Well, poo has certainly hit the fan as nobody expected any of this…
To make it short, this episode was just brutal because the sheer number of people killed in one sitting. Maiya’s cutting Sola-Ui’s right arm just scared the crap out of me since it happened so quickly. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg as Grail War organizer and Kirei’s father, Risei gets killed after he gave one command seal to Kayneth. From this, things are definitely not going well for Kayneth as unfortunate events keep happening to him. Not only that, he had Lancer commit suicide, leading us to one of the curses that will affect the overall war. However, that is beside the point because Kiritsugu’s actions just took all the attention away.
The part of the episode that changed my views on Kiritsugu is the second half. After witnessing the actions he took to have Lancer commit suicide along with the snipping of Kayneth and Sola-Ui, his actions are clearly immoral. Not only that, Irisviel and Saber witnessed the whole thing, thus showing his true nature. The problem is, while Kayneth is an arrogant jerk, he never harmed anyone (except to kill Risei to prevent others from obtaining command seals) even though Kiritsugu is still his enemy. Even so, why go to the extremes in bombing the hotel that they are in, cutting Sola’s arm off and having Maiya murder them? I wouldn’t, but he reminds me of Kyubey.
Well, it’s apparent that Kiritsugu is so caught up with his plan of wanting to save the world from evil that he gone to the extremes of “killing people to save many.” From this, this ideal reminds me of Kyubey from Madoka Magica with girls signing contracts to keep the world in balance without realizing the unintended consequences of them turning to witches, which others fight off to obtain a grief seed that gets eaten by him. Although he lacks human emotions compared to Kiritsugu, their philosophies are basically the same. From this, I think it’s very apparent that Gen Urobuchi like these type of characters not for the sole purpose of making the story dark, but to have the viewers question their actions in an ethical sense, even if they have good intentions.
Overall, this episode was certainly one of the most surprising out of the series. Aside from the gruesome killings, Saber and Irisviel is now left with the dark truth. On the other front, trouble brews as Kirei executes his master plan. Stay tuned…
“The problem is, while Kayneth is an arrogant jerk, he never harmed anyone even though they are enemies.”
Did you mean Kiritsugu? cause we have one Kotomine Risei who is dead thanks to Kayneth and he was certainly not Kayneth’s enemy, nor someone kayneth needed to kill.
The wording is off, but clearly I said Kayneth killed Risei after he obtained the command seals since he believes that his sitatuion is dire and if other masters gets the seal, he would be done for. Therefore, I need to clear that sentence up.
Edit: I clarified this to prevent any further confusion.
At this point, Kiritsugu reminds me more of Fate/stay night’s Archer, especially with the “hero” comment that Saber made about him. The two go about their ends in different ways, but they’re both ruthless in the pursuit of their own version of justice. There are other connections as well, but I don’t want to get into spoilers in case someone who reads this doesn’t know what I’m referring to…
The main reason I compared him to Kyubey since it’s something that came up in my mind… but considering that my knowledge is limited on Fate/stay night since I only watched the first four episodes… but I suppose that will work.
The movie goes a lot more in-depth on Archer than the show ever does, so if you’re interested, I recommend checking it out.
I probably take that in consideration once Fate/zero ends and I start catching up on Fate/stay night… but I have to get enough courage to tolerate Studio Deen’s mediocre animation quality first… although I found the story in that Anime interesting regardless.
Surprising episode indeed. I think i’ll be expecting more of this element when I watch the next episode. But than again, better not to expect anything and just watch it to be more surprised xD
I think the next episode looks interesting when Kirei finds his father dead and then goes after Tokiomi for his master plan… but we’ll see pretty soon.