My Problem With The Banquet of Kings

 Fate/Zero is one of my favorite anime ever made, in part due to taking place in the Nasuverse, one of my favorite fictional settings. Though the anime was made with the intent of serving as an introduction to the franchise for unfamiliar Western fans, I watched it after already watching Heaven’s Feel and Unlimited Blade Works. Though this retroactively increased my enjoyment of both series by shedding light on many details of the next Grail War; Fate/Zero still stood tall on its own two feet as an incredible show that can be watched with or without greater knowledge of the setting. 

That does not mean the show is without flaws, however. Like many other fans of Saber in stay night, I found myself increasingly dissatisfied that the pragmatic, independent and steadfast leader was reduced to a combat-loving knight who cared more about honor than victory. 

On a rewatch, one of the anime’s most loved—and hated—scenes really stood out to me: the banquet of kings. A conversation more intriguing for what it represents and what it could have been than an actually engaging and cohesive episode. Many fans view Iskander’s assessment of the situation—that Arturia is a foolish, naive woman and a poor leader—to  be an accurate assessment, but I want to go over why his core argument is flawed (from a narrative, historical and contextual level), and how Urobuchi’s unfaithful writing of Saber and ufotable’s directing feeds into these problems. 

Background and Iskander’s Tropes:

Iskander’s argument against Saber acts as a microcosm for his character as a whole. It’s a half-baked argument based on assumption and emotion, carried only by Iskander’s charisma and delivery as opposed to any logical merit. Don’t take this as me saying that I don’t like Iskander (because I do), but we need to look at what’s actually being said versus what we know and how the scene is presented. 

From a narrative level, Iskander’s argument attempts to do two tropes simultaneously:  Dumbass Has a Point and The Cuckoolander Was Right. In both tropes, a character is underestimated (either due to their stupidity or eccentricity) but manages to make a surprisingly serious, accurate assessment of the situation regardless. Iskander has been established as unfocused, self-centered, and surprisingly lacking in tact, all of which plays into the irony that this is Alexander the Great, one of history’s most famous warriors and strategists. When he stops acting silly and suddenly deconstructs Saber’s entire worldview in a matter of minutes, Iskander demonstrates that his intelligence is genuine and that he’s worthy of his fame. It's important that his intelligence and worldview be demonstrated relatively early in the show because he ends up being one of the final four Servants left in the Grail War (notably the only Servant to not be summoned by a Matou, an Einzbern or a Tohsaka), and he ends up being a huge source of positive change for Waver, the only Servant who emerges from this war a better person.

The immediate problem with this scene is that Iskander’s deconstruction is meant to be a serious break from his goofy, arrogant, self-centered self, but the “takedown” is still based on the same arrogance and self-centeredness that he carries throughout the rest of the show. In essence, Fate/Zero tries to portray his goofiness and his seriousness as two sides of the same coin, which completely backfires since both are rooted in the same faulty logic.

Now, the entire episode is basically one long conversation, and instead of going through the whole thing in detail, I’ll simply break down the part where Saber and Rider are arguing. 

Iskander’s Arguement, Summarized:

Now, as I’m sure you guys know, this conversation—or, more accurately, this debate—is part of Season 1 Episode 11, “The Grail Dialogue.” The entire episode is more or less one long conversation between Rider, Archer and Saber. However, I’m going to begin this summary immediately after Saber says she will restore Camelot with her wish. 

Saber proclaims her wish is to reverse Britain’s destruction. When Gilgamesh laughs at this, she asks why it is so humorous, saying to the two kings, “To ensure their country’s prosperity, a king should make any sacrifice.” 

Rider rebukes this, saying that, “The nation and the people offer themselves to the king.” When Saber points out this is the philosophy of a tyrant, Rider says they are only heroes because they are tyrants, and that a king who regrets their rule is a fool. 

Saber points out that Iskander has no room to talk, as his empire dissolved after his death, and she asks if he has any regrets. He has none, and claims this is what separates him as a legitimate ruler. 

Saber offers her own definition of a true king: someone who protects the innocent and imposes just laws, even if they martyr themselves. 

Rider says that is not how a person should live, let alone a king. To do so is a slave to their ideals. Saber rightly points out that just as she was a slave to law and order, Rider was a slave to his own greed. 

Here, he gets truly angry. Rider shouts that a king without greed is worse than a figurehead. He extrapolates that she was a proud and noble figure, but says that nobody admires martyrs. 

Rider says that a king should be envied by the people because they are a person of extremes: extreme rage, extreme laughter, joy, depression, evil, and good. The people should both carry the king’s dream and have their own aspirations carried in turn. (I’m reminded of Guts in Berserk talking about how the Band of the Hawk are like individual flames, contributing to the inferno of Griffith’s ambition.) 

Finally, he says that Saber never led her men. She fought on their behalf as a perfect warrior, but she never taught anyone how to follow in her footsteps, so once she was out of the picture, this led to their demise. With Saber now appropriately existential and shocked, Rider says that Saber failed as a leader because she was so busy helping others, she never learned how to take care of herself. 

The Fallacies Rider Employs:

At the midpoint of the debate, Rider employs circular logic, claiming that a king without greed is worse than a figurehead because kings are supposed to be greedy. From his perspective, this mentality both justifies and is justified by his endless conquest during life. 

He claims that they are only Heroic Spirits because they are tyrants; King Arthur was obviously never a tyrant, so with this remark, he is subtly implying that Arturia isn’t a “true Hero," and thus not even a “true king," because she doesn’t fit his definition. This marks a shift in the conversation's momentum that carries for the rest of the episode (and arguably the rest of Saber and Rider's dynamic for the entire show), where the two go from discussing their dreams to discussing the meaning of a true king. Here, Rider is employing a logical fallacy known as “Appeal to Purity,” informally known as the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. This argument is when someone makes an inaccurate overgeneralization, then attempts to protect it by saying that people who defy their generalization are not “true” examples. Oftentimes, the speaker does not clarify the difference between "true" and "false" examples of a phenomena, and if they do, their clarification is rooted entirely in pathos and subjective experience as opposed to logos.

I’m also reminded of what Innuendo Studios refers to as a “The Ship of Theseus” argument, where one side crafts an argument by misdirects the audience by attaching a new definition to each part of his argument. In this case, Iskander is redefining both “hero” and “king” to be synonymous with “tyrant,” and he’s also subtly redefining “you abandoned your people” to “your people didn’t believe in you," which I'll unpack in a second. (That final switch of terminology is also pretty blatant victim-blaming, but I think that’s obvious.) So when he says "you were not a true king because you abandoned your people," what he really means is "you were not a tyrant because your people didn't believe in you." That's now a completely different sentence entirely.

When Saber points out that Iskander’s empire dissolved after his death, the implication of her words is clear: she’s not trying to fault him or demonize him, she’s simply holding him to the same standard she holds herself. Iskander obviously views her as a false king and himself as a “true” king, and he views her as a false king because of Camelot's demise, but what does that say if both of their empires met their end? However, Iskander clarifies that she is a false king not because of her kingdom’s end, but because she regrets her rule. (This is obviously another arbitrary definition and another Appeal to Purity.)

Here, and throughout the rest of the debate, Rider is employing a tactic called “Moving the Goalposts,” wherein one debater shifts the topic of conversation to something where they think they’ll have the higher ground. Let’s look at how Rider is employing this:

1. The argument began with all three kings saying what they would wish for. 

2. When Saber said she wished to save Camelot, she defended her decision by putting forth her take on the matter, which is that the king should lay down their wellbeing for the people. Rider stated that such a wish would disqualify her from being a true king because a "true king" is someone with tyrannical qualities. In essence, he moved the parameters of the discussion and began discussing what qualified someone as a true king.

3. When Arturia pointed out that this very tyrannical ideology led to the downfall of his own empire, this puts Rider in an unfavorable position in the debate; he drew a sharp distinction between Arturia (who would lay down her life for her people) and himself (whose people would lay down their lives for him), yet both Camelot and his empire reached the same outcome. So, he shifted the conversation back to what it was originally about (what they would wish for). Now, he claims a “true king” needs to have no regrets. 

4. The two begin talking about how they were both slaves in life (Iskander to his greed, Arturia to justice). Iskander shifts the conversation again, now saying that a “true king” must be both envied and a person of extremes. This is completely different from his earlier two definitions of a true king.

5. Finally, he shifts the conversation to how Saber is a flawed king because her own men didn’t believe in her. She acted as a role model for them, but she didn’t dwell among them, and most damning, she never taught them how to carry on without her. 

This is also one of the most self-damning parts of Rider’s argument. In moving the goalposts so much, he comes full circle and incriminates himself just as much as he incriminates Saber. Remember, the final argument in Rider’s “takedown” is that Saber never led her people, she merely fought for them, so they never learned how to rule without her and Camelot fell apart. But Saber just pointed out mere minutes earlier that this exact thing applies to Rider! Because he never designated an heir either, his entire empire crumbled as soon as he died! 

_________

It’s clear that as someone who lived a life of greed and conquest, Rider has justified his atrocities by crafting a Randian worldview (one not rooted in history, mind you, but in emotion and subjective experience) where selflessness is the problem, not selfishness. But history isn’t on his side, and he only has his own subjective experiences to work with, so he has to constantly redefine what he’s talking about and alter the trajectory of the conversation to accompany this. 

Now, here’s the thing to remember: none of what I have said is inherently bad. Iskander was always made to be a selfish, impulsive character with an ego befitting Alexander the Great. From a purely writing perspective, having him put forth a highly subjective and emotional definition of a “true ruler” makes complete sense, and it gives his character lots of depth and nuance. 

I’m not saying that Arturia or even Gilgamesh have foolproof arguments either, and that’s the point. All of them can only rely on their subjective arguments, and all of them are wrong! 

The king shouldn’t be a perfect leader or a martyr, because perfection leads to burnout, and you can’t rule adequately if you don’t care for yourself. But the king also shouldn’t be a greedy conqueror just for the sake of it. And though Gilgamesh didn’t participate in the conversation that much, a king shouldn’t be narcissistic and spiteful either, because then they can’t understand their subjects and nobody will respect or trust them. Throughout both wars, we find that even if Gilgamesh is feared for his power, he is never respected or actually acknowledged as a king like the others because of his extreme self-centeredness and loose grip on reality. What’s the commonality here? All of them failed as kings, in some way or another, because of their worldviews. Arturia overexerted herself trying to keep the country together without showing too much emotion (which are actual flaws of hers that are elaborated further in Fate/stay night and Fate/Apocrypha), Gilgamesh's obsession with his own greatness led to him isolating himself, and Iskander's constant greed ultimately led to his death.

What is of questionable quality, however, is the direction in the anime adaptation. I have not read the visual novel and cannot speak to its take on this scene (though I have heard from Fate fans who have read it that it is just as bad), but through a combination of music, lighting, delivery and reaction shots (particularly Arturia’s), it is clear we are meant to think Iskander’s summation of Arturia is objectively accurate. 

But he’s not accurate. At all. Arturia is a flawed, imperfect, tragic character, but not for the reasons that Iskander thinks, and not for the reasons Urobuchi wants us to think.

Inaccuracies with this Argument:

Even though I think Fate/Zero has one of the tightest overall narratives in the franchise, I think it’s obvious that it was written by a different author (in this case, Gen Urobuchi instead of Kinoko Nasu). And at that, it’s an author who has admitted to emotionally “breaking” his characters to drive the narrative forward in every story he’s ever written, even though the Fate chronology has established that Arturia already went through her “breaking point” when Camelot was destroyed. Even though this conversation was necessary to establish Rider, Saber and Archer as characters (especially because they are three of the four Servants who make it to the endgame), it did not necessarily need to "break" Saber.

It would have been much more interesting, internally consistent and historically accurate if all three kings stood their ground, the flaws in their arguments obvious to their Masters but the Servants themselves too stubborn to understand the bigger picture. Only Saber---the most serious of the three---would reflect on the conversation later on, slowly coming to the belief that her rule as king was flawed from the start, setting up her arc in Fate/stay night as Shirou convinces her that she did enough.

But because Urobuchi tried to artificially induce an emotional breakdown where it wasn't narratively necessary, and he did so with a character that was famously self-centered, Iskander’s argument creates inaccurate implications on three levels. 

1. First, the historical level. Any attempt to hold Rider and Saber to the same standard is going to be an unequal comparison because Rider was a conqueror whereas Saber was defending her kingdom for conquerors. She takes a defensive stance in this argument because she’s fully aware this is an unequal comparison, and he’s exactly the sort of person she would’ve fought and defeated when she was King Arthur. Saying that Saber is an inferior king because she didn’t act like Isaknder ignores the circumstances of their leadership and their long-term goals. It’s like saying a car sucks because it can’t fly. But more than that, Iskander can’t live up to his own standards. Depending on who you ask, Alexander’s final words were, “Fight it out amongst yourselves,” and that’s exactly what happened. If he defines a true king as someone who leads the people so they can carry on without them, he fails. Historically, Alexander’s lust for power led him to attempt a hasty invasion of India, where his exhausted men betrayed him; though he eventually talked them out of it, it was clear they didn’t fully trust him. If he defines a true king as someone with the complete trust of his men, he also fails there. 

2. Second, the contextual level, particularly in regards to the rest of the Nasuverse. Fate/stay night established Saber as pragmatic, intelligent, confident, self-assured and borderline ruthless when she needs to be. Throughout the Fate route, Saber rebukes Shirou’s attempts to coddle or care for her, and she’s beyond determined in her goal to undo her rule as king. While this scene does begin to explain why her goals shift from “Undo Camelot’s destruction” to “Undo my rule as king,” her reaction is laughably out-of-character. The Saber of Fate would have stood her ground and verbally deconstructed Rider’s whole argument, as I’m doing here. Here, Rider’s words cause Saber an existential crisis—even though Saber acknowledges these words are coming from a hypocritical, selfish, failed tyrant who is arguing in favor of war and conquest for its own sake. 

3. Third, the narrative level. Ignoring the historical context of Alexander the Great and ignoring Fate/Zero’s connection to the Nasuverse, this scene doesn’t work even in the Fate/Zero narrative we are presented with. Rider’s final argument is that Saber was so perfect that she failed her people by never leading them, so they couldn’t carry on without her, and that is flat out wrong. Even though Saber’s existential dread would have one assume he’s right, the more we learn about Camelot’s downfall the more we realize this is completely incorrect. Directly after this scene, Saber tells Irisviel that Gawain betrayed her, and as we learn later on, Lancelot and Gwen had an affair behind Arturia’s back and betrayed her as well. Hell, even the shot of Arturia on the Hill of Swords proves this wrong: it’s not that Camelot crumbled after Arturia was out of the picture because she made everyone dependent on her, it’s that Camelot destroyed itself in a civil war and Arturia was the only survivor. To reiterate, the narrative itself says that the Knights of the Round Table betrayed Saber, not the other way around, and Lancelot himself directly speaks of this in the final episode, telling Saber that he was at fault, not her. But Rider victim-blames and attempts to present their betrayal as a fault of Saber’s character instead of their own. 

At the end of the day, Rider puts forth (depending on how you count) anywhere from four to five different definitions of a “true king": a tyrant, a ruler without regrets, a ruler who lives life to the fullest, a ruler whose kingdom perseveres after they die, and a ruler who dwells among their men and is seen as down-to-earth. Each time Rider puts forth his personal definition, Saber dissects the logical implications of that subject, at which point Rider puts forth a new definition and the argument starts anew, because any attempt to authentically analyze his tyrannical ideology would incriminate him more than Saber. Saber's flaws are beginning to show by this point (such as her ridiculously high standards, perfectionism and tendency to take everyone's burdens on herself), but Rider either grossly exaggerates these flaws or makes up new flaws to fixate on. By the end of the debate, he paints an incorrect picture of Camelot’s affairs, then argues with this incorrect picture in mind instead of considering what actually happened to Camelot. 

I can’t help but feel like Rider is simply looking for any reason to discredit Saber’s rule to justify thinly-veiled misogyny against her. He calls her a “little girl” throughout the conversation, never treats her as a true equal, and throughout the rest of the show affirms that it’s his “duty” to defeat her and show her what a “true king” really is. What he ultimately settles on is that she’s a poor ruler because she failed her people, but rewatching the argument again, it feels like he’s just throwing reasons to the wall until he gets an emotional reaction. 

Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night have gotten a lot of flack for their sexism in recent years, particularly as they relate to the franchise's main female leads: Rin, Sakura, Illya and Saber. I don't agree with all of these arguments, and I do recognize some of these instances of sexism stem from clunky writing rather than genuinely misogynistic beliefs (as with the Fate route of stay night, where Shirou wanting Saber to stay out of the fighting seems sexist, but as Rin explains, is just hot air and another layer to his martyr complex, and the route ends with him accepting Saber as a warrior). That being said, these stories are far from perfect and I am absolutely willing to call out Nasu and Type-Moon's sexism and general creepiness in other instances, such as with Prisma Illya and Grand Order having the sexualization of underaged girls; Sakura's backstory as a sexual assault survivor being handled with all the grace of a sledgehammer; and the Fourth Grail War having literally two female participants.

Because of Iskander's speech, I also can't help but feel like this is a rather sexist moment for the narrative of Fate/Zero itself. Saber, as a character, is treated in a narratively distinct way from every other Servant in the Fourth Grail War, and five of the other Servants (Berserker, Caster, Lancer, Rider and Archer) are obsessed with her and wants to beat/enslave/kill/marry her. This scene only hammers that home, presenting Saber as fickle, naïve, foolish, emotional and prone to caving under pressure, and thus an easy target for Rider, who is cold, stoic, logical and competitive. Of course, very little of that is true and Urobuchi can only send this message by writing both of them horribly out-of-character. From that point onwards, Rider doesn't just see her as a false king, he sees her as someone who needs to be crushed under his thumb and enslaved for his army, so he can "teach her a lesson." Yeah, not only are the implications of that a bit uncomfortable, it's actually quite insulting, seeing as Saber routinely outclasses Rider every step of the War.

Like I said earlier, Ufotable’s directing is definitely at play here. The entire scene is framed as a “boss moment” for Iskander, particularly when his men show up so that he can demonstrate to Arturia what a true leader looks like. 

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, I look at the Banquet of Kings with a lot of fondness because of what it could represent: a chance for mythological and historical kings to compare experiences, giving the audience a chance to see each character’s flaws, dreams and aspirations. 

But actually rewatching this scene for this essay, I just feel angry. Saber is genuinely one of my favorite characters in all of anime, but after rewatching Unlimited Blade Works only a couple months after my first watch of Zero, I can’t help but feel like Urobuchi (and Ufotable) definitely did her dirty. There are lots of small things that were changed between stay night and Zero, and even more things that changed when Zero got adapted—her obsession with honor being a big one—but the Banquet of Kings really cemented my dislike for this interpretation. The entire conversation is so detached from what we actually know about both characters it almost feels like it belongs in a completely different story. 

I hope that more fans can look past the charisma of Iskander’s words, and look at the actual story behind Arturia. And with that, I’m signing off. Thank you.