Badass Versus Thread

[Holiday]

After Rin blew up Herc once with her remaining gems, Illya basically gloated that if she had 5 times as much she could have killed him off completely.

I took that to mean "if you shot him four more times with magic of that level, you could take out his remaining lives one by one", not "if you had shot him once with magic five times as powerful, you could've taken out all his remaining lives in one go". On rereading, though, your interpretation seems to be correct. Thanks, I retroactively like that scene a little more now.

[Rafflesiac]

That could have been communicated just as well with Shirou just giving her the sword and letting her do her thing!

It would lead to the exact same situation with far less striking of an image and affirmation of the main romance and partnership. Also it's the first moment where Shirou isn't fucking useless, let him keep it. Also:

"Your sword isn't enough, use mine": questionable
"We'll work together, affirming each other through our shared dream": good

[Zurvan]

as if Fate route Shirou needed more moments of man > woman

[Wallacia]

hy, he was just trying to be a GENTLEMAN, it's just his version of a gentleman is that of a british lad from the 19 century. but i guess artoria being british makes this ok?

- - - Updated - - -

Serious Gil jobs every time

prove it!

[Holiday]

Gil secretly has the Tohsaka trait of always screwing up at the most important moment.

[TwilightsCall]

Gil secretly has the Tohsaka trait of always screwing up at the most important moment.

Gil has the original of all things in his vault. The Tohsaka version is just a cheap imitation.

[Peanut-007]

alright, i know i'm gonna get cursed for saying this, but: Serious gilgamesh vs lostbelts bosses. each round is separate, how many lostbelts he clears?

Gilgamesh probably uses his super secret super clairvoyance then slips on a banana peel and breaks his neck. Just like in Strange Fake. The only Lostbelt boss who can keep up with his level of jobbing is Sutr who will slash his world ending sword and then get blocked and chain suplexed by Heracles.

[Wallacia]

you guys are great, love you all

[Deathhappens]

Also, Medea's whole plan hinges on getting Saber to kill Herakles, and she'd presumably be better than most at evaluating whether Excalibur can go the distance.

CMIIW but I don't think Medea even knew Artoria's identity, at least before she abducted her.

- - - Updated - - -

For me I don't really see what the rest of the KoTR have to deal with GH, let alone Gil later on.

Theoretically, Excalibur Galatine should work just as well as regular Excalibur for this purpose, especially under the sun.

- - - Updated - - -

Kind of irrelevant, as he's still alive after that one Excalibur. And still doesn't answer the glaring issue of "how do you kill someone more than once simultaneously." The core of the issue is that Nasu cheated to get out of the Saber vs Herk fight because there was no plausible way for Saber to actually win. And if Saber couldn't do it, it's hard to believe any of the other KotR could.

Now if Saber had her super-retconned-destroy-Mars-from-three-galaxies-away Excalibur, then maybe she could have beat Herk, but SOMEBODY had to Command Spell her into not using Excalibur during that fight, so even that doesn't seem feasible.




Ah yes, with a bunch of extra addendums and caveats, they aren't lies anymore.

Even if I accepted those implicit assumptions (which I'm not sure I do), that undermines the whole point of including those lines in the first place. The reader isn't supposed to read "Berserker is the strongest Servant, he can probably take the other six down single-handedly" and say "oh but that's just SO FAR, I'm sure we'll revisit this evaluation in the future when we have more information." No one is going to read it like that, and its very clearly not meant to be read like that, as all of those kind of lines are used to set up payoffs later in the story when the lie is revealed to be a lie.

Both the narration and the characters are frequently wrong in F/SN, so relying on the opinions of characters isn't especially helpful.


But the bottom line is the Saber vs Herk fight in the woods was executed terribly, and you can't make me like it.

It's just dramatic leave. Berserker isn't really the strongest Servant ever, period, of course not. But to the "good guys" he's such an insurmountable obstacle that he might as well be, hence the narration saying that to drive the point home.

[fire_mountain_30]

Gil's exact skill level fluctuates a bit depending on the author, but "less skilled than Shirou" and "unskilled enough that he prefers to just shoot them like bullets" are the keys here. He's probably a lot more skilled than any swordsman in the modern era, but Shirou assimilating battle experience from his projected weapons is enough to outskill him.

Gil's native american loli (or the strange fake narration itself, who cares) said something to the effect of "he was not lacking in any skillset" or something to that effect

- - - Updated - - -

Gil's exact skill level fluctuates a bit depending on the author, but "less skilled than Shirou" and "unskilled enough that he prefers to just shoot them like bullets" are the keys here. He's probably a lot more skilled than any swordsman in the modern era, but Shirou assimilating battle experience from his projected weapons is enough to outskill him.

Gil's native american loli (or the strange fake narration itself, who cares) said something to the effect of "he was not lacking in any skillset" or something to that effect

- - - Updated - - -

you guys are great, love you all

my take:

against Ivan, probably Gil's victory due to how big a target for Ea Ivan is

against Skadi, i would give it to Gil

Against Surt, he would either lose or defeat the fire giant very high diff if he goes 100% all out

against mothman he wins

against Arjuna Alter, he probably loses unless the chains of heaven are THAT broken

against Zeus, i guess Gil could maybe do it if he is 100% serious the whole time, but the margin of error is very slim and it is only because Zeus' defenses aren't conceptual in nature

[Ronove]

Salter only used Excalibur against him once in the VN. Even in the movie, we can probably handwave it away with Berserker gaining more and more resistance to Excalibur every time he's hit by it. (I also think getting physically stabbed would do more damage, because the sword would pin him in place and force him to tank the full beam, whereas at long range he could try to dodge and maybe only get grazed by it; but that's just my headcanon.)

There's also this:



Caliburn isn't actually weaker than Excalibur in terms of firepower. It's just considered a worse NP because it breaks after one use.



None of these quotes really contradict each other in context. What was actually meant by each of them was:

"The Saber class is usually the strongest, so whoever is summoned as Saber will probably be the strongest Servant in this HGW"
"The stats and abilities of several Servants have been revealed. Taking this new information into account, Berserker seems to be the strongest Servant in this HGW"
"Saber has revealed the super-powerful NP she was hiding until now. Taking this new information into account, Saber seems to be the strongest Servant in this HGW"
"An unexpected eighth Servant has been revealed, and his abilities are super-powerful. Taking this new information into account, he seems to be the strongest Servant in this HGW"

Any statement about Servant strength is made with the implicit riders "in this HGW" and "based on the information we have so far". Therefore, statements made later when the characters have more accurate information should always be preferred when determining who is actually strongest.

- - - Updated - - -



In the first statement, Saber says "it would be difficult to defeat him" and "it may be impossible for Servants to beat that giant". She's not optimistic about her chances, but she never gives a hard no when asked if she could beat him at full power.

Nasu's written many times that a servant is 'unrivaled' and contradicted it in the same material, sometimes even in the following sentence (see: Karna's CCC materials). For FSN, he has called Saber Alter "undoubtedly the strongest servant" and then Gilgamesh "the strongest servant". You can't rely on fallible narratives for this, because it's the author saying it having all the information, in supplementary materials.

Nasu is a liar and power levels are highly deceptive. This is a fact.

[Deathhappens]

Nasu is undoubtedly a liar and loserlevels are for losers, but trusting a disclaimer of "THIS IS THE STRONGEST SERVANT" after F/SN where you've seen "the strongest" Berserker and even Gil get mobbed by weaker combatants (down to and including some punk kid that can barely use Magecraft) is on you.

[Leftovers]

[DTTS]

Being the strongest doesn't mean you'll win 100% of the time. That's not the problem.
The problem is you have multiple people being called "the strongest" in the scope of the same work.
But i'm 95% Nasu does this shit on purpose just so people can argue about powerlevels online since that is what generates the most discussion in series like this after all ツ)_/¯

[eddyak]

I'm surprised anybody's surprised by it. It's a staple of fantasy works that a big bad shows up, then is beaten, then a bigger bad shows up.

It's also a Nasu-ism, along with "this law is immutable, this guy's going to lose! Aha, but that's wrong! Bamboozled again!"

[Holiday]

These are just more examples of what I talked about before: "the narrator thought this character was the strongest based on the info they had at the time" or "the Saber class is generally supposed to be the strongest".

If there's a particular material book where Nasu said "this guy is the strongest" in one character's profile, and "actually this guy is the strongest" in a different character's profile, then I'm happy to be proven wrong on that point. But I really don't see the problem with contradictory quotes from the story itself, where it's clear in each instance that the narrator is making an assessment based on the information they have at hand, rather than an omniscient statement of absolute truth.

[Ronove]

These are just more examples of what I talked about before: "the narrator thought this character was the strongest based on the info they had at the time" or "the Saber class is generally supposed to be the strongest".

If there's a particular material book where Nasu said "this guy is the strongest" in one character's profile, and "actually this guy is the strongest" in a different character's profile, then I'm happy to be proven wrong on that point. But I really don't see the problem with contradictory quotes from the story itself, where it's clear in each instance that the narrator is making an assessment based on the information they have at hand, rather than an omniscient statement of absolute truth.

You could say this but I think we're heading to the same place. If calling a servant the strongest depends on multiple variables and caveats, why would anyone take it seriously? Nasu may as well just be saying "this guy's pretty good and could be better if the conditions are nice" instead of "you're the best...but only if you got the weather right, the other guy forgets to tie his shoelace and mommy grail said you could have all the magic power today."

It's sort of semantics but one doesn't need as many loops to justify.

[Wallacia]

The chad mushroom vs the virgin narrator

[Deathhappens]

If calling a servant the strongest depends on multiple variables and caveats, why would anyone take it seriously?

You're nor supposed to.

[Holiday]

You can't write about weak and/or overspecialized people beating the guy who's supposed to be the strongest if you never say "this guy is the strongest".