/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>43682145
My bad the power went out at my place and then I fell asleep. Here it is

L;DR: I liked the Fate route, Shirou is actually pretty cool, I love Saber

I finally got around to reading the VN and finishing the Fate route, and after a couple of sleeps, I'm liking it way more than I thought I would. Its final act (plus the preceding Church/cemetery scenes) is currently my favorite piece of Fate media and it's hard to pick a favorite moment from it.

A couple of things particularly caught me off guard, chief among them Shirou. I knew Shirou was better in the VN than the anime, but also saw the "trace on, brain off" trolley meme/discussion that portrayed Fate route Shirou as a suicidal idiot so devoted to his ideal of saving everyone that he discards his own life for it.

This interpretation makes NO SENSE to me.

Shirou explicitly isn't blind to the fact that he can't save everyone. Shit, he resolves to kill Shinji in the blink of an eye.

The meme mixes up the thought sequence. Shirou's most fundamental trait was his survivor's guilt. There are so many times he thinks back to the fire and his luck at surviving it. He's suicidal because he never valued his life in the first place, NOT because his ideals are blinding his self-preservation. In fact, his ideals are actually what get him to self-preserve, which is why he calls Saber at the school ("am I going to die without saving a single person" was the line IIRC).

When he falls for Saber, and I mean TRULY falls for Saber instead of viewing her as just another life to prioritize, he acts more thoughtfully. The final choice in the route leads to the true ending only if Shirou plans ahead. Then, the segments with the trap door church and the showdown with Kirei should make it obvious. Shirou's ideals weren't making him suicidal. His own guilt was- and his ideals were just convenient excuses so he could punish himself. Saber replaced that guilt with love, which let Shirou push forward while maintaining the same ideals.