Fate/Zero S1E13: “Forbidden Banquet”

Probably another Arturia and Irisviel focused episode, going by the title. We shall see.


Alexander the Great dreams about the day his army reached the Indian Ocean, and his first time seeing the ocean in its immensity. Symbolizing something I'm sure, but we won't find out until later in the episode! When he wakes up, Waver tells him that they're going to take a break from Gilles-hunting and go see the amusement district downtown. Apparently, Alexander has been asking him for a chance to do that.

Alexander happily declares that the joy of window-shopping in a foreign land is every bit as glorious as the joy of defeating your enemies in battle. Because of course he does, lol. In response, and for the first time thus far, Waver makes a criticism of Alexander's outlook that isn't transparently selfish.

That's kind of a surprising sentiment, coming from Waver. He basically did the same thing to the elderly Japanese family they're staying with that Alexander did to those countries, and for the same motivation (personal glory and bragging rights, either as a world conqueror or a victor of the Grail War). Is he starting to develop a conscience, or does he literally just not see the hypocrisy?

Alexander asks him why he's only voicing objections to the rightness of conquest now, when he never seemed to have any before. He doesn't call out the mind control home invasion thing specifically, but it's sort of implied. Waver just falls silent for a moment and tells Alexander to forget it, he was just thinking out loud. Hmm. Yeah, seeing what he's recently seen is starting to make Waver do introspection, I think. Hopefully the author won't flub this the way he did the previous moral conversations, but, well, we'll see.

...

Hmm. Rejecting the spoils of conquest and domination actually gives the title another layer of meaning. So maybe that is where this is going, a refutation of the cringey scenes in the previous two eps.

Then again, I'm not sure if fucking Waver being able to make a coherent pro-social argument when two experienced, educated adults both failed would make this story less stupid, or more.

...

After the intro, we jump over to Gilles and Uwu returning to the lair of theirs in the sewers that Alexander and Waver destroyed a few episodes ago, and being unhappy with what they see. Uwu collapses to his knees in tears, asking what kind of monster could have possibly done something like this. Gilles is also crestfallen, but he's taking it better than Uwu, and has to cheer him up with a little pep talk.

Okay, after the previous two episodes' seemingly serious failed attempts at philosophy, watching these two being ridiculously, cartoonishly, comically evil and insane is kind of a breath of fresh air.

All of Gilles' talk of spiting god has put Uwu in a religious frame of mind, it seems, as he wonders if perhaps the universe is punishing them for having too much fun. Gilles cautions him against that kind of reciprocity-based thinking, and tells him part of his own story. For the final eight years of his life, Gilles committed his murders and atrocities with wild abandon, and there was never any pushback. When he finally met his end, it wasn't any sort of divine justice, or even just equal and opposite reaction. It had nothing to do with his activities at all, in fact. He was simply murdered through a corrupt apparatus of state by rivals who wanted his land and wealth.

Hahaha, oh wow. That's actually kind of amazing.

Like I said back near the beginning of the series when the Caster's identity was first revealed, there is some evidence that the historical Gilles de Rais may have been innocent. The accusers did in fact get his land after the execution. However, this story's version of Gilles was very clearly not innocent. So, he's saying that he actually did commit the crimes he was accused of, but also that the charges were trumped up and the verdict unjust. And, most bizarrely, that his death was not in any way a consequence of his activities.

Like, even if every single person involved in the trial was purely opportunistic and only after Gilles' property, they wouldn't have had that opportunity to take advantage of if he hadn't given it to them. Unless he's saying that the accusers fabricated the charges wholecloth and it just happened, by total coincidence, that he'd done exactly the things they accused him of without them ever having known it.

The show clearly expects the audience to just be chuckling at the obvious batshittery on display here. And, I am. This is the difference between unintentional bad philosophy like in the last couple of episodes, and intentional bad philosophy.

Uwu, cheered up now and seeing that Gilles needs some cheering up on his own, does this manic pixie dreamgirl routine where he tells Gilles about his own view of god. God, Uwu feels, is not a judge or a parent, but an entertainer. All the world is a toy, and every person in it is both a player and a plaything, with all events that ever occur and all actions taken by people being pleasing unto the lord. Gilles is enchanted, and promptly declares Uwu a prophet.

Gilles asks if, in that case, all the atrocities he committed to spite God were for naught. Uwu replies that a better way of looking at it would be to see himself as playing the villain in another divine game, a role in which Gilles seems to have excelled and delighted. For the first time, Gilles addresses Uwu as "master" and seems to mean it.

So, they happily set off to crucify some more orphans.

With that grimderp silliness done with, we return to Waver and Alexander as they enter an outdoor mall. Waver tells Alexander not to do any pillaging or conquering while they're shopping, and gives him some money so he can buy stuff if he wants to. When Alexander starts to protest, Waver threatens to break out the Command Seals, and he grudgingly relents. Waver also tells him not to stray too far away, since he could be attacked at any time.

Erm...no? We've just been told that that's not how it works at all. I guess Waver might not know that, but does Alexander know it? Servants are summoned with instinctive knowledge of the Grail War and its rules, right? I guess Alexander has every reason to not correct him, heh.

Alexander promises to be on his best of Macedonian palace etiquette, and Waver supposes that that promise is as good as he's going to get. Waver then enters a bookstore, and leafs through a history book about Alexander the Great that he spots on the shelf. He apparently didn't do much research until now, because the fact that Alexander did pretty much no actual governing, leaving the administration of his empire to nobles and lackeys while he spent his own life simply expanding it, takes Waver by surprise. Waver is also taken by surprise by Alexander himself, who randomly comes running back into the bookstore looking for him at that moment.

I don't know what kind of shenanigans Alexander has gotten himself into in those five minutes, but it seems to have destroyed his character model.

Seriously, did they hire Rob Liefield for just this one frame?

Alexander found a videogame that looked interesting, and promptly bought it, a console to play it on, and two controllers, and he's excited to get back home so he and Waver can play it. Waver, backsliding into his most irritating early series mannerisms, whines about how videogames are low class entertainment and beneath him.

Again. Sitcom about Waver and Alexander forging the Neo-Macedonian Empire. It would be better than Fate/Zero.

Alexander huffily asks what he DOES do for fun then, and notices that he was reading a book about himself. He wonders why Waver would bother, when he can just ask Alexander himself anything he wants to know about his previous life. Either not grasping that Waver is trying to get around his biases, or grasping it and just not wanting Waver to do so. Waver's first question for him regards his physical size; the book says that Alexander the Great was a short man, whereas Rider is gigantic. What's up with that?

Alexander just says that the book must have gotten it wrong, and that he isn't particularly offended by this. Just, primary sources are always better.

Hmm. Could be an honest answer, could not be. Of course, if I'm right about how the Servants work, then this recreation of Alexander might think that he was always this size with his mind paving over the inconsistencies.

Waver next asks him if he really died at just thirty, and Alexander - seeming reluctant to talk about himself for the first time ever - admits that that is the case.

Looks like we might be getting a refutation to Alexander's position from episode 11 after all. Though, as I already said, it's kind of insane that we seem to be getting it from a sheltered 13 year old boy instead of the experienced, politically savvy adult who should have done it before. :/

Waver looks disappointed. Cut back to Uwu and Gilles. The latter is standing, Jesus-style, on the surface of the Fuyuki bay, while Uwu cheers him on from the bridge that crosses the river mouth.

It looks like they're getting ready to post some serious cringe.

Return to Waver and Alexander, now on their way home from the mall. Alexander notices that Waver is being uncharacteristically quiet. If I were Alexander I would be very grateful for this, but I'm not, so he asks his Master what's up. Waver replies, surprisingly, with the claim that he's just now realizing how incredibly boring Alexander really is. Alexander takes this better than I thought he would, and replies with "If you're bored, then let's go home and play this video game already." But, that's not what Waver meant. What he meant is that Alexander's goals and aspirations are just so shallow and banal, once you strip away the grandiosity, that he doesn't feel like he's fighting for anything at all in this Grail War.

This kind of gets back to my own question of who gets to make a wish at the end, Master or Servant? If it just comes down to whether or not the Master still has a Command Seal to make them back down with, then it seems like the Servants should all be doing everything they can do make their Masters waste their Seals, and they aren't doing that.

Also, I'm not sure how Waver knows so much about Hassan's personality. He's never seen him and Kirei interact, or even met Kirei at all as far as I can recall. I feel like something is being lost in translation here.

Alexander points out that without a Servant who has powerful defensive abilities like Alexander's chariot, Waver probably would have died by now; Assassins in particular are not good at defending against other teams, and require a lot of skill and cunning from their summoner to be effective. Waver says that that would still be fine. He'd rather die fighting his own battle than "win" as a pawn in Alexander's ego trip.

Heh. And Waver entered the Grail War himself *entirely* for the sake of an ego trip. Looks like he's having the opposite issue from Gray's with Arturia, if my interpretation is correct. Gray is snippy with Arturia because she makes him insecure in how well he measures up to the ideal. Waver is getting pissy with Alexander (this time) because he sees so much of his own pettiness in him.

Alexander tells him that that's too bad, but hey, they're stuck with each other for now. Winning the Grail War doesn't have to be the crowning achievement of Waver's life; he can find something he really cares about and live to create a legacy of his own after they either win or lose this. For his own part, while Alexander grants that he'd probably have a much easier time winning this if he had a more experienced wizard for a master who he got along better with, that handicap doesn't terribly bother him.

After all, Alexander tried to conquer the world once, and plans to attempt it again.

What an insane, impossible challenge that is to take on, for a mere human? And yet, Alexander wants to make his second go of it just like his first; no immortality, no Servant powers, just his own statecraft and tactical skill against an entire planet. In light of that sort of challenge, what difference in ability is there between himself and Waver? How much more of a handicap is he taking on in the Grail War by having him as a Master than he is by making the wish that he plans to make?

Huh. That's...kind of inspiring, I guess. And also surprisingly humble, coming from Alexander. For all his maniacal ranting about the ultimate power and excess of royalty, he at least knows that a "royal" is still just a normal person who's managed to elbow their way into position. That's what makes his outlook different than Gilgamesh's, at least.

Waver remembers the dream that he had last night, about Alexander seeing the ocean. Oh, right, I forgot about the dream-link that Masters and Servants have, it's been a while. So that wasn't Alexander's dream, it was Waver dreaming about...or wait, no, it was actually both. It turns out that that wasn't the Indian Ocean that Alexander was seeing there. It was the Pacific, which he never actually made it to.

Waver was dreaming about a moment that Alexander long aspired to, but never actually got to experience. It was the Chinese east coast as Alexander imagined it to look like.

Heh. That makes Alexander's current situation sort of ironic. He's in a coastal city in Japan, finally right up close with his goal...but it's two and a half thousand years after he died and his empire fell apart, and he's here as a bound familiar with no lands or armies to his name.

The heart-to-heart is interrupted by the sound of cringe being posted over by the river mouth. They hurry over to see what's going on. Jump to...Diarmuid! The commotion has attracted him and his new master Sola as well, and they've already come down to the waterfront and gotten Gilles in their sights.

...

Okay, this is something that's been low-key bothering me for a while now, but being reminded that this team exists and is still active brings it to a head. There are (effectively, since Kirei and Goatee were in league) six teams in this conflict, and they're supposedly in a last-man-standing free for all. And yet, it seems like hardly anything has been happening.

What have Diarmuid and Sola been doing over the several days since Archie's defeat? What about Daisy and his Berserker? He only seems to have acted once since the introductory confrontation so far, and that wasn't even to attack another contestant. What has he been doing?

There's a sort of placid, almost languid, pacing to this story that doesn't really fit the premise.

...

Anyway, Diarmuid says that this looks like a good chance to take the mad Caster out. Sola wants to advance with him, but Diarmuid thinks that would be a bad idea, because...erm...

Professor Archie was a trained tactician? Could have fooled me lmao.

I'd chalk this up to sexism on Diarmuid's part. But she doesn't try to argue, so I guess she really isn't any good in a fight. Which, given the pattern with female characters at this point, does look like sexism, but not Diarmuid's.

...

Yeah, the Arturia "debate" shitshow wasn't as gender-related as I thought, in light of how similarly Kirei's talk with Gilgamesh went. But there are plenty of other data points, even if none of them are quite as incriminating as that one looked.

...

Speaking of badly written women, Sola is lusting after Diarmuid as he charges off toward the bay.

On one hand, Diarmuid's magic tattoo is supposed to do this to women. On the other, the decision to pair Diarmuid with the only female Master in this war was made by someone.

Elsewhere along the shoreline, Arturia and Iri drive up and get out of their car to see Gilles hovering over the water within earshot. For once, he doesn't drop whatever he's doing to fawn over Arturia. As he gleefully informs her, while he IS pleased at her presence here for this event, the main reason he's doing it isn't anything to do with her. Instead, he's trying out a brand new philosophy that his wise and sagely Master taught him.

He pulls out his spellbook (looks like he was able to repair it after all. Bad news for everyone) and pulls a giant mass of tentacles out of the water beneath him. As he rants and raves, the demonic flesh closes around him, forming a giant, biological kraken-mech for him to pilot, and it begins floating into the air above the river.

Yeah. He's posting real, genuine cringe over here.

As they try to decide what the fuck they should be doing about this, Alexander and Diarmuid approach them. Given the circumstances, it looks like they'll be teaming up to take Gilles down after all, just like the referee wanted them to.

...

If they'd done that in the first place, there wouldn't be a kraken about to roll over and crush half the city. Lol, live and learn.

...

Also, Alexander addresses Arturia as "King of Knights" again, even though he said he doesn't consider her a king anymore. Either he's being more polite now in the interest of team cohesion, or he was just too drunk to remember what he said at that time. Whatever.

Iri puts her magical knowledge to use, and tells them that this kraken-ship-thing must be sustaining itself using Gilles and his Master's accumulated mana reserves, probably amplified by the life force of their victims over the last however long. That means that while this thing looks intimidating, it's probably relatively fragile for its size at the moment. However, if it reaches the shore and starts killing people, Gilles will likely be able to feed their energy into the organism and keep it powered up indefinitely.

So, they need to engage it over the water, before it draws close. Alexander's chariot can fly. Arturia, she now explains, has a freedom of movement ability that lets her move and survive unimpeded underwater; the Lady of the Lake's touch on her heroic legend. Ah, interesting. That probably should have been established earlier (back when she and Iri were hanging out at the beach would have been a good opportunity), but it's reasonable enough in light of the random shit the Servants all seem to have. Meanwhile, Diarmuid's spears are well suited for penetrating Gilles' defenses, and if he can hit his spellbook with the Gáe Dearg spear that inflicts permanent injuries then that'll likely damage it in a way he CAN'T just fix again. So, Arturia is going to attack from below and keep Gilles' attention while Alexander's chariot brings him and Diarmuid in for an aerial attack. If all goes well, they'll be able to cut through the kraken's armor while Arturia is keeping it busy and insert Diarmuid into the cockpit where he can kill or at least de-power the pilot.

Okay, sure! Decent plan for such short notice, and everybody seems to understand where their abilities can make them most useful. Off we go!

Can the muggles see that thing rising out of the water, I wonder? The Servants are invisible when they want to be, but does that extend to the things they summon in turn? And...does Gilles even *want* to make it invisible, if he has the choice? No idea.

In any case, I'm glad that after all these patience-trying attempts to make Fate be a smart, cerebral work when it's really not up to the task, we're now going to fight an evil ghost wizard in a tentacle monster mobile suit. See, this? This is the good stuff. This is what this franchise is for.

End episode, and end season.


I may be going a little hard on Fate/Zero. It does have some thematic strengths, with its subtle evaluation of social order versus personal aspiration, restraint versus ambition, whether "heroism" is a useful concept to have at all, etc. It's only when it tries to put those themes *front and center* and engage with them textually rather than letting them emerge from the story on their own that it plants its foot in its mouth.

That's...another Urobuchi hallmark, honestly. He does have a tendency to accidentally write things that are better and more interesting than what he intended.

Regardless.

I enjoyed it? It wasn't great or anything, but it was fun. The grimdark aspects that I complained about early on got a lot easier to roll with once the overall cartooniness of the story comes into full bloom. For all that I shit-talk the author, he IS good at writing snappy dialogue, deadpan humor, and love-to-hate-them characters, and F/Z gives him plenty of opportunity to show that off. I'd say this first season really puts both the strengths and the weaknesses of its writer on display, and on balance, hey, it wasn't bad.