Xebek’s Blog

Not much fighting, but a big advancement in the plot adding a lot of interesting new information.

Summary:

We start out with Saber fighting Lancer. Eventually Lancer has to use some ultimate attack but it fails on Saber. Saber says something about how he must be The Champion of Ireland and then Lancer says when a Servants identity is discovered he should fight till the end but his Master is a coward so he runs away.

Shirou starts asking Saber questions but doesn’t really get anywhere because Saber basically assumes he knows these things. Saber then attacks out of no where Archer, before the fight goes anywhere Rin yells to Archer to disappear and he does. Saber then goes after Rin but Shirou stops her, saying he doesn’t understand what’s going on and such. Saber eventually agrees and Shirou gets to talking to Rin at his house. Rin comments on how much of an amateur magician he is and asks how he was able to summon Saber, which we previously found out was the Servant Rin wanted.

Rin takes Shirou to see the supervisor of the event sort of, Rin’s legal guardian who used to be an apprentice of her dad’s. Since Shirou doesn’t know anything she takes him there to tell him everything. The supervisor lives in a church and when heading there Saber says she will wait outside. When Shirou introduces himself the supervisor reacts oddly to his name. The supervisor then goes over the rules and the situation of everything.

They are in an event called the Holy Grail War. There are seven Masters who utilize seven Servants. They fight each other for possession of the Holy Grail which will give them wishes and purify themselves and some other things. The Supervisor talks about command spells and how each Master has I think three of them. The Servants have wills of their own but these command spells allow the Master to make the Servant do anything and probably has other effects too. Without Command Spells left the Master cannot control the Servant and then is basically out of the competition. The Servant is then free and can join up with another Master. The Supervisor makes a point in saying that the Masters don’t have to die for there to be a winner in the event, just the Servants. Rin comments though that a Servant is much stronger then a Master so the easiest way to kill a Servant is to kill the Master. The Supervisor also says in regards to the Command Spells that even if a Master dies the Servant doesn’t disappear so they can join up with another Master as long as they have Command Spells left.

The Supervisor says that there have been I think four other Holy Grail Wars before this one and that the result of the last one was an unfit person got a hold of the Holy Grail and caused a huge fire and destruction, which we see in Shirou’s flashbacks so it obviously directly effected him. He also goes on to say that you have to actually fight, you can’t just run away and not fight or the Holy Grail won’t accept you as the winner.

The explanation of everything basically ends there and as Shirou, Rin and Saber are heading back they are stopped by the young girl from episode one and a huge beast behind her and that’s where the episode ends.

Impressions:

Very interesting episode, even with the lack of much fighting. It was important in that we got a bunch of the facts of the event while still leaving for some mystery and plot twists. I think they did a good job with the rules of what happens because it can lead to a lot of different circumstances that may take place throughout the series.

First off, I think Shirou’s dad has some history with the Supervisor; perhaps he was a previous Master in a previous Holy Grail War because the Supervisor did react oddly to hearing Shirou’s name. This also leads to the possibility that Rin’s father was a previous Master too since the last Holy Grail War was ten years ago, the flashback of Rin’s where her father leaves could be him going off to fight.

The whole Servants being interchangeable was interesting. I’m unsure of whether a Master can have two Servants if he/she already has one and then comes across a Master’less Servant or if there has to be a Master’less Servant and a Servant’less Master. I also think that the whole needing Command Spells thing was interesting, which could lead to a situation such as if there is a relationship of trust and such between a Master and a Servant, perhaps Shirou and Saber that Shirou could use up his last Command Spell to save Saber and even though Shirou has no Command Spells left Saber still sticks by him, but I don’t know if a Servant will disappear without a master or if they will just disappear when the Master is killed.

Saber not wanting to go into the church was also interesting, I think that maybe they will expand on that which will show the history of Saber, who she used to be before she became a Servant which is something they may also do for some of the more featured other Servants like Archer.