WMG / Fate/Apocrypha

Extra Lancer is simply Vlad from an Alternate Universe

You can summon Heroic Spirits from any point in time—why not from a different timeline? Besides, EMIYA probably won't exist in the main timeline given the events of stay night. The two Vlads are simply from different timelines.

• This is canon. It's also been stated that the two Vlads are different.
• For the record, EMIYA still exists in the main timeline(s). Whatever happens to a Servant in a Holy Grail War has no influence on the actual Heroic Spirit, since Servants are just copies of the hero's soul created by the ritual, and disappear completely at its end.

• One of them is Vlad the Vampire, the other is Vlad the person who hates his legend. It's similar to Elizabeth Bathory and Carmilla in Grand Order, who interact and despise each other; the former is the real person who hates how she's been remembered and the latter is the result of her legend who embraces it and hates Liz for being a naive fool who refuses to accept her own actions.
  • To elaborate, they're also based on how they're viewed. Apocryphia!Vlad is the one viewed as the savior of Wallachia, hero of the people; Extra!Vlad is what the rest of the world views him as, a cruel zealot whose pastime is skewering people.

Shirou Kotomine wants to capture Jeanne D'arc

Think about it. He's a Kotomine and what kind of Christian wouldn't want to meet a real saint, much less capture her? There's no doubt he has some kind of Evil Plan involving Jeanne. ^note  By all technicality, Amakusa Shiro Tokisada is not recognized as a Saint by the Vatican. He is only known as such by Japanese Catholics.

Shirou Kotomine is a version of Shirou as raised by Kirei

The clue to this is in Shirou's last name. Which means that Shirou was raised by a complete sociopath, and was in turn given a skewed moral compass.

• I'd say this is plausible, but it isn't. The Grail got stolen after the 3rd War, So Shirou would still be a child at this point in time.
• At any rate, this theory has been Jossed. He is actually Amakusa Shiro Tokisada, the Ruler of the Third Holy Grail War.
• His design and name is obviously desgined to fool the reader however.
• It is offhandedly mentioned that RISEI Kotomine took Shirou in, making Kirei his half-brother.
  • So that just means Risei can't win huh? Everyone he takes in/raises turns out to be an asshole.

Mordred is actually Mordred Alter

She's the clone of Saber. Saber has an ahoge, except when she's Saber Alter. What's to keep the same for being true of Mordred? The question now is what exactly she's like when she DOES have her ahoge.

• Jossed by the fact that the same logic would mean that Jeanne Alter is the regular version of Jeanne - after all, regular Jeanne, who we see here, is officially listed as a saberface; however, she only has the ahoge when she's her alter version.

The Homunculus will sacrifice himself to resummon Siegfried to be Fiore's servant when it looks like the Red Team is about to win.

Cause Dammit, Karna vs Siegfried round two must happen!

• This needs to happen, and I'm all for it, but the Flash Forward makes it look like Mordred will be the one to defeat Siegfried or Homunculus for good.
  • Jossed. Sieg survives after Jeanne drives off Mordred, and he only lost because he was still not used to the Dead Count Shapeshifters (which makes sense because he got them like 2 minutes before he fought Mordred)

There are Ruler-class Servants also in the canonical Grail War, they just got dispatched before we met them

• Tokisada's presence as the Ruler of the Third War means they were present even before the Grail got stolen, at least in the Third War, and that they were most probably Catholic Saints, even if not necessarily canonical, and that they were kept secret for security reasons.

But why didn't we meet them in Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night? Because they pissed off Gilgamesh: the Fourth's Ruler declared that Gilgamesh, having ruled Earth right before The Great Flood, was evil, and pestered him until Gil had enough and killed him, while the Fifth's Ruler discovered what was under Fuyuki's Church and was killed by Gil when he confronted Kirei about it.

• Rulers are given a clear explanation of when they are summoned in Volume 2: Either the war must have an element that places uncertainty in the war (say, Avenger, the summoning of two different versions of the same Saber and the Nazis and Imperial Japanese Army fighting over the Grail) or that the Grail war will have a significant impact on the outside world. They most likely weren't summoned in the 4th and 5th because Angra Mainyu has influence on the rules and can scratch out unleashing a genocidal curse as "changing the world significantly" from the list.

The final antagonist in Fate/Apocrypha will not be Shirou

While Word of God states that Amakusa Shirou is the main antagonist of Fate/Apocrypha it seem a little too obvious. A different character (possibly Shakespeare or Karna) will end up being the true villain who is trying to destroy the world, and Ruler, Red team, and Black Team will be forced to work together to defeat them.

Mordred's hallucination of Merlin wasn't a hallucination

When Mordred is dying alongside Kairi she has a vision of Caliburn in the stone alone and an opportunity to try to pull it out. When she hesitates Merlin asks her if she's going to try or not just before Saber shows up to remove it. Merlin would never ask Saber something like that since this was the purpose he helped Uther create Saber for in the first place. The only way it makes sense is if you remember the fact that Merlin is still alive and trapped in Avalon. As such he is not in the Throne and can only manifest in very specific ways such as dreams. The Merlin that Mordred meets is the real one, watching over her the entire time and giving her a chance to do what she wanted to and then showing her the moment that Saber removed Caliburn when she doesn't take it.

When Semiramis kissed Shirou as he was dying, it was a poisoned kiss

The method she had used was going to run out soon and she wanted to spare him pain. So when she was certain he would be in agony soon, she kissed him so he would pass before his sense of pain returned instead of afterwards. Him thanking her is because he recognized this, which leads to her response about herself being a "poisonous assassin."

There will be a fifth Holy Grail War that will include a foil to Shirou

Kairi Shishigou as Mordred's master in Fate Apocrypha was a foil to Kiritsugu (they were and his relationship with his saber servant was a foil to Kiritsugu's relationship with Artoria like Shishigou and Mordred died with smiles on their faces. This is in contrast to Artoria and Kiritsguu.

Kairi being a foil to Kiritsugu, he properly distrusts other Masters even when they offer him alliances, summoned a Saber-class Servant from Arthurian legend, fights mages using modern weapons (including guns with unusual ammunition) despite being a mage, and was deeply affected by the death of a girl close to him. However, their motivations and desires for the Grail couldn't be anymore different. Kiritsugu had an extremely selfless and massive wish to create a world of true peace, always sought and coldly and pragmatically killed and/or sacrificed everything in order to achieve it, and found himself utterly betrayed by his dream and pushed into despair at realizing everything he did was for nothing. Kairi, on the other hand, willingly admits that his wish to bring his stepdaughter back to life is small and not one likely to ever happen, and while pragmatic on the job rarely shuts out his emotions otherwise, and even when dying unable to achieve his dream still had enough satisfaction left to Go Out with a Smile.

It's perhaps best shown with their relationship to their respective Sabers: Whereas Kiritsugu specifically summoned Artoria with the best possible catalyst, their relationship could be described as "professional" at best with them constantly butting heads over their ideologies, and it ended with Artoria believing Kiritsugu betrayed her by denying her wish; Kairi summoned Mordred with a general catalyst for the Knights of the Round Table, and despite occasionally butting heads they worked extremely well together like a father and child, and despite dying at the end unable to achieve her wish, Mordred didn't blame Kairi in the slightest and died smiling with him sharing that last smoke. I cant help but imagine that we may get a 5th Holy Grail War in that timeline with someone acting as a foil to Shirou and his relationship with Mordred being a foil to Shirou's relationship with Artoria.

And I believe that while Shirou is a faker the foil will be an actual blacksmithing magus who creates weapons and be a trained swordsman. and has managed to create a dimensional vault that acts similar to Gate of Babylon to store weapons though unlike the Gate of Babylon he cant fire the weapons as projectiles. and this foil like Shirou will be a master who will be able to go up against heroic spirits and will be able to fight against a top class heroic spirit but unlike Shirou who was able to go against him due to a specific ability this guy will be able to go against the top class servant thanks to his skills, and a power up, along with the weapons he made ( this foil will be able to use many magics. and while Shirou can copy weapons the foil will be able to copy natural abilities (like sorcery traits inherited by blood) by studying the person even if its just a sample like the planet terminal.