Discussion VisualNovel / FateStayNight

Just make a separate page for it IMO, that way it doesn't have to tiptoe around spoiling Saber's whole deal.

Fast Eddie purged everything that was on the Hentai index.

...Fate/Stay Night wasn't a hentai. It was an action show.

I said he purged whatever was in the Hentai index, as in the site's index.

Well, why was Fate/Stay Night in the Hentai index? Cause again, last I checked, it was an action show, not a hentai.

Because it had ero scenes in it, somebody probably thought "It might as well be Hentai!"

Though seriously, this page needs to be restored!

Seriously, what the hell? Did this happen to a lot of plot heavy V Ns with ero scenes? I hope it'll be unlocked soon.

...Am I the only one wondering why the index was purged in the first place?

There was an incident with Google and the ads. Basically, someone complained, Google pulled the plug, and now we're not having pages on porn.

Don't worry too much, though, at least not in the case of this work. I'm relatively sure this page'll be restored, as the sex isn't really in focus and it was deleted in automatic-purge sort-of-thing.

...So no more page on Bible Black? Oh darn, it will be sorely missed. /sarcasm

Where is the restoration discussion thread?

The fact that this one got whacked while Tsukihime didn't tells me that it'll probably be restored, and that it was pretty much a system-wide purge that will have the ones that didn't actually qualify restored. The difference seems to be that Tsukihime's in the H-Game index but wasn't in the hentai index.

The page restoration petition thread is here. There are some other threads, which I think are mostly in Wiki Talk.

Would this be the same automatic purge that managed to miss everything by Alice Soft, somehow skip over Tsukihime despite it being by the same creator and having roughly the same level of content, and then only catch about half of Nitro+'s work? And it didn't even manage to catch the same half of the Nitro+ stuff, because even though it took down Saya, Demonbane remains up and they're roughly equivalent on content. I'm not sure any definition of pedophilia actually applies to magic grimoires and eldritch abominations anyway, but at the very least they're both in the same category.

But I think the crowning moment of hilarity is being able to find a Bible Black page. Glad to see this autopurge is so accurate it misses one of the most obvious examples, I'd hate to think they just randomly ran it and hoped for the best. I'm sure they wouldn't have done something that would so obviously incite confusion and anger in the fanbase without knowing it would be even moderately effective.

Pfft, it was an emergency situation. We do need those ads.

The only reason this got cut was because someone decided to put it in the Hentai category. Just wait a bit, it'll probably be restored soon.

And in roughly two days, FSN is still down and Bible Black is still up. Then again, I suppose it would be better for them to take down the objectionable pages first, then bring back the ones that were erronously taken down.Which raises the question of how they still managed to miss Bible Black, but I'm sure they'll get to it eventually.

School Days is still up too. Not sure if that was even taken down.

If you do want Bible Black and School Days taken down, it might be better to take that to the forums. Best not to clog up the discussion page for Fate/stay Night with it.

Eh, I just think it's weird they're still up when they're a bit more graphic then this.

I don't want them taken down, because I'm still not seeing the connection between describing adult content and actually showing it. Otherwise I'm pretty sure most news programs would be sued off the air by now, considering the amount of murder and other crime they report before the late night hours where no one cares. Also, seriously, if you're going to run a purge it might be a good idea to actually check what's going to get purged — as I said before, it seems like all this did is annoy people without really making any progress on the real issue.

So how much longer do we have to wait until the page is restored?

Be patient. Everything indicates that this page is coming back as soon as the coding is finished for 5P related stuff. I don't know how long that will be, but Eddie's working very hard.

It has an anime, one without ANY erotic content in it in the slightest (granted it sucks). Couldn't they have changed it so THAT would have been the main page with the VN being secondary?

The short and sortof true version? Google threatened to take away the Uncanny Valley ad of the running black woman in a leotard if we didn't declare war on Japan.

In that case, why not just ditch Google and find a different advertiser to cover the site's expenses instead of doing a complete overhaul on what content is and isn't allowed?

Because this site costs a LOT to run and Google ads are the only ones that provide enough money. See the original The Situation page.

The page's back now. That's good.

Woohoo!

Yet it's lock.

Better than nothing.

True.

Not anymore!

Hmm, I liked all of the endings aside from that damned HF Normal End that I want to find Nasu and punch him in the face for. HF can be argued as the "best" ending since Sakura actually catches a break for once as well as Rider, Shirou's alive and well even though he's A ROBOT!!11! or not (before someone corrects me, it's a joke, a bad joke ok?). Rin also seems pretty satisfied in London, although she still seems to be in love with Shirou two years later (ouch).

Fate's True End was fairly sad but quite nicely done, I think. Although it was especially a downer that he admitted he'd likely forget about Saber and move on, it still seemed very fulfilling. And hey, if he moves on, there's Rin and Sakura staring him right in the face, Rin literally in the case of the anime ending. Although Realta Nua did give them a chance to be together in a really crazy set of circumstances, I think it would have been nice to have a Good End where she stayed around, like Arcueid's in Tsukihime.

Although I like Saber actually staying around in the UBW Good End, I still prefer the True Ending because it was a lot sweeter overall. Rin's my favorite character, so the affectionate teasing thing was very appropriate and nice to see, and Shirou also has potential for further adventures while Rin keeps him from going all Archer on us. Compare that to Fate, where the chance of Archer-ism is fairly high, and HF, where it looks like he's going to settle down into a nice, quiet (but fairly uninteresting) mundane life.

In my view, HF True, is definitely the best ending. I'm not sure how you can say Fate is a good ending, TBH. Saber is gone, Rin gets nothing much (unlike HF, where she reconciled with her sister), and Sakura is still stuck under Zouken's control. Not only that, but Ilya will die a year later, so even she doesn't get much of a happy ending. The best two endings are quite clearly UBW Good and HF True. Which one you think is the better ending depends on which characters you like. If you're a Saber fan or (probably) a Rin fan, you're likely to say UBW Good (though UBW Good isn't that much better for Rin than HF True, because in HF she reconciles with her sister, who she deeply cares for, and in UBW there is a nasty surprise awaiting her and Shirou if they ever discover the truth...). If you're a Sakura or Rider fan, you're going to say HF True.

Having played HF, though, I simply can't think of any of the endings other than HF True as 'happy' endings, because Sakura is basically screwed, and she deserves a decent life after what she's been through. That's not saying they're not well done, though.

Well, Saber disappears in all the endings (besides UBW Good) and Rin still seems to be a mentor figure to Shirou in the Fate route. As for Sakura, atleast she doesn't have to worry about being raeped on a daily basis by Shinji now that he's dead (which makes Shinji surviving in UBW a bit of Fridge Horror to think of). And since Zouken can no longer achieve immortality, and his body snatcher tactic is apparently becoming less and less effective, so I presume he simply decomposes away after awhile, since all his hopes and dreams have been dashed and he has nothing left to live for. Unless he somehow managed to possess Sakura, which would make the ending sequences of Fate rather creepy to think of ...

As for Ilya, she is atleast given the chance to live out the rest of her days in peace - which is much better than her fate in UBW (where she is brutally murdered by Gilgamesh) or HF (where she is either forced to do a Heroic Sacrifice in the True End, or presumably has to return empty handed to her pissed off creators in the Normal End. And STILL die). Although since she dies no matter what, I suppose her death in HF allows her to Go Out With A Bang.

Being a Sakura fan, my favourite ending IS the True End of HF. Its just that after all the events of the route, I'm not sure if I can classify it as much of a "good" ending (Saber corrupted, Several servants killed in more horrific than usual ways, Shinji & co revealed to be rapist b-stards, Ilya sacrificed, Sakura being turned into a mass murderer, etc).

Although since every other adaption follows Fate, it appears that Sakura being screwed over for the rest of her life is, unfortunately, part of the established canon. Isn't it sad, Sakura?

Hopefully there'll be an OVA/manga/whatever of HF to wrap up the Fate/stay night "trilogy". After all, Fate has its own anime series, and UBW has a movie ...

Well, actually, Fate is no more canon than UBW or HF. The anime follows Fate because it's the easiest route to adapt, and the manga follows a Fate/UBW mix, but seemingly retcons Sakura's entire past anyway (see the argument above for my opinion on that...). None of the sequels etc. follow on from any given route.

As for Fate/UBW, Zouken definitely hasn't taken Sakura's body yet, because the body would be altered to look like him if he did. However, him doing it in the future is quite possible. As for his dream, I doubt he's going to give up that easily. Shinji's survival in UBW is probably not that bad, because he's stated to have become a nicer person (although how long that will last is debateable...).

As far as the endings go, the only thing that, perhaps, stops HF from being the best ending of the lot is the deaths of the innocent people. For the main characters, it is undoubtedly the best ending. Yes, Saber gets corrupted, but she just dies, and Rider gets a happy ending in her place. Ilya's ending in HF True is better than in any route other than Fate (which, other than Ilya, has a pretty bad ending), and Rin's ending is almost as good as UBW (because whilst she doesn't get Shirou, she reconciles with her sister, who she clearly deeply cares for and has a huge amount of guilt over). However, the fact that Zouken dies in HF is quite possibly worth the lives of all those innocents, because he's stated to have murdered thousands of people, and so it's likely that, following Fate or UBW, Zouken will be responsible for more deaths (prior to his own, eventual death) than he was in HF. This holds especially true because, as he gets closer to the end, he will need to replace his body more and more often. Not only that, but as he gets more desperate he's likely to do somthing rash, which will probably result in the deaths of many more innocents.

I kind of disagree regarding HF being the best ending for the main characters. Yes, it is for Sakura since Zouken is gone and she gets Shirou, although from what we see elsewhere she will probably miss Shinji somewhat. He was an evil rapist bastard, but he was still basically her brother (which is probably a distinction only she would be able to make). Rin seems satisfied, but saying HF is just as good as UBW for her because she makes up with Sakura instead of getting the love interest seems a bit weighted or biased to me. It is a plus, for sure, but I don't think UBW or Fate exclude the possibility in the future, especially after Zouken kicks the bucket in the not-too-distant future. Remember also that Zouken is implied to have been killed in UBW by Gilgamesh about midway through the route. (I know I know, Zouken's actually based in Sakura's heart, but who's to say Gilgamesh didn't have some kind of soul killing weapon in his treasury, especially since he already seemed to know of her nature? I'll go with the implication rather than overthinking technicalities/Ass Pulls that come up in an unrelated route) Saber doesn't just die in HF, being corrupted like that is like pissing on her grave, and she is the main heroine after all (just as Arcueid is the main heroine of Tsukihime despite her lack of involvement in 3/5 routes). Besides, didn't you say that The Corruption completely darkened Saber's soul? I don't recall that myself, but wouldn't that make her permanently corrupted? On balance, that seems worse than the implied better life Sakura gets in UBW at least, since Zouken is implied to be gone and she reconciles with Shinji. Fate, well, from a meta standpoint it's a classic Tear Jerker ending which is why I mentioned it earlier, but it's probably pretty bad off for most of the characters.

Rider and Ilya aren't main characters per se, but anyway. Rider's definitely best off in HF, but then she was an antagonist in the other routes so that can't be helped too much—after all, Lancer's quite a likeable Bad Ass and he always dies. Rider always kind of struck me as a Replacement Goldfish for Saber from a meta perspective, though.

Ilya's ending is better than UBW for sure, but not better than Fate. Even if it's only for a short while, Ilya being able to experience a normal life is nice. Even though she acts horrible sometimes, she is really sweet at other times and just doesn't know better. She got a pretty raw deal on the whole life thing, even more so than most characters in this story, which is saying something.

Of course, HF is the best ending for Sakura fans, no question. I just don't think it's unquestionably the best ending overall, especially for Saber fans, but it is one of my top ones.

HF is the best ending overall for the main characters (and, yes, I am including Rider in that). Whilst you're right that UBW is probably a better ending for Rin than HF, HF is still a pretty good ending for her. OTOH, UBW is definitely not a good ending for Sakura, even if you somehow assume that Zouken is dead even though it seems pretty unlikely (and, UBW does not show that he died, it simply shows Gil crushing a few worms). Whilst you're right that Shinji still being alive is a plus for her, depsite everything he's done to her, it's nothing like as big a plus as ending up free from Zouken and with Shirou, and she needs someone who can help her get over her past. Living with Shinji, even if he's reformed, will prevent her from moving on, because she will always be reminded of all the things he's done in the past. As for Saber, it's true that HF is a bad ending for her (worse than any of the others), but someone had to do badly, and the argument that "she's the main heroine, so her fate is more important" is complete crap. Firstly, she's not (all three routes are equal) and secondly it doesn't matter.

Overall, HF True is the best ending for Sakura and Rider by a long way, it's the second best ending for Ilya (although Fate is way ahead of it), it's the third best ending for Rin (but, it's a close third) and it's the equal worst (with HF Normal) ending for Saber. UBW Good is the best ending for Rin and Saber and the equal worst (with UBW True) ending for Ilya, Sakura and Rider (Ilya because she dies painfully and without getting to know Shioru, Sakura because Shirou has run off with Rin to London (leaving her alone with no-one to help her, even if she is free of Zouken's control) and Rider because she dies uselessly and Sakura is still suffering).

So, overall, HF True is quite clearly the objectively best ending for the characters. Even if you exclude Ilya and Rider, that would still hold true, probably, because of how bad the UBW ending is for Sakura.

Once again, I had a long response here, but looking at the heart of the matter, I don't disagree with you that HF ending was awesome, I just disagree with it being treated as fact. Asking what I think the best ending is will by nature involve opinion. I agree with yours for the most part, I just disagree that HF is the absolute best ending ever for FSN, and believe it's disingenuous to claim that opinion is "objectively" true. I have issues with individual points you made, but I'm tired of debating these things (this is exactly the reason I stay away from forums), so I'll leave it be.

Well, there's a difference between "which ending do you think is the best" and "which ending is overall best for the characters". The first is, of course, entirely subjective. The second, however, is not. If you take account of all the sympathetic characters (so, excluding people like Zouken and Shinji) then HF True is quite clearly best overall. Only Saber is substantially worse off in HF True than in UBW Good, and Sakura is far, far worse off in UBW Good than in HF True. It's true that there is a bit of subjectivity in deciding who counts as 'sympathetic', but if you consider the six main characters (including Shirou, who I'm excluding from this comparison entirely because to get into whether he's better off in HF True or UBW Good would just be asking for trouble), it's hard to argue that HF True is not better than UBW Good.

Read the OP, he was asking our opinions of which were the best, not which was best for the characters. I answered that while explaining a bit as I may do too often, which I guess is how we got sidetracked into this.

Again, I'm really not interested in getting into a long debate with why I disagree with your thoughts of UBW Good (which is more my interpretation of the evidence presented than disagreeing with the concept), but as there is room for interpretation in the vague implications in some scenes in UBW, I don't think you can unequivocally say HF True is better than UBW Good anywho, but you obviously do. In any event, judging by the fact that the OP hasn't commented at all in a week, I'd rather just consider your opinion valid but not one that I agree with and call it a day.

I'm late to this party, so instead of going on a meticulous tear as to how considering HF True as the objectively best ending is completely fallacious, I'll just list a few key points I have from that stance:

1. Rider and Ilya are not main characters. Such a discussion should be limited to main characters, not sympathetic ones, because which characters are and are not sympathetic is entirely subjective, and none of the endings cover all of the possible candidates. To do so would require analysis of the entire routes, and that's not what we're discussing. That they may have had routes that ended up on the cutting room floor make them no less secondary.

2. When analyzing the routes, not all of the characters we're considering are even main characters. For example, in Fate and UBW, Sakura is a supporting character at best. In comparing how things turn out for our heroes across routes, it's not accurate to hold the fate of Sakura in UBW as of equal weight to her fate in HF, as she's not central to UBW at all. There are only two characters that are central to the story across all routes. Shirou (obviously) and Rin.

3. Perceived bad ends derived by fridge logic should not be held equal to the status of characters post-ending as dictated by Word of God. Sakura's situation in UBW can be implied to be bad for her, but is not necessarily the case, as there is no way for us to know what will happen outside of the ending. Saber's fate is quite clear in HF, and the unresolved romantic tension between Shirou and Rin in HF (especially on Rin's behalf) is clearly a worse situation for Rin than her UBW endings. With Sakura you're comparing to an assumption, whereas the accurate comparison is much more neutral (she's taking care of Shinji).

4. You can't have this discussion without considering the main character. Personally I'd say that gaining your reality marble, coming out on top in the battle of ideologies against Archer, and pursuing your lifelong goals with two women that you love with you is a much more positive ending than trading in your reasons for living for an existence as Sakura's personal sex toy (not that that's a bad end either).

5. HF True is only good for all involved from Sakura's viewpoint. Shirou's end is treated as if he's little more than an object (or rather, that he exists only to be with Sakura), and Rin's happiness is only in the context of being Sakura's loving elder sister (as she is happy for them, but is largely left to her own devices when it comes to her own happiness). The only character that really got what she wanted in HF True was Sakura. Compare to UBW (either), where both Rin and Shirou get the best possible end (and in UBW Good, so does Saber).

All this said, I think the topic is about which ending you personally consider the best. In that, I vote UBW True. Saber being there and the harem angle being played for laughs detracts from the sincerity of the ending, Fate is bittersweet, and Shirou shows almost no character growth in it, Shirou's character goals and ambitions are entirely galvanized in HF True for sex and cooking, and HF Normal was a downer (though fitting for the route).

Hm about that. I know the original was a Visual Novel, but the page includes tropes from all the adaptations. Is it appropriate to move it to the Visual Novel namespace when the page itself actually concerns several different types of media? Of course I sure as hell don't want to make separate pages for each adaptation, but it seems off somehow.

This page firstly talks about the original work and the adaptations done about it. For me, it belongs to the Visual Novel Namespace.

Even though I think the whole "everything must be in a namespace" policy is pretty dumb specifically because of multi-media franchises like this one (as well as making it a bigger pain to link anything), after looking around a bit it seems to be what the higher ups want to do.

Unless the adaptation is too different from the original, it doesn't need to be split off. That's why I made that Anime.Fate Stay Night redirect.

I'm agreed there, I didn't know at the time it was wiki policy to namespace everything—thought the Main namespace was to be used for multimedia. As the rules go, putting it on Visual Novel makes the most sense.

Arha separated a character sheet for Hollow Ataraxia to keep spoilers from Ataraxia from the FSN ones. He brought it up in the Type-Moon thread here.

Well, in theory you should be able to use the alt name of something like Isnt It Sad since they both redirect to the same page. That particular reference will be lost on anyone who didn't know the history of that trope, though, since that page used to explain the name (and was named from another Nasuverse series) so that would have been awesome to keep in there. On the other hand, I do notice they have been trying to cut down on trope names that are inside jokes in favor of those that are recognizable at first glance.

As far as the other stuff, I think they're looking to take a chainsaw to stuff that invites Natter. I have to admit that you and I have both stuffed the page with it over a long period of time, so it could probably use some painful cuts. I do think they're taking it a bit far though.

Well, the UBW and HF routes of the FSN visual novel, for a start.... Plus the Realta Nua Last Episode is a 'good ending' for the Fate route (which the anime is based off).

No idea what other animes would be like the Fate route of FSN, though.

I think the usual explanation is that he came from an unseen continuity something like Fate, but with some HF in there (after all, he didn't lose his arm in Fate when using projection for the first time, but did in HF). There's enough overlap where none of the routes neatly fit his backstory, although Fate fits the most (which itself gets kinda screwed up with the Realta Nua Distant Finale, but that's another topic).

I think the wounds were, as you say, just nastier than usual because he got caught by surprise and hit by a full force blow from Saber for his trouble. It does seem like a handwave to me, though, but Nasu does at least attempt to explain it. Of course, I might have missed something.

Avalon's healing doesn't work as well if Excalibur deals wounds against its user. I take it to be a hint that Archer's using Avalon to help heal up. (While Heroic Spirits can regenerate from anything, the speed of regeneration is deeply dependent on the nature of the Heroic Spirit.)

Also, Archer does not come from any of the established routes. His origins are kept deliberately vague.

Archer doesn't come from any of the routes, he comes from a different timeline, most likely something rather like Fate, but probably where he wasn't close enough to Saber to persuade her to drop her wish and accept her death (note that even if it was after Fate, Realta Nua doesn't present a problem because, even if Last Episode is genuine, it is possible that it only happens after some Fate timelines). It's known that Ilya survived the war, and it's also pretty certain that the events of UBW and HF didn't happen (in particular, he almost certainly did not end up with Rin, and he never solved Sakura's problems).

If Archer came from any route resembling HF, it would have to be the Mind of Steel bad end, but if that were the case Archer would be more proactive, either actively pushing for Shirou to kill Sakura or actively acting to prevent it. Plus, that wouldn't fit with other things that are known about him, since Mo S Shirou, if he survives, would have to have killed Rin and Ilya, and both survived in Archer's timeline. As for the Shadow, that is almost certainly a generic statement, referring to the sort of things that he, as a Counter Guardian, would fight against rather than to that situation in particular.

Running slightly off topic (but still Archer related), how does Ilya know so much about Archer in the HF route? In the other two routes, she never displays any particular insight towards Archer. Although his dying early in Fate/her dying early in UBW probably plays some part in that.

For instance, she appears to be more aware of the full extent of the pain loosening Shirou's shroud will cause him (and notes that Rin is ignorant of it). She also claims to be "the only one who understands the relation between Shirou and Archer" (or something of the sort). She even comprehends the nature of Archer's Projection, and explains why Shirou will eventually need to use Archer's arm if he wants to project the Sword of Plot Advancement, which is something that even Shirou (who is Archer to-be and is constantly Mind Raped by Archer's arm) and Rin (who was Archer's Master and thus probably had a Status screen of all his skills) weren't apparently aware of. She never outright states that Archer is Shirou, but she certainly seems to know more than she should, considering that she only crossed paths with Archer twice in this scenario, and both were brief moments with no dialogue between the two.

Even if Ilya is supposed to survive in Archer's timeline, she ain't a time traveller (is she?). Unless there's a more mundane explanation (she's just very good at guessing/analyzing/predicting things) behind it?

Ilya has Archer's soul in her it's the only one she actually does get in HF, so she can 'look' at it and work out Archer's identity. In Fate, she has no reason to do so (she has several other servants inside her), and in UBW she dies first, but in HF she becomes quite protective of him, and so looks inside her to find out who he is. As for knowing about Shirou's projection, that was easy to work out. Shirou was just as aware that he needed to use the arm as Ilya was, and Rin was just trying to pretend to herself that he didn't need to.

OK, well, to reply to your three points in order.

• Whilst I agree that the manga is not universally hated to the extent that I hate it, having talked about it on BL (which isn't full of anime fans who don't understand the game), it's generally seen as not being very good (and that's not just because of the Sakura/Rider bit, the stuff which happens later and hasn't been translated (on Mangafox) yet is just as bad). Your statement is, to me, not strong enough. Saying "it is arguably worse than the anime" implies that it could also be better, and I don't think many people would claim that. As for Sakura, her extreme backstory is necessary for her to turn out as she is, and without Zouken there her character simply doesn't make sense.
• The thing is, Sakura in HF is never fully corrupted, excepting in the last bad end (see a theme there...). If she was, then she wouldn't be able to turn back. As a result, and because Sakura is a fundamentally nice and good person, she was able to fight off the impulse to be generically evil, and was indeed thinking like you said. In UC, she quite clearly is fully corrupted (I'd assume that her character in Bazette's route comes from the version of her that is after her route, who is fully corrupted, to the point that she's forgotten who Shirou even is). Whilst it could be considered Character Derailment, it could also be considered to be just what she'd be like without the 'old' Sakura still there fighting for control with Angra Mainyu. Maybe what I said could do with re-writing, but I think it should be there.
• As for the Moral Event Horizon thing, I'm objecting more the the wording there. I'm not sure what you mean by "losing cover". Her actions against Bazette are most likely a MEH crossing for the UC version of Dark Sakura, yes (who could, arguably, go under 'Complete Monster'), but the way you wrote it is relating it to normal Sakura, when it's really down to the corruption, most likely. As far as the Fanon thing goes, it's simply wrong. Dark Saber shows up before Dark Sakura does, and therefore there is no-one to torture her into becoming corrupted at that point. The shadow doesn't have enough of a consciousness to think of doing such things. And, Saber gets corrupted because that's how the shadow works. Sakura, as a human, can resist it, but a servant like Saber can't, no matter how high her willpower, because it actually corrupts her soul.

Guys, that's supposed to be Dark Sakura?

I thought it was Avenger and they just reused Dark Sakura's CG because they didn't have any Avenger CG's.

Also, the corruption thing isn't universal. Berserker and Archer reacted to it quite differently. Berserker was driven (even more) insane then he already was, but his core motivation (protecting Ilya) remained the same. We already did the corruption thing in the Fate route, and Saber is susceptible to the temptation of the curse, which tempts her with the Grail. It happened offscreen in HF, but Saber probably took the offer.

Responses, responses.

• Well, first, BL is not the only FSN community out there, although among English speakers it's probably tops or close to it as far as membership, but that doesn't make it the only fandom. I've read raws of the FSN manga that haven't been translated yet as it's quite a pain in the ass to get real copies here in the states, and my opinion isn't changed by what happens later on. Of course, if BL considers it worse that means that there are some people that consider it worse, but some consider it better as well, hence "arguably." I don't, personally, but I don't think the quality's worse than the anime, for whatever that's worth. To me, the different directions they take things are more interesting than just "here's one of the three routes from the game verbatim, have fun looking at it in black and white." However, you haven't changed the entry back, so I appreciate your restraint.
• I phrased it that way more in response to what you were saying than to make any judgment on Sakura. Although it may seem like it from our little edit wars at time, I say again that I actually quite like Sakura—it's just that I don't like trope pages being stripped of any "negative" notes about characters by their fans (I've had similar issues with Athena over at the Hayate No Gotoku page, you're a thousand times better than them). My favorite character is Rin, followed by Saber, but I won't take any tropes saying negative things about them off unless they're untrue—I've had to compromise with you on a few points, but there are some tropes that are probably true and justified about Sakura that just can't be put on there while a hardcore Sakura fan edits the page. Conversely, sometimes an edit seem like little more than a Justifying Edit to make someone's favorite character look better or to complain about something they don't like, so to maintain a somewhat neutral tone on the page I either remove the offending entry or add a qualifier like I did with the Adaptation Decay entry. I don't like doing things that lead to conflicts like that, but that's just how a fan-based wiki works. I do take note of the rule of cautious editing, but sometimes it has to be done or you end up with complete biased garbage from rampant unchecked fanboy edits that are too far gone to save, which I've seen a few times on this wiki. I don't think you would do that, but I want you to understand why I sometimes make edits that probably look like I'm picking a fight.
• I personally take issue with treating "Sakura" and "Dark Sakura" as two completely separate characters. Dark Sakura is the same character, just with just with the corruption relieving her of any sense of inhibition, morals or sanity. It's the same reason Evil Ryu is just known as "Ryu" in Street Fighter in Japan, he's the same guy, just without his compunction against killing people. Despite what you inferred, I'd take the fairly strong indications in UC that it is not the corruption's but Sakura's own distorted will coming out. It's a plot point in HA and mentioned elsewhere that the grail is tainted by Angra Mainyu, but he by himself does not have a will of his own that will "overwrite" someone else's will. The Corruption just brings out the worst in the person being affected, much like being drunk (apparently the mud in the grail is just a really strong Kahlua). However, Dark Sakura is just plain evil in UC despite the fairly explicit statements made there that basically state what I just did. That's why I also put in an entry in Character Derailment—even if she was fully corrupted like in the bad end you mentioned, it's still her guiding her own actions, and the Sakura we know and love wouldn't torture strangers just for the hell of it. On the other hand, Sakura had an inferiority complex against Rin to hold against her, so that's somewhat consistent with Sakura's line of thought. With that in mind, I'm removing the extra bit you added under Character Derailment pending a rebuttal with info from UC that supports your point. The edit you made to Moral Event Horizon carries the information that I wanted to convey, so I think it's good.
• The Fanon thing is kind of debatable, the doujin I saw kind of took place in a mental realm where the dark side of Sakura's soul might have already had more cohesiveness to its persona than the shadow was showing, since as far as I could see the shadow had no mouth, limbs or eyes with which to express itself. As I said before though, I was wrong for putting that on here so that's not really something we need to delve into too much here.
• Lastly, I don't think this is immediately relevant to the issues here, but as it's colored many of your past edits I'd like to address it. I don't agree with your continued assertion that Sakura's backstory has to be exactly as nasty as it was in order for her to make sense as a character in any medium, although for obvious reasons it did in HF. If she wasn't repeatedly raped and tortured with worms, and instead just treated very strictly and verbally abused, would that suddenly make her less likely to want to escape to Shirou's house? Or would her morose behavior when out of Shirou's sight completely disappear? If Zouken were no longer around but still acted like a dick to Shinji when he was alive, so that Shinji still acts out against Sakura, would Sakura act so differently towards him? Even if she wasn't adopted by the Matous, who's to say she wouldn't still have a major inferiority complex regarding Rin? Some of those are situations I've personally known actual people in real life to react to in similar ways, so my argument has been that it didn't need to be taken so far. As it is it can barely even be referred to outside of the original VN because it's so ridiculously extreme, so I do not fault the writers for downplay, ignoring, or even changing the backstory to avoid making the rest of their stories a complete downer.

Now Narvi, do you mean in Unlimited Codes? That's Dark Sakura, no question, although for all we know they only put her in that scene because Avenger is not referenced by anything else in the game except for one win quote by Bazett (note that Caren is also very absent), so maybe we can consider Dark Sakura to stand in for Avenger and Kirei for Caren in a meta sense, but that doesn't undo how they act in the game.

The reasoning you provided actually does seem to be Saber's motivation in UC, as she pretty much says as much in her intro. Although her temptations were mentioned in Fate, in general Heroic Willpower does not care about that kind of thing. Heck, even in the same game, Shirou manages to best Archer, who by definition is himself broken by the world's cruelty, with Heroic Willpower. He manages to defeat a future where Heroic Willpower (the willpower to continue on his path) failed him with Heroic Willpower, which goes Beyond the Impossible in an awesome Gurren Lagann kind of way, so really it could have gone either way. Since Saber is in many ways a reflection of Shirou, I guess I was just hoping for the same Determinator ability from her, but then she's not the protagonist. Maybe it's just my own dislike of that whole plot point that made me bring that up.

...I'm glad I put this off until the weekend, this was much longer and took a lot more time than I expected. I hope we can resolve our differences here soon so I can go back to checking this page without reserving a large block of time to explaining my reasoning.

OK, well, to respond to you.

• BL may well not be the only fan community out there, but it is the only one where, IMO, you get a reasonable understanding of the views of the people who have played the game, without being swamped by a load of anime fans who don't know what they're talking about (with regards to canon, anyway). And, from what I read there, the manga is overwhelmingly unpopular, for a variety of reasons. And, people on there have read beyond just the Mangafox translation, too. I didn't edit the entry because I was hoping you could come up with some better wording (somewhere in between our two viewpoints), and I haven't had the time to think of anything yet. I will accept that my view is rather biased, but IMO what it says there now is far too kind on the manga. I just don't want to get into a long, pointless edit war.

• The thing is, there is a hell of a lot of bullshit about Sakura flying around. If you looked at this page six months or so ago (and, even more so, the main trope pages) you would see a huge amount of anti-Sakura bullshit that simply didn't get challenged. Because there are so many people who hate Sakura and who simply want to make her look bad, I tend to be rather over-zealous in removing anti-Sakura comments.

• And I take issue with treating them as if they're the same person. Yes, Dark Sakura is Sakura but corrputed, and the corruption brings out her dark side, but my statement is entirely true. Dark Sakura has a totally different personality to normal Sakura, even if they are indeed the same person. That goes double for UC Dark Sakura, who is, from what I can tell, a Complete Monster who just wants to torture people for the hell of it. You're right to put it in the Character Derailment section, but I feel that the fact that Dark Sakura's personality is very different from normal Sakura's needs to be pointed out.

• Yeah, fair enough. It's possible that that is the case, but it's pure fanon, and from what I can tell a large chuck of the Japanese fandom really doesn't like Sakura, so I'm gonna take that with a huge pinch of salt.

• Well, my opinion on that is quite simple. Of course it's possible to write a Sakura who doesn't have that backstory, but IMO it's not Sakura anymore. Without the abuse, nothing about her makes sense. If she had been "treates strictly and verbally abused", she wouldn't be broken in the way that she is, even if she might still enjoy going around Shirou's to escape from it. In the manga, Zouken never existed at all (seemingly), so that doesn't apply. If Sakura wasn't tortured by Zouken, Fate/Zero makes no sense, her hair colour makes no sense, and her personality makes no sense, if you take the FSN Sakura as the starting point. You can, of course, write a character for whom those things would make sense, but then you take away all the things I actually like about Sakura (her mental strength, for instance), and turn her into some weak-willed Extreme Doormat with no real justification for acting like that. So, yes, you can do that, but the resultant character is no longer Sakura, it is someone else who shares her looks and her name, and whilst that many not bother you, it bothers me a hell of a lot.

First, thanks for keeping it pretty brief and civil. I was afraid I went on too long a rant and didn't want to check this page for a bit, but you're quite reasonable(how I wish i could say that about everyone on this site, but that's how it is)

• Point noted about BL, but I still don't think that justifies this wiki itself showing a hatred for the manga. It should be at least nominally neutral after all, although I have no problem with you listing various issues with the manga since that would be fairly close to actual facts, although in the end they are at best educated opinions. For instance, instead of me saying the manga was a steaming pile of horse crap, I say that the manga rejects established canon rules and has large Character Derailment, and let the reader draw his own conclusions. Of course, to just list things that are wrong with it also shows some bias, so I list some things as a response, but don't think that I like the manga better than the VN. I can't say the same about the anime, which had rather poor animation quality and only really featured Sakura as a side character/damsel in distress, but I am eagerly awaiting the DVD of Unlimited Blade Works to change my opinion. In any event, I'm not going to edit the Adaptation Decay entry to speak worse of the anime because I personally disagree with the points listed, unless I find out that a good amount of people also think so.
• I'd been reading the page for a while before I started actively editing, and I know what you mean about the anti-Sakura sentiment here. As long as we can keep a good balance, it'll work out okay.
• I know that they have different personalities, or rather, that it's the worst part of her personality that took over (similar to Tsukihime's Inversion Impulse), it's the implication that she's totally out of control of her own actions that I took issue with. As Kirei and others said both in HF and UC, she's ultimately responsible for her actions. Although I did like her happy True End (and may someone please erase my memory of that Normal End) It always bugged me a bit that she'd apparently eaten hundreds of people and suffered no consequences for it whatsoever. After all, if I, say, sleep walked and killed someone, there's still a decent chance I'd go to jail for manslaughter even though it wasn't my conscious doing. A little bit off-topic but that whole quandary kind of bugged me, she certainly didn't deserve any big punishment, but at the same time the lack of any at all seemed off to me. Well, that's neither here nor there. In any event, this isn't that big an issue so I'll agree to disagree and leave it as it is, don't need to provoke any edit wars.
• Feel free to ignore this bullet, it's kind of a rambling mess vaguely regarding the doujin thing. Despite comments I made months ago when I was trying to put something acknowledging her relative unpopularity to the contrary, I don't think they actively hate her so much as just would rather have more focus on the other heroines, and also Ilya and Rider. HA manages to do a good job of featuring all of them a lot (although the lack of Rin in the first half of it annoyed me to no end, the teasing in her scenes are the most fun for me to translate when I get off my butt and do it). However, like me, they may not have liked the whole Dark Saber thing. To me it felt like,
  "ok, we're going to spend this whole route saving and redeeming Sakura."
  "What about Saber? She ends up corrupted too."
  "She had a threesome in the first route, so she's shit out of luck. In fact, let's make the main character kill her to get Sakura!"
• Saber's a bit like Akiha in Tsukihime, in that she had no really happy ending to her route, although it was made happier later on. You see a similar situation with the polls for Tsukihime, Akiha is usually in the top 2 or 3 with Arcueid and Hisui, but Kohaku (who was partly responsible for what happened to Akiha) is consistently the lowest. She also has a ridiculous downer backstory similar to Sakura, so that might play a part as well.
• Speaking of the backstory, I disagree with you there. I don't think someone who has gone through domestic abuse that's even possible in the real world (unless there are actual evil rape worms that eat people, in which case I'd rather not know) would be an Extreme Doormat for acting how she did. After all, Nasu didn't pull that kind of character out of nowhere, there are actual people who deal with actual abuse in just such a fashion (including a rather close friend of mine). Partly due to that personal connection, I'd rather you not downplay psychological or physical abuse as something that's inadequate. While there probably does have to be something bad in Sakura's backstory to make her the person that she is, my issue is with the degree—at some point, the degree will not make much difference in the response. If someone killed my parents, I'd probably want revenge. I don't think I would want revenge any less than if they had killed my parents, burned my house down, raped my dog and occasionally appeared in front of me just to kick me in the shins and run off giggling. If anything, the extraordinary degree to which the Matou family and the world in general abuses Sakura makes it a bit hard to take seriously.
  • Also, hair colors in an anime don't really need an explanation if they're not directly discussed. After all, no one mentions Rider, Lancer, Caster, or Shinji's hair colors at all, and there are some other cases of You Gotta Have Blue Hair that aren't magically involved at all (for instance, Himuro's hair is somewhere between grey and blue). Why couldn't it have been that she just dyed her hair (and wore contacts) as part of her response to the abuse? That's certainly not unprecedented.
  • In addition, I'm not talking about Fate/Zero here, I'm talking about Unlimited Codes, Hollow Ataraxia, and the Manga in a universe known for Alternate Continuities, although arguably Fate/Zero can still make some sense if you replace a lot of the magical references with the genuine Real Life Nightmare Fuel they evoke. In the end, you're entitled to your opinion, but I strongly disagree that the torture is necessary for Sakura to make sense as a character.

Unfortunately, despite what I said before that still ended up being longer than I planned.

OK, well, I feel I need to reply to some of this.

• Well, I can see your point there, although IMO the manga *is* overwhelmingly hated, at least by people who know the details of the game (anime fans aren't aware enough of the issues to care). Whilst I agree with you to a certain extent regarding the anime, it does about the best that it could have done given the situation (the Sakura arc is indeed crap and makes absolutely no sense from a canon POV, but it's nowhere near as bad as the manga).
• Yeah....
• The thing is, she is totally not in control of her actions, at least as the shadow. There are two seperate situations in the game. The first is the shadow, where she does indeed kill people, but is entirely unaware of this, and entirely not in control. The second is as Dark Sakura, where she is indeed aware of her actions, and is in control of them (although she is almost certainly not sane at that point), but she doesn't hurt anyone (baring people who thoroughly deserve it) then anyway.
  • As for your idea about sleepwalking, actually in most reasonable countries she would not be found guilty of manslaughter in such a scenario. Someone in fact did this a few months ago (they strangled their wife in their sleep thinking she was a burglar or something) and they were found not guilty (even of manslaughter) on the grounds that there was nothing they could have reasonably done to prevent it. Sakura would fit under that, without a doubt, at least as the shadow. As for when she's Dark Sakura, I'd imagine any court would find her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, since she is quite clearly not sane at that point (for good reason).
  • As for her punishment, what sort of punishment would you want? Eleven years of being raped and tortured by her bastard grandfather, perhaps? Or the weight of knowing that she is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people? Don't you think she's suffered enough in her life without putting her through yet more suffering just to satisfy your false sense of 'justice' that says someone needs to be punished for their actions even though they are in no way responsible for them? She deserves to be happy after everything she's gone through, and I don't see any way you could 'punish' her for her 'actions' that would allow that to happen. Any punishment she may deserve for her actions in HF she served in advance (and much more besides that) and, for someone as fundamentally kind-hearted as her, just knowing what she had 'done' is more than enough punishment anyway.
• Well, regarding Dark Saber, in simple terms, it's not her route. If you're going to complain about her not getting saved in HF, then I'm going to complain about Sakura not getting saved outside of HF (well, I do anyway, but...). Plus, there was simply no way of saving her, and doing so would just have turned an already happy ending into something that was sickly sweet (Sakura already gets to keep Rider, which is happy enough). As for a focus on other heroines, Sakura gets little enough focus as it is. The others don't deserve *more*. Plus, if you ignore her, then you're condemning her to a life of abject misery and a painful early death, so I don't see how you can do that. HA may well ignore Rin a bit, but she gets enough attention in the main game (relative to Sakura, in particular), so it's only fair....
• Well, with Kohaku, there is certainly a certain amount of comparison between them. However, amongst English-speaking game players, Kohaku seems to have a lot fewer haters, even though she's undoubtedly more to blame for the bad things that happen than Sakura is.
• Look, you're entirely missing the point here. I'm not saying psychological or physical abuse isn't bad, I'm just saying that what Sakura seems to have gone through in the manga (Shinji beating her occasionally and maybe some abusive treatment from Byakuya) is several levels below what she went through in the game, and there's simply no way that that wouldn't have altered her. Hell, both Rin and Shirou knew she was being beaten at home, and they did nothing about it because they didn't consider it serious enough to make a huge fuss over it when she was always defending Shinji. But, even if you assume it wouldn't affect her personality, you're missing the bigger problem. In FSN, Zouken has the ability to torture and control Sakura at his whim. Therefore, she can't fight against him, and when he orders her to summon Rider, she has no option. She's not an Extreme Doormat because she stands up to him as best as she can in the circumstances. Yes, the abuse causes her to be more inclined towards obeying him, but the whole point of Sakura's character is that even after going through all that, she is still not broken. When it comes down to it, she is able to refuse his orders, and once she gets the power to defeat him (as Dark Sakura) she actually takes the opportunity (eventually, anyway). If he didn't have the worms to control her, she would have told him where to stick his war. In the manga, the only power anyone has over her is psychological, and Byakuya (her trainer) is dead. Plus, unless he's really incompetent, she should be a better magus here, since he's actually taught her magic rather than simply throwing her into a basement full of worms. Whilst she may well feel sympathy for Shinji, there's no way in hell she'd summon a servant so that he could fight in a battle to the death against the guy she loves. FSN Sakura is far too strong to be bullied into it in a scenario like the one she is in in the manga, so for manga Sakura to be bullied into it, she has to be a *much* weaker person. There is no doubt in my mind that if you took the FSN Sakura (as she was at age 4) and put her through the manga timeline, you would not get manga Sakura out at the end. And, for that matter, if you took FSN Sakura as she was at 15 and put her into the manga situation (prior to the summoning of Rider) she would simply not have fought. So, manga Sakura cannot possibly be seen as the same person as FSN Sakura. She's totally different, and yet appears the same on the surface, hence why I consider it to be a total mangling of her character.
  • I'm not claiming there aren't ways to explain it, I'm just saying that, as soon as you apply them, she ceases to be FSN Sakura and becomes a different character entirely. In particular, invoking "well, she's wearing purple contact lenses and dyeing her hair purple" (even though I'm pretty sure that's against the rules in almost every school in Japan) just smacks of "well, we've changed her backstory and her appearance now makes no sense, so lets make up some bullshit about her wearing contact lenses". What I'm doing is saying "they've made a mess of her character, so I don't like the manga". What you're doing is saying "I like the manga, so I'm going to attempt to patch their botched characterisation of Sakura with fanon Deus Ex Machinas like having her dye her hair purple for no apparent reason".
  • The problem is that Fate/Zero is part of the backstory to FSN. If you change that, then you change the past. In particular, Kariya is responsible for Rin not having a mother. Plus, if Zouken wasn't there, he'd still have been at the Matou house, and in any case if he knew Sakura was being abused, he'd have just walked out of the house with her (since there is no-one to stop him) rather than fighting in the war (which he couldn't do without Zouken anyway). If you want to claim that the manga is in an alternate continuity (starting eleven years before, at least) from the game and anime then, fine, you're welcome to take that position. But, all you're doing is proving my point. If it's an alternate continuity, then they're not the same characters (except Saber, I suppose), they're just chracters that have been contrived to look and act the same as their FSN counterparts even though their pasts are different. That's just bad writing, IMO.

Insomnia ahoy hoy! Anywho.

• Agreed, anime could have been better lol. Personally I think a three-season setup with each route as a season would have worked nicely (think Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni) but I'm not sure how feasible that is. Also, almost any other studio besides Studio Deen, who has the worst animation quality I can think of as far as studios with major franchises (again, look at Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni)
• Well, I made the sleepwalking reference because I'd recalled somewhere or another that someone had been convicted despite that happening, but as I don't remember the exact circumstances I'll defer to what you said. That said, in UC it's not the shadow but Dark Sakura acting consciously, which is the issue I'd taken before with your addendum there. Insanity isn't the same as a different personality, after all, except with Dissociative Personality Disorder, which isn't the case here. As far as the "time served" argument of punishment, fair enough in this case, but in general that's actually how a lot of villains start out isn't it? "I had to suffer so much, so the people who did this to me/people I hate/the rest of the world have to suffer now" etc, which is why I wasn't instantly on board with it, but I'll take that explanation to satisfy that itch on my brain about that.
• Certainly, the post-mortem Tiger Dojo said Saber living in that ending would have been too saccharine, but at the same time HA basically behaves as if that ending had happened with Saber there as well (a bit more complicated than that obviously). My point is, Type-Moon shouldn't be afraid to have a sweet ending like that every once in a while, since they always seem to base the sequels/adaptations off of what would have been a "saccharine" ending by their definition. As for Sakura deserving more focus, well, her route was by far the longest in FSN (conversely, Rin's was the shortest) and from reading most of her scenes in HA (this was on my first play through, so unfortunately I hadn't written them down to be added for the translation project) they're fairly generic Japanese love comedy "one blurts out something romantic, awkward blushes around, they have a moment" conversations ad infinitum. That's good in small doses, after all, all the other heroines get those scenes too. However, the others also tend to have more going on with their scenes due to their interactions with Shirou not being mostly dominated by how much they like him. There are a few standout scenes, but that's mostly it for Sakura's unless another character gets involved. I'm starting to think on reading her scenes that Nasu really ran out of things to do with her, so she ends up looking like a Shallow Love Interest when her route in FSN was something of a deconstruction of that trope. Incidentally, that "not being with her is dooming her to suffer" is one of the things I dislike about her story, and I think that plays a bit into her not being as popular as the others. After all, if you get a "choice", but two of the three end up with your childhood friend suffering horribly, that's not really a choice is it? It feels like a moral But Thou Must!.
• Well, in this case we'll just have to agree to disagree. I had a rather long response written, but I'd rather just drop it since I doubt anyone's mind is going to be changed and this could go on for a while. I just ask you to remember that not everyone agrees about Sakura's backstory and to keep that in mind before nuking other peoples' edits because they don't match your view about it.

• Yeah, perhaps. Certainly it would have been nice to see them do all three routes rather than their awful attempt at merging a bit of HF into the Fate route. I think, in all honesty, the only reason I like the anime over the manga is that the anime mostly sticks to game canon and to scenes from the game. The only bit they've really altered is the Caster/Sakura scene, and even there they've basically only changed the events in the present (which is fine, since it's an AU anyway...). The thing that really gets me with the manga is that they have substantially altered the backstory. Not only that, but they seem to have done it without even realising it....
• Well, it probably depends on the country. Somewhere like the US (or, at least, parts of it, like Texas) I could see convicting someone for that. Then again, the US convicted a 15-year-old girl of distributing child pornography for sending photos of herself to her boyfriend, so.... As for UC, whilst you're right that she is technically the same person, her personality is so different that I don't feel it's reasonable to consider them the same or to imply that normal Sakura is to blame for Dark Sakura's actions, any more than it is reasonable to blame Shirou for Archer's actions.
  • You're right that a lot of villains start out like that, but Sakura isn't really a villain. She's a protagonist who happens to have gone insane (the Tragic Monster trope would fit her pretty well if she wasn't saveable) as a result of her abuse, and who can ultimately be brought back from the brink without actually causing any real harm (like I said before, the shadow is something I refuse to hold her accountable for in any way, since she had no knowledge of it and no control over it).
• Well, HA doesn't actually follow "HF True but with Saber surviving", it follows some weird mash-up of all three routes (actually, from what I can tell of how the thing works, it's quite possible that it follows HF Normal, with Shirou's identity being taken over by Avenger once he died and Rin's experiments resulting in a merging of the different continuities). As for Saber surviving, they could perhaps have made it a HF 'Good' end, but I don't think it'd have been different enough to HF True for it to be worthwhile (since Saber still being there wouldn't matter all that much to HF Shirou relative to the fact that Sakura is safe and happy). Another problem is that it's difficult to fit Saber's survival in there without ruining the rest of the ending, plus it's debateable whether she even is saveable (I don't think Rule Breaker would have turned her back, and even if it did she'd then have been without a master and thus unable to heal herself). Since it's not her route, Nasu just didn't feel it justified to think up a way of keeping her there, I guess, given that saving her is non-trivial.
  • As far as Rin is concerned, firstly her route isn't the shortest, IIRC (in terms of the flow-chart, at least, UBW is about the same length as Fate, although it is admittedly much shorter than HF) and secondly all the routes are "Rin's" routes to a certain extent. She's a reasonably important character in Fate, an important one in UBW and an important one in HF (as Sakura's sister). So, whilst Rin gets less focus in her own route, she gets a lot more overall.
  • As for HA, you may well be right. Sakura has the problem that she can't really get involved in the fighting as much as Saber or even Rin (and, like you say, they seemingly bumped Rin out of the way for a lot of it) which makes her scenes harder to write.
  • As for Sakura's situation, I think you're right that it does cause problems within the fandom, because you can't simply say "ah, well, we'll ignore Sakura and she'll be fine", because she won't be. Not only that, but her mental state is such that even if she does get free from Zouken she kind of needs Shirou to be with her to help her get over the abuse and live something resembling a normal life. So, you basically have to either leave Sakura alone with the knowledge that she's going to suffer horribly, which upsets Sakura fans, find a way to save her (both in terms of getting her away from Zouken and in terms of fixing her broken mind), which is hard or you have to pair her with Shirou and accept that HF is the 'best' ending, which annoys fans of the other pairings. Basically, you can't really moderately like Sakura, because moderately liking her and preferring someone else means she's left to suffer. I'm not entirely sure Nasu meant it to be like that, though. I think he may have got a bit carried away when he was writing HF and thus overpowered Zouken, making it hard to conceive of a way of saving Sakura in any other route. That, coupled with Sakura's suffering, makes it impossible for a Sakura fan to consider any other ending to be anything but a bad ending.

Well, we should probably be getting to wrapping this up now, we're no longer really discussing any trope in particular and they've specifically said this isn't a forum (even though it uses the forum format now and having series-specific forums would make sense since they wouldn't fit on the main forum that well...) I don't want to be accused of abusing the system. Interesting talk, though.

• I hope the mangaka at least realizes he's altering the backstory, which I'm sure he does, although it may not appear that way at times. It's a bit late to make a new season of FSN for the Heaven's Feel route, but hopefully the next Type-Moon VN's anime adaptation will do something like I mentioned if it has the same Road Cone format (I haven't read Mahoutsukai no Yoru, but I assume they'll make the VN like that).
• Well, without sounding too biased against Texas, yeah I can easily see that. Keep in mind though, that according to a recent story on Sankaku Complex (won't be worksafe so I won't link it here, but it was within the past 3 weeks or so), two 10 year old boys were convicted for raping an 8 year old even after she completely recanted her story and the defense noted they wouldn't even have those types of impulses, and this was in the UK. Sometimes any place goes overboard in their attempts to give a criminal his due, but this is really not the place to discuss politics.
  • Sakura's not a villain, but I mean that's why I was a bit hesitant to take that explanation at first—it's been rejected so often when villains try to use it you start feeling some Values Dissonance if you see a case where it's pretty well justified like this one.
• I'm aware of how the endings are a mash-up, but to me it always seemed more like HF's ending with other characters added in than the other ones, probably because Sakura's already living in the Emiya house and Rider isn't even close to being a possible resident in any other ending. I hadn't heard the Normal End possibility yet, but that's certainly an interesting take on it, although from what I can gather Shirou is alive and well after the ending, when Avenger goes back to the void. I think saying Saber wouldn't matter that much compared to Sakura is a bit unfair since Shirou does some positively suicidal things to try to save Saber in all three routes, at least if you include bad/dead ends as possible in-character decisions. Even when she's not the main love interest, she clearly becomes really important to Shirou no matter which route you take. As far as her being saveable, remember that Nasu completely makes up these rules. That Rule Breaker wasn't a solution of first resort for the big problem of HF always seemed to me like bending the rules to make more drama. That's understandable though, Rule Breaker would kind of be a Story-Breaker Power if so.
  • Strictly going be length of the flow chart, they're about the same length. However, I've noticed there's fewer choices in UBW compared to either of the other routes, so there's less overall content, and some days in UBW are over in a flash. I don't have a text rip or anything though, so someone with one of those could answer definitively. I personally would have liked to have seen an Ilya route (not really interested in the romantic stuff, but she's an interesting character) but as Nasu said, HF ended up too long to allow for that. I suppose Ilya showing up so much in HF is something of a compromise, at any rate. It is true that Rin shows up a lot in all of the routes, though.
  • That's true, but not really what I mean. Like, Saber will talk about England, swordsmanship, her interesting reactions to different things like octopus, etc. Rin will talk about magic, how things were in London, the difficulties of running the town, and her disturbingly ludditic viewpoint on life, among other things. Sakura doesn't really have the same range of discussion topics, it's mostly what's for dinner or housework, and her work in the archery club (where she does show some interesting sadistic passtimes) are usually only mentioned by other characters in passing. That's what I mean by not knowing what to do with her, she's a fine character in FSN but for HA's format she comes off as a little flat, since so much of her development in HF related to how she dealt with her backstory. Since that's not being discussed here, there's something of a gap between her and other characters as far as what they could reasonably show interest in without looking like Character Derailment. Maybe similar difficulties with Rin were what led to her getting Put on a Bus for the first half, although since she also provides a major clue to the answer to the plot's major question the first time you ask her about it, it might partly have been to keep that drama going longer as well.
  • You hit the nail on the head there. I like Sakura, but not as much as the other two, so the way it ends up is something of a Sadistic Choice I didn't even know I was making until the HF route. One way I deal with it is just to believe that Zouken had a Critical Existence Failure and exploded after reaching his limit shortly after the end of the Holy Grail War (then Sakura can plant a garden with the fertilizer he made!) He claims he could wait years longer, but through the course of HF he's having more and more trouble keeping himself together even for short periods even before he starts getting soul purified/ripped out of people's hearts/etc. After that, Sakura can get together with Mitsuzuri's little brother Minori, and in the UBW ending at least Shinji has reformed to the point that Sakura reconciled with him. It's also mentioned somewhere on one of these trope pages that a character from Fate/Zero comes and seals the Great Holy Grail in other routes after the end of the war, so that resolves pretty much all of the outstanding issues. I'm not sure how likely it is that this chain of events can be put together, but that way UBW's Good End really can be a decent ending for all three heroines (although poor Rider is pretty screwed, Sakura would have to move on, and Rin has to share Shirou with Saber—but better than Saber being dead and Sakura still suffering!). Fate's True End had that Realta Nua thing that seemed tacked on just to stop Saber fans from murdering Nasu. To me, though, the way Shirou and Rin were talking in the original epilogue seemed to imply more that he would move on from Saber and choose Rin, who he'd gotten close to, or Sakura instead.