Originally Posted by
violetarcher
So, I just finished reading the translation of Prototype Fragments and yeeeesh, Manaka is such an infuriatingly awful black hole of a character.
Actually, I can't even call her a character. She's a plot device, an obstacle for the good characters to overcome. She has no depth, no interesting quirks or bends in her character, she sure as hell doesn't have any possibility of growth or change, and her entire character can be summed up as "She's in love and that makes her evil."
And why is she in love with Saber? Because she tells herself she falls in love with him. No reason beyond "I have to be in love with him because I said so."
Why does love make someone who was described pre-Grail War as essentially a bored emotionless zombie evil? Apparently, it's because "lol, the plot demands it, don't think too hard about it."
I could understand if it was framed as "love makes her evil because she's lashing out at the other Masters and Servants for daring to oppose her perfect prince" buuuuut...there's nothing in the novels that suggests that, unless there's something more in the parts that haven't been fully translated yet. Also, we're told how she sees every other person in the world besides Saber as things "that don't matter" and basically less than nothing. You don't get vengefully mad at objects. The one exception was Ayaka and we're not only told that Manaka had no idea she was acting out of jealousy, she obviously knew that Ayaka would be competition for Saber.
Speaking of which, are we honestly supposed to take the narrative at face value when it keeps reiterating over and over about how completely lacking in malice Manaka is? Lol, is Sakurai fucking kidding? In her very first scene with Saber she's talking about going after the other Masters's children in order to strike at them most effectively! You don't suggest that kind of thing unless you have a very good idea of what cruelty and malice is, but according to the narrative she's tot-ta-lly pure and malice-free...
Almost everything she does is malicious and cruel, and not even an unthinking kind of cruelty (which would be vaguely plausible) but a deliberate targeted cruelty that's evil in the extreme. Saber thinks to himself that even Morgan would blanch at Manaka's cruelty. But we keep getting told over and over that she's completely lacking in malice! That there's no malice in her eyes or her smile! In the scene where she kidnaps Ayaka in order to feed her to the Beast, it even says that for the first time her "pure mind" felt the black drops of jealousy. But she had no idea what it was or that she was even acting out of jealousy!
Lol, I don't think so. She's literally omniscient and obviously knows exactly how to strike at people for maximum cruelty and damage. You can't do that if you don't understand emotion.
Continuing on the subject of shit that doesn't really make sense, IMO it makes NO damn sense what-so-ever that Little Miss Omnipotence would bother fighting the Grail War normally, instead of simply waving her ~beautiful fairy-like hands~ and killing all the Masters and Servants without the bother of fighting.
If she's omnipotent, powerful enough to "create life if she wanted life" and "let death run rampant if she wished for death" and powerful enough to have easily granted Saber's wish if it wasn't for that pesky Human Foundation, then it stands to reason that she could have killed all of the Masters and Servants herself, then move directly to the "kill girls, awaken Beast" part of her plan. And it seems that that was her plan originally, as she's constantly worried about Saber getting hurt, and the drama CD even expanded the scene of her fighting with her father about sending Saber out, where she said that she would take care of everything herself. So, what stopped her, her father? But given how she is, it doesn't make sense that she'd care at all about what her father thought. I could see her backing down because Saber wanted to fight, but...that's apparently not what happened and I have a really hard time seeing her truly giving a shit about what Saber wanted if she genuinely thought it would conflict too much with her own plans.
Plus, it's pretty clear that Manaka is looking forward to an eternity as Saber's queen in their eternal, perfect kingdom and her putting that off just to let him get his fight on when she probably could have ended the Grail War in a day doesn't make sense with how her character is presented.
I could buy her wanting to fight the Grail War because it was the first time in her life that she didn't know what was going to happen next and she got caught up in the novelty of it, but as far I as I can tell, there's nothing in the narrative that says so (again, unless there's something in the chapters that haven't been fully translated yet) and it doesn't square with her anxiety over Saber being hurt and not wanting him to fight due to that. And given that her way of fighting the Grail War is essentially "lol, I'm just going to steamroll everyone and win everything effortlessly because I'm the powerful perfect ~Princess of the Root~" how is that any different from her life prior to the Grail War, where she was basically a zombie because she was so bored with the world because she could do and know everything? Even if she doesn't know what's going to happen minute-by-minute, if she can just no-sell everything the other Masters and Servants can send at her, there's no real difference then if she just killed them from the start.
The whole plot of Fragments just really comes off as a case of "everything is happening because the story says so, even though it doesn't make sense on a logical or characterization basis". Obviously Sakurai was hamstrung because the original idea behind Fragments had been thought of years before she worked for Type Moon. But even when Prototype was initially created, Takeuchi and Nasu really should have sat down and asked themselves why an omnipotent girl would bother fighting a normal Grail War. It's not like Nasu to be so overtly sloppy with plot and character motives.
Aside from the hideous black hole called Manaka, my other big issue was Paracelsus. I do think that Sakurai did a good job with his post-betrayal characterization, with his constant regrets, his failed attempts to go completely evil out of self-loathing, and his constant "Are you, the holy knight of justice going to chop off my head? Come on Saber, chop off my head, pretty please, WHY AREN'T YOU CHOPPING OFF MY HEAD GODDAMNIT?"
The problem I have is why he even betrayed Lord Reirouken in the first place. It's emphasized that he was unusually kind for a mage, was known to go against traditional mage culture for his own beliefs to the point where he was executed for it, etc., etc. Yet, when he meets Princess Root, he completely abandons everything he ever stood for in about two seconds because "OMG ROOT". Yeah, I know mages obsess over the Root, blah, blah. I still find it a pretty weak reed to hang his betrayal on. Given the way Paracelsus spent the rest of Fragments crying and regretting and hating himself, it seems he did too. Maybe it's a weakness in the setting itself, but it didn't ring true for me.
Also, even though Paracelsus said he was the one who put the death curse on Misaya, it was really Manaka wasn't it? He just gave her the opportunity to do it via the radio? I know he says that he did, but that could easily be his guilt and regret talking, and that weird dream sequence with Manaka and Misaya makes no sense otherwise. Plus, in the original Prototype materials, the name of the person who actually cursed Misaya was censored, and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be a big reveal that it was actually Manaka who did it, since Ayaka had no idea about her sister being so evil and I doubt Paracelsus was even a gleam in Nasu's eyes at that point.
I do hope that if they ever do more with Prototype itself that Misaya gets a better ending than in the original story idea, where she just turns into a zombie and dies halfway through. The whole storyline between her and Paracelsus was obviously not part of the original Prototype and if he's coming back as a blackened Servant, I'm hoping that she'll confront him and get closure somehow.
Also, can someone explain this:
Caster: “You should be glad, Saber. There is only one Servant remaining that could oppose us. Lady Manaka is starting the preparations for the Great Grail that’s underground. Your wish is now close at hand, as the lives of many people living in the Far East, who’re not familiar with us Heroic Spirits that have achieved manifestation in the present day world in order to kill each other are being offered.”
Did Caster just outright tell Saber that a bunch of innocent people were about to be sacrificed for him and Saber didn't react at all.
Because...that's totally unlike how Saber is usually characterized. Manaka tried to hide the mass sacrifice from him because she knew he would absolutely not accept it, but here's Caster baldly stating "innocent people are going to die for your wish" and he does nothing. He doesn't react to it. And normally I'd wonder if that sentence was just not translated correctly (no offense, but a lot of scenes are just not coherent and it's very difficult to follow what the hell is happening) but there's other scenes with Saber seemingly...not exactly being indifferent, but with him being much more concerned with his fallen kingdom than with the current residents of Tokyo? Scenes where he seems to be thinking that there'll be sacrifices for the Grail but if it saves Britain he'll unhappily accept it? I mean Arash's dying statement to him about "hey, you know the people now are the same as the people we loved and tried to protect in the past" doesn't make much sense without Saber not valuing the present day citizens of Tokyo as much his former people. The theme of "valuing the people in the present vs. valuing the people in the past" is emphasized constantly. There's the flashback scene with Lucius Tiberius with Saber reproaching him about seeing innocent people as his to do with as he pleases. Saber finally putting 2+2 together after meeting Ayaka and realizing that the people of today are the love of the people of the past carried forward, therefore he should let go of Britain is clearly supposed to be the huge turning point for his character. I mean, he outright calls her his "savior". Which only makes sense if he was willing in some regard to sacrifice innocents for his wish.
I don't know. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, because "Saber is reluctantly willing to sacrifice innocents if he gets his wish" is just not something I've seen mentioned in regards to his character and that's kind of a big thing! But even though he clearly is shown trying to protect people throughout Fragments, there also seems to be this constrasting thread of him being unhappily willing to sacrifice innocents for his wish and it's confusing me.
In closing, Jekyll and Tatsumi are precious, so is small Ayaka, Arash is awesome, so is Elsa and I hope she returns in regular Prototype, when are Moses and Nefertari going to be added to FGO so Ozy can become even more Best Husband and Best Friend and is it just me or did the Sword Emperor get a surprisingly large focus for a flashback character, also he's cute and FGO when?
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