#fate meta

Reading the (translated and abridged) Mahabharata has made me think a little bit more a character that is mentioned a couple times by Arjuna: Krishna.

When I watched Arjuna's second interlude (since I unfortunately don't have a copy of my own), Krishna is mentioned as a sort of... representation of Arjuna's dark side, the negative emotions he tried to repress no given form. But it was just that, a metaphor and a representation, a name given to the negative yet natural feelings that he experienced, which were amplified by his position as a Hero, specifically him being almost the 'chief' hero out of all five Pandava brothers. Digression: It's actually something that he has in common with Abigail Williams, the extreme pressures of their respective societies (mythic war India and puritan New England) making them view their natural emotions (Arjuna's jealousy and Abby's childlike mischief) as something dark and unwanted, and their repression of those feelings left them both open to malevolent outside influences.

So when this line happened in Lostbelt 4 (an otherwise extremely good chapter), I was a little put off by it. It felt like something of a cop-out, or a misntepretation on either my part or the writers, having Krishna/dark Arjuna be an actual entity contributing to the Lostbelt, instead of Krishna just being the sort of metaphor for Arjuna's dark internal feelings. On my first read of Lostbelt 4, at least.

But now having read (most) of the Mahabharata, my perspective on what 'Krishna' is in Fate has changed somewhat, in the Epic, Krishna is very much his own character and entity, rather than just something inside Arjuna. I'll admit to maybe not having the best grasp on the theology of it all, but Krishna is a manifestation and avatar of the god Vishnu, who is basically the omni-god (oversimplifcation) of the Hindu pantheon. And most importantly in the epic, more so than any death-becoming world-destroying powers, Krishna is dharma. The quickest way I can describe dharma is that it is like one's fate (concept not franchise) and conduct, it is what one must and will do, according to both one's class status (like the Ksatriya warrior class that most of the epic characters are) and ones own self. Despite being in the same class, two people can end up having very different dharma, like Bhima and Duryodhana, for example.

What ties in with the Fate series is that... Krishna is still a dark 'side'. I'm not saying this to slander him or portray him as a villain, he is dharma, what he says goes, and if an act is adharmic (going against dharma) to either the performer of the act or to others, it can be made dharmic simply by Krishna's will.

And that is a large part of what he does in the Mahabharata, as he is forbidden from fighting directly in the Kurukshetra war, instead acting as Arjuna's charioteer and the chief advisor of the Pandavas. It is he who instructs Arjuna to shoot Karna in the back while Karna's wheel is stuck (due to treachery), even though such an act would be cowardly, against the rules of war, and adharma, it is permitted because it is Krishna's will. Earlier and similarly, when a noble hero on the Kaurava side is about to slay one of Arjuna's disciples, the distant Arjuna, at Krishna's urging, interrupts their duel by shooting the arms off of the Kaurava general, saving his friends life but earning him the rebuke of said general, who correctly assesses that it was Krishna who drove Arjuna to commit such an adharmic act that he wouldn't otherwise commit.

It's not just Arjuna that Krishna manipulates, during Bhima and Duryodhana's final duel, Krishna instructs Bhima to strike his foe below the belt (literally), a move that incapacitated Duryodhana and was as illegal in a mace duel as it is in boxing, but was nonetheless permitted because Krishna.

And while Krishna permits acts that violate dhama when it benefits his friends and chosen side, he will not tolerate it from others, such as when Ashwatthaman, confronted after the night-raid where he killed hundreds of Pandava soldiers in their beds, throws his weapon at Arjuna's pregnant wife. Which is very uncool and very much adharmic (then as now), and Krishna punishes him by cursing him with eternal injuries (in FGO, it is the rage curse that Ash has) and immortality, condemning him to walk the world cursed forever. Maybe that's a fitting punishment, maybe it isn't, that's subjective, but it does kinda show how Krishna's double standard operates, he's willing to punish breaches of dharma done by others, while at the same time encouraging the Pandavas to violate dharma.

This does not go unnoticed by other characters in the epic, and Krishna is not completely infallible; many of the Pandavas express doubts or discomforts over their breaches of dharma, and only wise Yudhistra, himself a lord of dharma, can match Krishna in moral rhetoric. Krishna himself also blames several breaches of dharma, encouraged by him or not, on the fact that the world is, at this point, in the Kali Yuga, an age of pain and strife, where breaches of dharma are to be expected.

Duryodhana, himself a wicked man (not an insult, both he and the narrative know it), remonstrates Krishna as he lays dying, pointing out the various dirty tricks Krishna told the Pandavas to use, and then basically giving that Skyrim quote "My ancestors are smiling at me, [Pandava]. Can you say the same?" Because dharma is a multifaceted concept, a man as wicked as Duryodhana will still go to heaven and meet with his warriors and kinsmen there, for even with all the evil stuff he did, he still acted according his dharma as a Ksatriya, and his own personal dharma (being the villain of this story), while the Pandavas now have to live with the guilt and pain over what they have done. (The multifaceted nature of dharma is also why FGO Ash can have contradictory sounding skills of 'Violation of Chivalry' and 'Revered Soldier'.)

To bring it all back to Arjuna's interludes and Lostbelt 4, the mention of Krishna in LB4 makes a lot more sense to me and coheres more, know that I'm more well informed on Krishna as a proper 'character' than I was before. And Krishna as a character does, in fact, not clash (in my opinion) with 'Krishna' as Arjuna's dark side and the evil voice inside his head, because the 'real' Krishna was evil voice in his ear during the War. The point of Arjuna's 2nd interlude is that, even if such an adharmic act was permitted and encouraged by Krishna, Arjuna still bears guilt over killing Karna in that way. And coming to terms with that, recognizing that both the feelings that drove him to strike in that way, and subsequently feelings of guilt over it, are part of what makes him and us human, that he is allowed to be human and fallible yet still follow the path of the Ksatriya and a Servant to the best of his ability...

You know, Gil actually has a huge amount of parallels with Saber, Castoria, and Morgan, it's just that we only ever see him once his journey is complete so it doesn't feel as tragic. Not exactly the same of course, and Gil ends up better in the end than the others, however the origins are surprisingly similar, or at the very least mirror each other.

Destined saviors born with a purpose too great for any one person, so much pressure the majority of people couldn't handle it.

Like Castoria, Gil had no choice in becoming the wedge of heaven, his destiny was instilled upon him by the gods before he was born, and he was given the power of clairvoyant sight which showed him endless timelines in possibilities, many of them filled with destruction. Endless information, enough that according to Sheba's interlude, he had to learn how to suppress it. He sees the deaths of his loved ones before they come, as shown by how he nearly panicked when Siduri was about to go to her death in Babylonia.

However, like Morgan, Gilgamesh rejected his destiny, while simultaneously accepting it. The gods wanted him to crush humans under his heel, to prevent them from creating and discovering so humans would remain reliant on the gods forever. But Gil grew to love humans so much he decided to take their side instead, preventing the gods from holding onto their already slipping control. He decided he would become a guardian of humanity, the sole decider and protector of its fate. To do this, he could not grow close to humans, he had to cut himself off emotionally in order to be impartial. As mentioned in CCC, the only reason he was able to grow close to Enkidu and love them is because they were neither human nor god. At last, Gilgamesh had an equal he was able to relax around, someone who understood what it was like to be all alone in the world, the only creature of his kind. When Enkidu died, even after Gilgamesh went on his journey and became wise, his decision to never become close to anyone else remains firm. He is eternally isolated, unable to let himself let his guard down around anyone. Even when he grows attached to a human, like Hakuno, he cannot see them as an equal and be vulnerable around them, because he will always be the wedge of heaven.

Saber, meanwhile, willingly chose to be a savior. She had a choice, took it upon herself to give up companionship in order to take up the sword. She gained everything, then lost it and regretted it, cared for but still distant and not understood by anyone. It was only in her afterlife (or rather in an eternity of a split second right before her death), that she was able to find peace and companionship.

I know (a version of) you, I loved you, hated you.

I'm pretty sure that he would have dropped her in the moment she agrees to marry him so.....was the chase this exciting to him?

The Muffin, Fate, and You

Anon asks about the Nasuverse, which is a sprawling multiple anime, video game, visual novel universe usually with the title "Fate" where you can summon historical/mythological figures to do battle for you over the Holy Grail which may also be the source of ultimate evil if corrupted.

I'm one of those heathens that only respects Fate/Zero, which is the prequel series to the original timelines of Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Ultimate Blade Works, etc.

I've tried other franchises in the multiverse aside from Fate/Zero, I couldn't do it. I'm sorry guys, to me, they are complete trash and unworthy of contemplation.

And guess which one you're asking about, anon?

Alright, Alright, I'll Try

Arthuria Pendragon is one of those strange, rare, people who fully embodies an ideal (in this case chivalry and the divinely anointed king). However, because of this, she is a failed king in that while she inspired her people she ultimately failed to keep them, was betrayed by those around her, and had little to no understanding of what it means to lead a nation.

Alexander the Great points this out to her and pities her for it, he believes she'd make a far better vassal under his command than a king in her own right.

Gilgamesh, however, is fascinated.

Arthuria is such a tragic figure to him, a classic tragedy given form, and one who never quite breaks even when the results of her efforts are shown before her.

This is the shit Gilgamesh lives for.

He wants to see just how far Arthuria can be pushed before she crumbles. And, if she never does, if she retains this hopeful naivite and someone worthy of being presented Excalibur in the face of everything that's happened, then she is something truly extraordinary.

Gilgamesh lives in a world that bores him in which the people he tends to meet, for this or that reason, are all the same. There are a few who stand out of the crowd: Kirei Kotomine in the depths of depravity and pure evil the man is capable of and Arthuria Pendragon on the opposite end of someone who despite everything refuses to be anything less than infuriatingly noble.

He knows, as of the end of Fate/Zero, that he will see her again when the next Grail War comes about. What's ten years for one of the most interesting people he's met? Who, the last time he saw her, was utterly betrayed by her master, faced her underling who she learned she'd driven utterly mad, etc.

I used to not really think the Fate route had a big message that had a culmination at the end. We saw the big epic final fight, got some answers, Shirou and Saber fought together, and by the end we knew quite a bit about Shirou.

Like, UBW is all about Shirou’s ideal, if it’s right to save everyone around him at the expense of himseld. HF is all about him abandoning that ideal and choosing to save his close loved ones. But Fate, I wasn’t sure.

Like, I thought the route was just about their relationship, but I feel like it’s more than that. I think it addresses Shirou’s flaw in his ideals in a different way from the other routes.

I think there was a meta I saw saying that Shirou’s sexism isn’t actually him being sexist, and it’s more that he can’t let someone fight for him, because of how little value he gives his own life. But, because he doesn’t realize that he feels that he has no self-worth, he assumes the reason he doesn’t want Saber fighting is because she’s a girl.

That’s all I remember about it, but it makes sense to me. That’s why he doesn’t try to say Rin shouldn’t be fighting at any point in the UBW route or the Fate route. Because she’s not fighting for him, she’s fighting for herself, so he doesn’t have to worry about her fighting for someone who has very little value to his own life.

Anyway, if we assume that the Fate route is about him struggling with letting someone fight for him when he has so little self-worth, the finale honestly feels perfect. Both Shirou and Saber having faith in each other and both making sure to fight to the end without failing.

Like, he notes that Kirei is wrong and Saber is fine because he still has his command spells, so that’s reason for him to think she’s still alive, but I don’t think he would have said that earlier on.

I think that earlier on he would’ve still worried about her and what he could do to put himself in danger to save her, since his life is worth less. But he trusts that since she’s still alive, she can handle it.

in Chaldea Ace vol 2, there's a chibi colored manga drawn by the same author of Fate/school life Eiichirou Mashin, his advisor is Semimaru-P (ja . wikipedia . org/wiki/%E8%9D%89%E4%B8%B8P) a Shingon Buddhist monk who is also an active NicoNicoDouga content creator, teaching Buddhism online and his most famous deed was playing IdolM@ster songs with Buddhism instruments. He is in charge of explaining obscure Buddhism stuffs that TM chars brought up. Some of them are:

The Kurama-dera (en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Kurama-dera) temple has a statue of a divine being from Venus about 6,5 million years ago and stays in a 16 years old body. New Age writers identified this with Sanat Kumara as after the anti-Buddhism movement in Meiji era they had a Theosophy x Buddhism marriage of sort, so instead of Ushi getting the hype, Helena shows up instead. Poor girl.

The mention of anti-Buddhism movement, burning of temples and why Nobunaga decided to do it.

Rashoumon, Shuten and Ibaraki story involving Abe no Seimei (there's a picture of a statue of him). In truth, he shouldn't be the one who figured out Shuten due to timeline not match similar to Tamamo story, but because of "Seimei Boom" back then ppl just got fanboy/fangirl about him. Gudako then talk about his potential as an OP char, and there's an illustration of a 5 star servant...NO STOP TEASING ME ABOUT HIM GODDAMNIT!!!

Tamamo recommended players to visit the Fushimi Inari-taisha (en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Fushimi_Inari-taisha) , it's a shrine for the fox deity Inari no Okami, and the layout of it seems to be the inspiration for the Millennium Capital in Extella. Xuanzang then wondered that Amaterasu has no connection to the Inari.

SemimaruP then explained that the Ise Grand Shrine (affected by both the fusion of gods and Buddhas and the anti-Buddhism movement back then), the shrine where Amaterasu is worshiped, is the culprit. They syncretized Inari = Uka no Mitama = Toyouke no Okami (en .  wikipedia . org/wiki/Toyouke-%C5%8Cmikami) = Dakini-ten and all of them = Amaterasu. That is to make sure the Inner temple (enshrine Amaterasu) and the Outer Temple (enshrine Toyouke no Okami) worship the same deity. And then Nasu picked up on that minor connection -> Fate Tamamo is a fox who has Dakini magic and related to Amaterasu, who also references Inari everywhere she could.

Thank you SemimaruP, I feel like I'm about to reach Nirvana after reading these.

www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/a9z1kg/while_everyone_seems_to_love_tamamonomae_how_can/eco49lq/

Since someone mentioned in another thread she was also called Dakki, my mind went back to an old manga I loved, Houshin Engi.

Basically, it talked about a fight between the Zhou dynasty and supernatural beings, in a nutshell.

However, the main antagonist was Dakki, a brutal girl who revelled in torturing others and seeing their pain. She was a fox demon who possessed the original girl, Dakki, and used her 'noble phantasm' (in the Houshin Engi world), Veil of Temptation to make the emperor of China her puppet. Later she became the favoured courtesan of Emperor Toba in Japan.

While the manga Dakki was fictional, it was loosely based on the real woman, Daji.

Like the manga, though the person was changed, Daji did several things, like create the 'Shuchi Nikurin', a pool of sake next to a forest of meat, where tigers ate humans.

Doesn't that name sound familiar?

When a concubine of King Zhou objected to this, he had her executed and then her father was ground in pieces and his flesh fed to King Zhou's vassals.

How do you feel about Tamamo-Cat preparing and feeding you meals now?

(true, in this scene in the Houshin Engi manga, this was another ruler, who then starved himself to death after eating his son)

Other things that Daji did were:

After seeing a farmer walking barefoot on ice, she ordered his feet cut off so she could study them and figure out why they were so resistant to low temperatures.

Had a pregnant woman's belly cut open so it satisfied her curiosity to find out what happened inside.

To verify an ancient saying that "a good man's heart has seven apertures", she even had the heart of the minister Bi Gan (King Zhou's uncle) dug out and subjected to her scrutiny.

Invented a torture method known as Paolao (炮烙). A bronze cylinder covered with oil was heated like a furnace with charcoal beneath until its sides became extremely hot. The victim was made to walk on top of the slowly heating cylinder and he was forced to shift his feet to avoid the burning. The oily surface made it difficult for the victim to maintain his position and balance. If the victim fell into the charcoal below, he would be burnt to death.

While all Heroic Spirits aren't exactly virtuous, coughSiegfriedcough, it's interesting how even the most brutal of people could be waifu-ed.

Any other Servants you know of, aside from the obvious ones like Vlad, who are hiding some horrible deeds in their past 

www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/a9z1kg/comment/eco49lq/

yokai . com/tamamonomae/

www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/6i0r1h/comment/dj2mjd6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Actually it's yes and no.

First of all, you should read her 3rd secret garden

www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/66x9ry/ccc_collab_celebration_tamamos_3rd_sg_event/

 from CCC where Amaterasu roasted all of Tamamo's bullshit she told you in Extra. She basically told you only half of the story.

Many evidences point to her being related to Daji or actually was Daji:

In that interlude, Amaterasu said that Tamamo destroyed many countries and killed many people, which fits the legend of her rampaging China, India and Japan.

In Extella she got excited and slipped a bunch of Daji references (want to make MC as happy as King Zhou) as well as a very disturbing "Indian curry" comment (during her rampage in India, depends on the version of the myth, she fed a father his own son's meat, hence that curry comment is very disturbing). She also activated the keikoku mode (harlot mode) where she acts just like Daji.

One of her Alter Egos, Tamamo Cat, has a NP being a direct reference to Daji's Wine and Meat Forest creation.

In her FGO interlude, she said that when she was young she roamed the earth, did w/e she wanted. Then later she felt guilty and decided to cut off her 8 tails.

In the Japanese version of the Daji story, Daji is actually a normal human girl who was possessed by Tamamo. So she is not Daji because she just possessed the girl.

Basically, from the info we had until now, I believe the story went like this:

Amaterasu gone bad, messing around with ppl since at least 12000 BCE. She possessed Daji and fucked up China, then went to India and ruined it, then returned to China AGAIN to fuck it up before moving to Japan.

Amaterasu cloned her soul in a Shinto process to create a bunrei of herself, that's Tamamo. This soul was incarnated as a human girl without any memories of who she was or what she did. The rest happened the same way she put it in Extra.

We all know Fate's world building holds up like wet newspaper (affectionate), so my questions are:

- Where the fuck are all the people who live in Alfea? Why is this school in a castle if there's only 50 so people living there and this is counting the teachers.

- Why are there microwaves in the girls' suite? does this imply there are little stores nearby the castle? Grocery stores? Does it imply we have vending machines in Alfea? Why do they have a mini kitchen, where do they get their snacks if Alfea is in the middle of fucking nowhere?

- Where do they do their laundry? Are there communal laundromats per floor? Is there the possibility Sky and Riven will wander in the specialist's laundromat and find Silva in his boxers because Farah spilled wine down his shirt? Do they have little washing machines/driers in their little apartments (WHERE???)?