#fgo meta

[linkspooky]

You need to make another one of those "metas written by comparing characters with another show you liked" post about Getou now that you experienced FGO Morgan/Aesc.

Time to compare two characters from two different shows I liked (in this case Jujutsu Kaisen and Fate Grand Order: Cosmos of the Lostbelt 6 Faerie Britian) to illustrate what makes a good corruption / fallen hero arc. Two of the best examples I can think of in recent memory are Geto Suguru, and Morgan le Fay of Faerie Britian. They both have tragic arcs which follow similar beats which I think will illustrate exactly why audiences find these characters so compelling.

Both of these characters have their stories told out of order, appearing as villains first before their backstory is revealed but for the sake of simplicity I'm going in chronological order, the heroes they started as all the way to the villains they ended up being.

Before beginning though, a brief lesson on tragedy. Aristotle's poetics argued tragedy runs on the principal of catharsis. The audience feels for the characters on stage, no matter how terrible their acts may be. He argued in favor of moral ambiguity in its heroes. The tragic hero must neither be a villan or virtuous man, but a "character between these two extremes, ... a man who is not eminently goo and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice of depravity, but by some error or frailty [Aristotle's Poetics.]

The protagonists of tragedies are still heroes, but their good qualities are twisted against them. A tumblr post I see going around from time to time makes the argument that if Othello (the protagonist of Othello) were in Hamlet the story would not be a tragedy because Otello would just stab his uncle and avenge his father. If Hamlet (the protagonist of Hamlet) were in Othello, the story would not be a tragedy because Hamlet who is a characteristic overthinker would probably not fall victim to Iago's manipulations and jump to conclusions the way Othello did. Both of these characters are heroic, Hamlet is a clever and scheming prince, Othello is a talented general a moor who's managed to rise up the ranks in a racist society. However, they are both put into stories where those heroic values are twisted against them by the narrative framework itself. So to make the protagonists of tragedies into villains who were evil all along, ruins the moral ambiguity and therefore the catharsis of a tragedy.

Geto Suguru and Morgan Le Fay are heroes, placed in a narrative framework that twists their own heroic traits against them in ways they can't endure. They fall because of frailty, not because they were inherently evil to begin with. They are antagonists who have the qualities of protagonists, and once were arguably protagonists of the story, which is probably why they have so many fans in the audience despite the fact that they are both of them mass murderers and tyrants.

Now with the long preamble let's look at the stories.

Both characters start as essentially protagonists, and they foil the protagonists they are fighting against during their villain phase. Geto Suguru is a heavy foil for Yuji (we'll talk about this later) and Morgan so heavily foils Castoria because they are both the chosen one.

I'm going to start with Morgan because Fate/Nasuverse lore is a pain to explain. To simplify her story, Morgan Le Fay is from an alternate universe version of Britian. In that Britian everything is ruled by faeries. These are trickster faeries who are total jerks and extremely murderous at times. They were supposed to forge excalibur, but they just didn't do it because they were lazy. This was very bad, so the universe sent a big huge guy to tell them to forge the sword. They were lazy though so instead of listening to him they murdered him in his sleep and he died a horrible death.

The faeries could no longer be forgiven for failing to craft excalibur which is a really important sword that needed to exist, so god or heaven or fate or whoever decided to punish them and sent Aesc who will later be known as Morgan le Fay.

There's some time travel shenanigans but I'm going to skip it because it's confusing. Basically Aesc's job is to wipe out all fairy life and bring an end to their alternate universe, but she decides to defy her destiny instead. The heavens or whoever keep conjuring calamities to wipe out the fairites to punish them for their sins, but instead Aesc fights against them and saves the fairies.

I had a duty to paradise, but I knew that duty would result in Britiain's destruction. This other me, though... She loved Britiain dearly, even the lostbelt version of it. I thought about it, and I realized I wanted the same thing she did. From then on I chose to live as her. (Witch! Witch! Witch! You were the only one to survive the calamity) Countless times, I stopped the calamities. Countless times, I mended clan disputes to end wars. I did not mind. It was not the fairies I loved. I only loved britain itself and the home I would make here. It would be my very own Britian - something that was forever beyond my reach in Proper Human History. I did everything I could to make it a reality. Eventually though, I realized the best way to do that was to keep the faeries safe.

However, because Aesc is not one of them the fairies are generally ungrateful for her saving them again and again. Aesc gathers comrades around her to help ward off these calamities and save people, but she's often attacked by the same fairies she's just saved.

She continues fighting the system of her world again and again, until she's betrayed for the last time in her attempt to save Britan. The final straw is when after years of hard work she's finally brokered a piece and made a king who rules over all the allied fairy tribes, only for his coronation to be ruined, the king to be assassinated along with the entire round table. The king was also her lover, Uther.

Aaah! Aaaah! Why? Why? Why? This was supposed to be the greatest day in fairy history... Everything was supposed to change for the better! BUt they killed Uther! They slaughtered my entire round table like they were trash! They asked the world of us! They thought the world of Uther! BUt now, they've poisoned him...THey were too afraid to even face him cowards. Uther talk to me, please say something! I never let failure stop me! I've kept trying all these thousands of years! Am I doomed to failure here, too! Is it still not enough? Am I not enough? Is it not... Can I not save Britain? Is there no Britain that can be mine! Peace, equality, I never should have tried for either! How dare they! I can never forgive them ever!

You see much like Geto Suguru which I'll later illustrate, Aesc is caught in a cycle where she must continually fight disasters for the faeries to save them only to be met with their continued disdain. Her own higher minded intentions to save the people are what damns her to this painful cycle. If she'd been less heroic, if she didn't care she wouldn't have suffered. She's sacrificing herself over and over again, but sacrificing yourself is in a way just suffering. No one actually wants to walk the thorny path of the martyr, you'll get your feet hurt from all the thorns.

The people who are now accustomed to being saved despite doing none of the work themselves, are by and by completely ungrateful for Aesc's sacrifice. Aesc is a hero, but she's not in a hero's story so she doesn't get any of the benefits of a hero really. She's working with higher minded and more idealistic goals in a deeply cynical world and punished for it. I remind you, she was just there to kill all the faeries and end the world but she tried to save them instead.

It's important to emphasize their good intentions, because a shallower character reading would suggest that they just came out of the womb wanting to murder people. However, they're driven to it because they tried to be good, because they tried to be a hero. They are like Hamlet, and like Othello in the wrong story. They're also sacrificing themselves going against the system of their world and trying to be better than it, only to get dragged down. Their resentment grows against the people they are trying to save, the selfish and weak people who don't seem all that grateful for their heroism. The ones who aren't making sacrifices, the ones who are just content being saved.

I finally understood. My enemy wasn't just the calamities, it was the faeries of Britain as well. They were pure and innocent in the truest sense, they enjoyed both good and evil things alike without losing either that purity or innocence. They are at their core, no different from the loathsome humans who drove me from britain. So I crushed every possible source of malice. Vested interests. Discrimmination. Oppression. Envy. Mockery. All of it. But it wasn't enough. A few fairies took a look at the foundation of peace so many had worked so hard to build ... and tore it apart, because they didn't like it, because they could.

This is what finally leads to Morgan's breaking point, to decide that actually... fairies don't deserve rights. Morgan decides that the fairies are unworthy of salvation and rather than being the hero the only way to accomplish her goals is to become the oppressor and tyrant.

I give up, if everything has failed if it has all come to nothing, then I can never believe in people's so called goodness or understand it. Even if I did, what would be the point? Everything I did, everything I worked for... was just a waste of time. After all the times they betrayed me I should ahve known better... but I still clung foolishly to a sliver of hope. ANd now, because I wasted my time caring about something so utterly absurd, I've failed yet again. If my intent was to keep britain alive, then I was a fool to think being its savior was the way to accomplish it. No more. I will find another way. A better way. ...That's it. I won't deliver the fairies to absolution; I won't deliver salvation. Enough of this faerie of paradise, enough of being Avalon le Fae, I should have ruled this land from the start.

However, as I said it's only Morgan's repeated attempts to be the hero and save the fairies that drove her to this conclusion. However, I'd be amiss to say that Morgan didn't have flaws or selfish qualities from the start. Morgan le Fay is created from the Morgan le Fay we created with from proper legend. I'm not going to explain the lore, but basically she's an alternate universe version, who received memories from the Morgan le Fay of our universe. She knows the story of Morgan le Fay who tried to steal King Arthur's kingdom out from under him.

Alternate Universe Morgan le Fay still had the same chip on her shoulder, and entitlement that our Morgan did. She wanted the kingdom, and wanted Britain for herself. Her desire to play savior might have come from that very same entitlement that she deserves britain. Similiarly, she was most likely hurt so badly from the lack of praise because she also deserves praise for her actions. She has a bit of a superiority complex that places her above the fairies and makes her believe she has the right to rule.

However, as I said Morgan didn't start out as a tyrant she did earnestly try to save the faeries despite harboring those more negative qualities and selfish intentions. She may have had a more self-serving variety of selflessness but it's more the fragility of her that causes her fall. She didn't fall because she was rotten to begin with, she was just not strong enough to withstand years and years of ungratefulness from the faeries and betrayal. She has all the makings of a proper hero, she decides to defy destiny to save the people of faerie britain when she was supposed to be their destroyer. However, because she's in a tragedy she falls due to her insecurities and flaws overwhelming her rather than rising to the occasion.

Her manga chapter and the FGO Lostbelt game prose itself uses the light in the distance as a metaphor for this. Morgan continues going forward on the faint light of hope that things will work out for her and that even as a tyrant she can save Britain. However, it's that same light that damns her. In tragedies heroic qualities become flipped into flaws. Morgan's most heroic quality is her determination, the willpower to endeavor for thousands of years to try to save Faerie Britain, but that determination makes her unchanging, causes her to make the same mistakes over and over again, and just makes her continually suffer like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill.

But that light is just an insect trap - or at least that's how it is for the protagonist of the tragedy. Road to hell, and all that.

After reaching her breaking point Morgan decides she'll no longer try to save the fairies but rather only care about saving the kingdom itself. She goes from the kingdom's hero to its oppressive tyrant after seizing the throne for herself.

That's where we meet the villain we know today.

Now shifting gears to Geto Suguru, he is someone who starts out his story trying to be a hero. A little bit of context on the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, it takes place in an urban fantasy version of Japan where the jungian collective unconscious and the negative emotions of humanity create curses that kill and eat people. These curses need to be exorcised by a few special humans who are given superpowers known as jujutsu sorcerers.

There is an institution of sorcerers known as Jujutsu High, which raises sorcerers from a young age gifted with these powers to exorcise sorcerers. THese teenagers are often sent out on msisions. This is different from most stories of teenage heroes with superpower, because fighting curses is brutal and dangerous and most of these kids are going to die young. There's also no end in sight to the fight against curses, because no matter how many curses are exorcised humans will just keep making more.

Not only do they live in a cynical, and brutal world but most sorcerers are insanely selfish. Just to give an example of how immoral sorcerers are, one of the allies of the main characters is implied to molest her brother, and if she's not she still uses her like 12 year old brother as a child soldier. Nobody ever bothers to question this because the institution of sorcerers are inherently corrupt, it's an instituion that continually sends children off to their deaths and uses people as nothing more than cogs.

Caught within this unfair system and trapped in a cycle of exorcising curses that are just going to come back anyway is Geto Suguru, who is not only a model sorcerer he's presented as much more selfless than your average sorcerer. He's directly contrasted against Gojo Satoru who is kind of just a petty kid with a god complex.

Gojo uses his powers selfishly, he only fights because he's really powerful and killing curses is a way to test and use his abilities. (This is literally stated as canon by Nanami don't fight me on this I'm simplifying his motivations because this is not a Gojo meta look at the entire fight with Sukuna saving Megumi was a secondary concern he wanted to fight a strong opponent). Whether people are saved by his actions are a secondary concern.

Geto on the other hand goes against the grain for most of Jujutsu Society, and believes that they as stronger people have a duty to use their strength to protect the weak. This idea of noblesse oblige is way way different from the attitudes of most sorcerers, who as I said usually turn into petty little people with god complexes.

Not to say Geto doesn't have a god complex, but we'll get to that later. Geto is explicitly contrasted against Gojo who's the only other powerful sorcerer and his best friend, but doesn't think they have an obligation to use their powers to help anyone.

Right away we have two things in common with Morgan le Fay, number one they hold themselves to a higher minded ideal that of using their powers to act as a hero and protect the people underneath them. Number two, this is a choice they make to be better than the people around them. Morgan's destiny is to destroy the faeries and she tries to save them. Sorcerers usually just keep their heads down and do their jobs, they're not heroes, they don't save people they kill curses. In fact, the sorcerers who are selfish assholes (Mei Mei) are wildly succesful, the ones who try to help other people like Nanami die young.

They sacrifice themselves for others. Geto pursuing his higher minded ideal is faced with the same kind of tragedy that Morgan is, where his attempts to save a teenage girl named Riko not only blatantly fail, they fail because of Toji a person who cannot use cursed energy. Everyone they tried to protect died, and they're shown first hand not only does the world not really care about their idealism, but they're not really powerful enough to change this world in any way.

Morgan's lover Uther and all of her allies is ruthlessly slaughtered, by the same faeries she was trying to save after she brokered peace. Geto tries to save a little girl, and he not only watches her die, but he sees an entire crowd of normal people, the people he is fighting to save applause for her death. They all applaud her death because they're a part of a cult that believes that the girl was an affront to their god, but she was mostly just a normal teenager. He witnesses first hand that normal people do not care for the fate of Jujutsu Sorcerers whatsoever.

If Geto were more selfish he would be rewarded. If he didn't attempt to save people, if he just only cared about exorcising curses like Gojo did he'd probably become more powerful and he wouldn't succumb to despair the way he had. Geto exists in a narrative where selfishness is rewarded, and his selfless, heroic traits are continually punished.

This traumatic event makes him aware similarly to the brutal cycle he is caught up in. Morgan le Fay can't save the faeries, because faeries are jerks who can't change. Geto will just continually exorcise curses over and over again. Not only is humanity just going to keep producing more curses, but humans are vastly indifferent to the sacrifices that sorcerers (who are mostly children) keep making to try and save them.

Geto's choice to protect people is the cause of his suffering, because sacrifice is inherently taking on suffering for the sake of someone else - therefore sacrifice is suffering.

This too, leads to Geto's eventual breaking point where he lets his resentment for the same people he's trying to save corrupt him. An incident where just after seeing his dear friend die because of a curse, he's brought to a village of people. The whole village put two little girls in a cage, who were capable of seeing curses and blamed them as the scapegoat for a curse reflecting his village. Geto sees a flash of what happened to Riko again, a crowd full of normal people who don't have to fight curses applauding for the sacrifice of a little girl who was innocent. It's the macrocosm, all of society forcing a few sorcerers to die exorcising curses for them, shown on the microcosm, one village scapegoating two little girls who did nothing wrong.

That's what leads Geto to snap and massacre the whole village. He's now turned against the masses he wants to protect. He then decides that instead of protecting the masses, he's going to kill them and build a world of only sorcerers. He's no longer trying to save them, like Morgan le Fay he's turned to the hero and the Tyrant.

They both even utter similiar words.

I will never save the faeries! I will never forgive the faeries! I don't like monkeys. That's the truth I chose.

Monkeys is by the way, the word Geto uses to refer to normal people who cannot fight curses or even see them. People who don't have superpowers.

One more time I want to emphasize Geto did not come out of the womb wanting genocide. Hamlet didn't start out the play stabbing people. He does have his flaws, just like Morgan by assuming the role of the hero he sees himself in a separate, superior category to the people he wants to protect. There's a line I like in a youtube analysis for for Yuji that applies to Geto as well.

(Other people exist to be saved, which gives Yuji a role in the world) In a way Yuji thinks other people exist to validate his own existence.

Geto begins the story not seeing other people as people. They exist in a category separate from himself. Part of the reason that his failures hit him so hard, is because they disprove this idea of superiority he has for himself. He's shown his god complex is just a complex and he's as flawed and capable of failure as any mortal.

It's an inability to recognize that failure, learn from it, and reconcile it with themselves that causes both Morgan le Fay and Geto to spiral. They are the hero, they are trying to be just, they should reap the just rewards for being a hero. Geto even says as such in a moment of rare jealousy for Gojo, that Gojo is someone who also has godlike power and if Geto had that same power he could change the world the way he wants. He could create his more just world.

Morgan and Geto are characters who begin their narratives with superior complexes and senses of entitlement, selfishly selfess heroes and those negative qualities eventually lead them to fail. Geto thought being a sorcerer made him superior, he just also thought that with that superiority came a responsibility to protect others. Morgan le Fay thought she was the rightful king of Britain, she also thought that divine right to be king also came with an obligation to protect Britain. However, they're not meant to be seen as people who all along wanted to oppress and hurt others.

The key word with tragedy is catharsis, we are supposed to feel for the protagonists of tragedies. We're supposed to see our own traits reflected in them. It's their human qualities to drive them to tragedy.

After all, you reader on tumblr would probably not be able to be a perfectly selfless hero. If you saved someone and then they immediately tried to kill you, you would probably just be a little bitter about it. If you were like Geto and you were working tirelessly to exorcise curses, and all you got was your friends dying, I don't think you'd be like "This is okay :D". If anything, going mad in their extreme circumstances seems like a reasonable response, because could we as the audience do any better in their situations?

Of course the last similarity between Geto and Morgan (besides the fact they both adopt daughters they raise up to be little psychos but this post is getting too long already) is the fact that they both heavily foil the heroes of the story they occupy. They see themselves as villain, they play the role of villain, but they're really just heroes of another story.

Paradise or god or fate or whatever in Faerie britain eventually conjures up another chosen one. This chosen one Altria or as the fandom calls her Castoria is far less heroic. IN fact unlike Morgan who embraces the role of savior she would rather do anything she could to avoid Britain.

This is because for similiar reasons as Morgan, the faeries have basically abused her and tormented her all her life. Yet they still expect her to selflessly step up as their chosen one and save the day from the evil oppressive tyrant Morgan.

You have one protagonist who embraces their heroic quest, and even goes above and beyond by ignoring her destiny to wipe out the faeries and saving them instead. You have another who continually runs away from the heroic quest, and honestly doesn't seem to care that much about saving faeries.

Morgan is actually openly sympathetic to Castoria, and even offers to ally with her a couple of times because she bears the same burden as chosen one. This is another example of how Morgan doesn't quite fit the role of either hero or villain, the ambiguity who makes tragedy.

However, while Morgan does everything to defy fate, Castoria just kind of keeps marching along every step of Joseph Campbell's the heroes journey until she ends up defeating Morgan. Well she doesn't truly defeat her, but Morgan meets her tragic end and gets stabbed a whole bunch of times.

There's a similiar foiling between Geto, and the series protagonist Yuji who both start out the story believing that as sorcerers they have a duty to save others. There are several in story comparisons and direct parallels between the two.

Yuji attempts to save others with his power as a sorcerer over and over again, and is met with the same continual failure that Geto has. Yuji is the only real sorcerer in his generation that cares about saving strangers with his powers. Nobara wants money to live in Tokyo, Megumi only cares about protecting Yuji and his sister, Yuta only cares about his friends, Maki only wants revenge against her clan. Like Maki blatantly says whether people get saved or not by her actions is none of her business.

His own attempts to save people not only fail badly, but he watches people die. He watches a lot of people die in a situation where he is powerless to stop them.

He's met with the same tragedy of Geto but he doesn't succumb to it. The same for Castoria she doesn't decide to be a Tyrant the way that Morgan le Fay did. I would argue this isn't because of any inherent goodness that Castoria or Yuji have but rather because both of them are able to let go of their egoes. Yuji kind of believes the same thing Geto does, that other people exist to be saved by him. He's broken when he realizes that he's not a savior after all...but he's able to continue in a way that Geto isn't.

Yuji lets go of his ego entirely and believes that he's just a cog in the machine and he doesn't need to be some big hero or be rewarded at the end of his hero's journey.

Geto and Morgan le Fay both long for a role in the grand scheme of things. They are still employing narrative thinking, they need to play a story role to validate their existences. It's just that they flipped their role, they tried being the heroes but it didn't work so they're the villains now.

Geto is similiarly rebuffed by Yuta who is his eventual killer by saying that he doesn't actually care about saving the world or if Geto is right that sorcerers are superior to humans, he's only fighting for his friends.

I would say for both castoria and yuji it's not a matter of being inherently good people, but rather of being better at enduring than their counterparts are. Morgan le Fay and Geto try to take the world's suffering on their shoulders, and it breaks them because they're not heroes they're just normal people. Yuji, Castoria and to the same extent Yuta kind of learn to let go of their great heroic aspirations but because of that they're able to take on suffering better. They're trying to live in reality not a grand heroic fantasy.

To bring the example back to FGO, for Castoria and for Morgan the light of hope that led them down their heroic journeys mean two different things. For Morgan that light is an insect trap. Her flying towards that light just causes her to keep suffering through her sisyphian task. Castoria has a much more realistic point of view, she's not trying to get a happy ending or even save people, that light is the hope that at the end of her journey her actions will have meant something. It's more about the journey itself and the people she met along the way, then some big grand reward at the end.

Morgan le Fay and Geto both fail because they are fragile, because they are human. That's the most important takeaway of this long rambling post. They may be selfish, they may be entitled but they're flawed in human ways. After all, who doesn't want a happy ending?

#jjk meta #fgo meta #morgan le fay #fgo morgan #camelot #fgo lostbelt #geto suguru #suguru geto #idk what else to tag this #for the three people who are going to read this post #i hope you like this comun #the things i do for love

[crissydissy]

Shiki Ryougi~

there will be another piece with her, an upclose portrait, kinda with the same vibes, cant wait to show you guys~ >w<

#shiki ryougi #type moon #fate go #fate series #garden of sinners #kara no kyoukai #anime girl #cute #landscape #illustration #serene #fate fanart #fate fandom #fgo stuff #fgo meta #fgo #my art

[kanouseis]

listening to morgan's np lines after having played lb6.2 is soooo. like this woman has been misunderstood by Everyone her entire time as a queen, but she's always said it. she's always said that she won't save the fairies. after centuries of having banished calamities and then having been mistreated by the fairies – "this is the dream of destruction i kept seeing" – she has given up. the fairies will never change. she sealed off the paradise – "nobody may pass"; or how the inscription says, "only those without sin may pass" – all fairies are beings of sin ("you can only die a sinner's death"). she has held onto her words. "there is no retribution, no salvation". she won't take revenge, she won't save them again. there is no point, because fairies will never change. she will forever sit alone on her throne. the fairies don't have to be scared, they don't have to hope ("there is no fear nor hope"). morgan is there. she always will be there. she has given up on trying to change things. it's pointless.

#fgo #fate grand order #fgo morgan #lb6 spoilers #it just Gets me that this is how the lostbelt came to be stagnant #its the very nature of fairies #and maybe its the same for morgan too #because if she could actually save them things would change #but change is impossible for fairies #morgan is sooo doomed by the narrative #and she decided to play along #might as well just preserve britain forever then #its the only way she could ever have britain #fgo meta

[300iqprower]

>Buster has OG Saber and Ibuki

>Quick has Okita Alter and Charlie

>Arts only have Muramasa

YOU COME INTO MY CHALDEA AND DISRESPECT MY CAPTAIN LIKE THIS???

AWAY WITH YOU.

#fgo #fgo meta #fgo muramasa #ibuki douji #fgo jason #meme #never thought i'd get an ask #everyone say thank you Lysallana

[coffeecakecatt]

Mephistopheles got a command code for the Valentine’s event in JP and I’m so excited because this means that he’s in the event.  And I’ve been reading it as it comes out, and there’s been a lot of allusion to Mephistopheles in it, and he relates super heavily to what the core themes are and I cannot stop thinking about this event and theorizing about how it’s gonna turn out. 

It’s all very weird, and almost there, and dream-like just wading at the edge of reading as the proper reality. Johanna is absolutely a person that Mephistopheles would sympathize with, and want to help in some way because she’s an entirely fictional person. And Mephistopheles cares about creations. He loves narrative servants and those created to fill a specific role. He’s friends with Nursery Rhyme and Moriarty. He helped Enkidu find their identity in their interlude. He killed Frankenstein in London and left Fran alive so she could go have an adventure with the Master. I’m sure he’d care for Johanna too. 

I think the event is a dream that Mephistopheles has made for Johanna because she wants to be a real girl, a real person, and she made a deal with the devil to grant this wish. It’s about what it means to be human, and what things are core to being real as a person, which absolutely parallels with Meph who is a homunculus who was made too human. He would know what it means to be human and want to be a real human being, since he’s an artificial being who was denied by his own creator. Not to mention that Mephistopheles controls dreams, has made micro-singularities in the past (which this event is) for other servant’s interludes, and is someone who challenges characters’ core values and morals. And everything feels just kind of off in the event, alluding to it not being how it seems. Johanna is just established to be there - no fan-fare, nothing, like it’s perfectly normal and reasonable that she’s in Chaldea providing Valentine’s blessings, even though that goes against her role in Traum. Goredolf is fully confident, he doesn’t seem to care about any holiday shenanigans, and everyone is really easily and casually ushered into what everyone thinks is going to be a very simple chill micro-singularity. 

Mash is in the event, but Mash isn’t really...getting as much of the spotlight as she usually gets. She’s only on screen for two or three dialogue boxes at most, she’s almost exclusively nudging you onto the path of the story, and she’s not getting her usual long Mash getting to say her opinion on things. Which, is how Mash acted in Mephistopheles’ interlude, where Mephistopheles made a fake Mash to keep the Master on track in his dream, and the Master didn’t notice. Which is something that is REALLY HARD to do and Mephistopheles has shown he CAN do, in the past.

Another thing - Nursery Rhyme is there! Only four servants were compatible to Rayshift: Rama, Jalter Santa Lily, Nursery Rhyme, and Johanna. Nursery Rhyme has been unphased by every weird thing to far. She’s just rolled with it a little too well, which would make sense, because Mephistopheles would need a storybook to help him write a story for Johanna.

And, there’s been a lot of Alice in Wonderland comparisons and references. And music specifically from Jeanne’s Casino in Las Vegas Summer, a place that Mephistopheles helped run, Nursery Rhyme took part in plays, and it was a casino run by a Saint who was having her time as a real girl.

The whole event is also in the perspective of a narrative, like a book, being recounted to you by Johanna with little narrative cut-ins from her at key intervals of her experiences. While there are dialogue options to choose, nothing is from their perspective. Any time we get narration, it’s from Johanna’s point of view.

Johanna also acts strangely. She knows things without evidence, and immediately pegs the grail in the basement of the Singularity’s church as evil, stops a mysterious sorcerer from wishing on it, and has her own wish prioritized over the initial wish that was going to be bad for the Human Order. A wish that Johanna claims she doesn’t even have, because she’s a Ruler and a Saint.

Then that wish caused a giant statue of her to be erected in the middle of the tiny peaceful town and now she’s beloved as Love Love Johanna-Sama!

Everyone has a little fun laugh as Johanna is in agony and embarrassment over this idea of being beloved and worshipped in such a loud and larger than life way, but I think she’s actually kind of flattered by it. She’s just grappling with this idea of only wanting what a Saint would, rather then what she actually wants. Because I think that Johanna wished to be a real girl, and to be a real girl she has to be known, and she has to be loved, and she has to accept that love. 

Love is what defines the weight of her life, and she has to accept and carry that love with her (in a little bag of luggage she’s given) in order to actually be real.  Which is what Mephistopheles is giving her, I think. He’s giving Johanna her wish of being a real girl for Valentine’s day.  TLDR: I’m pretty sure Mephistopheles has crafted an elaborate dream to grant Johanna’s wish to be a real person. Which means she has to learn what it means to be human. Love defines if you matter and are real, not the classification of reality of fiction. 

#fgo #fate grand order #fgo meta #fgo jp #fgo jp spoilers #fate #mephistopheles #mephistopheles fgo #johanna #pope johanna #pope johanna fgo #johanna fgo #rambling #fgo rambling

[backflipstowardstheroot]

i think there’s something interesting to be said about how no fgo media which takes place in the lostbelts shows roman’s face or has his voice. in interludes, story chapters, and even the from lostbelt manga, you never see him clearly and he never speaks. the image is vague and hazy. the only time we see and hear him is when someone else took his body. it shows just how much he really was erased from history. nothing of him remains but vague memories and his stolen face

#fate grand order #fgo #romani archaman #fgo meta #i guess

[rocen-matner]

Kirschtaria Wodime origin story No Scam, 100% real. He told me himself.

#fgo meta #fate grand order #kirschtaria wodime #my art #kinda shitposty #gamer Wodime #if you wanna ask why he plays ps4 game on archaic tv its becouse he can #and also its funnier to draw #lb5

[igimacigy]

i hate colors

#digital art #art #black and white #fate grand order #fsnfics #fsn #fsn ubw #fate ubw #fate stay series #fate stay ubw #fate stay night #fate go #fgo meta #fgo #fgo art #fate fanart #archer emiya #fgo emiya #fsn emiya #emiya archer #shirou emiya #emiya fate #fate emiya archer #kanshou and bakuya

[fatedtime]

Hot theory that I’ve never seen posted about here before I think? But ‘saberface’ and the concept of ‘saberfaces’ isn’t just a visual design choice, but an actual lore concept that refers to the World itself being obsessed with a specific face shape, and incarnating/inscribing that face shape onto various Women who Sacrifice Themselves for Their People, or who are otherwise metaphysically relevant to the defense of the planet in some way.

Gilles doesn’t mistake Artoria and Lakshmibai for Jeanne because they’re ‘physically indistinguishable’, but because he’s seeing them as similar existences on a cosmic scale (fitting, for an eldritch priest.) Similarly, Jeanne and Nero aren’t commented on as having the ‘same face’ in Septem just for a Character Design Meta Joke, but to draw parallels between the two’s themes and stories. Fate is a franchise where character’s designs are a reflection of not who they were literally in life, but of their themes and metaphysical, narrative qualities, so it only makes sense that one of the most obvious and most obviously joked about visual traits is actually a lore thing.

Adding more evidence to this is Morgan and Castoria. They don’t just look alike because they’re RELATED, but also to be intentional visual callbacks showing that they are filling this same role in Lostbelt 6. LB6 really is about beating you over the head with the idea of ‘what really is the difference between the ‘hero’ and the ‘villain’, and Castoria and Morgan’s similarities are a tool that furthers this! The ‘saberface’ type also shows up in people who are related to the Inner Sea of the Planet — a lot of people commented on how modern Arcueid looks a bit like a ‘saberface’ in her design, and while Archetype Earth doesn’t have the official Saberface tag, I do think it is interesting that her ascensions have similarities to Castoria’s, as one wields the power of the inner sea of the planet, and another is formed from the inner sea of the planet.

Furthermore, we don’t know who Excalibur’s first wielder is — the person who faces off against the White Titan — but my personal guess is that it’s somehow related to Venus. In /Notes, V.V. — a.k.a Venus — is very sympathetic to humans, and her body is ultimately used to shelter humanity. In /Extella, Nero uses the power of Venus to fight the White Titan, Altera. The Goddess of Love somehow being related to the defense of the planet and humanity itself would make sense… and since Nero is canonically an Aphrodite-face, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Nero is also a Venus-face.

All this is to say, it isn’t that all these people have Artoria’s face, but it’s my theory that after the first wielder of Excalibur used this holy sword forged in the soul of the planet and shielded by its breath to fight off the destruction of Earth, the world itself got a bit Obsessed with her, and keeps smacking her face onto cosmically important women.

(Please don’t use this post to complain about marketing and/or how much you hate Saberfaces. You have those posts already, and that isn’t what this one is about.)

#fgo meta #fate grand order #saberface

[megashadowdragon]

The EMIYA Alter Origin Crack Theory [FGO]

youtube comment

I've always been of the belief that Mind of Steel is the "worst" ending for Shirou, thematically. Funnily enough, because of what is spoken about in this video. MoS is the closest we get to a naturally born EMIYA Alter.

Becoming the catalyst for the birth of an EMIYA that has completely forgotten about his dream and the "why", and has become the ultimate weapon used to carry out Kiritsugu's "the many over the few" design is, from a thematic standpoint, the worst thing that can happen to Shirou. At least in my opinion it is, because pretty much the whole point of Kiritsugu's character in Fate/Zero is to tell us that his methods don't really work. Due to just the way humans work, and even the way Kiritsugu himself works, his methods can't achieve his goals. Not the way he wants them to, anyway.

MoS Shirou is… Well, he's Shirou. Due to his already inhuman mentality, he doesn't have the same limitations. If he can "turn his Mind to Steel" then he can do the same to his Heart, and become a real monster. The very same kind of Monster that both Kiritsugu and Shirou himself once upon a time would have given their lives away for a chance to stop, because at that point he'd DEFINITELY be doing more harm than good.

Honestly, a more cracked out theory isn't "MoS Shirou becomes EMIYA Alter" cuz in my mind that's a given, but rather "MoS Shirou, Beast Class or Nah" because frankly… I can see it. I don't think it's actually possible… But I can see it.😂

Ive personally always been of the mind that Emiya Alter isnt even the same shirou from stay night, but rather a version of Extra's Emiya. Extra's shirou was established to be sort of like a softer kiritsugu until one day something changed to make people close to him grow scared of him. Considering emiya alter encountered Kiara at some point, its possible thats the change that happened to extra shirou that caused him to grow colder and more detached, eventually becoming the degraded DemiyaShow less

#emiya alter #fate series #fgo #Youtube #fgo meta

[the-astralalchemist]

men of the sea.

~~~

[post inspo!] special thanks to @hasarjunadoneanythingwrong and @bitterrosebrokenspear + anon

introducing the components of rider class servant, captain nemo; princes dakkar and triton

... or at least my interpretation of them~! (including black and white alt outfits for dakkar, though i like the white more)

~~~

refs

twenty leagues leagues under the sea, the abridged book with project Gutenberg the mysterious island, with project Gutenberg sketches of a man wearing a turban by solomon a. hart (the angles helped me out a lot haha) canon artist dangerdrop's art!! (black ver and white ver)

+ i go into more design detail under the cut!

design notes

- like the archer PHH skadi project, i reverse engineered their looks; taking some traits from the fusion and distributing them. - i believe dakkar having dark skin and aqua eyes would be quite striking - triton's tail color directly comes from captain's tights(?) leggings? - dakkar has captain's clothing + i decided who the bows in captains 2nd ascension comes from :p

- captain nemo in 20 leagues is called rather pale, with a straight nose, middle age - prof. aronnax goes on for longer about how hot he is. james mason in the disney adaption was good casting lol - Poseidon is consistently black haired (or greyed) in art & blonde hair is a recessive trait, which makes it a bit hard for triton to NOT have dark hair and for captain to be blond. i learned my punnett squares haha

(i've been working on this project off and on since january of this year and almost 8 hrs of recorded time on procreate, help me TwT)

#astral art #fgo #fgo nemo #fgo captain #fate grand order #character redesign #fgo meta #captain nemo #prince triton #prince dakkar #fanservant #i've been calling him 'hot nemo' in my canvas sketches sdfghj #more hot nemo drawings coming soon #and i'll do more of triton i swear #imaginary scramble

[thessaliah]

Specimen E+David Bluebook

So.

David Bluebook is just a random? Like the equivalent of Chaldeas’ Guda?  That’s...it? It’s so disappointing but fitting with the sad state of this game. Maybe more to come. 

Specimen E, a human of “CHALDEAS” according to Sion, but was regarded as an alien within CHALDEAS so her analysis must be off. But the multiple wills  that wanted payback of that destroyed future check out with my thoughts of “Beast VII” as answering the wails of those trampled by the prosperity of Panhistory (it’s in an old WIP) plus my recent it’s “Beast VII Lost” because it’ll fit in with Camatotz and Koyan background as Beasts Lost I and III as well, because are an individual answering for collective wills of something. 

Furthermore, I think that was Panhistory Olga, the creation of this “Humanity Guardian” as consequence of Lev throwing her into Chaldeas and somehow swapped her ‘Chaldeas’ self in a way or merged her along. Fake Vinci highlight what specifically troubled Marisbury’s plans were Lev sending Olga into CHALDEAS, and Daybit earlier had highlight this also was against Goetia’s plan. 

The Chaldeas of 2117-Earth swap was something fairly obvious. Munierre also reminds that Chaldeas showed the future of humanity ending as of 2016 before the Incineration and the Bleaching incidents took place, while they brush it over as “Marisbury’s plan/trickery” later, it’ll probably be a foreshadowing for his motivation.

Anyway, seems like Bluebook point wrapped. So I’m done. May read the chapter with Dantes (and all those Atlas-esque keywords - Perhaps the Count isn’t Sion but Zepia?). This is getting too long and too convoluted with stupid twists.

#fgo meta #david bluebook #chaldeas #fate grand order

[memoirofthe34]

As Lostbelt 7 is approaching closer to the end of this year, here is a neat link for those who are not sure wtf is going on in FGO, OP put all the current information together to make sense of Part 2 plot.

#fgo #fgo spoilers #lostbelt 7 #fgo meta

[mayuris-basement-dweller]

OLD WELFARES

OLD WELFARES

I REPEAT

We can now get old welfares

Starting by Quetz Santa, Shuten and Kintoki Rider

OLD

WELFARES

#LASENGLE #WHAT #I WAS GOING TO SLEEP IT'S THREE O'CLOCK #fgo jp #fgo meta

[300iqprower]

HRU Preview: Koyanskaya of Darkness

(Have I ever mentioned how much I hate that her superior design fox-form has like 1.5 pieces of artwork ever)

[Anyways, reminder that as far as my rankups are concerned, "Demonic Beast" is not a trait, but just having both the Wild Beast and the Demonic traits! Also we're replacing that stupid "Animal Characterisitcs" trait outright with "Bestial" which is basically the same but the list actually makes sense and truly includes any servant with animal-like qualities.]

Dominator Fox A -> A++

Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns). Further increase Buster Card Effectiveness for all [Tamamo] allies (5 turns). [5-15%] Increase Debuff Success Rate for all non [Heaven or Star attribute] allies (5 turns). [10-40%] Decrease Debuff Removal Success Rate by 100% for all [Hominidae] enemies (1 time, 5 turns). Decrease Critical Star Gather Rate by 100% for all [Hominidae Servant] allies (1 turn). Increase NP Gauge for all allies.

Beasts of Slaughter A -> A+++

Increase NP Overcharge level by 2 for an ally (1 time, 4^ turns). Apply Status to self that has "Increase NP Overcharge for all [Wild Beast] allies by 1" (4 turns). Apply effect on an ally (4^ turns): When attacking with Buster Cards, gain Critical Stars.^ [3-8] Increase ATK and DEF for all [Bestial] trait allies (3 turns). Increase Buff Removal Resist for all [Wild Beast or Demonic] allies (2 turns). Decrease Skill Cooldown for all [Wild Beast and Demonic] allies by 1.

Tunguska Nine Drive C -> 'C++~EX-'

Increase own ATK by 20% (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies.^ Remove Offensive Buffs from all enemies. Decrease Buster Card Resistance for all enemies (3 turns).^ [20/27.5/30/32.5/35%] Apply [Wild Beast] trait to all allies and non [Heaven] enemies (3 turns). <Overcharge> Deal supereffective damage to [Earth or Star attribute] enemies.^^ [150/175/200/225/250%] Inflict Disastrous Curse to all enemies (4 turns). Inflict Spreading Fire to all enemies (4 turns). Inflict Toxic to all enemies (4 turns). [150/175/200/225/250% for all DOT effects]

#fgo #fate grand order #fgo meta #hru preview #hypothetical rank ups #koyanskaya #koyanskaya of darkness

[shadowfiredemonwolf]

So after re-reading Quetz bio and her dialogue that is implied to be about Cortes, I got to thinking why Hernan would bring so much hatred.

Then I realized that when he first arrived he was mistaken to be Quetzalcoatl. Chances are Fate Cortes used that to his advantage and brought the downfall of the Aztecs all while still pretending to a god.

This would lead to a situation where his servant form would actually be another form of Quetzalcoatl complete with comparable Noble Phantasms and Authorities.

To me, I kind of figured that Cortes as Quetz would be akin to a "Rudo" wrestler, aka the Lucha equivalent of a Heel.

Also, due to the instability of the fusion he'd actively manifest mutations that make him look more bird-like.

Basically, just make him Tizoc from King of Fighters, but rather than Lucha libre moves he fights like a cheating brawler.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #Fate/Grand Order #quetzalcoatl #quetzalcoatl fgo #fgo quetzalcoatl #fgo meta