Fate/Stay Night 30 Question Challenge

[DezoPenguin]

I might as well give this a shot. Having not played the VN, I'll add in Zero answers due to my flawed knowledge of UBW and HF.
1. Your favourite character and why.
Archer. The man projects an unmistakable aura of snarky badass cool, then proceeds to actually back it up with history, backstory, and in-combat abilities rather than being a poser.

2. Your least favourite character and why.
Shinji. Because unlike Zouken or Gil or Kirei, who are fun villains that help make the story good despite their evil, Shinji is a pustulent bit of scum that should be scraped off people's shoes, and I hate that the cast doesn't seem to comprehend that. Seriously, Rin, have Saber just take out AM without risking your life to save Shinji, 'k? Particularly since he was about to rape you had Lancer not intervened? He's a hair ahead of Tokiomi, since there's a slight possibility that he somehow didn't know what the Matou magic was, even though I'm convinced he wouldn't have cared if he did know.

3. Favourite quote or line(s).
"I am the bone of my sword..." So sue; I'm obvious.

4. Scene or moment that made you think.
Kotomine telling Shirou that a wish to save people was a wish for people to be in danger. Of course, the conclusion of my thinking was that Kotomine was full of it.

5. Scene or moment that made you laugh.
Rin punching Shinji in the nose. Also Gil telling Tokiomi that he wouldn't dirty Ea by zapping Cthulhu with it.

6. Scene or moment that made you cry.
None, really. The end of UBW when Archer faded out with Shirou's face came closest.

7. Your favourite pairing(s).
Canon: Shirou/Sakura; Kerry/Iri; Caster/Kuzuki
Ship-Teased: Rin/Archer
Pulled From Nether Orifice: Archer/Rider

8. Your least favourite pairing(s).
Kerry/Maiya. Bad writing there, and if they'd left it in the F/Z anime I think it would have gravely cheapened the impact of the final scene with Kiritsugu and AM!Iri

9. A character you can relate to the most.
Waver

10. Favourite Command Symbol’s design.
Shirou's

11. A character you disliked at first but grew to like later.
Caster. Sadly romantic backstory melts heart of cynical lawyer and causes overlooking of evil in-story bitchiness.

12. A character you liked at first but grew to dislike later.
Saber. Like someone else said first, it's not so much that I grew to dislike her, but more that I felt rather meh. And seeing her in F/Z embracing the side of chivalric stupidity at a win-in-all-costs war and repeating her foolish desire to not be King of Britain despite the fact that she did such a good job of it (under the reasonably crapsack conditions) to become a hero that echoes down through the ages just made it worse.

13. Favourite Master.
Rin.

14. Favourite Servant.
Archer. See #1 above. Close second-place tie for Lancelot and Rider.

15. Favourite team.
Waver/Iskandar. In F/SN, Rin/Archer.

16. Scene or moment that broke your heart.
Caster and Kuzuki's death in the manga.

17. Scene or moment that made you feel happy.
The credits rolling on the last episode of F/Z with Waver still alive. Any time bad things happen to Shinji (you go, Illya! ) or Lancelot gets Gil's panties in a twist.

18. Scene or moment that made you feel sad.
Archer's death fighting Berserker.Tokiomi's death, because it wasn't painful enough.

19. If you were chosen as a Master, what Class would you like as a Servant and what Heroic Spirit would you like to see to appear.
I would prefer to be in a different city entirely if a Holy Grail War broke out, but if I was chosen I would prefer an Archer since my chosen strategy would be similar to Kiritsugu's and Independent Action and combat pragmatism would be a useful aid in that (particularly if I didn't have all of Kerry's assistants). Assassin would be my second choice, for similar reasons. If picking from any Heroic Spirit shown in the show...probably Medea (despite the Class issues) as the attitude and lack of any individual side agendas (such as EMIYA's) would be most compatible. That answer might change depending on whether the Grail is the functional kind or the corrupted one, though.

20. Favourite Noble Phantasm.
UBW, if we're counting that. If not, Knight of Honor. In F/SN only, Avalon, for showing that even in a world where Excalibur can level castles and Eldritch Abominations, someone read the original stories and noted that the sheath was still the more significant item.

21. A character you would shag.
If I were not married, Rider oh so very much. Also Dark Sakura if she let the world live two more years.

22. A character you would hug.
Sakura.

23. A voice actor/actress that made an impression on you. In which scene?
Junichi Suwabe whenever Archer breaks out UBW. Laughable Engrish is not supposed to sound that awesome.
24. Your favourite scene or moment and why.
What does it say about me that I can't really pin this down? Maybe the aircraft duel between Lance and Gil in F/Z for its sheer levels of awesome? The kind of thing that Moczo would have written.

25. Most tragic death.
Caster's.

26. Most disturbing scene.
Kariya finding out after making his deal with Zouken that Sakura's already started her "training."

27. Unpopular opinion.
The anime, while obviously inferior to the experience to playing the VN, is not the worst pile of suck to come along since Shinji.

28. If you could change the fate of any character, would you? How?
I'd let Caster and Kuzuki have a happy ending where they could just enjoy a normal life as a married couple together without any assassinations, soul-sucking, or any of that. And I would have Tokiomi's death be much, much slower and more excruciatingly painful to the extent that by the time he's done the physical and more importantly psychological damage inflicted upon him would make Kariya's suffering look like paradise by comparison. At the very least, he should get to sympathetically "enjoy" every rape that his daughter suffered, preferably with his own family replacing Zouken and Shinji in his own mind.

29. If you could change a place with any character for a day, who would it be and why (and what would you do).
Truthfully, I wouldn't change places with any of these people unless you paid me quite a lot of money. Maybe Kirei, so I could arrange for Tokiomi's fate as above?

30. Unforgettable scene or moment.
Far too many to count.

[Kelnish]

Instead of doing this, you should have been reading the novel dawg.

[Reiu]

since there's a slight possibility that he somehow didn't know what the Matou magic was, even though I'm convinced he wouldn't have cared if he did know.

Although this is admittedly from the hanafuda game, when Tokiomi saw that Kariya had brought Sakura with him on his quest for the Holy Grail Hot Spring, thus exposing her to danger (as much danger as there could be in a comedy scenario, anyways), Tokiomi decided that he was going to have her adopted by the Edelfelt instead. (Edit: who are now confirmed to be distant relatives of Tohsaka.)

[celsius]

Sakura adopted by the Edelfelts, eh...

Someone write that fic.

[Kotonoha]

Although this is admittedly from the hanafuda game, when Tokiomi saw that Kariya had brought Sakura with him on his quest for the Holy Grail Hot Spring, thus exposing her to danger (as much danger as there could be in a comedy scenario, anyways), Tokiomi decided that he was going to have her adopted by the Edelfelt instead. (Edit: who are now confirmed to be distant relatives of Tohsaka.)

Tokiomi confirmed for better guardian than Kariya.

Confirmed confirmed.

[Tobias]

Tokiomi in hanafuda? Wait, what?

[Reiu]

The one that came with the Vita version.

[Kotonoha]

Also I just scrolled up to see what you were replying to and... oy vey.

Yes Dezopenguin you should probably go back and reread, so that you can figure out that a) not saving Shinji in UBW would have been going against the entire point of the route, and b) Tokiomi hasn't done anything that necessitates you having weird rape fantasies about him.

[mAc Chaos]

Goes against UBW? You mean being a hero of justice? Well that's pretty much the case for all 3 routes, even HF.

[Kotonoha]

Goes against UBW? You mean being a hero of justice? Well that's pretty much the case for all 3 routes, even HF.

More specifically, the whole "save absolutely everyone" ideal that Shirou gets all fired up over in UBW.

It wasn't "save everyone (unless they are not mai waifu)"

[DezoPenguin]

More specifically, the whole "save absolutely everyone" ideal that Shirou gets all fired up over in UBW.

It wasn't "save everyone (unless they are not mai waifu)"

And I'm saying that it should be "save absolutely everyone ('exception: Shinji')." Because any ideal that says, "I should put myself at personal risk to save the life of Shinji Matou" is a bad ideal. And since Shirou's actually fighting Gilgamesh at the time, it was actually, "I shall have the woman I love put herself at personal risk to save the life of Shinji Matou," which isn't an ideal, it's a case for the commissioners in lunacy. (That said, it's actually Rin's decision to go slogging into the Grail to rescue Shinji that I'm questioning, not Shirou's ideals--Shinji is at that point literally the last person in the world that she actually knows whom she'd want to save, after the things he's done (just going by UBW and her actual knowledge therein, forget about the actual list of his sins). Either she's doing it because she has genuinely decided to adopt Shirou's ideals for herself on a permanent basis or she's doing it because her boyfriend wants her to, neither of which option gives me happy fluffy feelings about Rin.)

(On Tokiomi, my hatred is mildly irrational...but honestly, hanafuda games aside, either he did that to Sakura knowingly, in which case he is a monster worse than Zouken, or he has no clue, in which case he is woefully ignorant of the nature of the Matou family in a city which is in his care.)

[mAc Chaos]

which isn't an ideal, it's a case for the commissioners in lunacy.

That's like the whole point of the route.

[DezoPenguin]

That's like the whole point of the route.

I thought the point of the route was Shirou reaffirming his ideal to be a hero of justice not in the wide-eyed naivete of the Fate route but in awareness and acceptance of the potential (and/or inevitable) costs of such a thing?

[Kelnish]

I thought the point of the route was Shirou reaffirming his ideal to be a hero of justice not in the wide-eyed naivete of the Fate route but in awareness and acceptance of the potential (and/or inevitable) costs of such a thing?

The point of the route is go read the damn thing.

[Polly]

12. A character you liked at first but grew to dislike later.
Saber. Like someone else said first, it's not so much that I grew to dislike her, but more that I felt rather meh. And seeing her in F/Z embracing the side of chivalric stupidity at a win-in-all-costs war and repeating her foolish desire to not be King of Britain despite the fact that she did such a good job of it (under the reasonably crapsack conditions) to become a hero that echoes down through the ages just made it worse.

Yeah, I'm gonna play Saber's lawyer here a bit. Not because I think you should worship the ground she walks on, far from it - there's plenty of good characters in Fate to pick your favourite and I understand that people have different tastes and appreciate different character traits more than others, and respect their different preferences when it comes to favourite characters.
I'll be the lawyer because it irks me when people dismiss characters for the wrong reasons. This goes for any character, not just my personal favourites.

First of, "embracing the side of chivalric stupidity in F/Z"?
Her chivalry was there in F/SN too, are you forgetting how she wanted to give her name to Fake Assassin after he introduced himself? And other stuff that I won't list. If anything, it wouldn't make sense if she weren't like that. Are you getting the chronological order wrong?
Also, while her principles of chivalry might be misplaced in the cynical modern world ( which tells more about modern world than it does about her , really ), are you honestly telling me that King Arthur should just throw away the principles that she lived by her whole life just because some muppet that calls himself her Master, and yet doesn't find her worthy enough to even talk to, thinks that that isn't the best way to win the Grail War?

Second - "win-at-all-costs war?"
Since when is this so? Kiritsugu and the likes of him that are desperate enough for the Grail will certainly do whatever it takes, but there are those who think differently. Even mages like Kayneth abide by the code of honour between the mages. It's only after Kerry crippled him that the man resorted to extreme measures like killing Risei.
It baffles me particularly that you think entities like Heroic Spirits should prioritise winning over everything else. Saber's circumstances are special, but she's still a Heroic Spirit, and all of them have became ones because they managed to pull off extraordinary feats using their own powers. Why should they compromise the very things that made them heroes for the sake of the Grail? Lancer openly states that he doesn't need the Grail, Rider prefers shopping and drinking with McKenzies over the War, and Saber puts the safety of her master Iri first, and is willing to die and squander this chance to win the Grail if that's what it takes to protect her master and keep her promise.
Don't view it from such a narrow perspective, the War is certainly not win-at-all-costs for the Servants.

Third - "repeating her wish"?
Zero comes before SN, so if anything, it's in SN that she's repeating her wish. Since Zero is a prequel, she's doomed by canon to not find any answers there. Again, narrow minded thinking.

And lastly, she doesn't "wish to become a hero that echoes down through the ages". On the contrary - getting her wish fulfilled would mean that her existence is erased from history. She wouldn't become a Heroic Spirit, but a Counter Guardian. I don't know if she knew fully what it meant, or if she thought, like Archer, that she'd save people, or if she gave it any thought at all.
From what I understand, her contract with Alaya went like: "Give me the power to vie for the Holy Grail. If I win it and it grants me my wish, you can have my soul and do whatever you want with me." Hardly a wish to go around playing hero.

In conclusion, you're giving her the flak where you shouldn't. If you think her chivalry is misplaced, fine. If you think her introverted personality is boring, fine. If you prefer cynical people over those who fight for ideals, fine. Each to their own. But don't badmouth a character just because you don't agree with their beliefs, and don't make judgements without applying some proper perspective first. Peace.

[Kotonoha]

And I'm saying that it should be "save absolutely everyone ('exception: Shinji')." Because any ideal that says, "I should put myself at personal risk to save the life of Shinji Matou" is a bad ideal. And since Shirou's actually fighting Gilgamesh at the time, it was actually, "I shall have the woman I love put herself at personal risk to save the life of Shinji Matou," which isn't an ideal, it's a case for the commissioners in lunacy. (That said, it's actually Rin's decision to go slogging into the Grail to rescue Shinji that I'm questioning, not Shirou's ideals--Shinji is at that point literally the last person in the world that she actually knows whom she'd want to save, after the things he's done (just going by UBW and her actual knowledge therein, forget about the actual list of his sins). Either she's doing it because she has genuinely decided to adopt Shirou's ideals for herself on a permanent basis or she's doing it because her boyfriend wants her to, neither of which option gives me happy fluffy feelings about Rin.)

(On Tokiomi, my hatred is mildly irrational...but honestly, hanafuda games aside, either he did that to Sakura knowingly, in which case he is a monster worse than Zouken, or he has no clue, in which case he is woefully ignorant of the nature of the Matou family in a city which is in his care.)

What you need to consider about Rin is that despite her whole "be magus, be heartless for VICTORY" upbringing telling her otherwise, she hates letting people die, so she wouldn't be okay with weird sociopathic revenge-killings on defenceless people either. Basically I know killing people you don't like is sometimes romanticized in fiction as this totally normal thing, but in reality it's... not, and it would make absolutely no sense for Shirou or Rin to be okay with it. I get if you mean it in the "I wish this character I didn't like would just die" sense but if you're actually arguing that the story should have been written that way... nope nope

Re: Tokiomi, yes, it is pretty explicit that he does not know about Zouken's methods. The reason for this is that Zouken intentionally hides it so people don't suspect (remember he even managed to keep the basement hidden from someone who lived in the house for 14 years). We've argued about ten thousand times here about whether Tokiomi should have broken into Zouken's house to see what his secret magecraft techniques were on the off chance that they might have been worm-rape-based even though he had no reason to suspect that (hey, it's not my position), but nobody thinks he actually knows what happened to Sakura.

I thought the point of the route was Shirou reaffirming his ideal to be a hero of justice not in the wide-eyed naivete of the Fate route but in awareness and acceptance of the potential (and/or inevitable) costs of such a thing?

Not really, more like he knows that realistically he can't save everyone but he's going to strive to do so no matter what regardless, because Fuck The Ideal Police.

(Man at this rate you should just copy-paste the entire questionnaire into the "unpopular opinion" question)

[I3uster]

I just realized I can defend Tokiomi without having huge textwall arguments.

But I no longer feel like it.

[Kotonoha]

Check your not-caring-about-internet-arguments privilege.

[food]

What's the TL;DR version?

[I3uster]

Check your not-caring-about-internet-arguments privilege.

Hey, I do care! But I don't have the drive anymore for some reason. Conditioning by Mike was so effective.

- - - Updated - - -

What's the TL;DR version?

"Shinji is a faggot, I wish he died dead"
"People die when they are killed"