Fate/Zero

Episodes 12-13

At times Fate/Zero feels like it is padding itself out to achieve a full 25 episode count, a practice that was common for two cour titles in the 2000s and early 2010s. Episodes 12 and 13 are where at least some of that padding lies. Although little in either episode is truly unimportant, the story and characterizations probably could have managed fine without some of it.

Part of the reason why these feel padded is because, once again, they are mostly downtime activities which are stocked with a good amount of philosophizing. The densest example of this is Archer's second conversation with Kirei, which takes up about a third of episode 12. This is the infamous scene which features what initially looks like a chessboard but isn't; it is only 7x7 in dimension and the pieces other than pawns all represent the Servant roles in the Grail War. It mainly reinforces that Archer gets his jollies from messing with people, but he is also clearly trying to encourage Kirei to stay involved. He has always found Kirei interesting, and this seems like Step 2 in Archer's plan to replace the dull Tokiomi with Kirei as his “master.”

Episode 12 spends a bit of time with Kiristsugu, giving the impression that he may be the most isolated of the participants (except maybe Kariya), but the Irisviel/Saber scenes are, again, more where the meat is. Bring able to shut down some bodily functions and redirecting that energy toward magic is a neat trick, but also a sign of how much Irisviel is deteriorating. She has such a positive attitude about things that it can be easy to forget that her days are probably numbered, and this clearly makes an impact on Saber. The other important detail of their exchanges is where most of them happen. Their new base will be the protagonist's home in Fate/stay night a decade later, and the store room where Irisviel asks Saber to help her set up a magic circle is, ironically, the exact same place that Saber first appears when unwittingly summoned by Shiro in the first episode of F/SN. That leaves the open question of whether or not Saber's appearance at that time and place in F/SN is linked to her presence here and now.

Episode 13 mostly provides more philosophizing, but with different subjects. The Waver and Rider show renews its act, but the debate turns serious as Waver seems to be searching for some way to prove that he's inferior as a Master, while Rider basically tries to convince him that being inferior doesn't matter; it's the actions you take that count, and in Rider's view, Waver's actions have been worthy enough. Looking back at this scene after having seen the much more recent Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace note, the degree of foreshadowing here for the later series is striking.

Then there is the much, much more messy philosophizing of Caster and Ryonosuke. I have had this impression before, but their discussion about God here only firms up that no Master in any Fate/ story is more perfectly matched with their Servant than these two are. The way their interpretations of God circle around and feed into each other is fascinating enough that it can be easy to forget that they are talking about horrific massacres of children. One detail with an interesting historical context also comes up: Caster's insistence that, as Gilles de Rais, he was hung not because of his crimes, but because the church and government coveted his land. Theories along this line have, in fact, persisted for centuries; a retrial of de Rais held as recently as 1992 even found him innocent. This view is not widely accepted by historians, and Caster does outright admit to having been a child-killer in life, but believing that would be perfectly in line with Caster's worldview, and finding a way to slip it in was rather slick.

The episode ends with the setup for the next big battle: a team-up of Rider, Lancer, and Saber against the dangerous monster that Caster has created on the river. In the original broadcast, this was the ending point of the first half, thus providing a suitable cliffhanger before taking a season off. (Fate/Zero was, if I recall correctly, one of the earliest series to use the now-common “split cour” approach.) That's good, because it has been a while now since the series has had an all-out fight, and one is long overdue.

Rating:

Fate/Zero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix.