Fate/Zero 2nd Season Episode 5 Discussion

HikaruIzumi said:
This episode had moments with very beautiful scenes and sceneries (i.e. the scene by the river) and made me like Kiritsugu even less. Actually, I don't care about him anymore. He's a failure as a human being. His reasoning for killing his father was completely crazy and stupid. His father (who reminded me of Kirei for some reason) did completely nothing to start the calamity. If it's anyone's fault, it's Shirley's. No one forced her to take the "treatment". Of course, since his father expected it, he should have made more precautions so that it wouldn't happen but I'm certain he needed an assitent otherwise he probably wouldn't have had one since it was dangerous. Also, he was trying to help mages with his research so stopping wasn't an option.

Actually, this made me realise how much is Kiritsugu alike his father. They both do crazy stuff that are illegal and immoral to achieve a "greater good" knowing that people might (in Kiritsugu's case: will) get hurt in the process. However, the fact that Kiritsugu agreed (it was even his idea) to kill his father so fast and did so in cold blood was... shocking. Something is not alright with him. I really can't sympathise with him in any possible way. He's a just cruel murderer with flat personality. Yeah, I do call killing for greater good a flat personality. There's nothing else to him.

I liked the vampires here. I was cool, they are my favourite undead... people... kinda. But it's silly we never found out what happened to Shirley. She was a very important character and we can only ASSUME that she might have been killed along with others by the church/mages. We could have at least seen the body or something. Not that I doubt she's dead, I just find her random disappearance anti-climatic since she was a main charatcer this episode.

-Shuda- said:
As I stated in my previous post a few pages back, Irisviel and Kiritsugu's encounter should be the key factor in Kiritsugu's flashback (if it's even included, might be separate).

-Shuda- said:
@Hikaru

Different people, different point of views.

Through my own assessment, this revelation fleshed out Kiritsugu even more and added more dots to his already complex ways. Killing people for a greater good may be considered flat by some, but what if it's your own dad, by a child who has barely hit puberty? In an instant? The fact that it's his family makes it all the more bewildering. IMO, the next episode should conclude this flashback and answer a lot of our lingering thoughts and confusion. I don't think Kiritsugu's father would ever kill his own son, so in a way Kiritsugu has transcended even his father's ways, not necessarily in a good way.

As I stated in my previous post a few pages back, Irisviel and Kiritsugu's encounter should be the key factor in Kiritsugu's flashback (if it's even included, might be separate).
--

Oh yeah, Natalia is awesome!

ssjokg said:

The only mistake you made is that his father wasnt working for the mages but for the Emiya family(just like Tokiomi does for his).

ssjokg said:

If there was any mistake that he did that was not killing Shirley,but I doubt it wouldnt end up with him killing his father.But you HAVE reasons for hating him and I respect that.

HikaruIzumi said:

I didn't write that, maybe my comparison of them implied that but I in no way meant that. Actually, they both feel like they want to achieve THEIR own goal. Kiritsugu might be working for Einzbern family but to me it feels like he's planning somehing else if he gets the grail. So it doesn't feel like he's truly working for them. While his father was working completely on his own to achieve his goal. My point was, what they do is the same thing but they do it in different ways. I really like that because children many times repeat the mistakes of their parents so it's very realistic.



Possibly it wouldn't but the shock and stress of what he did would have been much better explanation for killing him than what we had. Especially, because he would have been on the edge of his feelings while right now it was thought through murder. What was even HIS idea. HE came up with HIM killing HIS father. And with that magic field talk, I felt like he didn't want that woman to interfere. He didn't look surprised when she said she destroyed it easily because he said it so that he could kill him himself. That's what I find messed up.
Umm... thanks?

belatkuro said:
]Iri and Kerry's encounter is already covered in the drama CD in the first season BD box so unfortunately it won't be covered next episode.

ssjokg said:
It wont be.the next flashback will be about NataliaxKiritsugu.Unless they put some filler.
For IrixKiritsugu you can watch/hear the Drama cds

CharbbyLoves said:
This Is The First Episode From Fate/Zero I Became Bored. Everything On This Episode Is Meh. I Hope No More Kiritsugu's Past In The Next Episode But It Seems There Will Be Another One. I Guess I'll Struggle It.

Pyr0 said:
What do you mean "no more Kiritsugu's past"? D=
It's been one of the most anticipated things in this 2nd season for me ;o I want to learn more about his past :3 And why not everyone else's too? ^^

JoshSalas said:
Best episode of this show, in either season, hands down.

LunarMoon said:
So...does anyone actually feel sorry for Noritaka? There seems to be more sympathy for the guy than there was for Tokiomi. Ditto with Risei, though Risei was actually a pretty nice guy. He was a bit underhanded but he had his reasons, and was, ultimately, honest enough to deliver on the command seals. But I didn't see anyone mourning for Risei or going on about how much they hated Kayneth for killing him. Norikata, on the other hand, was a sociopath, a few steps above Zouken Matou. His only redeeming quality is that he loved his son.

LunarMoon said:
So...does anyone actually feel sorry for Noritaka? There seems to be more sympathy for the guy than there was for Tokiomi. Ditto with Risei, though Risei was actually a pretty nice guy. He was a bit underhanded but he had his reasons, and was, ultimately, honest enough to deliver on the command seals. But I didn't see anyone mourning for Risei or going on about how much they hated Kayneth for killing him. Norikata, on the other hand, was a sociopath, a few steps above Zouken Matou. His only redeeming quality is that he loved his son.

stAtic91 said:
She was probably killed by the Church or Mage's Association.

Xayoz said:
While I didn't see him as enough of a character to feel too strongly about him, I do think his death was regrettable.
He was after all, a pretty typical magus, bringing up his son and conducting his research in relative peace and quite. You could call his work unethical but then again, there are plenty of mages who have turned themselves into Dead Apostles and certainly not all of them have become monsters.

Then, an accident happened and he got killed by the one person he did somewhat care about.

I also don't quite understand what you mean by him being 'a few steps above Zouken'. While you could say that the magus archetype in general has a number of characteristics in common with sociopathy, Zouken also made a good case for being a sadist. Can't really say that about Noritaka.

Trenerka said:

Actually it must have been horrible for Noritaka to be killed by the son he loved. No matter how we look at it, it was horrible betrayal on Kiritsugu's part, since Noritaka didn't cause the whole outbreak intentionally. Even if he did dangerous research, he didn't deserve that sort of betrayal. It would have been fair if Natalia or anyone else killed him, but seeing how his son kills him with cold blood, actully made me feel sad for him.

And I did feel significance of Risei's death and was sort of sad that everyone concentrated on death of Team Lancer, forgetting poor priest. Though it may have been because I knew from novel how much impact it would have on plot.

Tokiomi's death is so awesomly described in the novel that I'm unable to feel sad for him.

LunarMoon said:

The only magus I know that did turn himself into a Dead Apostle was Nero Chaos and he was literally a monster.

I'm not sure if it was covered in the UTW translation, since I just watched the episode on Nico Nico, but the novel had this to say about Noritaka:

His father seemed to be intent in continuing. There’s no need to pay attention to sacrifices of this degree. He still needs to keep repeating it until he gets a satisfactory result....... ................ "I knew a long time ago this day would come, so I prepared a motor boat on the southern coast beforehand. You can never be too prepared.”

Kiritsugu reasoned that if he didn't kill his father, that he would simply repeat what he had done on Arimago Island, and that Shirley had simply jumped the gun. Everything I know seems to support this conclusion.

Leon-Gun said:
Are people actually so naive to think he wasn't going to use the formular on SHirley eventually? Why do you think he needed an assistant with potential for magic? It's an almost impossible feat to turn a regular human into a Dead Apostle, potential for magic is needed for a succesfull and quick transformation into a Dead Apostle by means of magic (best example would be Tsukihime's Satsuki who Nasu confirmed had potential for magic hence her quick transformation into a Dead Apostle without even being a Ghoul or Living Dead).

Kiritsugu was still showing a little hesitation at first but it all cleared up when his father showed no guilt at all over his part in the whole debacle and was ready to pack and start the same shit somewhere else (he said SHirley was a failure of an experiment, not that turning a person into a Dead Apostle was a faliure), basically treating SHirley as a guinea pig to be discarded at the drop of a hat, he flipped.

LunarMoon said:
So...does anyone actually feel sorry for Noritaka? There seems to be more sympathy for the guy than there was for Tokiomi. Ditto with Risei, though Risei was actually a pretty nice guy. He was a bit underhanded but he had his reasons, and was, ultimately, honest enough to deliver on the command seals. But I didn't see anyone mourning for Risei or going on about how much they hated Kayneth for killing him. Noritaka, on the other hand, was a sociopath, a few steps above Zouken Matou. His only redeeming quality is that he loved his son.

TheRealBoyd said:
I think the different feelings about the three are easy to point out. Although Noritaka would've continued his experiments and the same thing would have likely happened again, it is Shirley's fault for taking the medicine. For some people, the implications that Noritaka would've used Shirley as a guinea pig anyway aren't enough: they'd need to see it to condemn him.

For Tokiomi, a lot of people don't care because of what happened to Sakura even if that wasn't Tokiomi's intent, and because they side with Kariya. Evidently the fact that Rin and Aoi love Tokiomi and Tokiomi is genuinely doing what he thinks is best for his family (even if he makes a bunch of stupid mistakes with that) does not even out the negative things a lot of people feel about him. A few people said that they wish Kariya would've killed Tokiomi, I believe. Nevermind how Aoi or Rin would feel about that, that's totally okay and Kariya would be a hero for that. Oh, and of course, it doesn't help that even his own Servant found him boring.

Finally, as for Risei, we don't see him much and don't really have a lot of reasons to be attached to him. In addition, he was cheating by helping Tokiomi (see above for how that's negative points) and, well, look at what happened to Kayneth. I'm sure not many people approve of Kayneth murdering Risei, but when you look at what happened to Kayneth, it's hard to not feel at least a little sorry about him too.

Now, that said, Tokiomi is the one I have the most sympathy for, just because he didn't know how all the stuff he did turned out (would've been nice of Kariya to, you know, TELL HIM), the scene with Rin proves that he loves her (in the novels, after that conversation he has renewed resolve to win the war so he can be the father she's so proud of), and, in the anime, at least, Tokiomi had enough time before his death to realize that he just gave his beloved daughter to the man that killed him (assuming anything happens to Aoi, of course). Not to mention being betrayed by the man he trusted the most, and his own Servant.

ssjokg said:
I am sorry but I cant accept that Tokiomi didnt know how the Matou's train for their magic or how much of a monster Zouken is.Tokiomi definitely didnt know that he would use Sakura just as a breeding ground for the next warbut their families knew each other long ago.I doubt he didnt have any info about him...

TheRealBoyd said:
Well, Zouken thought putting worms in Kariya was a stupid idea that would kill him, so being thrown into the worms like Sakura was probably wasn't the normal way they train an heir. Being a magus is painful for everyone though, not just Matou mages, so it'd possible Tokiomi just thought it'd be a bit more painful for a Matou magus, but better that than nothing.

Also Tokiomi is a horrible judge of character, he very well could have thought Zouken was a fine, upstanding citizen. Leaving Zouken and Kirei aside (though the latter is somewhat excusable), there's also Archer. Everything dickish he did in the Epic of Gilgamesh was because he was bored, and since Tokiomi specifically intended to summon Gilgamesh, he had to have known this. Boring Gilgamesh is the most stupid thing you could do if you were his Master, yet Tokiomi saw no problem in making him sit around and wait for Assassins to do things.

I'm not saying you should change your mind though, your opinion is perfectly valid. Just giving a different perspective. inb4thisthreadgetsderailedagain

Xayoz said:

Still, there are DAs like Zelretch who don't go around needlessly harming people. I don't see any reason why there couldn't be many others like him either. In fact, considering the probability that a rather high number of DAs exists, most of them are likely not overly ravenous.

TheRealBoyd said:
I think the different feelings about the three are easy to point out. Although Noritaka would've continued his experiments and the same thing would have likely happened again, it is Shirley's fault for taking the medicine. For some people, the implications that Noritaka would've used Shirley as a guinea pig anyway aren't enough: they'd need to see it to condemn him.

LunarMoon said:
Is it simply a difference between the novel’s narration pretty much telling us that he would cause another Arimago Island situation, and the ambiguity inherent in interpreting dialogue?

InsaneZero said:


It's pretty evident in the novels that he was planning to do this again somewhere else. Kiritsugu asks the same questions that he does in the anime and he gives the same responses. It's just that he appears a bit more "fatherly" in the novels, which for the anime I don't think is necessary. I think that he's just like Tokiomi in a sense where his desire to reach the root has caused him to not pay attention about the world that he's going to leave behind when he accomplishes his goal (which is fitting considering Tokiomi just died last week due to the same thing).

Overall, I think the two main ideas that these flashback episodes are going to portray are "why Kiritsugu became a Magus Killer" and "why Kiritsugu continues to be a Magus Killer". We've seen the first one in this episode, and in so keeping with that idea I really think that this change Kiritsugu's father does work better for the anime.

I am sorry but I cant accept that Tokiomi didnt know how the Matou's train for their magic or how much of a monster Zouken is.Tokiomi definitely didnt know that he would use Sakura just as a breeding ground for the next war

BloodRequiem said:


i disagree
hes not like tokiomi at all
even though noritaka seeks the root tokiomi will not approve of him
he lacks what tokiomi calls the pride of a magus



the bug "magecraft" kariya uses is different from the the matou's specialty which is something like spiritual binding and that matches sakura's attributes so of course tokiomi would think that sakura would fit in well with them
plus when zouken was first introduced in HF he didnt seem like a bad guy...and he didnt decide to turn her into until anyways

Leon-Gun said:
about those last two spoilers: That and there's many, many, MANY clues that the Matou family held a very misogynistic outlook on both magi and non-magi affairs to the point Shinji himself mentions his "mother" was likely entombed as "food" for the worms in the secret room and snidely mentions he doesn't care about her, not even naming her. It is also mentioned in another part that most Matou females were entombed in that room... that's how much their total hate and disregard of women is.

And people wonder why kariya ran away from that crazy family (beyond the torture and such that Zouken calls "training"). And btw, you are part right and part wrong with the Crest Worm training of Kariya being abnormal. It is actually the norm for Zouken to train the heirs with the worm, and by torturing them and poisoning their food and what not. But that process is taken slower and across the years, Kariya however was a grown man with zero magical training and he was trained in a mere year by basically pumping him full of Crest Worms. That's what was abnormal about it. The common assumption from most data about the Matou family in Zero and Stay Night is that Zouken trains all the heirs the same way.

SayakaMagica said:

Also, that setting. That tropical island is definitely in the Philippines. The island's name is Alimango, which is an actual word for "crab" in that country. Shirley was eating a large guava fruit. There is a small church despite its remoteness. Basketball is a popular sport. Chickens are common in the village. The village houses also have a look that is reminiscent of rural houses from that country.