Thread by @KrisAtLarge

the first is the one that makes actual sense: I mean...

...Britain desperately *needs saving*, really and truly, and the legend is that Arthur will return for that.

*modern* Britain is not Arthur's Britain—even though modern Britain has tried to *appropriate* Arthur.

~Chara

https://twitter.com/kizu_skip/status/1617633288373559298

that's what modern Britain is: a mere thief, a jackdaw that collects other people's heroes and symbols and pretends to own them. Romano-Celtic Britain succumbed the very Germanic barbarians whom Arthur tried to drive back, and now...they wear Arthur like a costume.

~Chara

#FateZero's got its problems but it got straight to the heart of why Arthur's still important *at all*.

I find myself thinking about how there's a lot of very silly and superficial people who no doubt think that "Shakespearean England" was a pinnacle of civilization.

~Chara

you know who *didn't* think that? Shakespeare.

he gives the game away in "King Lear". Lear's Fool—who says what Shakespeare would *like* to say, I don't doubt, to the corrupt and catastrophic rulers of his time—tells us what's on the playwright's mind.

~Chara

I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:
When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors' tutors;
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;
When every case in law is right;
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight...

~Chara

When slanders do not live in tongues;
Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i' the field;
And bawds and whores do churches build;
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion....

~Chara

Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be used with feet.
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.

Shakespeare, through King Lear's Fool, from his own time of "great confusion" (and near-constant civil war), awaits the future...

~Chara

...he awaits the return of *Merlin*.

that was over four centuries ago. the moral squalor and chaos of Great Britain hasn't gotten any better since 1606—especially not since the @Conservatives took over.

Britain *still needs saving*. #FateZero was _correct_.

~Chara

yes, yes, I know it's "fiction". it's an anime. it's not "canonical". what the [expletive deleted] ever—I'm reminded of how the awful #StarWars nerds still churn out hate videos about "The Last Jedi", when THAT was the one SW sequel film that had mythopoeic weight to it.

~Chara

"The Last Jedi" was the one that felt like it *mattered*. TLJ was the one that made me realize...#StarWars still *meant* something to me. it wasn't just some _franchise entertainment_, it was a source of *hope*. a source of spiritual inspiration, even. I love that movie.

~Chara

I love #FateZero for much the same reason. it blindsided me. it took me completely by surprise, because...a long time ago, as a child still, King Arthur meant something to me.

and then I got older and cynical, and turned my back on the mythical heroes I used to admire.

~Chara

I *forgot* King Arthur. or rather, "King Arthur" had shrunk to a mere *brand*—decoration for a Vegas casino or a sack of wheat flour.

#FateZero gave me Arthur back. I believe again...because of HER. because of the King of Knights.

Britain needs you still.

~Chara of Pnictogen

sure, I'll boost my own stuff, do it all the time =p

that having been said, I'll tell you what I think is #FateZero's biggest *problem*, and I think this one can probably be laid right at Gen Urobuchi's feet: it's that we're saddled with a _completely ahistorical Iskandar_.

I know that there's a lot of "when facts become legend, print the legend" stuff going on with #Fate material generally—I suppose it's maybe a bit silly to expect historical accuracy from "Fate/" anything. but #FateZero *draws attention to the disparity*.

heck, Urobuchi has Iskandar comment directly upon not being recorded correctly in history! and, like...there's a whole massive argument to be had about "the historical Alexander the Great"—the two main sources we have about him are from hundreds of years after he lived.

~Chara

but jeez...couldn't Gen Urobuchi at least have remembered that Alexander *didn't like wearing a beard*? there's a story that he felt a beard was a liability in battle, in fact. all depictions show Iskander clean-shaven. like this coin, and not like...well, THIS.

~Chara

it's a big problem because now I feel like we have to *write something about it*. "Iskandar, uh, we need to deal with the fact that your _historical_ self was maybe five foot three and beardless, and burned Persepolis down on a drunken whim."

Waver's not gonna like it.

~Chara