Hey, do you have or know where to find a breakdown on the "people die when they are killed" line? I distinctly remember reading an analysis of the meaning that was lost in translation/adaptation, and I thought I saw it on your blog, but I can't find it now (though I've enjoyed the excuse to deep dive good Fate posts again).
that line has been such a hot topic of discussion for so long that there's been a billion posts you could be referring to so I'll just give you the explanation myself again
"to not die when killed" is a pretty common japanese turn of phrase. "to be killed" should be understood here as "to be lethally injured," and "not dying even when killed" means "being able to survive even lethal injuries". it does not read as something odd to say in japanese, and in english it does not read as something odd in context either.
what shirou says is "people die when they are killed, that's how it's supposed to be." the scene in question happens near the end of fate route, when he's giving avalon back to saber so that she's better equipped to fight gilgamesh. shirou, until this point, has not been dying when he gets killed because of avalon's restorative powers, and he'd been relying on these restorative powers to throw himself headfirst into danger to satisfy his traumatic saviour complex. saber asks him if he's sure about giving up that safety net, and he responds by saying yeah, this isn't something I was supposed to have anyway. avalon is what allowed him to repeatedly throw himself in front of saber to "protect" her and live to get scolded for it later, and giving it back to her means he will truly trust her to fight for him now.
also, people die when they are killed. shirou, for most of his life since kiritsugu saved him until this point, hasn't really been a person so much as an empty husk propelled forward by trauma and survivors guilt. he'd been throwing himself into these lethal situations because he doesn't value himself and his life as anything other than a tool to save others. but through his growing relationship with saber he's been forced to confront this way of thinking and how the ways he endangers himself hurt the people that care about him as a person. people die when they are killed, and shirou hasn't been dying when he's killed, but he's ready to be a person now.
