Fate/Zero S2E3: “The End of Honor”

Back to Fate/Zero. Given the conversation we ended the previous episode on, and a string of similar such leading up to it, this title does not bode well. Hopefully I'm wrong. Let's see.


The teaser takes place in PriestyPants' church, where the cleric in question is having a meeting with someone whose face is kept offscreen. The two are discussing the night's events, and the difficulty that they're going to have in covering this all up; the church alone won't be able to manage this, so any help they can get at all from Mystery Man's organization would be greatly appreciated.

...lol.

Okay, show, I'm sorry, but you can't do this. If you want to brush the repercussions of the Mion River silliness under the rug and just avoid raising the subject of how it couldn't possibly be covered up, I'd roll with it. I mean, it's not like I was taking anything relating to that scene especially seriously after the Gilgamesh vs. Berserker dogfight, so I could hardly blame the story itself for not taking it seriously either. If you want to actually acknowledge the consequences of it for the setting and worry about masquerade breaches, that's okay too; the masquerade is broken now, everyone in the world knows about that time a giant tentacle monster and an alien spaceship took part in a fight in the middle of a major city and the governments and news organizations will never ever ever stop investigating. The world of Fate is fundamentally changed, and will never be the same way after this. Or, you could pull a Men In Black II and say that they had a mass memory wipe spell ready to go off over the city in preparation for the Grail War, along with some other contingencies to deal with the (limited, but extant) long ranged cameras that existed in the 1990's.

Those are the only acceptable options that I can see. It's not picking any of them.

You know, show, all you had to do was say that the kraken and the spaceship were both invisible to nonwizards. There's ample precedent for that in this setting. It was completely insanely out of character for Toto to fly out over the city in a magic spaceship that wasn't invisible to nonwizards, to the point where I don't even know how to TRY reconciling it. But no.

Basically, if we're going to acknowledge the setting consequences of that fight in a non-comedic way, and enough time has passed since the battle for characters to be having meetings about it without those consequences having already been averted, then it's too late. Any serious drama or conflict that the story tries to milk out of this plot point is going to fall completely flat for me, because caring about it means that the entire Fateverse comes crashing down.

Anyway, it turns out that the man he's talking to is Professor Archie. Wheelchair bound, but otherwise much healthier than he appeared when we last saw him, and notably not chained up in the trunk of his wife's car.

He looks awfully smug for someone who's just been through what he's just been through. Got to respect the dedication if nothing else.​

Apparently, he has something that will help with the coverup, but in exchange he...

Okay. I'm going to wait and make sure that the show is actually doing what it looks like it's doing before I comment on it. Judgement suspended for now. End teaser.

Heh, I'm amused by Gilles and Uwu having just one, very brief, appearance in the cour two intro. As if acknowledging that they do technically survive into this season, but only for two episodes. Otherwise, my assessment of this OP is unchanged; better production values than the first one, but not quite as visually or musically memorable.

At the new Team Lancer HQ, Sonya is eagerly looking at her command seals and anticipating the addition of a new one. My judgement about that is still suspended, but I'm going to get back to it sooner or later. She feels like getting a new Command Seal for Diarmuid that isn't taken from Archie will be a genuine connection between the two of them that she previously lacked.

...is Sonya's entire character going to consist of lusting after Diarmuid now? It totally is, isn't it. Disappointing. Her first appearances made her seem like a bona fide sinister power-hungerer in her own right, and possibly a more worthy opponent for the main characters than her husband. I hope that's not going to be left COMPLETELY by the wayside.

...or. Actually, it gets superseded by something else. Someone sneaks up behind her and cuts off her arm. With the command seals on it. That someone turns out to be Gray's coworker with benefits Maia.

That said, Sonya uses this opportunity to justify my misgivings. She's been permanently maimed, lost her shot at the Grail, and probably seconds away from being killed, but the only thing she's screaming about is how now she won't be able to call Diarmuid.

So, yeah. Literally nothing to her besides that anymore.

I don't know enough about Celtic mythology to say if this is accurate to Diarmuid's legend. His mark makes women fall in love with him, but is it supposed to make them obsessed with him like this? If not, then the writer made a conscious decision to change it in this particular way. Or else the author just thinks that this is what it looks like when women love someone.

...and hell, isn't she supposed to be a pretty powerful wizard? Shouldn't she be trying to cast something, even wounded and one-handed? I feel like any of the other Masters in this show would be doing that if the story put them in this situation, with the exception of Uwu and possibly Waver.

I guess the one thing that saves this scene from being pure uncut misogyny is that it's another woman doing the hand-chopping. Maia getting to be competent and effective doesn't totally make up for the things that rub me the wrong way about this scene, but it helps.

Right, Sola-Ui, not Sonya. Her name hadn't been spoken aloud in quite a few episodes, so I mixed it up. Anyway, they've decided to capture rather than kill her for some reason. Not sure why that might be; afraid of Diarmuid just shifting back to Archie's control, I guess?

...although, what actually is the status of a Master who loses the limb with the seals on it? If they're no longer a Master at all, wouldn't the Servant be able to find a new one, as if they'd died?

Maybe this is another one of those things I'm supposed to already know from Fate/Title.

Maia binds Sola-Ui's wrist stump, and then fires a few bullets into her severed hand for some reason. Maybe that's meant to destroy the Command Seals before they can jump onto someone else? Dunno if that's how it works or not. Anyway, from there we jump to Kirei, carrying the broken and bleeding Daisy to...I believe that's the Matou residence? We haven't seen their mansion for a long time, but I'm pretty sure this was what it looked like.

I thought he was going to ring the doorbell and tell Sheev a version of what happened, but no. He just leaves Daisy on the doorstep and walks away. Just sort of hoping he gets found before he gets eaten by a stray dog or something. I assume he did some sort of healing thing to him during that painful-looking magical process earlier, but he still isn't in anything close to good condition, so leaving him out in the open potentially all night is kind of just begging for him to die of exposure or the like.

I guess Kirei doesn't really care that much if he survives or not. Just doing what he feels like is his part toward undermining Toto.

...but he DID care enough to carry him all the way here? That's some serious time investment, even if magic strength-aug bullshit prevents it from being an effort investment.

Eh, I guess Kirei might just have very reasonably decided he didn't want to be anywhere nearby when Sheev comes to the entrance. Worth the effort, but not worth the risk. Yeah, that does make sense.

After leaving Daisy, Kirei walks through a nearby park and muses to himself about how his first ever act of rebellion felt. It wasn't a really *major* act. As I pointed out above, there's a chance it won't even amount to anything. But still, it was a sampling. One that Kirei found exciting.

Back to the church scene. Priestypants isn't sure if Archie still counts as a Master, given that he appears to have magi-surgery'd his command seals onto his wife. The camera zooms in on Archie's hand, where the aftermath of this process is still bandaged up.

Wonder what that entailed? Either way, Archie makes it sound like it was much more voluntary than it probably really was. He says that while it's true his wife currently wields the command seals and provides the mana due to him being incapacitated, their pact with Diarmuid is still mutual, and the paperwork they submitted to the Church to validate it was signed in Archie's name.

Erm...you have to submit a form to take part in the Grail War? How come Waver and Uwu never got any pushback because of this? Uwu got pushback for other things, but not for this.

Maybe Archie just assumed you had to fill something out because he's a conservative British guy, and he kept whining at the priests about not having been issued the paperwork despite their attempts to explain that there isn't any for so long that they eventually typed and printed something out just to make him shut up.

Whining at the priests until he gets his way does prove to be a tool in Archie's kit that he's willing to use more than once, because after he wheedles Priesty enough and reminds him of the important role his Servant played in defeating the rogue Caster, Priesty gives in. He'll give Archie the reward Command Seal.

I feel like there's a much better argument that the show COULD have had Archie make for himself here, and which would be more likely to sway Priesty. Team Lancer's "important role" in the battle was obviously dwarfed by Team Sabre's. Arturia got the killing shot on Gilles, and Gray got the killing shot on Uwu. Literally Master and Servant defeating Master and Servant in a clear 1:1 display of aggression and valour. But, Team Sabre didn't have to sacrifice anything to do this, and in fact they already profited from the Caster-hunt due to Diarmuid having sacrificed one of his most powerful abilities to restore one of Arturia's. So, if Archie used the logic that his team footed the bill for this victory whereas others already benefitted from it, it would be pretty hard for Priesty to argue against it. Certainly a far stronger argument than "Diarmuid helped a lot."

Maybe that actually is what was intended, and what I'm seeing here is the scene suffering from adaptation and/or mistranslation. But, there's still that implication of something *really* stupid from the teaser that I can't drop quite yet, so keep hanging onto that thought.

So, Priesty does some Catholic-looking blood magic involving wine and a complete misappropriation of the words "blood of the covenant," and Archie gets a Command Seal. He cackles gleefully, obviously thinking he's now defeated Sola-Ui and taken back Diarmuid at least partially.

...

Was Sola-Ui losing her own hand at almost the exact same time a coincidence? Or are Grey and Maia knowingly exploiting this situation and doing some kind of thing?

...

PriestyPants wishes Archie well. Archie starts wheeling himself back out of the church, but then suddenly pulls out a handgun and shoots Priesty to death.

Urm.

Does killing the ref not have consequences for the Grail War?

Obviously the referee has some kind of actual power over the metaphysics of the war, if he's able to hand out new Command Seals. Does killing him actually not do anything?

As he wheels himself out, Archie thinks to himself that he couldn't take the risk of letting Priesty give out additional seals to other Masters, for their roles in taking out Gilles or any other reason. His situation in the Grail War is too precarious, and - while he initially joined the war just for his own ego - he has a much stronger motivation to win now. He'll never get his health or his magic back without a miracle, and the Grail is the only way to make one of those happen.

Okay, so. If Priesty is dead and the laughable cover-up subject is being dropped, then that means the stupid thing I was fearing isn't going to happen after all. Archie's muttering about the risks of Priesty giving out other Seals to other Masters, implying that teams Sabre and Rider might have also gotten to share in the reward here, is also evidence against it. Okay, nevermind, you can let go of that thing I've been telling you to hold onto, false alarm! I have a new thing to be confused about now, but not that.

Over in the abandoned building that Team Lancer's been hiding out at, Diarmuid finds Sola-Ui's severed, bullet-ridden hand. Where was he until now if he wasn't with either Sola-Ui or Archie, and is there any possible way the answer could not be "making Arturia airtight with Alexander?" No, of course. The answer is no. Diarmuid gasps in shock, and then we smash cut to him getting chewed out for this by Archie.

Just this long, spiteful chain of shit-talking. Archie pontificates at length about how Diarmuid is a failure as a Servant twice over, as a knight countless times over, and as an upholder of his own ostensible chivalrous code now as well. Some of Archie's accusations are totally detached from reality, like when he accuses Diarmuid of having the hots for Sola-Ui just like he did for his leige lord's wife in his living days (Sola-Ui's attraction to Diarmuid has been pretty much one sided as far as I can tell). Others, like the fact that Diarmuid has failed to protect just about everyone he ever vowed to protect, really are valid, and visibly get under Diarmuid's skin.

Hmm. Going back to the (very heavily at this point) implied relationship between a Servant's manifestation and their Master's ideals, what does all this say about Archie? I'm thinking back to Archie's first appearance in the story, back in the Type Mogwarts lecture hall, when he really went out of his way to publicly denounce that stupid essay that Waver sent him. Establishing character moment. Being really performatively incensed by a proposal for greater fairness and mutual respect among wizards. If he thought Waver's ideas were too dumb to be worth consideration, he wouldn't have cared enough to take minutes out of his day to drag them out in front of the class for dramatic ridicule. Even for an archetypal "mean sarcastic teacher" character, that's pretty extra.

I mused earlier that Grey might resent Arturia for being the personal ideal he's failed to live up to. Archie might be similar. Only, for him, I get the impression that Diarmuid's charming, life-loving brand of honourableness might have been something that was beaten out of him. He's a traditional old fashioned wizard, from a long family line of traditional old fashioned wizards. We know what sort of culture those guys have.

I might be barking up the wrong tree with this analysis, but I think it fits Professor Archie's general sour, sarcastic persona and weirdly over-the-top pettiness when it comes to enforcing the traditional hierarchy. And it definitely makes him a more interesting - and pitiable - character than he'd otherwise be.

When Diarmuid tried to speak in his own defence, Archie starts getting really childishly vindictive and starts power tripping about how he's alive and Diarmuid is dead, he has a whole world to interact with while Diarmuid is a combat drone that exists for just this one elimination tournament, he has a Command Seal that Diarmuid is powerless to disobey, etc. The kind of verbal weapons of desperation that would make me feel more sorry for Archie than I do for Diarmuid even if I hadn't just inferred a biography defined by generational abuse and spirit-crushing for the former. Fortunately, this painful tirade is cut short when Diarmuid detects intruders entering the bounded field Sola-Ui and Archie set up over this place. It takes some doing, but he manages to get Archie to shut up long enough for Diarmuid to warn him, so that Archie can give him permission to intercept the attackers.

Unsurprisingly, it's Arturia and Iri.

As much as they both enjoyed that post-battle spitroasting earlier this evening, Arturia has orders. And, really, this was going to have to happen sooner or later. As she summons her armor, she explains that the other Servants are either banished, exhausted, or off being salty right now, so this would be a perfect time for Arturia and Diarmuid to finally finish that duel they started all the way back in early season one. Diarmuid smiles, says that it's been fun, but he agrees. Not that either of them really have much of a choice.

Arturia draws her sword. Diarmuid draws his remaining spear, the armor-piercing one. Arturia doesn't unsummon her armor though; she might have seen the anti-healing spear break, but she's learned not to take chances with this heh. Romantic fight music plays as the duel begins. Diarmuid notices that Arturia is still using her sword one-handed, and asks her about it. She replies that to dull her blade with dishonour would be crippling herself, and she needs every advantage she can get against an opponent like him.

In Fate/Zero language, that's basically a confession of eternal, matrimonial love.

So, they fight for a while. It's a pretty cool fight. They both look like they're really trying to win (aside from Arturia honourably refusing to use his own sacrifice against him by using the hand he'd otherwise disabled), even though neither actually wants the other to be gone. Iri watches, both enchanted and saddened by what's going on. Archie also watches, shrouded in a steadily growing vortex of superheated salt.

If Diarmuid doesn't see a clear, obvious path to victory, why isn't he falling back and trying to bring his Master to safety? Doesn't he care about winning? Doesn't he care about his Master? Archie could use his new Command Seal, but that would mean giving up his last bit of leverage; possibly his last bit of magic altogether in his current state.

...

I really want to know what happens to the command seals that Maia cut off of Sola-Ui. It seems like they SHOULD find a new host, from how this generally seems to work, no? It's hard for me to believe that something as mystical and mercurial as the seals could actually be impeded by mere bullet-wounds breaking their skin markings.

...

He looks like he might be deciding to finally use it, since Diarmuid and Arturia's duel just keeps going on and on. But then someone drops a bullet casing on the ground behind him, getting his attention. Grey and Sola-Ui have just decloaked a few meters away from Archie's wheelchair, and he has a gun to her unconscious head.

Looks like Maia never actually took her away. Grey just came over and used that stealth ability we've seen him use before to hide himself and his hostage until the right moment.

Why did he bother doing all this? We'll have to find out next time, because I'm at three and a half thousand damned words and we've only just hit the middle point.