Summary Key Points:

[spoiler]

• Kayneth talks to the head of the church and claims one of the command spells, also killing said preist as he leaves
• Following Last week’s battle, Maiya attacks Sola Ui and cuts off her hand, rendering her command spells ineffective and kidnapping her
• Lancer meets up with Kayneth, and get thoroughly insulted for what happened to Sola Ui.
• Irisviel and Saber arrive at the scene, sent by Kiritsurgu
• While Lancer and Saber battle, Kiritsurgu, in the shadows with Sola Ui hostage, threatens Kayneth into signing a contract
• The contract grants protection from Kiritsurgu, but requires that Kayneth have Lancer commit suicide.
• Lancer dies, cursing the Holy Grail and everyone there.
• Maiya then proceeds to shoot and kill Kayneth
• As kayneth begs for an end, Kiritsurgu states that he is prevented from killing him because of the contract
• Saber ends up ending Kayneth’s life
• Saber confronts Kiritsurgu, who refuses to even talk to her
• Kiritsurgu hates heroes, an wars, and calls the battle field the true hell.
• He leaves with Maiya
• The episode ends as Irisviel collapses after his departure.

[/spoiler]

Opinions: (A+)

Terminus of Honor is a truly fitting title for the 16th episode of Fate/Zero. If there were any doubts or mysteries surrounding Kiritsurgu and Saber, and their relationship, it was definitely all laid bare in this week’s episode. Some truly shocking and definitive events occurred, and personally speaking, the first major payoff from investing in this series and its characters was felt in this very episode.

Before anything, I’ll apologize for my tardiness with this review. Fate/Zero is a series that truly deserves too be covered indepth, and with as much care and attention as possible. Its deplorable that I seem to be unable to do so well enough. I’ve just been extremely busy as this is pretty much the end of the semester as far as college goes for me.

This episode really brought an end to the whole story of Kayneth Archibald, his fiance and Lancer, and dang! It was one very tragic and sad tale. Throughout the series I’ve felt extremely bad for Lancer. Not only was his past life a mess, but his one wish to correct his past life’s mistake and fight an honorable battle while being loyal to his master, was trampled upon, again and again. Generally, the Holy Grail does well to pair up Servants with the masters they need the most, but it seems like it totally screwed over Diarmuid (Lancer) in its choice.

For Lancer, it really was reliving hell all over again. What truly makes this story a tragedy is that most of what led to Lancer’s demise and pain, happened away from his eyes. Sola Ui ended up falling in love with him, and manipulated and screwed over Kayneth. Kayneth meanwhile, totally in love with Sola Ui, blamed Lancer for what was happening. And Lancer, meanwhile, was trying his best to be loyal to his master, stave off Sola Ui’s advances and fight the most honorable battle he could.

Its really quite obvious that the fall of Lancer was created by his master. Kayneth was a despicable person, but he was also very dumb. He was ready to get his hands dirty, but his arrogance almost always got in the way of critical thinking and adaptability. In opposition to the cold and calculating Kiritsurgu, Kayneth never stood a chance.

And as for Kiritsurgu, we finally got to find out just what kind of man he was, and I’ve got to say, I felt serious chills when I saw Kiritsurgu at work, effectively wiping his opposition so completely and effectively. Kiritsurgu is definitely a machine, taking on every angle, and leaving NOTHING what so ever to chance. There’s no emotion, no sympathy and no honor in anything he does. All those concepts are completely non-existant in the world view of Emiya Kiritsurgu.

Lets break down the plan that Kiritsurgu enacted shall we?

Immediatly after the battle with Caster, who’s master Kiritsurgu himself sniped, he had Maiya work simultaneously to find and deal with Sola Ui. Sola Ui’s hand was dismembered quickly and cleanly, and then she was kidnapped, all before Lancer could even return.

Then, Kiritsurgu found Archibald and Lancer’s meeting spot, and sent Saber and Irisviel there. With Saber’s arm back, you’d think she’d have the advantage. Given how Saber is, however, Saber refused to use her left hand and fight a dishonorable battle. Of course, that was all part of Kiritsurgu’s plan.

The guy effectively used Saber as a distraction, and ended up threatening Kayneth into a contract in the shadows. Using Sola Ui as a hostage, Kiritsurgu made Kayneth sign a contract that made him force his servant to comit suicide in exchange for a magical bind that prevented Kiritsurgu from killing either of them.

Poor Kayneth, he didn’t even stop to think that while Kiritsurgu couldn’t kill him, there were probably others that could Surely enough, once Lancer was dead, Maiya shot both Kayneth and Sola Ui dead.

All in a day's work for Kiritsurgu!

Kayneth’s last few moments were pretty pathetic, and extremely sad, even for him. He begged Kiritsurgu to kill him, and Kiritsurgu simply shrugged, saying the contract prevented him. MAAAAN! That’s friggin COOOOLD!

It was eventually Saber who had to come in and put Kayneth out of his misery.And damn, Kiritsurgu acheived all of this without losing any command spells, not having to force Saber to do anything. If anything, Kiritsurgu used Saber like a chess peice.

But before I move into the crux of the whole Saber/Kiritsurgu relationship, Its worth touching upon the extremely sad end of Diarmuid/Lancer. Man… this series has had some pretty great emotional moments, almost making viewers tear up at Ryounosuke’s death two episodes ago, but that didn’t even remotely compare to how sad Lancer’s death was:

The rage, hatred and pain that the guy felt was so beautifully articulated in this one death scene. Lancer effectively went from an honorable, noble hero, to a total dark hero, burning with hate and regret. The Holy Grail was totally perverted and destroyed him, ruining everything he wished for and stood for. And the questions he asked as he died:

"Do you all really want to win so much? So much that you'd kill the one thing my heart desires? I CURSE YOU ALL!"

I wouldn’t be surprised if this one act by Kiritsurgu was what eventually made the Holy Grail into what it turns out to be in the end. For those of you who’ve seen Fate/Stay Night or played the visual Novel, you’re very familiar with what I’m talking about. Now I doubt this event actually brought about what happens at the end of this war, but it might as well be. The painful and tragic ending we got to witness, was just that powerful.

I rarely praise a sad death scene, but the writing for Fate/Zero, both in  the original novel and the adaption script is so darn impressive, that I’d equate it to some of the best Shakespeare play tragedies I’ve read. Truly bittersweet and moving stuff.

And then, we had the inevitable confrontation between Saber and Kiritsurgu. What a powerful moment!

The most epic crossroads ever... Nuff said!

Its easily understandable why Saber wasn’t a huge fan of Kiritsurgu in Fate/Stay Night. When Shirou asks about his father, Saber kind of dances over the issue, and its readily apparent in Fate/Zero as to why. I think Irisviel puts it best.  Kiritsurgu has Saber endure constant humiliation. That’s what it is, and you can see Kiritsurgu truly detests Saber and all she stands for.

I’ve got to admit, I totally agree with Kiritsurgu’s view on war and battle. You can justify war with ideals and rules all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that people are killing each other. As Kiritsurgu describes it, its hell itself. I thought the clash of ideologies between Iskander, Gilgamesh and Saber was interesting, but that doesn’t hold a candle to this clash of ideologies.

Without even directly talking to her, Kiritsurgu tramples over everything Saber stands for, and insults her quite completely, and to top it off, he seems to have a very valid point of view. I felt bad for Irisviel, as she truly was stuck in the middle the whole spat, trying to bring Kiritsurgu and Saber to some sort of common ground and failing miserably.

Although gotta hand it to Saber, with her comment about Kiritsurgu wanting a true hero to save the world, she truly got a reaction out of the otherwise devoid of emotion man:

From the looks of it, Irisviel isn’t going to last very long. She faints at the very end of the episode, and its quite clear that she’s constantly too weak, and barely holding on. The real sad thing is that she puts an act infront of the man she loves, so while Kiritsurgu is fighting the biggest and most important battle of his life, he may be losing one of the few things that makes him happy.

To close up, I’ll state that I absolutely love how wonderful the story for Fate/Zero is. The writing is off the charts, with impressive dialogue, exceedingly deep characters, and a truly amazing bunch of ideas as far as premise go. Kiritsurgu is the very personification of the anti-hero, almost chillingly so. Meanwhile, Saber is the very personification of the hero, and as such pairing the two together is an extreme stroke of genius. In terms of entertainment and story, its even more interesting that the eventual Shirou and Saber pair up in the sequel story.

Combine that awesome writing with ufotable’s jaw dropping animation and you have one intricately well done series. I cannot wait for the latest episode, which luckily,  we don’t have to wait too long for since it should come out sometime later today. The review should arrive much faster as well!

Preview:

Next week we’ll see the creation of a new alliance? As well as more deaths, as the body count will continue to increase!

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• Arandur

  “You reap what you sow.”

  I guess that would be my final words to Lancer. Oh well, let’s listen to his theme as a requiem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiXr1AgiTFU

  Lancer’s dream was to fight honorable battles for his Master and win the war, but in my eyes he is partially a hypocrite(I know I’ll get lots of hatemails for this). It is his and Saber’s chivalry that prevented an early end of Kayneth and Kiritsugu’s battle, so it’s only fitting that this chivalry bites him back. He contradicts himself imo.

  Don’t get me wrong, certainly, he wants to serve his lord, but he basically betrayed him in his first fight against Saber already, as his honor prevented him from killing Saber. The way he betrays Kayneth however is something completely different compared to Fionn. If I had to compare his actions in his first and second life, I’d say he does try to change things. After all, in his first life it was all about Grainne, while in his second life it’s not solely about Sola. Lancer never had the intention to seduce anyone and if there is one to blame, then it’s Sola.

  I discussed this topic a lot with other people and they asked: Why didn’t he conceal his face?
  Well, why would Lancer even have to conceal his face in this war anyway(besides, he did conceal his face in the legend, Grainne was cursed accidentally)? Every participant, except for Saber, Iri, Maiya and Sola is male, and all 4 women should have high resistance against Lancer’s curse. The only major thing Kayneth was worried about is whether Lancer wanted to seduce his fiance or not(as he stated that he does not want to win the grail) and we know Lancer didn’t want to do this. He just wanted to fight with everything he has to offer.

  Restoring the honor and chivalry he lost in his former life is his only wish.
  Actually, the way he wants to get back his honor and glory is by winning the Grail for his lord, yet he deliberately destroyed all his chances to do so(or he’s just incredibly stupid). Even if he is strategically as good as FSN-Archer in battle(True Mind of the Eye to replace his Luck rank E), by destroying one of his two trump cards, he lost all chances to win the war unless he found someone who cooperates with Kayneth/Sola.

  Lancer failed again in his second life as a Servant. I see two main problems in most of FZ, which are “pride” and “communication”. Kayneth always feared that Lancer would want to seduce Sola. However, he wanted to build a hierarchy because of his pride and never talked with Lancer. If he had done so, just like he did in this episode, he would have worsened his relationship with Lancer, but forget his jealousy(stated in the novel). Or perhaps if he had ignored his pride and just talk about his fears, Lancer would have immediately broken Sola’s heart and she never would have stolen Kayneth’s Command Spells or whatever.

  It’s also Lancer’s pride that made him lose the Holy Grail War in general. He actually acts similar to Cu Chulainn. Now how would FSN-Archer respond? Oh right, in UBW he would totally mock him with something like…

  “Then what? The name of the hero would be disgraced? Don’t make me laugh, Lancer. You can wash disgrace away with results. If you have pride as a hero, you should get rid of it right now.”

  *sigh* If Diarmuid just had done that. Or at least noticed the hints and draw the parallels between his two lives. The unhappy fiancé, the misunderstanding of seducing said fiancé, the jealousy of his lord and his own death by this lord. This is like destiny rubbing salt into his wound. It’s actually funny that Sola would have survived if she had accompanied Lancer and joined Waver and Iri.

  [Note: Frankly speaking, I'm disappointed in Kayneth. He used a gun to kill Risei because he wanted to put the blame on Kiritsugu and eliminate any chances for the others to get Command Spells. Maybe he wouldn't have lost to Kiritsugu, if he had thrown his pride away the moment he joined the war. Oh well, he thought it was a magic tournament, so I can't really blame him for that.]

  At the end he cursed everyone inside his sight including destiny and the Grail. He even cursed the ones he praised like Saber. Lancer just thought everyone was against him. He resembled more a Vengeful Spirit, instead of a Heroic Spirit. Well, since Servants are only copies of the real Heroic Spirits(except for Saber), his true Heroic Spirit probably won’t turn into something like that. Btw, Lancer’s curse has absolutely nothing to do with the Grail. Caster, a-not-so-heroic Spirit was summoned before Lancer cursed the Grail, and Gille de Rais would have never fulfilled the conditions of a Servant. Those who played HF will remember what is happening with the Grail and why this happened.

  Kayneth did make the right choice at the end, but… did he even have any other? If he hadn’t signed the scroll, Kiritsugu would have immediately killed Sola and Kayneth anyway. The only remaining problem would have been Lancer, but he wanted to end his fight with Saber anyway. As far as I understand Kiritsugu, he thinks it was really necessary to kill off Team NTR completely because even if it was a very tiny chance that Kayneth could get in his way in obtaining the Grail, Kiritsugu wouldn’t have wanted to take that risk, so he immediately eliminated every possibility. In HF Kirei was talking about how Team NTR was killed by Kiritsugu, so Nasu has planned that long before he told Urobuchi to write this scene.

  Now about Kiritsugu:
  I just think neither Kiritsugu and Saber’s methods are right. Rider already told her how wrong she is with all her ideals and Kiritsugu is too extreme. That kinda reminds me of a bad end in Heaven’s Feel, in which Shirou decides to become Kiritsugu to make his ideal come true, when he wanted to kill Sakura because she was a potential threat for humanity. Only being interested in numbers to decide who should be sacrificed and who will be saved is a rather sad and mad kind of thinking. But well, if he wants to become “all the evil of this world”(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNdwl0HZPGM) then it’s clear why the Grail chose him. I think it’s the best if we wait until episode 18, since we will get a Kiritsugu flashback then.

  “Even if I have to become all the evil of the world, it won’t matter. If it can save the world, then I’ll gladly accept it.”

  He does not know how much impact his words will have… The two main characters in FZ: A typical anti-hero and a man who can only live on other’s misfortunes. Only those two are in my opinion fit to win the Grail.

  I was asked a lot of times what exactly Kiritsugu would even wish for, what his dream or ideal is. I just answered that his true wish was like Shirou’s in FSN and everyone was baffled, so I just showed them the very first chapter of FZ in volume 1(this is an interesting fact: from the beginning, LN/VN readers know exactly what Kiritsugu’s dream is, while anime-only viewers have serious problems to deal with this). Even Saber realized this after she heard his lament and since she could finally understand him for the first time(obviously, since they talked with each other for the first time), she no longer had the wish to kill him, but perhaps even giving the Grail to him because Kiritsugu is just as pure and selfless like her, just more… realistic and pragmatic than idealistic, although he used to be very idealistic(and wanted to become a “superhero”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSWUQ0ty2fw, just as Saber thought). This is exactly his old dream he passed on to Shirou. I don’t even want to draw the parallels to Saber, FSN-Archer and Kiritsugu because I think they are quite apparent.

  Still, Kiritsugu doesn’t want to give up his dream and ideal and instead just protect Iri and Ilya, the people he loves. Maybe he killed already too many people to stop. In the first half, we see him struggling because of Iri and Ilya so much, so he already considered giving his dream up. Sadly, he doesn’t.

  About the communication part:

  We’ve already seen what can happen if you get to talk with others. Kirei talks a lot with Gil, but not so much with anyone else. He actually wants to return to the church to talk with his father about what he has just done in this episode. Kariya and Tokiomi… well, we had that already. And Aoi is just plain stupid to not open her damn mouth. Tokiomi lacks a bit of empathy and Kariya is quite jealous, so Aoi could have stopped all this mess around killing each other and Sakura’s adoption, if she had said anything.

  Kayneth and Lancer: well, we had that already…

  Rider and Waver: They talk a lot and Waver matures that way. It definitely helps that his Servant is good-natured.

  Saber and Kiritsugu:

  The sad thing about Kiritsugu and Saber is that Saber said in “Fate” that she only talked three times with Kiritsugu. And it seems to help immediately. Their relationship is a bit better than before(or at least the way it was in episode 2), now that Saber can trust Kiritsugu more, even though she finds his methods despicable. However, the (super)hero/seigi no mikata thing is an important term in FZ and FSN imo, as it’s one of the main impulses in the story. Although I really think Saber is the last person who should pity someone. Her life is just as messed up as Kiritsugu’s.

  A few last thoughts: The sound drama is imo definitely better(except obviously for the not existing animation) in this episode because unlike the episodes, the voice actors and the director can take all their time, while the anime has to be around 23min long. One can clearly see that ufotable was forced again to cut a few parts. I noticed that immediately because this scene here was my favorite one in volume 3. Also, I like the music in this scene in the sound drama. Oh well, I guess the bluray version will have many more added scenes again…

  P.S. Hope I repeated myself not too often…

• Arandur

  One last thing to add:

  What I find interesting about Fate are the references Butch and Nasu made. All the Noble Phantasms, their special abilities and even what the Servants are saying. Okay, Iskander isn’t actually a good example, as his looks and behavior are not quite like in the books(as he’s the only “not-legend”), though they use the wildcard excuse that the books are just wrong. But take for example Saber: Excalibur’s flashy beam is a reference to a legend that says that Excalibur’s light alone burned down armies and lots of what Saber says(including this episode here) sounds very similar to what King Arthur says in Le morte d’Arthur or The Once and Future King for example. And of course I haven’t forgotten Diarmuid’s legend round II…