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Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Well, I very much doubt Nasu wrote HF to be boring and full of plot-holes, so if I don't find it to be and you do then it's more likely that I've read it properly than that you have.

Well, there were originally going to be more routes. At least one for Ilya. It's quite possible that her's would've filled in holes, or that pieces from her route were taken and put in Sakura's, but wasn't thoroughly continuity checked before being implemented. There's all sorts of reasons why there can be inconsistencies.

Shirou doesn't start out like Kiritsugu. He does borrow his ideal, yes, but he borrows the idealistic version of it, which is to save everyone, and he follows that whole-heartedly, because it fits well with who he is as a person. But, of course, the war makes him realise that he has to compromise, and his emphasis has to vary a bit. In Fate, it mostly stays intact, in UBW he accepts that it is sometimes necessary to kill one to save many (although, notably, he never has to put it into practice) but in HF he realises that his true wish is not to see people cry, and to prevent the people in front of him getting hurt, and he follows that. It's the same realisation Archer came to, only he came to it too late.

Well, either way he has to choose for someone to die. Ilya tells him that much right out, he just doesn't get why she says so.

Just because he says it, it doesn't make it true. And in any case, like I said, he doesn't stick to his ideals in the other two routes (especially Fate). He tries the best he can to save everyone, and mostly succeeds. He doesn't go against them in Fate or UBW simply because he never has to.

This wording is confusing. At one point you say he goes against his ideals in Fate, but then later you say he doesn't.

Well, the souls are inside her, and we know full well that they can interact with her, because the souls inside Sakura are what form the shadow (coupled with her connection to Angra Mainyu). It's not a case of communicating with him, either, it's a case of her simply looking at what's inside her. I'm pretty sure this is a canon explanation, too, although I don't know if it comes from the game itself or from elsewhere.

Didn't the Shadow appear long before any Servant had been killed? Or did True Assassin kill Caster by then? I forget. Besides, how does "looking inside her" tell her that Archer = Shirou? It's not like she had Shirou inside of her to make a comparison.

That's how the Assassin class works. An Assassin can't normally be a Hero, because Assassins are, by their very definition, anonymous.

That's not how it worked prior to HF, which is exactly my point. And assassins don't need to be anonymous, just stealthy. I'd say pretty much any famous "ninja" would classify for the assassin class with ease.

If anything is absurd, it's the idea that False Assassin could fit in that class, because he's clearly not one.

I don't see how that's any more absurd than Shirou or Gilgamesh being "Archers", when that certainly isn't their claim to fame.

And the name "True Assassin" is simply a way of distinguishing between the Hassan Assassin and the Fake Assassin summoned by Caster (who is a Fake Assassin since he quite clearly doesn't belong in the class, since he's not known for, you know, assassinating people).

Again, Gilgamesh isn't known for shooting people with a bow, either. We don't really know enough about the classes to dictate the exact specifications needed to qualify for them, especially when someone like Hercules has his bow turned into an axe-sword.