Well, duh. It's been only 10 years since the last war (when they're normally separated by 50-60 years) and the participants are (almost) all kids. Rin is competent but hobbled by emotion, Shirou is handicapped by lack of training and his mindset, and Shinji is a headcase (also with no training).

You're comparing them to two magi with decades of experience, the Magus Killer, and a guy with nothing to lose who's been totally corrupted by the Worms.

I'm pretty sure this was hashed over earlier in the thread, but the 4th and 5th grail wars are completely different and really shouldn't be compared.

 

I always liked to think that the nature of the Fifth War meant that the Masters were chosen more for their relation to the previous Wars Masters then a true selection of mages.

 

Fate/Zero really seemed to do a better job at making it into a Holy Grail War.

 

Other than the three heads of family, the grail can select four other participants who would be adequately qualified. Location has no bearing on it either, as F/Z showcases Masters being chosen outside of Japan. I will give that Bazett was adequately qualified and just betrayed by someone who she thought was a comrade and neutral.

Medea however dispatches a bumbling master who wastes his command seals and somehow manages to dispatch another master prior to him being able to summon assassin.

Perhaps the grail plays to the heads of the families advantage, recognizing their weak and therefore dilutes the pool since the overall goal is to have one of them reach the root.

 

More like since the grail war is so soon after the 4th, no serious master was willing to jump at it without prepration.

 

No one expected it to come so soon. Not to mention that the results of the previous wars speak for themselves.

 

Fate/Zero wasn't written as a visual novel and designed to engage the player for incredibly long periods of time, with a focus on relationships and character development.

 

How exactly are they selected? It it ever explained in the Nasuverse? I mean, Shirou accidentally activated an old summoning circle and summoned Saber because

Spoiler

Kiritsugu had embedded Avalon in him.

Does the Grail select a group of magi and influence them to attempt the summoning, or does it see who makes the attempt and then decides whether or not they are worthy of competing? If it's the first case, the Grail would have to be able to modify the world and/or chance on a pretty deep level, which - at least in my understanding - should be beyond the scope of its power. The second case seems more likely, and would explain the poor crop of masters: no one was ready.

Also, regarding worthiness, there's also the case of Caster's master from F/Z, who was not a mage and had zero knowledge of magic prior to the War. He just happened to stumble across a book that contained the process for summoning a servant.

 

Because magic.

If there is an actual explanation in the source, I bet it's changed so many times that people argue about which version is the "true" version.

 

I was kind of annoyed at Shirou for not summoning Saber when he was in danger. What good is saving those command seals for later if he isn't alive to use them?

Aside from that, I loved this episode. Any time Rin is onscreen is pure gold. Her facial expressions alone always make my day.

 

That's kind if what I thought - it's just that Merrill keeps talking about how the Grail selects qualified participants and how the participants in the 5th War don't match up to some arbitrary standard. I was hoping he had a source for that rather than just pulling it out of his ass/headcanon.

 

I think I summoned Saber in the VN (because I can never tell when a decision randomly leads to you dying), but I guess having Saber come in that scene kind of throws off the Rin/Shiro interaction they were going for there.

 

It's really unfair to compare Fate/Zero to Fate/Stay Night though. F/SN was made to sell while F/Z was made to showcase a real Holy Grail War. That's why it was written after F/SN.

Also, F/SN was written to solely focus on character development rather than the Grail War itself. Fate, for Saber's story. UBW, for Rin and more importantly, Shirou's. And last but definitely not the least, is Sakura's and the changes it brought to Shirou's dream about becoming a hero.
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Now regarding with Servant Summoning. It's very easy actually. You only need an artifact that is so intimately close to the wielder that it becomes an anchor for them to manifest themselves from the Throne of Heroes to the real world.

Think of Avalon inside Shirou, or Rin's... necklace. I think Einzbern family used Berserker's sword axe to summon him and so on and so forth.

 

Actually the stone was from a temple of Heracles, that was the catalyst. The axesword thing was made after he was summoned iirc.

 

I know how the summoning itself works. I was referring to Merrill's comments on the Grail choosing the masters - i.e. are they pre-selected and influenced towards summoning a servant or is it first-come, first-served?

 

I think it's first come first serve actually. All of those Masters summoned their Servants as soon as they can. Illya, for instance, summoned hers way before the war even started.

Not every magus is willing to actually participate in the Grail War where the possibility of death is almost certain. That's where I base my thoughts about it.

 

Are there any sources on this? Because Merrill is implying that the Grail has some sort of say in who gets selected and is consciously choosing the masters.

For the record, I'm personally inclined to believe that it's first-come first-served as well given the selection of Caster's master in Fate/Zero (not a mage, not a member of one of the families, no relationship to any previous participants, no catalysts embedded in his body, no knowledge of magic prior to the War).

 

Don't command seals have to appear on your hand before you can summon a servant? I'm like 99% sure that's the case, which would imply the grail does specifically select masters.

I don't know what would happen if a selected master refused to summon a servant though.

 

It wouldn't happen. The Grail only tags in people who have a capital-W Wish in their hearts, so they have a reason to participate.

 

Also, catalysts aren't guaranteed to summon the Servant you intend on summoning, in the class you want.

For Shirou, in his case with Avalon as the catalyst, Saber is literally the only Servant he could have summoned, since only the Saber class was left unsummoned.

Arturia was the closest 'Saber' type hero to the catalyst. Add the fact that Shirou summoned in the same place as last war, was also an Emiya, and the fact that their heroic personalities are so similar, and presto change-o, Shirou summons Saber.

It's very easy to change the scenario, though. For instance, what if Rin hadn't fucked up daylight savings time and summoned Archer as Saber, which, if you know who he is, is extremely fucking possible given his element and origin. That leaves only the Archer class open, meaning Shirou would have no choice but to summon an Archer, catalyst and sympathy magic or no.

Or, what if Caster hadn't been a cheating bitch and stole the Assassin class? Then both the Saber and Assassin classes would have been open for summoning. Normally, it's always Hassan, but with Avalon as catalyst?

If you don't think Shirou could pull Mordred out of a hat, or that Mordred doesn't fit the definition of the word 'assassin', then we're riding different wavelengths. And if he'd summoned Saber anyway, who would have ended up summoning Assassin?

Lots of fun stuff to consider.