every staff member, especially Dr. Roman who needs rest from constant overworking. Later, he sets up a drill where Merlin just hides Romani sleeping more than his usual unhealthy amount in his room, causing a panic as Chaldea investigates a Rayshift detection to look for him that features three Servants "betraying" them as Gilgamesh observes how Chaldea copes in emergencies, especially those that may result in missing, vital staff.
- Seers: Has EX-ranked Clairvoyance just like Solomon and Merlin, allowing him to see the future.
- Shameless Fanservice Guy: As far as Gilgamesh is concerned, he's doing the world a favor by walking around half-naked. His Ascension lines imply that he likes to strip in front of the protagonist because he's amused by their reaction. His half-naked appearance even reminds Elisabeth Báthory the infamous "AUO Castoff" scene in Fate/Extra CCC."It's easier to move now. What are you looking at? So entranced by the sight of the king's body that you lost your very soul?"
"Well, let's see where this goes... no, I'm not asking your opinion. Just pay close attention." - Summon Magic: He summons eight ally Servants: Merlin, Amakusa Shirou, Ibaraki Douji, Tomoe Gozen, Fuuma Kotarou, Leonidas, Ushiwakamaru, and Benkei in the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia to help him defend Uruk. However, only half of them remained by the time Chaldea arrives, Tomoe having died in a Heroic Sacrifice, Kotarou and Amakusa being killed in battle, and Ibaraki getting bored and becoming a mountain bandit.
- Taking the Bullet: During Tiamat's attack on Uruk, he takes a mortal blow from her in order to protect you. He still lasts for really long time in order to keep Tiamat at bay and is actually glad that he is going to die this way as he doesn't have to worry about how he needs to die in order to end the Singularity.
- Took a Level in Kindness: This version is a downright saint compared to his self-absorbed Archer version. Instead of a tyrant who presides over his kingdom with a combination of inhuman charisma and overwhelming firepower, Caster Gil is The Good King who is universally beloved. He's a Benevolent Boss who supports all of soldiers with treasures from the Gate of Babylon to fight off the impending invasion of demonic beasts, offers them time off, and works himself half-to-death to keep Uruk well defended.
- Triumphant Reprise: His Leitmotif is a more imperious but less anxious version of "The Golden King" from Fate/stay night - showing his shift in temperament between classes, from a whimsical tyrant to a proper ruler.
- Tsundere: The very first thing he does upon being summoned is to suspiciously insist that he didn't decide to become your Servant because he likes you or anything. During Valentine's Day, he even has Da Vinci deliver his return gift in his place because he's too proud to do it himself.
- Unreliable Expositor: During Christmas 2017 he's the protagonist's source of information on the relationships between Ereshkigal, Nergal, Ishtar and Dumuzid, but while nothing he says is untrue, he leaves some things out presumably due to ignorance of the gods in question. Notably, Dumuzid and Nergal are not as big of dicks as he makes them seem.
- Unskilled, but Strong: He's no mage, despite his Class. He might have been one of the greatest in history if he'd bothered to learn it, but instead he only qualifies because he happens to possess exceptionally high Clairvoyance and magic items beyond counting, allowing him to get the same results. However, despite his lack of ability as an actual mage, he possesses so much energy that he's able to singlehandedly power the defenses of Uruk and summoned eight Servants on his own to defend Uruk, though several died before the player character arrived and one ran away to become a bandit. His parameters reflect this, as his Item Construction is at A but has "False" appended to it - because while he knows nothing about crafting items, he can just pull something out from the Gate of Babylon to get the same result.
- Visual Pun: His "Establishment" costume (from Summer 2018) changes his stone tablet into... a golden modern tablet.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Ishtar even dubs him "Oh Shirtless King of Uruk".
- Workaholic: Not only does he die of overwork during Babylonia, but he complains that he doesn't have time to be dead when he realizes it.
- Years Too Early: He applies this stock phrase to the simple act of resting in his My Room Conversations."You're one hundred years early to be resting. Don't bore me, mongrel."
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_gilles_1.jpg](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_gilles_1.jpg)
A nobleman and former comrade-of-arms of Jeanne d'Arc, whose death brought great disillusionment into the once-virtuous man, who returned to his territory and changed for the worse as a serial killer.
He is an antagonist and instigator of the Orleans chapter while serving under the Dragon Witch. He is a minor antagonist in Accel Zero Order.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In a way. Not counting his younger, better-looking Saber version, Gilles isn't quite as grotesque as he was in his home series. Part of this, admittedly, is due to flattering camera angles in his first three character portraits that partially conceal his Fish Eyes (which are on full display in his final ascension) and display his manly jawline (which is usually concealed by his hunched posture).
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: His Noble Phantasm, Prelati's Spellbook: Text of the Spiraled Sunken Capital, summons a Lovecraftian sea demon.
- Balance Buff:
- His first Rank Up Quest gave him the third skill Evil Eye of the Abyss C, which inflicts the Terror status for five turns with a chance to stun for each of those turns.
- His second Rank Up Quest released with the "Nautilus Ascend!〜 Void Space Naval Battle・Imaginary Scramble" event upgrades Artistic Aesthetic E- to Blasphemous Aesthetic C++, which changes the one-turn NP Damage Down from single-target to party-wide and removes the Servant-only restriction while almost doubling the effect and adds both a party-wide Arts Resistance Down and Buster Resistance Down for 10~20% and three turns each.
- His third Rank Up Quest that came with the Seventh Anniversary buffed his NP so that aside from a damage increase it charged the NP Gauge of all Foreigner Servants by 30% and applies a Defense Down debuff on all enemies that scales with Overcharge.
- Character Development: Played with. His madness from Fate/Zero is largely absent, but his hatred of humanity and France remains.
- Double Unlock: He can only be summoned from the story gacha after completing the Orleans singularity.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Jeanne Alter's right-hand man but Jeanne Alter mostly defers to him in terms of what to do during the Singularity. And he's the one responsible for her very existence and the Singularity in the first place through his wish on the Holy Grail.
- Evil Makes You Ugly: While Gilles as a Saber wasn't that good-looking, and looked rather plain at worst, Gilles as a Caster is... yeesh.
- Give Me a Sign: At his core, Gilles is a man who desperately yearns for God. Jeanne's execution was a mortal blow to his faith, because as far as Gilles' concerned, God should have saved Jeanne from her death, and the fact that He didn't means that He doesn't care. After her death, he was left with a mad need to prove that God does indeed care. The only way he could think to do that though was by incurring His wrath, which was the motivation for his many atrocities. If God loves and cares about humanity, surely he would punish someone so wicked, right? Except Gilles never got the divine punishment he wanted, which drove him further into despair and evil until he died, and even as a Servant, he's still trying to get God to punish him to validate his faith. Tragically, it's never occurred to him that not getting the direct punishment he wants so badly from God, but instead meeting his end at the hands of his fellow man could in fact be God's punishment.
- Gonk: Look at him as a Saber. Now look at him here.
- Go Out with a Smile: Jeanne forgiving him for his crimes upon his defeat puts his mind at ease, allowing him to fade away peacefully even if he feels undeserving of such generosity.
- Greater-Scope Villain: A weird case for the France singularity. He's the one that created Jeanne Alter with a Grail, but he's perfectly content following her as The Dragon.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: While Gilles is far from the only example of this in Fate, he is particularly notable given the amount of doubt cast on the validity of his crimes that have arisen over the years.note Given how Heroic Spirits work, Caster Gilles should possess the Innocent Monster Skill to reflect this, or exist as "the possibility that he was truly guilty of the atrocities he was accused of". However, the idea of of Gilles possibly having been innocent has never been raised In-Universe, and his crimes are treated as indisputable fact.
- Inept Mage: While he dabbled in the occult in life, Gilles wasn't a mage and has no training in magecraft. As a Caster, he's dependent on Prelati's Spellbook to do the magecraft for him.
- Inspiration Nod: Gilles' bond profile notes how the crimes he committed in life were likely the basis for the Bluebeard story and the trope it is named after.
- Lighter and Softer: Aside from his debut in Orleans, he behaves considerably less monstrously than he did in Fate/Zero when under the protagonist's command. Most notably, he gets along with a number of child Servants, such as Jeanne Alter Lily, Abigail, and Jack the Ripper — A far cry from the gleeful child-killer he was in Zero. Most of this can be attributed characters such as the protagonist and Jeanne around to act as his Morality Chain, rather than enabling and encouraging his depravity the way Ryuunosuke did.
- Love Makes You Evil: Gilles loved, and still loves, Jeanne like a daughter. Her tragic death shattered him, led to his hatred of France, God, and humanity, and triggered his Rage Against the Heavens and descent into evil.
- Magic Eye: His Evil Eye of the Abyss skill, which allows him to awaken fear in his targets, although his are explicitly not Mystic Eyes like many others examples in the Nasuverse, but rather a Personal Skill that represents the time he spent studying Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.
- Mr. Exposition: Serves as this for segments of "Imaginary Scramble" to Da Vinci and Sion, explaining the behavior of the Outer Gods and their connections to the Foreigner-class. But even he doesn't have any answers for Mysterious Heroine XX.
- Nonindicative Name: He's most famous as the folk villain "Bluebeard", but is completely clean shaven. Perhaps it was added to make him even more villainous?
- Parental Substitute: The Da Vinci event shows with the fake Gilles made by Jeanne Alter that the feelings of Gilles towards Jeanne were those of a father. Even with her plan for a harem, his role is as the doting father who she views as annoying as she got older.
- Pet the Dog:
- When he and Fou are separated from the protagonists during the Phantom's Interlude, he instinctively considers sacrificing Fou to demons before deciding to just help him reunite with the rest of the group.
- In the Prison Tower event, after he's beaten in the Tower he appears to the protagonist back in Chaldea and wishes them luck in conquering the challenges ahead of them.
- Post-Final Boss: In Orleans after Jeanne Alter's defeat. He's not as powerful or dangerous as she is even with the Grail's strength backing him and his battle is mostly meant to wrap up the final threads of the chapter's plot.
- Pretender Diss: He insults Nero and Mordred for lacking the nobility and heroism Jeanne and Artoria possess."No, this will not do... Not just any blond knight maiden will do... You need to be far more clean, pretty, honest, and pure... More, how should I put it..."
- Rage Against the Heavens: His entire MO and what forms the basis for him as a Anti-Heroic Spirit. Everything he does is to spite God for allowing Jeanne to die and then not punishing him for his many crimes.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The France chapter is basically his attempt to punish the nation for getting Jeanne killed. Strangely, he's in his right (if villainous) mind for all of it.
- Sanity Slippage: Gilles was originally a good man, but Jeanne's death and his following crisis of faith did a number on his mental state, and then Prelati came along and finished off what was left, resulting in the monster he is now.
- Seven Deadly Sins: He's chosen to embody the sin of sloth during the Prison Tower event. When the protagonist questions how exactly he represents sloth, Dantès justifies it as Gilles having been unwilling to move past Jeanne's death, and subsequently allowing himself to fall into despair and depravity rather than keep his faith.
- Strange Minds Think Alike:
- One of his Personal Skills, Mental Pollution, means he cannot understand or be understood by anyone without the same level of distorted mentality. This doesn't stop him from getting along just fine with the protagonist and just about everyone else in Chaldea.
- He and Medea both dislike Morded and Nero for lacking the "purity" of Jeanne and Artoria respectively.
- Success Through Insanity: His general madness combined with dabbling in the occult thanks to Prelati ends up making him surprisingly knowledgeable on certain things, even more than other people. In Abigail's Interlude, he is one of two people alongside Caster of Midrash who noticed a disturbance in the stars that the Chaldea's staff couldn't notice, possibly hinting at the arrival of the Foreign God. And in "Imaginary Scramble" event, he is shown to be more knowledgeable on the true nature of the Outer Gods than even the Foreigners are thanks to what is written in Prelati's Spellbook.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: As a result of delving too deep into the occult, his bulging eyes are (fittingly) capable of inducing fear in his targets, which manifests as his Evil Eye of the Abyss skill. The official game material books further clarify that he awakens a person's instinctual fear of the unknown.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: Gilles wields Prelati's Spellbook: Text of the Sunken Spiraled City, aka the R'lyeh Text — a copy of the Necronomicon that lets him summon eldritch monsters from another dimension.
- Villainous Friendship:
- As can be seen from his Bond CE, he and Prelati are genuinely fond of each other's personalities, though Prelati's motivation is also laced with It Amused Me.
- One of Abigail Williams' remarks states that he is being "very kind" to her, either as a ruse so that he can attempt to murder her or genuinely due to their shared Lovecraftian abilities.Abigail: That Gilles de Rais-san in the black coat is really kind when it comes to me. I wonder why...?
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Lorewise, his only ability is summoning demons. He gets a lot of mileage out of it.
- You Remind Me of X: When encountering the Saber-faces (or rather, in his case, Jeanne-faces) he can't help but compare them to his beloved idol. He does appreciate Altria a lot for her resemblance to Jeanne; Nero and Mordred, on the other hand, he really doesn't like due to the wildly different personality.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
- After their battle, Jeanne forgives him for his crimes and looks forward to one day fighting alongside him as allies once more should fate permit it. Gilles smiles at her benevolence and fades away ashamed of being so undeserving of it, albeit peacefully.
- Later inverted at the Château d'If, where he's honored that Dantès would consider him to be the worst that humanity is capable of becoming. Basically, Jeanne's approval fills him with shame, but everyone else's condemnation makes him quite happy.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hansnew1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hansnew1.png)
An eminent writer of children's literature. Despite his renown, the real Andersen was anything but a cheerful man — if anything, he hated his own life, thus the version of him the player summons is obviously a manifestation of his desire to return to his happier childhood.
He debuted in Fate/EXTRA CCC as Kiara's Servant. In this game, he appears as an ally in the "Fourth Singularity: The Mist City, London". Andersen in an adult body appeared in the "Servant Summer Camp" event as a supporting character.
- Adaptational Badass: In Extra CCC, it was made a point that Andersen has zero combat capabilities on his own, making him strictly a Support Party Member. While him being able to fire generic magic blasts can be seen as an upgrade from that, his animation renewal gives him the power to summon characters from his books to attack or even giving him the ability to replicate events that happen in his stories, like his Quick attack having his target's ankles suddenly getting cut sort of like what happens to Karen in Red Shoes.
- The Alcoholic: His birthday quote sells it. Truth in Television, he died of liver cancer in real life (but a back injury didn't help matters).[uncharacteristically cheerful] "Happy Birthday! Now treat me to some alcohol."
- Animation Bump: He received an animation and sprite update for the "Chaldea Thriller Night" event, where he not only summons the characters of his stories but Kiara as well.
- Aroused by Their Voice: When meeting him in the Fourth Singularity: The Mist City, London, all of the characters note that he has a really cool voice.Mordred: You kind of... have a real nice voice. Is your voice changing right now?Andersen: Yeah, I've always wanted to be in theaters. [realizes what he's saying] So embarrassing. Nothing's more embarrassing than a life where you couldn't achieve what you want. Well, we'll put talk of my beautiful voice aside. I'll be talking your ears off from here anyways.
- Art Shift: As part of his animation update, his fairytales manifest as very simplistic flat paper cutouts for his attacks.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: He gets distracted while trying to uncover vital information about the villains and starts perusing the Mages Association library. The rest of the heroes aren't happy, considering they were pulling a Hold the Line for him. The fans, on the other hand, were pleasantly surprised when it's revealed later that he found the original purpose of the Heroic Spirit summoning system.
- Awesome by Analysis: His greatest talent is his ability to determine someone's true nature simply by observing and holding a conversation with them, laying out both their flaws and virtues out to bare for all the world to see. His observations are so spot on that even Gilgamesh finds it in him to respect Andersen's stories and not kill him on the spot for vilifying him. This also lends into his Noble Phantasm, Marchen Meines Lebens, which requires him to know the protagonist of his story well enough to write a story about them.
- Balance Buff:
- The Rank-Up Campaign X trades his Innocent Monster D for Mermaid's Love EX, which not only removes the DEF Down Demerit, but he also drop more Critical Stars with it (5 to 15), and he can also charge up an ally's NP Gauge by 5 to 10% for three turns.
- The 8th Anniversary gave him an upgrade to his Human Observation skill which aside from boosting it's crit damage to 50% also grants allies different buffs depending on their alignment note
- Because You Were Nice to Me: His opinion of the protagonist changes as they bring him refreshments and give him time to rest in between assignments on top of being a respectable person overall, which sharply contrasts his relationship with Sesshouin Kiara, who more or less just needed him to ascend her to the level of a True Demon."Hmm. You know, I get everything I want the moment I want them. You must really be good at your work, Master."
- Body Horror: Thanks to the Innocent Monster skill he has no control over his physical form. Being a famous author has inflicted this upon him. Underneath his clothes are a merman's scales, frostbite, burns, and sharp pains that cut his throat when he speaks.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Although he's a brilliant writer who composes manuscripts at superhuman speeds, the rigors of fighting in the Singularities have left him with incredible deadlines that he doesn't want to be stuck with unless he has to, leading him to frequently complain about the workload of being a Servant in his dialogue.[at the start of battle] "It's time to work? Fine, I want another vacation."
- Brutal Honesty: His Rank-A Human Observation skill makes him understand the flaws of others and leads him to make assumptions about the person. He then rudely states their flaws and errors. Although pessimistic, he does this because he understands that person, not out of malice, and he's almost always able to find something to praise about a person amidst all of the insults. In fact, providing an accurate portrayal of the people he's writing about is so important to him that he considers his words to be more important than his life."I'm sure you've noticed by now, but I hate people. Don't even bother asking why."
- Celibate Hero: He never married, though according to a rumor he was attracted to someone and was just too proud to confess his feelings.
- Covered in Scars: Though it's not apparent thanks to his clothing, Andersen bears all the wounds of all his more tragic characters thanks to the popular assumption that they were based on his own personal misery and hangups.
- Critical Hit Class: Two of his skills, Human Observation and Innocent Monster/Mermaid's Love, are meant specifically for Critical-Hit based team compositions, as the former increases Critical Strength while the later drops Critical Stars per turn.
- Crippling Overspecialization: His magic rank is EX, but all his other stats are ranked E.
- A Day in the Limelight: He, along with Shakespeare, have increased plot relevance during Epic of Remnant.
- Deadpan Snarker: Out of all the Servants, he might very well be the biggest of all. Almost every line out of his mouth contains some sort of snark at the expense of someone else. In London, his constant habit of this gets on Mordred's nerves, and several times Mash has to outright shield Andersen from getting stabbed by her.
- Deconstruction: It seems to be his hobby.
- Defrosting Ice King: He's abrasive as ever at first, rarely, if ever holding his tongue. However, as his Bond Level increases and he realizes that the protagonist is genuinely trying their best to befriend him and make him comfortable, he comes to consider them a first-rate Master and even offers to write a story about them. He also mentions that he wouldn't mind writing this story as a silly action-adventure novel for young boys, a genre that goes against his usual pessimism."Allow me to write your story. It'll be written for kids, but, sometimes a youthful adventure is nice."
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: He, without any irony, insults Solomon during his lecture on the Grand Servants. It earns him a death of being sliced up and then blasted.
- To a lesser extent, his relationship with Kiara is this as well, being the only person to get under her skin with his remarks despite the overwhelming gap in power.
- Foil: With Shakespeare in regards to their differing literary opinions and their treatment of the protagonist: Andersen is like a loyal Sour Supporter while Shakespeare is essentially Affably Evil and only along for the joyride. Lampshaded by Da Vinci herself at the end of "Pseudo-Singularity I: Quarantined Territory of Malice: Shinjuku":Da Vinci: "Incidentally, Hans Christian Andersen is nothing like [Shakespeare's behavior]. He's not in love with his own work. Instead, he uses his work to express how he wishes the world was. You can see that in the affection he shows toward [the protagonist]. Shakespeare may think highly of you, but only because he thinks you'll inspire new stories."
- Foreshadowing:
- Da Vinci brings up Andersen in "Pseudo-Singularity I: Quarantined Territory of Malice: Shinjuku" in the midst of the protagonist climbing Barrel Tower, fighting off hordes of mooks, and nearing the end of the Pseudo-Singularity, making her comment a bit out-of-place. Unless, of course, Andersen himself shows up at the end.
- During "GUDAGUDA Honnoji", upon his defeat he mentions he wouldn't want to be around, just in case he meets a weird nun or some such... guess who appears during Epic of Remnant but Sessyoin Kiara herself?
- Height Angst: Is bothered by the unique nature of his summoning and the fact that he won't get any taller.[after leveling up] "My height is not changing at all, though."
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: He's well aware of his abysmal stats and relatively limited usefulness when compared to magi from the Age of Gods and heroes with actual combat experience. In his original game, he refers to himself as a "useless non-human" and laments that he wasn't able to bring about the ending his Master desired.
- Hikikomori: Despises field work unless absolutely necessary due to his status as a Squishy Wizard.[upon being defeated] "I am much averse to physical labor..."
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: He will relentlessly criticize people for their flaws and mean every damn word, but will just as easily come to their aid and follow them to hell if need be, most prevalent with Kiara.
- Irony: Andersen considers The Little Mermaid to be his worst work, yet it is incredibly popular among his readers, especially by women and children. The Little Mermaid is also Kiara's and Mash's favorite fairytale he wrote, the latter even asking him to write a sequel. The Rank-Up Campaign X even replaces his Innocent Monster skill for The Little Mermaid's Love, implying that The Little Mermaid overshadows all of Andersen's other works, making it somewhat of his signature fairytale.
- Jack of All Trades: His healing Noble Phantasm that provides ATK and DEF buffs, combined with two skills that help Critical Hit-based team compositions, makes him pretty versatile in many team compositions that need either a healer or a Support Party Member.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he calls his Master any number of insults (such as a fool or a demon) and considers the idea of finding true love "a shitty dream" (likely reflecting his his real-life love troubles), he's ultimately quite happy with his current position and even offers to do extra work in his dialogue options (albeit somewhat sarcastically). In London, despite he and Mordred butting heads constantly, in the end he still sacrifices most of his strength to save her from being blasted and erased by Solomon's attack.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Andersen can be a snarky jerk, but he still can't give up on his hopes for a better world.
- Last-Name Basis: The game's interface and the characters generally refer to him by his last name.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: While other Servants allude to it, Andersen outright states that an event has started."There's an event going on. Be sure to get right on it."
- Lethal Joke Character: He is only a 2* Servant, and a Caster to boot (he even refers to himself as a third-rate Servant in his summon quote). Despite this, his NP provides DEF Up, ATK Up, C. Star Drop Rate Up and HP regeneration and is very spammable. Along with the fact that it's easy to upgrade, he's very viable to use as part of a support team. Further powering him up is the Rank-Up Campaign he received on February 2019, where his Innocent Monster D skill transforms to Mermaid's Love EX, which takes away the DEF Down Demerit, improves its Star Drops AND grants teammates 10% NP for three turns.
- The Medic: His gameplay leans in this position.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: While he may have full retention of his human life, he certainly acts just as bratty as you'd expect from a boy his age. Notably, during the All the Statesman event where everyone starts acting out of character, his demanding the protagonist gets him coffee and falling asleep in their bed after they irritate him isn't considered as odd as his poetic speech during the opening.
- Mr. Exposition: His main role in the London arc, having gone out of his way to read various tomes lying around the Clock Tower for the party's use.
- No-Paper Future: He's quite fond of the future's technology. He swaps out his quill pen and book from his second ascension for a tablet computer, a set of headphones, and a bunch of holographic displays for his third ascension and beyond.[after his third ascension] "Enough with all the work! Give me a break!"
- Not Quite Dead: The only Servant to not immediately die after an attack by Solomon in the Fourth Singularity: The Mist City, London, and even more impressively it was one aimed not at him, but Mordred, who he flat-out admits is much stronger than him. That said, it leaves him greatly weakened afterwards, and he's unable to stop Solomon from erasing him with his next shot.
- Not So Above It All: During the "Voices and Letters" Valentine Event, Murasaki Shikibu's "Taizan Commentary Fest" skill reveals that underneath Andersen's dour exterior and apparent reluctance to help the former solve the cursed book crisis, he has a massive crush on her and was actually perfectly willing to tag along with the team for Lady Murasaki's sake.
- Older Than He Looks: Like in CCC he's been summoned in the form of a child once again despite being an older gentleman.
- Pet the Dog: As much as he riffs on her and relentlessly criticizes her, he does have a soft spot for Kiara and cares about her. During ServaFes, when the doujin created turns out to be based on Kiara, Andersen defends it's contents to Parvati, verging into Hypocritical Heartwarming as he still calls her a "sweet rice cake melon-head" while doing so.
- Purely Aesthetic Glasses: He starts suddenly wearing glasses for his stage two costume despite the fact that a Servant's senses are at least ten times sharper than the best of humans. It's hinted that he wears them more for personal aesthetics than any actual use, like how some people wear glasses to make themselves look more mature.
- Random Number God: His biggest weakness, aside from his statline, is that his Noble Phantasm's buffs have only an 80% chance of going off at maximum rank. Thankfully, the heal-over-time is guaranteed, but he does tend to miss at least one of his buffs on at least one ally. One of the sillier ways to deal with this is to pair him with fellow Takehito Koyasu-voiced character Ozymandias, who can boost buff success rate enough to ensure Hans's buffs hit.
- Reality Warper: His Noble Phantasm, Märchen Meines Lebens: A Story Just For You can be used to make one into their ideal self, but they must also incite lust in Andersen. His lust as an author for Character Development within the story, to be precise.
- Simple, yet Awesome: He's considered to be the cheaper alternative to popular higher rarity support servants like Waver and Merlin. His wide variety of buffs and healing provides a lot of versatility, even for critical based teams, and since he's a 2* Servant he's easily obtainable from the Friend Point gacha and his Noble Phantasm is relatively easy to max out. He also costs a lot less to include in a party than his SSR counterparts.
- Squishy Wizard: As a 2* Servant, he doesn't have a lot of HP and his Endurance rank is a paltry E. His Innocent Monster skill worsens this, as it provides critical stars at the cost of lowering Andersen's DEF. The Rank-Up from the 10th Rank-Up Campaign however trades his Innocent Monster for Mermaid's Love, removing the Demerit.
- Support Party Member: Considered the "Waver of bronze Servants" due to his excellent support skillset and cheap party cost. He continues to be viable even in high-difficulty content.
- This Is Gonna Suck: His (justified) reaction to enemy Noble Phantasms or other powerful attacks.[rushed and panicking] "I saw this coming three seconds before the deadline!"
- Those Two Guys: He and Shakespeare often serve as the writer duo to comment on the story and/or despair their own progress at writing.
- Verbal Tic: Tends to refer to events and objectives in terms of "deadlines" and calls his relationship with his Master "that of a writer and publisher".
- Vocal Dissonance: Despite his young appearance, he has a voice of an older gentleman. This represents his childish mind capable of the fairy tales he wrote, but that he was still an adult.
- Writers Suck: He often points out that as a writer, he's naturally a lazy, useless jerk who loves to procrastinate and sees others' suffering as inspiration for his stories. From a gameplay perspective, though, he doesn't suck at all.
- Write Who You Know: In "Pseudo-Singularity IV: The Forbidden Advent Garden: Salem", he and Shakespeare write scripts for the plays that the Chaldeans will act out in their disguise as a wandering troupe of actors. While most of the plays and scripts prepared have only light artistic license retelling classic stories, the second play goes off the rails. In-Universe, Andersen has written a parody of the burning of Jeanne d'Arc mixed with The Three Little Pigs featuring not just the historic Jeanne d'Arc, but also Jeanne Alter and Jeanne Alter Santa Lily who don't even exist outside of Chaldea, all of them acting like their usual Chaldean selves with guest appearances from other Servants as antagonists or NPCs (including Santa Island Mask). Jeanne Alter breaks the fourth wall in the script and calls out Andersen for plagiarism as the original Jeanne reassures her that it's technically not since The Three Little Pigs hadn't been published in the 17th century.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_blavatsky_1.jpg](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_blavatsky_1.jpg)
Married to an aristocrat at a young age, Helena Blavatsky was not content to rest on her riches, instead escaping to the world of magi. She devoted her life to proving the existence of Lemuria, a mythical continent and is said to have gained knowledge through contact with ascended beings called Mahatmas. She determined the forerunners who already reached the Root were higher level beings, referring to them as ‘Mahatmas’ and the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’. It is possible that neither Lemuria nor the Mahatmas existed, and she was simply gifted with her own unique interpretation of the world.
She's an antagonist and then later on an ally in the Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum. She also plays a supporting role in the Prisma Illya crossover event "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", a minor supporting role during the Pseudo-Singularity II: Subterranean World of Folklore, Agartha, and is one of the main participants in the second Summer event "Dead Heat Summer Race", turning into an Archer for it (but initially appearing as her usual Caster self).
- Badass Adorable: She’s both a cute, endearing young woman (though she may be older than she looks) and she’s a powerful magus possessing a variety of magical knowledge and abilities.
- Balance Buff: "Mahatma A" was upgraded A++ during the Rank Up Campaign 13, which reduces the skill cooldown by two and adding a 20~30% NP Charge to herself.
- Beleaguered Assistant: She supports Edison but it's because Edison is her friend and she believes he is the only one who can save the American people from the Celt army. She also thinks his megalomania is destructive and unnatural. Several times she deliberately sabotages Edison's plan, as seen from how easily Geronimo infiltrates the palace prison to free the heroes despite having Karna as their jailer.
- Blithe Spirit: Her view is heretical by Clock Tower standard. She refuses to search for the Root like most mages, instead going on a spiritual journey on what she determined to be the road to Lemuria. From what she says in her dialogue, it seems the Clock Tower attempted to give her the Sealing Designation because her view is too unorthodox and she's generally successful with it.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A seemingly eccentric and mad occult theorist, but also one of the few people who made contact with the Root (maybe) and not being sublimed into her Origin which puts her shoulder to shoulder with Jeanne. Her line of work has her straddle the line between ancient and modern magecraft, making her proficient in both or at least have some knowledge on their application. There's no magic she doesn't know, even the Church's Sacraments, but the Mage Association had her labelled as a heretic because of her love for Lemuria. Many doubt her skills because she's so impossibly Jack of All Trades but again and again she proves them wrong.
- Chekhov M.I.A.: When Agartha shows up as a pseudo-singularity in EoR, she along with several Servants mysteriously disappear before the protagonist gets there. Da Vinci isn't quite sure whether Blavatsky was forcibly summoned or secretly rayshifted there herself, since that was part of her obsession with the occult. The party then tries to find her along with the others. As part of establishing Columbus' true character, a flashback reveals that she was attacked by him since he thought she would be too clever to be tricked by him. She then shows up in person for the finale, providing the transport for all non-Chaldea people away from the collapsing Laputa and gives Chaldea the Holy Grail Phenex was using.
- Cloudcuckoolander: She's a little nutty, if we're being honest. But never doubt her sincerity of spirit.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Edison's right-hand woman, and generally way more reasonable than him.
- Curtains Match the Window: She's got purple hair and purple eyes to match. This is, naturally, a deviation from history, as the living Blavatsky had blue eyes and dark brown hair.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: In Holmes' Interlude, she and the latter were hunted down by Clock Tower assasins who managed to find them in the Himalayas. While Holmes tries his best to protect her, one of the assassins managed to mortally wound Helena, causing Holmes to retaliate by strangling her assailant until Helena tells him not to kill him. After Holmes knocks down the assassin instead, he holds the dying Helena in his arms.
- Don't Call Me "Sir": While she has no problem with people calling her Blavatsky (her husband's name), she doesn't really like being called Madame as she's not exactly wife material because she ran away just after getting married.
- First-Name Basis: Initially only on Last-Name Basis, but as time went on, she's far more often referred to by her first name, staring with "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes". Edison often switches between her first and last name. Holmes notably refers to Helena by the Russian spelling of her name, Yelena.
- Flying Saucer: Her Noble Phantasm Sanat Kumara: Venusian God, Lord of the Flames summons one. Sanat Kumara being, in theosophical belief, a Precursor from Venus who came to Earth as the rightful lord of humanity. Since the Sanat Kumara that she's chasing after is unknown, what she summons is a literal UFO. At the end of Agartha, she shows up on it, having used a Holy Grail to power her UFO and ends up flying civilians off Laputa and to safety.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: She likes India so much that she claims it as the hometown of her soul. Her entire study is based on India's spirituality. Truth in Television, as the real Blavatsky was very much enamored with India and its spiritual beliefs.
- Full-Name Basis: A few characters like Paracelsus and Medea call her like that.
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- Blavatsky and her friend Thomas Edison are a decent pair of supports to bring together, thematically. They both give passive C. Star Drops every turn, they both have infamously long cooldowns on their primary Skills, and Edison's Concept Improvement has a fantastic target in Blavatsky, whose suite of Noble Phantasm debuffs are greatly amplified by Overcharge (at base Overcharge, she debuffs DEF, Critical Chance, and Debuff Resist by 10% each, and each of these effects scale linearly up to 50% at max Overcharge). The Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum features this pair with Karna, who is a decent third Servant thanks to his third skill boosting Critical Strength and his first skill further decreasing debuff resistance.
- She is stated to be familiar with all forms of magecraft - a Jack of All Trades, if you will. In-game, while less powerful than a dedicated support Servant would be, she is perfectly capable of giving strong and relevant support no matter what kind of team setup you have, while simultaneously dishing out respectable damage.
- The Heart: Her presence allows Edison and Tesla to actually work together.
- Hero Antagonist: During the Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum, much like Karna and Edison she's not a villain and are opposing the actual antagonists, the Celts, but they end up fighting the protagonists at certain points.
- Hidden Depths: She's got some, partially due to having full command of all her memories and experiences from life. The biggest one is that she can be more sensitive than she first appears - while she can take most things in cheerful stride (and even only ever gets slightly annoyed with the constant bickering of Edison & Tesla), she cares a lot more about people believing she's at least trying to tell the truth about things. You can doubt the facts themselves on your way to enlightenment, sure, but doubting her sincerity, doubting that's she's honestly trying to tell the truth as she sees it, can really set her off because of the unceasing criticism - almost more like emotional abuse - she suffered for her beliefs in life. And while she still has some trouble tolerating it from even people who are hostile to her ideas to start with (like what happens with Waver in her interlude), when people she loves and cares about - like her Master - doubt her, that's when it really hurts.
- Historical Beauty Upgrade: Oh yes. Whatever debate there may be about a "hero upgrade" (below), F/GO definitely gave her a beauty upgrade for 21st-century standards of beauty. In real life, Blavatsky was a somewhat overweight, husky woman for most of her life (which is part of why people doubted the stories of all her travels); F/GO depicts her as a cute, petite, thin teenager with exotically-colored eyes and hair (which is also brushed arrow-straight instead of being curly and "unruly", as one biographer put it). "Dead Heat Summer Race" even asserts that this is her "true", preferred appearance, and her older appearance was simply a magical glamour of sorts to deflect suspicion from the masses.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: A bit. While she did inspire many people (and there's even a strong case for her helping to inspire the movement for Indian statehood), she was, of course, heavily criticized during her life and suspected of being a charlatan, and more seriously, some of her writings and comments were interpreted posthumously as being anti-Semitic, which even led to a certain (infamous) level of Nazi interest in Theosophy. F/GO leaves the anti-Semitism completely unaddressed, and presents Blavatsky exclusively as a cute, endearing oddball of significant intelligence and insight. The criticism and suspicion of charlatanism she suffered is part of her character, but it's presented as being her Trauma Button and more or less solely seen as society abusing someone for being different.
- I Choose to Stay: At the end of the "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", she chooses to take the place of the First Lady as the master of the Reality Marble, intending to make it a safe haven for magical girls.
- Impossibly-Low Neckline: Just look at her picture, it practically looks like she's wearing a corset. How it keeps from exposing her at every turn is anyone's guess.
- Jack of All Trades: Despite her lower rarity then the premium Caster supports, Helena universally supports to her team thanks to all three of her skills providing team wide buffs of some kind. This makes her a good budget support, as her party wide Card Type buffs combined with her flat NP gain buff mean she provides utility to everyone. She also is able to be more offensive thanks to her AOE NP and flat NP damage buff. The only thing she is missing is healing.
- Last-Name Basis: Zigzagged. Early on, she's generally referred to by her last name "Blavatsky", but as time went on, it has been shifted to First-Name Basis, to the point that her Archer version is rarely ever called by her last name. Tesla, Lord El-Melloi II and Holmes are the only characters left who consistently refer to her by her last name, while Edison often switches between both.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The game itself seems unsure if her ability to hear voices from the Root is real and caused by mutant magic circuits, or if she's just kinda nutty. Parts of Agartha and "Dead Heat", like the abilities of her Sanat Kumara in Agartha and her ability to spontaneously class change at will during "Dead Heat", suggest that at the very least, she's plugged into something.
- Non-Action Guy: Not her, but the little robot that accompanies her isn't much use in combat.
- Not Quite Dead: In Agartha, after being attacked by Columbus and dumped in the river, she hid underground to recover from her wounds.
- Older Than They Look: In a Servant-y sense. Her intro in "Dead Heat Summer Race" explains that she looks the way she does because that's how she looked at her prime - that is, the end of her life. One of the tricks she was able to pull off with her unique magecraft was to basically control her aging and appearance - in public, she had to appear to age normally (as history records), but in private, she always preferred the youthful form you see now. And since her "prime" was most of her life, even up to the end of it, pretty much any summoned version of her is going to have full command of all the experiences and knowledge of her life.
- Red Mage: She's considered to be a bargain bin Waver as she has strong supportive potential with her NP charge for the entire party, a skill that drop Critical Stars, and buffing Quick, Arts, and Buster card effectiveness and a Noble Phantasm that debuffs and damages all enemies.
- The Rival: She sees the SPR as a whole as her rival because of their campaign that claimed her as a fraud. But she especially has a low opinion on Lewis Carroll who she calls by his real name.(to Nursery Rhyme) "Eh? Nursery Rhyme? For the children, right? I can't believe the works of that bastard Dodgson are this popular..."
- Robot Buddy: She's always accompanied by a floating robot based off Henry Olcott
, the other founder of the Theosophical Society.
- Shown Their Work: Despite their radically different interests, the real Blavatsky really was known to be an associate of Thomas Edison.
- Spell Book: She uses multiple floating books in combat as Attack Drones to cast her spells from.
- Starter Mon: On July 3rd, 2019 in JP, Blavatsky became one of the 14 4* Starter Servants in addition to Mash. She and fellow Starter newcomer Nursery were the two 4* Casters among the 14. They have both since been replaced by Circe and Nitocris in JP as of May 11th, 2022.
- Support Party Member: She's an excellent support, having a team wide NP charge, dropping Critical Stars, and a buff for each of the three card types.
- Team Mom: While she's got her own eccentricities, she's also very intelligent and insightful, and often takes a Straight Man role in groups she finds herself in, being among the first to deduce solutions to problems. She's also fine with being called motherly or even grandmotherly despite the protagonist trying to be polite and saying she's like a big sister. After all, even if she doesn't look it, she's actually an old woman.
- Trauma Button: She gets extremely upset when people accuse her of being a fraud or imply they doubt her sincerity due to accusations of being a charlatan in life. Holmes seemingly presses it on purpose at the beginning of "Dead Heat Summer Race" in regards to her claiming she's actually an old woman, despite her appearance. He implies that the protagonist thinks she's lying and she starts crying, causing Tesla and Edison to put aside their differences and cheer her up.
- True Companions: With Edison and Tesla. They might fair drive her up the wall with their constant bickering, but she really does care about both of them and wants them to get along (and it helps that Edison, in particular, always supported her in life and even gifted her a phonograph when she moved to India); Edison and Tesla, for their part, also care deeply for Blavatsky and if she's ever in any kind of true distress, be it physical or emotional, they will drop everything, including their own grudge, to help her.
- A Wizard Did It: She believes that Theosophy is so all-encompassing that she attributes everything that cannot be immediately perceived or explained to Mahatmas.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Gives Edison a speech to this effect when he despairs fighting against the 28 Demon Pillars and starts regretting all the mistakes he's made in Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum. It's enough that it lets him get back into the fight and save Elisabeth.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_illya_1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_illya_1.png)
Ruby: Ruby is here, too! Let's go have some cute fun, Grand Master!
A rather ordinary girl who goes to the elementary branch of Homurahara Academy. She may have silver hair, red eyes, an aristocratic sounding name, parents who are always away on mysterious business, two maids in her ordinary house, and a brother of no blood relation... but she’s a completely ordinary fifth grader.
On an evening like any other, Illya was trying to relax in the bath when a magical stick attacked her out of the night sky. She was seduced by the squirming, chatty, maximally suspicious stick, leading to the explosive birth of Kaleid Liner Prisma☆Illya!! Of course, she keeps it a secret from her classmates! That night, she met her destiny.
An alternate version of Fate/stay night's Illya, she debuted as your ally in "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes" and as a limited Servant.
- All-Loving Hero: She has unlimited kindness and compassion, which is lampshaded by Mini-Jason himself during "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes" when she was compared to Medea Lily.
- Alternate Self: She is the incarnation of Illya from Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, summoned as a Heroic Spirit. And it gets doubly Alternate as the event Illya is fully human and was sent home at the end of "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes" with Miyu and Chloe. Despite this, a version of Chloe arrives in Chaldea at the same time and says that the ritual used to send them home also created a dual self of her that can act as a Servant. The same origin for Illya is confirmed in her Materials.
- Art Evolution: She got an animation renewal during the rerun of the Prisma Codes event. Notably, her Buster attack now features her Including the Berserker Class Card from her home series to swing Heracles's axe-sword.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Following her second Balance Buff, Illya's NP damage is some of the best seen among single-target Casters even at NP1, and unlike her competitors doesn't need to be hitting a specific enemy type for it. Unfortunately, the catch is that Illya doesn't have as much staying power as Izumo no Okuni, Shuten Doji (Halloween), or Sanzang: her NP gain isn't as good despite the buffs, and each use of her NP drops her ATK and DEF by 10% for three turns if not negated or cleansed. Barring some clever play, Illya may only get one good shot.
- Balance Buff: She got an NP upgrade to commemorate the Prisma Illya movie "Oath Under the Snow", increasing her damage and Buster buff values. She now has C. Star Drop Rate and NP Gain buffs after usage, though it still carries the ATK and DEF debuff.
- She got a second one to commemorate the Prisma Illya Licht movie release that upgrades her Child of Nature B to Shining Towards the Future A, which gives it an up to 50% NP battery.
- BFS: What Heracles's axe-sword appears when Illya uses it.
- Big Brother Attraction: Zig-zagged. Shirou (or at least the adoptive brother she knows) isn't around here, but she finds the Protagonist so similar that shades of her brother complex start to show towards them when she reaches Bond 5. She frantically stops herself short of suggesting her Master bathe with her... but can't resist capping it with a quiet "not yet".
- Black Mage: Her support abilities are minimal outside of her targetable heal/debuff immunity/Guts skill and are mainly meant to be used on herself (Buster buff, self-invincibility, NP gain increase, and even the targetable heal works best on herself since the debuff immunity can cancel out the demerits of her NP) and her NP is designed as a single-target Buster that's incredibly powerful for a Caster.
- Bottomless Magazines: A variant. Her Unlimited Prana Supply passive skill fills her NP gauge by 3% at the end of every turn in a manner similar to an Avenger.
- Brought Down to Badass: Though she's still a powerful magical girl, she is unable to change classes like she can in her home series both in-story and in gameplay.
- Canon Immigrant: Her appearance in this game marks her first official appearance in a non-Prisma Illya work, hence her being listed as a newcomer to the Fate franchise in one of the challenge quests of "Super☆Ghouls 'n Pumpkins".
- Covert Pervert: Ruby based off some of her lines (and the fact she has a collection of sleeping Illya photos), though Illya has her moments (especially when her "switch" is turned on).
- Crippling Overspecialization: Gameplay wise, Illya is good at one, and one thing only: raw damage. She offers little in the way of support utility, and her skills push her into being an offensive bruiser more then anything. If the stars align and she can go all out, she's a strong single target nuke, but if the situation doesn't go as planned for her, she's one of the weakest units for her rarity, especially compared to Sanzang. Miyu being Promoted to Playable is almost certainly meant to correct this, as her support-oriented kit is tailor-made to back up her best friend's damage-oriented one.
- Cuteness Proximity: She can't contain herself the first time she sees Fou."I want to pet it! I HAVE TO PET IT."
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Her NP is the Zwei form's Quintett Feuer. The form is dangerous because she's forcing the spell to recognize her muscular, nervous, vascular, and lymphatic tissue as false magic circuits to let the prana from two Kaleidosticks run through. In game terms, she suffers a debuff to ATK and DEF for 3 turns after using her NP, although it can be prevented with her third skill.
- Evil Costume Switch: Invoked with her "Testament Form" Simple Spiritron Dress available during "Revival: Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes - Re-install", which changes her attire to black, purple and dark red.
- Expy: Her magical stick, Magical Ruby, is based on Kohaku in personality and voice. And keeping a shady garden to grow poisonous Amber Herbs.
- Fusion Dance: Ruby and Sapphire become one in the Zwei Form.
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- The Zwei Form featured in her Noble Phantasm is incredibly powerful, but comes at the cost of using Illya's entire body as pseudo-magic circuits to supply said power. It is not pleasant to the user. In-game this is reflected by Illya suffering an ATK and DEF demerit after each use.
- She's pretty much stuck in being a Caster and maximizing her Zwei form, preventing her from changing classes based on her canonical Card Installs—which would be too cumbersome to implement in-game. During "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", Illya mentions she can't Install like usual and has to rely on her normal abilities.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Ironically however, the above Integration also leads to a snag with the Zwei form itself. In PRISMA☆ILLYA, this form is attained when Illya transforms using Ruby and Sapphire, her sister Mystic Code, at the same time. In GO however, Illya has no such interactions with Sapphire (even though she is present through Miyu), yet the Zwei form is accessible anyway for NP and Ascension purposes.
- Improbable Use of a Weapon: One of her attack has her just throw Magical Ruby at the enemy, which then flies around it, flailing with its head.
- Lovable Coward: She's kind of a coward. Her first actions when facing something dangerous is to run. Very fast.
- Magical Girl: Well duh.
- Master of None: Her skills are only so-so, her support abilities are minimal and her NP Gain is fairly low. Her niche was supposed to be that she's the strongest single target Caster in the game. However, she only narrowly edges out Sanzang in sustained damage while lacking her support skills and NP spam and her NP carries a Demerit that can admittedly be preemptively countered by her third skill, but there's only a 70% of it working in the first place. Offensive-based Casters are also rarely in demand in the first place given that they have low base ATK that takes an additional 10% penalty due to their Class (unless if one is facing an Assassin boss and even so, facing Assassin bosses is a rarity). As a result, Illya isn't really good for much in terms of gameplay when the most similar Servant is both easier to get and as good or better in every way (like the fore-mentioned Sanzang). That being said, this can be subverted, as she isn't entirely useless since single target Casters that specialize in nuking Assassin bosses are incredibly rarenote . In fact, her incredibly selfish kit and her good survivability makes her viable as a solo Servant with the right
setup
.
- Meta Guy:
- Ruby's aware of some in-game terms and mechanics like material farming.Illya: "We did it! It's a big win!"
Ruby: "Well then, let's harvest the losers for materials."
Illya: "C-can we not do such scary things?" - Ruby notes in one of her lines that Kuro might be more useful in gameplay than Illya. The latter's hurt by that remark.
- Ruby's aware of some in-game terms and mechanics like material farming.
- Nice Girl: Unlike Fate/stay night's Illya, she's sweet and very kind.
- Ordinary High-School Student: The fact that she's an ordinary elementary school student in Prisma Illya universe despite having an unusual appearance and an aristocratic name is lampshaded in her profile.
- Power Floats: Overlaps with flight, since she is fully capable of this in the manga and anime as well.
- Power Gives You Wings: Her third ascension and NP animation turn her into her Zwei Form, which has energy wings.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: With each stage, her hair grows longer and longer.
- Red Mage: Illya is an offensive Caster with no support abilities, and has by far the highest NP damage amongst all Casters. Sanzang rivals her thanks to the monk's ability to instantly charge her NP which she can spam quite easily compared to Illya, and she doesn't share Illya's Demerit that decreases her own ATK (and DEF).
- Retractable Weapon: Ruby can grow and retract a blade on her head for Illya to use in attacks. On a lesser note, she can also retract her stick handle when not in use, along with turning into a camera to take photos and recordings(usually of Illya).
- Stealth Insult: After you completed all the missions of the event, Ruby congratulates you for such dedication, you must've been doing them while eating in bed. Illya notes that compliment was a bit dodgy.
- Super Mode: The Zwei form, which she uses for her Noble Phantasm. After her Third Ascension, this transformation is permanent.
- Talking Weapon: Ruby talks, flies, and generally likes to screw around with everyone around her.
- Vapor Wear: Her translucent dress in Final Ascension makes it clear she's not wearing any underwear.
- Visual Pun: She has a rare sprite where she's turned on (visible in Chloe's Interlude, for example) — her eyes have hearts instead of normal pupils and she has a physical switch on her chest that's flicked to the "on" position.
- Willing Channeler: During "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", with Ruby's help, Illya allows herself to host the echo of Mila, the first corrupted magical girl and the First Lady's best friend in order to talk the First Lady down. During this time, the only real difference is that her eyes turn a ghostly blue.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iri_1_3.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iri_1_3.png)
This homunculus was created as the host of the Holy Grail. She split off from the Greater Grail and became a Servant to protect Emiya Kiritsugu, a lone Guardian and her husband during her mortal life, who is cursed by fate to be a Servant. Unlike the Fuyuki Holy Grail tainted by Angra Mainyu, she is instead deeply colored by her mortal life as Irisviel von Einzbern, wife of Kiritsugu and mother to Illyasviel. Her love, bonded with the Holy Grail, allows the temporary granting of her sincere and pure wish. This is not a function of hers as a wish-granting device, but merely her very nature sublimated into a Noble Phantasm.
She appeared as a Master in "Fate/Accel Zero Order" part 1 and a Servant in part 2.
- Crippling Overspecialization: She serves the same role as Medea Lily, but with worse heals, NP gain, and inability to remove debuffs meaning if you have both you'd generally want Medea. However, there is one niche she has that no one else can really fill: Her NP has a party guts effect attached to it, which makes her useful for certain challenge quests, which often carry annoying gimmicks.
- Cuddle Bug: Upon seeing Illya in "My Room" her response was to hug her in 0.5 seconds.
- Dub Name Change: Her Saint Graph's name for the English server is Irisviel (Holy Grail).
- For Want Of A Nail: Her existence in this in "Fate/Accel Zero Order". In this singularity, the Einzberns mastered their art of Homunculi a generation early. Thus they didn't need a protector for Irisviel (Kiritsugu), who suffered the final result of his ideal without her to save him, and the Einzberns didn't need her to have a child (Illya).
- Ghost Memory: She remembers the events of Fate/Zero, and acts as if she lived through them, despite coming from the very divergent what-if timeline of "Accel Zero Order". This seems to be a feature of her unique existence as a Grail conduit plugged into the Root who then was turned into a Servant.
- In-Series Nickname: "Iri".
- The Medic: Her gameplay role is heavily oriented towards healing with her skills and her NP, which gives the party HP regen and Guts. It does kind of require that her teammates should take the hits, as her base stats aren't fully durable.
- Ms. Fanservice: Hoo boy. Aside from being an incredibly beautiful and curvaceous woman, her final ascension dress combines Navel-Deep Neckline in a way that exposes everything between her navel and breasts, a cutout under her navel that reaches dangerously low, a hemline with side splits that hardly covers her thighs, and enough Under Boobs to leave nearly half her breasts uncovered. And to top it all off, Irisviel is one of the very few female Servant to have the bulge of her nipples plainly visible through her clothes.
- Mystical White Hair: One of several visual signs that she's a Einzbern homunculus.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Her clothes are incredibly revealing in both card artwork and portrait since she's facing towards the player, exposing much of her body. Her in-game sprite retains her bra and isn't as exposing since she's facing towards the side.
- Physical God: She possesses Goddess Divine Core rank C, as while she is not a genuine deity she is an existence close to one.
- The Power of Love: Her Noble Phantasm Song of the Grail and Personal Skill Resolute Devotion run on this. She's also the source of Assassin EMIYA's Affection of the Grail skill.
- Shipper on Deck: After learning cooking and baking from Boudica, Tamamo Cat, Shiki, Raikou and EMIYA, she made a Valentine's chocolate cake for the protagonist which he/she can share with Mash. The cake has little figures of Kiritsugu and Illya as decoration, so it's obvious that she doesn't harbor any romantic feelings towards her Master.
- Spared by the Adaptation: The event basically Set Right What Once Went Wrong. Instead of dying, Irisviel leaves to Chaldea with the group.
- Storm of Blades: Her Arts attack has her create wireframe swords which fly at the enemy, just like the ones her daughter made in the Unlimited Blade Works anime.
- Stripperiffic: Her final Ascension card art.
- Support Party Member: She's one of the better healers in the game, as her skillset is all about keeping your party alive by providing heals. Her Noble Phantasm also provides all party members with a Guts buff which automatically revives them when they die.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Her party wide Guts is incredibly useful against bosses that have Herd-Hitting Attack Noble Phantasms that can bypass Invulnerability or Evade. Because of this, she's one of the few servants that can completely trivialize fights such as Nerofest Arash and Nerofest Leonardo Da Vinci challenge quests where they have Noble Phantasms that can bypass Invulnerability (especially for the former where the player will need to survive his Noble Phantasm five times).
- She's also proven to be useful against First Hassan during the Nerofest event, who is considered to be one of the hardest boss fights in Fate/Grand Order history since the player needs to stall him out for several turns in order for him to use up his defense buff stacks and many of his Instant Death effects are amplified (even his own normal attacks), hence bypassing any Invulnerability and Evade defenses when his instant death effect triggers. Irisviel is considered to be the incredibly useful, as not only she has the class advantage against First Hassan, but if she is placed as the leader slot in your party (since the first servant in front of the player's party will be debuffed with a 1 hit taunt), she can easily tank out multiple Noble Phantasms from First Hassan while he consumes his Defense buff stacks (although the player may need to switch out one of their frontline Servants with a single-target offensive Caster such as Illya or Sanzang, to finish First Hassan off). The above was exacerbated even further in the North American version of the Hassan fight, where his targeting became randomized. This meant that now, Iris was pretty much the only way to ensure the party could survive for more than a few turns, since she could provide her Guts protection to everyone.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/izumonookuni_stage1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/izumonookuni_stage1.png)
Zanzaburou: Zan!
Originally hailing from the Izumo province, Okuni is one of Japan's most famed traditional dancers, wandering during the Sengoku Period. Her dance eventually paved the way for a style known as Kabuki dancing. Instead of being an one-woman troupe, she is assisted by Zanzaburou, a karakuri doll fashioned out of the remains of an enshrined god.
She makes her debut in "GUDAGUDA Close Call 2021".
- Breaking Old Trends: The first Caster servant to have a Quick Noble Phantasm, and also the first Caster to only have one Arts card in their Command Deck.
- Brought Down to Badass: Zanzaburou lost all the Divinity it had once Okuni converted the enshrined remains into a karakuri doll. Mind you that it is still a huge samurai robot with Abnormal Limb Rotation Range and a Chest Blaster, meaning that it not being a god doesn't actually matter that much.
- Combat Hand Fan: She sometimes whips out her fan in some of her animation attacks in tandem with her sword.
- Creator Cameo: Mafia Kajita is a radio personality who regularly guest stars in Fate/Grand Order Broadcasting Station who now voices Zanzaburou, even if he isn't that talkative.
- Critical Hit Class: She's tied for the second highest ATK of all Casters, and her kit and Bond CE is designed to help her pump out and absorb stars or boost her crit damage to give her one turn a highly damaging one turn crit Brave chains to maximize her Puppet Kagura skill's on crit Defense down debuff landing as much as possible.
- Dance Battler: Her fighting style takes cues from classic kabuki poses.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She was kidnapped from birth by priests of a heretical sect to be trained as a disposable Sealing Priestess to help fight off demons. Said training was harsh and cruel. Then one day one of her fellow Shrine Maiden friends unsealed one of the evil gods in the shrine which destroyed the village, who Okuni chased for her entire life. None of these events have changed her cheery and heroic disposition though.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Her True Name translates to "Okuni from Izumo", which tells you exactly who she is and where she came from.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: IN ALL of her ascensions.
- The most notable example is her hair which is neatly separated between silver and brown parts.
- In her first two ascensions her right arm has an intricately designed kimono sleeve while her left instead has a simple puffed sleeve ,which appears to be her overlayed by a white top in her First Ascension. The two red (green on the right in her Third Ascension) ribbons on her lower half has the left be more intricately designed and on the bottom part a white middle in contrast to the right with a more simpler design and has a black middle on the bottom. And in her Third Ascension the similarities persist with her right part having a multicolored kimono sleeve while her right has become sleeveless. Her ball ornaments also have a differing color of red on the right and green on the left.
- Her legs in both her First and Third Ascensions are covered differently from the other leg. In her right the covers stops at her thigh while her right left is fully covered. The colors are also different with her First Ascension having a pure black(right) and an asymmetrical black and white. In her Third Ascension the difference is much simpler with the accessories on it having orange (right) and green (left) difference.
- Gratuitous English: One of her card select lines is her yelling "Excellent!" She can also enter the battle shouting, "Wake up, Zanzaburou!" Even in story scenes, she quickly proves very fond of peppering English all over her speech, up to and including a few holy shits, which only clashes more with her polite and relatively antiquated Japanese.
- Hime Cut: She has the classic bangs for this trope, being a miko and all.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Okuni is 158 cm tall, the same height as Mash and Mary, but Zanzaburou is almost twice as tall as she is.
- Irony: Okuni is said to be the inventor of kabuki theatre and her troupe consisted of only female actors. But soon after her retirement and disappearance, women became prohibited to play in kabuki theatres by the Tokugawa Shogunate, and even after the ban was lifted in the present, for large productions at least, only (older) male-only troupes are allowed to play or are more known.
- Large Ham: Kabuki plays are known for their very hammy acting. Okuni's mannerisms, shouting, and exaggerated movements illustrate this perfectly.
- Marionette Master: Zanzaburou is a giant Karakuri puppet that copies Okuni's movements.
- Miko: Okuni was a miko at the Izumo-taisha, but her dancing paved the way to becoming a kabuki dancer. She wears a miko's traditional white kimono and red hakama in her Second Ascension.
- Mundane Utility: "The Tale of Chaldean Heavy Industries" reveals that Zanzaburou does all her filing after Okuni installed a calculation mechanism in it to handle paperwork.
- Only One Name: She's only known as Okuni. Izumo is the name of her province and it became part of her epithet.
- The Pollyanna: All the terrible that has happened in her life has not dampened Okuni’s energetic and enthusiastic personality even a bit.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Zanzaburou gains long hair associated with kabuki, starting with his Second Ascension onwards. While Okuni's herself grows at her Third Ascension.
- Power Dyes Your Hair: Zanzaburou's silver hair in his Second Ascension becomes red in his Third Ascension, making him look even more like a classic kabuki character.
- Punny Name: Zanzaburou is a pun to Sansaburo. Nagoya Sansaburo was a samurai who died in battle and was later romanticized as one of Okuni's kabuki play characters.
- Situational Sword: Her NP and Bond CE deal increased damage to Demonic-type enemies.
- Sophisticated as Hell: Has a very refined way of speaking, but she liberally curses, even calling the priests in her past "shitty bastards."
- Square Race, Round Class: Zigzagged. Her history as an artist who founded one of the most influential artforms of Japanese culture means that she's a shoo-in for the Caster class. But she's just as prone to fighting with a katana alongside Zanzaburou in defiance of the Caster class's Squishy Wizard stats.
- Useless Useful Spell: While "Anti-[Class] Attack Damage Aptitude" Append Skills greatly vary usefulness based on who exactly has what version of it, Okuni drew the worst straw as hers is Anti-Pretender Attack Damage Aptitude. When she was first released, there were only two fights combined that had a Pretender enemy, one being a late-story fight and one requiring to have a specific, limited Servant to enter.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Her experiences as a shrine maiden and monster hunter have left her with a very poor opinion of ayakashi in general, even if they appear to be harmless. Of course, it doesn't help when the event's "other Ryouma" takes control of Oryou and drives her berserk, seemingly proving her right.
- Wire Fu: Few of her animations involves Zanzaburou "flying" with the help of some clear wires.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/davinci1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/davinci1.png)
Live actor: Ririka
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal. While they historically lived in the body of a handsome man, da Vinci said that The Mona Lisa represents the ideal of beauty that they pursued throughout life. Thus after becoming a Servant, da Vinci "redesigned" their body into its current form; for true genius transcends common understandings of appearance, gender and age.
Da Vinci was the third Servant successfully summoned by Chaldea during the development of the FATE Summoning System. After being convinced to stay and aid Chaldea by Romani Archaman, da Vinci circumvented the summoning time limit by creating a puppet body to inhabit and "contracting" with it as their "Master". Thereafter, da Vinci became a mainstay of Chaldea, providing technical, magical and moral support during the Grand Order and beyond.
Da Vinci was first the focus of their own event ("Da Vinci and the Seven Counterfeit Heroic Spirits") and a major ally on the field during Camelot, before making a full playable debut for the game's 1st anniversary.
- Alternate Self: The playable da Vinci is a separate entity from the da Vinci in Chaldea. Technically, the playable one is a copy of da Vinci freshly summoned from the Throne of Heroes and has a proper Master unlike the Chaldea da Vinci who only works with the protagonist without contract. This is shown by their card backgrounds as well. The NPC Da Vinci has her workshop in Chaldea behind her, while the playable one's is shown above.
- Ambiguously Bi: During "Super☆Ghouls 'n Pumpkins," there's a challenge fight where you can only use Servants that are seemingly Da Vinci's type. Notably, they're all men apart from Ushiwakamaru. It's slightly ambiguous though in that this isn't explicitly stated, only implied.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: She doesn't seem to care whether people use male or female pronouns to refer to her. For Valentine's Day, she can both give chocolates (along with the girls) and receive chocolates (like the guys). When she's given chocolates, she mentions that she's "long since discarded the concept of gender" and gets a bit cagey about whether she even had a gender in the first place (which would make her non-binary). In any case, she prefers to be addressed as "Da Vinci-chan"."Or rather, my gender is Mona Lisa, but let's leave that aside."
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Her Noble Phantasm ignores DEF buffs, and she has a skill that also Ignore Invincibility, letting her attack her enemies with impunity.
- Art Imitates Art: Design wise, her overall appearance bears a striking resemblance to the Mona Lisa. This was a deliberate choice on the part of da Vinci, who saw Mona Lisa as his ideal of beauty and modeled his Servant body after her.
- Artificial Human: She made a duplicate puppet of herself which she pretends is her Master to remain in the present at Chaldea. Her profile compares this to a certain doll maker.
- Attack Reflector: Her Noble Phantasm was originally this, where it would analyses an opponent's Noble Phantasm and temporarily recreate it in order to perfectly counter and reflect attacks. However most of her resources are used to manage Chaldea, so she only has the offensive version of this attack in-game.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Since she's a genius, she has a quasi-Spider-Sense for danger. In the Camelot chapter, you will learn to fear her freaked-out face — it's generally the first sign of an incoming boss battle.
- Balance Buff: She received a Rank Up Quest during "Holy Grail Phantom Thief: Amakusa Shirou and the Slapstick Museum" that buffs Golden Rule (Body) to Mona Lisa, which gives her a party-wide three-turn Arts buff.
- Black Mage: Her skillset contains an NP damage buff to improve her damage output, and a 50% NP battery to let her use her NP as quickly as possible.
- Blasphemous Boast:
- In "Dead Heat Summer Race" she makes a comment while judging the racers' vehicles effectively saying that God Himself would be impressed by her work.
- Furthermore, her Noble Phantasm quote has her claiming to be smarter than the likes of Odin- as in, a literal god of wisdom! One can only imagine how he'd take it if he heard...
- Body Backup Drive: She has a younger form of herself stored within the Shadow Border, and it finally comes into play once Kotomine kills her adult body. She retains all memories from her "adult" form as well, but Death of Personality for the original still applies and her younger form is treated as essentially a new person.
- Brainy Brunette: Being Leonardo da Vinci and all.
- Buffy Speak: She descends into this during the third Halloween event, trying to explain why so much craziness is happening. Mash is concerned.Da Vinci: "In other words, this Singularity occurred by virtue of it being Halloween, along with Osakabehime's scheming. Add in the endless live concerts that have been going on the past two years as well... and I guess a whole bunch of crazy crap is going down!"
Mash: "Um, Da Vinci, I think your IQ just went down several... uh, dozen points!" - …But He Sounds Handsome: As the 'Masqueraded Count' she immediately praises the hell out of her own creation, claiming that whoever this mysteeerious inventor was, they must be one of the most brilliant and charitable geniuses ever.
- Cleavage Window: Averted. Her blouse has a gap between the collar and neckline, but it really only reveals a tiny glimpse of collarbones.
- Clock Punk: Most of the stuff she has lying in the background of her shop, as well as some sort of gauntlet she has on her arm.
- Connected All Along: She doesn't comment on it in-game but the fourth material book reveals she knew Zouken when she was alive.
- Covert Pervert: She thinks she's one, but everyone in Chaldea knows otherwise. During the Seven Counterfeit Heroic Spirits event her reaction to the fake Alexander is an urge to draw him naked. She gets so fired up she finds an even stronger urge to strip naked herself. Before even that she almost calls herself a pervert before stopping herself and coyly remarking she almost let her true personality out for a moment.
- Crazy-Prepared: She prepared a spare body in advance after Salai appeared before her in her second interlude in case she gets killed under any circumstances.
- Death Glare: She sports a very notable one, as she's normally a Perpetual Smiler. When she makes that expression in the story, it's usually a blatant warning that something terrible is about to happen.
- Developer's Foresight: If you haven't started the Lostbelt arc during certain post-Lostbelt Prologue events, she will still be in her original Caster form instead of her Rider form during her scenes in those events.
- Fantastic Nuke: Her NP, Uomo Universale: Renaissance Man, where she launches a ball of energy to the opponents and then detonates it, creating a gigantic explosion of energy
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Played for Laughs in " 7 Counterfeit Heroic Spirits". After discovering counterfeits of her Mona Lisa, she raises the emergency alarm to summon Chaldea's Servants to help her. Alongside the protagonists, the only Servant who shows up is EMIYA, and that's only because he was already hanging out with the protagonist and Mash at the time. When Da Vinci asks where everybody is, EMIYA and Dr. Roman explain that none of the other Servants felt like coming when they realized it was Da Vinci who summoned them because that's just how unpopular she is.
- Friendly Address Privileges: Upon being summoned, she asks to be called Da Vinci-chan. At the beginning of Part 2, she likewise tells Gordolf that he can call her either Da Vinci-chan or just Caster, but he proceeds to address her as Leonardo-kun anyway, demonstrating what a pain in the ass he is.
- Gender Bender: Unlike the many Servants who were thought to be male but are actually female, Leonardo da Vinci really was a man in this universe. However, he was summoned as a representation of the ideal beauty of Mona Lisa that he had pursued during his life, resulting in his transformation into a woman who resembles her. He takes it in stride, enjoying it since he had always sought it; this ease with which he takes this initially disturbs Mash and Dr. Roman. To put it short, da Vinci is a man in a woman's body, and tends to still act like one. So for Valentine's Day, da Vinci gives and receives chocolates with the protagonist. In her second Interlude, she does briefly consider making her backup body male but decides to go with another female body.
- Guest-Star Party Member: She is one of your supports in the "Da Vinci and the Seven Fake Heroic Spirits" event's story quests. The same happens again in Camelot. She was playable but not yet summonable until the 1st year anniversary when she was released as a limited Servant.
- Hand Blast: She shoots fire or ice from her mechanical hand.
- Has a Type: She seems to like handsome, heroic men, much like Brynhildr. However, she's slightly less picky and is willing to include the likes of Edmond Dantes as well.
- Heroic Bastard: Her Interlude discusses this and the resulting effect it had on her relationship with her mother.
- Heroic Sacrifice
- In Camelot, she decides to give the party time to escape by turning the car she had made into a bomb, which she guides into the enemy, taking them out with her. Lancelot managed to save her from the blast and took her to his secret refuge camp, where she helped to improve conditions until she reunited with the heroes.
- In Part 2, she then does it again during the Arc 2 Prologue when she stays behind to delay Kotomine from catching up to Mash and the protagonist. This time, the sacrifice seems to stick.
- Hikikomori: Leonardo would rather stay all day long in the workshop, and use an exercise bike rather than actually go outside. Though rather than just laziness, it seems to be a deliberate attempt at controlling her effort to keep her body in line with the golden ratio
.
- Hometown Nickname: Instead of her given name Leonardo, she likes to be addressed by those close to her as Da Vinci-chan after her hometown of Vinci.
- If It's You, It's Okay: Implied, as Da Vinci is attracted to Ushiwakamaru.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Kotomine runs her through with his hand from behind during Arc 2's Prologue.
- Incoming Ham: She likes to make a dramatic entrance whenever possible, with some "here I am, the universal genius!"-type line, and then comments on how well her audience reacted. In one scene, she even waits outside the room eavesdropping so she can come in at the opportune moment.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: While something of a pervert, there's at least one thing she does without really thinking about it. Namely, after bathing, she walks around naked because she essentially considers herself male and doesn't see why anyone would care about a naked man walking around. She may not be as innocent as she lets on however, as she does just barely catch herself as she calls herself a pervert during Da Vinci and the Seven Counterfeit Heroic Spirits.
- Insufferable Genius:
- Da Vinci is a bonafide genius and is very proud of this fact. She also really likes to remind people of how smart she is, which earns quite a bit of eye-rolling from the protagonist and Roman. However, unlike many examples of this trope, she's kind, caring, and socially adept... but no less full of herself.
- When Sherlock Holmes turns up at Chaldea, she comments on how she's just realized how insufferable she must be. Not that she seems remorseful, she's just annoyed to be on the receiving end of it!
- Killed Off for Real: Mortally wounded by Kotomine impaling her through the heart from behind, she stays behind to pin Kotomine and give the survivors of Chaldea time to escape before fading away. While she left behind a clone body with all of her memories, the original Da Vinci we knew is gone for good as the younger Da Vinci considers herself to be a different person than her older self.
- Loophole Abuse: There's no rule stating that an Empty Shell can't be a Master, and da Vinci takes advantage of this by creating a puppet body modelled after herself, tagging it as her Master and then having her spirit inhabit it. Not only does this remove the summoning time limit and essentially give her a new life, it makes her a Stray Servant in all but name with none of the downsides; she doesn't have to work at Chaldea, she just wants to.
- Ludicrous Precision: The glasses she wear for Noble Phantasm are capable of this, as she uses them to instantly calculate a formula for how powerful her magical attack needs to be destroy her target; exactly how powerful, not too much or too little. She would also be able to use them to analyze an opponent's attacks and Noble Phantasms in order to recreate them temporarily to perfectly counter and reflect them.
- Magic Staff: Hers is topped with a Saint Quartz, the in-game currency. She uses it as a weapon in battle by either whacking enemies with it or shooting lasers. It's also designed to analyze mana.
- Mr. Exposition: When Dr. Roman's cut off from them in the sandstorm in Camelot, she has to pick up the slack and provide what knowledge she has to the protagonist. She later picks up this role full-time after Dr. Roman's death and her existence as a Servant allows her to fill them in on details they wouldn't be able to get from others.
- Oh, Crap!: While she generally takes everything in stride, she shows visible fear when the protagonists spot Tristan and Gawain in Camelot.
- Painfully Slow Projectile: The projectile she fires with Uomo Universale moves surprisingly slowly towards the target. It is rather hilarious in Fate/Grand Order Arcade where the enemies are outright staring at the energy ball as it travels to them before exploding.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: During the "Dead Heat Summer Race," she shows up in the third leg of the race as a beauty judge on the contestants' vehicles. She wears an elaborate mask that hides her face completely, but barely hides her identity otherwise (directly referencing her interference when she returns back to Chaldea but stopping short of admitting it, and wearing the exact same clothing as usual). While most aren't fooled by Ishtar's blatant hiring/bribing of da Vinci for the race, Sanzang is completely fooled and guesses Agravain, King David, and even Ozymandias as the "Count"'s identity, much to Nitocris' exasperation.
- Perpetual Smiler: Since her appearance is based on the Mona Lisa, most of her expressions are variations on a slight, mysterious smile. When she's embarrassed she smiles while blushing, and even when she's sad she just smiles in a sad, wistful way rather than frowning. The smile only slips if she's annoyed or shouting. In Camelot, she explains that she's actually doing it on purpose. In her view, the Mona Lisa should always have a smile that represents beauty. Even when dying, she bids the protagonist farewell with a melancholic smile.
- Power Fist: Her left hand is covered in a giant gauntlet that contains multiple ranged weapons (including a flamethrower), can be rocket-punched, and at full power turns into The Big O's signature giant piston-powered fist.
- Proud Beauty: So much that she actually whacks Goredolf for suggesting Koyanskaya is prettier than she is. Her My Room line for what she likes sums it up:"I like me. I like my appearance. It's beautiful. I made it to be beautiful, so it's only natural. Hehe."
- Renaissance Man: Though Leon Battista Alberti coined and lived the term first, Da Vinci is bar none the most famous. His profile even states that despite what conventional history would tell you, it was only natural that he had been a talented magus. He excelled at every other field, why not magic?
- Rocket Punch: She fires her mechanical gauntlet at enemies for her Buster attack.
- Sailor Fuku: Since the artbook states that the Mona Lisa's clothes reminded her character designer of a sailor uniform. If you squint, the neckline and drapery of the Mona Lisa almost looks like the collar of a Sailor Fuku, so the resemblance got exaggerated by adding a miniskirt.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In a parenthetical aside at the beginning of Agartha, she notes that she'd prefer to allow Astolfo and Chevalier d'Eon to accompany the protagonist as trustworthy escorts even as they were smuggled into the pseudo-singularity, but decides not to explicitly condone bending the rules while Mash was around and lecturing about proper channels to Astolfo and Meunière. This shouldn't be too surprising considering her canonical
Chaotic Good alignment.
- Secret-Keeper: She was the only member of Chaldea before the final singularity who knew that Dr. Roman was Solomon, and this was part of his trump card against Goetia. She was not the only Servant to know though, as David figured it out with ease.
- Sensei-chan: Mentioned in her profile; even as a Servant, she sees her Master as a pupil, but "there is an intimacy that is more along the lines of 'a teacher whose age is close to that of her students.'" Accordingly, even though she plays Mr. Exposition, she likes causing shenanigans. She also prefers the "-chan" honorific.
- Sensing You Are Outmatched: She's instantly able to tell just how ludicrously powerful the Knights of the Round Table blessed by the Lion King are in the sixth singularity and warns the protagonist not to engage them.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: According to the artbook, she wouldn't have any qualms about strolling around naked, allegedly because she's not entirely aware of her young female body. This raises some questions about the implication that she thinks a guy strolling around naked wouldn't be unusual.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Hey, have you ever noticed that half of all spectacle-wearing Servants are Casters? That is because they're the smartest class! And Da Vinci is the smartest of them all, as she'd be the first to tell you! The fact she rarely wears them except to use her Noble Phantasm notwithstanding.
- Specs of Awesome: She puts on glasses when deploying her Noble Phantasm. They're a tool to help her analyze the enemy and to check how much power she should use on them before activating it.
- Take That!: Mocks the United States for believing that she hid codes in her paintings, a clear nod to the ridiculous conspiracy theories abounding on the internet and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.[referring to the United States] "Hahaha. To me it's just the place that said I put codes in my paintings. When would I have time to do something like that when I'm painting? Even if I did, I'd only do it to spite my client."
- Tempting Fate: After the player finishes the last main quest of the "7 Counterfeit Heroic Spirits" event, EMIYA offers to train her to be ready for the front lines, but Da Vinci objects, saying that unless "something dire" happens, she won't go to the front lines. Take a wild guess what happens at the start of the Sixth Singularity, Camelot.
- We Used to Be Friends: While they don't recognize each other during Agartha, "Chaldea Summer Adventure!" reveals that she and Rider of Resistance used to be "childhood friends" when they were alive. While the two knew each other, the two would mock one another's dreams even if they had no right to mock the other's idea and after a fierce fist fight, Columbus promised da Vinci that he would look for a treasure more amazing than money like a dragon if da Vinci would buy it from him if he were to find one. This ultimately ends up being a forgotten childhood promise not recorded in history or in the Servants' memories. When the two reunite in Agartha, da Vinci is quick to distrust him for infamy, completely unaware he's the same boy she used to argue her dreams with.
- The Worf Effect: Despite her impressive Noble Phantasm and genius, she notes that she's completely and utterly outclassed in firepower by Anastasia at the beginning of Part 2, forcing the remaining members of Chaldea to flee for their lives.
- You Are in Command Now: By the end of Part 1 of the story and after Dr. Roman's sacrifice and Chaldea's return to a restored Earth, she's been taking charge in restoring the facility back to normal. At the beginning of Part 2, her own death leaves her to pass her role onto Goredolf, Sherlock, and the younger version of herself aboard the Shadow Border.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_marie_antoinette_1.jpg](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_marie_antoinette_1.jpg)
Marie Antoinette, now in a swimsuit. Nothing has changed with her and she carries on being a glittering queen-consort on the beach with her usual entourage protecting her from harm.
An alternate version of Marie who debuted for the "Chaldea Summer Memory / Heat Odyssey" event.
- Friend to All Living Things: Outside of the inexplicable head crab, she's the most competent of the summer crew at fishing, but keeps releasing the fish because she feels bad for them, and is beloved by the island's boar population.
- Head Pet: It seems Marie can't get around without at least something on her head. She's not wearing a hat in her first ascension, so instead she has... a crab. And apparently has no idea how it got there.
- I Know Madden Kombat: She attacks using beach volleyball moves.
- Improbable Weapon User: A volleyball. A magical volleyball, but a volleyball nonetheless.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Her Noble Phantasm, Crystal Ballet, materializes a spectacular one, that's way too long for her, sea-themed, made of crystal, and is topped by a gigantic version of her usual, already huge hat. The thing looks more like a Jellicent than anything and seemingly damages enemies and empowers allies just by virtue of being that impossibly shiny.
- Stone Wall: Like her Rider version, Marie is able to render herself invincible for three attacks with her Princess of Loveliness skill and heal herself for three turns with her Sunflower's Brilliance skill. Her Noble Phantasm is AOE and doesn't deal a lot of damage and her Caster-class multiplier hurts her damage output further, but she's hard to remove from the field.
- Support Party Member: Her skillset is designed to be Critical Hit support for Arts teams. Her Beach Flower skill acts as a Charisma boost for her entire party along with a bonus to Crit Star Drop Rate for males. Her Sunflower's Brilliance skill provides free critical stars for three turns while healing Marie herself. Finally, her Noble Phantasm boosts the Critical Strength of all allies by a minimum of 20% and to a maximum of 40% based on Overcharge while reducing enemy critical hit chance.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl to Jeanne's tomboy in their doujin circle during the Summer 2018 event.
- True Blue Femininity: Her third ascension gives her a blue swimsuit with a blue ribbon on her hat.
- Walking Swimsuit Scene: Even after the event, this version of her will still be running around in a swimsuit. Unlike the other swimsuit Servants, she does have a sundress.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/s330_stage1_3.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/s330_stage1_3.png)
After Saint Martha was having trouble with her image, with people seeing her as violent and battle-oriented despite being a Saint, Scathach-Skadi tries to help with that by turning her into a Santa servant. And by doing so, Skadi basically turns Martha into a Lily version of her.
The welfare servant of Christmas 2021.
- Alternate Self: At the end of the event, her Spirit is automatically registered as she reverts back to her original Rider form, resulting in Santa Martha remaining as her own individual Servant, similar to Jeanne Alter Santa Lily or Saber Katsushika and even commented on by her.
- Breaking Old Trends: Casters with Quick NPs are borderline nonexistent, and the only Servant with a non-damaging Quick NP was initially Osakabehime until fairly recently. Thanks to Scathach-Skadi, Martha's become the first Caster with a supportive Quick Noble Phantasm.
- Chef of Iron: This version of Martha is particularly fond of cooking, and this is also reflected in her animations; she attacks enemies with various cooking and baking items, and during her Noble Phantasm animation she prepares a Christmas feast. She even weaponizes some of the food she cooks.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The term "Saint" and "Santa" is technically the same word derived from the Latin word "sanctus" which means "sacred" and "holy."
- Humble Hero: Due to her being reverted back to a younger state, her memories of being Saint Martha are a bit vague. She knows that you are her Master, she knows that she is a Heroic Spirit and that you wouldn't lie to her, but she cannot believe herself being a saint.
- Irony: Past Christmas events have established that Martha dislikes Christmas because it is too commercialized, puts too much emphasis on couples instead of family (at least through a Japanese lens), and isn't even on Christ's birthday. And yet despite her being one of the least fitting to be a Santa based on her opinions of the holiday, she ends up being turned into a Santa.
- My Greatest Failure: This version of Martha addresses how Martha focused on hospitality instead of talking to Jesus when he first visited their home, something mentioned by Martha way back during her first Interlude. The event takes the Jesuit interpretation that Sacred Hospitality should not sacrifice Comradery.
- Situational Sword: Invoked with her NP. Her NP gives a party wide anti Demon, Divine, or Undead buff, allowing the party to gain upwards a 50% extra damage buff against any of the three should you use it.
- Support Party Member: Almost all of her skill effects are designed to support a party member in some shape or form. Her only really "selfish" skill effect is one that increases her Noble Phantasm Gauge (in which her Noble Phantasm is also supportive as well). Notably, she's also the first Welfare Servant since Irisviel with a non-damaging NP.
- Tamer and Chaster: Noticeably, Martha's outfit is quite more austere and homey (especially compared to her Stripperific Rider outfits and her Ruler swimsuit outfit), such that it helps remind one of her original characterization in The Bible as the house-keeper between her siblings Mary and Lazarus.
- Took a Level in Kindness: This is notably the first time where none of her animations abuse Tarasque in some way. Instead, the great dragon helps her prepare a Christmas feast.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_medea_1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_medea_1.png)
The daughter of King Aeetes, possessor of the Golden Fleece, she was taught magecraft by the moon goddess Hecate. Separated from her homeland by the hero Jason, at the end of a long wandering, she was burdened with the stigma of treachery, the result of her bitterness stemming from Jason abandoning her after the end of their quest for the Golden Fleece.
She has a minor supporting role in "Pseudo-Singularity IV: The Forbidden Advent Garden: Salem", and appears in a minor antagonistic role in nearly every GUDAGUDA event (much to her own annoyance).
- Anti-Magic: Her Noble Phantasm, Rule Breaker. It can nullify every magical contract, including Master-Servant binding. In-game, it also nullifies any buffs that the target might have.
- The Archmage: Described as a magus "infinitely close to Magicians" without actually using True Magic, she is nevertheless able to use incredibly powerful spells approaching True Magic in power with ease thanks to her tutelage under Hecate and High-Speed Divine Words. As a result, in an all-out battle of magecraft no modern magi should be able to match her, not even Magicians like Zelretch and Aoko Aozaki. Dr. Roman also claims her to be one of the five greatest magi to have ever existed. Given that he was the so-called King of Magic as Solomon, this says a lot about her.
- Art Evolution: As part of the 8 Million Downloads Campaign, her sprite and animations were updated, with Medea now floating in the air at all times.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Rule Breaker. You have a Noble Phantasm that can nullify any and all contracts, but it's a dagger, meaning she has to get close to her opponent to use it when she has the physical defense of a wet paper bag... in theory. For actual application, see Boring, but Practical and Gameplay and Story Segregation below.
- Beam Spam: In fights she simply spams instant A-ranked spells to obliterate her foes.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: As seen with her relationship with her Masters in Fate/stay night, Medea can be a treacherous Servant if treated poorly, living up to her title as the "Witch of Betrayal". However, treat her well, as Kuzuki and the protagonist do, and she becomes an incredibly loyal and loving Servant who would gladly lay down her life for her Master.
- Berserk Button: Watching couples like Sakamoto and Oryou getting lovey-dovey with one another really hits a nerve with her. Considering her own past love life, this isn't terribly surprising.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In Circe's Interlude, when Circe gives Medea the chance to remain with her and avoid the pain and suffering she could face with Jason, Medea rejects as she didn't want to become a mere footnote in history like Ariadne did for Thesus. She unfortunately gets what she wanted in the end.
- Boring, but Practical: Before she began to suffer Power Creep after several years of not receiving any buffs, for a long time Medea was this in-game for Casters, and particularly lower rarity units. Her NP, Rule Breaker, dealed heavy damage at the time to a single target, removing whatever buffs the opponent might have, and also recharged her Noble Phantasm gauge. Combine this with the significant amount of Arts cards available to the Caster class and her ability to recharge between 80% and 150% of her Noble Phantasm gauge with High-Speed Divine Words. Now combine that with the fact that many late game bosses are heavily reliant on heavy self-buffing and the lack of lower rarity units with buff removal at the time, and, well, this is the reason she was considered one of the best *3 Servants. It also helps that her ATK is on the higher end of most 3* servants, which helps her deal a bit more damage.
- Broken Bird: Her life as a mortal has left her fairly twisted. People cursed her as a witch who would go so far as to kill her own brother to get what she wants. But that's not why she's half killing townspeople — she never did that in life.
- Cool Big Sis: If summoned by the protagonist, she'll eventually treat her Master as a younger sibling.
- Curtains Match the Window: Her hair and eyes share the same icy blue colour.
- A Day in the Limelight: Sort of, in Salem. While she doesn't join in on the party actually going there, she plays a supporting role as Mission Control with Da Vinci and has a scene eating breakfast with Sanson and Robin at the end. This is notable because it's the largest role that any of the original Fate/stay night Servants have in the main story (barring Heracles in Okeanos, but as a Berserker he's less a character and more a walking weapon, and Cursed-Arm Hassan as he was a Flat Character in F/SN).
- Defrosting Ice Queen: If her stage cards are anything to go by, she looks happier in each one. It reaches a head in her third stage, where her staff and choice of dress make her look somewhat like Medea Lily. Dialogue-wise, she starts out with her traditional witch persona, bragging about how superior she is to the protagonist as a magus. Soon afterward, she's surprised at how the protagonist tries to keep her out of unnecessary danger and never says mean things to her. After that, she's showing outright concern for the protagonist, telling them to slow down and saying that she will be ready to support them when needed. She then admits that the protagonist acts much like her younger brother, before finally declaring that since she really can't act like the Witch of Betrayal around them due to their sheer niceness, she'll be their witch instead.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Like Medusa, she's regarded as unmarriagable at best by her fellow Ancient Greek Servants since the ideal female body type of their era is more in line with the one her aunt Circe has; lithe, short, and ambiguously young-looking.
- Does Not Like Men: Downplayed. She doesn't have any problem with men in general, but thanks to her past experiences with Jason, she instinctively doesn't trust handsome guys.
- Enemy Summoner: After her animation renewal, she summons the Dragon Teeth Warriors for certain attacks.
- Energy Weapon: Her specialty in her original appearance via her spell Machia Hecatia Graea (better known as Rain of Light). It appears as her Extra Attack after her visual rework.
- Flight: One of her spells and a central part of her skill in running away.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- On top of what was noted in general at the top of the page, Rule Breaker gets this in F/GO. In her various other appearances, it's a big deal that Rule Breaker is a dagger and so she needs to get into close melee range for her to use it, which is difficult for her, to say the least. Because the actual combat engine doesn't really do much with position or distance, though, and because of the way her first skill and card spread work, in F/GO she's going to be getting into melee and stabbing dudes constantly, and she isn't in any more danger than she otherwise would be. Her visual rework remedies this somewhat, showing that she paralyzes her foe with a spell before stabbing them (which unfortunately doesn't apply the actual Stun status effect).
- As noted under The Archmage, she's considered one of the five greatest Magi to ever live. Despite this, her stats and rarity are lower compared to many other Casters, and while she is useful, other Servants of higher rarity are more powerful gameplay wise then she is.
- Healing Factor: When in dire straits, Medea can focus her magical energy to rapidly heal her wounds, allowing her to survive being hit with the spatial warping effects of Archer's Caladbolg II and even a casual barrage from the Gate of Babylon. In-game, this manifests in her Argon Coin skill, which allows her to heal a significant portion of her HP on a relatively short cooldown.
- Hot Witch: Without her hood, she is a beautiful spellcaster. Seeing as how she's Medea, the beautiful sorceress from Greek myth, this makes complete sense.
- I Hate Past Me: If you have both her and the regular Medea, Medea Lily mentions that Medea's angrily staring at her in My Room.Medea (Lily): "Umm, Master? The caster with the purple hood over there... I feel as if she's staring at me... or scary... but she doesn't feel like a stranger."
- I Let You Win: One of her defeat quotes claims this."I will let you off this time..."
- An Ice Person: Following her animation renewal, one of her possible Arts card attacks has her conjure a huge chunk of ice and drop it on her targets head.
- In the Hood: For her first ascension artwork.
- Instant Runes: She can make 'em, easy. Her High-Speed Divine Words skill means her spells take effect immediately and no magus can replicate it as the language of the gods is lost in the present day.
- Lady of Black Magic: Beautiful and merciless, she creates skeletal-like golems and has a thing for torturing people though her magic.
- Magic Staff: Her's was given by Hecate, though she only uses it with her Third Ascension outfit. It's also the subject of her Max Bond CE.
- Mundane Utility: Her high rank in Item Construction allows her to create powerful good luck charms, potions of immortality, and even hack the Holy Grail itself to allow her to summon a Servant of her own during the fifth Fuyuki Holy Grail War. She also uses it to indulge in her hobby of doll-making and arts and crafts, creating exquisite figurines, ships in bottles, among other things.
- Necessary Drawback: Her kit is designed to spam her Noble Phantasm, which is offset with her low Noble Phantasm damage. The NP Rank-Up she gets for clearing her Interlude notably only buffs the damage of Rule Breaker where it now does normal amount of single-target damage.
- Non-Indicative Name: Her Argon Coin is not a coin, especially not a coin made of argon unlike what its name suggests. It is the coat of the Golden Fleece.
- Not So Above It All:
- In her Interlude, it turns out she still wants to be like the princess of her youth, even creating her own personal miniature fantasyland full of Jasons to fill out her wishes and a doll of her younger self as the princess to be pampered by the Jason dolls. After they get out of the fantasyland, she threatens you to never tell anyone or else.
- The way she uses Argon Coin to heal herself is by admiring the fleece. By a related quote the skill description has, it sounds like she is suffering from Cuteness Proximity."Fluffy! The healing of the spirit has surpassed the body!"
- Occult Blue Eyes: Her eyes are the same bluish-indigo as her hair on top of being one of the greatest magi to ever walk the Earth.
- Older Is Better: She can toss out spells that can take years of worth of mana from a genius modern magus like Tohsaka Rin to counter with a single word due to being a magus from Ancient Greece who studied under Circe, who is sometimes considered a goddess of magic, herself.
- Out of Focus: She's largely been sidelined in the story in favor of her younger counterpart, Medea Lily.
- Otaku: She takes the protagonist into a kind of pocket dimension filled with animate dolls. At first they're a sort of stress relief bunch where you blow up ugly monster Jasons, but then dolls representing her other hobbies begin showing up, much to her embarrassment. She also wants to dress up Saber Altria.
- Playing with Fire: Following her animation renewal, one of her possible Arts card attacks has her blast her target with a huge stream of fire.
- Pointy Ears: She has noticeably pointed ears for some unexplained reason.
- Power Creep: Sadly, Medea's Out of Focus nature in the story has finally started to catch up to her gameplay-wise. At the time of this writing, the last time Medea recieved a proper upgrade (not counting her strengthening quest which just unlocked her third skill) was her NP interlude...which was at the game's LAUNCH. The result of this long neglect is as follows:
- Her unique niche of being able to spam her NP is no longer as impressive as it was back then due to a large number of units having come out with large battery skills, including fellow casters Circe and Nitocris who both can NP on turn 1 like Medea, as well as several extremely useful support Servants having come out with instant NP battery skills.
- In addition, because Medea is saddled with an AOE damage modifier on her NP and lacks any means of boosting her damage, it means her damage and NP is easily outdamaged by several other Casters of a similar rarity or lower despite them being AOE, such as Chen Gong who has a ST damage modifier on his AOE NP at the cost of sacrificing a unit, Geronimo who can deal more damage with his NP even before you factor in his Arts Buff, and Babbage who, thanks to the really good buff on his third skil, can easily and consistently out-damage Medea with both his Crits and his NP!
- Even her once unique niche of being the only 1-3 unit with an immediate buff removal on her NP has been replaced as both Alex and Phantom have gained strengthening quests that allow them to remove buffs...and what's worse is that they can do it immediately since theirs' are on a skill, whereas Medea's buff removal applies after NP damage, meaning she wont do any damage if the enemy has an evade or invulnerability buff.
- Ultimately, when you factor this all in, what you are left with is a unit that, while not bad per se, has certainly fallen behind the times with an aging kit that makes her no longer as unique or effective as she once was.
- Power Floats: Her updated sprite permanently floats in the air.
- Red Baron: Witch of Betrayal. Alternatively Magus From the Age of the Gods.
- Simple, yet Awesome: She doesn't offer something flashy when compared to other higher rarity Casters. However, she's considered to be one of the best budget Casters to get when it comes to dealing with Assassin bosses due to her ability to spam her Noble Phantasm, her strong synergy with her kit, and the buff removal that comes with it. Considering how hard it is to obtain a Caster designed to nuke Assassin bosses, this ought to say something.note
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: She's eloquent for sure and an all-around nice Servant to have if you can get along with her, but it doesn't stop her from asking how she can make her foes suffer and fall into despair.
- Space Master: Her Atlas spell locks down space around the target, preventing them from moving unless they have sufficient magic resistance to nullify it or if outside intervention (or a carefully timed attack) interrupts it. She can be seen using it in her Noble Phantasm animation, pinning her foe so she can stab them with Rule Breaker.
- Spam Attack: Her kit is mostly designed as this, as she's designed to spam her Noble Phantasm like a madwoman thanks to her good NP Gain, an Arts setup with an Arts Noble Phantasm, and a skill that instant charges her Noble Phantasm gauge. To offset the spamability, her Noble Phantasm damage is very low, as a single target NP with the potency of an AoE NP. Under the right setup, she can actually spam her Noble Phantasm up to three times in a row.
- Squishy Wizard: Oh so much. For all her magical prowess, she cannot handle a physical smackdown.
- Teleport Spam: Her Trowa spell allows her to perform long-distance teleportation with ease, an ability approaching the level of True Magic.
- Vancian Magic: While she can mostly avoid this thanks to being a true sorcerer from the age of the gods, she does have to verbally invoke her strongest spells. It's just that the language she uses to incant them (which is rendered in Ancient Greek) makes it take nowhere near as long as it would for a modern day magi to do so, performing complex rituals with a single word when a modern magus would need several teams chanting for several minutes to replicate what she does.
- Yandere: Even without Aphrodite influencing her mind, she's unhealthily obsessed with her ex-husband, creating countless effigies of Jason to destroy and to, more creepily, force into pampering her.
- You Remind Me of X: The protagonist reminds her of her little brother. He was a nice kid, but um... that's probably a little awkward for her. Let's hope things go better this time.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_medea_lily_1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_medea_lily_1.png)
A version of the dreaded witch Medea, summoned when she was still the innocent Princess of Colchis. Before her fateful encounter with Jason, Medea was a sweet kid taught by the moon goddess Hecate on the ways of magecraft. She mostly cannot use offensive magecraft, but excels in healing-type magecraft.
She was on the Argo, with Jason, Atalante, and Heracles. She appears as a major antagonist in the "Third Singularity: Sealed Ends of the Four Seas Okeanos" and "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", has an appearance in one of the stage plays in "Pseudo-Singularity IV: The Forbidden Advent, Salem" and appears in "Hell Realm Mandala, Heiankyo" as the Servant of the living Watanabe-no-Tsuna.
- Abnormal Ammo: Her Extra Attack after her animation renewal has her drop a giant plate of pink pancakes onto the enemy. Pancakes that bear a suspicious resemblance to Haagenti...
- All-Loving Hero: According to Mash during her 2nd Interlude, she gives unconditional love to the people she likes, which sadly someone like Jason and Aphrodite would use to take advantage of her and ended up in a tragic Break the Cutie moment. It leads Mash and the protagonist to decide to protect Medea Lily's purity so that she doesn't have to go through what her older self did. This is also lampshaded by mini-Jason during "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes" where he compares her to Illya.
- Animation Bump: For the fourth anniversary and the arrival of Jason, her animations are revamped to have more unique magical effects.
- Ascended Extra: Originally just a Magical Girl design for Medea from the Fate/side side materiale 4 pamphlet. Like Saber Lily, her design was refitted to be a younger version of Medea and receives more prominence than her older counterpart in the game, becoming a central character of chapter 3.
- Assist Character: She's one of the three Servants to appear in Jason's animations, serving as the damage dealer for his Arts cards.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: During Okeanos chapter, thanks to Aphrodite's love curse forcing her to be completely devoted to Jason. She wouldn't be nearly as crazy as she is or an antagonist if it weren't for that. Or Solomon's mind control.
- Crippling Overspecialization: She does only two things: healing and debuff cleanse/resistance — she offers no hard defensive tools, and her attacks are weak with only above-average C. Star Drop Rate (for a Caster) to compensate. That being said, she's probably the best Servant in the game when it comes to on-demand, massive heals. Some of her competition includes well-rounded support Casters (Merlin, Hans Christian Andersen) who provide healing as part of their package and Irisviel, who is a toned down, free version who trades healing power and NP gain for defensive stability and party-wide Guts.
- Curtains Match the Window: Her hair and eyes share the same icy blue color.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: She is portrayed like this as a playable servant, especially in her second Interlude when she accidentally summons a regular demon instead of a Demon God Pillar by sprinkling "Allez-Cuisine" into the summoning incantation.
- Dissonant Serenity: She acts utterly detached from everything during the Okeanos chapter because her being summoned in a Servant container has given her full knowledge of her legend and has made her uncaring of what happens to the world.
- Double Unlock: She can only be summoned from the story gacha after completing Okeanos.
- Exact Words: She said that Jason would be invincible after using the Ark. You can't be harmed if you don't exist.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: She has a teal and purple gloves and stockings on opposite sides of one another — right purple glove and teal stocking, left teal glove and purple stocking.
- Final Boss: Of the Okeanos arc alongside Forneus.
- Future Me Scares Me: One of her My Room lines has her mention that her older counterpart is glaring at her. She doesn't know who it is, but she's unnerved.
- Healing Shiv: In gameplay, her Pain Breaker is represented by lifting her staff and magic-ing a wave of healing. But in her first Interlude, to the shock of the Chaldea staff who briefly forget her Noble Phantasm's properties, she stabs Jeanne with a dagger instead while yelling Pain Breaker to revive her.
- If I Can't Have You…: After learning that she will not be with Jason in the end of Okeanos, she uses him as a vessel for one of the Ars Goetia to destroy the world with.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Contrasting her other appearance.
- Irony: The older Medea acts evil but is too inherently decent to do anything really bad. Medea Lily is a big ball of sweetness but is actively trying to destroy the world in the main story. Then again, she wasn't acting like herself anyways.
- Last Request: In Okeanos before she fades away, she tells the protagonist that in order to beat the mage greater than her, they need to collect shining stars, so many that they'd shine through even turbulent storms and light up the night sky.
- Magic Staff: The Pain Breaker. Unlike Medea, she uses it for all 3 stages. She's also using it for its' proper function, the older Medea can't use it for healing.
- Master Poisoner: Due to specialising in medicine (along with being a future witch), she's rather knowledgeable of poisons. She even has a skill that grants her Poison immunity, and one of her updated attack animations has her stir her staff in the ground like a cauldron to cause an eruption of dark, purple poison on the enemy.
- The Medic: She specializes in healing. Her Noble Phantasm, Pain Breaker, heals all allies and removes all debuffs. Her second skill is a slightly weaker heal and removes poison. Her third skill further increases the healing received of one party member for a turn.
- Mundane Utility: During her second interlude she uses one of the Demon Pillars, Haagenti to create infinite pancakes.
- Nice Girl: Subverted in the "Third Singularity: Sealed Ends of the Four Seas Okeanos". In contrast to her older self, she's sweet, kind, and friendly towards everyone. However, she also happens to be very distrusting towards others and her kind personality can be disturbing due to her being affected by Aphrodite's love curse and being possessed by Solomon. Played straight as a summoned Servant, where she's sickeningly sweet and even manages to mediate a dispute between Gilgamesh and Iskander (Da Vinci theorizes that her aura of happiness and her offer of pancakes defused most of the fighting). Her distrust of people, noted in her Profile, is hidden, and Mash describes her as giving unconditional love to those she loves in her second Interlude.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Due to learning that Jason will never be hers in the end of the "Third Singularity: Sealed Ends of the Four Seas Okeanos".
- One-Winged Angel: In "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", she and Mini Jason imply that Medea Lily is able to transform into her adult self. Mini Jason stops her from doing so.
- Otaku: A figurine-type. During "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", she no longer has hope to continue existing, but she does have something to dedicate herself to. And that is the creation of 287,000 plastic models at a rate of 3 a day. She seems especially fond of models from Greek history. If Mini Jason is anything like the real thing, then that's something they have in common.
- Pointy Ears: Also has pointy ears, for the same unexplained reason.
- Ready for Lovemaking: Not so obvious now, but Medea Lily's original Final Ascension art visible here
◊ seemed to have implications of that, given the curtains, and seemingly sitting on the bed with protagonist. Her current 4th ascension picture changes background to seemingly being outside, and having some sort of picnic with her though, which is more in tune with her character's emphasized innocence and purity.
- Say It with Hearts: All over her dialogue in her first Interlude to emphasize her sweetness.
- Shipper on Deck: She orchestrated the entirety of "The Aeaean Spring Breeze" all because she wanted her aunt Circe and Odysseus to hook up.
- Stepford Smiler: She seems much more friendly and sweet than her older form, but it's noted that she actually distrusts people just as much and is simply making a conscious, concerted effort to put faith in people when she actually has none. Her sweetness can also be disturbing to some both due to intensity and something being a little off about it.
- Stone Wall: She's on the high end of HP for a 4* Servant (higher than even some 5* Servants), but has the second-lowest ATK for all 4* Servants, beating only Altria Lily who suffers from Early-Installment Weirdness stats for a welfare Servant. Medea Lily's gameplay encourages stalling teams even though her skillset lacks true defensive skills. Since her heals are AoE, she'll profit from the massive healing incidentally, easily recovering half of her sizeable HP pool without even using her third skill on herself.
- Support Party Member: She's an excellent healer as she can remove debuffs, heal party members, and has a buff to increase the healing a Servant receives for a turn.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Her Crippling Overspecialization of healing and debuff cleansing/resistance means she shines in plenty of challenging fights that focus on a combination of difficult-to-avoid damage (bosses that purge your own buffs, for example), a constant fight with unavoidable chip damage, and debuff spam.
- One of the challenge quests that premiered in the second Nero Fest is against an entire army of Hassans — 36 total Assassin mobs with three Servant bosses. Each generic Assassin mob casts a three-turn debuff upon dying, and players are encouraged to keep killing them to avoid their quick 3-turn Noble Phantasm gauge. Not only does Medea Lily have class advantage, she would also be able to periodically purge these debuffs and keep the party healed up in a long fight.
- In the SE.RA.PH event, Medea Lily is one of the stars against the (optional) extremely difficult form of Beast III/R, the Devilish Bodhisattva, whose Noble Phantasm purges party buffs before inflicting damage, meaning teams without healing will be inevitably ground to dust. She also decreases the party's debuff resistance every turn to enable an onslaught of nasty single target debuffs, such as a Charm — clearly, Medea Lily spamming her Noble Phantasm neuters most of the danger of the fight. Medea Lily's kit matches up against this boss so well that players have even been able to solo this boss
with Medea.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Pancakes, as a result of being summoned in present times. Both her interludes focus on the food and how she thinks they can solve most problems.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Only relevant to version of Medea Lily that we meet in Okeanos, the summonable variant actually is an All-Loving Hero, and doesn't suffer from Aphrodite's curse nor Solomon's mind control. In Okeanos she's something of a double subversion, seeming like a psychotic Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and no less of a Woman Scorned than she would become - except she's not only still suffering from Aphrodite's love curse, but she's also being mind-controlled by Solomon. However, it's noted that she's actually just as distrusting of people as her older self and there's also something inherently disturbing about her sweetness. According to Mini Jason from "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes", her personality before Aphrodite's curse used to be like Illya's!
- White Mage: All her skills are based around either healing or getting off her NP so she can heal the party with it. This is entirely appropriate since at this point in her life Medea knew very little offensive magic. Her older form has the opposite problem in that while she still knows healing magic, she can't actually use it thanks to her legend as a witch.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_mephistopheles_1.jpg](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_caster_mephistopheles_1.jpg)
A demon of temptation who wagered with God as to whether or not a certain bored doctor named Faust would fall into depravity. Mephistopheles nearly succeeded into tempting Faust to eternal damnation but for the last-minute rescue of a loved one. Of course, this Mephistopheles is different from his literary counterpart, being instead a homunculus created by the alchemist Georg Faust who served him until he betrayed him.
He appears as an antagonist in the London chapter and as both the main villain and a major ally in Garden of Order. He also has a small cameo in Salem as "Mothman", explaining the nature of gods and man as well the nature of gods without man. During the Lostroom/Moonlight OVA, he fights alongside EMIYA (Alter).
- Adaptational Villainy: He's so gleefully vile and treacherous that he makes Goethe's already aggressively evil version that he's based off of look like a Noble Demon in comparison.
- Adaptational Wimp: As a homunculus, he has excellent Magic Circuits, but he has nowhere near the amount of mystical power an actual demon would have in this setting.
- Advertised Extra: In a manner similar to Darius III, he's touted as the game's iconic Caster in the anime opening, but actually has little to do in the storyline proper aside from killing Victor Frankenstein in London, after which he fights the party and Mordred cuts him down. He does get a better chance to shine in events, however.
- Affectionate Nickname: The protagonist and Mash sometimes refer to him as Mephy.
- Agent Peacock: Garish clothing, effeminate mannerisms, high heels...
- Ambiguous Gender: Mephistopheles' profile follows his gender with a question mark. Given his status as a Homunculus, he might not have a gender as such.
- Arc Villain: He's both this and your main ally in Garden of Order's main quest. It's complicated.
- Artificial Human: Though he claims to be a demon, he is actually a Homunculus created by Faust.
- Ax-Crazy: It is made abundantly clear that he as much of a danger to his master as he is to his enemies.
- Balance Buff: He received a Rank Up Quest for the 6th Anniversary that replaces Innocent Monster with Fruitless Wrath. The upgrade removes the DEF debuff demerit and now gives him a 20~30% ATK buff and drops a party-wide Healing Rate debuff on all enemies, both for three turns.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: According to supplementary materials, the only way to ensure his loyalty is to keep treating him well while surviving his inevitable betrayals. He will then follow orders willingly, mostly out of amusement at his Master's stubbornness.[If] a situation appears in that the Master deepens their bond with Mephistopheles while accepting all that is childish and wicked, it seems he will fight while gambling his life for the sake of his Master with pleasure and while laughing.
- Blessed with Suck: Amusingly, while he has a higher ranking in Innocent Monster than some other characters — notably, Hans Christian Andersen has only Rank D while his is Rank B — it has the same positive effects as Andersen's skill, but with a 4% higher DEF Down Demerit. Guess his Innocent Monster manifested negatively, unlike every other character where higher ranks in Innocent Monster have various positive effects instead of a demerit.
- Big Bad Wannabe: In "Garden of Order," he's revealed to be this in the "post-game". Edmond Dantès was the one who summoned the apartment and its ghosts; Mephisto simply took advantage of the incident to lure and trap Servants while also empowering the ghosts.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: His Noble Phantasm, Ticking Bomb: The Bomb Which Dozes Off, summons a mechanical, exploding centipede.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: He notes during the GudaGuda Event that he's had a rate-up for the gacha for a promotional event twice and promises to be in the rate-up for the Christmas event gacha. It didn't happen.
- Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: As the initial main promoted Caster of the game, Mephistopheles differed from his predecessors in three distinct ways. By being more physical in combat, utilizing machines with his Noble Phantasm, and being unabashedly and honestly evil in the wickedness he perpetrates.
- Damage Over Time: Mephisto's other niche besides his Clown's Laughter's situational Buff Block is being able to apply two separate sources of Curse damage via this same skill and his Noble Phantasm. His skill scales up to 1000 Curse damage for five turns, while his Noble Phantasm applies 500 Curse damage for three turns, increasing by 500 per level of overcharge. Pairing Mephisto with other Servants, such as Edmond Dantès' increased Curse damage, could lead to decent damage against certain challenge quests.
- A Day in the Limelight: Become your guide of sort in the Garden of Order event. Well, his "Good side" at least. The Evil one betrays you. He's surprised that you're surprised at an Evil-aligned Servant betraying you.
- Interestingly enough, he's a key character in the Jeanne D'Arc Ruler interludes, where he fights and assists your party, depending on where it is in the story.
- Distaff Counterpart: Parodied during "Garden of Order" where Shiki initially believes that Mephistopheles is Mash's brother since they have similar hair and eye colours.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: From the wholly evil two-thirds of Mephisto in "Garden of Order". Just before the final battle, he expresses utter bafflement as to why the protagonist actively chose to help Ryougi purify the building and save the servants, since the Irregular Singularity has nothing to do with Solomon's plot and could have been safely ignored. The protagonist stating that they did it because they wanted to help Ryougi and the trapped Servants only further confuses him.
- Evil Counterpart: To every other homunculus in the franchise as he lacks their naivety, subservience, and desire to be more human.
- Evil Laugh: As per usual for his voice actor.
- Evil Laugh Turned Coughing Fit: Mephistopheles is
Chaotic Evil and has this as a potential voice line when you finish a battle:
"Ahahaha! Hahahahagh, cough, cough! I choked, hahaha!" - Explosive Leash: How he likes to use his Noble Phantasm by inserting bombs into someone and then making his victims dance to his vicious whims.
- Flaming Devil: He's a very campy devil.
- Foreshadowing: The archetypal Deal with the Devil devil in the Nasuverse was actually a construct created by the mage. This turns out to be the same case for the Demon Pillars as well.
- Fur and Loathing: He mentions that his cape is made out of 100% devil fur during the Garden of Order event.
- Graceful Loser: After his team is defeated during the penultimate chapter of the GudaGuda event, he's the one who hands the Singularity's Holy Grail to the protagonists without a fuss. He cannot, however, resist the urge to pretend that it's a bomb as he vanishes.
- He Cleans Up Nicely: His "Heroic Spirit Formal Dress" Craft Essence image for the 2nd Anniversary Memorial Quest presents him in a more gentlemanly light as opposed to the madman we're used to seeing.
- Horned Humanoid: Subverted. The above mentioned Craft Essence image that has him in formal dress reveals they're actually a part of his hat.
- It's What I Do: He's giddy at the thought of getting to betray his master. Why? Because he's a self-proclaimed devil. Betraying people and being all around evil is what devils do.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Parodied during "Garden of Order" where it's revealed that there's some good in him. Said goodness takes up only 1/3 of his being and even when separated from his two evil thirds, he's still a vicious, self-centered trickster.
- Large Ham: He doesn't understand the concept of an inside voice.
- Magic Knight: A borderline example, at least in comparison to other Casters, as he primarily fights with a melee weapon and is one of the strongest Caster in the series where physical stats are concerned. Not that he's a slouch when it comes to the magic department.
- Mephistopheles: He tries to present himself as being the titular demon, but is actually a homunculus created by the real-life Dr. Georg Faust. He generally only does things he finds enjoyment in doing and is not afraid of turning against his Master if he finds them too boring, like he did with Faust. He also tends to be the character to play a demon role if needed.
- Not Completely Useless:
- He's considered to be one of the worst 3* offensive Casters due to his non-synergistic kit and has an Innocent Monster skill that is worse than Hans Christian Andersen. That being said, he also a unique third skill, Clown's Laughter, that applies Buff Block status 3 times. While it sounds useless on paper, it's actually one of the few skills that is useful against the final boss in the first storyline, as it can completely negate the boss's wombo-combo first turn of wiping off your entire frontline as evident in this video
.
- With the introduction of Break Bars and harder story fights in the Lostbelts where enemies automatically get buffs, Mephistopheles has actually managed to carve out a niche for himself almost exclusively on his third skill due to his ability to derail boss gimmicks with buff stacking abilities. A great example of this is in the Salieri boss fight in Lostbelt 1, where Salieri is unable to gain any of his buffs due to Mephistopheles' multi-time Buff Block.
It doesn't come up all the time of course but when it does, Mephistopheles is the undisputed king due to having the only multi-time Buff Block in the ENTIRE GAME!
- He's considered to be one of the worst 3* offensive Casters due to his non-synergistic kit and has an Innocent Monster skill that is worse than Hans Christian Andersen. That being said, he also a unique third skill, Clown's Laughter, that applies Buff Block status 3 times. While it sounds useless on paper, it's actually one of the few skills that is useful against the final boss in the first storyline, as it can completely negate the boss's wombo-combo first turn of wiping off your entire frontline as evident in this video
- Shear Menace: Wields a pair of huge scissors as a weapon. When he reaches Third Ascension, they evolve to look like a pair of large mandibles.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: He's a huge character in the "Garden of Order" event, but he doesn't appear at all during its animated trailer.
- Talkative Loon: Likes to ramble. One of his death quotes is one of the longest in-game as he prattles about himself dying.
- Technicolor Eyes: He has blue irises but pink pupils.
- Terror Hero: In Billy the Kid's Interlude, Mephistopheles is summoned as a surprisingly wholly-heroic member of the The Magnificent Seven Samurai Servant squad that Billy assembles to defend a town from an army of Celtic warriors. Mephisto admits that he doesn't really have much in way of defense, so he assails and terrifies the enemy army with bombs. It works so well that he even scares the civilians and slows down their evacuation.
- Time Bomb: His Noble Phantasm, TickTock Bomb. This is what killed Dr. Victor Frankenstein in London, as his body was found torn apart by explosives.
- Token Evil Teammate: The only outright villain among Billy's team of seven assembled Servants during the latter's Interlude. Surprisingly, he stays loyal to the bitter end and even leaves behind a post-mortem congratulatory "bomb" in the event Billy and the Protagonist succeeded.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Despite Faust being affectionate towards him, in the end he still betrayed and killed his master, finding his ambitions boring and stuck in one place.
- Villainous Harlequin: For a given value of villainous, given that he is controlled by the player. As an antagonist in London, he is definitely this.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_merlin_1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_merlin_1.png)
Merlin is the Court Magus of King Arthur, and a qualified candidate for the Grand Caster class. Born as a half-incubus, Merlin helped to engineer the birth of King Arthur and then used his incredible magical prowess and prophetic ability to mentor (or manipulate) her to become Britain's ideal king. He was also responsible for the enchantment that temporarily changed Arthur's gender to pseudo-male, following discussions about her ability to sire a heir.
Having foreseen the collapse of the Round Table through his Clairvoyance, Merlin silently left Britain before the Battle of Camlann and without warning anyone. Feeling that his life was under threat from Vivian, the Lady of the Lake, Merlin travelled to The Reverse Side Of The World where he took refuge in the mythological realm of Avalon. However, he realised too late that Vivian had trapped him in Avalon for eternity, where he would not die unless The World itself was destroyed. Although he can use his magical powers to observe the world of humans, he can no longer interfere with any event in-person; yet his mere presence warps the surroundings of his confinement into that of a paradise.
As he can never die so long as he exists within Avalon, Merlin can never have his soul recorded by the Throne Of Heroes. As a result, the "Merlin" supposedly summoned by the FATE Summoning System is best thought of as a projection of the real Merlin, who is playfully acting out the role of a "Servant" by your side.
Merlin first made cameos during the Fifth Singularity: North American Myth War, E Pluribus Unum and the Sixth Singularity: Divine Realm of the Round Table, Camelot, and is a major ally during the Seventh Singularity: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia. He was first released as a limited-time Servant for the Final Singularity: The Grand Table of Time, Solomon. He also appears a few times in "Lostbelt No. 6: Fairy Round Table Domain, Avalon le Fae", though mostly as a dream.
A self-proclaimed "Servant without a Master", she was first mentioned by Beni-enma during the Enma-tei event and then she had her first unseen appearance in the rhythm game Fate/Grand Order Waltz in the MOONLIGHT/LOSTROOM, and is the one creating all the costumes Mash wears in the game. She then became summonable in the event "Bedazzled! Grail Concert". She oversees her own workshop in Chaldea, producing costumes for other Servants, taking over shopkeeping duties for those from da Vinci.
Heavily implied to be the bird woman from the Japanese folktale "Tsuru no Ongaeshi".
- A Dog Named "Dog": Miss Crane is an alias. Her real True Name is Tsurume-no-Kimi, which can be translated as the somewhat more youthful "Crane Girl".
- Action Fashionista: In this game, she's more than willing to fight for you on top of being obssessed with producing the finest clothes to express her gratitude for all the favors she's received over the course of her life. As if to drive this point home, her outfit changes every ascension rather than adding new details.
- Actually a Doombot: The "Miss Crane" Chaldea interacted with for the majority of "Bedazzled! Grail Concert" is a Terminal unit crafted by the real Miss Crane. Unlike the Terminal Sieg created however, Miss Crane's is more akin to a robot, carrying out a preprogrammed task while simulating her personality, described by herself as akin to a "marionette" meant to live out the real Miss Crane's fantasies while she's preoccupied maintaining the singularity. The player and Mash coming from outside the singularity and remembering everything is what exposes her, as when they attempt to restore her memories using a Command Seal much like they did with Ex, she instead enters a trance before attacking them. Once they knock her out and discover her "sketch books" are actually instructions for her to maintain her programming, she remembers everything, including what she really is.
- Animorphism: She transforms into a crane during her Noble Phantasm.
- Because You Were Nice to Me:
- She's endlessly grateful for any favors or kindness she receives, no matter how small, intending to repay every last one in time. She sees the clothes she makes as the highest form of repayment she can bestow, perfecting her craft to the point that it would seem as though the gods made them.
- This was the reason she became the main antagonist of "Bedazzled! Grail Concert". A French fashion designer gave her shelter and companionship, and the singularity was her attempt to keep her Master's dream alive after the designer passed away of illness.
- But Now I Must Go:
- In her story, she left the farmer after he witnessed her true form. This is embodied in her Noble Phantasm, where the doors open to reveal her true form as a crane before she flies away from the viewer. To reflect this, she falls back to the last slot in your party. Unlike Order Change, the swap-in is the next Servant in the queue, rather than the Servant whose slot she takes.
- According to "Bedazzled! Grail Concert", leaving if someone sees her work is something she must do whether she wants to or not and is tied to her identity.
- Cast from Hit Points: Her second and third skills cost 2000 and 1000 HP respectively. This is likely because some versions of the story has her physically losing weight for each dress she makes, since she's using up her feathers.
- Clothing Combat: Miss Crane fires reams of cloth as projectiles at her opponents for one of her animations in her Third Ascension.
- Connected All Along: Her final line at the end of the "Bedazzled! Grail Concert" event gives the player (and only the player, as the Protagonist has left the scene) a shocking reveal: one of her benefactors was Dr. Roman. After Miss Crane was outed as a Stray Servant and was on the cusp of disappearing, a chance meeting with the good doctor saved her life, offering her the LOSTROOM at Chaldea until she could recover. Turns out she'd been squatting at Chaldea the entire time Act 1 was happening, and she was mortified to learn of Roman's Ret-Gone Heroic Sacrifice. She prayed in the end that her time with the Protagonist and Mash repaid the debt she owed.
- Cuteness Proximity: Miss Crane gives an air of refinement. This is a lie, as she will dissolve into Squee upon seeing certain Servants, especially ones who wear costumes.
- Deconstruction: Miss Crane's backstory is a grim reality check for Stray Servants. Turns out life as a Stray sucks when you're not as powerful as Gilgamesh or as lucky as Astolfo, Abigail, or Draco.
- Her summoning was abnormal in that she doesn't need an anchor to exist, but she still needs mana. She had to be terribly conservative in order to survive; she was basically living like a starving human, only barely subsisting on what little mana she gained from food.
- She's still bound to her legend. If someone sees her working, she must leave, no matter how good of a life she had or how well-meaning the peeper was. In some cases this included transforming into a crane and back, which didn't help her mana conservation.
- Her life was one of constant hiding from mages. Her one chance to step into the light came at the expense of a late friend, whom Miss Crane took on the name of hoping to make her friend's talent for clothing design known to the world. What she got instead was the Mage Association knocking on her door, having to flee before she was Killed to Uphold the Masquerade.
- She knows she'll forget everything upon returning to the Throne of Heroes. It wasn't a bother before, but now that she was working to fulfill the dream of her late friend, she struggles to survive desperately to preserve her memories until her debt is repaid. This leads to the events of "Bedazzled! Grail Concert" because a Singularity is the only place she can continue to exist. She still has to disappear in the end after the Singularity is resolved, hoping that the Protagonist's gambit with the Holy Grail will let her keep her memories. (Thankfully, it works.)
- Dead Person Impersonation: Took up the name of her deceased Master to give her the credit she feels she deserved, after having her life cut short. She wanted to make the world know of her beloved friend's design and talent.
- Detrimental Determination: The materialized Miss Crane might have found happiness in the Enma-tei or at least peace in Chaldea, but her desire to honor the memory and work of her last Master drove her to press on in her quest to create a monument to the same, leading to the events of "Bedazzled! Grail Concert".
- Difficult, but Awesome: Miss Crane is a servant whose kit is not recommended for beginners, but can reward players for successfully using her. Her NP provides one of the best buffs towards the leftmost servant in the frontline which then results in her swapping out with another servants, and can be unleashed instantly with her second skill maxed out (or with a lesser skill level depending how much her second Append Skill was leveled up), but requires a payment of 20 critical stars, and depending on the Servants currently in the frontline, her first skill which grants a decent amount of critical stars depending on how many Costume-Owning Servants are in the frontline may not be enough, necessitating that players must have a Servant or Craft Essence that grants critical stars. Veteran players consider her a cornerstone for many runs that seek to do highly-difficult nodes, especially Challenge Quests in few turns as possible, though that doesn't mean she can be used for farming quests as well
.
- Draw Aggro: Inverted. Her second skill taunts all her allies except her, taking the heat off her and putting it on them.
- Equivalent Exchange: Any favor done for her must be returned, she follows this absolutely.
- Extreme Doormat: Discussed. Miss Crane is extremely dutiful and will do whatever her Master tells her to if she feels she owes any kind of debt to them. She doesn't mind being called a doormat, because repaying favors is the very essence of her being.
- Feather Flechettes: She can rain down her feathers as bladed projectiles.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: She lived in France once, and loved it. She'll comment on French Servants because of this.
- Fluffy Fashion Feathers: Wears these in her Second Ascension to imitate the effect of Pretty in Mink.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Despite providing Mysterious Idol X (Alter) with her outfit, Miss Crane seems to make for an odd teammate for the main Servant of the event. Since she technically doesn't have any Spiritron Dresses, Ecchan doesn't trigger the generation of Critical Stars with Miss Crane's first skill. What's more, while the story and stage gimmicks encourage players to put Ecchan in the center of a team formation, Crane's Noble Phantasm only provides buffs to the leftmost Servant on the front.note This incompatibility makes a tad more sense when it's revealed that Miss Crane is the event's antagonist and is somewhat disinclined from being too helpful.
- Geas: According to Miss Crane, her fleeing if someone spies on her working is something she must do, even if she doesn't want to. She's had to leave many loved ones over the her life for doing so even if they didn't mean to.
- Gratuitous French: Miss Crane was summoned once and lived in France, where she has picked up a thing or deux in the French language.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: She celebrates the completion of hard work with lots and lots of sake, as shown by her third Noble Phantasm line."What? Changing your looks? Of course I can do it. REEEEEPAYMENT! Woohoo, I succeeded! Tonight's happy hour is all night long!"
- Heterosexual Life-Partner: With Habetrot. Her materials have her explaining that Habetrot is her sunshine, and nobody in the world makes her happier.
- Hot Witch: Her second Ascension is designed with this in mind, between a giant conical hat, her form-fitting robes, and a "cape" of feathers emulating Pretty in Mink.
- I Am Not Pretty: Miss Crane says she's unfit to be a model while talking about Hokusai, but Miss Crane's artwork as well as the portrait Hokusai paints of her say otherwise.
- In the Hood: She spends her First Ascension in a flowing wizard's robe straight out of a JRPG.
- Interspecies Friendship: She, a crane, became friends with a normal French woman.
- Loony Fan: Of idol singers. While her main goal was to immortalize the designs of her former Master, the whole Grail Concert scheme was purely for her own benefit so she could ogle them for eternity.
- Mayfly–December Friendship: As a Servant she can exist for a long time as long as she has mana. Her already short time with the mortal fashion designer gets cut even shorter due to becoming ill.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: She possesses a slew of never before seen effects on her abilities. She's the first Servant with the ability to switch herself out of the frontline with her Noble Phantasm, allowing her to help cycle through support Servants for rapid two-turn buffing without killing a Servant off the way Chen Gong would. In addition, her Noble Phantasm only affects the leftmost Servant in the front line, the first of its kind for a buffing Noble Phantasm. Her first skill also grants critical stars only if her allies have had a Costume Dress (even if they're not wearing it).
- Noodle Incident: Beni-Enma mentions that Miss Crane was once an employee at her inn, Enma-tei, working as a weaver, but one day, she left and never came back. Beni-Enma speculates that she left because her sparrows might have spied on her while she worked.
- Open Secret: Her origin as the crane from "Tsuru no Ongaeshi". The only reason it's not Everybody Knew Already is because several characters deduce it right in front of her before she tries changing the subject.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: When her French Master got sick and with the doctors not being able to save her, her internal monologue begs her to stay and that she wants to stay with her forever.
- Power Dyes Your Hair: She's red-haired in her first two ascensions, but becomes dark-haired in her Third and Final Ascensions.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Rarely, she'll declare during her Noble Phantasm that she's ditching the fight to start a drinking party after she's done making the clothes. Mechanically it acts the same as normal though.
- Sexily Modest: Her artist mentions in Miss Crane's Chaldea Breakroom that she dresses to show as little skin as possible to follow along her legend of not wanting people to look at her.
- Shapeshifting Lover: She's the crane woman in the folktale "Tsuru no Ongaeshi", where a farmer rescued an injured crane and nursed her back to health. In exchange, she transformed into a beautiful woman and declared herself his wife, repaying his kindness by feeding him with a bag of infinite rice and weaving in a back room while telling him to never look inside while she's weaving. But his curiosity gets the better of him, and he peeks inside. Upon seeing her true form, she declares that she can stay no longer and leaves him. The only difference between the original story and the one here is that she finished her work rather than leaving him with just the cloth.
- Situational Sword: Her first skill grants 10 critical stars for every Servant on the field that has a Costume Dress in the wardrobe. Even with the addition of numerous Costume Dresses in her debut event, this is a rather selective group of Servants
, making it much more difficult to draw out her full potential. In addition, her Noble Phantasm can only be used with 20 critical stars, meaning that she can't use it on turn one unless she comes in with a critical star-granting CE or is fielded with two costumed Servants.
- Split-Personality Merge: Once the Terminal the real Miss Crane created Grew Beyond Their Programming and performed a Heroic Sacrifice to stop her from continuing the "Groundhog Day" Loop, everyone believed the Terminal truly died from it. As the real Miss Crane approached the Despair Event Horizon however, Ex and the Player use the Holy Grail to grant Miss Crane the Terminal's Ghost Memory. While it initially only does that, the final Grail Concert the idols put on for her, combined with her coming to understand how even if something must end the memories will always remain, allows her to fully integrate the Terminal's being into herself. When Miss Crane speaks with the Player, Mash, and Ex in the epilogue, she's taken on her Third Ascension, and elaborates she is not just the original nor the Terminal, but both as one now, all thanks to them.
- Support Party Member: She's able to bestow powerful effects with her skills and Noble Phantasm, including teamwide invincibility, bonus critical star production, absorption, and weight, as bonus damage, NP damage, and a small amount of NP charge. Her Noble Phantasm even swaps her to the back of the party so someone else can start buffing your preferred target the following turn.
- Switchout Move: Her NP automatically swaps herself out with the last Servant in the backline.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: And not in a good way. An uncompromising part of Miss Crane's existence is that if she is seen in the middle of her work, she must leave those people behind, no exceptions. She's had to leave without saying goodbye to a lot of nice people and benefactors this way and hated it every time — but nothing could prepare her for the heartbreak when the benefactor left her, having died from illness. She was so bereaved that she dedicated the rest of her Stray Servant life to fulfilling that late master's dream.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: She spends most of her time sewing and weaving beautiful clothes, but like in her myth, she refuses to allow anyone to watch her work and will leave if she is spied on.
- Tomato in the Mirror: The Terminal Miss Crane is entirely unaware that she's not the real Miss Crane, believing herself to be the genuine article and having earnestly supported Ex, when she's actually a Terminal unit meant to facilitate the "Groundhog Day" Loop while living out the real Miss Crane's fantasies, kept in check by the curses in her "sketch books". She ends up just as surprised as a result when the real Miss Crane reveals herself, and attempts to question who she is but is stopped when Miss Crane initiates the "Groundhog Day" Loop. The only reason the Terminal never Grew Beyond Their Programming was due to the loop making sure the books were always reset, which she laments that, despite the player, Mash, and Ex managing to free her, she'll just fall under the real Miss Crane's control again when the next loop occurs.
- Trash of the Titans: Her profiles mentions that while she is able to keep other people's areas neat and organized, her own spaces tend to be disaster areas, filled with stuff like old clothes, fashion magazines, and empty sake bottles.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Er, weaver. Her Noble Phantasm has her create the ideal garment sought by all dressmakers and fashion designers. These clothes are so comfortable and awe-inspiringly beautiful that they provide boundless confidence and hope to the wearer, allowing them to proceed and overcome any challenge because they believe they can.
- Winged Humanoid: From her Second Ascension onward, her wings can be seen beneath her clothes.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_miyu_1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_miyu_1.png)
Sapphire: And I'm Magical Sapphire, the wand. I do hope my older sister hasn't been a nuisance to you all.
A close friend of Illyasviel von Einzbern of a certain parallel universe, she wields the power of Kaleido Sapphire.
She first appears in the Prisma Illya crossover event "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes" event and became playable with its "Re-install".
- Alternate Self: Like Chloe and Illya, Servant Miyu is likely a copy created by First Lady, born of the original Miyu's curiosity of what being a Servant is like.
- Balance Buff: Her Rank Up Quest to celebrate ''Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya: Licht - The Nameless Girl" buffs her Noble Phantasm by increasing the passive healing of Protection of Sakatsuki, giving the party attack buff for 3 turns each turn, and most importantly removing the HP drain demerit. Her viability as a Support Party Member is much better now, having gone from self-destructive to basically being a mini-Merlin.
- Blue Is Heroic: Sapphire is blue, resulting in Miyu's blue-purple outfit. Likewise, all of her attacks besides Gáe Bolg are blue coloured; the only exception being her sword attacks when she reaches her Third Ascension, where the sword is coated in pink/purple energy instead.
- Cast from Hit Points: Her Noble Phantasm is essentially a weaker version of Merlin's Garden of Avalon, but with the caveat that it costs her 3,000 HP to use each time.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: A minor example, but she's very protective of her friendship with Illya. Her "Dislikes" voice line has her say that her lifetime of stoicism has left her with no strong feelings of hatred towards anything. Sapphire suggests that to imagine what it would feel like, "Imagine if Master flirted with Illya".I hate them.
- Continuity Cameo: Much like Fujino, she doesn't appear at all in the Main Story or in most events and is largely just for fans of her from Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA. Unlike Fujino, she does appear in her release event, albeit only as a Living Macguffin, and gets a cameo in "GUDAGUDA Final Honnouji". This would eventually be subverted come "Board Game Apocalypse" and "Chaldea Thriller Night".
- Damsel in Distress: Spends 99% of "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes" being held captive by the First Lady, and the goal of Illya is to rescue her.
- Death from Above: Her second Arts attack animation has her drop down from above with a mana sword in hand.
- Divergent Character Evolution: Due to how similar she is to Illya, here she is designed to be different from Illya. Whereas Illya is mostly a solo player with a focus on Buster damage, Miyu is a team focused Arts Caster, with her strength being in able to support her allies. This means she has GREAT synergy in a frontline team with Chloe and Illya.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Miyu's Third Ascension outfit was an early reveal with her addition to the game in February 2019. It did not appear in the proper PRISMA☆ILLYA manga until October 2023, almost five years later.note
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- She lacks the Territory Creation and Item Construction skills possessed by most Casters, which ties into how she was never formally trained as a magus. She instead has Magic Resistance and Infinite Magical Energy, the latter being a nod to how she supplied her brother with an endless supply of magical energy to survive the Holy Grail War as her world's equivalent of the Holy Grail.
- She and the other PRISMA☆ILLYA characters work extremely well together. Illya and Miyu handily cover each other's weaknesses — Miyu's Third Skill covers Illya's luck-based Skill issues by buffing the Success Rate, while Illya's Third Skill helps to counter the heavy demerit on Miyu's NP. Rounding out the team with Chloe gives the party a good Crit Star farmer and Crit Damage booster (which stacks with Miyu's First Skill), provides an alternate Success Rate buff for Illya, and gives all three girls a means of surviving a lethal attack (Miyu with Guts, Chloe with Evasion, Illya with Invulnerability and a targettable Guts if one of these isn't enough).
- Heroes Prefer Swords: She frequently uses Sapphire's sword function to attack her foes, even coating the blade in magical energy to increase its length and damage. By her Third Ascension, the initial blade is long enough that she doesn't need to use extra energy to increase the length.
- How Unscientific!: During the Chaldea Thriller Night Event, she tries to explain that ghosts don't exist. To two Ghost Linersnote . Ana just ignores that, while Wu is cheered up immensely and hopes that if that can be scientifically proven, then maybe they can scientifically prove that cats don't exist either.
- Living MacGuffin: She's being drained of her magical energy during the events of "Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes". She's also known as the God Child for her ability to grant wishes as her world's equivalent of the Holy Grail.
- Magic Wand: Kaleidostick Sapphire.
- Magical Girl: Just like Illya, after all.
- Master of None: While Miyu isn't outright bad, she tries to be a blend of a solo offensive Arts Caster with her first skill that buffs her Arts Card Effectiveness and gives Critical Strength Up alongside her second skill giving herself Guts (and 1 time Debuff Immunity for 3 turns), and a support Caster at the same time with her third skill and Noble Phantasm. The result is that she really only works well when fighting with pure offensive Servants who lack team buffs because her Noble Phantasm allows her to help charge NP bars while dropping Critical Stars. If you put her onto any normal Arts team, she pales in comparison to many other options available because they focus better on one side of her playstyle; Gilgamesh (Caster) generally outperforms her support-wise thanks to being focused on team-wide buffs, with the only thing Miyu has over him is a healing buff, while Sieg outperforms her offensively because his Limit Break playstyle allows him to spam his NP quickly and easily. She's also greatly overshadowed by Merlin, who is a far better version of her. Andersen also received a buff that essentially made him a better version of her despite being a lower rarity. It is perhaps unsurprising that she was eventually given a Strengthening Quest that dramatically improved her NP.
- Name Order Confusion: Her original name was Sakatsuki Miyu, but due to her adoption by the Edelfeldt family, her name changed to Miyu Edelfeldt, changing the name order of her given name.
- Promoted to Playable: She became a playable Servant with the release of "Revival: Magical Girl Cruise - Prisma Codes - Re-Install".
- Rare Random Drop: Formerly. She is one of the three rarest SR/4* Servants in the game, the others one being Asagami Fujino and Kijyo Kōyō, and for the same reasons: she was made playable during the rerun of her debut event in January 2019 as a limited summon, with very few Rate Ups outside of said rerun. She would've remained one of the rarest if she didn't have several Rate Ups in 2023.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Illya's Red, which is commented upon in the event itself after she's rescued. This even reflects in their respective gameplay options, with Illya being focused on dealing intense NP damage, whilst Miyu is designed to supporting the party whilst still being able to deal critical arts Damage. Their 4th Ascension art is similarly contrasting, With Illya in Summer beachwear and Miyu in Winter clothes.
- Revisiting the Roots: Her Third Ascension costume is a variant of her original Sakatsuki Child of God ceremonial dress. Even her eye color has reverted to what it was before she wished to be Shirou's biological sister. In fact, the name of her Saint Graph changes from "Miyu Edelfelt" to "Sakatsuki Miyu" with her Third Ascension!
- Single-Target Sexuality: True to the source material, she really, really, really likes Illya.
- Support Party Member: Zigzagged. Two of her skills are solely focused on increasing her own damage output and survivability, but her third skill and Noble Phantasm are designed to support allies with additional NP Gain, Critical Stars, healing, and Buff Success Rate.
- Sword Beam: Uses these in her first Quick and third Arts attack animations. In the former she fires a barrage of small beams before going in with Gáe Bolg, while in the latter she fires one large beam.
- Talking Weapon: Like her sister, Sapphire talks, flies, and generally likes to screw around with everyone around her.
- Technicolor Eyes: Her original eye color was red, as seen in her Third Ascension art. They changed to the mundane amber-brown after she wished to become her brother's biological sister.
- Wave-Motion Gun: She makes extensive use of giant lasers in her Buster and Extra Attack animations.
- What If?: As
Hiroshi Hiroyama explains in Fate/Grand Order Material VIII, Miyu's Third Ascension is what would happen if Miyu came to accept and understand her nature as the Divine Child (her world's version of a living Holy Grail) and transformed with Sapphire afterward. Since everyone that isn't a villain in PRISMA ILLYA is trying to keep her inner Grail sealed, this outfit would never appear in the original story. Hiroyama was pleased as punch to be able to show off the unused transformation in Grand Order. It later made it to the manga when Miyu awakens her powers as a Divine Child through some well-timed Loophole Abuse when she confronts Darius Ainsworth.
- What Is This Feeling?: When asked about something they dislike, Miyu realizes she's never actually felt hatred before. However, when Sapphire gives the scenario of the Protagonist doing something with Illya, she immediately deadpans that she hates it.
![https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_murasaki_shikibu_1.png](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fgo_murasaki_shikibu_1.png)
One of Japan's most known book authors and a noblewoman from the Heian era. She penned the story that would be credited as the first written and modern novel, The Tale of Genji.
She makes her first appearance in the "Valentine Voices & Letters! ~Murasaki Shikibu and the Seven Cursed Books~" event, and her living self appears in "Hell Realm Mandala, Heiankyo" where she lets Kintoki and the Protagonist stay in a spare room in her manor. She's also one of the Masters of the Seven Casters summoned for the Imperial Holy Grail War. Her Caster is Babbage
- Anachronism Stew: Murasaki wears a Victorian-era dress in her first ascension and glasses in her second, both of which never existed in the Heian period.
- Apologizes a Lot: She's very shy and humble, and quickly apologizes in conversation even when there's nothing to apologize for. Lampshaded by Semiramis, who tells Murasaki that as someone of noble blood, she shouldn't bow her head so easily.
- Art Attacker: She writes her Noble Phantasm and some of her attacks into existence with her writing brush.
- Ascended Extra: She was first mentioned offhandedly by Tristan during the CCC event, and then she became a new Servant with a brand new design.
- Author Appeal: An In-Universe example with the movie she's helping to make in the "A Study in the Dubious Meiho-sou" event; she's playing a woman who married the man who raised her. Not surprising, since she's written about Wife Husbandry before in The Tale of Genji. Archer of Shinjuku only realizes this after playing his part and is worried about coming across as a pedophile.Archer of Shinjuku: ...Hm? Isn't that sort of character right up Murasaki's alley? Wasn't there something like that in her magnum opus? What will future generations think of me?
Protagonist: It'll be fiiiiine!
Archer of Shinjuku: Easy for you to say! - Berserk Button: While Murasaki is normally demure and deferential to others, especially royals of higher standing than her like Assassin of the Nightless City, the one thing that will piss Murasaki off more than anything is a disturbance in the library. To her, libraries are sanctuaries from the din of the outside world, and she becomes unusually assertive and furious when Tristan and Nobbu barge in and make a ruckus while also threatening to light the entire library ablaze. She then proceeds to kick all of them out of the library for their insolence.
- Bigger on the Inside: She's able to create her library in a way that warps space, allowing it to fit inside of a small, unused storage area despite being large enough to house thousand upon thousands of books and contain multiple floors.
- Black Mage: Two of her skills are designed to help her dish out high damage with her Noble Phantasm, with an enemy wide DEF debuff and bonus damage against Demonic enemies, and an enemy NP seal plus an NP damage buff, though she does dip slightly into Red Mage with her third skill which provides a damage cut, debuff immunity, and buff removal resistance to the party. Having the second highest ATK out of all Casters (11,374) also certainly helps her damage potential.
- Bookworm: She loves reading, and is curious about poems and stories from outside her native time and place, spending all her free time absorbed in them. She even constructed her own library underground, where she serves as manager, proprietor and librarian. She also has deep respect for Servants who were writers, including Caesar for his Commentaries on the Gallic War, and asks them if they would like to donate books to her library.
- Combat Hand Fan: She attacks with hand fans by throwing them or slashing at enemies with them. In her final ascensions, they levitate and move on their own.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Has this element when doing a long range Quick attack. All of a sudden, books get dropped on her hands and she stumbles around, eventually getting the books dropped and bumped to the enemy, and apologizes for it.
- Dark Is Not Evil: In the Fate franchise, if someone's an ethereally beautiful Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette with a colour scheme that's heavy on black and purple, they're usually seriously bad news. Murasaki, on the other hand, is simply a neurotic but kind-hearted bookworm who happens to be a devastatingly powerful offensive mage.
- Dude Magnet: Several male Servants try to win her over. As early as her first event, both Shakespeare and Caesar, her fellow writers, are brushing up on her favorite poetry in an effort to, as Andersen bluntly puts it, "get into her ruffled skirt," and even the prickly fairy tale author himself finds her easy to talk to. Later, in the Prince of Lan Ling's Interlude, Blackbeard expresses some attraction to her too.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Her eyes lack any reflection, which, paired with her habitually stoic expression, give her a gloomy aura. This is a reflection of the real life Murasaki Shikibu; her personal letters reveal she struggled with depression and her life was plagued with sorrows and hardships.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: Has them in her first form, but loses them as she ascends. It could be a sign of her caking on the makeup, since her final Ascension resembles a Heian noblewoman rather than a Victorian librarian.
- Famous Ancestor: She's delighted in her My Room if you have Tarawa Touta, since as Fujiwara no Kaoruko she is of his lineage.
- Geometric Magic: Most of her spells are activated via drawing a pentacle (or, as the Japanese know it, a Seimei star
) in the story.
- Good Old Ways: While she doesn't hate modern technology, she generally prefers things as she knew them in life. Such as not being happy that paper books are being replaced, being confused why Kintoki would want to wear modern sunglasses and being delighted when she gets to wear a kimono again. This contrasts her with fellow writers Hans and Sei Shōnagon who have embraced modern technology to various extents.
- Hidden Buxom: Inverted. Her earlier forms quite emphasize her large bust but in her third Ascension form, her multilayered kimono completely hides her figure.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: This version of her was acquaintances with Abe no Seimei, who taught her onmyōdō, which is how she knows various spells to use against enemies. This is why she marks her spells with the pentacle, or the Seimei star. Granted, she herself admits in her debut event that she actually wasn't very good at onmyōdō back during the Heian period, and it was only after being summoned as a Caster that her skills reach the point seen in-game. Her profile describe her as essentially a writer who learned about magicians so as to properly write about them.
- Hot Librarian: She runs the library and very much shows she was designed by Raita. She's also a pretty good match for the strict definition of the trope, being nerdy, sexy, and cute, and having odango hair, a Victorian-era dress, and glasses.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure: Much like Raikou before her, Murasaki's bust is enormous and her waist is tiny. Lampshaded by Tamamo Cat.Cat: At first glance you'd think you weren't getting enough to eat, but you've clearly been packing the pounds on in other places. Welp, no matter how impossible your proportions might be, we cats don't turn away customers.
- Improbable Weapon User: She uses a feather duster and an unrolled scroll in one of her attacks.
- Kimono Is Traditional: Seemingly averted in her first two ascensions, since she wears a rather anachronistic Victorian era-style dress, but played straight in her third ascension where she wears a full Heian era-style kimono, fitting for both the time period she lived in and her status as an author.
- Lemony Narrator: The one technique she properly learned from Seimei, purely by osmosis of hanging around him, is a curse she calls Taizan Commentary Fest. She can add "captions" to someone without their knowledge, although anyone looking at them can see it. The example given is how if Hans Christian Andersen were complaining about oranges being messy, she could add a caption about how he absolutely adores oranges. The only limitation is that it must be true, and, unfortunately for the timid and blubbering Murasaki, that she has very little control over it, meaning it sometimes pops up and embarrasses whoever she's talking to.
- Little Black Dress: Her black dress likely references that she was widowed at a relatively young age.
- Magic Librarian: Has Curse (Poem) at D+, and she manages her own library. One of her abilities as a Servant is to convert information and ebooks into paper books, effectively allowing her to create her magic library as she wishes. It's noted that Japanese traditions of exorcism often involve poetry too.
- No-Paper Future: She's dismayed to learn that physical books are slowly being replaced by digital copies in the modern day."As they'd say nowadays, I'm charmed by books themselves. ......Digital books? That's no good. Paper books are number one. No matter what they say, I'd say the presence of the time of scrolls and booklets is pronounced."
- Of Corsets Sexy: Her outfit in her first two ascensions looks more like a sexy version of a Victorian Era dress than the kimono one would expect.
- Parasol of Prettiness: In her first ascension, she carries a parasol that matches her dress.
- Pen Name: "Murasaki Shikibu" is actually her pseudonym. She mentions her real name "Fujiwara no Kaoruko" in her interaction with Tawara Touta, being a fellow Fujiwara.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Her first two ascensions feature one that gets replaced with a pimped-out kimono for her third.
- Power Dyes Your Hair: Her hair color changes from brown to a dark purple similar to Raikou's in her third ascension.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Much like Jeanne Alter, Murasaki's hair grows significantly at her 3rd Ascension, going from knee-length to trailing several feet behind her in her game sprite.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: While she's naturally pale, she doesn't really fit this trope until her third ascension, where her hair color changes from brown to a very dark purple.
- Shrinking Violet: Her artwork may make her look dignified and composed, but she's really a shy, timid bookworm who Apologises a Lot whenever she's forced into social interaction.
- Situational Sword: Her Noble Phantasm deals 150% increased damage at minimum against Demonic enemies. Combined with her first skill that also boosts damage against Demonic enemies for the whole party, and she can really bring the pain. This is weaponized during "A Not-So-Ordinary Valentine ~Murasaki Shikibu and the Five Slaying Queens~" where she rather easily destroys a Chocolate Golem with the Demonic Trait.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Her My Room line for Watanabe no Tsuna suggests she was involved in some shady goings-on in the Heian court:"Watanabe no Tsuna? The police and judicial chief? I-I-I haven't done anything illicit! I couldn't possibly have any access to Lord Michinaga's secret bank accounts! Ahahahaha..."
- Stealth Expert: Despite being neither an Assassin or having any ranks in Presence Concealment as a servant, her living self is shown to be quite stealthy in Hein-kyo. When the protagonist is preparing to leave, she lets slip that she knew the entire time they were from the future, admitting she was eavesdropping on them during the first they stayed at her manor, much to the surprise of Kintoki and Danzo, who state they were unable to detect her doing so at all.
- Theme Music Power-Up: Because Shikibu is so fond of the historical era she hails from, her Noble Phantasm is accompanied with light period-appropriate music.
- Too Important to Walk: In her third Ascension form, she rides on a hovering cloud-like platform that resembles Japanese-style art, whose emanations she can use to attack enemies.
- Unknown Rival: Is more than a little miffed that Sei Shonagon is so quick to sweep their famous rivalry under the rug when they're summoned to Chaldea.
- Workaholic: She became so engrossed in writing "The Tale of Genji" that entire days or even seasons would pass by without her noticing. But for her, it was more because it was enjoyable rather than a chore. In "A Study in the Meihou Manor", she explicitly has to drug herself in order to fall asleep and stop working."I began composing a story after losing my husband at a young age. That's "The Tale of Genji". ── Yes, right. There was also the fact of composing stories. It was so much fun that the days passed in the blink of an eye while I made my brush run. To the point that rather than days, I forgot even about the passing of seasons. Seriously, those were fun days."