December 14th, 2011 
AstroNerdBoy フェイト/ゼロ
Fate/Zero – 11
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
At their castle hideout, Saber and Iri sense the arrival of Rider and Waver and are concerned since Emiya is away. However, Rider has not come to fight, but to drink and to talk, having brought a barrel of wine. However, Rider is not impressed with the state of the castle, so he has Saber, Iri, and Waver come with him to the courtyard. Though suspicious, Saber does drink with Rider when Archer comes, thus completing the attendants at Rider’s Banquet of the Kings. Archer looks down on both Saber and Rider, but does summon his own wine for them to drink as it is the best of the best.
Rider probes Saber on her wishes to get the Grail and is not happy to hear that she regrets things and wants to change the past. Her notions of what being a king is are not his and he lectures her at length on this, challenging her notions and citing that she never ruled her people and that they died in vain. During this discussion, Assassins arrive and since they aren’t interested in chatting, Rider reveals his Noble Phantasm Ionioi Hetariroi, a Reality Marble with the desert lands he once ruled as Iskandar and filled with the armies who served him in the past, all with their own powers and abilities here.
As Archer sits and watches, Saber observes in astonishment as Rider’s armies destroy all of the Assassins present, showing his ideals of what being king is all about. The route of the assassins over, Rider returns them to reality and calls the banquet over. He tells Saber that he no longer views her as king but rather as a little girl who needs to awaken from her sad dream as it may cause her to lose what pride she has as a Heroic Spirit since he sees her vision of being a king as a curse. Archer takes his leave as well, but he tells Saber to do what she wants. He takes delight in her misery. This causes Saber to remember that one of her knights had left Camelot because she didn’t understand how the others felt.
Thoughts/Review:
OK, did ufotable outsource parts of episode 11 to some other company? The character designs were distinctly off at times, even if the characters were still recognizable. Well, this kind of thing has been known to happen in order to (1) save money and (2) keep things on schedule.
Anyway, the sometimes distracting character designs aside, this was an interesting episode of philosophies. Interestingly enough, Archer didn’t really say much, but I liked how Saber was challenged in her beliefs. I don’t think she ever faltered on them before now.
As an aside, it is interesting that Rider’s Noble Phantasm is a Reality Marble with an entire army there willing to fight for their king. Somehow, that seems to fit in with Archer’s own Reality Marble which contains the swords of an entire army. Then there’s Saber with just her lone weapon, reflecting her notion of an army of one for the people.
Now, what in the world was Kirei doing sending that many Assassins? Archer seemed to indicate this was done at Tohsaka’s request. It didn’t make any sense for them to reveal themselves and based on the sheer number of them, I wouldn’t be surprised if all of them are now dead. If so, then there’s an entire spy network that has been lost and for what?
Regardless, I rather enjoyed the episode and if Assassin is truly gone, then I expect that as others have suggested, the Servants will now start dispatching each other.
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It was done for the sole purpose of forcing Rider to reveal his trump card. Now, as to why they’d sent all of them, I am at a loss as well.
The part with the Assassins was explained, however, you may have noticed that a lot of scenes were cut(E.g., Archer rofling was missing or Tokiomi, who was heard in the preview in ep10 and didn’t appear. Even the OP was cut this time…), the episode is about 30min long when the bluray is released(and hopefully it will be redrawn).
Tokiomi no longer needs his spies, as they have done their job, he decides to let them do a last suicide attack. He sees Rider as the last unknown and possibly (for Gilgamesh) dangerous enemy,
(Berserker: Master will eventually run out of mana
Saber: injured
Lancer: average, has now an inferior substitute Master
Caster: workshop destroyed by Rider, based on his weak defense a weak, maybe not even a true mage
Rider: only known Noble Phantasm the chariot ‘Gordius Wheel’)
that’s why he wants to see whether Rider has an ace up his sleeve. That was the only purpose of this “ambush”. The Assassins were finally able to sneak in because Rider destroyed Iri’s boundary field when he entered the forest. Oh, and Rider’s perception is very good, that’s why most of the Assassins tried not to get too close to Rider and the rest.
Assassin is only one heroic spirit with a divided soul, about 80 entities exist at the same time. They are totally weak, as their strength is splitted up and are only useful for spying and tracking(although even Rider was too fast for them iirc). I say, even a few of the Masters could deal with them one-on-one. Killing too many personalities might destroy him already.
He was forced by Kirei to “achieve victory no matter what sort of losses” with a Command Spell. As it’s an absolute order, Assassin can’t resist the command.
And yes, he is finally dead. 🙂 Though that doesn’t mean Kirei is out of the game…
to Farray:
Hm, I thought that Kirei would save a few assassins for spying and just in case. At least those who are/were on spy duty.
Well, someone previously said that Heroes would start dying like flies and he was right – Assassins died like flies.
Also, I think Archer would be the one who kills Rider. His Phantasm seems to be able to counter Rider’s army quite well, so it’ll be a massacre. And don’t tell me whether I’m right or wrong on this – it’ll be more fun to see for myself, even if I have to wait three months for this (although by then I’d probably already forgotten about this guess)!
(don’t worry, it’s spoiler-free)
Archer promises to kill Rider with his own hands. First, after Rider stated his wish(and his explanation /his philosophy as the King of Conquerors) and a second time after Rider annihilated Assassin.
That is quite an interesting scene ufotable cut out, since Rider seems to be one of the few people Archer does not underestimate and somehow respects.
Based on what you guys are saying, a look-see at the Blu-ray version would seem to be in order, even if it turns out to be more gory.
It seems so. Usually the BD is just decensored version and better quality, but no additional scenes. So, Fate/Zero BD would be a real treat if it wasn’t for the ridiculous price (I read somewhere that it was quite a lot). Yeah, found it: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=cmt&id=40096. ANB, I seriously advise you to DOWNLOAD the BDs instead of buying them. Otherwise you’ll go broke (or at least it’ll be better to safe the money and later pay a translator to translate a Tenchi Muyo! novel).