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Originally Posted by Sorrow-K
For the most part, I agree with you... except here. To be momentarily cynical (lol) death in all literature is generally done as a cry for sympathy for a character, which is why it's best used when the audience actually cares about the dying character. In Rider's case,she hadn't really given the audience a chance or reason to care for her, otther than that ass... oh my...so her death was merely a progression in the plot as opposed to any final development for a character. Which is why I think it was a crappy death scene, because there's no reason why they couldn't have explored her backstory and given the audience a reason to care that she died. Of course, the possibility exists that she isn't dead... Anyway, my point is that I think her character is an example of wasted potential.
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Which is largely why I am glad that Rider is gone. From the start, I haven't considered her a very interesting character at all - I've been enjoying the Rider scenes mostly because of Shinji. He's just so much fun to watch, and I can just imagine how much fun his character is to write as well (note to self: write something with a Shinji-esque character. Soon.). Rider is in the anime solely for the fanservice (which, in her case, has been over the top. I've come cloes to cringing in some of her scenes), and to give us a vehicle to explore Saber's relative power - Rin and Saber tell us how powerful Rider must be, due to her Noble Phantasm, and then despite this Saber quite efficiently disposes of her. Rider's death isn't show here as a character development for Rider (as she has little character to speak of) but rather as character development for Saber.
This however could have been achieved with a more 3D character than Rider was. There were hints of Rider's character in episode 8, where she talked to Shirou as she escorted him to the gate, but the only other development of hers was that of a rather bloodthirsty maniac (fights with Caster; Saber; Saber) who cared only for killing. And in that sense, she's very disposable.
To address another point, that of death in literature (sorry for this out of order response!), I'd be forced to disagree with you here. Death of a character isn't necessarily designed to create sympathy for a character. Death can result for a number of reasons, sympathising with a character is but one of them. Death can be trivial or important in writing, it can be random or necessary. For some 'useless' deaths in what would be considered to be literature - have a read of Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. Tell me, at the end, if you've actually had a sympathetic response for the characters who have died or not - if you have (for all of them) it'll be somewhat surprising.
Basically, death of a character isn't always an important thing - Rider's death is a case in point. It could have been done better, but it wasn't, as it wasn't considered important - it seems more of a 'tick the box in the game event list' occurrence. And since every one of Rider's scenes felt this way, her death is inconsequential. Much like the rest of her appearances in the anime, in a character sense at least.
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Also, as far as the fight scene was concerned, I'm convinced that the problem wasn't pacing, but the fact that they used so many shounen action cliches. It just killed the atmosphere, IMO.
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Being as I'm neither a watcher nor an admirer of shounen action anime, I can't really comment here. But my references to pacing are due largely to timing (which might be what you'd refer to as a shounen action cliché.) I am aware of what might be a cliché (through a younger sibling's former fascination with DBZ) of the 'silly talking whilst fighting' scenes, but my gripes come with a few of the shots used. Watch the fight scene with Rider and Saber again. When they are fighting up the building, the actual pace
feels correct. It's great. Now, flash forward to when Rider 'summons' Bellerophon. She then (from, oh, about a klick away) does her headlong dive towards Saber. Based at the speed at which she is moving, she should get there in less than ten seconds. What does Saber do?
Charges her sword, (Rider screams "Bellerophon"), speaks of how she agrees for about ten seconds (Rider looks about 500m metres away from a sight estimate) forms Excalibur, poses with it whilst Shirou wonders, "a golden sword?" (timed at fifteen seconds between formation and then usage) then slices the air and hits Rider and Pegasus (who still haven't covered that last 200m). So, Rider and Bellerophon were either charging
really slowly (perhaps they were simply letting gravity do all the work!), or the Powers That Be™ decided that they should be as dramatic as possible - by drawing out something that
should have taken about twenty seconds of real time (judging by Rider's speed) to over a minute and a half.
That is what I meant by a pacing/timing problem. Events are poorly timed. That's not the only one
And on another note, just re: Riders' possible continued existence, after we see Excalibur from a distance (and still a good 30 seconds before Sakura chants/speaks) we see a wide shot from Rin's perspective of the scene - Pegasus and Rider have vanished from the sky, there's no 'white light' or beam anywhere around - so she's either disappeared or died. And since for her to disappear in time would require a command spell (opinion here), and since Shinji doesn't use one (book burns), and Sakura
couldn't be using one on screen for a good half a minute... Sorry people, but I don't see a viable Rider Resurrection happening, unless they just want to mess with continuity. Which would be bad. Bad direction, bad production, bad writing. And that isn't acceptable. ^_^
Edited to include:
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Originally Posted by Angelsama
I'm not saying Rider is alive, but did you see her body explode? I know i didn't..
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Not her body per se, no. Rewatching the scene, however, there
is an explosion midair at the intersection point between Rider and Excalibur's beam, her light is no longer extant a moment later (see above), her mask does shatter, and the fact that Sakura isn't talking until a good seventy seconds later does seem rather irreconcileable - unless they're planning to say "surprise!" later - which, as I stated before, is bad writing... cheap and cheating, I would also say
-Andiyar
Author
). Despite this, Saber spins her whirlwind, forms Excalibur... and then freezes in a rather (my apologies) silly looking pose, before shouting Ex..... Calibur! The pose? Should not have happened, or if it had to happen, less length, less silliness. The shout was way too drawn out - they way she shouts it is more like she is (rather slowly) shouting Ex Calibur (cut steel) than Excalibur as a drawn out word. It would have worked a lot better if she shouted Excalibur as one word when she was swinging the sword, and then the explosion took place, rather then paddng the word out. Pacing.
