Fate/Zero S2E12: "Fate/Zero"

And here we are. The final episode of the series, and with the title to match. It's been two and a half years since I started this series. As a full two-cour anime, it's easily the longest thing I've tackled that wasn't a main project. Because of it being commissioned by a couple different people with long gaps in between sets of episodes, it's taken a long time even proportionately to its size.

Which means that, from my perspective, there was one show that I enjoyed watching back in 2020, and another one that I've spent this last summer struggling to finish.

It's honestly really trippy. I see the words "Fate/Zero," and I have an immediate, positive emotional response because of how long I spent mostly liking it. It only takes a second for my mind to catch up to where I am right now, and I just feel this crushing dissonance that almost makes my head spin. I've seen other shows whose quality fluctuated massively from season to season, but in this case the story was adapted (very closely) from a single book by a single author. Additionally, none of the problems I have with late F/Z are new. All of these issues were present from the beginning. It's just that they were only a minor component in the work as a whole, and there was a lot of fun goofy stuff (and occasional real poignancy) carrying the show despite them. I'm trying to think of when exactly the scales tipped, and I don't think there was any one point where the show "became bad." It was more like a gradual shift of emphasis away from the best aspects of the story and onto the absolute worst ones.

That said, the Banquet of Kings scene was the first time that things went seriously awry. And I think it happened more and more frequently since then. It's not what you could call a jump-the-shark moment, since, like I said, it was just an intensification of problems that already existed. It's more like the first time your computer freezes up and needs a forced restart; it might be fine again right afterward, but from that point on it's just going to gradually do this more and more often until you eventually need a new machine.

Well. Let's go.


Kiritsugu uses his third and final Command Seal to repeat his order to Arturia a third time. Has he really not used a single Seal until this point? I thought he used one to teleport her over to him once, when they were trying to track down Iri's abductors? Maybe they just talked about that as an option rather than actually doing it, I could be misremembering.

More importantly, how long is Gilgamesh going to just stand there sputtering when he has his railguns already open and a clear shot at both of them? Obviously, the answer is "as long as it takes Arturia to just shoot the damned laser already," but I really wish there was some pretence of a REASON for why he'd wait that long.

Tearfully, literally screaming in mental anguish, she brings the sword down and shoots the laser. While inner monologuing about how much she sucks. After all, how could she have seen Kiritsugu's surprise coming when she couldn't even relate to the men who served her for decades like Lancelot? Maybe this entire grail war was just a divine punishment for her sucking so much.

Oh fuck off, show.

Anyway, she did the thing. Big flash. Grail is vaporized, along with a big chunk of the building. Gilgamesh is thrown onto the cratered floor, his armor tarnished and cracked. Nice to see that he isn't indestructible, but seriously, why the hell didn't he stop them? He looks up through the space where the ceiling used to be, and gasps in surprise. Kiritsugu looks up through the same openiing, and cries out in horror.

Apparently, the blood moon from inside the Grail is now floating up in the clouds above Fuyuki City, in realspace.

So...destroying the grail also frees Ahriman? Maybe he's just in a weaker form now or something, idk. Between Iri's early transformation, the black slime tentacles reaching out to grab people when there are still multiple Servants in the game, and now this, I really just have no idea how Ahriman and his grail are supposed to work. I get that it's an intentional twist that the rules aren't what the wizards all think they are, but the audience not knowing either just makes this all so arbitrary and hard to grasp the stakes or consequences of.

Maybe this is yet another prequelitis issue, where I'm expected to know all of this from S/N. But I can't really be sure of that, because Zero has so little credibility left that this really could just as easily be arbitrary nonsense that's incompatible with the preexisting continuity.

As Kiritsugu babbles in terrified incredulity, the blood moon breaks like an overfull balloon, and Ahriman's slimy, liquid mass comes spilling down over the convention center and its surroundings in a literal torrent of incarnate evil. It looks like he's really pissed off now, because the slime is now glowing angry red with heat. Where it pours on the ground, it melts concrete and shatters glass. It spreads out from the now-burning building like lava from a volcano, setting the trees and grass of the surrounding park on fire and flowing on to graze the surrounding neighbourhood.

By the time the Angra-Mainyu lava dissipates, an entire section of the city is on fire.

Somehow, the one fucking spot under the blood moon that didn't get lava dripped on it was the part of the convention center that Kiritsugu happened to be standing in.

Like, we see the burning slime flooding through the hallways and sublevels and spilling out into the park all around. Kiritsugu was in the building when this happened. But, now he's just standing there surrounded by wreckage and looking aghast, perfectly healthy aside from the guilt.

Because of course he is.

As Kiritsugu runs out into the park, avoiding the parts that are on fire, we get a voiceover from Ilya. Talking about the nightmare of hers again, about becoming the Grail. This time, we hear more of it; she apparently dreamed that the seven lumps inside of her felt like they were tearing her apart, and then a hole opened up in the sky and the world burned.

Hmm. So, unless this happens again with Ilya in S/N, she was having a prophetic dream about her mother, not herself.

As Ilya's voiceover continues, Kiritsugu runs out of the burning park and into the ravaged neighborhood around it. He starts digging children out of the rubble, hoping to save any that might still be alive.

Why are the bodies he's finding all children, specifically? Eh, it's Urobuchi, dying orphans grow on trees, whatever.

We flash back to the real life scene of Ilya telling Iri about her dream, and Iri assuring her that she'll make sure that never happens to Ilya. Well, presumably Ilya becomes the next Grail host in the subsequent war, then. Or maybe not? She's also the Einzburns' only heir, if I'm not mistaken. And also only half-homunculus. So I'm not sure if they'd be willing OR able to use her, even if Iri feared that they would. Well, she's either bound to be a player in the next match, or the trophy. More likely the former, given the aforementioned factors, but maybe not. The framing here suggests that she's now at risk of becoming the Grail next time due to her parents' failure, whether that's actually the case or not.

The flashback conversation now gives us a visual of Ilya's bed in Castle Einzburn, and the topic segues into Ilya asking where her father is, and Iri assuring her that he's out working hard to give her a good future. Actually, we're only hearing Iri in voiceover, while Ilya appears to be alone.

So, now it looks like Ilya, in the present day, is the one remembering an earlier conversation with her mother. And...Kiritsugu was off doing something, at the time of that conversation. I guess he wasn't actually retired from assassinhood for the entire time he was married, then. That does give him a little more time to actually merit himself a reputation, which makes his backstory slightly less nonsensical, so I'm not complaining.

Kiritsugu runs around in the burning neighbourhood and tries to rescue kids while sad music plays for a while. Then, we jump to Daisy! He's not dead either, as it turns out! He's with Sakura, and...oh, I see, this is a dream or a fantasy or something. That makes more sense. Fantasy about bringing Sakura back home to the Tohsaka place, and being reunited with Rin.

They hug each other and are adorable for a minute, and then they both turn to Daisy and say "thank you, father." Okay, yeah, this is Daisy's dying dream.

Just after I'd concluded that, we jump to Daisy's body, which Sakura is currently rolling into Darth Matou's worm pit. The corpse falls in, and the worms devour it, while Sakura says this:

I guess Darth is possessing/puppeting her, right now? Hard to square this with how she acted before on her own. But also...how the hell did they recover Daisy's body? It was in the parking level under the convention center. That's the ONE place where Ahriman's lava would drain into first before overflowing and spreading out anywhere else.

But, why let basic logic get in the way when you want to give an extra "fuck you" to a character you invented just to get dunked on for not being evil, amirite?

From there, we jump to Kirei waking up, surrounded by rubble. Gilgamesh has just dug him out, and is also naked.

Gilgamesh explains that the lava covered him, but then spat him out again. Naked. And also physical. I guess Gilgamesh is just human now? Does he still have any of his powers? No idea. Apparently, the lava also spat Kirei out after filling the room he was in. And also resurrected him, because he was dead before that happened. He still has the bloodstains on his clothes from Kiritsugu shooting him, but the wound is completely healed. Kirei realizes that he has no heartbeat now, but other than that he looks, feels, and experiences the world as if he were his normal self again.

So, Ahriman just decided to save them due to liking their evilness, or something? I guess? I can't help but suspect that this realization of how Gilgamesh and Kirei came to be in the state that the original Fate had them in is a lot more rushed, more arbitrary, and more lame than what was originally implied. However, I haven't seen the original beyond the UBW pilot, so I have no way of substantiating this.

...also, what the fuck happened to Arturia?

Did she, alone out of all the living people and dead bodies in that building, get vaporized by the lava?

...

I'm almost kind of hoping that she did. Just because of how hilariously perfect of an ending it would be for how she's been treated by this story. It would be like wrapping a ribbon around it and tying it up in a bow. It would just encapsulate everything in one, easy to understand presentation.

...

Gilgamesh expresses irritation at his new state. That, along with his armor being missing, suggests to me that he's lost his Noble Phantasms, if not the rest of his Servant powers. Still, even if he's just limited to the mythological/historical powerset of Gilgamesh and/or the Serpent, that's still potent enough. Gilgamesh then asserts that all the other Servants are gone; he is the only one remaining.

...

OH MY GOD IT ACTUALLY DID JUST KILL ARTURIA OFFSCREEN WHILE NO ONE ELSE IN THE ROOM GOT HURT HAHAHAHAHA HOLY SHIT I'M DYING

...

Anyway, Gilgamesh didn't have any wish he wanted granted; he just didn't want anyone else to get the Grail. So, if this Grail War had a winner, then it must be Kirei. Gilgamesh asks him if what he sees is indeed what he had wished for.

The first thing Kirei saw upon waking up, of course, was Gilgamesh sitting completely naked in front of him with a languid, alluring smile. It's pretty obvious what conclusion Gilgamesh is trying to steer him toward. Unfortunately, Kirei's eyes go right passed him now and just scan the burning city around them, focusing on the flames and the ruined buildings.

Well, Kirei is supposed to be a weird kind of sadist who likes hurting people more the closer that he is to them, right (at least, that's how several of you have explained it to me)? Okay, that means that there's a good chance that Gilgamesh's feelings actually ARE reciprocated. It's just that the only way Kirei can show that is by breaking his heart like this.

So, I guess they're a thing now, in their own weird, emotionally sadomasochistic way? Possibly. It could be that Kirei actually was oblivious to what Gilgamesh was trying to get at there. He was being pretty obvious, but as a Catholic monk Kirei might be particularly unsuited to picking up on that kind of thing. So yeah, unclear at this point if it's requited or not. But definitely an interesting added nuance to their relationship either way.

Kirei starts laughing, and for a split second we actually see Gilgamesh's expression turn sour before he affects his smug smile again. Lol, poor heartbroken snek. After a minute of maniacal laughter, Kirei pirouettes around at all the devastation and marvels aloud at how this could have come from him.

On one hand, death and suffering are what apparently give Kirei Kotomine pleasure. On the other hand...if he was actually being granted a reality-warping wish, would it really just be burning down this one section of this one city? Would he even really need the Grail to do that, when Gilgamesh could have probably done the same thing on his own with strategic application of his treasure railgun?

After discussing this among themselves, Kirei and Gilgamesh determine that no, this probably isn't a result of the Grail granting Kirei's wish. But, the Grail destroying this particular place must hold some significance. They conclude that because of the indecisive conclusion of the Archer vs. Sabre duel, the Grail must have somehow granted the audience's wish. DOHHHHHOHOHOHOHOHO.

After cheering themselves up a bit with their customary style of banter, they sit down to decide what they'll do next. Kirei isn't content with what happened, even if part of a city getting burned down is decently good material for his YouTube career.

He babbles incoherently about how the Grail has shown him a solution to his problem, but not the process by which it arrived at that solution. Or something. Like I said, it's incoherent. Gilgamesh says that sure, he'll aid Kirei in his incomprehensible quest.

Kirei then turns away from Gilgamesh, and silently addresses Angra-Mainyu. He remembers their meeting. He remembers the promise and the potential. He is determined to see the Disaster of Zoroaster be born into the world for real. Just think of how much traffic "Planetary population LOSES ITS SHIT at surprise daevic apocalypse" would get. YouTube's algorithm wouldn't stand a chance.

...

Show. Show. What the actual fuck.

Usually when Fate/Zero does something awful, it does so on purpose. Either out of spite, or just by commitment to a fundamentally stupid vision. This is a rare case of abject incompetence, on a level that I don't think F/Z has reached until now.

What did Kirei experience when he got sucked into the black slime?

Why did we get to see Kiritsugu's conversation with Ahriman, but not Kirei's?

The only takeaway for Kiritsugu was "oh shit, the Grail's actually evil, time for a change of plans!" For Kirei, it was apparently something life-changing. Something that gave him a new purpose. And also, something that took enough interest in him in return that it proactively brought him back from the dead a few minutes later.

What the hell did they say to each other? What has made Kirei so determined to release Ahriman now? Is it just his desire to see more explosions and deaths, or did Angra-Mainyu offer him something else? Something more personal? What did Kirei have to say to him in turn? What was Kirei's initial reaction to discovering the Grail's true nature? DID he actually discover the Grail's true nature, or only infer a little of it?

Why is this show so relentlessly obtuse about everything related to Kirei? He's always talking AROUND his feelings and intentions rather than ABOUT them, and every other character he talks to about this stuff does the same thing. This is much more egregious than the previous examples though, because it seems like Kirei's meeting with Ahriman is supposed to be the source of his villainous motivation in the next Grail War. While I'm sure that motivation is explained in S/N, shouldn't the hows and whys of him arriving at it be shown in Zero? Isn't that the whole point of prequels, to show how things ended up the way they ended up?

Kiritsugu's Grail scene could have been one third as long without losing anything worthwhile or necessary. Kirei needed that time, and probably more than that much. The only way I could understand this is if Kirei's scene with Ahriman already happened in a flashback in S/N, so they didn't see any point in repeating it. If that isn't the case though, then holy fuck what a completely idiotic thing to skip over.

...

Just then, Kirei notices Kiritsugu digging through the rubble nearby.

Ahriman just happened to spit Kirei and Gilgamesh out in the same random place outside of the park where Kiritsugu was looking for survivors. Yeah. Right. Sure he did.

It's okay though, because there's no consequences for this at all. Kirei doesn't toss a knife into his back while he's exhausted, distracted, and has his back turned. I don't know why he doesn't do that, but he doesn't. He just glares at him hatefully, as if Kiritsugu's continued survival is some sort of deep personal affront to Kirei for reasons that I couldn't hope to grasp. Gilgamesh asks him what he's staring at off in the smoke there, and Kirei tells him that it's nothing, forget it. The two of them leave.

So, he doesn't want Gilgamesh to go try and take Kiritsugu's out while he's weakened either, but he really hates Kiritsugu and is enraged by the sight of him. Okay. Whatever. I don't care.

Jump back over to Kiritsugu now. Or rather, to a new POV with a Kiritsugu-focused story to tell. A child is dug out of the rubble. Unlike the previous ones that Kiritsugu dug out, this one is still alive. What Babby Shirou remembers most clearly about the rescue is how, when Kiritsugu pulled him out of the ruins, he thanked him. Thanked him for being alive and saveable. Thanked him for letting himself make up for causing this in some small way.

Kiritsugu takes Shirou from the rubble, and ends up adopting him. He just lost Maiya, after all, he needs to start grooming a replacement.

Then we cut to Waver at the old couple's house. They don't live near the part of Fuyuki that got Ahriman'd, so they're just watching the coverage of it on TV. The old couple worry out loud about whether Waver's friend Alex was hurt; he was supposed to fly out tonight, and the route to the airport would have taken him through the destroyed neighbourhood. Then Waver and the man exchange a wink, and...

......

I do not have the patience for this right now.

And hey, I'm well over three thousand words. I was hoping to at least get to the halfway point before calling this a post, but this is just too painful.

If the finale continues the way it's been going so far, this is easily going to be a three parter.