Illya's #1 fangirl
In which I complain about the lack of a Caster route and gush over Medea like a little fangirl.
by , May 11th, 2012 at 04:40 PM (12744 Views)
As a friend of mine and me having been challenging each other to come up with the most ridicules Fate/SN pairings possible and write oneshot [or more, the rules are very loose.] fics of them. He ended up with Sakura/Saber, with the caveat from me that he could not use Saber Alter/Dark Sakura as part of the fic, while I ended up with with Caster/Shirou. So we're going to talk about Caster and that pairing in general.
Caster is a character I didn't really care much for partly because I took nearly a month off between going through the Fate route, in which she dies without any character development, and UBW the player finally gets to see her tragic past and the odd relationship she has with Kazuki-sensei, as well as l seeing her in some of the more light hearted side materials, with her adorable role in Carnival Phantasm being a huge reason I came to like her more. For being something of a one-off character for most of Fate/SN Caster as presented in canon has a fair amount of depth to her character even when compared to more popular servants like Rider.
My current impression of her is the following: Caster fits very firmly into the "damaged goods" archetype in that she suffered many a tragedy in her past and, as a result, has become jaded and angry with the world who used her and cast her aside without a second thought. This is seen quite firmly in the fact that her initial wish if she was to win the Grail War was to curse humanity, even though those who had wronged her had been dead for eons. Balancing her wish revenge with her desire to simply be with Souchiorou, a kind of balancing act between her past and present, is one of the more interesting aspects of UBW and paints Medea, in my eyes anyway, as a more effective villain in that route then Gilgamesh who just kind of shows up, kills Illya, and does his usual LOL!MONGRELs thing before having an awesome fight with Shirou and promptly dying. Now I'm not claiming Caster is a complicated character, far from it considering her limited screen time, but she is someone that kind of grows on you over time and I think she could use a bit more love over all.
So moving on to the fic itself and Shirou x Medea. I like the pairing because it tests Shirou's ideals in much the same way Dark Sakura does in Heaven's Feel, but without the almost silly amounts of angst that went along with that story. From te way I've written the story thus far, Shirou first found Caster in much the same way Souchirou did in canon, picking the poor girl as she lay nearly dead. Now, Shirou is someone who will help anyone in need and seeing a woman in such condition, to some regard in the same manner in which he viewed Saber during their fight with Berserker in the Fate route, he simply is not going to be able to leave her alone, falling for her we eventually see his own ideals come into conflict with Caster's darker side and whether he can forgive such actions for someone he truly cares about.
On Caster's end we have much the same conflict we see in with her in UBW. She is so used to be used and abused by others, having Shirou helping her unconditionally and even being kind to her is something she simply is not used to and makes her question whether there is some hidden motive on Shirou's part for helping her as much as he does. As well as, when he does find out about her past and the dark and morbid things shes done in the name of winning the Grail War, if Shirou would still care for her. It is an interest dynamic that makes me wish Caster would have been given a route of her own.
In so many words, i just really like Caster
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