Fate/Zero S2E1: "The Battle of Mion River" (continued)

Resuming this absolutely deranged episode of Fate/Zero.


Gilgamesh and the Berserker are still dogfighting in the sky over Fuyuki City, using Mystery Spaceship and Berserkified Harrier respectively. You know, it occurs to me that the pilot in that harrier might actually be totally okay still, and in fact having his plane reinforced by the Berserker might actually make him safer than he was before. Couple that with the other pilot still transmitting from inside the kraken's gullet, and it's possible that both these muggles might survive. I'd kind of love that, honestly, especially if major characters end up dying in this same battle.

Another thing that slipped by me last time; Gilgamesh's favorite sword is called "Ea," a la the Mesopotamian river god. I did some googling, and I haven't found anything about there being a sword associated with Ea, or him having any particular connection with Gilgamesh. Not sure what significance the name has here, or if the writer(s) just threw a random Mesopotamian mythology word in there to name Gilgy's weapon after.

Well, anyway, onward!


Daisy is standing on a rooftop (I mean it this time! It's an actual rooftop, not an inexplicable spaceship!) looking stressed as his Stand duels with Toto's in the skies overhead. His attention is called away from the dogfight when Toto himself floats down to the rooftop a few meters away from him; I guess he had a way of locating him after all.

Toto is all self righteous about Daisy, either not knowing or pretending to not know what motivated him to get involved in this Grail War. He seems to be assuming (or, again, pretending to assume) that Daisy just betrayed their family and went back to the Matous as soon as he saw a chance for power, and also makes a crack about the decline of Daisy's apparent health as if it's some kind of own. Daisy just chuckles at Toto's self-righteous delusions, and asks him why he gave Sakura to Wizard Epstein.

Toto is surprised to hear him ask that. His answer to the question, though...well let's just say it raises some questions of its own.

When Daisy is stunned at this answer, Toto explains that it's always a tragedy when a wizard becomes a parent to more than one child. Only one child may inherit the secrets and spells of the clan, and so one must be cast out to become one of "the rabble." Both his daughters had so much potential, he couldn't bear to quash one of their futures as a wizardess at the expense of the other's. Thus, he kept one and did the best he could with the other.

...

Man is there a lot to unpack in that speech. I'll just go in order.

First of all, nobody forced him to have more than one kid. At first I thought that maybe Rin and Sakura were supposed to be twins, but I didn't think that was the case, so I looked it up and no, they're not. The way he words this is also rather indicative. His exact words are "my wife's womb was too fertile."

Earlier, when Kirei was delivering the dossiers to Gilgamesh, it was hinted that Sakura may actually be Daisy's daughter instead of Toto's. The way he words things here makes it seem very, very likely that Toto is of the same opinion. "If only my wife just wasn't so...fertile." Really feels like he's saying something without saying it. Whether or not he actually suspects the man in front of him of being the father, I couldn't say, but if so that just makes his delivery of this lines all the more hateable.

Second...well, I don't know enough about the Moontype magic rules to say anything for certain, but is Toto being prevented by actual laws of magic from training both girls as magicians, or just by tradition? He's obviously not a man who cares about rules and traditions, but throughout the show he's struck me as one who cares very much about being seen to abide by the rules and traditions even as he cheats relentlessly in the background. So, I honestly can't say whether or not he was UNABLE to keep both children, or just UNWILLING to do so on account of the nasty looks it would get him at WizCon.

Third, not being a wizard makes you "one of the rabble." While that's a supremacist attitude that I'd expect from any sort of proud traditionalist (especially one from a privileged, powerful group like wizards), the context here makes it really something else. "Better to be raised by Pedo Palpatine in a literal swimming pool of parasitic worms than to become a filthy muggle." It actually maps pretty close to what you hear from the creepier anti-vax types. "Better my kids die a lingering death from preventable diseases than take a chance they might become autistic."

True, Toto also mentions something about how a kid with a lot of magical potential might become a target for unscrupulous types if she isn't taught actual magic. But if you're trying to tell me that this powerful, wealthy wizard can't keep someone safe if he wants to, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

Well, regardless of whether it's Kirei or Daisy who does the deed, I'm now very much in support of Toto getting killed. Like, he was obviously a bad guy before this, but this scene really makes him hateable in a way that he wasn't before.

...

When pressed further, Toto also says that he couldn't turn down the Matous in particular, because they were a wizard clan who knew about the Holy Grail. Thus, even if he failed to acquire the Grail and wish for union with the Root, he could now have not one but TWO heirs with a chance of doing the same (there's no guarantee that that's what either girl would wish for, but still, there'd be a chance).

Hmm. Well, if Toto is being honest about this last part, then that makes it more likely that Sakura actually is his biological daughter despite the implications to the contrary. I'm much less sure of that now than I was before.

Daisy, who had already been just barely biting back his tongue when Toto said that Sakura would be "rabble" if she didn't become a wizardess (and also at the implication that his own wife is only NOT rabble due to her proximity to himself), interjects again here. Does Toto actually think it would be a GOOD thing to place the sisters in a position where they'd likely end up killing each other in a future Grail War? Toto's answer is unsurprising at this point, but no less psychopathic for it.

So, yeah. At best Toto is a fanatic who cares about literally nothing besides the Root being found by someone connected in some way to the name Tohsaka. At worst, he's a petty, spiteful monster in an unconvincing cloak of smug self-righteousness. Depending on what the story with Sakura's genetics actually is. In either case, this duel has established its face and heel pretty strongly, so let's start fighting already!

Unfortunately, before that can happen, Daisy starts coughing up blood. Either coincidence, a consequence of emotional extremes, or Darth Matou is assuming direct control. We then return to the skies overhead, where Gilgamesh and the Berserker are continuing their stupid dogfight.

That plane sure has a lot of missiles. Is Berserker using an infinite ammo power on it or something?

Also, I'm wondering why Daisy doesn't just have Berserker break off the attack on Gilgamesh and cheap-shot Toto with an airstrike? Maybe he just doesn't realize how badly Toto and Gilgamesh are cooperating, and so he thinks he needs to keep Gilgy distracted while he fights his Master. That would make sense.

Speaking of Daisy, when we cut back to him he's being surrounded by worms.

I'm sort of confused. I thought they were inside of his body. Why are they approaching from outside, now? When I saw him start to cough up blood I figured he was going to vomit some of them out, but the blocking makes it clear that that's not what's going on. Weird.

Getting back to his feet, Daisy tells Toto that he's insane. Toto just smugly says that he only seems that way to Daisy because he's an inferior life form who committed the ultimate sin of walking away from wizardry of his own accord. A degenerate like him would never understand. Toto also assumes that the reason Daisy is so made now is because he's jealous of Sakura, since she got the birthright that he walked away from and that he now regrets. That's the only way he can comprehend Daisy's motives.

Well. Unless Sakura actually IS Daisy's daughter, and Toto is feigning ignorance. I'm really not sure which way I lean at this point.

Toto lowers his staff toward Daisy and starts conjuring some big energy blast thing as he says that it will be not only a duty, but indeed a pleasure, to rid the world of someone like Daisy. Daisy, meanwhile, announces that he's going to kill every wizard he knows about, starting with Toto and then Darth Matou right after him. As he speaks, he causes the worms that have been gathering around him to instantly pupate and hatch into a cloud of demonic-looking wasp monsters, which he commands to attack.

Ah, I see, those grubs were a summon. Not the same thing as the crest worms inside of him, just a combat-summons that fits the Matou aesthetic. Got it.

Cut back to Arturia and Alexander still cleaving off tentacles and watching them regenerate. The kraken manages to momentarily snag Alexander's chariot, but Arturia cuts him free, and Alexander - who still seems to have happily forgotten about the banquet of kings shite - confirms that he owes her one.

That's probably the most consequential in combat that we've ever seen Arturia be in this series, come to think of it. Late start, but I'll take it.

I'm still not sure why Alexander hasn't picked up Diarmuid, of course. Or why Daisy's Master - whatsername again, Mrs. Snape - doesn't just do some magic to help carry him across the water. She's onsite, and she's supposed to be fairly powerful as I recall. Honestly, it seems like the show just forgot entirely about Team Lancer.

Briefly cut to Kirei, who is preparing a brace of magical daggers with vanishing blades.

He's about to sneak up and assassinate someone while they're distracted. Even chances of it being Toto or Uwu.

Speak of the devil, Uwu is still on the bridge watching the battle. While waving his hands around and babbling in something like religious ecstasy as he watches the explosions and ichor.

The other bystanders are getting increasingly weirded out, backing away from the gibbering madman even as the giant squid battles invisible phantoms in the mist just below them. Then, suddenly, Uwu's body jerks, and falls to the pavement.

Looks like Kirei got him, then? Makes sense. Uwu was making himself pretty obvious, so it's likely Kirei could have picked him out and taken the opportunity to remove him while on his way to assassinate Toto.

...oh wait, no, not Kirei. Looks like it was our other anti-wizard assassin.

Gray seems to have gotten over his petty squabble with Arturia, at least for the time being. While she was engaging Gilles, it appears that Gray was setting up a perch and using that mana-detecting scope of his to find Gilles' Master. Uwu probably made it much easier by carrying on and causing the people around him to visibly react like that.

Uwu looks at the bullet wound in his midsection and eulogizes himself with this extremely long and lyrical speech about how he never realized that the blood and guts he always REALLY wanted to see were inside of him all along. He's cut short just as he's about to say his final words and fall back into a smiling, photogenic sleep of death when Gray gets impatient and puts a second bullet between his eyes.

...

Okay, everything about that scene was brilliant. Like, full marks. Absolute perfection.

...

Inside the kraken, Gilles feels his Master's death. Depending on how you interpret these visuals, it could be that he's physically inside the kraken and could be killed if they could just land a high powered attack on the right spot, or it could be that he actually IS the kraken, in which case that's not a viable option.

Delivering a (shorter) eulogy, he raises his tome (wait...didn't Diarmuid destroy that with his no-take-backsies spear?) and vows that he will set a funeral pyre worthy of his prophet and master.

I guess Servants aren't banished when you kill their Masters, then. Maybe they're just weakened, due to being cut off from a source of mana?

...then again, how much mana did Uwu even have? He wasn't a trained wizard, but I'm not sure if that correlates or not.

The kraken starts...rising? into the air? or maybe just floating higher in the water, I'm not sure...and Gray hails Maya over radio. The fact that Gilles did have some kind of reaction when he killed the guy on the bridge is strong evidence that that WAS in fact his Master, so Gilles shouldn't be long for the world now. Oh, good, it's explaining how this works, finally! The way Gray talks about it, it seems like once a Master dies the Servant is on borrowed time, its mana constantly draining away until it is no longer able to manifest in the world of the living. It seems like this normally doesn't take more than a few minutes.

However, Gray says, there's a problem. The kraken seems like it'll reach the shore before Gilles runs out of time, and once it gets there it will most likely be able to convert human life force into mana and become self-sustaining even without Uwu.

Aaaaand I think I've kind of hit the limits of my willing suspension of disbelief.

That Gilles was able to summon/create/whatever this insane construct in the first place, with his book damaged and his Master a total novice, was already kind of a "huh?" for me. I kind of handwaved it with the inference that Gilles has been saving up mana from all the children he's murdered over the course of the first season (it didn't make it clear at all that he was doing any sacrificial magic with them at the time, but I can generously assume that he did), but now...I'm supposed to believe that this thing STILL has enough juice to make it to shore while everyone is pounding it? This feels like the author is arbitrarily making Gilles much more powerful than he should be just to make the story work.

Like, seriously, by what metric does Gilles de Rais merit this kind of power as a legendary figure? I can buy Gilgamesh being absurdly OP within this framework because his legend is so old and so influential, but Bluebeard? Really?

...

Then again, this episode also has a magic spaceship dogfighting a possessed JSDF bomber over a giant squid in full public view in what's allegedly a masquerade fantasy setting. So, maybe I'm just taking the story too seriously by asking these sorts of questions.

...

Gray muses over the radio that to be sure the kraken doesn't regenerate the damage they inflict before it reaches the shore, they'll need to hit it with an anti-fortress weapon. They do have one of those on hand, as it turns out; Arturia apparently possesses an ability that could do the job. But, whatever this mysterious superattack of hers is, she needs both hands to execute it.

So, they're going to have to appeal to Team Lancer. If Diarmuid can't undo the damage he inflicted, then Gray is going to have to ask them to forfeit their place in the Grail War and dismiss their Servant back to the netherworld. The alternative might be an out-of-control Gilles destroying EVERYONE's chances of getting the Grail, and doing much more damage to their world on top of that.

He could also try calling Toto and telling him to just use his stupid Command Seal, but he either doesn't know that Gilgamesh could handle this, or he knows that Toto would never do something that reasonable. Granted, Toto also has his hands full at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that Gray doesn't know about that part. End episode.


I forgot how much fun Fate/Zero was. It really is a great breather/palate cleanser for a show like Telemelebeletos.

I've said many times that Type Moon is at its best when it's just going for dumb fun. This episode actually pushes beyond that into outright "so bad it's good" territory. If you made it any more OR any less stupid, I think it would just frustrate and bore me. It landed right in the ironic enjoyment sweet spot for me.

I've also learned to appreciate Gilgamesh now. I'd heard people talk about what an amazing villain he is, and up until now I really wasn't seeing it. But now, god, his conversations with Toto are just solid gold. He actually kind of reminds me of Tighten, from "Megamind." Complete joke of a character, but powerful enough that the characters have to treat him as a serious threat even though he doesn't remotely deserve it. I think the previous episodes may have done Gilgamesh a disservice by trying to make him a diabolical tempter type for Kirei; he's both more fun to watch AND more in his natural element when he's being an insufferable toddler who unfortunately happens to also be a city-destroyer.

It's to the episode's credit that it did have some interesting character stuff going on in between the ridiculousness. In particular, the way that it made a multifaceted character study of Toto, in showing what he thinks his own ideals are and how they justify his actions during his conversation with Daisy, and revealing what he actually is in his exchanges with Gilgamesh.

Everyone else, for the most part, was either just there to fill out the nonsensical fight scene, or to provide a more inane flavor of black comedy (Uwu's death scene, full stop).


Seriously, what it is up with the Starship Gilgamesh though?