Talk:Artoria Pendragon/@comment-25685875-20170713064835/@comment-188.238.157.52-20170726144403

Artoria was literally raised from birth to be knight and taught the ways of a king; not pulling the sword would be a denial of everything she was and just like Shirou there is point in denying their ideals because without them, they are nothing. Hell, take HF; Shirou has to mindwipe himself and dies once he abandoned his ideals. The discussion with Merlin right before the sword is drawn shows this in Artoria. Oh don't worry, I've read Fate at least three times; four if you count in parts as well.

You really don't understand what the deal with the ideal king was, do you? The whole point of Artoria, hell even FSN as a whole, is that ideals do not mix with reality. Not because the individual is unable to live up to it, but because the collective will always reject it. The Britons' demanded that Artoria be perfect, but once they got it they chafed underneath her rule because people cannot live up to that ideal. Notably, because she was building a country where the commoners were not less valued than the warrior-class of people. Each and every Knight of the Round Table showcases a different aspect of this in TM, making for a microcosm of their failures; Lancelot is the base man who cannot rise above his love and lust and when he is forgiven and receives blessings he only gets angrier(HELL, in F/Z Artoria STILL CONSIDERS LANCELOT HER DEAR FRIEND. Bros before hoes, oh wait Lancelot is a dick); Gawain the blind sycophant kuuki yomenai ossan; Tristan the introvert who when unable to understand another lashes out and then never finds the werewithal to try and make up for it; Mordred the prodigal ”son” who cannot see beyond her own desires and wants, and upon rejection; Bedivere the kind who merely wanted to make his king happy but never could find the means or iniative for it; Kay the layabout who knows of how hard Artoria works yet can only be resentful and sullen about that difference in their character; Guinevere who despite marrying out of duty still held the desires of a woman etc.

Agravain is the perfect example in this, because he is cut from the same cloth as Artoria despite their differences. They both sacrificed themselves for their goals and when he perished, there was no one left who would work to support the king; from all the Knights, only the would-be traitor and spy understood that the ideal king could not be understood and did not need to be understood. His death is arguably the trigger for everything, because while the king protected and governed the country to peace and prosperity through times of strife and chaos, the kingdom never supported the king.

She supposedly sucks as a leader, because a barbarian warleader who raped and pillaged his way through the middle-east until he died and everything went to shit said so. Right. And the fact that by everyone who knows her rule, says that Artoria was the ideal king who brought prosperity and peace to a country on the brink of extinction is completely irrelevant. I don't know where you're getting this bull about her sucking as a peace-time ruler, but your obfuscating distractions about bureaucracy and project management methodology is wholly and utterly irrelevant. You're working with pure supposition, with nothing to back up your claims.

A king does not need to share their motivations for anything, hell in many classical books regarding strategy it is even discouraged! ”If your friends do not know what you are doing, then your enemies sure as hell don't either”. She's an autocrat; she's responsible and subordinate to no one and your argument on communication shows how very little you understand about the relationship between liege lord and subject. Moreover, a king cannot care about the people if he wants to protect the people; the looting of her own village for example. If she wants to be able to win without exhausting her country, she has to become heartless and kill off her own people, for the reason of wanting to protect those very same people.

Blaming the fall of Britain on Saber is like blaming a guy who got shot when they returned home only to find some crazy guy with a gun in their house when they came back; without Mordred, Britain would have been fine. Sure, many had had issues with Saber but given that she governed for the sake of the people and not the knights, it's no wonder half of the knights rebelled with Mordred, given that they were losing all their privileges. Given how much you harp on about government, I'm sure you think that feudalism is a great form of governance as well. It was a peaceful and prosperous country thanks to Artoria, not despite of it.

Britain had many kings during that time, some incompetent, some relatively competent and some wholly devoted to ravaging the country. Only Artoria pushed through and built Camelot. Hell, the reason Saber doesn't go to the Throne of Heroes after the Fate route but to Avalon is because STILL IN THE PRESENT DAY, she is remembered by the English people as the Once and Future King of Britain.