Fate/Zero - Emiya Kiritsugu

[azralius]

Hey guys, I obviously haven't watched any animes so far but currently as it stands, I feel that Emiya Kiritsugu is probably the saddest character I've ever seen in an anime.

When he was young, he lost his first love Shirley when she tried to prove Kiritsugu's father's experiments were for the good of mankind and turned into a Dead Apostle in which she begged for Kiritsugu to kill her, but he was unable to do so. And because of Shirley, the entire village became infected, turning into zombies, forcing the magus society to come to the village and kill everyone who has be turned into a zombie. When it was all over, Kiritsugu decided to kill his own father as he was responsible for the catastrophe and showed no sign of repenting. (this part still isn't that sad)

He then went under a wing of Natalia, who he viewed as a mother figure who groomed him to the man he is now he also loved her very much, and by some twisted turn of events, Natalia was trapped in a plane full of zombies. Kiritsugu, in order to not allow that which has happened to his village to happen again when the plane lands, Kiritsugu was forced to kill his "mother" by firing a missile launcher at the plane with Natalia still on board. At this point, I was already feeling his pain.

Then Maiya dies, this part was ok, not particularly sad.

And now with the release of the latest episode, his wife speaks about his noble intentions for the world and is then strangled to death by Kotomine Kirei. It seems like despite his noble intentions, everyone he loves is dying one by one, not to mention at the end his wishes were not met as known in Fate/Stay Night as it was known that he was forced to destroy the grail as it has turned Evil, thus not being able to fulfill his noble dream of ending all conflict in the world.

Thus, this is why I find him probably the saddest character I currently know of, he sacrificed so much and yet was not able to see his dreams fulfilled.

So guys, what are your thoughts on Emiya Kiritsugu, I would love to hear your points of view on this BAMF yet sad guy.

[Desu]

he's just been surrounded by people who were bound to die because of the story, and that made him stand out;
read the spoiler for my thoughts about them

Shirley, so lovely and yet so dumb

"derp! feeding the plants with shit makes them grow faster and stronger; i MUST eat shit to prove it's good for humans too"
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Natalia, a victim of the plot

he could have shot the plane once landed; it's not like there are thousands people around a plane when it's just arrived, and AFAIK there's an emergency exit in the cockpit -----> bees and ghouls still trapped and ready to be roasted, BUT Natalia safe.
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Maya, a puppet and a spot filler

she couldn't do jacks beside walkie-talking and nursing Iri, what in the hell was she supposed to do against a servant? or against anything else, really...

luckily they spared us the utterly irrational fight between humans and servants, because that has been ridiculous enough to kill the entire F/SN series, which is stupid enough even without that (Shiro vs Gilgamesh? really??????)
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Irisviel... ehhh she had to die because she was the vessel (or whatever else) period.
no ifs, no buts.
strangled by kirei or killed by someone else, she still was dead meat since the beginning.

they could have shown more family life (kiritsugu/iri/ilya), instead of that long Kiritsugu's backstory -_-
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[azralius]

Still kinda sad for him though, he lost so much and gained almost nothing in return and even died to a curse

[Alpeia]

To me it's more that he is walking a cursed path of his own choosing and as long as he stays on that path bad thing will continue to happen. For that reason I can't feel pitty for him, however I do like this character and what the writer has done with him it make the story that much more interesting.

To me the most sadest characters in an anime is Grave of the Fireflies. If you haven't seen it make sure to have a box of tissues, unless you're not human.