Fate/Zero - Episode 16 Discussion / Poll

[Vicious108]

Originally Posted by Xagzan

I also liked the Mercutio vibes I got from Lancer at his death, the way he met his end because of another's battle, and the curses he called upon all of them, even Saber, kind of a "plague on all your grail wishes!" or something like that

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought of him. I'm a sucker for characters who, as they die, ominously foretell the survivors' miserable fate. And Lancer's curse was every bit as good as Mercutio's, which did come true in a way, so I'd watch out if I were Kiritsugu and the rest.

[jonli]

My favourite episode yet.

Surprised me more than a few times.

Spoiler for stuff:

That arm chopping, that shooting priest, that backstabbing your own servant, and then that Emiya backstabbing...coupled with I won't end your life cuz it's against the contract...you just keep on suffering mate.

Poor Lancer...he got nothing. Didn't get to serve his master well, didn't get to win the grail, didn't get to complete his honor and didn't even get to have one last sexy awesome fight with Saber at full strength. Then when he thought they could compromise....

Well shit...at least it was a pretty brutal end for Sola

[kitten320]

Poor Lancer, he deserved better. It was painful to watch him ye at the same time epic. I had to re-watch his last moment several times.

[Paranoid Android]

SOOO sad. Kayneth should have been a selfish A-hole to the end. But he gave up the grill (I DEMAND ALL THE BACON) for his wife ;___; It's terrible because his wife never woke up to hear his devotion.

And Lancer makes me even more sad. But it's lancer. I thought of mercutio as well once he said he's gonna curse that the grill will bring disaster. This is probably my favorite mid-series major character death in anime.

I call hacks. Someone needs to nerf Maiyu. She's clearly overpowered. :P

[GDB]

Fiance, not wife. And Maiya, not Maiyu.

[Vicious108]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Android

It's terrible because his wife never woke up to hear his devotion.

Honestly, knowing Sola, Kayneth was probably better off that way, since I doubt her reaction would've been any good anyway. Most likely she would've hated his guts even more for sacrificing her sexy knight in shining armor.

I call hacks. Someone needs to nerf Maiyu. She's clearly overpowered. :P

I realize you're joking, but all she did in the end was cut off someone's arm while they weren't looking and sniping two immobile targets, one on a wheelchair and the other unconscious. Wasn't a particularly difficult job. The day she manages to stand up to Kirei in combat, I might accept her as OP.

[blue_sora]

So now the Ep 17 preview screenshots are out, so people who doesn't like early spoilers should avoid open this :

Spoiler for Ep 17: The Agreement:

[Shiryuu]

Saber needs to man up and be more like Gilgamesh. Her chivalry is basically all talk. If she was for real, it wouldn't matter if she's forced to commit suicide.

[LostHanyou]

Dat evil Kirei glare

[Ithekro]

Iris must be pretty bad off to let someone else drive her fun-mobile.

[GDB]

She's been having Saber drive for her ever since Assassin was defeated. Saber even made mention of it in the BD version of episode 12.

[Craxuan]

Ah well, that's one degeneration done. Now I shall await for the final episode (of course there are major stuff happening in between but I don't believe that the animation could portray them as well as words) to watch Kiritsugu's final determination.

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by GDB

She's been having Saber drive for her ever since Assassin was defeated. Saber even made mention of it in the BD version of episode 12.

Well she needs to get Saber out of her toy dammit. The only driver worthy of hauling tail in that vehicle is Iri.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by GuidoHunter_Toki

Well she needs to get Saber out of her toy dammit. The only driver worthy of hauling tail in that vehicle is Iri.

iri already explain in ep12, that she can't.

[lightsenshi]

When dealing with Chivalry, you're having a specific code of conduct which is ultimately designed to minimize the effects of warfare on the general populace. The degree depends on what century you're talking about, actually. The older versions are much more a warrior code and less flowery. The later versions are the ones that we're most familiar with because they've been so romanticized.

Even during the First World War, the effect on the populace in general is rather limited. If you look back, the effects on general populace tend to be limited to taxes and food shortages. As a general rule, those who did the fighting did the dying. There were, of course, exceptions (even Sherman's March was confined mostly to property damage rather than slaughter of citizenry) but every war fought until this century followed the same general pattern.

It's not until the Second World War that we see civilian casualties taking an abrupt rise. The concept of total war until that point extended to destruction of material goods rather than the wholesale slaughter of people. Dead people aren't productive.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by lightsenshi

When dealing with Chivalry, you're having a specific code of conduct which is ultimately designed to minimize the effects of warfare on the general populace. The degree depends on what century you're talking about, actually. The older versions are much more a warrior code and less flowery. The later versions are the ones that we're most familiar with because they've been so romanticized.

Even during the First World War, the effect on the populace in general is rather limited. If you look back, the effects on general populace tend to be limited to taxes and food shortages. As a general rule, those who did the fighting did the dying. There were, of course, exceptions (even Sherman's March was confined mostly to property damage rather than slaughter of citizenry) but every war fought until this century followed the same general pattern.

It's not until the Second World War that we see civilian casualties taking an abrupt rise. The concept of total war until that point extended to destruction of material goods rather than the wholesale slaughter of people. Dead people aren't productive.

Please research 30 years War. You have no idea what you are talking about.

[Lordarrow]

Lancer may be stupid to a fault but he really was a good guy. He didn't really hate anyone and all he wanted was to regain his honor. Damn Kirigitsu to hell and beyond.

As for my final words on this matter. If you all couldn't tell by what I previously wrote, what Kirigitsu did really boils my blood. I hate nothing more than a corrupted idealist who assumes the mantle of some kind of efficient and emotionless pragmatist. He is really no worse than a mass serial killer.

Clarification: To some who continue to defend him and his actions, what I 'm actually saying is that your entire premises is flawed. Your conclusions are based on accepting Kirigitsu as he says regarding what he is doing as an absolute truth and not on a deeper analysis of his actions as well as his background. Furthermore, juxtaposing off-tangent subjects are not valid arguments to my analyses. It may be true that war is hell and and that the most pragmatic are the victors of war. However, that is relevant/true only if your assumptions of Kirigitsu as a emotionless, combat pragmatic are also true. Which I reject. You cannot use conclusions to justify premises. In regard to the ad hominem arguments. You can say that I be a naive idealist who who can't accept that war is hell and that bad things happen to good people. That may be true, however that does not mean that my theories are false.

I suppose Kirigitsu's decisions could be 100%, the best possible options supposed that he be some supremely rational, omniscient, and pragmatic machine. But he is not. He is human and as a human, he will make errors and bad judgments. That is the fallacy of human judgment. The claim that his decisions have to be the best and most pragmatic options in winning the war is therefore fallacious in itself. We don't know every option that could have been made and neither would Kirigitsu.

Furthermore, for Kirigitsu, everything he does is on his own judgement and as such is really accountable to no one. Because of that, as a human, he is even more prone to oversight by the very fact that he is accountable to really no one but himself. There is no second or third, fourth, and etc. opinions to be found. There is a reason why we need supervisors, co-workers, teammates, managers, superiors, teacher assistants. Multiple perspectives check the lapses in human error and broaden the option pool. No such systems in place to check Kirigitsu because he operates outside the system as a assassin/hit-man/magus killer. Btw, Maiya doesn't count because she's more or less a enabler of Kirigitsu. Seeing how easily Kirigutsu smuggles guns and explosives into japan. There is also really no modern technology counters to magic. Kirigitsu is basically given free reign to do as he pleases and kill as many as he wants to achieve his objectives.

The whole killing one to save ten, or hundred to save a thousand is complete bunk. More so, because its not possible to determine how many will be saved should you kill such and such. The butterfly effect comes to mind. A single small event can have multiple,varied, and unpredictable outcomes. This is also true for reality.For all we know killing such and such people would kill even more people than would be saved. I shall also call it the assassinate Hitler dilemma. Suppose we go back in time to kill hitler and we succeed. We save millions. However, since we killed Hitler and now since the world doesn't have the experience of such inhuman atrocities. The world is unprepared for a worse, more inhuman dictator that even Hitler. This time, a billion people are wiped out. Could we have predicted as such? The answer is NO. We wanted to save many people at the cost of one life but instead we caused the death toll to rise exponentially. I would say that this way of looking at "saving" people is just simply impossible. Therefore, I would postulate this argument for kirigitsu, is is simply a excuse to himself and to others as why he couldn't have bothered to come up with better solutions. (Becuse he doesn't have to and subsequently doesn't want to). Recall the boat dilemma from the VN.

Also as a more personal note.His focus on how many he can minimally kill to save such and such amount of people, rather than how many he can save by killing such and such. This to me, really means that he is more focused on the killing rather than the saving.

So what do we have in the end? A stand alone, uninhibited, assassin with supernatural powers and no regards for human life? I'd say a mass killer is a apt description for such a person. It is more chilling, that near the end he said he would stain all evils in the world in order to save it. So to answer a question whether or not he would cause a mass genocide. He sure would. Whats the lives of a couple million if you can save untold billions in the future? The real paradox is when he learns through his own personal life and experience that it is impossible everyone can be saved but yet he wants to save everyone through the grail forever. Oh the irony of his beliefs. He is an idealist pretending to be a pragmatist.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Lordarrow

The whole killing one to save ten, or hundred to save a thousand is complete bunk. More so, because its not possible to determine how many will be saved should you kill such and such.

In real life, sure. But the winner of this is said to get an omnipotent wish granting device. That means that, if his wish is granted, he would literally save everybody. It's not a "few thousand" he'd save, it'd be a "few billion".

[Lordarrow]

[QUOTE=GDB;4129274]In real life, sure. But the winner of this is said to get an omnipotent wish granting device. That means that, if his wish is granted, he would literally save everybody. It's not a "few thousand" he'd save, it'd be a "few billion".[/QUOTE

Kirigitsu used this justification as his life philosophy before the grail war. It was crazy then even when he lacked the knowledge of the grail war. Yet he still believed in it.

The grail is the only possible exception to the rule and that was when he was actually chosen to be a participant in it.

[erneiz_hyde]

I don't read the novels, but if I remember right, Kiritsugu was famous as the "mage hunter", he kills mages before breakfast.
As we know, mages, even the relatively good ones tend to not care about the lives of muggles, let alone the less-good ones. So, killing a mage could potentially save the life of more people, in the event that a mage went rogue and did some vile researches (if they hadn't already). The reason Tokiomi and the gang wanted to stop caster wasn't because they resented the atrocities he did, but rather because he did it too flashily.