It just forces shirou to become human and to attain his own "selfishness to life". Remember it never was shirou's ideal that is he himself didn't came up with it.
With heavens feel , the premise that ideal was built on got shattered to pieces.
That's the answer of heavens feel. In my opinion it was perfect conclusion to shirou as a character.
Extraverse maybe? With A L I E N S being top dog instead of GalayaOriginally Posted by OnesFleetingGlory
don't quote me on this
Extraverse mentions about the planet's soul being hurt, so Gaia is still around.
Okay, now hear this crackpot theory that's based on absolutely nothing at all.
The reason why true magics past the Third are bad is that they are not authentic true magics. They are just mirrors of the previous three, able to undo their achievements, which in itself is a unique concept.
So 'Materialization of Soul' becomes 'Reification of Matter' in the Fourth, which also explains how it hid itself. You can think of it like the process of ascension to Nirvana with all the bits, rather than leaving your body behind.
Similarly, you can see how the Fifth mirrors the Second - where the Second is positive, showing endless possibilities, the Fifth is negative, destroying possibilities for the sake of one choice.
Finally, the Sixth undoes everything the First did, which I can imagine leads to it destroying the world. The first and the last.
Shirou as a person was always hiding those vulnerable parts, ever since seeing in the Fate route how he pushed down the fact that even being happily adopted by Kiritsugu, he'd walk to the place his old home one stood, and wave to visions of his dead mother. I think people get wrapped up in the conversation about the ideal and forget these other parts to Shirou, that even he statics out in internal monologue, pretending he isn't bothered about losing his parents, or that its all secondary to the fire, when it all coincides in what makes him the person he is now.One of the problems one could say of Heavens Feel is that it isn't really interaction, struggling with, or exploring an answer with Sakura that brings a change in Shirou.
Its horny, and the sort of need to protect Sakura from her lack of agency and the evils shes pushed in. It has a lot of great moments, it uses some characters fantastically (Kotomine). But it fails Shirou, and most of all it fails Sakura in a few core ways like this.
You could say that Nasu figured he'd try to flip it on its head by making the heroine an antagonistic force (already been done in Tsukihime mind.) But you can have a antagonistic heroine of a route interact with, push and force development/answers from the protagonist!... After all the heroine of UBW, Archer does just that very well prior to Heavens Feel
In HF, its giving you more of that vulnerability, rather than allowing Shirou to just push it aside like how he would quickly jump from saying he felt a cage fall on him when he had fun on the date with Rin and Saber in UBW and then moved on from that internal monologue. And in HF, it was about him struggling with the ideal while having someone he viewed as family being at the center of the conflict. And you can't view HF just in a bubble, because Shirou shows in the other routes how he considers Sakura as family as well.
Sakura and him have a few good conversations about his ideal, said through the lens of how she was feeling at the moment as a person in confinement.
A great conversation they have later in the route is about magecraft, her treatment, and how she feels about Rin, which was both sobering and got us into her headspace and Shirou's mental headspace, since she talked with Shirou about how he performs magecraft, as well as why she likes him but what she finds makes her feel uncomfortable about him.
The problem is, that people don't consider a character to have agency unless they are personally fighting in battles, and its frustrating discussing character analysis with that argument.
The main problem I have with criticism of HF is that its always lacking when people forget these points above and just think Sakura laid there doing nothing.
The story was about showcasing the different mindsets in conflict under one roof despite supposedly cooperating.
And then the various circumstances that caused the heroine to become the antagonist being one of the main points, since really, the route shows you that if Ilya were more upfront with the ritual's secrets, and Rin remembered (and acted upon) her speculation that it was an anomaly in the ritual that caused the war to turn as pear shaped as it did, likely you wouldn't even get a Dark Sakura.
There would have been a tense, emotional conversation and that would have ended it. You notice that its also mostly Sakura that ends up trying to bridge the estrangement they have, but Rin shuts down conversation before they get to the really uncomfortable parts. But that is a matter of course, because she wants to shield her heart as much as she can for what she thinks she has to do.
So beyond just Shirou and Sakura, there is the dialogue if the two siblings, which is MORE than just the sister hug at the end dagnabbit.
Plus, it wasn't just that "evils were pushed in" into her like a plot device, this is the culmination of her bitterness over 11 years with the reality of the situation of her being a magical experiment. And I think people struggle with that nuance, trying to frame her as either just pretending to be good, or lacking in genuine bitterness.
That and with Archer in UBW. the situation was different in that it was a theoretical conundrum for Shirou to overcome, which is different from a practical application. One was him debating, amd the other was a tense situation put into practice. So deciding, "I'm me and you are you, I'll stay on this path" is easier because ultimately its speculation rather than a situation that has to be decided upon now and has consequences NOW.
Its why that add in Nasu makes showing Shirou going further than EMIYA is nice, but we never see those struggles that show he makes it further, just the end goal. Probably also why Last Episode makes me raise an eyebrow. Its nice in a box, but feels odd. Which to be fair, I can see why people say HF True feels the same, but I'd say that unlike the other two examples, it shows more of a "its not perfect, but we'll manage"(Shirou and Sakura still have problems with their bodies, Sakura pushes her all into her work to not immerse herself in guilt or wallow in depression) situation rather than, "he got to the end of his ideal and its positive, the end".
Last edited by Altima of the Gates; February 12th, 2022 at 09:38 AM.
Okay, that's a very shounen way of thinking.
Kinda understandable since there'd be no plot otherwise, but keeping someone you hold dear cooped up in their comfort zone isn't healthy, and might hurt their relationship in the long run, as is shown during the climax.
Though I'll chalk that up to Rin trying to be considerate, since she isn't privy of Sakura's circumstances all those years until recently, so she doesn't really know how to best interact with her, thus becoming too careful on how she approaches some subjects involving Sakura.
If agency was combat power and fights then Dark Sakura has plenty of agency.
The agency Sakura has, or rather doesn't have is about her choice, actual sins and accountability which doesn't really exist. She's kind of forced and put into her situation and made into the evil dark sakura. This makes for a convenient redemption since it isn't really sakura at fault.
But that's also the big problem of Heavens Feel.
That conclusion drawn from that kind of thinking from the route structure of F/SN will always keep popping up, unfortunately.
It's been around since the beginning of Western fandom's exposure to this. It's bad take, but what can you do.
What take?
I don't think they act like actual sins or accountability doesn't exist. It's still sakura in the end who did it. Her anger and emotion. "All the world's evil" is only made her act on that very emotion.
In normal end she spends her life atoning for that very sin by planting trees cause that's the only way she knows to atone it.
Of course it's impossible for one to atone murder in itself. I won't judge her choice.
Sakura you weren't putting one too many carbon dioxides into the atmosphere, you were mudering people.
Well it's still life for a life. Honestly her Sin can't be redeemed and she doesn't know how to atone because well she spent most of her life in a closed sphere with Inhumans . That very world or society didn't help her when she needed. Going a social worker would make her a hypocrite as she doesn't really hold the same values.
Deaths would be covered by mage association/church so even information of the families would be gone.
I took it as the fact that she can't correct her mistakes or realistically atone for them is part of the message. Shit happened but keeping someone Shirou loved alive was more important than the morality of truly redeeming her because that's very difficult to do.
Though I do think it's kind of a pussy move to not commit to that idea. A 100% full commital would've been that her going off the rails wasn't a reaction to her tragic circumstance but instead her own actual character. Though I think someone has already mentioned Dark Sakura isn't exactly a whole other existence and it does represent a part of her, the blow is softened pretty well by the execution. Essentially having Shirou fall in love with someone who's as irredeemable as let's say Shinji just for Shinji to be down with abandoning his bad ways and living a normal life after the ending would deliver the theme far more than Shirou falling in love with someone who's a victim first and sinner second.
- - - Updated - - -
I guess making the reader sympathize with the love interest was too important to execute things in that manner though.
On second thought there's more thematic elements at hand than just this one so "I guess making the reader sympathize with the love interest was too important to execute things in that manner though." isn't a very fair assessment, I still think it's a valid criticism to say Dark Sakura's execution is intended to soften the blow of "is the heroine really that bad even if she's accountable" though. And I can see why it would come off as an overall narrative weak point to the conflict.
I'm pretty sure Angra Mainyu wasn't really affecting her personality much, it just gave her the power to start acting on all her built up resentment etc over the years. She didn't have any agency over the Shadow's actions, given that she was literally asleep during its activities.
- - - Updated - - -
Isn't that what happens in UBW?
Well honestly she isn't any more of a murderer than half of the world been doing with magecraft.
Seeing logically it's essentially the outcome of an experiment.
Anyone reading the whole situation would probably dismiss her simply as victim.
With that being said there's no judge nor there's jury that could measure up her sins.
I never really sympathised with her as I saw her actions as logical outcome.
- - - Updated - - -
Yep there's a specific scene in where it's said her unconscious was coming to the front.
I recall you saying something similar about Rainbow in the Night. How you don't like either route because it's about Ciel and Sakura atoning for things you don't believe to be in their responsibility. Is that it or am I reading something wrong?
Based on the sheer personality change its hard to argue it wasn't affecting her to some extent
Honestly if someone was drugged to the point of delirium forcibly and attacked someone in that state, would we blame them for it?
The whole narrative of her being responsible always legitimately irks me a bit honestly
my thought today: i like fate because what it says about humanity. yeah we kinda suck sometimes but in the end we can be pretty based and are capable of great things. sums up both humanity as a whole and each of us individually. pat yourself on the back guys we're great.
based on what?
かん汗ぎゅう牛じゅう充とう棟
Expresses the exceeding size of one's library.
Books are extremely many, loaded on an oxcart the ox will sweat.
At home piled to the ridgepole of the house, from this meaning.
Read out as 「Ushi ni ase shi, munagi ni mitsu.」
Source: 柳宗元「其為書，處則充棟宇，出則汗牛馬。」— Tang Dynasty
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
