Doctorkev Does Fate/Stay Night: Part 3: Heaven’s Feel route
Never say I don’t (eventually) keep my promises. Almost three years since I reviewed the first and second routes of Kinoko Nasu’s seminal visual novel Fate/Stay Night (henceforth referred to as F/SN), I’m finally back to cover the third route, the infamously dark and twisted masterpiece Heaven’s Feel.
First of all, what the hell even is a “Heaven’s Feel”? It sounds like a term from badly-translated Asian porn. Given that the version I experienced was fully uncensored, disturbing “H-scenes” and all, perhaps this isn’t too far off the mark. Such explicit content may explain why publisher TYPE-MOON has never risked localising this 2004 visual novel in English, despite it spawning an entire industry of lucrative gacha, videogame, anime, novel and manga spinoffs in subsequent years. Heaven’s Feel features four separate H-scenes, plus multiple flashbacks to them later. In comparison, the first route had two such scenes, and the second contained only one. All of them feature hilariously cringeworthy writing. In Heaven’s Feel, however, they’re fairly integral to the plot (though certainly do not need to be so extended/lurid/uncomfortably graphic.)
To recap, the version I’m reviewing is the fan-translated PC edition of Realta Nua, the 2007 F/SN update that also appeared on PS2, and later on Vita, iOS and Android. It was made more family-friendly with the removal of sexually explicit material, and also given a new epilogue, unlocked only after the completion of all three routes and five main endings (this doesn’t include any of the forty “bad” Tiger Dojo endings). A patch is available that reintegrates the removed adult content, and because I’m morbidly curious, of course I installed it. I see little harm in accessing F/SN in this unofficial way, because TYPE-MOON have made no effort to localise it themselves. Should they ever decide to do so, I’ll happily pay for an official copy. Can you hear me, TYPE-MOON? COME TAKE MY GODDAMN MONEY.
Unlike many other visual novels, F/SN’s routes are very distinct from one another — not only in terms of events, but also in tone and theme. Hence my decision to cover each separately. There’s also the fact that F/SN is very long. I’ve seen it quoted that F/SN’s total word count is 820,595, compared to The Lord of the Rings’ 473,000. That’s a very significant undertaking for any reader, and it’s a blessing that it’s split so neatly into three parts.
According to author Kinoko Nasu himself, route one — Fate — is about “oneself as an ideal”, route two — Unlimited Blade Works — is about “struggling with oneself as an ideal”, and the third route — Heaven’s Feel — is about “the friction with real and ideal.” In terms of protagonist Shirou Emiya, in Fate he sticks to his ideals of heroism right to the conclusion, for a bittersweet ending. In Unlimited Bladeworks, Shirou is confronted with the unexpected and tragic consequences of such rigid applications of his ideals (via Archer), which causes him to question himself. Now, in Heaven’s Feel, Shirou discovers that sticking to his ideals will cost him what he loves, and to protect his loved ones he must compromise or even abandon his ideals. This thematic progression through routes one to three can be read as how Shirou sheds youthful hope and idealism as he traverses adolescence into adulthood — choices are rarely binary between “good” and “bad”, and good intentions alone are rarely sufficient to avoid pain and heartbreak.
Without a doubt, Heaven’s Feel is the darkest, most intense, and oppressive of the three routes, acting as both an evolution of and a reaction against the previous routes. The Heaven’s Feel story is broken up into sixteen chapters, each covering a day of story time, not including the prologue and epilogues. Although it starts at the same point as its predecessors, and a few new scenes appear in the early chapters (though many of the first sections can be skipped by judicious use of the ctrl button, as before), by day four of its story, it quickly veers off into new and unsettling territory.
This time our main heroine is the seemingly meek and homely Sakura Matou, sister to snide, obnoxious and hateful little shitbag Shinji. In both previous routes, Sakura exited stage left early on in the story and we never found out much about her background. That changes with Heaven’s Feel, and we learn so much about the terrifying Matou family and where Sakura fits into the centuries-spanning schemes of her evil grandfather, Zouken. In fact we learn a whole lot more about about almost everything to do with magecraft and the Holy Grail War in this third route, as there are great swathes of verbose lore-dumping that may only make sense to those with PhDs in Nasu-ism.
Nasu’s explanations of concepts relating to magic, and the motivations of certain mages, are difficult to follow at the best of times. I don’t know how much of this is due to the vagaries of translation (the fan translation itself generally reads very clearly), or whether Nasu is just really bad at explaining things. He tends to write great long explanatory paragraphs with sentences containing multiple contradictory statements in them that are exceeded only in their meaninglessness by their obnoxious verbosity. I’ve noticed that this isn’t limited only to F/SN. It’s endemic to other TYPE-MOON works too.
Take anything that antagonistic priest Kirei Kotomine says, for example. The man speaks, vast quantities of words exit his mouth, yet none of it rings true. I have no idea why he acts the way he does, nor what he really wants, because despite pages and pages of exposition, he’s talking unintelligible gibberish. He does what he does because Nasu wants him to sometimes be a friend and sometimes be an enemy. There aren’t any surprises when it comes to Kirei, he just does random shit, spouts some clever-sounding but empty pseudo-intellectual/philosophical babble, then stabs someone in the chest/performs some insane superhero-esque act/munches ultra-spicy mapo tofu like it’s going out of fashion. At one point Shirou observes that “Kirei and I are similar”, but WTF does that even mean? How can one character speak so much but say so little?
Anyway, back to Sakura. She’s a very different character to the previous routes’ heroines, as she’s so passive. Initially she appears unrelated to the ongoing Holy Grail War, but it soon becomes obvious that she has hidden depths, not all of them she is aware of. MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR HEAVEN’S FEEL AHEAD.
It’s in the character of Sakura that F/SN explores its most upsetting and challenging material, that of child physical and sexual abuse. Eleven years previously, Sakura was essentially sold by her biological father (also Rin’s father, making them biological sisters) to the Matou family to become the recipient of their magical crest, a way to protect their magical inheritance without a viable genetic inheritor. Sakura then endured over a decade of daily physical and mental torture at the hands of her adoptive grandfather and his disgusting, grossly penis-shaped “crest worms” that repeatedly violated her body. Not only this, but her adopted brother Shinji also regularly physically abused and raped her. Barely a hint of this backstory was present in the first two routes, so the heaviness of this history causes something of a tonal whiplash. This isn’t only a fun story about magical fights and historical heroes any more.
I find it difficult to truly assess how well the story deals with such sensitive subject matter when the abuse Sakura endures is mixed with such fanciful notions as penis worms, and magical crests, and human-shaped vessels for the Holy Grail. Her passivity at first seems frustrating, but that can be a real-life defence mechanism for women who have been repeatedly abused at home by “loved” ones, so may be realistic. Sometimes those abused as children then act out later, as a manifestation of their emotional anguish and suffering — and that certainly is the case for Sakura. She seeks intense sexual gratification from Shirou (leading to multiple creepy sex scenes in this route), but then her shadow/subconscious self stalks the streets, devouring the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent people.
In general, Sakura is painted as the victim, however she does more or less also become the main antagonist, consumed by negative emotion and “evil”, mostly due to her mistreatment by her adoptive family. I’ve never suffered such trauma personally, but I wonder if a sexual or domestic abuse survivor might find Heaven’s Feel to be somewhat lurid and exploitative, especially in terms of Sakura, the abused, becoming the abuser. Though the despicable Shinji had what was coming to him.
Shirou’s emotional connection to Sakura is well-established and very convincing. I can understand how he might be tempted to abandon his previously highly-prized ideals to save the woman he loves. Sakura stimulates his masculine protective instincts, and her enhanced libido entices him sexually. Sakura doesn’t play mind games with him like Rin does, and despite her apparent passivity, she’s much more proactive about her desires than Saber. In many ways, Sakura and Shirou are similar — they both attempt to prioritise others’ wellbeing above their own — to a fault. It’s kind of heartbreaking as they both begin to mentally (and in Shirou’s case — physically) fall apart due to their various sacrifices towards the end.
Shirou also suffers greatly in this version — first of all losing Saber to the icky shadow monster thing, then being forced to fight her corrupted, evil form. Then he’s grievously injured and forced to accept a transplanted limb from Archer to save his life, so Rin then also loses her servant. Despite neither of them having servants, they both elect to keep fighting because the stakes have escalated due to Zouken Matou’s interference that never happened in either prior routes. Finally, it’s explained why the Holy Grail is so corrupted, and why the Holy Grail War is such a scam — it’s a way to unleash the heretofore unknown eigthth servant class — Avenger, who wants to destroy humanity. Zouken wants the grail to grant him immortality, while Kirei wants Avenger (whose true name is Angra Mainyuu — All the World’s Evil) to kill everyone. For… reasons? I don’t know. Kirei talks his usual bullshit about this. I think it’s best just to roll with it, not ask too many questions, and get swept up in the story.
Nasu originally wanted to give creepy little silver-haired homunculus Illyasviel Einzbern her own route, but due to lack of time and money, folded much of her story into Sakura’s. This means that unless the player makes choices to make them both happy, then it’s impossible to get the true ending. That’s where a flowchart becomes invaluable, especially to someone like me who doesn’t have the time to go back and retake choice after choice hoping to find the correct path. Many of the correct choices are fairly obvious, but others are not. In the rush to power through this route, this time I didn’t bother unlocking every single bad end. For one, there are too many, and some require so much backtracking through earlier save files and multiple scenes that even with the skip function, I can’t be bothered. (There are 16 “Tiger Dojo” endings in Heaven’s Feel, as opposed to 14 in Fate and 10 in Unlimited Blade Works.)
Illya’s backstory is fully explored, and she becomes much more sympathetic and less creepy. Her resignation to her role as an inhuman tool is tragic, and it’s only through her selfless sacrifice that a good end is possible. I admit her final scenes had me wiping my eyes. Thank God there are no hentai scenes with Shirou screwing this little girl, as Nasu had apparently originally planned. (Yes, I know technically she’s older, but they treat each other like brother and sister, and most of the time, mentally, she acts like a little child. Ewwwwww. And yes, I have watched Prisma Illya, and the second and third seasons of that have scarred me for life.)
With the early removal of both Archer and Saber from this route, we get to spend much more time with Rider, who it turns out is truly Sakura’s servant. She’s this route’s third heroine, and everything she does is motivated by her desire to protect Sakura, whom she deeply identifies with. In previous routes, Rider was a ruthless, dangerous and perverse antagonist, and her edges are only slightly filed down here. Shirou is able to negotiate with her, and her cruel streak is greatly outclassed by Zouken Matou’s. However, the truce she makes with Shirou is fragile, and her somewhat awkward personality causes some humorously uncomfortable scenes around the dinner table. In one disquieting H-scene dream sequence, it’s inferred that Rider rapes a sleeping Shirou, succubus-like, in order to harvest his mana to feed Sakura.
Fanboy favourite Rin isn’t neglected — she continues to help drive Shirou forward, and has a couple of kick-ass scenes towards the conclusion. Her strained sisterly relationship with Sakura is a major dramatic focus, and her tsundere personality is just as twisted towards her sister as it is towards her love interest. Sakura was never my favourite girl, but reading through this route gives me insight into why Shirou likes her. Rin is combative and indirect in her affections, while Sakura is more open and obvious with Shirou. They’re both shy in their own ways, but Sakura’s quiet, reliable devotion to Shirou is certainly endearing, unlike Rin who plays mind games for dominance. In real life, Rin would be exhausting, while Sakura would be refreshing in her apparent straightforwardness. (Of course poor Sakura is really anything but straightforward, with her seething psychological mess of resentment, self-hatred, insatiable lust and guilt.)
Having already watched TV anime Fate/Zero (though it was around a decade ago), I was surprised by how much of the groundwork for that prequel is laid in this third route. I have nothing but respect for Nasu in building such a deep world with a complex, relevant history. Although we don’t witness the events of the fourth Holy Grail War that takes place ten years prior in F/SN, the events colour and affect everything that occur in this story. I’m excited to go back and watch Fate/Zero again now, as I’m finally in the intended audience for the prequel — it was made for those familiar with all three F/SN routes, after all.
Although it’s taken me a long, long time to finally plough my way through entirety of the very long Fate/Stay Night visual novel, I’m glad I did. For every endlessly dull circular and verbose lore-dump there was a corresponding scene of brilliant drama or high emotion. I enjoyed the way that such a seemingly static medium managed to make fight scenes exciting (though perhaps the fantastic soundtrack had a lot to do with that), and I became very attached to the characters. It’s a big ask to get someone looking for an entry point into the Fate franchise to start with the visual novel, and I think for the vast majority of people, it will be too much.
As much as I love visual novels, I appreciate that there’s a reason why they are a very niche genre. Trudging through Fate/Stay Night requires a great deal of patience and willingness to put up with stodgy non-explanations, opaque character motivations and a very slow-moving plot. However, said patience is overwhelmingly rewarded by a deep and fascinating story, wonderfully empathetic characters, and an incredible central concept ripe for further exploration in multiple further spinoffs. Even as an avid reader, I found I could only manage this in short bursts of up to one or two hours at a time. It’s very worthwhile persevering through every ending to unlock the final epilogue, which almost makes me tear up again just thinking about it.
Next on my itinerary is the sort-of sequel Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, which similarly requires a fan translation patch to access. It’s structured very differently to Fate/Stay Night, with a different vibe altogether. Hopefully it won’t take me almost three years to get through that one!
Fate/Stay Night
Developer: TYPE-MOON
Genre: Visual Novel, Fantasy, Romance, Eroge
Platform: Windows PC
Writer: Kinoko Nasu
Artist: Takashi Takeuchi
Music: Keita Haga (KATE) and Daisuke Nagata (James Harris)
JP release: 2004 (original), 2007 (Realta Nua version)
Text Language: English (with patch installed)
Audio Language: Japanese
Age rating: 18+
Instructions on how to install Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua Ultimate Edition in English
