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EP. REVIEW: Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works

identity as a "vengeful, scorned woman."

sexist caricature

@SilverTalon: I'm skimming your posts about Zero, since I'd like to be able to watch it on my own eventually. Besides, if folks who played the original VN before Zero even existed emerged unscathed, I should logically be able to do the same with it's anime counterpart. Especially since, by your own admission, this adapation is

You're just going to have to put up with the fact that I'm going to watch Zero after completing UBW.

"Logic and past events", huh? Considering the mod warning at the beginning of this thread, I don't think you can blame me for thinking this adaptation, as nice as it's been so far, might take a slightly sexist approach to some of its female characters. Again, MY past experiences with this show, and the franchise as a whole, are dictated by fans (i.e., this thread) and what I've seen so far of the show. I don't know what, if any, relation this Caster has to Fate: Zero, but whatever it is, I have no access to it.

yeah, the "A new Retelling for the new generation" is growing old, especially since the interview refered to a new generation of VN fans, not Fate/Zero first viewers.

Its just that Fate/Zero fans wanna feel entitled that this is made for them, not for anyone else

Could I have some link/pointers to these feminist reinterpretation of Medea myth? As a person really interested in mythology I would really like to see how does such interpretation work.

On topic: Medea and Circe are probably few of the least sexist female characters in entire ancient Greece mythology. We can talk entire paragraphs about woman scorned, but Medea was still one of the few proactive women in Greek mythology, with intelligence, power, her own agenda and ability to seize it - since she appears in Argonauts myth, she instantly becomes main power behind entirety of Jason succes.
She is much more than woman scorned archetype and Fate/SN shows it perfectly, while being fairly faithful to original myth. Personaly, I find quotes like

Quote:

identity as a "vengeful, scorned woman."

and

Quote:

sexist caricature

rather insulting to character, because they ignore entirety of her characteristic, power, cunning and intelligence and concentrate only on one (important, but still) part.

And personally, for me, I think spoiler[Medea] was an odd choice for Caster because her myth is not as widely recognized as other magicians. Plus, according to my friend who read the wiki, spoiler[Shakespeare] and spoiler[Hans Christian Anderson] qualify as Casters as well, for some bizarre reason.

And personally, for me, I think spoiler[Medea] was an odd choice for Caster because her myth is not as widely recognized as other magicians.

(minus the part where she spoiler[kills and/or murders her kids]; some interpretations make it accidental rather than purposeful)

What I don't like? The possibility (and keep in mind that I'm new to FSN) that this adaptation is going to distill spoiler[Medea] down to just "a woman scorned"

You should really wait before making accusation on this level as you do now when you don't know story.

I think the bigger issue is that all of this has come as a result of an offhand comment made by the always-snarky Archer taken too far. If you're speculating than you're giving too much weight to a single character's words.

navycherub wrote:

I think the bigger issue is that all of this has come as a result of an offhand comment made by the always-snarky Archer taken too far. If you're speculating than you're giving too much weight to a single character's words.

Er, he specifically says "she'll take her anger out on you" and "a woman's fury is hard to control". Considering that Archer is fairly spot on about his observations, even with the snark, how could I not think his words have merit in what kind of person Caster is?

my point is that I DON'T know the story, but that doesn't mean I can't speculate about where I think the story's direction might be headed, or what kind of characterization might show up.

Again, everybody's acting like it's somehow wrong for me to not know how UBW ends before watching the adaptation of it. Oi vey!

TarsTarkas wrote:

I am not commenting on your speculation of the future, merely on your assertion that vengeful women have no place in anime.

I don't know where you're getting this idea; I said previously ufotable might be able to pull it off successfully. MIGHT. Again, I don't know. But I also said I find it a tired, beating-a-dead-horse, boring, and slightly offensive (because being vengeful woman IS a gendered stereotype, like I mentioned in reference to the idiom "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"; there is no male equivalent for this idiom in popular culture) trope.

I've said this THREE times. Ufotable could pull this off,

(I don't think she was a particularly smart choice for the Caster role in the original VN, but that's purely because her legend is so obscure, as it's overshadowed by the much more easily-recognizable spoiler[Jason])

But hinting at that kind of stereotype is worrying for me, not damning. Particularly because I've enjoyed this show so far BECAUSE it's avoided a lot of bland stereotyping.

As for the alternate tellings of spoiler[Medea's] legend, I read them years ago in a library somewhere, but I cannot for the life of me remember what the book's title was--some kind of anthology of female-centric legends.

that and the reviewer going "Thank god Shirou didn't say something sexist to Saber when he opened his mouth" everytime Shirou doesnt say something sexist...

(I don't think she was a particularly smart choice for the Caster role in the original VN, but that's purely because her legend is so obscure, as it's overshadowed by the much more easily-recognizable spoiler[Jason])