[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by GDB

He doesn't appear, but they do mention him specifically by both name and class. That's why I said introduced, not appeared.

Yeah, OK. I just thought you were mistaking HF for HA, since you claimed that HF has a load of plot holes that simply aren't there, but you obviously did mean HF. Seriously, there is absolutely no reason that being in HF makes something 'less canon', or less sensible. If it's in HF, then it's canon, just as much as Fate or UBW.

So, what happens with Rider that only works with Sakura's backstory? Absolutely nothing, since it could easily be said that Zoken assists Shinji in summoning her, and provides him a medium through which to use Command Seals.

OK, when I said this, I didn't mean "Fate and UBW absolutely couldn't be made to work without HF", I meant "the way that they're written relies on Sakura being as she is, and having gone through the situations that are outlined in HF". Without Sakura's backstory, she wouldn't have summoned Rider, or she wouldn't have given her to Shinji. Without Sakura, Rin would never have seen Shirou, and she wouldn't have been worried about Sakura being upset by his death.

Don't talk down to me. I've played the game, and HF has so many random plot elements that don't really make sense.

Evidentally you haven't read HF properly, then, because you failed totally to understand it....

Shinji doesn't really get any extra characterization in HF beyond why he's such a dick to Sakura. Even then, he's still a dick regardless of the reason, and he's a dick to everyone, so it doesn't change anything.

His reason for being a dick was explained. True, he could just be a general dick, but without HF that's all he is. Once you play thorough HF, you actually understand his motivations and actions.

Sakura got characterization, but it's just an explanation for why she's so timid. Again, it wasn't needed, as her characterization is a perfectly common character archetype.

It was needed. A normal person wouldn't reasonably be that timid. Anyway, the point is that, in HF, she goes from being a generic "kind timid girl" to an actual character (and a damn good one, at that).

As for Rider? Rider doesn't do anything in Fate and UBW that needs explaining. She has little to no personality, and she's stuck with a horrible master. That's it.

Again, she actually gets characterisation in HF.

As for inconsistencies, how about we start with Shirou? In the other two routes, he's dead-set determined on his ideals, and is even willing to risk his life and future with Saber/Rin to accomplish it. In HF, however, he tosses away his ideals at the first possible opportunity. This is even before he starts getting his brain jacked up.

Sorry, but this is total bollocks. He does not "toss away his ideals at the first opportunity". So many people get Shirou's ideal mixed up with Kiritsugu's. What Shirou wants is to save everyone. More specifically, as Rin says in UBW (when talking about Archer) he hates to see the people in front of him get hurt. At that point in the story (at the Mind of Steel decision) Shirou had no idea that Sakura was the shadow, and he had no idea that she would end up killing people (unintentionally). All he had as 'evidence' for killing her was the vague assertion that she would go crazy and kill people at some point. Shirou doesn't kill people based on what they may, perhaps, do in the future, and he doesn't allow one innocent person who is in front of him to die if it might save others in the future. If he did, then he would have killed Shinji in the school in Fate and in UBW, and he would have left the woman who Rider sucked the soul from to die in order to deal with Zouken and Shinji at the start of HF. Shirou doesn't kill people unless he has to, to protect others. His actions in HF are perfectly consistent with his true wish, even if it means discarding the false 'ideal' that he borrowed from his father.[/rant]

Now, how about Ilya? She somehow figures out Shirou's connection to Archer, despite not doing so in either of the other two routes. Not only does she figure it out, but she's so certain about her assumption that she's willing to stake Shirou's life on it.

She's the Grail. Archer's soul is inside her, so she can check up on it. In Fate, she may not have cared enough to do so, and she also has several other souls in her. In UBW, she never gets the chance because he doesn't die until after her. But, in HF he's the only soul she has, and because Archer had acted to protect her, she decides to look inside herself and work out who he is (she's actually really protective of his soul, and happy for him to be inside her). Besides, there's nothing in Fate that says that she doesn't know Archer's identity. It just never comes up, and there's no reason for her to screw things up by saying "Oh, BTW Rin, your servant was a future Shirou". For that matter, she never actually tells them in HF either, at least not directly. If it wasn't for Rin and Shirou working it out and asking her, we wouldn't have known that she knew in HF.

Also, I don't even see the point to the dress, since I don't think it was even mentioned in the other two routes, and at the very least was hardly necessary.

Actually it is, in one of the Fate bad endings I believe (the one where Ilya moves Shirou's soul into a doll, when she kidnaps him) . She needs it to materialise the souls. In any case, it was most likely a diversion to stop Sakura taking her straight to the Grail and opening the gate, so even if she doesn't strictly need it, that doesn't stop her claiming that she does.

Spoiler for HF Ending:

How'd she even save Shirou, anyway? Sakura had most of the Servants, and the grail was still separated from Ilya when Sakura was saved. Best case scenario, Ilya had Archer, Saber, and Berserker, while Sakura/Angra had Lancer, Caster, True Assassin, and Gilgamesh. So how was Ilya able to use the power of the grail? Either she didn't have enough Servant power (was stated that at least 6 were needed to even make it appear), or the grail had already been destroyed by Shirou. There's no opportunity for her to do so.

Because the Grail was already there. She didn't need to summon anything. In fact, she was acting to close the Grail. And, no it hadn't been destroyed by Shirou. In the Normal end, Shirou destroys the Grail, but in the True end, he's about to do so when Ilya shows up and closes the gate instead. In the process, presumably, she uses the connection that she has (as the Lesser Grail) and her natural magic ability to produce an imitation of the third magic.

Let's not forget Kotomine, who was able to go toe-to-toe with True Assassin, yet gets punked by a Shirou in Fate who wasn't even actively tracing anything.

Well, Shirou is pretty good. But, yeah, I'll admit that that is a bit odd. But no more so than how Shirou manages to take down Gil in UBW, or (even more) how Archer manages to survive so long and do so much without a master.

Oh, and speaking of True Assassin, that whole premise is ridiculous.

What premise?

Now, I know you're a Sakura fan, but you need to be able to see how much crazy crap they brought into her route that doesn't quite make sense when compared with Fate/UBW.

No, I can see one thing that maybe doesn't make all that much sense (that being Kotomine), and I'm not even particularly convinced about that, because Shirou is pretty awesome, and he only takes down Kotomine by surprise. The rest is rubbish. The whole "OMG, Shirou not taking the MoS route is OOC" thing is something I've comprehensively debunked many times before. It's not out of character for him, it's perfectly natural. He often puts the girl first (Saber in Fate, repeatedly), and he often acts to save the person in front of him even if thay could be detrimental to the whole world later on (Ilya in UBW, for example, where he jumps out to try to save her even though he had no hope of actually doing so). There is nothing in Shirou's characterisation in the other two routes that would suggest he would kill Sakura in such a situation. He's perfectly willing to sacrifice himself, but not other people.