Fate/stay night: Heaven’s Feel is a film trilogy about seven modern-day mages partnered with seven heroes of myth and legend, fighting it out to receive a wish from the holy grail. It follows Shiro–who stumbles into becoming a participant in the battle for the grail–and his childhood friend Sakura. But as Shiro fights on, losses occur, and the stakes rise, it becomes more and more apparent that Sakura is far more connected to the events going on than Shiro first thought.
While Sakura is the central character of the trilogy as a whole, the second film, Lost Butterfly, is Shiro’s story more than hers. As such, it brings to a close Shiro’s character arc–not just his arc in Heaven’s Feel, but in all three versions of Fate/stay night.
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Starting out as a game, Fate/stay night has three routes through the story. The first is the Fate route which centers on Saber as Shiro’s love interest. The second, Unlimited Blade Works, shows how the same events would unfold if Rin became Shiro’s romantic foil instead. The final route, Heaven’s Feel, simply plays out with Sakura in that role.
But while we learn much about each of these heroines in their individual routes, we learn even more about Shiro as a person–namely who he is, who he wants to be, and what he’s willing to do to get there.
*This article contains major spoilers for all three routes of Fate/stay night.
Image source: アニプレックス on YouTube
In the Fate route, we first encounter Shiro’s dream. He wants to be a superhero–or more literally translated a “champion of justice”–like his adoptive father once dreamed of being. This stems from survivors guilt at being the sole survivor of the great fire that leveled a large portion of his town when he was a child. So as many people have already died around him, he can’t bear for any more to.
Though ridiculed for his adherence to the childish dream of being a hero, he puts this philosophy into practice by always putting himself second. No matter what favor he’s asked to do, he’ll do it without complaint–something people can and do take advantage of.
To Shiro, being a hero is nothing more than endless self-sacrifice.
As the route continues, Shiro’s ideals lead him to treat Saber not as a tool (or even a partner) but as someone to be protected–even at the cost of his own life. Of course, this is the exact opposite of what a servant is for–it’s their job to protect their mage. But while this does lead to needless pain for both him and Saber, it also allows them to fall in love with each other. In the end, his ideals remain completely intact.
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The second version of the story, Unlimited Blade Works, dives even further into the negative aspects of his mindset by showing what will happen if he continues down the “champion of justice” path. It’s here that we learn that Archer, Rin’s servant, is Shiro–albeit a future version of him.
In life, Archer wanted the power to save everyone, so he made a bargain with the mysterious Counterforce to become a Counter Guardian after his death. Yet, while he got power, all it really did, in the end, was see him betrayed and killed as a scapegoat.
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Archer spent his life choosing the lesser of two evils–choosing the needs of the many over the needs of the few. But worse yet, after death, he was simply a tool appearing throughout time for the sole purpose of killing those who needed to be killed in order to protect the future of mankind. In striving to become someone who could save everyone, he became able to save no one. This existence eventually drove him into an insanity born from a mixture of his ideals and his own self-hatred.
When confronted with this look into his possible future, Shiro is able to recognize and accept the flaws in his dream. And while he doesn’t cast it aside completely, there is at least hope that he will be able to find a new path with a happier end–especially now that he has Rin at his side.
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In Heaven’s Feel–and specifically in Lost Butterfly–we see his ideals face their ultimate test. At the start of the film, Shiro has two goals: act as a champion of justice and protect Sakura. At first, these two goals seem perfectly aligned. Sakura is a girl in danger from her family. His self-sacrificing ideals demand that he help her.
Yet, all too soon she’s revealed as not only a Master herself but one with massive powers that are on the verge of going wild. With that, Shiro’s two goals don’t fit together quite as perfectly as before. Still, by living peacefully with her–keeping her as far from the fight for the grail as possible while hunting down the man responsible for Sakura’s problems–his two main goals don’t come into direct conflict.
Unfortunately, the more time he spends with Sakura (and the more they fall in love), the more oddities he notices. Before long, he’s simply lying to himself. He knows deep down that something is wrong–that the strange creature killing civilians in the city and disrupting the Holy Grail War is connected to Sakura. But every day, he buries his head in the sand and continues his peaceful life with Sakura–even though it means another night where innocents are murdered.
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Finally, he can’t hide from the truth anymore. His ethical code demands that he kill Sakura to save numerous others. This is the critical turning point for his character. He must choose between his long-held ideals and the girl he loves. And choose he does.
However, this time, unlike the other routes, he completely discards his ideals. He accepts that he can’t save everyone and instead dedicates himself to saving one person. He decides to become Sakura’s personal hero.
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While this choice saves Shiro’s life–as Rider would have killed him if he tried to kill Sakura–it also convinces Sakura to face her Grandfather alone to prevent Shiro from being injured or killed.
And well… let’s just say were going to need another whole movie to sort out all the consequences caused by that well-meaning action.
Fate/stay night: Heaven’s Feel II – Lost Butterfly was released in Japanese theaters on January 12, 2019.
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