Why Is Fate So Hard To Get Into?

My father and I have been watching the Fate anime by ufotable for a while now, and it’s gotten me thinking about the franchise as a whole, its accessibility and what it does to lower that accessibility barrier (or increase it in some cases). This essay is going to be a bit shorter than my others, but it mainly addresses why I think that Fate is notoriously difficult for Western newcomers to get into. Along the way, I’ll be giving some of my own, small criticisms of the series’ writing. 

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First, there’s the original medium: a visual novel. Visual novels are a notoriously niche, hard-to-explain medium, lurking in the gray area between literature and video games. There are few examples of visual novels that originated in the West, so it can be difficult to explain to Western fans what it even is. Not helping matters, Type-Moon is famously averse to translating their works because of how time-consuming it is and how busy they are with other projects like Grand Order and the Tsukihime remake. 

Plus, as with many Japanese visual novels, the original Fate/stay night (released almost 20 years ago in 2004) is divided into multiple routes. Routes are a key part of visual novels, essentially acting as alternative, mutually exclusive narratives making use of the same beginning. 

In this case, there are three: Fate, Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven’s Feel. These three routes all begin in more-or-less the same way and utilize the same premise, characters, backstory, setting and power system, but subtle differences in dialogue and choice lead to wildly different narratives. Fate is rich in exposition and leans towards the idealistic end of the spectrum, focusing heavily on Shirou’s romance with Saber and their rivalries with Kotomine and Gilgamesh. Unlimited Blade Works is a more realistic story (at least philosophically) that focuses on Archer’s rivalry with Shirou, using this as a vehicle to address the long-term implications of Shirou’s personal worldview. And Heaven’s Feel is a dark, complex psychological thriller focusing primarily on Sakura, her abuse and her relationship with the rest of the cast. 

That…can be an extremely difficult concept to explain to Western fans. The best way I can put it is that it's similar to how some video games (Mass Effect, Infamous, etc.) have multiple branching narratives that come from the player choices, or those old Choose Your Own Adventure books we read as kids. 

Even then, Fate/stay night and other visual novels are distinct in how mysterious they are. Almost every character has some air of mystery to them, and routes tend to unpack just a couple of these mysteries, but the game forces you to advance through the routes in a predetermined way. Certain events in later routes only make sense with the revelations from earlier routes. For instance, Fate reveals that Shirou has Avalon sealed inside of him, which explains why he can heal from certain injuries in UBW and HF. 

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On the topic of mysteries and revelations, that acts as the second thing that makes Fate difficult to get into: the dense, rich backstory. 

Moreso than almost any franchise I’ve gotten into, Fate is absolutely stuffed with backstory. Not in the sense that there are pages upon pages of lore about the magic or world, per say, but in the sense of personal, character-specific histories. One of the big parts of the premise is that Holy Grail Wars traditionally take decades to occur, but the Fifth Grail War happens only a decade after the Fourth Grail War. As a result, many of the characters are direct descendants of the previous War’s participants, or even veterans of the war themselves (like Gilgamesh, Kotomine and Saber). 

The events that occurred in that Fourth Grail War are absolutely crucial to understanding why certain characters behave the way they do in the Fifth War. Gilgamesh is still around and obsessed with Saber. Kotomine recognizes the Emiya name and targets Shirou specifically because of his history with Kiritsugu. Illya attempts to kill Shirou in a jealous rage on multiple occasions because she thinks Kiritsugu abandoned her. Rin’s subtle trauma manifests as indecision and insecurity, which becomes clear when we consider Tokiomi was killed and Aoi was disabled when she was a little girl. Sakura’s much more explicit trauma manifests in clinginess and envy, which makes sense when we consider that she was sold to the Matous as a child. Even Shirou’s backstory relies on this: his parents were killed in the fire from ten years ago, Kiritsugu sealed Avalon in him to save his life, and that same scabbard worked as a catalyst to summon Saber in the present day. 

Considering how detailed that backstory was, it makes sense that Kinoku Nasu and fellow author Gen Urobuchi decided to flesh it out into the light novel series Fate/Zero. Fate/Zero does have a lot of its own ideas—namely with characters like Kariya, Iskander, Waver, Gilles and Lancelot—but on a narrative level, its main function is to serve as a tragic prelude to the main series. However, for this reason, Zero was also intended to be read after one has completed Fate/stay night, since it blatantly spells out the mysteries of stay night, like Illya’s abandonment, Kotomine’s betrayal and Sakura’s abuse. (Adding onto that, watching or reading Zero before the main series can lead to some jarring misconceptions about the rest of the franchise. Zero is an action-packed tragedy with focus given to many characters, while stay night is laser-focused on a smaller cast and 1v1 battles.) 

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Now, to be fair, a lot of that backstory is revealed in the Fate route. Like I said, the three routes are meant to be read in a specific order, so having the Fate route at the beginning makes the most sense: it gives the reader a faint idea of what transpired ten years ago, which helps certain character revelations about Rin, Illya, Sakura and Kotomine in the next two routes. But this leads me to the third barrier that makes Fate so hard to get into: adaptations. 

As a 70-hour long visual novel that never got an official English translation, one of the easiest ways to experience it in the West is through the anime adaptations. Zero, Fate, Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven’s Feel have all been adapted…but they each raise their own problems. Across the board, these series fail in the same way a lot of other novel adaptations fail: by leaving out crucial details due to time constraints. Let’s dive into them. 

• Like I said, the Fate route of the original visual novel does give an inkling of backstory to help digest character decisions. This route was adapted by Studio DEEN into a 2006 anime simply titled Fate/stay night. It does a serviceable job with the source material up until Episodes 17 and 18, where DEEN introduced an original subplot about Caster kidnapping Sakura to summon the Grail. In the process, Kuzuki is revealed as Caster’s Master (which wasn’t revealed until the UBW route) and Sakura is revealed as Rin’s sister (which wasn’t shown until the HF route). 

• The Unlimited Blade Works route was adapted twice, first into a movie in 2010 by DEEN, then into a two-season television series in 2014 by ufotable. The former suffers tremendously from compression, with a plot so streamlined it's nearly incomprehensible. The latter does a much better job, but it's still not perfect. 

• The Heaven’s Feel trilogy of films—released between 2018 and 2021—are some of the most gorgeous animated films I’ve ever seen. However, adapting such a long route into a trilogy of films instead of a television series means that certain details are left out, namely regarding Shirou’s arm and the Third Magic. Plus, the film decides to go with the visual novel’s True Ending. This ending was already criticized by fans for feeling like a deux ex machina, so leaving out details about the Third Magic makes it feel even worse. 

• Zero’s adaptation has been extremely well-received. At the time of its debut, it was praised as one of the best anime of the early 2010s, with particular praise for Kiritsugu, Kotomine and Iskander’s characters. Several of the battles from that series (such as Saber using Excalibur to kill Caster, and Kiritsugu dueling Kotomine underground) have gone down as some of the most iconic moments in anime history. 

So, we have four adaptations covering the four major stories of Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero. So we’re good, right? Just watch the DEEN anime, then ufotable’s far superior UBW anime, then the Heaven’s Feel trilogy, then the Zero anime. 

Technically, this does work, and it would give you an experience similar to reading the original visual novel and Zero light novels, but there are a few main problems. From a visual perspective, Studio DEEN’s adaptation of Fate had outdated art and animation even by 2006 standards, which especially sticks out when all of its peers were adapted by ufotable. From a storytelling perspective, the episodes about Sakura, Caster and Kuzuki were extremely rushed, out-of-left-field and will feel redundant if one also watches the other anime, which can really hinder the rest of the viewing experience going forward. 

But skipping it isn’t a great option either, because that would mean starting with ufotable’s Unlimited Blade Works. That is technically possible (it’s what I did before I knew this was part of a larger franchise or based on a visual novel), but for whatever reason, ufotable leaves out even basic plotlines under the assumption you already know what they are. For instance, Tokiomi Tohsaka is barely even mentioned and only seen in one flashback in the pilot episode, and the anime never tells us that Kotomine was Rin’s guardian growing up. Thus, the reveal that Kotomine actually killed Tokiomi falls flat for newcomers. 

The solution that many anime-only fans have arrived at is simply starting with Zero. It’s not the most elegant solution, and the shift in tone can be jarring, but it will supply the appropriate context about Saber, Gilgamesh, Kiritsugu, Kotomine and Avalon that the DEEN anime or Fate route would’ve given you. 

In that regard, one could argue that the various Fate series fail as adaptations. The goal of an adaptation should be that it can stand on its own two feet in a new medium. If you have to go back and read the original visual novel or watch a prequel show first for things to make sense, then your adaptation has done a poor job. 

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This brings me to the fourth barrier for entry in the franchise. Many fans of the franchise online will actively discourage newcomers from experiencing Zero before the main series, with some toxic fans even shaming those who began with Zero. (When I say that, I’m referring mainly to those who started with the Zero anime and then watched the other anime series, but I’m also referring to those who began with the Zero novels and then read the Fate/stay night visual novel.)

This is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Every story has an intended way to experience it. You shouldn’t read The Two Towers before The Fellowship of the Ring. You shouldn’t watch Kill Bill Volume 2 before Volume 1. We advise against this because the plot won’t make sense. 

But prequels are fun because they create an alternate way to experience the story, and for anime-only watchers who watch Zero before stay night, the plot actually makes more sense. Sure, Zero dispels the mysteries of Fate/stay night, and that fundamentally alters the storytelling experience, but it adds a rich understanding. You might prefer watching it in the intended order because you enjoy preserving the mystery, but others might prefer chronological order just because they’ll be more informed about why characters act the way they do. I would never shame someone for watching the Star Wars prequels before the original trilogy. They’ll know ahead of time that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker, but now they might get more out of Vader’s duel with Ben Kenobi, or Luke’s training with Yoda. 

In the case of my father and I, we watched Zero first. Since he knew who Illya was, he could understand why she targeted Shirou. Since he knew who Gilgamesh was, he could understand his motives. Things that felt random to him before now made sense, which gave us more time to find fun parallels, like how Gilgamesh’s fight with Shirou parallels his fight with Iskander, or how Rin’s personality felt very similar to Waver’s. One isn’t better than the other, it’s just personal preferences.

I’m not saying that chronological order is flawless. Since the source material was meant to be read in release order, there are obvious flaws. For instance, much of Fate’s magic system isn’t explained until the Fifth Grail War, which can make the powers seen in the Fourth War feel quite random. But if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t enjoy a narrative you don’t understand, then this might be a good way for you. 

Speaking of Fate’s magic system…

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The fifth barrier my father and I picked up on had to do with the power system. I’ve spoken about this before, but I find the power system in Fate to be extremely dissatisfying. It’s a strange system that is simultaneously nebulous, closed, unlimited and pseudo-hard. For those that read my previous essay on power systems, you’ll know what this means. Magecraft in Fate can do almost anything (hence why it is “unlimited”), the sum of all the powers have little cohesion with one-another (hence why it is “nebulous”), an individual Mage seems capable of learning many different types of Magecraft (hence why it is “closed”), and many of the rules that were added to Magecraft seem arbitrary and easily broken (hence why it is “pseudo-hard”). 

I’m honestly shocked that people on anime forums and social media refer to this system as being “hard” at all. Part of what makes a hard power system is clear limits, explicit rules and predictability. Fate has none of these. Hell, the things that are supposedly “impossible” through conventional Magecraft (time travel, raising the dead, controlling the soul, etc.) are actually possible as long as you get to the Root, and this is called True Magic. That pretty much feels like Fate’s way of acknowledging that anything goes. 

Searching through the source material, interviews or the Wiki is a dissatisfying and frustrating endeavor, because certain rules are presented as being set-in-stone only to be broken when it seems cool. For instance, Mages have affinities for the five main elements (fire, water, earth, wind, ether) or they can have an affinity for an “imaginary,” abstract element (hollow or nothingness). Except for Shirou, whose elemental affinity is sword. Also, Magecraft relies on equivalent exchange, and certain materials have to be offered as a cost for a spell to occur. Except for Shirou, who can trace weapons infinitely and without an exchange, because all the weapons come from his internal Reality Marble. 

Brandon Sanderson, who coined the phrases “hard magic system” and “soft magic system,” once said that an audience’s understanding of a system is proportional to a system’s ability to solve problems satisfyingly. I think “satisfyingly” is the key word here. Fate uses Magecraft to solve a lot of problems, but without any information about the larger system, those solutions feel extremely random, and thus are rarely satisfying. This is especially problematic in Fate/Zero, where many action-packed moments rely on a piece of information about Magecraft that was never said before and will never be mentioned again. For instance, the wind magic that Saber uses to conceal her sword can also be used offensively. This is never mentioned, and only seen once in the fight with Lancelot. Kotomine using Command Seals as a source of power to fight Kiritsugu is a cool idea, but it was never foreshadowed so it comes across as a random way to keep the fight suspenseful. 

Randomness can be a good way to describe plot points related to this system. It doesn’t matter how many pages upon pages Nasu has written for Magecraft, if that isn’t clearly given in the series, it will always feel random. For instance, the reveal that Shirou’s specialty is in projection, not reinforcement, means absolutely nothing to me. How many specialties are there? How do you discover your specialty? For people who are either used to harder magic systems from manga, or who are used to harder magic systems from fantasy literature, Fate can feel extremely foreign. 

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The sixth barrier to accessibility is an extremely subjective one, but it’s one I wanted to address because this essay is primarily about the difficulties Western audiences face, and its related to the anime. For a lot of Western fans, the philosophical debates about Fate can be extremely difficult to watch, not necessarily because a conflict of ideals is inherently boring, but in how Fate presents those ideals in the animated medium. I’m not sure if this is a translation issue, a simple byproduct of Japanese culture and speech patterns, or half-baked writing. In any event, Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night often feature heated philosophical debates where one character is designated by the narrative as a “victor,” but their argument isn’t supported by the narrative itself. 

I talked about this in my earlier essay “My Problem With The Banquet of Kings,” but the Banquet of Kings is easily the worst offender in Fate/Zero. In the scene, Iskander tells Saber she failed as a king and betrayed her men, and that she is a poor king for having regrets. Iskander then shows off his Reality Marble, a manifestation of his men’s loyalty to him. Through a combination of dialogue, music and lighting, the narrative of Fate/Zero wants you to think that Iskander is in the right and Saber is in the wrong, and anyone who says that this scene is meant to be open to “audience interpretation” is lying to themselves.

Of course, this argument is shit. The final duel with Lancelot blatantly contradicts Iskander’s speech, with Lancelot admitting that Camelot’s downfall was in large part because of his affair with Guinevere. Plus, Iskander openly admits in the same scene that he didn’t get a chance to conquer Earth, so he wants the Grail to reincarnate and try again…yet we’re supposed to believe he has no regrets? He’s obviously hypocritical, and much of his dialogue in future  battles comes across as blatantly sexist, calling Saber a “foolish little girl” and downplaying her accomplishments as an excuse to continue mocking her. 

Unlimited Blade Works gave me a similar vibe. Throughout the narrative, Archer berates Shirou for his ideals. This constant arguing made the middle portion of the route a bit repetitive, a matter not helped by the fact that Archer always seems to say the same thing, calling Shirou a “hypocrite” for wanting to help people. Again, this argument doesn’t make much sense. There’s nothing about altruism that’s inherently self-contradictory. I’m not trying to say that Shirou’s dream is perfectly rational, either, because there are genuine criticisms of Shirou’s ideals. It’s a naive philosophy that comes at the expense of his own well-being, and if he decided to try solving conflicts in other countries like Archer did, he’ll be poorly prepared for the realities of war. Archer could’ve called it a million other things, but to call it “hypocritical?” That just doesn’t add up. 

And just like with the Banquet of Kings, the narrative still treats Archer as if he has a point, and Shirou echoes his exact wording, calling himself a hypocrite in the final battle. It was a weird writing choice that left me scratching my head, because there’s nothing Shirou’s done that’s actually hypocritical. Once the cat is out of the bag and Archer is revealed as future version of Shirou, Archer could have come up with a far more compelling argument than just calling his younger self a hypocrite again and again. 

Fate/Zero has a strange example in Kariya. Throughout Zero and later in Fate/Grand Order, Kariya is often framed as pathetic, unwise, childish and envious. He’s blatantly disregarded by the other Masters, blamed by Aoi as the reason for Sakura being sold away, and told by Tokiomi that he is “irresponsible” and “worse than a dog who doesn’t know his place” for abandoning Magecraft. He seems to hold a candle for Aoi and wants to “save” her from what he perceives as an unhappy marriage to Tokiomi, a conclusion he arrived at because she obviously didn’t want to send Sakura to the Matous. 

When I first watched the argument between Tokiomi and Kariya, I simply thought the narrative was trying to paint Tokiomi as an arrogant asshole. However, Kinoku Nasu, Takashi Takeuchi and Gen Urobuchi have admitted that they designed Kariya as a “Chuunibyou.” This is a Japanese word with a lot of specific implications, but it basically refers to the cringy phase all middle schoolers go through. In essence, the series creators think Kariya is a cringey manchild, and I think the narrative wanted us to actually side with Tokiomi, not with Kariya.

Of course, to anyone who’s seen Zero, this is baffling and hilarious. The Three Families know all about each other and their Magecraft, as evidenced by Zouken, Rin and Illya recognizing one-another in Fate/stay night. So there’s no fucking way Tokiomi doesn’t know what’s happening to Sakura. Kariya escaped a home of abuse and is now trying to stop a little girl—who’s essentially his surrogate niece, mind you—from suffering the same fate, but he’s the irresponsible one? 

Kariya might actually be one of the most unambiguously heroic characters in Zero, at least when the Grail War first begins. Compared to everyone else (Waver, Kayneth, Tokiomi, etc.) he’s one of the only Masters who has the distinction of entering the Grail for an entirely altruistic reason. 

It’s even worse in the anime. In the light novel, Kariya becomes obsessed with Aoi and jealous of Tokiomi, wanting to kill Tokiomi to take his place as the father of Rin and Sakura. In the anime, none of that is present save for a brief daydream in his final moments, and his most defining personality trait is still his overwhelming desire to protect Sakura. This makes him come across as far more sympathetic, which in turn makes his treatment by the narrative feel even stranger. 

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The sixth and seventh reasons are extremely interconnected. Fate/stay night is both extremely complex (reason six) and prone to subverting its own rules (reason seven). Many times, this is only made possible through the pseudo-Hard magic system I mentioned. 

One of the oldest rules of writing is: never use two words where one will do, and never use an overly-complicated word where a simpler one will do. Now, this is not a hard and fast rule—there’s plenty of amazing prose that relies on using more words than necessary to convey a specific aesthetic, emotion or tone—and there are exceptions, but I think this rule is pretty good to follow. Though this rule mainly refers to the moment-by-moment prose, I think it can also apply to larger story beats. For the most part, making your story more complicated than it needs to be isn’t always a great idea unless that is the central point of your story. And on a rewatch, I think this is my biggest problem with Fate. 

One of the biggest distinguishing factors of Type-Moon’s writing is complexity in details. Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night are absolutely filled with complex story beats, plot points and worldbuilding details that feel very unnecessary to the story at large. Let’s look at some of the rules of the Holy Grail War. 

• In Fate/Zero, Kotomine convinces Gilgamesh to join him by revealing the true nature of the Grail War: when six Servants are dead, the user of the surviving Servant gets a wish, but when all seven Servants are dead, a passage to the Root is opened. This entire plotpoint feels extremely unnecessary: it adds a new rule to the Grail War that was never mentioned before and never mentioned again, and it only serves to push Gilgamesh in a direction he was already heading. 

• In both Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night, there’s a large plot point about the vessel. During each Grail War, an Einzbern is designated as the vessel, meaning that their body physically becomes the Grail. Again, this feels like a needlessly complicated clause to the Grail War rules. Why can’t the Grail just automatically pop up at one of these predetermined locations? 

• The Berserker class is said to consist of heroes who would have qualified for the other classes, but a clause was added to their summoning process to make them insane, extremely powerful and unable to speak. Why? Why not just have them be their own separate class? Notably, as more spin-offs moved outside of Fuyuki, this rule was discarded entirely, and now the Berserker consists of warriors who were known for their grief, anger and insanity during life. 

• There’s not a lot of cohesion when it comes to the Command Seal process. Sometimes, Masters get Command Seals weeks, months or sometimes even years in advance. Kiritsugu got his 8 years in advance, and Kotomine got his 3 years in advance. At the same time, other characters like Waver and Shirou don’t start the Grail War with any Command Seals, and they only acquire them after summoning a Servant. Why are both of these methods possible? Wouldn’t it make more sense for everyone to either have their Command Seals in advance, or for everyone to not have them in advance, rather than a mix of the two? 

The notion of a vessel is probably one of my least favorite plot points in all of Fate, which is a shame because it’s not something you can ignore. The vessel is just needless complexity layered over a simple premise, added to create a sense of tragedy and give the main characters a MacGuffin to fight over. The problem is that the Holy Grail (supposedly) gets activated and can grant wishes when all but one other Servant are killed. With that in mind, the climax to Fate/Zero doesn’t make much sense. Kotomine kidnaps Irisviel and kills her so her body can transform into the Grail. But…why? There are still four Servants left (Artoria, Lancelot, Iskander and Gilgamesh) so there’s no point in her becoming the Grail yet because the Grail is nowhere near actually activating. Likewise, there’s no point in the four remaining Servants chasing after her and waiting to ambush each other because three more of them still need to die for the MacGuffin to even function. 

The idea of the vessel also raises a lot of questions for the Fifth Grail War, seeing as Illya was both a vessel and a Master. What would happen if she won? What was the Einzbern’s game plan? She couldn’t get a wish granted if she became the very vehicle that wishes were granted through. If the vessel absolutely has to be kept as a plot point, Nasu should’ve done what Urobuchi did and just made the vessel a separate, eighth character and not a Master. 

The complexity of Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon’s writing also leads into subversions. The Nasuverse is absolutely filled with instances of subversion, almost like a twisted version of Chehkov’s Gun, where characters explicitly state a rule or impossibility so it can be broken later on, usually to convey to the audience how dire or atypical a situation is. Again, let’s look at the Grail War rules. 

• The Holy Grail grants any wish when it is activated. Except, actually, it doesn’t. 

• Servants have to be summoned within the specific time frame. Except for Illya, who summoned hers two months in advance. 

• All Servants have to obey their Master’s Command Spells. Except for Saber, who managed to resist Kiritsugu’s Command Seals enough that he needed to use 2. And Hercules, who can bypass conventional Command Seals…a detail that is utterly pointless because Illya’s Command Seals are strong enough to compel him, anyways. 

• There are only 7 Servants and 7 Masters. Except, in the Fourth Grail War, there were 8 Masters (Kayneth and Sola-Ui shared the role of Lancer’s Master). And in the Fifth Holy Grail War, there were 9 Servants (Gilgamesh and True Assassin were extras) and 8 Masters (because Shinji and Sakura shared the role of Rider’s Master). 

• The Servants are sorted into 7 classes: Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Assassin, Caster and Berserker. Except, actually, there’s an eighth Avenger class. And if you count spin-offs, there’s also the Ruler, Shielder, Moon Cancer, Alter Ego, Pretender, Foreigner and Beast. 

• Servants cannot summon other Servants. Except for Medea, who did just that. 

• All Assassins have to be different incarnations of Hassan. Except for Sasaki Kojiro. 

• There are no eastern heroes. Except for Sasaki Kojiro. 

• All Servants have to be people who actually lived. Except for Sasaki fucking Kojiro. 

• Every Servant has a Noble Phantasm. Except for Archer (who just uses a Reality Marble), and Sasaki motherfucking Kojiro (who just straight-up doesn’t use magecraft). 

• There’s an impartial, neutral referee in each Holy Grail War. The referee is a member of the Church, they provide Command Seals, and they are not supposed to have biases on who wins. Except, in the Fourth War, Risei Kotomine is allied with two of the Masters. And in the Fifth War, Kirei Kotomine is a Master. 

I’ve been mainly referring to the larger rules of the Grail War system, but there are plenty of smaller, individual rules to each Servant that are also broken. Examples include:

• Cu Chulainn’s Gae Bolg is a Noble Phantasm that is said to never miss an opponent once activated. It misses every opponent. 

• Gilgamesh’s Enkidu takes the form of unbreakable chains that become stronger the more divine an enemy is. Hercules breaks them. 

• Hercules can revive 12 times with his Noble Phantasm, one for each of the 12 Labors. Except then Saber takes 7 of his lives in one attack in the Fate route. And then he revives a 13th time in the Unlimited Blade Works route. 

I can’t help but think Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night would be much better, more concise stories if they were just much simpler. There can be and should still be plot twists, but we can do without unnecessary subversions that don’t actually move the plot forward in any way. 

What’s the point in adding all of these clauses if they’re going to be broken anyways and/or they contribute nothing to the plot? If Illya’s Command Seals are strong enough to make Hercules obey her, what’s the point of Hercules being resistant to Command Seals? Why clarify that there are no eastern heroes and each Assassin has to be Hassan if you’re just gonna add Sasaki Kojiro? Why is Sasaki Kojiro fictional if Hercules and King Arthur actually lived? Why not just make Tsubame Gaeshi and Unlimited Blade Works into Noble Phantasms, considering there’s no real distinction? Why are there two different methods for gaining Command Seals when it would be simpler for there to just be one? Why can’t the Berserker just be a class of warriors who were insane and/or angry in life? Why does the vessel have to exist at all? 

Closing:

As you can see, most of the problems I’ve mentioned all feed into one-another. Fate/stay night is difficult to get into because it’s a 70-hour long Japanese visual novel with no localization and three routes that have to be experienced in a specific order. On top of that, there’s a huge backstory covered in a separate prequel novel. All three routes and the prequel have been adapted, but the DEEN anime (which is where newcomers would theoretically start off) is dragged down by including stuff from future routes—plus generally poor art direction. Since every other anime assumes a prior amount of context and has mysteries central to the narrative, there’s pretty much no good way for anime-onlys to get into Fate without spoiling some large mystery. 

The lore and magic system of Fate are extremely cryptic and bogged down by in-universe terminology that is never adequately explained. Digging through said system reveals lots of discrepancies, rules that are added specifically so they can be broken later, and confusing worldbuilding details. At the same time, the philosophical debates at the heart of all three routes and Zero tend to rely on a “tell, don’t show” philosophy, where we are told why Character A is wrong but there’s little narrative substance to show us that Character A is wrong. All of these issues (the magic system, subverting rules and the philosophical debates) are worsened when the adaptations leave out key details. 

All in all, this makes Fate an absolute beast to sink your teeth into. Once you’ve experienced all three routes and Zero, the entire narrative feels immensely satisfying to analyze in retrospect. But getting to that point for most fans requires navigating a multitude of obstacles. 

In any event, I hope you all enjoyed this essay. I am signing off for now.