I think the spinoffs indicate why I like Shirou so much and why I maintain the belief that Fate wouldn't have gotten as...

If you played the vn instead if watching the show you’d know that Shirou fucking dies constantly, frequently when making “safe” choices. I doubt there’s a person on Earth the played F/SN blind and didn’t die horribly numerous times

Also, like other people are saying, Avalon is literally plot armor. In real Arthurian myth Arthur only ever bites it because the scabbard is stolen

Oath Under Snow is kind of an exception. Prillya can kind of go either way since while it may not focus on Servants, it doesn't focus on Servant fanservice (not the ecchi kind) and wink-winks to Fate lore.

Meant to say it "does" focus on Servant fanservice/Fate lore

Of course bad ends count, Shirou only makes it through alive in like 20% of situations, ‘canon’ is just the story of the one universe where things work out

Fate got as big as it did because of Saber

Not denying that. I fully acknowledge the popularity of the Servants. My point is that Saber herself doesn't work without the narrative created between her and Shirou. That story between them is what makes her so appealing and what makes her going Alter feel so especially depressing other than the usual 'good guy goes bad'. Also maybe that she's blonde too

If Shirou was just a normal VN protagonist, I just don't feel like Saber would have been made the same way

Shirou is based. I wish they would do more with him.

Nah, I'm good with what they did with him. We already got more with F/HA and Oath under snow. I feel like more of him would ruin him. What I really want is just another main character who isn't as boring as a fucking rock like the recent adaptations. I know two of them are games but you can write a self-insert blank slate into an anime interestingly if you try hard enough.

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> Hey, Issei, any strange women at your monastery?
> die
Perfect example of this

This was the best Bad End in the VN, I got really fucking creeped out

thats such a cop out answer, i guess you can say a character within a multiverse has no plot armor because they die or fail most of the time

I feel this would've been fixed if Shirou had been a grill

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I mean yeah, you can definitely say that

Otherwise your claim is that it’d be 100% impossible for them to survive those situations and it doesn’t happen in any universe

>Plot Armor (also known as Magic Bullet Shield, as seen in map scripts) is an informal term referring to a character's unusual ability to survive infinite damage, due to their importance to the story rather than any logical, in-universe explanation.
Yeah, no. I'm sick of people misinterpreting what plot armor actually is. Joseph surviving a fall from exit velocity by staying on a rock?Plot armor. Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear explosion by staying in a fridge? Plot armor. Shirou surviving nearly fatal wounds through the story thanks to a magic artifact that grants high-speed regeneration? Not plot armor. It's a crucial part of the story and it's ability is thoroughly explained and hinted at throughout FSN until it's actually revealed. That's like saying Superman being able to deflect bullets is plot armor when it's due to his nature of being superhuman. Avalon is a magic artifact that heals and keeps people alive through situations most wouldn't normally survive through literal ancient magic and is the ONLY reason Shirou doesn't die even more than he actually does in the VN. That's not plot-armor, that's literally just 'the plot'.

>but I was rolling my eyes a few times throughout all three routes at how he kept surviving encounters
He brutally dies throughout a majority of the VN.

adding to this, that's why when the infamous 'people die when they're killed' line comes up it's actually really fucking important as Shirou acknowledges that, yes, by all rights his reckless behavior was really stupid and he's just been relying on Avalon healing his body(albeit unknowingly) and still willingly gives it back to Saber in spite of that.

I agree. All of the worthwhile emotional beats in the story happen because of Shirou's story. Even if Saber is the most popular waifu, Fate itself wouldn't have become big if it wasn't for how Shirou's story was told. It would just be "a popular Visual Novel because it has Saber in it" but not the otaku culture phenomenon it became.

Play the VN then, you can die as much as you want.

>shirou's story
>when fate/zero is more popular
>when fate/grand order is more popular
You're in denial.

>>

Fate got as big because Fate/Zero anime existed. That's it. It had nothing to do with Shirou's story. It was neckbeard tier-niche when it was just FSN which was only a bit more popular than Tsukihime. It would have been forgotten if Nasu hadn't had the insight to tell Aniplex to adapt FZ before FSN and use that as new entry work for the franchise.

Shirou's story is what started it. If it wasn't popular, there wouldn't be any spin offs or mobile games.

Get some reading comprehension. OP is saying if it weren't for Shirou's story resonating with so many people as it did and being the meat of the story, Fate wouldn't be nearly as memorable or noteworthy as it was and zero and gachashit/order wouldn't even exist. To deny this you would actually have to be in denial.

>This is what zerofags actually think
kek

Only true for american audience.

What started it is a story of King Arthur looking for the Holy Grail. Shirou was secondary to the backdrop of this, and what survived was this. Holy Grail and Servants.

yeah and he's wrong because no one gave a shit about shirou until ubw adaptation and it was all about saber artoria and rin memes before then

Nasu admits it. So do Aniplex people and there's a survey to prove it. Zero (anime of course) is after FGO (which is obviously massively popular, far far beyond any of Nasu's dreams) the most popular and entry level work of Fate and the first the MAJORITY had contact with. Nice you're trying to fight facts. To the main audience, Shirou's a minor footnote.

Thinking that Shirou is the draw of Fate is like pretending people give a shit about Shiki over the vampire shit or oni shit and waifu in Tsukihime. He's just there as a self insert for powerlevel and waifu fucking and is ditched when another self insert comes along.

You're completely deluded. I actually like Shirou and his story, but what fans wanted are actually seeing the Servants battle and big magical explosions. You can call that a cherry on top but not the whole dessert.

but you don't even know saber is king arthur when you start playing the game if no one spoiled it

I’m a retard and 100% thought she was Jean d’arc until the reveal

>but what fans wanted are actually seeing the Servants battle and big magical explosions.
Maybe so, but Shirou's story is what elevated it beyond just the stereotypical shonenshit you could get pretty much anywhere and what actually made it memorable beyond the big magical explosion and dead people sword fights.

t. Urobuchi

Shirou is shit

>now that more people are reading the VN (or watching UBW series, don't know which) people are finally realizing how cool shirou is
about damn time

I can't see anyone who read the VN in its entirety not having any respect for Shirou. The difference in opinions on him between VN readers and anime only people is crazy.

Like it matters when there will always be such a sizable group of waifufags and tertiaries who hate him because they aint him.

Pretty sure that was intentional

At no point did I say Shirou is the draw. I'm saying Fate wouldn't work without him being written the way it was. Actually my real point was about how I feel like the MCs of stuff past FSN (except Zero) are pretty boring and an example of how FSN could have been

We shit on the Deen adaptaiton a lot but you do know that Deen/Stay Night was, like, ridiculously popular when it came out right? You know that the voices from the anime are the ones that were put in Realta Nua and not the other way around right? Also, FSN only being "a bit more popular" than Tsukihime? When it F/HA and F/Z came out like only a year after FSN right before the Deen anime aired clearly showing there was massive franchise potential here?

Jap writing 101:
Girls are not allowed proper action roles
So if you have to, its better to just make the mentor a girl and the action apprentice a boy. To ease up that writing cramp.

Not a retarded thing to think at all because at least she was a woman historically. The only major inconsistency would be that Saber doesn't say anything much about religion at all when that was Jeanne's main deal, but then from what I've seen Jeanne doesn't do this when she is in Fate either.
Also to everyone replying to me here as I clearly imply I was already talking about the VN, no need to be so braindead about "hurr read the vn"
bad ends don't fucking count, it's a ridiculous copout to say that a character doesn't have plot armour because if you pick some option you get two screens of text, die, and then go back to your save. Fuck that. That doesn't mean it isn't an asspull for Shirou to survive more than one second in combat with any fucking Servant because if you dodge left when you should've dodged right he does die.
Also the one big thing I never understood is why Shirou is so utterly busted in HF in particular. He gets Archer's arm which... okay... first of all it's just one arm, so he should be much weaker than Archer ever was. Then there's the fact that he can't use it properly, which should make him weaker still. And finally he didn't do any magic sparring with Archer in this route (that was also bullshit back in UBW by the way, you don't just learn skills honed over a lifetime in a few minutes no matter what, especially skills that shouldn't even work with your shitty human teenage body). So why the fuck can he assrape Berserker, fight Alter to basically a draw, and generally keep on making Servants look like cheap gimmicks rather than the superhumans they are meant to be?
Fuck it, I'm just frustrated with Nasu's writing in general. Pisses me off that he literally just writes "rules" so he can break them at the first possible moment, all the fucking time.

I don't think you understand how projection works do you speed reader?

>Mullet Shirou.
Some things never change.

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>Also the one big thing I never understood is why Shirou is so utterly busted in HF in particular.
Did you actually read the VN? They literally explain that archer's arm being attached to him gives access to his experience and magic circuits, which lets Shirou reinforce his body almost to the same level of Archer once the shroud is released (as anymore would break his fragile human body), and he still never beats a nerfed Berserker without help and only manages to tie against a saber with nerfed instinct, agility and no excalibur.

Several times when reading F/SN I was extremely tired so it's very likely I missed out on the finer details.
Whatever those details are I guarantee they don't justify what happens in HF. Humans can't fight Servants, arm or no arm.

>Humans can't fight Servants, arm or no arm.
Why are you just ignoring the thing that justifies the question. You just for some reason want to get mad that Shirou gets busted with the arm even though not really since it's fucking him up

Don't be a fucking retard. Shirou using Archer's arm is as strong and fast as a Servant, so why shouldn't he be able to match a (gimped) Servant? You've idolized the rule so much that you're not even thinking about why the rule exists or why there might be exceptions.

Just sounds like an asspull to me. Why the fuck should grafting a servant's arm to you make you as strong and fast as a servant? It shouldn't, simple as, it makes no logical sense at all, but it's what's needed for the plot so it happens.
I really shouldn't get this worked up about shounenshit.
>it's fucking him up
I already addressed this point in my first post, it's meaningless to say this when the reality is there are no consequences, by the time of the Alter fight Shirou is stronger, not weaker, than he was when he first got the arm. Just because Nasu continually insists in vivid descriptions that Shirou is gonna suddenly fall down and die aaaaaany second now (but don't worry he can fight at 100% right up until then anyway, even for a while in the Kirei fight) doesn't mean that any actual damage is affecting Shirou. I mean fucking hell a normal human gets a quick trip to the ground with a normal kick or cut to the leg, but apparently "muh willpower" means literally nothing short of instant death can even slow the ginger Terminator down.

>Why the fuck should grafting a servant's arm to you make you as strong and fast as a servant?
This is literally all explained in the vn
>doesn't mean that any actual damage is affecting Shirou.
It does, in fact, it's the only reason why Kirei is even beating Shirou during their fight when he's normally servant level with the arm.

You don't know how shirou's projection works at all if you can't understand why he became fast as or strong as a servant.The arm gave him access to archers projection abilities since his magic circuits in his arm perfected it along with his experiences. Do you really think he was using archers mere strength to hold berserkers slab of iron in one hand? Don't pretend you read the VN when its clear you fucking didn't.
>muh willpower
This is the same guy that was prepared to kill himself every night to do torturous and dumb magecraft training followed by physical body training with very few hours of sleep soon after.

FSN tv series was huge among otaku but didn't get a widemass appeal of Fate/Zero. With Fate/Zero came public recognition, real state agents SELLING FZ goods with their houses, real life FIGURES of Saber and Gilgamesh, replicas of swords and Saber's real life motorcycle in exhibitions, a VISA card which FSN never had. Stop blindling yourself about Shirou's story being special draw. There was an after and before FZ for Fate, as there was an After and Before FGO.

God she'd be so good. I want her to save me and cook me a nice meal.

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What if Gudako replaced Shirou for the FSN routes?

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Read Hollow Ataraxia, it has two interesting lead characters, neither of whom are Shirou.

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Fate/Zero only gained widespread public recognition because of its good animation. It was the least popular Fate work back when it was just a light novel and its story appealed to nobody.

Gudao/Gudako is just a high-spec human with the potential to improve. They've got guts but they don't have the cheats Shirou had access to, no Avalon, no siphoning Archer's skills, no Archer's arm, none of that. They're a shit mage with no way to cheat with a special technique, so they have to fall back on their Servant. It honestly wouldn't end well.

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Really wish there were some more simple "self-insert"-ish protagonists nowadays that got as much characterization as Shirou.(though I'll admit it seems pretty hard to do nowadays given that he had 3 routes of a VN to himself to develop).

As much as I think he's stupid, reckless, immature, and painfully itrationally idealistic, he's a real piece of work, especially compared to similar protags.

>FSN tv series was huge among otaku but didn't get a widemass appeal of Fate/Zero.
First of all, I was refuting the idea that FSN was only popular with Zero. Second of all, Zero on it's own was already popular to begin with in Japan, it's just the anime was the first decently animated Fate thing ever.

Shirous

In today's landscape, I don't think that's possible. Also, I never thought Shirou was (Me)

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Not really trying to say he's a self-insert, moreso just saying he's outwardly a regular, bland, somewhat socially adjusted guy.
But yeah, landscape and all.

But most regular people that meet Shirou, as seen in F/HA, think of him as that weird guy who does absolutely anything you ask him to no matter what, so he's not really seen as outwardly regular either.

Everyone is actually cautious of Shirou even in school because they have no idea why he helps other people, which is neat since it ties in with what happens to Archer in his life.

Well yeah, he's seen as a weirdly stoic doormat to most who know him from a distance, I agree with you there, but compare him to say Araragi, Rintarou, or any anti-social NEET protagonist and he seems on the outside relatively normal by comparison.

don't forget "and literally have sex"