My first Finished Print of 2020 and it took so long! I will be slapping out as much new content as I can, thank you so much for being patient my lovelies! <3
I know Sakura knows Rin loves her. Didn’t she confess that Rin greets her every morning, and comes to the dojo? In UBW and the beginning of HF, we learn that Rin quite literally stalks Sakura…hence why she always knows Sakura comes to Shirou’s house, and why she was outside when Gilgamesh was there in UBW.
I think a lot of people also forget that in the prologue when Rin saved Shirou after Lancer kills him, she doesn’t do this because she likes Shirou. She literally does this because Sakuralikes Shirou. Sakura was only happy around Shirou, and often went to his house. Rin gave up her possibly trump card in the war, her prized possession left from her father not because of some altruistic need to save another or because she liked the boy who was killed, she did it all for her sister.
It’s why I get so annoyed when people tell me Rin is toxic to Sakura. Yeah, her relationship right now isn’t great, but let’s stop putting her in Shinji’s level. Rin has always loved Sakura. She even asks Shirou in UBW that if a person was adopted out, would they be happy? She wanted to know for Sakura, but also because she herself was lonely. I think a lot of people also forget Rin, as capable or incapable (however you want to see her as) is still just a 17 year old girl. She can’t do a lot of things, and she still doesn’t know a lot of things.
There’s also the fact that I can’t fault Rin for her actions and conflictions of being a magus and a human. She’s been on her own, alone, lost her teacher, mentor and the person she looked up to in the last war, her mother essentially went insane and she probably had to care for her mother at the age of 7, lost her sister that she had to act like was a stranger, the last remaining family she had, and on top of that is raised by Kirei who we see doesn’t actually raise her at all. She isolated from society and humans already because she was a magus so the whole magus heart over human is so ingrained in her that she feels like she has to.
Anyways, I really like that Shirou encourages Sakura to bridge the gap between the sisters. One of my greatest pet-peeve of romance in media is when the love-interest has 0 involvement in the personal growth of a relationship outside of their own or growth of their love interest as a person. So it was sweet seeing this.
This is cute.
I can’t believe Nasu said he doesn’t think Rin is a tsundere. She’s clearly a tsundere.
A lot of people told me Fate/Stay Night’s title is just a title and makes no sense. It just sounds nice so that’s probably why Nasu named it the way he did.
But I think that’s wrong. We all know the reason it’s called Fate. But I believe the /stay night portion has a lot to do with the context of the visual novel as a whole.
We see in every route, the final battle takes place at night and the ending is the sunrise to a new day. A new day to a new future. The stay night I believe is Shirou and the heroines’ subtle wish in their hearts of how they know, they understand and they move forward to the new day, but how they wish that they didn’t have to. The wish to stay the way things are because the new tomorrow will bring an ending that’s vastly different or unknown.
In Fate route, we see Shirou tries so hard to make Saber choose him over her wish. And Saber struggles with this, but in the end, the two choose the world over themselves. And quite literally as the Grail is destroyed, Saber tells Shirou the words she never said, as the sun rises, just as she disappears.
In UBW, there is the fear for Shirou’s future, Saber didn’t get to say goodbye to either Rin or Shirou and more than that Rin understands what it means for Archer. As soon as that new day breaks, the war is over, he will return to that hell. But Archer bids farewell to her with a smile. I think the music is also called A New Dawn. The backlight is the sun rising.
And in HF, we see that both Shirou and Sakura are struggling with the idea that one of them is going to die. And Illya knows that not all of them can come back so the subtle wish is that it stays the way it is now, even if there is pain, they are all here. And again, we get a goodbye with Illya who smiles at Shirou as she sacrifices herself with the new day.
Sunrises are common themes signifying hope, resurrection or a new beginning, and each time we see this in Fate. The night of the war, how it all started and the bonds made will be gone as the day approaches for the finale. Though most of Fates’ endings are bittersweet and/or sweet, the entirety of the war is wrought with an unknown of what the future holds, and who will we have to hang onto.
So I don’t think /Stay Night is just a pretty name with no context. I think despite the new beginnings of hope, we still lost something we loved as the night ends and sometimes we want to hang onto and cherish that night, what we know, then face the unknown.
(Not shown in VN, but is it morning when they view the cherry blossoms as seen in the anime too)
One personal headcanon that I’ll always stick by is that heavens feel leads to Shirou, Sakura and Medusa being in a polyamorous relationship. Because you can most definitely interpret the close connection between Sakura and Medusa as being romantic, but Sakura is still obviously in love with Shirou so…why tf not. Sakura has two hands, so the two need not be mutually exclusive!
Do you love Emiya Archer? Do you wish you had more friends to talk about your love for him? Do you wish you had more people to talk about fic ideas and art ideas about him? Do you love shipping him with all kinds of people from Artoria to Cu Chulainn to Gilgamesh?
Do you enjoy having fun with others and just talking about Fate in general?
Then I have the place for you!
Come join the Everyone Loves Emiya discord server!
Just to have fun and appreciate our favorite nameless bowman!
