People Die If They Are Killed

I'll just start by saying this: I don't often sympathize with the idealistic heroes that want to protect everyone because that's their entire character. Complex characters with faults and that are non-idealistic are my favorite. Anti-Heroes, Villains, side characters, all of those are usually more appealing than the usual hero that wants to save people because "oh boy that's a good thing." However, there is one story that I do enjoy very much (for a variety of reasons) that contains one of these stereotypical characters. Sorry if this post is big and long but I'm going to have to explain a lot to get through all the points I want to touch on.

The story (or series, I guess, since there are like 4 different anime, several visual novels, and even some video games that come out of this franchise) that I will delve into is the Fate Series, more specifically the ufotable 2014-15 production of Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works (I'll call it UBW from now on so I don't have to invoke Ctrl+C every time). In UBW, the main character Emiya Shirou is just your average dude who goes to high school and lives with his adoptive guardian since his first adopted parent, his father Emiya Kiritsugu, has passed away. Well, almost completely normal. As it turns out, Shirou can use some rudimentary strengthening magic. Other than that however, Shirou is currently in the normal world of the hero's journey. Another important plot point is that Shirou has always wanted to grow up to be a hero (Japanese: 正義の味方, lit. "Ally of Justice"). Kiritsugu had always wanted to be a hero of justice but failed (for reasons I will get into later), and Shirou wants to fulfill that dream not only for himself but for his father as well. Seems like a pretty normal hero narrative, right?

Okay but then the Holy Grail War starts. Below I have the rules, in general, for the Holy Grail War throughout the series:

Basically at in this specific instance of the Holy Grail War, 7 mages (yes, count them, 7) now known as "Masters" summon 7 Heroic Spirits known as "Servants" to fight the Grail War for them. Each servant has a class that's assigned to them so they can keep their identity secret, etc, etc. Basically the part of the hero's journey where Shirou gets the call is when he summons the Servant of the Saber class: Artoria Pendragon (King Arthur is a girl in fate but we ask no questions because we will never find answers). Crossing the threshold in this example would be Shirou finally having to fight in the Holy Grail War.

Now that I've introduced why this seems like a hero narrative, let me break it down a bit. Minor spoilers ahead.

First point: Heroic Spirits. This idea came to me a little late in this drafting process but I'll put it here first cause it isn't as essential to a hero's narrative. All the Heroic spirits summoned have already died and completed their stories. They had to have important narratives about them in the first place to be summoned. Although some Heroic Spirits like Medusa don't exactly have heroic narratives about them, Heroic Spirits like Artoria or the Lancer Cu Chulainn (Irish hero. Look him up, he's got some interesting stories and he's probably my favorite character in Fate) have heroic narratives that are passed down through legend, their exploits being told from one generation to the next. I really wish Odysseus could be summoned as a Heroic Spirit so I could use him as an example but so far in none of the series has he even been mentioned. The Heroic Spirits have essentially fulfilled their journeys and have their "elixirs" as part of their identity: Artoria has Excalibur, Cu Chulainn has the one-hit-kill spear Gae Bolg. Essentially the point here is that Heroic Spirits symbolize the completion of a hero's journey, since they've had all their epics completed and their lives finished.

Next point: Emiya Shirou and Heroic Spirit  Archer Emiya Shirou. Basically, because the plot is weird and complex, in the future Emiya Shirou will try to become a hero, will eventually become disillusioned and be betrayed by his ideals, and die. Since he died and was essentially an important figure, he qualifies to be summoned as a Heroic Spirit. So he's summoned back at the time when the Holy Grail War happened and meets his past self, though his past self doesn't recognize him until later. Since Servant summoning rules are weird there are no paradoxes but Archer (Shirou from the future) does keep telling Shirou to stop being a hero. Their interactions are always Archer hating Shirou and then telling Shirou to quit being a hero, to which Shirou replies he'll stay on this track. This was mostly the main part of the hero narrative I wanted to touch upon for this story. The main character's future self acts as an antagonist so that the main character won't repeat the same mistakes (which he does in UBW). I kinda liked this contrast between the idealistic hero and his future self that has abandoned those ideals because they got him killed. I will need to expand a bit more on this since it was shaping up to be the big main point but I'd have to review the material. I will say that Emiya Shirou's character (present self) is the most generic hero you can find, so kinda bad in my opinion. I kinda don't like him, but I do like how his ideals have to contrast with his future self. This is the main point since its pivotal to the main character of the main series, but personally I feel like the other two points I make are a bit more nuanced in the characters.

Last point: Hero narrative in other Fate installments. The one part of the series that prompted this last point was Fate/Zero, the prequel to UBW. In Zero, Emiya Kiritsugu (remember him?) participates in a Holy Grail War in order to win because of some relations with a mage family or something (kinda fuzzy on his exact reasoning). Basically he wants the grail since the grail grants wishes. Kiritsugu had always wanted to be a hero but he ended up as a cold assassin who specialized in getting rid of mages. Oh and he also summoned Artoria for this Grail War just like his son. In Zero, the question of becoming a hero is completely thrown out in exchange for cold, brutal efficency and rationalism in order to win the grail and end the Holy Grail War. Kiritsugu is the cold badass type of character, but that means he has to give up on his ideals of working for justice. Another Fate installment that I can only say a small amount for since I've only seen the first part and the trailer for the second part is Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel. Heaven's Feel is an alternate timeline of UBW in which some stranger events go down during the Holy Grail War and there's some dark and mysterious happenings that are much more sinister than UBW. In the very end of the trailer for the second part Shirou says the like "I'll become a hero for Sakura's[Someone in this timeline that Shirou got close to] sake". This shows that he is willing to step forward for the journey, but not for some grand ideal. Rather, its for someone close to his heart.

I know this went on for a while but the moment Mr. Mitchell gave us the prompt I knew I had to do Fate. Also you can look up the title of this post for a very strange translation from Emiya in an infamous clip of an earlier animation of Fate. There's a few more things I might have to look into regarding Fate, but this should show my three main points for this post and my upcoming paper.