Fate/Zero E1: Summoning Ancient Heroes (conclusion)

Alright, let's resume this extremely long, dense, and complicated pilot!

We're in Tokiomi's office, where...okay, hold on. These names are just killing me. So many long, Japanese names, or short ones that are really similar to each other and far enough removed from my linguistic experience for the differences to be hard to remember. From now on Tokiomi's name is Goatee. Goatee Tohsaka. SO, Goatee is in his office with Kirei, where his very old-timey telegraph has just relayed the same intel that the Einzberns received about Archibald planning to crash the party (no one seems to have gotten the update about Waver's theft yet). I wonder if they both got it from the same source? Some mercenary informant who they've both been paying?

Or maybe Goatee just has an intel-sharing agreement with the Einzberns; he seems to be pathologically incapable of not wheeling and dealing with literally every other powerbroker he comes in contact with. Even when it doesn't seem to serve his own interests, like with selling his daughter to Darth Matou. So, that could be.

He also reminds Kirei to be careful about letting anyone know that he's in league with the Tohsakas. If word gets out, this whole plan could be jeopardized.

Once he's inside the house, though, they don't need to worry about surveillance magical or otherwise. Goatee has a consummate security and counterintelligence system in the form of a skull-faced spirit called Hassan the Assassin, whose senses pierce all disguises and stealth.

He's later referred to as an "Assassin" with a capital A, and just a scene ago Assassins were listed as one of the seven Servant archetypes who are summoned by the combatants. So, Goatee has summoned his Servant well in advance; probably as early as possible before the grail war's official start. Going by the conjunction of this spirit's role and name, I suspect Hassan is supposed to have been a member of the actual medieval Hashashin order.

Anyway, Goatee tells Kirei that while Archibald is likely to be more trouble than most outside candidates tend to be, a much bigger concern is what Clan Einzbern is cooking up. That grim fellow with command seals who we saw fathering the latest Einzbern back in the intro is a notorious hit man; a wizard who specializes in the contract killing of other wizards. Which makes it sort of ironic that Goatee is the one to summon the Assassin servant; I wonder if he did that specifically to deny the Assassin servant to the similarly specialized Einzbern champion? That would make a lot of sense. This guy is extremely ruthless and pragmatic, and has only escaped punishment by other wizards because too many powerful magi around the world find him useful. He's known for mixing mundane weaponry and murder techniques with his own sorcery, so that his victims never know what to expect. He's also sufficiently insensitive to collateral damage that he once crashed an airliner - killing hundreds of oblivious muggles - just to get at the one wizard aboard who he'd been hired to take out. I don't feel like looking back at the last post to remember his name, so from now on its Gray Towerson. Gray Towerson-Einzbern.

The Einzberns normally never marry wizards who aren't already part of the family (hahahahahahahaha holy fuck how inbred are those guys? I wonder if they're a satire of the Habsburgs, come to think of it. Same part of the world, similar sounding name, inbreeding themselves into death by agonizing birth defect, etc), but they broke with tradition to welcome this hired killer of considerably ill repute into their ranks. Goatee always suspected that they might have done this in order to groom him as their champion, but now he's received confirmation that Gray does indeed have the command seals. In addition to likely incest-related penalties to the family members' individual ability, the traditional Einzbern magic isn't as combat-relevant as what the Tohsakas and Matous(/Makiris?) practice, so historically they've performed the worst in the grail wars. It makes sense that they might have run out of patience and resorted to desperate measures to circumvent these issues.

Appropriately, we cut back to Castle Einzbern, where Gray and his Einzbern wife Iri are going over all the intel they've collected about the competition so far. Their spy network must be particularly good, because they have a lot of it.

Goatee Tohsaka has confirmed to be participating personally, rather than sending another family member to be his champion. Goatee has a fire affinity, apparently, and is a "jewel mage." It's not explained what that means exactly, but I know from the UBW pilot that he did have a thing involving magical jewelry going on, so it's got to be related to that. Anyway Goatee is old enough to be very experienced, but still in very good physical condition, and he's both magically powerful and cunning. Potentially Gray's most dangerous opponent.

The Matous, they've also managed to learn, have taken back their black sheep son (the guy whose name is way close to Kirei's. Um...while, if his grandfather is Darth Matou, then he can be Daisy), formerly a hanger-on of the Tohsakas. Daisy is supposed to be an ex-wizard who's never fought, so Gray isn't sure what Darth thinks he's doing here. I'm guessing he doesn't know about the crest-worms, or at least is underestimating them.

Next is Kayneth Archibald, who we already saw Gray researching. Archibald is a very versatile and knowledgeable wizard, as one would expect from a professor at Type Mogwarts, but his greatest powers are said to be necromancy, summoning, and alchemy. No wonder Goatee got more worried about being spied on after learning about this; if Archibald can raise ghosts or haemonculi to do his bidding (in addition to the Servant that everyone gets), he can probably do a ton of spying with them. Gray's description of his abilities makes it sound like he'll be tricky on a strategic level, but less dangerous in direct wizard duels. A bit like Gray himself, at least in the former regard.

Then there's Kirei. The son of the Church's appointed referee, and former protege of Goatee Tohsaka. The official story seems to be that Kirei's friendship with the Tohsakas ended when the command seals appeared on his body, and Goatee chased him away for fear of him learning more powers that could be used against him in the war. Gray hasn't learned the truth behind this charade, it seems, so even the Einzbern intel network has its limits. The details of Kirei's life are therefore confounding, and it turns out that they were that way even before he started his apprenticeship under Goatee. He changed careers multiple times, excelled in all of them, joined the church like his father, left the church to train with the Tohsakas, and then cut ties with them as well.

Those last two points we know are deceptions, but they're clever deceptions, being pretty consistent with the erratic course of Kirei's life up until then. No mention of the dead wife, oddly. Also, it turns out that Kirei wasn't just some priest; he was part of the Vatican's top secret hit squad. The same one that Gray, himself, was once a member of before he went mercenary.

Commence a rapid back-and-forth cutting sequence of Kirei and Gray trying to figure each other out, and seeming to completely miss their common humanity. Kirei is trying to think of what Gray might be after, since his usual motivator (money) doesn't really seem to cut it here, and looking at his mercenary career it might not have EVER been his ultimate goal in the first place. Meanwhile, its made very clear during Gray's own segments that he and Iri really, truly love each other, in a way that suggests that he agreed to fight for the Einzberns so that they'd let the two marry. Gray, while he is missing an important part of the picture due to not knowing about the secret collusion, totally misses Kirei's loyalty to his own father, and just glosses over how the loss of his wife might have effected him.

Both very violent men, with histories of contract killing. Both in the grail war because of loyalty to a loved one. Neither able to see anything besides their own worst traits in each other.

Back to the evil castle of evilness, where Darth Matou is tormenting Daisy because of course he is. In the past year of intensive training and repeated crest worm infestations, Daisy's hair has turned white, and his face has aged decades. Matou just randomly jabs him in an injured limb with his staff, because keeping Daisy in good physical shape isn't going to be important amirite.

Also, it turns out that Daisy is Darth's son, not his grandson like I thought. Man, he had him old. I guess Darth's virility has worsened since then though, if he needs to buy magically powerful heirs instead of producing some more on his own.

Also, I'm guuuuuessing he's been hitting Daisy with extra-concentrated worms or something, because um:

So, if you get too emotional while the worms are inside of you, they might just kill you then and there?

Using the worms on Sakura is looking like a worse and worse manageent of Darth's investment, unless this actually is a different type of infestation than the one he gave her. Also, Daisy only has about a month to live after all this worm-ing, holy shit. Yeah, this show needs to explain how the worms actually work. Am I supposed to already know this from another series?

Well, anyway, Daisy seems to think that one month will still be enough for what he needs to do. Something about the way he says it makes it seem like he's got a plan to take down Darth.

Cut to Waver. He's made it to Japan with his stolen relic, and has just manifested the command seals on his hand.

It's funny, because earlier we were told that the outside interlopers are very often total schlubs who the grail just picks out of desperation to meet the quota.

I doubt he'll stay this elated when Professor Archibald catches up and flays him alive before the grail war can even start.

Waver heads downstairs from the bedroom he woke up in. Looks like he's in a B&B run by an elderly couple. They greet him warmly, while the news on the TV relays dire accounts of murders, disappearances, and other such events happening in the Fuyuki area. Almost certainly caused by grail war preparations; wizards killing witnesses to their preparatory activities, or feeding people to their Servants or otherwise sacrificing them for power boosts. Also, the roosters around the city have been uncannily noisy, and a trio of them seem to have inexplicably moved into this couple's backyard. 

They notice the new tattoo that's appeared on the back of Waver's hand, and rather than concoct a silly explanation about paint-on tattoos or just telling them it's none of their business, he stirs the foam on top of his mocha into a hypnotic glyph and stuns them both. Making the old woman who'd been standing up collapse on the floor and probably breaking her hip or something.

He then whines about how he didn't expect those roosters he stole to be so noisy (HAHAHAHAHA HOLY SHIT WHAT A FUCKING MORON), and considers subjecting this couple to some more elaborate hypnosis to make them think that he's their visiting grandson. That ought to keep them deferential. Also, I'm now pretty sure that this wasn't a B&B until he decided it was one.

...

Ladies and gentleman, the democratization of magic for a more egalitarian new era.

Yeah, it's pretty clear at this point that Waver's thesis was entirely self-serving with little to no idealism involved. Egalitarian for him means "people like me get to be part of the royalty."

...

Back in Castle Einzbern, Gray and Iri are looking at the relic he's going to use to summon his Servant. It's something recovered from a covert dig site in Cornwall, and they believe it will give Gray a very powerful Saber-type.

Huh. Is this actually going where it seems like it's going?

And, yup. It's a scabbard. A scabbard that's perfectly intact and gleaming with inner light after a thousand years in the ground.

As a random aside, what's with the Einzbern #aesthetic? The Tohsakas just live in a normal mansion. The Matous just live in a creepy mansion. Half the time that we see the Einzberns though, they're in this weird cathedral-like environment. I get that a lot of European castles like their ancestral home have elaborate churches built into them, but...why do they keep just randomly hanging out in that room while talking about stuff? Have they clung onto some Christian ideas about what the grail is, from before the truth came out, perhaps?

Anyway, as per legend, Excalibur is a magical artifact, and thus its connection to the spirit of its previous owner is likely to be especially powerful. Also as per legend, the scabbard itself has as much power as the blade itself, including the feature of preventing the user from losing blood regardless of injury. With that hooked into his belt, plus the ghost of Arthur Pendragon himself to be his Saber...well, the Einzberns are creating a real force to be reckoned with.

While Gray is pleased with the resources he's being given, he also isn't letting himself get overconfident. King Arthur is probably going to be one of the best Sabres you can get, but Gray fears that his own tactics might not be the best fit for this class of servant. He mentions that he really wanted an Assassin, which I'm going to take as support for my theory that Goatee found out what the Einzberns were planning long in advance and made sure to summon an Assassin before they could give Gray one.

Gray also reminds us that for all that he loves his wife, he is indeed a coldhearted bastard as we were told. When Iri muses on what the legendary King Arthur might be like, Gray just says that it doesn't matter. He's just a tool now. Not a person.

...

That seems to be the underlying theme of this story, doesn't it? Dehumanization, and commodification of people. Almost everyone sees almost everyone else as an object to be bought, sold, or used.

Also, this makes the shoehorned-in Servant sex scenes in the original VN more and more fucked up the longer you think about it. Assuming the nature of the servants isn't a retcon, which I don't think it is.

...

Back in Fiyuki City, Kirei comes downstairs from his conversation with Goatee to find preteen Rin dragging her suitcase out the door. She and her mother are going to be leaving town until the grail war is over. Though Rin at least seems to have more longterm ambitions.

This might have been better for her, if it actually worked out that way.

She makes Kirei swear that he won't let her father get killed, and Kirei says he'll do the best he can and hopes that it'll be enough. This is not enough to satisfy Rin. I'm guessing the loss of her sister gave her some understandable paranoia about losing her remaining family members. As I noted previously, she might not feel quite so protective of Goatee specifically if she'd been old enough to understand that he was the cause of Sakura's disappearance from her life.

...

I'm still trying to imagine what the hell Darth Matou could have bribed or blackmailed Goatee with. Even if Goatee is a complete sociopath who cares no more for his own children than Darth himself does, why would he give a powerful rival such a valuable resource? Why would he deprive his own clan (whose greatness he does seem to legitimately care about) of one of its own heirs?

...

Anyway, Kirei rejoins Goatee, and they have the relic that they plan to summon Kirei's servant with. It's...um. An odd one.

Ooookay. Either 1) this is a translation issue, and it's supposed to be "the oldest fossilized snakeskin on record," 2) evolution by natural selection isn't a thing in the Type Mare Moon universe, or 3) whoever wrote this bit was an utter moron.

Anyway, I wonder what they're hoping to summon. I doubt this prehistoric snake would count as a heroic warrior. Maybe the fossil came to be associated with some historical figure since then?

Cut to the Matou house. Daisy looks stronger and more together now, though still prematurely aged and far from what you could reasonably call "healthy." He meets Sakura in the hallway, and yes, it's definitely a younger version of the blue-haired archery club girl from UBW. She and Rin end up going to the same high school, but not living together again, by that point? Curious. I didn't get the impression that the Matous and Tohsakas lived that close to each other, from how the "adoption" has been framed. Wonder what the story connecting these two points in time is like for the sisters?

Sakura looks healthier than I'd been expecting, after her year of Darth's worm therapy. And saner. She sees reserved in a way that seems like it could be down to trauma, but at least she's talking. As I mused before, she's been having fewer crest worm infestation sessions since Daisy followed her here, due to him requiring more intensive short-term augmentation. He asks her if she'd like to return to her mother and sister (he does NOT mention her father, for obvious enough reasons). She says that she can't answer that, because Darth has been very thorough in making her understand that those aren't her mother and sister anymore. Ouch. So, he reframes the question.

Sounds like he has a plan for getting both Goatee and Darth killed within the next month. Well, we know Goatee doesn't survive this grail war, but that may or may not be because of Daisy's plan. It's a war, people are killed in wars. And people die when they are killed.

It comes time for Daisy and Darth to summon their servant. We know that Goatee has the Assassin and Gray has the Saber, but other than that this seems to be wide open. Before they start though, Darth tell Daisy that he's worried that even his year of crest infusion might not be enough to make him the equal of the other champions.

He talks about his power being "deficient in several stats," and needing to add the "berserker property" to compensate, which...well, this wording really bugs me. It sounds way too much like video game talk. Like the kind of thing you'd expect from some shitty isekai. Maybe this is some kind of intentional meta thing that's meant to give me yet another reason to hate Darth, idk. Anyway, he's going to make Daisy add a few lines to the end of the usual servant-summoning incantation, which will put his servant in a "berserk" state and quite possibly interfere with whatever plan Daisy had in mind. Almost certainly intentional on Darth's part, if so. I have a feeling Darth's going to end up accidentally doing what Daisy would have intentionally done, and get both himself and Goatee killed in the fallout of multiple plots collapsing in on each other in an explosion of shrapnel, eldritch fire, and worms.

There's a super dramatic montage of everyone who hasn't summoned their Servant yet doing so. Probably not actually simultaneous, given the rules that both this show and UBW have established about the grail war timeframes. Waver uses the blood of the roosters he stole to paint a summoning circle in that poor muggle couple's backward and calls his spirit. Goatee and Kirei call their own snake-themed entity, whoever or whatever it is. The Matous in their dungeon call forth the berserker. And in that cathedral-room they inexplicably are always in, the Einzberns conjure the only servant that we get a clear look at.

It's not what I would describe as "King Arthur."

Same Saber lady that appeared in a similarly brief and dramatic close-up-shot manner at the end of the UBW pilot. Either she's someone who found and wielded Excalibur in the time since its original user passed, or else Queen Arturina has been the victim of some patriarchal revisionist history.

End episode.

As several patrons have been telling me, this series was very much written as a prequel, with the expectation of way more Fatal Nausicaa experience than I have. That said, even for a relative newcomer like myself, it wasn't impenetrable. Difficult, certainly, but not impossible to follow.

The Song of Ice and Fire parallels continue to accrue, for better and for worse. Like SoIaF, Zero captures a grand scope, weaving numerous characters into a tapestry of immense complexity but clear continuity and interrelationship, and builds a fascinating and richly detailed magical world in doing so. Also like SoIaF, however, it feels at least slightly bigger than it should, and the bleak tone occasionally pushes the line between thoughtful pessimism and juvenile grimdark.

The tonal disconnect from (what I saw of) UBW is something, alright. The latter definitely gave us a glimpse of the cold brutality of wizard society, but Zero just wallows in it. I'm not sure if any of the protagonists of Zero are people I can root for, which is fine for a short work, but is likely to make me apathetic after the first few episodes unless we see some different sides to them. Kirei is potentially sympathetic, but we just don't know enough about him yet for me to be invested. Daisy is outright heroic, but if he's been beaten into a wreck of a human body and had his lifespan cut down to one month maximum right fro the damned pilot then that doesn't help much. If most of the characters are just selfish assholes who want power for its own sake and care about no one and nothing else, why do I care which of them gets it? This isn't to say that I can't enjoy antiheroes on principle. I can. But there needs to be something to them to make me care despite their general unpleasantness, and most of these characters haven't shown enough of that yet.

This actually changes my assessment of Rin, though. She's probably the best person you could reasonably expect such a loveless and dehumanizing culture to be able to produce.

Aside from that pathos issue, the writing is mostly very good. With the exception of a few derp moments like the married priests and the Matou MMO speak, the dialogue was all convincing and the characters' actions and motives clear. Musically, it's a little over-dramatic, but it's all at least nice sounding. The art obviously didn't get UBW's budget dumped into it, and there's little that really jumps out at me visually here by modern-ish anime standards, but it's perfectly fine.

There's one thing that felt like it could be a major plothole, though: if the grail war is something known to the wizard population at large (as Waver's ability to research it at the school library indicates), why isn't there more competition? Shouldn't wizards from all over the world be pushing and shoving to get into the upcoming war? There could well be a good explanation for this. Fate is good about explaining these kinds of setting oddities, to a degree that's been frankly impressing me. But this is a question that really does beg for such an answer, and it hasn't gotten one yet.

So, overall? I like intrigue. I like convincing writing and characters. I like fantasy worldbuilding that isn't a kludged-together mess or an over-derivative copycat. Fate Zero provides all of these things, and it provides them in style. I'd happily keep watching it from here even if I didn't have more episodes commissioned. However, unless either the tone lightens up or more of the characters get some pathos, I probably wouldn't keep watching it for very long.