Fate/Zero

[animus]

Fate Zero 18 720p - UTW

Surprised no one linked the episode.

[Buffalobiian]

Shirou's justice over everything ideology (at least at the start of FSN) was probably influenced by Kerry. He did serve as a father figure after all, and Shirou always looked up to his teachings (although probably without understanding the truth behind them).

Justice-over-everything as in "Justice at all costs"?

How does Kiritsugu affect that?

Fate Zero 18 720p - UTW

Surprised no one linked the episode.

Ah. I missed it when I saw the "18" in Ark's post...

[David75]

Kerry's reaction is more about how his father is totally cold about the fact villagers... and even more Shirley, his first love and someone he deeply cares for.
Hence his question about how he might someday experiment on his own son.
Kerry knows how cold his father really is, he knows the incident is nothing to him. His will to kill him isn't stopped by any compassion/love/father-son relationship.

It also explains why Kirei was a little upset at his father being killed by someone else, he has lost the chance to mimic Kiritsugu's experience.

[Buffalobiian]

It also explains why Kirei was a little upset at his father being killed by someone else, he has lost the chance to mimic Kiritsugu's experience.

I didn't think Kirei knew about that.

[David75]

I didn't think Kirei knew about that.

I wrote it without proof, or maybe it was in another source? But considering Kirei mimics most of Kiritsugu's achievements (anti-mage unit and all), and he had/has access to the Church's intel, it's not a far stretch to tell he probably knows about the events with been shown in that ep.

[Kraco]

Kiritsugu's childhood certainly ended soon and abruptly. I think David nailed the reason why Kerry killed his dad. He is also his father's son, so the same sort of a mage's decisiveness is within him, allowing him to do it. He's simply not interested in the Root, like so many other mages, but justice. It really explains how he can be so ruthless and no trick is too dirty for him if his first kill was his own dad.

[shinta|hikari]

@Buff - What Kraco said is what I think influenced Shirou the most. Kiritsugu believed in justice enough to kill his own father even when he did not need to do so. Shirou was also twisted in that manner, following his ideals to a fault.

[Buffalobiian]

@Buff - What Kraco said is what I think influenced Shirou the most. Kiritsugu believed in justice enough to kill his own father even when he did not need to do so. Shirou was also twisted in that manner, following his ideals to a fault.

Wasn't Shirou's idea more about helping people rather than upholding some form of justice? I thought his ideal was that he wanted to help everyone and to save everyone, and his fault was that he'd do it even when he's unappreciated and when he sacrifices personally to achieve it.

"Justice over everything" seems to mean that Shirou would enact justice (ie the side he chooses) at any cost, while in UTW Archer revealed that he broke down because he finally realised that he can't save everyone (and had to put up with a lot of shit along the way).

edit: or did you mean that Shirou and Kiritsugu were both "twisted" (as in, the magnitude and absoluteness with which they will each pursue their ideals), but applied it to different ideals?

[shinta|hikari]

I am not saying that their ideals are the same, but how they try to achieve it is the same. They don't care about the means, much like how Shirou sacrifices himself or treads all over other people's wills when he tries to enact his desire to be a "hero". It just so happens that Shirou's goal will be invalidated by him killing off people, which is probably why he does not do it. He was readily willing to kill himself all the time, which indicates how extreme his way of life was.

[Buffalobiian]

They don't care about the means, much like how Shirou sacrifices himself or treads all over other people's wills when he tries to enact his desire to be a "hero". It just so happens that Shirou's goal will be invalidated by him killing off people, which is probably why he does not do it.

Hmm... okay, I get you now.

Not sure where I stand on this though, since whether Shirou not killing anybody is part of his actual belief or if it's a coincidental inconvenience for him due to the belief he chose can make or break this whole idea.

[Kraco]

Not sure where I stand on this though, since whether Shirou not killing anybody is part of his actual belief or if it's a coincidental inconvenience for him due to the belief he chose can make or break this whole idea.

Shirou's belief is that a hero must be able to save everybody, the villain and the victims alike. Kiritsugu told him it's difficult (he sure learned it from the get-go), but that only reinforced Shirou's naive idealism. So, it's definitely not just an inconvenience for him.

[Buffalobiian]

UTW - Episode 19

[shinta|hikari]

Natalia!!!!

[Archangel]

So i guess we can assume this is pretty much what Archer went through? No wonder he wanted to kill his past self... Kiritsugu's ideal is fucking lunacy.

I assume the preview is referring to Kirei, we're out of true assassins right?

[Buffalobiian]

Natalia!!!!

Hah, yeah. That was pretty tense since death flags were being raised all over the place, but she seemed to get through each "death" just fine on the plane. Totally didn't expect Kiritsugu himself to pull the trigger like that.

I didn't expect her to make it to the cockpit uninfected. How do you avoid bees like that? Bee repellent?

And Kiritsugu probably didn't know about the canisters.. but it sounds like he could have gassed the whole plane when it landed to get rid of the bees, shoot the cockpit to let Natalia out, then burn the entire plane.

So i guess we can assume this is pretty much what Archer went through? No wonder he wanted to kill his past self... Kiritsugu's ideal is fucking lunacy.

How so? He doesn't expect to save every person out there, he just wants to save everybody that he can. He never answered as to whether he will follow Natalia's example of valuing his own life above all else when going about such a cause though.

Kiritsugu is utilitarian through and through - to the point where he's not even hypocritical.

A train is running down a track. The original track has 5 people, an alternative has one.

-Is it better to sacrifice one person for five? Yes - for the greater good.

-If you had the power to pull the track lever (to enable that outcome) should you perform the better outcome? Yes - for the greater good.

-If that one person was someone dear to you (or was yourself), should you do so? Yes - for the greater good, not your own good.(Xel: this was the last question from our prev. IRC convo)



The biggest pitfall I find with the utilitarian concept is hypocrisy. One can be all "for the greater good", but once they themselves have stakes in there, it's suddenly "for MY own good". It's good to see Kiritsugu being able to see it through to the end.

[animus]

The plane situations kinda silly. If the plane crash lands in the middle of the water, that's not guaranteed that a ton of people die. He could've saved Natalia and still nuked the plane in the water after it crash landed. Unless he's planning on ghouls swimming to the fucking shore.

Kiritsugu is still a shitty character, even knowing his back story.

[shinta|hikari]

Natalia would not crash land into the water. Her philosophy is to save herself first. An amateur successfully crash landing on water is very unlikely, since she was already worrying about simply landing on an airport with her skills. If she does land on the runway, her only way out would be through thoe mess of zombies anyway, and the risk of even having a single bee escape and creating a zombie pandemic is not worth a single life.

[Kraco]

Totally didn't expect Kiritsugu himself to pull the trigger like that.

I think it was pretty obvious it was going to end this way. And they both knew it, which is why I think Natalia asked Kiritsugu to keep talking to her and why they talked like that.

Episodes like this really underline the difference between Shirou and Kiritsugu. One a hopeless idealist, one a thorough utilitarian. No wonder Kiritsugu was happy that Shirou developed that way. He forsake his own happiness on the island, despite doing what he wanted to do afterwards.

[shinta|hikari]

While I understand Kiritsugu's ideology logically, I can never agree with it. I am more similar to Natalia. Save as much as you can, but always save yourself first. 'Yourself' would include people you care about, because they are part of keeping you mentally sane and balanced.

Natalia already knew about Kiritsugu's plans the moment he said that he had plans to take care of the landing. Why else would 2 assassin's be spouting stuff about family, motherly love, and retirement?

While I knew this was going to happen, I kept wishing the entire episode that it wouldn't. It really was a good episode. It took one episode to develop a side character and make people feel strongly about her, enough to question or feel disdain towards Kiritsugu's twisted ideology.

The best part of this episode was when Natalia joked about killing all evil people in the world, then immediately realizing Kiritsugu is likely to take it seriously. It really illustrated the sort of bond they have.

EDIT: Manten by Kalafina is brilliant.

[Buffalobiian]

While I knew this was going to happen, I kept wishing the entire episode that it wouldn't. It really was a good episode. It took one episode to develop a side character and make people feel strongly about her, enough to question or feel disdain towards Kiritsugu's twisted ideology.

These two episodes have been my favourite in a long time. Earlier FZ wowed me for around the first 6 episodes or so 7 episodes or so. (Pretty much after the assault on Einzbern castle and Rin's ep). The rest of FZ, while wasn't by any means bad, didn't introduce anything significantly new and was mostly predictable (in that we know about the 5th war and how the 4th war would end). These two Kiritsugu-centric eps on the other hand felt different and fresh - reminding of why I liked the earlier parts of FZ so much.


edit:

While I understand Kiritsugu's ideology logically, I can never agree with it. I am more similar to Natalia. Save as much as you can, but always save yourself first. 'Yourself' would include people you care about, because they are part of keeping you mentally sane and balanced.

I can get behind that depending on the circumstances. Say for example, letting the plane land would infect the (already closed off) airport of 500 people, and Natalia saves on average 50 people every mission by killing the bad guy. If one can reasonably expect Natalia's working-life to cover at least another 10 missions, then saving her would be the better choice in the long run.

But since she said she was going to retire after this, well....



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edit2: rewatched a little of FZ ep01, and that plane shooting was actually mentioned there!