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In Fate/Stay Night, Saber was the proud King of Knights turned into a waifu, pure and simple. No, this is not automatically a bad thing since it was the source of some great comedy (I loved Carnival Phantasm), but let's look at her a bit.

She walked like a knight, talked like a knight, but fought in a battle dress that wasn't knightly in the slightest. She was a source of harem jokes, which made sense because of the nature of Fate/Stay Night, but it, in all honesty, added nothing of significance to her character. At some point, her history made no relevance to the plot, and her wish to save Britain from being destroyed and her sword were her only connections to the King Arthur legend. Perhaps it was a sign for her to move on and live in the present, but her potential as a dynamic character was completely wasted. Plus, Saber herself was continuously screwed over in each route. She got stuck with the worst master (though circumstances can forgive that), she never got her wish (though it wouldn't work out anyways), she was always fighting with a handicap (blame the plot), she turned evil (again, due to plot), she was mercy killed (one of the most memorable parts of Heaven's Feel), and put into a pretty little dress and teased by Caster (no excuse for that). She never got the chance to shine.


Gen Urobuchi's Saber

In Fate/zero, I was always surprised about how much better Saber's character was, and it took me a while to figure out why. It wasn't because Shirou wasn't present, or at least I don't want to blame him. As a matter of fact, she essentially acted the same as she did in Fate/Stay Night, minus the harem antics. She constantly got her ass kicked, she constantly got showed up, she put herself into a handicap because of her pride, and at the end, she still got screwed over and couldn't get her wish. Though, her treatment here was different.

She became a three-dimensional character, and not through her own actions or her character development. Instead, it was through the eyes of all the other characters. Instead of the plot or Saber herself doing her character justice, it was the work of the characters around her. Let's look at them:





"Our Heroic Spirit here thinks the battlefield is something better than hell. What a joke. It's hell itself."

In Fate/Stay Night, Saber briefly mentioned how she talked very little to Kiritsugu during the 4th Holy Grail War, giving very little information past her lack of enthusiasm with regards to him. With only that, all we could tell was what Kiritsugu might had been like. With Fate/zero, we not only had Kiritsugu's character revealed, but we also saw their relationship and the reasoning behind Saber's distaste of Shirou's father.

Kiritsugu saw Saber as a flawed personality, fighting for an immaterial ideal called "chivalry" while leading those around her to their deaths, all so that that civilians would never have to know the battlefield. She, under the guise of justice, killed, killed, and continuously killed, trying to justify her actions with her dazzling display of honor, leading to a greater misunderstanding of what it means to be a heroic figure. Kiritsugu has only spoken with Saber on only two occasions that I remember: when they have this conversation, and briefly during Irisviel's disappearance. He has very little trust in the King of Knights and has as much use for her as the bullets in his guns. In fact, he most likely trusts his bullets more since bullets don't make excuses for why they kill.



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"It means that your being stuck in physical form isn't without its merits. It's given me many enjoyable hours choosing outfits for you."



Irisviel fully knew what Saber was and how Saber was as much of a tool as Irisviel herself in the war. Still, Irisviel treated Saber not with dignity and respect, but with a friendly demeanor that allows Saber to open up and act a little more carefree. We already know of Saber's carefree personality from Fate/Stay Night, or at least are knowledgeable about the romance aspect of it. To give Fate credit, it gave Saber something of a proper romance and a happy ending, yet there was a missed opportunity in there. A casual Saber is a fun Saber, but it risks sacrificing any sense of respect her character has.

In Fate/zero though, she's presented through Irisviel as less of a girl and more of a kind person to hang out with. The ambiguity of Saber's gender is played with Irisviel's choice of giving Saber a suit, which takes away Saber's knightly appearance while maintaining her dignity as a king. This is, again, compared to Fate/Stay Night's interpretation of giving Saber a casual blouse + skirt combination, which makes one forget that she's supposed to be King Arthur. Nothing's inherently wrong with that, but the reason why her identity is so fascinating is because of her dignified personality matched up with her appearance.



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"Curse you, God! Curse you! How could you inflict such cruel torture upon my beautiful maiden?!"

Caster saw Saber as the person closest to god. He saw her as perfection, as the martyr that represented everything good in this world. She was his salvation, and the object of his affection. He held her on a pedestal and worshiped her, despite being lost in his delusions and mistaking her identity. Yet, this works not only because Saber actually acts like a martyr, but in reality it also falls into Saber's own perception on what it means to be a king. This contrasts with Kiritsugu's view, as Caster completely ignores her chivalry and instead is completely awed at her brilliance.

Interestingly enough, Caster mistaking Saber as a perfect being may also be a commentary on her ideal image of herself, the ideal image her fans hold, and what she really is. Saber sees herself as a true and just king. Her fans see her as something between a badass knight and a perfect waifu. Her true self, however, is a little harder to pinpoint. The disassociation between Caster's erroneous interpretation and Saber's identity creates a void in her character. We immediately know that Caster's wrong and she's not Jeanne d'Arc, but does that mean that necessarily mean that Saber's the King of Knights? It seems like an odd question, but upon Rider's interpretation, this question may actually ruin Saber's credibility as a king.



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"You can keep your mouth shut. Kings were to converse in tonight's banquet. But I no longer recognize you as a king, Saber."

Rider saw Saber as a little girl trying to act like a king. This was not done in an insulting way, but rather in a solemn and pitiful way. Rider defined being a king as someone who should become the greatest man who leads others, not someone who tries to become a divine figure for others to follow and wait for salvation. In his life, Rider lived off the hard work of his people, indulging in greed, lust and pride. This, however, was done in a way to inspire his people to also dream of becoming king. After all, sin is part of man, and a sinful king is a human king. Rider, who aspired to conquer the world, didn't force his soldiers to come with him. He let them dream, and offered them the glory of marching through an endless world before finding Oceanus, the endless seas of yore.

Of course, Rider, at the end, was simply chasing an impossible dream himself, but he still garnered the undying respect of his subjects, something Saber could never accomplish. Saber, who would give everything for her country, never truly led her people and instead treated them all as mouths to be fed, rather than people who would willingly fight and die by her side. Rider never recognizes Saber's perfection because her ideals were, in his eyes, flawed from the beginning.



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"Saber. The only thing that still grants my heart peace is your pure fighting spirit."


As a man who has lived two lives of tragedy, Lancer probably has the most to complain about out of the cast. In part, it's Urobuchi Gen's writing that completely trashes any happy ending, as evident by Kiritsugu's philosophy. However, it's also the challenge of trying to live completely just in a world that has long since forgotten justice. In the 4th Holy Grail War, Lancer had little to hope for, but because Saber was there, he at least had some hope to hold onto, even though it was smashed into dust.

Lancer saw her as a fellow chivalrous knight and held great respect for her, and possibly only her out of the whole cast. Their interactions come off as simplistic, platonic, or even playfully flirtatious, but it goes further then that. In Saber, Lancer sees salvation. He sees honor. He sees redemption. Despite all his misfortunes caused by his crappy E Rank luck, Saber was there to remind him that chivalry still existed. She wasn't a king, a little girl, a martyr, or a flawed character chasing a dream, but a knight that would fight a fair fight in an unjust world.



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"Isn't that what makes her so beautiful? Her dreams were too much for her. I imagine they destroyed the dreamer herself in the end. The tears of lamentation she shed during her final moments must have been quite sweet to the taste."


It's almost ironic. The King of Knights, a near-divine figure, is the one who needs saving. It's also ironic, how her Sword of Promised Victory is the same sword that brought ruin to her nation. Once again, it's ironic that Saber, as a king who swore on her sword to lead her people to prosperity, would end up having to turn that same sword against her own people. And, while she continuously killed to protect her ideals, she was only prolonging her own self-destruction just by following those ideals. And Gilgamesh fell in love with this Saber.

Gilgamesh also sees her as a little girl trying to act like a king, just as Rider felt. However, instead of seeing her just as a walking tragedy, he sees her as a tragic beauty - a blooming flower on a battlefield full of blood-rusted steel. Gilgamesh isn't necessarily a sadist who enjoys her suffering, but he was drawn to her by her warped ideals, disguised as the ideals of a martyr. She, in Gilgamesh's eyes, is a fragile existence, fleeting in nature and, yet, fully capable of destroying herself and everything around her. As Caster fell in love with his delusions of her perfections, Gilgamesh was engrossed in her flawed nature. He loved to watch Saber desperately cling on to her fragile ideals for salvation.




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"Even after all that, would you still take up your sword for such a reason? How helpless you are..."


Fallen to sin, he expected to receive punishment from a king, but he instead received the forgiveness from a divine figure. It wasn't his fault. He was only human after all. Even though he was Lancelot, Knight of the Lake, he was only human, and no human could ever reach the realm of God. As such, he became Berserker, a lost soul who was left behind as Saber continued forth alone, as if she never had need for her people.

Berserker saw Saber as something beyond perfection. She was too far for him to approach. He lost his honor as a knight when Saber so easily forgave him for his affair with Guinevere, King Arthur's queen in legend, and never received proper punishment. Saber never saw him as a friend, an ally, or even a fellow knight. She only saw him as another person whom she had to bear sins for. This interpretation defines Saber as a character flawed because of her perfection. She walks on her own path, never walking alongside her people, never guiding those around her, and leaving everyone without a reason to exist in her presence.


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There are as many interpretations of a character as there are viewers who watch them in action. However, seldom has a single character been the driving force of an anime, so much that they had given each character purpose in why they persist. Even more seldom does a single character receive development from all those characters and give dialogue back, making everyone involved in this complex web all the more three-dimensional. In this specific instance, Saber has done all this while starting as a character who was once part of a teenage boy's mini-harem. This is not to criticize Fate/Stay Night itself by any means, but it's amazing to see how truly complex Saber is, as acknowledged and demonstrated by Fate/zero.


Final Look at the King of Knights

If there was one thing Gen Urobuchi did right with Fate/zero, it was doing justice to Saber's character. She's the flagship character of the Fate series, and while the antics of her character are an integral part of her, having that development makes her not only a cute, cool, or strong character, but a three-dimensional character who can be appreciated not just for how she looks like or what she does, but for who she is. Also, if there was ever a great crime Nasu Kinoko has ever committed, it was never putting Saber in a suit or on a motorcycle. Thank you, Urobuchi.




tl;dr - Fate/Stay Night gave us Saber, a chivalrous character constantly held back from displaying her true potential, but was still a fun character nonetheless. Fate/zero gave us Saber, a chivalrous character who can be seen as a chivalrous knight, a warrior who uses chivalry to justify her violence, a king who stands far beyond her subjects, a divine figure, a little girl trying to become a divine figure, or a little girl enacting a self-fulfilling tragedy. Neither version of Saber is right or wrong, but I simply found Fate/zero's version more interesting.