#fate averruncus

So let’s see. On the right we have Eva, an ancient evil demon queen who’s killed thousands if not millions of people, attempted to murder our original ten y/o protagonist, made him work to the point of near death and then berated him for not being able to do better, threw a 15 year old girl into a blizzard buck-naked and forced her to live there for two weeks straight, told another 15 year old that experiencing happiness instead of working herself to the bone every waking moment would cause her loved ones to die, and was generally just kind of a horrible person. Regardless of the sympathetic circumstances that caused her to be like this and the fact that her behavior is completely understandable in context, she’s a proud villain who revels in tormenting people.

On the left we have Fate, a 20 year old who was taught from birth that his purpose in life was to save the world. That method of saving the world is to send the whole world to heaven before the planet becomes unsuitable for living, but from Fate’s perspective it is literally the only way those souls can be saved from an eternity of suffering. His hobbies include saving war orphans and making sure they can live comfortably and happily for the rest of their lives. He has five adopted daughters. Regardless of the fact that some of his actions are misinformed, he always has everyone’s best intentions in mind and is, all in all, a good guy.

One of these people went on to create a non-profit organization that works to make the world a better place, sheltering orphaned minorities and helping the poor.

One of these people went on to create a couple hundred child soldiers and to execute a plan that ultimately puts millions and millions of people in danger, for the sake of one guy.

At this point it all of this already begs the question of what the fuck, but let’s dissect this even further.

So, Evangeline AK Fucking Mcdowell, a woman who, after many centuries of being miserable and having no joy or hope to hold onto, was finally able to make a life for herself with people who loved her, was then was forced to watch her decades-old comrades fly off into battle and meet fates worse than death. 

Then she finally joined the hero business so she could help her surrogate son, one of the only people left in her life that she could ever possibly have room left in her heart to care for besides Chachazero and Chachamaru. 

Then both her century’s long best friend and her son fly off into a heroic last battle and never return.

Her first moment in hundreds of years that she uses to do the right thing is a moment that completely and devastatingly betrays her. Evangeline has been given every single reason to go back to hating heroism as she always has, and every reason to be completely destroyed by this turn of events. There is no logical reality where the mentally grounded and well intentioned Yukihime we see throughout all of UQ Holder would exist. There’s no reason she would continue being a goody two shoes when heroic bravado is what ended the only happy segment of her long and painful life. It’s just dumb and weird. 

Her clingy attachment with Touta, the only thing she has left even resembling her late son, would make sense if it was actually portrayed like that instead of just her being a normal, nice, regular mom. But alas, Yukihime is so abstracted from her original personality she might as well have be another character.

And on Fate’s side of things, we have another 180 of moral compass.

There is no world wherein the Fate Averruncus of Negima would exploit a child as a means of paying off bills. There’s no world wherein he would do something that would lead up to that, nor where he would work with a company that condones such things. Fate is a man who, at ten years old, murdered his abusive brother to protect a child he barely knew, and his morals aren’t any worse than they were back then.

The reason Fate chose to go against his master’s will at the end of Negima, was not the result of some magical spell being lifted or other such bullshit as one would expect from a lesser story, it was the result of him realizing that the fate of the world could be a better one if he and Negi worked together. Because Fate has been raised from birth to pursue the most logical, rational option that would allow for as many people as possible to be happy. 

And there’s no goddamn way Fate would risk the world for Negi. Not the immediate world nor its distant future. He’s been willing to see his crush dead just for ticking him off once, if Negi told him after years of trust and friendship “Hey I’m going to be a threat to the world soon, kill me, ok?” Fate would stand by that request. He would be heartbroken, yes, but Fate has been groomed since birth to be a world-saving super soldier.

I just. don’t understand?? how this happened??? who thought this was ok?????

Again, if it were switched around, it would make sense. Eva is a bad person. Straight up. If UQ Holder had told me that she went full blown sociopath again after Negi’s assimilation into the Mage Of Beginnings out of a desire to save him that superceeds her concern for humanity’s wellbeing? Yeah. Ok. A bit extreme given that she was more of a detached stepmom to him than anything, but certainly less logically suspect than her starting a charity organization. And given the entirety of Fate’s characterization, that charity organization is exactly what I’d presume he’d do without any kind of sequel telling me that. The whole point of his character in the first place is that he’s a good person whose plan to save everyone and everything in the universe just so happens to involve pieces that are at odds with the hero’s goals (and also includes hiring murdery demons, but to be fair, if the demons are busy helping him save the world then that also preoccupies them from doing evil). And it’s not like UQ Holder has entirely forgotten about this but...child soldiers. Child soldiers. C h i l d  s o l d i e r s. That’s not. Conceivable. As being anything that Fate would have ever, ever participated in. He’d have turned the guy who suggested it to stone, dumped the guy into the ocean, given him immortality and unpetrified him so that he’d drown forever for even hinting at the idea of hurting a child.