The Type-Moon Miscellaneous Thoughts Thread

[ballinamon]

Although FGO has a very specific issue that produces this problem, it also has two excuses which are based on being a unique timeline and that the nature of a singularity distorts facts.

I would say that there are even bigger problems like those said heroes dying like heroic spirits (glowing light and etc), that is, all the gameplay elements that change how a heroic spirit would usually work in common situations. In a sense we could say that FGO has a lot of "noise" that should be ignored. Maybe some heroes having their idealistic appearances (the one which is summoned) in the game is just like that because they're used as an interpretation, a language. Whenever you see Nero with that modern dress and in the saber class you need to read like "this is Nero" and not "this is Nero with a modern dress and in the saber class".

This is similar to how you read a kanji. A kanji usually has lots of more information on the radicals, but they are just noise and you simplify the interpretation based on the common use of the vernacular.

I don't know. I would have like it if they have taken from the start an approach of "the character you are seeing and their real apparance are different and you see them in HS form for singularity fault".

[SpoonyViking]

I'd say the original novel was pretty heavily slanted toward "How Things Actually Happened", what with King Arthur as a woman and "Sasaki Kojiro" actually being an unknown farmer who was just saddled with the name because he had developed the Tsubame Gaeshi technique.

[LegalLoliLover]

While I only know a handful of Sasaki Kojiro portrayals, of those, all of them have that name be an alias for an otherwise unknown person.

[You]

I'd say the original novel was pretty heavily slanted toward "How Things Actually Happened", what with King Arthur as a woman and "Sasaki Kojiro" actually being an unknown farmer who was just saddled with the name because he had developed the Tsubame Gaeshi technique.

That disconnect was to make a narrative point. In the prologue you have:

A hero that becomes eternal in people's minds is no longer human after their death, and is promoted to another form of existence.
Humans who bring about miracles, save people, and achieve great deeds, are called heroes even after their death.
After being so called, they are promoted to heroic spirits after their death and become guardians of humanity.

It doesn't matter whether these people existed in reality or only in stories.
It is people's minds that create a hero.
People's wishes that "this is how things should be" give them form and set them up as real.
Authenticity does not matter.
They can have form as long as they have fame as a legend and people have faith.

The ultimate ideal humans have created, the greatest human people have created.
These are the heroes, the heroic spirits.
And of course, since they are beyond human, they cannot be controlled by humans.
A magus usually borrows their power only to mimic them.
They can't summon the heroic spirits themselves.

The stuff that comes after about each specific HS is your typical Nasu rejection of that umbrella sentiment.
That these are complicated characters who had lives. Their experiences mattered to them and should matter to you no matter how real or fake they might be.
They're not, just as Celenik put it in Apo, simply pages torn from a book.

It works in the context of SN, HA, Extra (to some extent) as a narrative trick because you have time to fully address and explore that disconnect.
But when you get to Apo, Fragments, most of GO this stuff is so truncated or glazed over that the "slant" doesn't work anymore or comes off ingenious.
And in GO it's all about "standing on the shoulders of giants" which is really far away from SN thematically.

[SteelBeowulf]

About the whole heroic spirit thing, would a more rational reason to justify the cutoff date be with modern technology it would be easier for people to accurately record an important figure leaving little to no room for imagination?


If that's the case, then Edison is the igniting force for the cutoff date no?

[Kamera]

The Industial Revolution and its consequences...

[migliole]

Maybe technology elevated all humanity to a collective heroic spirit, as we can century by century do all heroic feats and both create and destroy.

Maybe that is the so called Beast of Alaya, the Leviathan.

[Dullahan]

not edison. Gutenberg.

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read McLuhan or go to hell

[Kamera]

i get it now. heroic spirits are subjective idealist garbage justifying the superiority of the ruling class.

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t. heroism, as often understood, is reactionary

[Blastedspider]

Gilles, Nero, Drake, Jekyll, Fran, Gil and Yu I guess?

Lostbelts though?

People's wishes that "this is how things should be" give them form and set them up as real.
Authenticity does not matter.
They can have form as long as they have fame as a legend and people have faith.

Let me propose an alternative explanation: this refers to how the "seats" on the Throne of Heroes are formed. If go back to Kojiro's case Nasu said that the real thing didn't exist and Assassin is just a person who "matched the parameters of Kojiro Sasaki". So, what if all Heroic Spirits work like that? The faith of people set conditions of what specific heroic spirit should be (what Leftovers calls "What people believe existed" and Nasu means by "parameters") creating a possibility of Heroic Spirit. This vacant lot is filled by the closest person or thing fitting these criteria (generally corresponding to "What actually happened"). This might also be the reason why Heroic Spirit Candidates exist: they all fit the criteria, but the nature of the Throne prevents them from claiming it for its own.

That's actually not that different from how oral traditions work. Yes, it is usually nebulous and somewhat contradictory, but on the other hand, there is usually a semi-consistent set of stories and motifs associated with a specific hero, which can persist for centuries or even longer periods of time.

[Walnut Sparks]

Was Kojirou actually summoned from the Throne?

[Comun]

What other Heroic Spirit source could he come from?

[Walnut Sparks]

Side material says he was "a wraith rather than a Heroic Spirit"... I will not pretend to know what that means.

[fumei]

iirc wraiths are basically in waiting line for the HS' office but their paperwork doesn't quite match up to what should be submitted so they're HS candidates who don't qualify for real HS status.

[Gray]

Maybe they're just in their own little folder on the throne?
I think Counter Guardians are in their own folder/area but still on the throne, I could see significant enough wraiths, phantoms or whatever being added to it.
The Hassans are described as wraiths, are they also described as heroic spirits or are they always noted as distinct.
Or maybe it's a matter of in one timeline Sasaki Kojiro was real and all the wraiths who are close enough to him qualify get added to a subfolder on the throne relating to him.

[Comun]

iirc wraiths are basically in waiting line for the HS' office but their paperwork doesn't quite match up to what should be submitted so they're HS candidates who don't qualify for real HS status.

I think it's less "misfilled files" and more "you don't have enough money to open an account at our bank". Then all Baal had to do was to introduce the concept of joint accounts to the system and the combined assets of Moriarty and Max/Yan Qing and Doppelganger/Hessian and Lobo were enough to clear the threshold.

[fumei]

I think it's less "misfilled files" and more "you don't have enough money to open an account at our bank". Then all Baal had to do was to introduce the concept of joint accounts to the system and the combined assets of Moriarty and Max/Yan Qing and Doppelganger/Hessian and Lobo were enough to clear the threshold.

Much better.

[AmADo VII]

it's sad no one remembers Dr.Griffin/Invisible man.

[Gray]

Well it's Max/Moriarty, Doppelganger/Yan Qing and Dr. Griffin/Hessian/Lobo.
Though Moriarty and Yan Qing were able to get in regardless, so it was more that Max and Doppelganger tagged along for the ride.

[Comun]

it's sad no one remembers Dr.Griffin/Invisible man.

I didn't forget, it's just that Griffin was added later, so we know just Hessian + Lobo was already enough to reach that Heroic Spirit mark.