Talk:Illyasviel von Einzbern/@comment-100.8.53.203-20171105200246/@comment-100.8.53.203-20171122031139

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@Free Willey I'm aware of how dark the Fateverse is. In fact, it's not even just Fate, but the Nasuverse in general. Kara no Kyoukai goes without saying. Perhaps even worse is Tsukihime. One word: Kohaku. A girl who was raped from an early age, not by her brother like Sakura, but by Tohno Makihisa, the man who took her and her sister Hisui away from her home. Kohaku literally turns herself into a doll just to avoid feeling any pain and is completely incapable of understanding emotions. The best part? She doesn't even realize what she's feeling. When certain events unfold and she ends up serving an imprisoned SHIKI instead of Makihisa and she starts to feel just a little happy? Boom, SHIKI rapes Kohaku. Kohaku's realization that just a tiny bit of hope ultimately leads to despair ends up in her emotions becoming completely crippled. And all of the crap with SHIKI that goes on in Akiha's, Hisui's, and Kohaku's routes? It's all Kohaku's fault; she manipulated SHIKI, drugged him and told him to kill people, which would eventually result in the deaths of Akiha and Shiki. She didn't even do this because she wanted revenge on the Tohno family for all the crap they put her through. It was b'ecause with her emotions destroyed, Kohaku needed to find something to live for, something to keep her alive, something 'to give her a purpose''. She forgot what it meant to be human, to feel human emotions instead of just walking around with a smile - she doesn't even realize she feels this emptiness. In her words: "I just thought that was what a human would have done." In Hisui's route, once she SUCCEEDS in her plot (YES FOLKS, PLOT ARMOR DIDN'T SAVE SHIKI OR AKIHA!) she kills herself, just because she realized she has nothing else to live for.

You'd have to actually play the Tsukihime VN to get the full experience, but in light of that, Fate/Zero seemed a lot less dark. Diarmuid's death just seemed like his legend coming full circle and Kiritsugu revealing how dirty he's willing to play to win. Kirei's (literal) backstabbing of Tokiomi and his complete fall from grace seemed like something any other person who'd been kicked around or completely bored out of their mind for their entire lives would have done. That said, Kohaku's tragedy can't be compared to other bits of the Fateverse, such as Angra Mainyu deconstructing Kiritsugu's dream by having him murder everyone he loves (the way they changed the snow to the black mud in the windows of Irisviel's bedroom was a rly nice touch) because when everything was said and done, Kiritsugu still felt something for those people. EMIYA's story can be considered even more tragic, because at least Kohaku was able to die. EMIYA? "Let's keep repeating the fuckups during your life for all of eternity, alright?"

My point is, the Nasuverse is dark and edgy. That's probably why we like it: we like series where everything doesn't turn out happy for everyone. However, being constantly exposed to dark and edgy desensitizes us to it and eventually makes us get tired of the Nasuverse. To say nothing of how it can affect one's mental state. What I'm saying is, even in dark and edgy universes, there needs to be at least A LITTLE light. And given how Illya is somehow able to compromise with Miyu, Chloe, Bazett, and even Angelica, all of who either disliked her or were outright trying to kill her at some point in the series gives us a small, if not naive, reminder: friendship can exist in this semi-crapsack world we live in, and actually make the pain of life bearable.

Of course, the Laws of the Nasuverse know how to balance this out with some of its token dark and edgy. Sakura might have (probably) gone through the same crap she did in Zero. Of course, all the Matous get screwed up regardless of whatever universe they're in. Sakura dies and is brought back to life by the Ainsworths. Her personality is stuffed in a doll and she's forced to suffer at the fact that she can't just die (yes, a character from KALEID is starting to trump Kohaku in taking shit). To make things even worse, the Ainsworths decide to completely destroy her sanity and make her Install Lancelot and keep her like that... for AT LEAST TWO MONTHS. (Remember that the most a normal person can handle Installing a Berserker Card is 10 minutes before losing their sanity). She's manipulated by Julian by the latter impersonating Shirou, who's actually setting her up to kill the real Shirou and his little sister. (Remember that in life, Sakura knew what the Ainsworths had done to Miyu. She was willing to give up the (supposedly real) GILGAMESH card so Shirou could save Miyu. Also remember that the Grail probably wasn't a Doombot in that universe considering it granted Shirou's wish, hence Miyu coming to Illya's world). Considering the fact that Shirou and Chloe BOTH agree that Sakuralot has to die, it's still dark and edgy. But that doesn't change the fact that Kaleid is MORE THAN the dark and edgy - it brings entire episodes of comedy and slice of life to give us a breather from the dark and edgy.

(This was probably too long an explanation, but the Nasuverse is my favorite franchise in terms of books/movies/call-it-what-you-will, so I get pretty caught up in it. Doesn't change the fact I had fun writing this, tho ;D)