Chat Thread 24: Two Girls, One Chat

I’m actually kind of annoyed that Carmilla is a thing, because she’s actually what I thought Bathory should be like, and it just brings Elizabeth’s shortcomings into painful relief.

oh, you don't know? Carmilla is Elizabeth Bathory as an Adult. Yeah, they both hate each other.

Yeah, I know. I just wish Carmilla was the definitive version. Plus, I don’t really get why they hate each other. It makes sense in a case like Medea Lily vs Medea, being aware of your eventual tragic fate by forces you can’t control when all you wanted was love. But in Elizabeth’s case, seeing as how she doesn’t see anything wrong with her misdeeds, I don’t know why it would bother her to become Carmilla.

well you you don't have Carmilla so it makes sense for you to not get it.

to put it bluntly.

Elizabeth does horrible things thinking that they are good things. She is, much like her design suggest, a spoiled brat that believes that so long as she wants something, others have to give her that even at the cost of their life. So she is more a kin to an innocent monster in the sense that she does evil without understand that it is evil.

Carmilla on the other hand is 100% monster. She knows what she's does is wrong and revels in it. She doesn't give excuses for her behavior and she doesn't really care. She only understand that she takes pleasure in it.

They can't see eye to eye because of their philosophy. Carmilla accepts her role as the monster of her story. She accepts that although she only wanted beauty, that in her pursue of it she became a monster. Elizabeth on the other hand cannot accept that, she can't accept being a monster. From Elizabeth's perspective, her concept of beauty cannot have a monster as it's center. So she rejects Carmilla who has accepted her role as a monster.

basically it's:

Carmilla: You and I are monsters.

Elizabeth: Someone as perfect as me cannot be a monster!

Carmilla: You are being childish and naive.

Elizabeth: Shut up old hag!

Well yeah. I kind of got that from their brief interaction in Orleans. I guess that makes sense.

But it brings up another issue I have. Summoning Servants isn’t time travel. You’re pulling their accumulated legend from the Throne of Heroes. So even if Elizabeth existed at some point, I don’t think it should be possible to summon her when Carmilla is the accumulation of Bathory’s life.

I know there’s precedent for summoning Servants in different classes, and sometimes that involves summoning a “younger” version of them. Like the example with Li Shuwen in Fate/Extra (ignored by FGO, amusingly enough) was that Julian summoned him as an Assassin, which made him more youthful and fiery, whereas summoning him as a Lancer would have shown him as older and more reserved.

However, my understanding was this:

Summoning can affect the “container” of the Servant (relative age, slight difference in maturity/disposition)
Summoning does not affect the “essence” of the Servant. They’re still the accumulation of that person’s total life and accomplishments, so they wouldn’t have entirely different personalities or knowledge.

This makes both Bathory and Medea confusing to me. In some ways, Medea Lily is worse (Alexander vs Iskander as well) cause she doesn’t even have the benefit of the different classes thing. I don’t see how it should be possible to summon a limited or particular portion of a Servant’s existence like that.

Hmmmm, depends how you look at it. The way it works I believe is that depending on what legend you summoning in question a differant version will appear.

So let's see Alexander and Iskander since they are the easy one.

Alexander the Great is the conqueror. His most famous legend is when he was conquering lands.

Iskander the Great on the other hand is the king. This is after the conquering happened and his legend is when he's ruling the largest nation of the era.

Alexander is the Greek legend and Iskander is the Persian legend.

in Medea's case, it's about timing. Normal Medea is the betraying witch. Medea Lily is the heroic hero who fought with the Argonauts.

In Elizabeth's case it's basically like Gilles. There's a pure version which is the younger version, that's still twisted and horrible but unaware of their own wickeness. And then there's their older version who take on book characters. Gilles as Bluebeard and Elizabeth as Carmilla.

The Alexander/Iskander difference in Persian and Greek legend would make sense, if Alexander didn’t just seem to be a kid version.

Yeah, but considering that never happened, I don’t see how Medea Lily can be a thing. Unless we’re to assume there’s an alternate universe where that happened.

Gilles makes sense because he’s both known as a heroic commander of France (Saber) and a crazy serial murderer (Caster). But the only thing anyone really knows about Bathory is the stuff associated with Carmilla.

wasn't Alexander like super young by today's standards when he went conquering?

but Medea was with the Argunauts.

I knew about Elizabeth Bathory way before I ever heard about Carmilla. But it's quite obvious what happened. CCC was much darker than Extra and they wanted to show that by having someone who could act both charmful and sadistic for the role. They likely originaly wanted Elizabeth as an adult aristrocrat but found that she would end up being too dark and serious for CCC but still liked the idea of having Elizabeth as a character. So they decided to go for a first glace innocent girl who would slowly and steadily reveal her true colours as a wicked and horrible person.

Then FGO comes out and someone very likely said "hey, how about we make another Elizabeth but closer to the history version?" and they chose Carmilla as a way to back up her existance.


I don't really have that much of a problem. I legit like both versions. I prefer Carmilla, but that's because Carmilla attracts me more as an individual. Elizabeth on the other hand is fascinating as a character because she is so allien to what you would expect from Elizabeth Bathory yet she ticks everything about her on thematic and phycological level.

I suppose that's true. He wasn't a kid, but he was fairly young (early twenties, I think?). I think they could have gone with a slightly younger, more bishie look than Iskander, rather than making him look like a kid. But I guess that's splitting hairs. It helps when you think of it as a different concept rather than a younger version, specifically.

When I said "Carmilla" I meant FGO's version of Carmilla, as in the blood countess Bathory, not pop idol Bathory.

Hmm, interesting. And I can see what they were going for in CCC, I suppose (although axing the idea of older Bathory would seem like a missed opportunity, giving the weird BDSM vibe in CCC). I think it would have worked if they'd gone for something more like Illya - looking like an innocent girl, but having a very dangerous side and blue-and-orange morality. Elizabeth is a little hard to take seriously in any capacity though when she's decked out in bubble gum pink and going around trying to be a pop singer...

but ask this question. Is it really out of the realm of possibility, that someone who is obessessed with youth to the point where they will butcher people and bathe in their blood, would not try to mimic what's considered youthful?

I mean it's not that hard to imagine someone who's obessessed with youth to try to pretend to be young and vibrant and so they wear the most steriotipical young girl clothing they can find, all pink, frills and plushies.

the whole pop singer is a reference to the japanese culture where pop singers are viewed as pure and youthful(to a scary degree)

Hmm, I suppose, though that would work better in a modern-day Grail War, rather than the Moon Cell.

Still, I guess you have assuaged some of my doubts. You'll never be able to convince me though that having the Servants be in different classes because they're in bathing suits and using water guns or surf boards makes any sense.

don't remind me of that. I didn't get anyone I wanted. I only got Mordred and Kihohime T_T

wait 2 years and you'll get your swimsuit manly guys

I wish lol. But I doubt it. The game is very skewed toward male players/MC. I ended up switching to a male protagonist cause I felt like I was in a yuri anime with all the female Servants declaring their undying love for you lol.

no, in 2 years, swimsuit Gilgamesh, Robin and Dantes come out... as costumes...better than nothing.

I haven't felt that much from that(plays female MC), most females seem to cockblock you as far as I can tell. I mean, sure, some don't care like Nero, but those are generally either sexual deviants or insane.

Really? Where did you see that?

Huh, maybe I switched too early. Cause the dialogue options definitely seem geared toward a male protagonist, and I just assumed they didn't change regardless of the gender.

MashxProtagonist is always a thing, but I guess I wouldn't mind that too much.

it was japan's summer event this year.

well in the story there's minor differences, but nothing like changes overall other than being called girl or boy.

I think Mash works mostly because of Mash's personality. if you're male it can look like she has a crush on you, if you're female it can look like Mash is just a very passionate person.

They're hardly as stripperific as the female Servants though. I was going to say that none of the ones I wanted are there, but then again, guys like Fergus and Cu have half-naked artwork anyway in their regular forms lol. And there are Emiya swimsuits, I suppose, even if they're in the Extra artwork and not the more official artwork, so it's not as good.

Would be nice to have more changes, but I understand on a practical level that it would be a lot of extra work.

Yeah, exactly. :0

hey, at least Carmilla is a lesbian so that one makes only sense if you're female XD

Lol, true. If you’re considering Carmilla the vampire book character and not Carmilla the pseudonym for Bathory. Though the fixation with virgin girls... muddies things a bit.

no, like Carmilla is actually lesbian, nasuverse canon.

Ohh. When was that established?

I guess that would make Elizabeth a lesbian by extension.

i believe it was in one of the material books.

probably. she is fascinated by Nero

I didn't know they had a material book since FGO was released. :0

Makes sense lol.

Since they did a Fate/Zero campaign, it would be nice if they did some other Fate title campaigns. Hollow Ataraxia would be cool, as would Apocrypha.

they've released at least three books


Apocrypha event will come out in two years, along side Achilles and Chiron.

Two years?? Geez...


Oh well. I guess that must mean they have a lot of other material in the meantime.