Favourite Fate/stay night Character(s) Poll

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Well, I'd say that Fate is more White and Grey morality, really, although even that is somewhat dubious given just how awful Zouken, in particular, is. Shirou is pretty much pure good, even in HF (sorry, but refusing to kill an innocent girl does not make you in any way "Grey" in morality, and indeed the converse would), and Rin, Saber and Sakura mostly are. All of the villains have some sympathetic parts to their backstory, but that doesn't stop some of them (Zouken in particular) being a Complete Monster.

I agree there. I like Gil and villains like the Joker but those like Zouken... yeah... I despise them.

[willyvereb]

Originally Posted by Haak

Zoken was okay but I felt he could've been better (and by better i mean more easy to hate)

Read Fate/Zero. You are going to rage at Zouken.

[Haak]

Ah yes, I've already read the first couple of chapters. Very rage inducing...

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by willyvereb

Read Fate/Zero. You are going to rage at Zouken.

Yes... I plan to read it despite to inevitable rage. Right after I get an eReader, lol.

[Arbitres]

Uhhh, hey... guys, people. Fair ladies and gentlemen of all communities and walks of life - what is there not to hate about Zouken?

His tenacity to live is sickening. The length he goes to just to prolong his life? God damn, I don't know where to start.

He is the one that put Sakura into her situation - a direct effect of that is Shinji.

Great villain, super easy to hate. Reminds me I need to make an effirgy of him sometime and shank the living hell out of it. :|

[Haak]

You have to make sure it's not contrived. I can understand him being brutally practical in his desire to become immortal, but not his sadism.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Haak

Zoken was okay but I felt he could've been better (and by better i mean more easy to hate)

Really? The guy is a mass-murdering child rapist who tortured Sakura for eleven years and turned her into an Eldritch abomination, with the full intention of taking over her body when she got powerful enough.

How exactly could be be made "more easy to hate"?

Originally Posted by Haak

You have to make sure it's not contrived. I can understand him being brutally practical in his desire to become immortal, but not his sadism.

The thing is, he's not overly sadistic (no more so than your average villain, certainly). He tortures Sakura because he has to, as part of his plan. He needs her to break so he can control her, and he needs her to be able to cope with pain so that she can cope with being the Grail. Not to mention that the only way he is able to 'teach' her magic is by raping her with penis worms....

Zouken's actions are actually somewhat realistic. He does show some occasional flashes of sadism, but he's not actually torturing Sakura for the sake of it, and he shows in HF that he is capable of feigning kindness when it suits him.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Really? The guy is a mass-murdering child rapist who tortured Sakura for eleven years and turned her into an Eldritch abomination, with the full intention of taking over her body when she got powerful enough.

How exactly could be be made "more easy to hate"?

More screentime. I know it sounds odd but we didn't actually see a lot him. We saw plenty but I feel if we saw more of him being the insufferable asshole that he is I would've been able to build up more utter hatred for him.

The thing is, he's not overly sadistic (no more so than your average villain, certainly). He tortures Sakura because he has to, as part of his plan. He needs her to break so he can control her, and he needs her to be able to cope with pain so that she can cope with being the Grail. Not to mention that the only way he is able to 'teach' her magic is by raping her with penis worms....

Zouken's actions are actually somewhat realistic. He does show some occasional flashes of sadism, but he's not actually torturing Sakura for the sake of it, and he shows in HF that he is capable of feigning kindness when it suits him.

Eh. I vaguely recall somewhere in the narrative at some point that he did something primarily to appease his sadism, but I'm not sure...

Anyway, I'm not saying he's lacking in anything. I'm just saying there was room for more.

[willyvereb]

Yes, Zouken IS a sadist. He's suffering from constant pain of his rotten body and he loves to inflict similar pain on others. On the other hand he's a genius and coldhearted mage and dead-calculating. He does everything with a certain intention and objective but does so in a way to appease his thirst for suffering.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by willyvereb

Yes, Zouken IS a sadist. He's suffering from constant pain of his rotten body and he loves to inflict similar pain on others. On the other hand he's a genius and coldhearted mage and dead-calculating. He does everything with a certain intention and objective but does so in a way to appease his thirst for suffering.

Oh yeah, now I remember! >: D

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by willyvereb

Yes, Zouken IS a sadist. He's suffering from constant pain of his rotten body and he loves to inflict similar pain on others. On the other hand he's a genius and coldhearted mage and dead-calculating. He does everything with a certain intention and objective but does so in a way to appease his thirst for suffering.

Actually, I don't buy this. There's nothing anywhere in the game that suggests that he actually enjoys torturing Sakura, at least not unduly. Kariya is somewhat different, because Zouken actually hates him, due to him abandoning the family in the past.

Zouken is calculating rather than sadistic, and if the best way of getting what he wanted was to treat Sakura like a princess, then that's what he'd have done.

Originally Posted by Haak

More screentime. I know it sounds odd but we didn't actually see a lot him. We saw plenty but I feel if we saw more of him being the insufferable asshole that he is I would've been able to build up more utter hatred for him.

Well, for me HF was enough to make me firmly hate the guy, although it's more because we see the effects of his actions on Sakura than the actions themselves. However, if HF doesn't show enough assholery for your liking, then Zero certainly makes up for it....

Eh. I vaguely recall somewhere in the narrative at some point that he did something primarily to appease his sadism, but I'm not sure...

Spoiler for Fate/Zero:

I think he does it in Zero with Kariya. In particular, he feeds Kariya a worm the worm that he'd used to deflower Sakura, in order to boost his prana supply and allow him to continue fighting. However, I think that's more because he has a grudge against Kariya (for walking out on him when he was the first Matou in generations to have genuine magical talent) than that he's overly sadistic. He does show some signs of sadism, but equally he's capable of being kind when he has to be, and I don't think he'd torture Sakura for the sake of it.

[willyvereb]

Spoilers Cherry Lover. The spoilers...
Fate/Zero isn't part of the common knowledge.
EDIT: Thank you.

[Altima of the Gates]

Actually, I don't buy this. There's nothing anywhere in the game that suggests that he actually enjoys torturing Sakura, at least not unduly. Kariya is somewhat different, because Zouken actually hates him, due to him abandoning the family in the past.

Zouken is calculating rather than sadistic, and if the best way of getting what he wanted was to treat Sakura like a princess, then that's what he'd have done.

Actually, and I have talked with you about this, the training alone should be enough, and he did it early enough for it to stick psychologically. The poisoning of her food really wasn't necessary, since he basically made her feel enough pain during training and the constant pain of the worms.

Spoiler for Some HF stuff:

Plus Sakura even mentions how she basically heard him and Byakuya enjoy when she was tortured or cried out. It's a slippery slop to say that it was just because it followed suit with their plans that they expressed delight at her suffering. There IS sadism there.

Plus this scene especially:

Even True Assassin, when he hears Zouken cackling at Sakura transfiguring into the avatar of Angra Mainyu and suffering from having her soul being ripped asunder from the World denying her, thinks his methods are a bit much.

[DragoZERO]

Yes... let's use spoiler tags, thank you.

Spoiler for VN: Heaven's Feel:

Wow... I can't believe how much of HF I have blocked out of my memory. It was that bad for me.

[/rage]

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Altima of the Gates

Actually, and I have talked with you about this, the training alone should be enough, and he did it early enough for it to stick psychologically. The poisoning of her food really wasn't necessary, since he basically made her feel enough pain during training and the constant pain of the worms.

Spoiler for HF:

Well, possibly, but I get the impression that he decided that the more he did, the more likely it was that he could break her and turn her into a Grail like he intended.

Spoiler for Some HF stuff:

Plus Sakura even mentions how she basically heard him and Byakuya enjoy when she was tortured or cried out. It's a slippery slop to say that it was just because it followed suit with their plans that they expressed delight at her suffering. There IS sadism there.

Well, she said that they laughed at her suffering, saying it would make her a "better magus", but I don't think that necessarily means that he's sadistic. He just enjoyed the fact that his plans were working....

Plus this scene especially:

I've explained that to you before. What he's enjoying is not Sakura's suffering, but her transformation into Angra Mainyu, and the fact that all his 'efforts' over the last eleven years seem to actually be paying off. He's enjoying watching Sakura suffer because every agonised scream brings him closer to his goal.

Even True Assassin, when he hears Zouken cackling at Sakura transfiguring into the avatar of Angra Mainyu and suffering from having her soul being ripped asunder from the World denying her, thinks his methods are a bit much.

I haven't bothered to re-watch the video (it's too long), but from what I recall of it, True Assassin's problem was more that he was (seemingly) leaving too much to chance, rather than dealing with potential problems as they arose.

[aldw]

I for one always had the impression of Zouken being a Cold-hearted bastard ala Gendo Ikari rather than a strict sadist throughout HF

Spoiler for HF:

particularly when the point about his relationship with Justica von Einzebern was mentioned.

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Yes... let's use spoiler tags, thank you.

Spoiler for VN: Heaven's Feel:

Wow... I can't believe how much of HF I have blocked out of my memory. It was that bad for me.

[/rage]

I can sympathize, particularly since if the transition between the other routes and HF had been better handled the narrative changes would have flowed better and made more clear cut sense (particularly wrt Zouken's level of participation).

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by aldw

I for one always had the impression of Zouken being a Cold-hearted bastard ala Gendo Ikari rather than a strict sadist throughout HF

Spoiler for HF:

particularly when the point about his relationship with Justica von Einzebern was mentioned.

Yeah, that's the impression I have of him too.

Spoiler for HF:

He doesn't even think of Sakura as being a person at all, he thinks of her as a tool. So, it doesn't make sense for him to be interested in making her suffer, because for him to want that he has to recognise that she's actually a living being rather than a tool to use for his own purposes and then abandon once he's finished with her.

I can sympathize, particularly since if the transition between the other routes and HF had been better handled the narrative changes would have flowed better and made more clear cut sense (particularly wrt Zouken's level of participation).

It makes perfect sense.

Spoiler for HF:

Zouken gets involved in HF because he is able to activate Sakura, due to her increased contact with Shirou and his apparent extra interest in her. As a result, he manipulates her into a situation where she is forced to be involved in the war and manipulates Shinji into abusing her severely enough that Shirou will offer to let her stay there in order to protect her (which, of course, both pisses Shinji off more and gives her some level of hope which he can later break in order to turn her Dark).

[Altima of the Gates]

@aldw:

I can sympathize, particularly since if the transition between the other routes and HF had been better handled the narrative changes would have flowed better and made more clear cut sense (particularly wrt Zouken's level of participation).

I think he meant to say that the scene was brutal for him, so he blocked it out. Not that the other routes couldn't do with better in pacing as well, mind you...

People complain about the cooking scenes, but it was there that pure character development occurred, which many missed because it didn't have blood flowing or weapons flying. The characters became "people" during these scenes, instead of fancy killbots. The one thing you can complain about in HF was that it had a huuuuuge amount of info to dump, so it was hard to take it all in. Sakura's situation is so brutal, that many feel it to be too much to handle all at once(or that it is too unbelievable, but remember, we are dealing with the world of magic here, people can be that cruel in real life, why can't they be even more so with supernatural abilities?), but that is what you are delivered with.

[aldw]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

It makes perfect sense.

Spoiler for HF:

Zouken gets involved in HF because he is able to activate Sakura, due to her increased contact with Shirou and his apparent extra interest in her. As a result, he manipulates her into a situation where she is forced to be involved in the war and manipulates Shinji into abusing her severely enough that Shirou will offer to let her stay there in order to protect her (which, of course, both pisses Shinji off more and gives her some level of hope which he can later break in order to turn her Dark).

This was something I've felt that should have at least been hinted at in terms of his disappointment with Shinji in the prior two arcs, otherwise HF is the equivalent of being 10 dimensionals levels away (using a Sliders analogy) whereas Fate and UBW are 1-2 levels separate from each other. Just because it makes sense to you doesn't make it a good narrative technique. Even the X-Files in its worst writing days (and it did have quite a few) as a case in point didn't make that sort of disjointed narrative within its overarching themes, nor Tsukihime for that matter.

Originally Posted by Altima of the Gates

@aldw:

I think he meant to say that the scene was brutal for him, so he blocked it out. Not that the other routes couldn't do with better in pacing as well, mind you...

People complain about the cooking scenes, but it was there that pure character development occurred, which many missed because it didn't have blood flowing or weapons flying. The characters became "people" during these scenes, instead of fancy killbots. The one thing you can complain about in HF was that it had a huuuuuge amount of info to dump, so it was hard to take it all in. Sakura's situation is so brutal, that many feel it to be too much to handle all at once(or that it is too unbelievable, but remember, we are dealing with the world of magic here, people can be that cruel in real life, why can't they be even more so with supernatural abilities?), but that is what you are delivered with.

The years of dealing with the crap from Evangelion storytelling and the fans et al on top of various other narrative nastiness both original story and fanfiction just makes me utterly inured about that sort of darkness in storywriting, on top of the real life sorts I've seen, but it makes perfect sense to block out the nasty stuff in a story if that wasn't something you like or wanted (like the use of guro in a story to demonstrate a character's character for instance). Wrt HF, if anything the cooking scenes were something I felt did help move the story while the sex scenes much more so that the violence seemed gratuitous. In that sense the Realta Nua editing of HF I strongly agreed with.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by aldw

This was something I've felt that should have at least been hinted at in terms of his disappointment with Shinji in the prior two arcs, otherwise HF is the equivalent of being 10 dimensionals levels away (using a Sliders analogy) whereas Fate and UBW are 1-2 levels separate from each other. Just because it makes sense to you doesn't make it a good narrative technique. Even the X-Files in its worst writing days (and it did have quite a few) as a case in point didn't make that sort of disjointed narrative within its overarching themes, nor Tsukihime for that matter.

He's not even mentioned in the other two arcs, and I'd imagine that his disappointment with Shinji should be obvious from the fact that Shinji is a total and utter waste of space....

But, anyway, his opinion of Shinji is irrelevant. All Shinji ever is to him is a Xanatos Sucker to further his plans, whether that be fighting the Grail War in Sakura's place and getting himself killed or in moving on Zouken's plans in HF by abusing Sakura and, eventually, giving his life so that she'll finally break.