One reason why Fate/Stay Night sucked.

No, we’ve already established that DEEN haet eroge and doozin(Again, another bad pun from #shrinemaiden @ irc.pyoko.org). This is pertaining to not just the animated series, but also the game itself.

I’ve been reading Character Development And Storytelling For Games by Lee Sheldon  (ISBN: 1-59200-353-2, Library of Congress Catalog Card No: 2003115725, Amazon Link) And well, I’m reminded of the time I took Storyboarding and Scripting (if you must know, I am doing Creative Game Design and I knew this book would come in handy). One of the essential things that a story needs is for the main character to be radically changed, either in body, spirit or paradigms of thought, aka the main character has to develop and grow, aka he or she has to be somewhere else but here.

Looking back at what I’ve watched up till now and what I’ve read about the Fate Arc (which was essentially animated), we can safely assume TYPE-MOON picked the wrong arc to animate, because, well, the Fate Arc was shit. Character progression-wise.

To quote from the book, “There is only one realm in which characters defy natural laws and remain the same – the realm of bad writing. And it is the fixed nature of the characters which makes the writing bad. If a character in a short story, novel, or play (or in this case, anime and/or visual novel, or game) occupies the same position at the end as the one he did at the beginning, that story, novel or play is bad.” Okay, so I’m actually quoting Lajos Egri’s The Art Of Dramatic Writing (ISBN: 0-67121-332-6, Amazon Link) , but that’s immaterial.  Point is, Other than Saber’s  character going imperceptibly small changes(depending on how you see it) in her personality, what of Emiya Shirou, the main character? Apart from gaining the ability to shoot swords out of his hands and make uberhax scabbards, does his mental and psychological processes undergo a huge change? Does he realize his silly dream, or does he see the harsh truth about being a hero? In all respects, Shirou’s thoughts are as unchanged as the day we meet him. His wanting to be a hero has annoyed the hell out of us, and he still annoys us to the end. And then some. His core personality has yet to undergo a dramatic change. He has, as Lajos Egri says, defied natural laws (not all that hard considering Nasu’s earlier works) and stayed the same.

I’m not one to argue with a guy who wrote the best-selling visual novel of all time, but what the hell was Nasu thinking of when he penned the Fate Arc? I mean, Tsukihime kinda starts out the same way, but but Jove, Shiki is a changed man after turning Arc into delicious cuts of meat, killing Nero twice, Roa twice, killing himself, his beloved little sister not related by blood, SHIKI three times, watched Kohaku commit suicide, blahblahblah. If Nasu wanted to lay the foundation of UBW and Heaven’s Feel, well, I don’t think this is the way to do it. Again, I don’t want to criticize my idol, but as far as writers go, they are human, and humans goof up sometimes.

But is Fate truly a piece of shit? I leave it up to you to decide. General popularity assumes Heaven’s Feel was too much for the average Japanese otaku to bear, but personally, I found it to be a much better story than Fate. (And well, we all know UBW was ALL ABOUT ARCHER EMIYA and Rin, not that Shirou feller.)  Heaven’s Feel is really a good representative of what Nasu does best; exploring (and wallowing in) the dark side of characters. Hell, Tsukihime did the same thing(5 FREAKIN’ TIMES!), and became the best-selling visual novel of all time. As for me, the Fate Arc was the opposite of what Nasu does best. To me, it was one of the worst pieces of writing to come from the guy. And knowing he can, and has done better only makes me realize how incredibly shitty the Fate arc really is.

And this is coming from me, an overt Nasu fanboy. Fuck, I love Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night (and their respective fundiscs, Nasu does humour really well too!), but realizing this has got to be crushing, even mindblowing. But I have a greater purpose to fufill here, one to good storytelling, and that takes precedence over any silly fanboy sentiments.
So there you have it. The Fate arc is shit because Shirou still remains the clueless idiot he was when we first met him.  Apart from him gaining the ability to fire swords from his hands and make uberhax scabbards.

This makes me wish Archer killed him when he had the chance.