Summary:
Saber is having a dream of herself leading a legion of armor-clad men. Her physical condition has Shirou very worried. Rin tells him that Saber used all of her magic power on her Noble Phantasm and will disappear if she used it again. For Saber to recover, she either needs her Master to supply the magic or she has to replenish it herself, like Rider did by using the students at school. Shirou can’t do the former and he doesn’t want to use his command spells to force her to do the latter. Later that night, Shirou is watching over a sleeping Saber when he gets a vision of her approaching a sword in a stone. A nearby cloaked figure tells Saber that by drawing this sword, she will be become the king of Britain, Arturia. After Saber successfully pulls the sword, the scene changes to her in front of the legion of men. Shirou starts to realize who she really is, but then notices that her sword is different from the one he saw from the previous night. By the time he wakes up, it’s already morning. He finds Archer outside and Archer tells him not to forget that Saber knows about the risk of disappearing from using her Noble Phantasm, but would endanger herself to protect him.
Shirou goes to the park to think some more and happens to meet Ilya. She knows about Saber’s situation and about Saber’s fight with Rider since she was there with Berserker. She uses magic to knock Shirou out and takes him home with her. During this time, he has another dream about Saber’s sword, but then wakes up in Ilya’s room. Shirou thinks that Ilya is going to kill him, but she says that he’s special and wants him to become her Servant. Meanwhile, Saber has woken up and is looking for him. She seeks out Rin because she feels that something may be wrong, but Archer wants Rin to leave the matter alone. Seeing how concerned Saber is, Rin makes Archer help. Back at Ilya’s home, Shirou refuses her offer because he still has Saber. Ilya decides to go kill Saber. She reveals that she had Berserker kill Shinji last night after he had run away from Shirou. Unable to stop Ilya from going, Shirou decides to use his magic to free himself. But when his powers flare up, he starts coughing up blood. Of course, this doesn’t discourage him. During this time, Saber, Rin, and Archer are approaching the house from the woods.

Preview:

Last week they revealed the sword Excalibur and this episode they reveal who Saber really is – Arturia, aka. King Arthur. I was definitely surprised at this twist when I first learned since the legend of King Arthur is based around a male figure. They seem to make a big deal about how Saber seems to have multiple swords and the one she pulled out of the stone is not Excalibur. I wonder how that’ll play into the FSN story or if it just makes for good trivia.
Overall the episode is disappointing compared to the last couple of weeks because they returned to the heavy-dialogue format. I really like the battle episodes more, but I’m getting more used to these slower ones. Next week seems like another exciting one with a battle between Archer and Berserker. Rin and Archer are finally getting back into the action.

37 Comments

  1. Oo, that doesn’t look good after all..
    From the pictures I see, that they explain more about Saber’s past.
    But before we start talking, lets see what the summary tell us.

    *Chi*
  2. In actual Arthurian legend the sword in the stone is generally believed to be a different sword than excalibur, which was given by the lady in the lake. I don’t know how Fate handles this though. Also more archer is definately a good thing.

    Max Demian
  3. So… Ilya’s eyes glow, and now Shirou’s bleeding?

    Oookay… I guess she REALLY likes her onii-chan, if she’s willing to tie him up to keep him alive and out of the way while she beats Rin up like a punching bag, or something.

    Haesslich
  4. so, we are getting close to the part where shirou has to somehow give saber enough mana to fight berserker, right…XD
    LOL, I am curious how they’re going to handle that.

    So… Ilya’s eyes glow, and now Shirou’s bleeding?
    Shirou starts coughing up blood when his magic flares up while he’s trying to break free of his bonds.

  5. … I guess that Ilya fulfills the ‘stalker girl’ quota for this harem-show. “Let’s play.. and in the process, I’m going to kill all the other members of your harem, onii-chan.” Maybe she’s been reading “Yoshikawa Maika’s Guide to Keeping Your Onii-Chan’s Harem Away From Him’?

    Haesslich
  6. the Lady in the Lake bit is frm older mythical Arthurian story … We are seeing another take of the tale from the Holy Grail Wars stand-point, which suggests that Arthur was infact a girl who took on the false persona to lead her people in the unification efforts in Medieval England , ala Hua Mulan. TypeMoon did a fine job there (hee) … referenced frm Fate/Stay Encyclopedia (Japanese txt)

    tonbo
  7. Oooo…..so I suppose we’ll be seeing Archer unleashing his true ability in the next ep eh? I somehow knew this episode is somehow related to Saber judging from last week’s preview. But can anyone tell me how long before I get to see Shirou master his ability?

    dward
  8. You can’t really try to compare details with Arthurian legend, because over time the legend has actually been modified to include aspects of the current history pervading the country at that point. The nights of the round table wasn’t added till sometime later and the idea of Arthur being taken to the afterlife by the boat filled with women is straight out of norse mythology, the legend of the Valkyries. The original point of the story of Arthur was to, in fact, demonize women. Guinevere was supposed to represent how women can bring down a kingdom and how they can lead men to their doom, whereas Lancelot despite having an affair with Arthur’s wife could still be good and noble.

    EliteF22
  9. “But can anyone tell me how long before I get to see Shirou master his ability?”

    Show Spoiler ▼

    cclragnarok
  10. v -> Possible storyline spoiler? I’m not sure. Anyway, don’t read if you’re not sure 🙂

    Show Spoiler ▼

    As for the episode, it seems pretty alright. I wasn’t expecting it to be like this, I was thinking into something more focused into Shirou’s Harem, after seeing Ilya and him. Even though he was tied… But, well. I’m glad it turned out to explain a bit of Saber’s past, and we actually get to see Archer on the scene.

    v -> Game spoilers, do not read if you didn’t play/do not know a bit of the story.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Blue-Kun
  11. It looks like Archer is finally getting some action next episode.. personally, I think Archer is one of the more interesting characters. It’s a shame that he’s been getting so little screentime.

    Losttek
  12. People have said that if you think about it, Saber’s true identity is obvious…how the heck do they figure? @_@ Sure once she whips out Excalibur, you think “King Arthur?!”, but then you think” but Arthur was a /guy/!” >.> Arturia? @_@ Dude, you’d have to be thinking with some odd brain patterns to actual realize Saber’s identity with any confidence before they actually tell you in the series. >.>

    Shinji103
  13. From Discworld,

    The whole pulling the sword out of the stone thing has to be a gyp. There must’ve been some dude underneath with a pair of pliers waiting for the right guy to come along. Merlin’d give the signal and he’d have his figurehead.

    Eleutheria
  14. We can do that because we read about legends and about the game, at least you can say, when you saw Excalibur, “this has something to do with King Arthur”. Don’t by skeptical.

    Speaking of Sabers lower mana, I want to see how they’re going to handle it, well if you now the game storyline, you know the answer, but that possibility is a little bit unlike over here.

    Cool! Archer finally is going to fight someone… Berserker and Ilya, good luck!

    Poor Sakura, no servant and no more Onii-san for her.

    Syaoran Li
  15. man i couldnt make the saber=king arthur connection at all i could of sworn it was joan of arc it made 100X more sense to me but now excal is in the picture i guess that aint right…(sad i wass soo off with my guess)

    raphy
  16. yeah! i second that, I could’ve guess it was joan of arc, it would’ve made lot of sense in it, but king Arthur!!! this is soooo twisted, originally, King Arthur has an illegitimate son with his sister, the black prince Mordred who had eventually turn against his father and bought down the fall of camelot….

    so now, where’s the freakin` treacherous son!! this is sooo twisted…

    R3n
  17. The sword in the stone is called Caliburn. But accroding to history, King arthur lost it in raid and so the lady of the lake gave king arthur a new sword, Excalibur, which according to me is the ex of caliburn. Caliburn has a nicer design than excalibur but caliburn has no sheath while excalibur has a sheath called avalon.

    Raymond Klyne
  18. I thought they were going to make her Morgan le Fay but now that I think of it, I think Author might have actually been a woman and for various reasons she hid her identity with a double that was male.

    Dimeric

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