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Impression
I will tell you a story my child, the story of a toy that wanted to become a real child. The little grail could grant anyone any wish they had, but it was unable to grant his own. The little grail wished to be reborn into this world and have a physical form, something more than just a wish granting cup. Unfortunately, no one ever gave the little grail his wish and the grail remained unhappy and sad for the rest of eternity. This was an interesting episode to say the least, I was not expecting something like this to happen. For the grail to materialize and ask a wish? I believed the grail to be an inanimate object, not a genie in a lamp. It is a cool concept to have the grail be more of a challenge to obtain than only killing some of the best in the world.
Something I even less expected was to see Kiritsugu access the grail before the fighting was even over. I might have misunderstood some things, but I believed only the winner could access the grail, But the grail chose him even before the fighting was over. I know it was because Irisviel’s memories are now fused with the grail, but it was still weird that it ended up so easy to have the grail ask for Kiritsugu’s wish. He could have killed Irisviel from the very beginning and the grail would have granted his wish then. It would have made the story much more boring, but it was such a weird twist of event. Even more so since Kiritsugu decided not to have his wish in the end. I understand Kirei so much for hating Kiritsugu now. Kiritsugu got to finally get his wish and he said no fuck it and tries to destroy the grail, anyone would be pissed. He is just as bad as the people who destroyed a PS3 when it first launched. It is kind of interesting though that the two people that reminds are someone who wished for nothing until the end, when he finally realized what he really wished for, and on the other corner you have someone with a profound belief and wish that never falters, but when he gets to the grail, he refuses to have his wish granted.
There was something else that happened this episode, but it was so unimpressive that it piss me off a little. Berserker and Saber fought in the parking lot, Saber won. We saw about nothing of the fight, it was boring and really frustrating not to be able to witness that. It is one of the last fight and it ends without a single motion, we only see the results. We already knew long ago that Saber would win against him, why only show us the part we already knew about !
Now Saber will have to face Archer and I am very surprised with Archer’s reaction. It is really not like him to fall for someone like Saber. He is a demigod, he has no need for weakling like her, he deserves someone better. And since Archer is alive, I believe it means that Kirei isn’t dead either somehow. There is only an episode left and Saber is now going against her will to destroy the thing she searched for all these years, this ought to be awesome.
ZeroG signing off
Actually, instead of the genie in the lamp, the grail is more or less like the monkey’s paw in terms of functionality (however, the intentions are different). As for why, you can search about angra mainyu (which, if you noticed, was mentioned during this episode). That’ll clarify things up.
As for why he intended to destroy the grail, if he made his wish there won’t be a Fate/Stay Night after this (because it will kill off everyone in the world except for Ilya and maybe a fake Irisviel)…
About Irisviel, her body worked as the carrier so that the grail could exist in reality. Even if she died earlier, without proper preparations and a dominant winner chosen by the grail, the grail would probably not even appear.
Therefore if Irisviel died before the grail chose a winner, it would mean that the quest for the grail would have been for nothing, it would have been interesting to see them all fight to the death for no reason in the end.
Well, Irisviel did die before the grail chose the winner. What I meant was that her being alive or dead doesn’t matter. She is merely a carrier, a shell, for the grail. As long as the shell existed, the grail war can continue. So in this episode, the grail merely used up Irisviel’s body to take shape in the real world.
Spoiler warning
Not all of the body needs to be there either, since in the movie Unlimited Blade Works Gilgamesh took Ilya’s heart only to summon the corrupted grail.
Spoiler end
If I remember right the grail collects the souls of the defeated servants and the power of their souls is what drives the wish. Also the archer class has a class skill that allows them to operate without a master for around three days whereas the other classes could only stay around maybe an hour or two.
I was unaware of this detail about the archer class, thanks for the clarification. It does make much more sense now.