Character discussion and limited poll

[Altima of the Gates]

Ilya? She has plenty of people on her side. Sella and Leysritt, Kiritsugu attempted to come get her (we could draw parallels to Kariya there), then later on Shirou.

It seemed like she didn't have a harsh life until the advent of the 5th War(you could say she was treated like a spoiled princess even), and that was when they tortured her with Herc's summoning before the Grail could act as an anchor. And the training in the month or so beforehand.

[Flinch]

yet, look at it from her view. she wanted her mother and father back, both who could never do so.

[Altima of the Gates]

Well, if we looked at it from the character's point of view. Both lives look pretty darn bad.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Flinch

yet, look at it from her view. she wanted her mother and father back, both who could never do so.

Yeah, and look at things from Sakura's point of view. She just wanted a life, to have her sister back and (if she's really lucky) to have the guy she loves by her side.

We're not trying to deny that Ilya is sympathetic, we're just questioning your apparent belief that she's sympathetic and Sakura isn't.

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Hang on, so you're complaining about Sakura being responsible for the deaths of other characters, even though she had no knowledge of it, and yet you're giving Ilya (who goes out to kill Shirou (amongst others), and who actually knows what Sakura is doing in HF (from the very beginning, before Shirou even knows that she's a magus) and chooses not to stop it because she knows it'll hurt Shirou) a free pass?

Do I sense a certain amount of hyprocrisy here?

Not really. My issue isn't with Sakura being responsible for the deaths of other characters... I mean, if I disliked every character that killed another one, I'd rapidly run out of any to like at all.

It's that she kills a few characters that I like more than I like her.

Illya actually has a very low body count for this game. The only two people who die because of her actions are Shinji and Archer in 'Fate'. I have nothing but contempt for the former, and the latter... well, I may have to turn in my Man Card for saying this, but I'm not GAR for Archer. I don't hate him, but I'm not exactly a fan either.

Sakura, via the Shadow, is responsible for the deaths and/or corruption of most of the Servants, and therefore she ended up killing at least a few characters who I liked a lot more than I like her. Most notably Saber (God, I cried like a baby) and Lancer (who I am sorta GAR for. I was so looking forward to a repeat of his UBW badassedness and so pissed when I was denied it). Is it exactly logical to blame her for this? No, it wasn't really her fault. But I can't help it! On an emotional level it ticked me off greatly, and that colored my perceptions of Sakura from 'Yeah, I like her' to 'Eh, I don't really care about her all that much'.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Moczo

Illya actually has a very low body count for this game. The only two people who die because of her actions are Shinji and Archer in 'Fate'. I have nothing but contempt for the former, and the latter... well, I may have to turn in my Man Card for saying this, but I'm not GAR for Archer. I don't hate him, but I'm not exactly a fan either.

Well, if you exclude the bad ends, yes....

Sakura, via the Shadow, is responsible for the deaths and/or corruption of most of the Servants, and therefore she ended up killing at least a few characters who I liked a lot more than I like her.

Then hate Zouken. He's the one who was making her do all that (he may not have been in direct control of her when she went out feeding, but he certainly was when she started absorbing servants).

Most notably Saber (God, I cried like a baby) and Lancer (who I am sorta GAR for.

Both of which were entirely Zouken (or, if you're talking about Dark Saber, Shirou).

Is it exactly logical to blame her for this? No, it wasn't really her fault. But I can't help it! On an emotional level it ticked me off greatly, and that colored my perceptions of Sakura from 'Yeah, I like her' to 'Eh, I don't really care about her all that much'.

Well, I can't really argue with that, because my perceptions of other characters are coloured in much the same way. Zouken and Shinji I have a lot more hate for than Gil or Kotomine, because they were responsible for Sakura's suffering, and for a while after playing HF I really didn't like Rin because of her treatment of Sakura there.

But, at the same time, I've accepted that Rin doesn't deserve to be blamed for her stupidity in HF, and that she does care, even if she's awful at showing it, and I now like her, to a certain extent.

Well, it still seems somewhat silly to me to not like her because of something she bears no responsibility for, but I guess emotions aren't always rational, so....

[Flinch]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Then hate Zouken. He's the one who was making her do all that (he may not have been in direct control of her when she went out feeding, but he certainly was when she started absorbing servants).

Why hate Zoken when you should hate Tokiomi for giving his daughter to her, knowing full well what he would do to her?

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Flinch

Why hate Zoken when you should hate Tokiomi for giving his daughter to her, knowing full well what he would do to her?

Actually, he didn't know full well what Zouken would do to her.

Spoiler for HF, Fate/Zero:

He may well have had some idea that Sakura's training would involve Zouken using his worms on her, but he certainly didn't know Zouken would treat her like a puppet and use her as a second Grail. If he had, he wouldn't have given her to Zouken, because his reasoning behind doing so was for Sakura to have the chance to become a magus, and Zouken never gave her that in any real sense.

In any case, why are the two options mutually exclusive? I can happily hate both.

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Well, if you exclude the bad ends, yes....

And I do. I mean, I can't really blame anyone for those when I go intentionally looking for them, right? It doesn't count if it's assisted suicide.

Then hate Zouken. He's the one who was making her do all that (he may not have been in direct control of her when she went out feeding, but he certainly was when she started absorbing servants).

Oh, believe me, I do hate Zouken. He's a slimy piece of human garbage in general and possibly the only villain in the game with even less charisma than Shinji (which means a charisma of like, -10,000,000).

Well, I can't really argue with that, because my perceptions of other characters are coloured in much the same way. Zouken and Shinji I have a lot more hate for than Gil or Kotomine, because they were responsible for Sakura's suffering, and for a while after playing HF I really didn't like Rin because of her treatment of Sakura there.

But, at the same time, I've accepted that Rin doesn't deserve to be blamed for her stupidity in HF, and that she does care, even if she's awful at showing it, and I now like her, to a certain extent.

Well, it still seems somewhat silly to me to not like her because of something she bears no responsibility for, but I guess emotions aren't always rational, so....

Like I said, I'm totally aware that none of the bad things that were done by and/or through Sakura were actually her fault.

Aware logically.

Emotionally, that's another story. The connections in my mind have been made and I can't really un-make them. Some small part of me always whispers: 'If she weren't there, none of that would have happened' and although I know it's not fair, it still colors my perception of her. I don't dislike Sakura, but I just can't really bring myself to like her either. She just sort of exists.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Moczo

And I do. I mean, I can't really blame anyone for those when I go intentionally looking for them, right? It doesn't count if it's assisted suicide.

What? Since when did Shirou go intentionally looking for them?

And, in any case, even if they never happened those bad ends show what Ilya was thinking.

Like I said, I'm totally aware that none of the bad things that were done by and/or through Sakura were actually her fault.

Aware logically.

Emotionally, that's another story.

Well, fair enough. I can't really argue with that, even though it seems exceptionally unfair to not care about Sakura because of something you know she isn't responsible for.

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

What? Since when did Shirou go intentionally looking for them?

When I said 'I', I literally meant 'me'. I intentionally went looking for all the bad ends I could find, just to see them happen. So I can't really get angry at anyone for any of them, since I was deliberately trying to end Shirou's life in as many ways as I could

What? I had to get all the Tiger Stamps!

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Moczo

What? I had to get all the Tiger Stamps!

Exactly! Anyone who doesn't get all the Tiger Stamps hasn't played the full game! Granted, they'd have played most of it, but they wouldn't get awesome Ilya in an onsen!

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Moczo

When I said 'I', I literally meant 'me'. I intentionally went looking for all the bad ends I could find, just to see them happen.

Of course. I did the same.

So I can't really get angry at anyone for any of them, since I was deliberately trying to end Shirou's life in as many ways as I could

Yeah, but Ilya still intentionally smashed Shirou into pieces and took his head away so that she could torture it. When he wasn't even a master anymore, either....

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Yeah, but Ilya still intentionally smashed Shirou into pieces and took his head away so that she could torture it. When he wasn't even a master anymore, either....

Well, even ignoring the fact that yeah, it didn't 'actually happen', that was right at the beginning when she had no sense of right and wrong to speak of and was taking out her Daddy Issues on Shirou. I know she's not actually a child, but after a the way she was raised, most indications suggest that her mental age (especially in the field of interpersonal interactions) is roughly equivalent to if not a little younger than she looks. As sick as this scene was, it's actually pretty believable behavior for an angry child who has never been taught that hurting people is wrong. Kids are cruel little bastards, and handing one super-powers is just a recipe for disaster.

I think in the long run, seeing that scene made me like her a little bit more than I would have otherwise, because it really highlights just how much she changed throughout the game, and with very little stimulus. Two or three interactions with Shirou over the course of a few days switched her almost instantly from 'I want to hurt him forever' to 'I want to be with him forever, no matter what', and a few more after that and it's 'I just want him to be my family'. She's just such a blank slate that even tiny little things can drastically alter her character just because she has no idea of how the world works or how to behave around people who aren't crazy wizards. I really enjoy watching her develop from a little psycho into a genuinely lovable little girl. It's some of the more genuinely cheerful character development in the game, for my money; it just seems like a lot of character development in FSN involves people having their worldviews broken down, and Illya is a rare case where it involves her actually building up a real one for the first time ever.

[Cherry_Lover]

Hey, I never said I disliked Ilya, or blamed her for her actions. I would agree pretty well with your assessment, actually, although really you only get to see Ilya's growth in HF.

As for character development, the only person who gets a similar sort of growth is Sakura, really, and in her case it's tempered by the fact that she's going steadily insane (although post-HF she seems to grow a huge amount, and becomes a much more confident person).

[Moczo]

Agreed. Illya is being made from nothing, while Sakura is being pieced together from utter brokenness, but they do have the shared trait of beginning as something that can barely be called human and managing to end as happy, healthy girls. The major difference is that Sakura's character development is being constantly stomped on and her identity re-broken by outside factors.

I've already established the irrational reasons I can't like her, so here's the rational reason I can't dislike her: I respect her a lot. She has to fight tooth and nail for even the slightest shred of a real human identity, and she keeps doing it in spite of the fact that most people would have been rendered catatonic by the things she's experienced. She's a very strong girl; it's a subtle sort of strength, but it's definitely there and I can admire it.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Moczo

Agreed. Illya is being made from nothing, while Sakura is being pieced together from utter brokenness, but they do have the shared trait of beginning as something that can barely be called human and managing to end as happy, healthy girls.

Yeah, that's a fair comparison. Sakura prior to meeting Shirou was nothing more than a shell, really, and Ilya was just a puppet of the Einsberns.

The major difference is that Sakura's character development is being constantly stomped on and her identity re-broken by outside factors.

Yeah, in HF anyway, thanks to Zouken's Xanatos Gambitting and Rin's total obliviousness and sheer stupidity. Like I said, a large part of Sakura's growth comes after the end of the route (there are hints of it in the HF True epilogue, and Hollow Ataraxia really shows it off), whereas Ilya of course can't do that.

She has to fight tooth and nail for even the slightest shred of a real human identity, and she keeps doing it in spite of the fact that most people would have been rendered catatonic by the things she's experienced.

Yeah, Zouken has spent eleven years trying to turn her into nothing more than a tool (I mean, just listen to how he talks about her), and if anything it worked too well for him, because she was so emotionally dead without Shirou that she could just let everything he threw at her bounce right off, and thus he couldn't force her to break in the way that he wanted her to. He needed Shirou to build her back up again so that he had something to break.

Yet, when she has a reason to want to be human again, like she does when she's around Shirou, she is able to do so with no real difficulty, smiling and laughing around him like a normal person would. And, once she's free of Zouken's control, she can blossom into a wonderful, happy human being that you would never be able to tell had been the victim of the most horrendous abuse imaginable for the majority of her childhood.

She's a very strong girl; it's a subtle sort of strength, but it's definitely there and I can admire it.

Yeah, definitely. Sakura is stronger than even Rin, in fact. A lot of people think that she's weak because she doesn't stand up for herself and gives Rider to Shinji instead of fighting in the war herself, but they fail to realise that she doesn't have a choice. If she gets involved in the war, Zouken will end up using her to his benefit, and that will be to the detriment of everyone she loves and cares for.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

I also agree with Flinch and Keroko. Besides, isn't this debate getting things a tad off topic?

It's a character discussion topic, we're discussing characters, how much more on-topic can you get?

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Hang on, so you're complaining about Sakura being responsible for the deaths of other characters, even though she had no knowledge of it, and yet you're giving Ilya (who goes out to kill Shirou (amongst others), and who actually knows what Sakura is doing in HF (from the very beginning, before Shirou even knows that she's a magus) and chooses not to stop it because she knows it'll hurt Shirou) a free pass?

Do I sense a certain amount of hyprocrisy here?

Ilya was badass, Sakura wasn't. Also, Sakura killing people was then used to toss another card on the already large pile of 'pity poor Sakura' cards already on the table, whereas Ilya only waved the card for a moment.

Ilya and Sakura both did bad things, but whereas with Ilya these things are given a moment to shine before being moved aside, with Sakura you are beaten to death with them while the game goes "This is a sad character! You must pity her!" This makes Ilya's sad character status is much more subtle, and therefore -ironically- much stronger for me.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Ilya was badass, Sakura wasn't.

What? When the hell was Ilya ever badass? Sakura was far more badass than Ilya, albeit only in her dark form....

Also, Sakura killing people was then used to toss another card on the already large pile of 'pity poor Sakura' cards already on the table, whereas Ilya only waved the card for a moment.

Oh, so because Sakura had such a bad life, you don't like her? Anyway, that still doesn't justify blaming Sakura for deaths she had no responsibility for whilst not blaming Ilya for the people she killed intentionally.

Ilya and Sakura both did bad things, but whereas with Ilya these things are given a moment to shine before being moved aside, with Sakura you are beaten to death with them while the game goes "This is a sad character! You must pity her!" This makes Ilya's sad character status is much more subtle, and therefore -ironically- much stronger for me.

I can never get how people can say "oh, they made Sakura too sympathetic". It's just plain ridiculous to say that. Also, Sakura never did bad things, Zouken did. Sakura was just the 'tool' he used to do them.

[Arbitres]

What? When the hell was Ilya ever badass? Sakura was far more badass than Ilya, albeit only in her dark form....

Is she could control Berserker, she was badass.

I can never get how people can say "oh, they made Sakura too sympathetic". It's just plain ridiculous to say that. Also, Sakura never did bad things, Zouken did. Sakura was just the 'tool' he used to do them.

She never did bad things, no. I don't think Keroko ever said that, actually. What of Sakura's character isn't sad? Even her love for Shirou can be pretty depressing.