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More Nasu QA (Kertys)

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Saved by mewarmo990
on December 10, 2011 at 3:10:54 pm
 

Most current iteration is always going to be on Google Docs. Will integrate into published page when I finish everything.

 

Q&A with Nasu Kinoko

(pp. 130-136 of Fate/complete material III - World material)


General Questions about Fate/stay night



Q: In the Prologue, the clocks were an hour early when Rin woke up, but she only remembered them being 30 minutes fast... why is that? She did suspect some trick of her late father’s, though (laugh). Could it be that Rin, being the idiot she is, forgot about the first time and set her clock 30 minutes fast twice?
A: The clocks being one hour fast was a scheme of her late father Tokiomi. A bit of playfulness on his part, seeming to say “if she can’t even notice a slip-up as trivial and close to home as this, it’s too soon for her to fight in the Holy Grail War.” I have to admit, it’s a little different from the perfect gentleman Tokiomi was portrayed as in Fate/Zero (laugh)

Q: Before he summoned Saber, why did Shirou dream about the Sword of Promised Victory (Excalibur)? Was the Greater Grail contacting Shirou in order to select him as a Master?
A: During the preparations leading up to the Holy Grail War, when it was decided that Saber (Arturia) would be summoned, “All is a Distant Utopia (Avalon)” within Shirou reacted with his mana flow  to cause the image of a “sword” to manifest in his subconscious.

Q: During the Shirou VS. Rider scene in Saber’s route, why didn’t her daggers kill him? Was it because of the holy sheath embedded within his body? Or was it because his body had begun its swordification?
A: At that time, Shirou’s self-healing had already begun, but the nature of his regeneration was really quite indirect, “changing his muscles into blades in order to knit his wounds with swords.” That is actually what happened, regardless of what you saw during the scene in Saber’s route where Gilgamesh dealt him a mortal wound and Shirou appeared to have “masses of blades shaped like muscle fibers” in his body. So, Shirou’s innards are extremely durable. During the fight with Rider, she was able to injure Shirou with her stakes but it would have been more difficult and troublesome to fatally wound him, so she decided to kick him out the window instead.

Q: When Kotomine activated the Grail at Ryuudou Temple, what happened to Issei and the rest of the monks? Were they all sleeping?
A: They were passed out quite cheerfully. [Translator’s note: Nasu says they all “batan Q’d” together quite cheerfully. It’s an expression that you use when you’ve worked/played until you collapse from exhaustion. Perhaps ‘KTFO’ would be another apt description (=]

Q: In Sakura’s route, Shinji’s death was obviously a homicide (though, whether it can be classified as such by modern forensic science is another matter) so I thought the police would have started an investigation, but there’s no sign of that in the ending. Was his death covered up by the Magic Association or the Holy Church?
A: The Church filed it as “a casualty of the Holy Grail War.”

Q: When the Third Magic was activated at the end of Sakura’s route, Shirou’s body was no a human’s, right? Without his human form, how would it have recognized the body as Shirou?
A: It was thanks to a spell Rider placed on Rin’s pendant. I’ll leave Shirou’s condition to your imagination. Because Illya also used part of her body to reconstruct him it wasn’t a matter of how big he was, but rather what degree of ‘humanity’ was desired.

Q: During the last part of Sakura’s route, Shirou was saved by the tiny bit of residual mana in Tohsaka Rin’s pendant. Also, it seems like Rin knew about the difference in residual mana between the thing he got back from Archer and the thing he was holding, so could Sakura’s route be the one in which Shirou becomes a Heroic Spirit after all? Or could you tell us the route(s) in which Shirou doesn’t become a Heroic Spirit?
A: I’ll just say now that he doesn’t become a Heroic Spirit in any of the routes, but the possibility is still present in all of them as well. Basically, the probability of it happening is almost zero.


Regarding the Holy Grail War



Q: Just how well-known is the Fuyuki Holy Grail War among magi around the world? Is it of major significance, or unexpectedly minor importance, like a secret war that isn’t talked about among magi?
A: It’s minor. The stakes were highest up until the Second War, before the Church got involved.

Q: The Holy Grail War is unknown to the general population, but to what extent is it hidden from normal people? Are the Church people (supervisors) manipulating the media and police (or even the governmental level) to cover it up?
A: The Church manipulates information, while the Magic Association handles the media. Also, the Association has the Einzbern cover the cost of any collateral damage.

Q: Why is it that Tohsaka Rin, as the legitimate heir to the legacy of the Three Houses, didn’t know about the original goal of the Holy Grail War to open a “hole” beyond the World? I would have thought that the Tohsaka family would have kept some records regarding the true nature of the Holy Grail War. ...Could it be that Rin just never saw those records?
A: It was because of her Papa’s untimely, careless death.

Q: By what criteria does the Holy Grail choose its Masters?
A: They have to be magi possessing magic circuits, be of sufficient stature to summon a Heroic Spirit, and be heretics, of a sort. Of course, the Three Houses take priority.

Q: Is the will of the Greater Grail, which selects Masters, the same will of Justicia who was offered as a sacrifice for the ritual that created it? Or does the Greater Grail lack any kind of volition?
A: The Greater Grail does not have a will. Justicia’s soul was completely sublimated.

Q: I thought that the Lesser Grail collected “All the World’s Evil (Angra Mainyu)” when it was defeated during the Third Holy Grail War, but then how was the Greater Grail corrupted by “All the World’s Evil (Angra Mainyu)”?  Is it because energy flows from the Lesser Grail to the Greater Grail when the two are linked?
A: It’s because Avenger himself is “a Heroic Spirit born into existence according to people’s wishes”.  Other Heroic Spirits are recognized as true heroes, but Avenger represents the belief that “heroes” are lies and fabrications. The enshrinement of humanity’s selfish desires turned Avenger into a Heroic Spirit, creating a direct connection to the wish-granting function of the Holy Grail. The Greater Grail, “activated 3 times without granting anyone’s wishes”, turned into its present state as there was still a chance to grant somebody’s wish.
As a result, Avenger was born into this world in order to grant everybody’s desire for an existence like “All the World’s Evil (Angra Mainyu)”.

Q: When there are enough Servants in the Holy Grail, do they just remain there in the Grail (Greater or Lesser) without returning to the Throne of Heroes, as long as the pathway has not yet been opened (assuming the Grail isn’t damaged)?
A: When the Holy Grail goes into hibernation, it puts its accumulated mana into storage. When 7 Servants are present, their spiritual cores will be released and the Heroic Spirits’ bodies will disappear from this world. The cores alone will then return to the Throne of Heroes.

Q: Even though it should only happen every 60 years, was the 10 year gap between the Fourth and Fifth Holy Grail Wars as short as it was because the Lesser Grail was desrtoyed before the Greater Grail could direct the accumulated mana to establish its pathway trapped some unused mana in the Grail?
A: That’s true. In fact, you could say that the function of the Greater Grail was already muddled when when it was impregnated with Avenger in the Third War.

Q: Kotomine said that he had a replica of the Holy Grail that could communicate with the dead, but was that just a lie?
A: It was a priest’s harmless lie! To gain the approval of outside magi, he kept a Grail look-alike in order to have “a sacred relic that grants bargaining power”!

Q: What is Illya’s capacity as a Grail? Hypothetically, if the Einzbern won the War, Illya absorbed the other 6 Servants besides Berserker, and had some shred of human will left, could she still don the Dress of Heaven and initiate the Grail ritual?
A: That’s what Liz and Sella are for. Ilya can only take up to 4 - I would think that absorbing a fifth Servant wouldn’t allow her to function as a human any longer.

Q: I thought that Servants can materialize in physical form because of the Holy Grail, but how was Berserker summoned 2 months before the Greater Grail was active? Was he summoned without the aid of the Greater Grail, using Illya’s uncommonly high mana capacity?
A: It was due to the ease of requesting material gathered at the Greater Grail, and some cheating, characteristic of the Einzbern. Although, Old Man Acht didn’t expect Ilya to successfully summon a Servant a full 2 months in advance.

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