Fate zero characters1/6/2024 ![]() The best tragedies are the ones that not only take advantage of the unfortunateness of the inevitable, but also the ones that people will keep coming back to, even though they definitely already know what's going to happen. This, along with the emotional beauty of the writing and the animation, allows for a watching experience that actually holds immense rewatch value. Though that doesn't become clear until the final episode, when the clock with the title card shows up midway through, rather than at the end, at the precise moment that Shirou is rescued and Kiritsugu finds some modicum of redemption for everything he's been through-it is in that moment that the clock ticks down to zero. The anime even takes advantage of the fact that it's a ticking clock to the inevitable by having an actual ticking clock appear with the title card at the end of every episode, counting down to the moment when Kiritsugu rescues Shirou from that same disastrous fire that the audience already knew with dread was coming. Anyone familiar with Stay Night already knows that Kirei Kotomine will be the last one standing, and that it will result in the fiery destruction of a whole section of Fuyuki City, there's no avoiding it otherwise. ![]() Still, watching those details unfold, there's a sense of dread as he walks closer and closer to his inevitable failure, and worse still, the inevitable loss of his relationship with his precious daughter, Illya. ![]() But given that there's another Holy Grail War following this one, the audience already knows he's going to fail, they just don't know the details yet. That Kiritsugu Emiya wants to use the Grail to bring about world peace is also a noble goal, if far more high-minded. That Kariya wants to save Sakura from her dark fate being adopted into the Matou family is a noble one, and his optimism and heroic determination to see it through is all the harder to watch when, while his fate isn't entirely clear until much closer to the end, the audience still knows it can never be because they already know that Sakura doesn't get rescued from what she has to go through in Stay Night. There also has to be, more specifically, that sense of the characters holding onto hope when the audience knows that that hope is futile, much as they want to be able to hope as much as the characters do. But it takes more than just the fates of the characters being broadcasted, or even just insinuated, fundamentally pointing to fates that cannot be avoided no matter what any one character does to try and avoid them.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |