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I've only read outlines of the LN because translation was still in progress on Vol 1 and 3 and 4 weren't out yet when I was paying attention to it, and I've forgotten all but the skeleton of that, so I'm coming in pretty fresh. That said, I don't agree that the introductions of Team Black didn't set their characters up well enough. I got pretty strong impressions from all those little one-on-ones between Master and Servant. Yeah, it was just a sketch, but I'm certainly eager to learn more. That said, Mordred and Lion are clearly the main hook, and they're doing their job. Their relationship and individual personalities are already shining through very well. The scene between their team and the Priest and Queen was also excellently tense. I'm stoked for more. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Jul 11, 2017 |
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Jul 11, 2017 11:27
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re: Iskander vs Saber, one of the things that keeps me coming back to Fate in all its incarnations is that the characters espouse a bajillion different philosophies, and then rather than telling you who is right the narrative usually settles the conflict in a way where the question of who was right is left to the audience. When Iskander presents his arguments about the nature of a king at the Banquet, Saber's counterpoints seem kind of impotent... but then at the battle on the river she unleashes Excalibur the same way that Iskander unleashed the Hetairoi, using the symbol of her life and legend the same way Iskander did to deliver the rebuke and show the real merits of HER style of kingship. When he left the banquet he was in complete contempt of Saber and entirely assured that he is in the right, but after seeing her use her sword he's melancholic and suddenly eager to prove his point through combat because he feels simple rhetoric has failed him. Shirou's journey in Stay Night is the same. Both later routes take Shirou to a different conclusion on his life's philosophy, they're irreconcilable but they're correct in their own context. The bitter flamewars between people who favor Unlimited Blade Works vs those who favor Heaven's Feel are a testament to just how well crafted the philosophical question is and just how much the answers our protagonist comes to speak to the audience. Heck, even Kiritsugu's philosophy, which the entire final act in Zero is about shattering into a million pieces, leaves the question open to an extent because he follows it through despite the personal cost and the collateral damage, so we are left to judge his actions for ourselves. Whether you agree or disagree with any given character's philosophy isn't ultimately the point, its the process of you coming to that conclusion after witnessing the conflict that Fate seems to be intent on triggering, and to me that's what makes it special. We meet characters, we learn their beliefs, we see those belief's clash with each other in knock down drag out PHILSOPHY WARS, and then we get to sit down and think about it once the dust settles. I can only hope Apocrypha provides the same, and at least with what I've seen thus far of Mordred, Vlad and Team Chiron in these first two episodes, I'm hopeful Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jul 13, 2017 |
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Jul 13, 2017 06:24
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Pureauthor posted:Not always. Tesla, for example, is summoned as an Archer. I did a Fate RP one time where we had a Caster Tesla. His noble phantasm was the ability to make a machine that could more or less do anything he imagined by cobbling together a sciency-looking container and then filling in the insides with magic. We kept finding surveillance devices and communicators and weird weapons, but any time we busted one open looking for clues it was basically elaborate scrap metal with magic residue we couldn't analyze at all inside, which made deducing his identity a chore for quite a long time.
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Jul 13, 2017 08:19
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Bakanogami posted:In fairness, Apocrypha doesn't have the most noble origins either. They wanted to make some sort of online game but the plan failed. All they were left with was a bunch of random character designs, so they somehow pieced them together into a book series. I'm pretty sure what Apocrypha was intended to be more or less what Grand Order became Anyway, show talk: I was kind of worried that Astolfo and Frankie would damage the "feeling," of this show. Stay Night and Zero have a certain heavyness to them, an air of gravitas and maturity in their presentation and tone that I thought would be incompatible with those two in particular. Grand Order and the Extra Games see this problem crop up a lot, but with them its less of an issue because they're so radically different from the "main," works that it doesn't really do any harm for them to experiment and indulge in stuff that wouldn't be appropriate for the main line. But Apocrypha is only a single historical event changed from being the same world as the main story, so it seemed like a danger. Thus far at least, there hasn't been any problem with the show staying faithful to its predecessors on the whole,. and those two have not done anything to stick out, so to speak. I admit, I was kind of subconsciously relieved when Astolfo let the facade of his genki-ness drop for a second when his master was molesting him because he was tired of her poo poo, seeing that he was capable of being serious for even a moment was nice. Frankenstein's Monster has at least been inoffensive thus far, and I liked the still frame showing her creation as it really gave a strong impression of faithfulness to the source. We'll see if they can keep it up.
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Jul 14, 2017 05:51
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Kylra posted:Also Mordred's hitting him pretty hard. He stumbles a bit from the "back pats" and when his hand is slapped instead of the expected handshake after the summons, he waves his hand around a bit. Well, she does have 40 times normal human strength.
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Jul 14, 2017 16:58
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Tae posted:Apparently Saber didn't know Mordred was her daughter until recently before her downfall, because Saber's evil sister made a baby clone (Mordred) in secret. And Mordred thinks Saber hates her because she's a clone baby, not because Saber thinks she wasn't ready to take the throne. This is accurate. Mordred thought she was rejected because Arthur hated Morgan, but in fact she was rejected because she wasn't suited to be king by Saber's standards/philosophies on kingship. This misunderstanding led to Mordred's attempt to usurp the throne (when for her entire life before that she had shown no interest in aiding Morgan's machination) because she thought she was being unfairly maligned despite excelling in all areas due to the circumstances of her birth, and above all else wanted to show Arturia that her bias was mistaken. This also explains why she wouldn't want to be direct referred to as a woman despite not being shy about her body. Its another circumstance of birth that people would unfairly use as an excuse to reject her superior talent. The irony of course is that in fact her father had rejected her explicitly because she wasn't superior in the only area that mattered, Capacity To Be King.
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Jul 14, 2017 17:35
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Pureauthor posted:"Son, you are never going to be king because you just don't have the proper aptitude for it. Did Arthur leave Mordred in charge when she went on her expedition? I've seen a couple people say this but I don't remember seeing it in the source material, just that the coup happened while Saber was gone. I mean, I can believe it if only because there was literally nobody else, since Gawain and Bedivere were with her and everyone else was already gone from Camelot. I guess it was intended to be a sign of trust despite the revelation of her origins, maybe?
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Jul 14, 2017 18:08
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Ytlaya posted:I feel like "maintaining good personal relationships with those around you, at least to the extent they don't start to hate/resent you" is kinda an important part of being a ruler. The hatred and resentment that got built up toward Saber was based on things like "Why isn't she applying the law more selfishly and vindictively, like a normal person would?" Saber's philosophy as a king was to put away all her human feelings and apply the law perfectly, sacrificing all personal desire for the good of the kingdom. And when we say perfectly we don't mean enforcing every mandatory minimum or refusing to show mercy. On the contrary, the biggest blow to her kingdom was the fact that, even though she was forced to sentence Guinevere to death because breaking the vow of wedlock as the Queen was tantamount to treason since it could result in an illegitimate heir, she let Lancelot completely off the hook for his part in the affair because he'd caused her no harm and she knew that Guinevere's reasons for seeking the affair were her fault. By any reasonable person's standards that's a perfect solution, the exact combination of a firm hand for the sake of the kingdom and a forgiving heart for the sake mitigating circumstances. And yet that one decision did more damage to her kingship than any other. It's not as though the people of Camelot spent her entire kingship bemoaning her rule and constantly stewing in resentment. On the contrary, multiple sources that refer to her rule make it clear that the Briton's loved Arthur. And she DID have good personal relationships with those around her. Gawain and Lancelot never shut up about how great she is. Tristan left the court because he thought it was the best way to help Arthur, not out of resentment, and in the end regretted it because he judged that he had mishandled the situation being so blunt and insensitive about how he delivered that help. Guinevere was one of her closest friends and confidants through their sham marriage despite the strain of finding out the brilliant young knight she'd loved for years could never be her husband. Sir Agrivain, the man who exposed the affair, ended up doing it because he loved and respected Arthur so much despite originally being placed in the court as an agent of Morgan that he couldn't stand to let the king's honor be besmirched in such a way. The thing you have to understand about Saber is that her character and life is constructed around the idea that Camelot and herself as its King were a tragic paradox. They were imperfect BECAUSE they were perfect. Nobody could have done better than Saber, and Saber could not have done better than she did, and that was ultimately the problem. In fact, I would even argue that the fall of Camelot came about not because of resentment toward Saber, but because of efforts by those around Saber to emulate her (in much the way Iskander advocates) by making the perfect decision for king and country, except those decisions were each time tragically tainted by the influence of their personal desires. In the end both King and Kingdom were Avalon: The Ever-Distant Utopia.
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Jul 15, 2017 07:18
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Pierson posted:stop making posts like that or people will start thinking Fates writing is actually good with compelling characters and cool underlying narratives and themes, instead of the truth which is that it is extremely bad and dumb Just try and stop me! 
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Jul 15, 2017 09:52
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Eej posted:It also proved Iskander right because everything was great until he died where it fell to poo poo, while everything went to poo poo before Arturia died and she died miserable knowing she failed to protect the Kingdom. I would argue that in the end, Iskander and Arturia stood on equal footing insofar as their legacy goes. Arturia's kingdom fell because her knights tried to emulate her but could not because they lacked the ability to reach her "perfection." If Gawain had been capable of forgiving Lancelot like Arthur was, he would have been at Camlann to change its outcome. Mordred not being capable of setting aside her feelings led her to fail twice, first by betraying Arthur and second by unleashing the curse that left both herself and Arthur dead, ensuring that nobody would win the civil war. I could go on, the point is that they tried to emulate a perfect figure, but were flawed, thus they failed, thus the Kingdom fell. Conversely, Iskander represented a flawed figure that his men could SUCCEED in their aspirations to emulate. Whether the self-gratifying self-indulgent tyrant or the brilliant dreamer who is always looking to new horizons, or both, either ideal was something great, but attainable. This sounds better... until you remember WHY Iskander's empire fell after he died. Each one of them who sought to become what the King of Conqueror's represented SUCCEEDED... and thus an Army of Heroes became an Army of Kings of Conquest. Each one of them became the Iskander of his own dreams, set out for their own Horizon, and in the end all destroyed each other. In a perfect counterpoint to Arturia's knights, they tried to emulate a flawed figure, thus they succeeded, thus the Kingdom fell. The only difference between Iskander and Arturia in practical terms if that Iskander does not regret that outcome. And why should he? He's flawed. Arturia is perfect, therefore she's can't NOT regret an imperfect outcome. Hence their conflict. (As I stated in a previous post, Iskander's reaction to seeing Excalibur, the incarnated symbol of Arturia's ideals, being gloom and a complete loss of his previous bravado and certitude that he was right and Saber was contemptible, is what really brings their little waltz into clarity. I love that scene, Iri's little soliloquy, and Iskander and Gil's conversation about it so very much.) In a way its a shame that their final battle on the roadside doesn't resolve that conflict, but in a way it's also perfect, because there IS no resolving that conflict. In the end despite thinking they could not be any more different, they're perhaps the most tragically similar of all Kings.
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Jul 15, 2017 10:37
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I appreciate every individual scene in this episode, but the pacing felt really schizophrenic. I feel like these first three episodes would have been better served edited into a single 44 minutes like the first episode of UBW was. From what little I remember its adapting things very faithfully to how the novel presented them, which is laudable, but not if it hurts what we're seeing in the transition. That said, I'm growing more and more intrigued by the sibling masters. Berserker's master comes across as very earnest and like he's just a normal guy despite being a mage. He's the only person in the show that's mentioned the old "Reach Alaya," goal that every mage is supposed to have, but he also says that to him his sister's life and well-being take priority over that concern. Compare that to his sister, who's desire to heal her legs without damaging the magic circuits within is almost shockingly mundane, and yet she expressed total ruthlessness when discussing the possibility of facing her brother in the Grail War after in order to obtain her wish. They're both paradoxes, one with orthodox mage desires but the heart of a normal human, and one with the icy amorality of a mage's heart but completely base desires. Gordes also sparked my interest. He's conniving and opportunistic of course, but the fact that he tried to call out Karna's master for a Wizard Duel was not something I expected. It seems as though he feels he has something to prove underneath all that bluster and ill-temper. Oh, and Jeanne deflating over seeing her clothes destroyed and Mordred's subdued, abashed reaction to being addressed as King were both just the best.
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Jul 16, 2017 22:24
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El Burbo posted:I don't think Siegfried was supposed to tell Karna his name there, considering how adamant Gordes was about not even letting his allies know who it was. Not to ignore a change from the source material, but Saber has stated in previous Fate shows that Chivalry demands that one reveal their name if their opponent does so first. Siegfried was a chivalry dude, right?
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Jul 16, 2017 22:54
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I continue to enjoy all the pieces moving in this show, but the pacing is so god drat weird. Everything feels super rushed and half-explained as a result. Achilles and Atalanta are loving baller, I want them to have Greek Hero Team Adventures forever.
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Jul 25, 2017 03:36
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I watched Season One all the way through on Netflix finally. Season 2 must have gotten really bad to make people so negative, because despite the pacing problems in the first few episodes I enjoyed them and the cast plenty, and episodes 6 and 9 through 11 more than justify the show's existence on their own. For the later, Fran's battle with Shirou/Shakespeare, her traumatic flashback, and the 3-on-1 curbstomp battle between Seig, Astolfo and Fran vs Mordred leading up to that failed sacrifice and Seigfried's return bringing the teaser full circle were all fantastic. The big Dracula Battle in Ep. 12 was nothing but an anti-climax after that. For the former, Episode 6 might just rank among my top 10 favorite single episodes in all of Fate Anime. Mordred's backstory flashback and general characterization, the fight with Jack and her characterization (drat did she win me over fast when I came in ready to despise her), and the brief fights between Shishigo and Fiore and Chiron and Mordred all made for a stellar stand-alone piece.
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Dec 21, 2017 07:57
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Xy Hapu posted:I think one of her things is that salvation needs to be earned rather than given. Which only makes sense if you actually did something that needs forgiving and/or if you have Christian beliefs, outside of that her stance pretty much screws you over. But at least there's a character reason for it, and I thought her interaction with Gilles was pretty well done and moving within the confines of that internal logic. Fate is usually above that kind of sophomoric backdoor out of its philosophical questions, so I have no doubt Amakusa's plan having no discernible downside is entirely intentional. The onus then falls on the protagonists to justify why they are opposing it despite it having no or minimal negatives. Heaven's Feel and Unlimited Bladeworks' central conflicts both were built on that friction, with Shirou having to find reasons to stick to his path (or change his path) despite the other choice being easier and probably smarter. If Seig and Jeanne fail to do that, it's a failure of the writer given how many times its been done successfully in this franchise. Fate's very core is the clash of philosophies, and if one side of the fight doesn't measure up, especially the protagonist's side, it's not fulfilling that core.
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Dec 26, 2017 09:25
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Xy Hapu posted:It's a little hard to side with either Shirou or Jeanne because at the end of the day they are both imposing their own ideas on everyone else, but at least Shirou has a reasonable basis and argument for his position. This is an interesting notion. Is Jeanne really imposing her ideals on everyone by PREVENTING Shirou from doing that? Is there no moral distinction in the lack of consideration for the wishes of humanity in general between inacting change and upholding the existing status quo?
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Dec 27, 2017 10:57
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Xy Hapu posted:In an effort to put it in less fecal terms, I'd say that it's like anti-vaxxers; yeah, one side is maybe an rear end in a top hat for 'starting it' by demanding they stick needles in your kid, but you're also a dumbass for imposing your ideals on your kid and preventing what, as far as any reasonable person can tell, is a good thing for everyone. But the end of the day the particular sequence of the assholery or dumbassery is immaterial when trying to determine whether the vaccine is good for the kid or not. But the "vaccine," in this metaphor, Shirou's plan, is being imposed through authoritarian means by a single individual. I don't think the metaphor holds because vaccines and the laws pertaining to them were arrived at by a consensus. The collective will of society through a variety of methods decided vaccines were good and put in place systems to ensure they were used en masse, not just those who were championing them at their inception. I can see the other end of the metaphor. Jeanne is the anti-vaxxer, preventing her kid from getting something that is good for him, and the child in this case is "humanity," which cannot make an informed decision on this issue. Just like a child, particularly an infant, can't know enough about science to decide on vaccines, humanity can't know enough about magic to decide on Shirou's plan, thus it falls to their caretaker (Jeanne) to make the decision for them in what should ostensibly be their best interest. But Jeanne is arguably not doing that, falling back on her personal beliefs rather than any kind of objective measurement of benefits to those in her charge. Still, we're forced to come back to this issue of authoritarian imposition of the "benefit," by the will of a single individual. Vaccines are not used because the doctors who invented them started running around injecting people, they're used because they were presented as an option and won the argument. The Social Contract went into effect and governments made laws based on the collective will of the populace, and those who were on the losing side of those things because they didn't want vaccines were forced to ascent because of their willingness to bow to that authority as members of their civilization, just as the other side would have if they had won the debate. In the absence of any source of authority to enact his will on innocent 3rd parties outside his own Might, Shirou is clearly acting immorally, but is Jeanne really equally culpable to him in this scenario for using her might to resist the change being forced on those 3rd parties? Is opposing change really equal to enforcing change under these circumstances? I find that a little hard to swallow.
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Dec 27, 2017 22:40
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Gologle posted:This reads exactly like that Donald Duck comic panel where he explains why Sora, Donald, and Goofy try not to interfere in Disney worlds. God I love this crazy fandom. Fate: If you're not here for waifus, you better be here for philosophical pondering! 
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Dec 28, 2017 03:11
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galagazombie posted:So I might have missed them going over this earlier in the series, but shouldn't Jeanne be having a crisis of faith this whole time? She's come back to life in a way that kind of invalidates her religious beliefs right? She doesn't talk about being in heaven hanging with Jesus until some mages asked her to play referee for them. So it's like the Christian afterlife thats part of the basis of her faith is disproven? She's still talking all religiously like nothing happened though. I guess the same goes for most servants based on religious people. The existence of stuff like the Throne of Heroes doesn't preclude the existence of God or Heaven. Considering that most Saints and whatnot are humble servant of Him, its hardly a stretch to assume they take being bound to the Throne to protect humanity for all time rather than going to paradise in stride. They have some kind of consciousness within the Throne that allows them to review the records of any copy of themselves summoned, so some of them may interpret the Throne as Heaven. Others may just be able to reconcile "Well, we got how the religion works all wrong," without losing their faith in God itself. It's not like members of the Holy Church give up their faith just because they know how Divine Spirits and whatnot work, they just have their faith re-contextualized by their new understanding of the mechanics of the universe. A hero who lost their faith because of becoming a heroic spirit would be interesting though.
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Dec 28, 2017 21:13
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MovieBob is great drat you  HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:You sound like you'd enjoy Drifters, where this is the entire split between the good and bad guys. Jesus, Joan of Arc, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Scipio Africanus and Hannibal all feature in this series. Hitler is in its backstory. Thanks for the rec. I'd be lying if I said the fact that 20th Century Figures can't become Heroic Spirits and thus I'll never have to see anyone World War II related was not one of the best things about Fate's setting to me though. It's always gotta be Hitler, doesn't it?
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Dec 29, 2017 07:01
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Yeesh. Every internet guy I like ends up being horrible and I never know it because Twitter is loving terrible so I don't use it. Why can't people who make entertainment I like be not-lovely? 
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Dec 30, 2017 02:33
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Endorph posted:kinoko nasu is a force of pure good, at least The way he keeps writing stories so his husband can have cute new versions of his waifu forever IS pretty wholesome. 
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Dec 30, 2017 02:44
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Stairmaster posted:Things which are good in the nasuverse: helping people, self reflection, cooking, maids Not growing up is fine. Look at Iskander and Shirou in UBW. What is bad is Cynicism, particularly when it motivates martyrdom or desperation. Whether you are a kid or an adult, letting yourself become a "his smile and optimism: gone," is what generally leads to bad things.
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Jan 1, 2018 09:53
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Conspiratiorist posted:Fran was literally a dog. If you didn't love the oldtimey silent movie of her version of the Frankenstein story and her fight with Mordred, get out of my face.
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Jan 2, 2018 03:16
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Tae posted:So what's the legend on why is Modred the only one with futuristic weaponry while the rest of the camelots being like standard? Or is it just a lame "This novel guy stuck it on there, we can't retcon his poo poo cause honor." The only futuristic things Mordred has are her Helm and her Sword, both of which were enchanted by Morgan Le Fey. A Wizard Literally Did It.
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Jan 2, 2018 06:17
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GodFish posted:17776 also operates on the assumption that there is no life on other worlds. If we became immortal and explored the universe and found there isn't anyone else out there, then yeah, I could see us stagnating, but not sure why that's an issue. If we became immortal and there isn't life out there, I will still never buy the assumption that humans would collectively just shrug and say "gently caress finding out if there are aliens". Some people might, but there's no way that everyone would. Plenty of people want to see space now. Hell, if we're immortal spirit people, why are aliens even a threat? We're immortal spirit people? One could argue that if the people who would maintain a pure, esoteric interest in exploration for its own sake are a small enough minority, then the species as a whole has still stagnated. One could also argue that exploration, the accumulation of knowledge, does not count as "not stagnating," if the knowledge is not put to some type of use that leads to the betterment of the species, however you might define betterment. A perhaps better argument is that an advanced life form might consider stagnation to be a survival imperative. If one considers oneself to be perfect, it is in one's interest to ensure change never happens (See Star Trek Voyager's Death Wish for a take on this). Why allow the seeking out of new things in the cosmos when you might inadvertently find something out there that is a threat, or inadvertently CREATE a threat by influencing a developing species. On the other hand, an advanced race might consider it a moral imperative to stagnate. If one is a being of supreme power, one can play god with lesser life forms, and plenty of people might consider this an inherent wrong that demands the species remain isolated from all those they might influence, even if their very existence is merely hypothetical. This is the basic concept behind the Prime Directive, or the policy of the Ancients in Stargate which we can compare directly to aliens like the Go'a'ould and the Aurai who do play god. In the specific case of Fate Apocrypha, however, I think Jeanne's issue with the Forced Evolution Into Angels plan is mainly that its based on what she considers to be a false premise. Shiro holds that humanity's fundamental nature is evil, and therefore only by removing all desire can humanity be saved. They are sinners at their most basic, and thus will always sin because sinning is what makes them happy. Even if we argue that forcing omnipotence on ourselves won't make us stagnate, Shiro is taking that as an axiom. It is his explicit plan to MAKE us stagnate because stagnation is the only thing that will satisfy our fundamental evil and allow us to achieve "true happiness," ie the lack of desire for anything. Jeanne (in part thanks to Seig) holds the opposite view: that people are fundamentally good and it is instead the struggle against our evil impulses that pushes us forward. We don't advance because of conflict itself, but rather by fighting to resist the urge toward conflict and thus be better. If that struggle is taken from us, humanity's potential is snuffed out. This is why a big part of her argument is related to the role of Heroic Spirits: their job is to act as protectors of humanity through EXAMPLE, and to protect THE CURRENT WORLD so it can continue toward the future it's making for itself. Heroic Spirits don't dictate the future, they guard those who do, humans. She tells Gilles that he can never atone for the dead, but he CAN stand for the living. She sees Shiro's plan as predicated on guilt, that he's seeking atonement out of regret just like Gilles, and his guilt is tainting his entire rationale for his plan. Jeanne D'Arc has no regrets, her's was her only path. Her whole life was Unlimited Saint Works! In the end its a good argument for Christian Saints to have: are people Evil, and the only way they can be saved is reaching toward God, or are people Good and only need to stand fast in the face of temptation to reach God? Is Salvation only something that can be given from the outside, or is it something inherent that can only be tainted from the outside? Even Shiro himself says he wasn't sure about that question for a long time.
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Jan 8, 2018 08:23
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