Fate/Stay Night is a visual novel with three distinct routes, each one following the same characters through the same timeframe, but changing events to reflect different philosophies. To be accurate, the routes highlight different perspectives of heroism, and for fans of Fate’s anime adaptations, there’s no better starting point for a discussion of heroism than Fate/Zero.
2011’s Fate/Zero, directed by Ei Aoki, tells of the Fourth Holy Grail War and the tragedy that brings about the events of Fate/Stay Night just ten years later. While it follows a group of masters all attempting to win the Grail and grant their wish, great emphasis is placed on Kiritsugu Emiya, the de facto protagonist of the story.
RELATED: Shirou Emiya, The Underrated Hero of FateFor audiences that got into Fate/Zero perhaps younger, it might have been tempting to reflect on Kiritsugu’s character with some reverence. His dark and cool presence certainly made for a compelling protagonist and his conviction and unorthodox methods paint him an especially obtuse icon in the world. However, looking back on the series, he’s not exactly likable.
I Will Save The World
At first, Kiritsugu is understandably cool, having earned his place as a Master in the Grail War in the name of the Einzbern estate, and even being a loving husband and father. He has something worth fighting for, and the audience can easily empathize with him, just as they could with another character like Kariya.
However, while Kariya spends the entire series tortured and destined to fail in his quest, Kiritsugu is effectively on a winning streak, but it’s his attitude and methods that start to put him into question. As a mage, Kiritsugu seems to eschew every aspect of magus culture and etiquette in favor of guerilla warfare tactics and is known to be a hunter of mages.
He blows up an entire building to try and kill his target, though he thankfully evacuates the building first. The audience is meant to get the sense that Kiritsugu has a line but the metric by which that line is moved isn’t without detriment to his trustworthiness as a hero. Because he believes the Grail can grant his wish of saving the world with certainty, how far will he go to achieve that goal?
At the start of Season 2, the distance Kiritsugu has placed between himself and his own servant comes to a head after the brutal killing of Lancer and his Master. Saber calls his actions deplorable, thinking him to be a monster for killing them in such an unbecoming manner. He disregards her, outright acknowledging that he has no respect for her antiquated view of honor.
Tales of old romanticize war and codes of honor, but more accurately romanticize the idea of icons who embody those ideals. Newer ways of thinking tend to look back on romantic depictions of these things with disgust because war and death are bad and never as artful as any story has depicted them.
But Kiritsugu isn’t just criticizing Saber’s honor because violence is bad. It’s because he can manipulate and murder people way quicker his way and thinks himself superior because he doesn’t hold on to lofty ideals. Low-key, it’s also because he’s a misogynist and the story as a whole treats Saber poorly, though that’s a story for another time.
This is despite the fact that he’s only doing this because of an impossible dream of stopping all suffering through the Grail. His own father’s experiments turned his childhood home into a den of ghouls that got summarily wiped out by mages and the church. At a young age, Kiritsugu responded to the trauma by immediately going from 0 to 100 and murdering his father.
From there, he became a merc and a mage hunter, wading through the most hellish warzones on the planet, believing he could genuinely make the world better if he fought hard enough. His obsession spiraled into a philosophy of preserving the greater good through increasingly grim mental gymnastics to close off his heart.
Killing his own mentor and mother figure to stop a virus from spreading was the final straw for him, but even after resolving to use the grail, he didn’t change his process or the way he viewed the world. If anything, he doubled down, but now he was convinced that if kept going just a little farther, he would get what he wanted and everything would be alright.
The Failure
Fate/Zero is a tragedy because as the victor of the Grail War, Kiritsugu realizes that everything he fought for was completely pointless. The Grail isn’t all-powerful and can only accomplish a goal that is physically achievable. It seems like false advertising until you put Kiritsugu’s goal into perspective.
By its logic, the Grail could be viewed like a time-saver, accomplishing goals that could take generations to accomplish. By saying that Kiritsugu’s wish can’t be granted, it’s effectively confirming that it’s impossible. Yet, it still taunts him with a depiction of his wish - and by extension his philosophy - in gruesome detail.
Kiritsugu’s last act within the story is to reject the Grail, effectively denying it a victor, and then in his last insult to Saber, orders her to destroy the Grail. In retaliation, the wish-granting device destroys a portion of Fuyuki and kills 500 people. And Kiritsugu breaks down in horror at what has become of his crusade.
But eventually, he does find something to give him hope again. A single surviving boy in the rubble, reaching out for help. So he reaches out to take that hand and save the child, on the verge of tears, thankful that he could save even one person. And that boy’s name would be Shirou Emiya…
The Next Hero
People often wonder why the Fate Route wasn’t adapted by Ufotable before tackling Unlimited Blade Works and then Heaven’s Feel with a fairly consistent creative vision. There are a few common reasons, such as the Fate route mostly being expository to explain the concepts of the world and Studio Deen having already adapted it in 2006. But the real reason feels tied to the philosophy.
The Fate route is characterized by Shirou Emiya growing up wanting to be a hero, joining the Fifth Grail War, and then at the end thinking “yes, I would still like to be a hero.” His values aren’t ultimately challenged, at least compared to the other two routes. If Fate/Zero, with its cynical depiction of heroism, was followed with Kiritsugu’s son happily choosing the life of never-ending heroism, it might not feel sad, but perhaps a bit lacking.
Unlimited Blade Works was Ufotable’s next adaptation of Fate and thematically speaking, it was a smart move because it feels like a direct sequel to Zero. Shirou comes to blows with Archer, a future vision of Shirou that resembles Kiritsugu’s cynicism but with a tad more respect for women (or at least the ability to flirt with them).
In UBW and Heaven’s Feel, Shirou has his values directly challenged and has to reassess how he wants to be a hero in order to overcome. Kiritsugu’s lasting impact on the series is one of tragedy, but from that tragedy came hope for a better future by learning from past mistakes. He was an imperfect and arguably bad person, but in his complexity casts a shadow over the series that makes the light Shirou brings shine that much brighter.
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