An opinion on Shirou Emiya

After feasting upon the hatred and rage of people in Fate/Stay Night forums like Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons, it got me thinking about Shirou Emiya's character as a whole and how different he is from wish-fulfilment protagonists. Once again, this is my own opinion that I came up with in a shower and may not be accurate.

[SPOILER ALERT! PLACE A POT ON YOUR HEAD AND BANG IT TILL YOU PASS OUT!!!]

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/c/c0/Emiya_shiro.png/revision/latest?cb=20151103200553

This is a boy who wishes to save lives and be a hero but unlike most aforementioned protagonists (Kirito of Sword Art Online is a big example that I feel obliged to point out), this is portrayed in a negative light as he is consistently indicated to be a distorted individual, unable to feel any form of happiness of his own creation and has to derive it from the happiness of others he aids. This is an individual so machine-like that he is able to think of strategies and tactics to survive in a dangerous situation even if he has been nearly sliced in half despite being in a world in pain and in accordance with that, can even estimate the amount of pain he can endure to continue fighting whereby a normal person would go "OH GOD WHY?!" Shirou is ultmately a distorted person who will always put others over himself without even seeking meaning or happiness for himself and ultimately, a normal person would find it difficult to relate or emulate him due to his distorted self.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/d/d4/Projection_magecraft.png/revision/latest?cb=20151006080423

Yet, I still like him as a protagonist since the story of Fate/Stay Night is a story of his development whereby he is allowed to witness the flaws and the origin of his distorted self. Each route then shows the results of this which is divided into three results; a strengthening of his resolve that turns him into the very heroes of legend, an understanding of his own limits in pursuing those ideals, and a withdrawal from those ideals to protect the individual he has come to care for more than the masses he seeks to aid.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/8/8d/YoungShiro.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141031002505

To understand what creates such a man, his back-story has to be examined. As a young boy, Shirou was caught in the Great Fuyuki Fire (a result of the destruction of the corrupted Grail's external body) that wound up killing his whole family and nearly killing him, leaving him to die in a place that someone in his shoes would describe as Hell. At this point, he is a bare shell of a person, the fire having destroyed whatever individual had been due to the extreme trauma experienced while he had been fruitlessly begging to be saved over the countless screams and pleas for help. He is then rescued by Kiritsugu Emiya, who inadvertently caused this destruction by destroying the corrupted Grail. Kiritsugu himself had fallen into absolute despair as his choice to destroy the Grail in order to prevent it from materialising a being capable of destroying all human life (the details are way more complicated) had resulted in an equivalent amount of destruction and death to his own eyes which came at the cost of his hopes to become the idealized hero of justice that could finally save the world from whatever aliment that ails it. Having saved one person finally gave him some form of justification for his actions, leaving him with tearful joy like a drowning man receiving a lifebuoy at the very last second. The image of this man left a mark on Shirou as he watched his savior's joy in saving one person's life and made him believe that the capability of being able to save others was truly amazing. He is eventually adopted by Kiritsugu and learns of Kiritsugu's status as a magus. Despite this, the guilt of being the individual saved over the countless others that died around him along with his own self-perceived selfish desires to be saved over the rest weighs on him and distorts him, leaving him unable to feel any form of joy or desires of his own. On the day Kiritsugu died, Shirou learns of Kiritsugu's original ideals (that was altered by Kiritsugu into the ally of justice, an individual that would aid justice at the detriment of himself and the individuals to benefit the masses - almost utilitarian in that aspect) of being a hero of justice that was capable of saving others from harm no matter what. The ideal, in its bare and unaltered form while unrealistic, was a beautiful and meaningful ideal that appealed to Shirou and due to the influence of Kiritsugu's act of saving his life, he took that very ideal as the ideal he would dedicate his entire life to as it would allow him to do what Kiritsugu had done for him. At the same time, he would be able to atone for his act of surviving over the others who died instead of himself and give meaning to his empty personality. In a nutshell, his desire to save people, while similar to most shounen protagonists, is one created from a combination of traumatic events and an empty individual that clutched onto the only positive act he found (not discounting his short but content life with an adopted father that truly cared for him).

https://i1.wp.com/i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/001/593/peopledie.jpg and
https://thelimitlessimagination.wordpress.com/tag/emiya-shirou/

Much of his unpopularity comes from the Fate route's version where he initially acts misogynistic towards Saber (his Heroic Spirit, a special kind of servant used to battle in the Holy Grail War and usually against other Spirits, most consisting of heroic figures of myth from every possible time), coming close to telling her where women should be. What some do not acknowledge is Saber's near-death at the hands of Berserker (another Heroic Spirit) which hits rather close to home as another person would die for his own survival once more and stereotype-based perceptions on his part. Over time, this actually dies down and he becomes a better individual though overshadowed by his Unlimited Blade Works self who becomes powerful enough to take on Gilgamesh. the King of Heroes (a very powerful Heroic Spirit) through his understanding of his own abilities while never reaching the level of misogyny of Fate Shirou. Heaven's Feel Shirou is a mixed bag as he abandons his ideals entirely for a single individual (Sakura Matou) which makes him selfish and ironically, the most human of the three in terms of motivations while his own determination to save Sakura makes him admirable though the extent he goes at it would be horrifying to a normal person.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tBUcxnT5XQk/maxresdefault.jpg and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBUcxnT5XQk

As I mentioned before, Shirou Emiya develops in each route that improves his established ideals or develops them beyond the naive notions surrounding said ideals. Veneration of these ideals rarely crop up (unlike the Akame ga Kill anime where killing is always justified and seen as an act of justice despite the fact that the law does not impose the sentence on the criminals and glorified, self-righteous assassins would consider themselves as fully justified despite the ramification of vigilante justice) except for the basic notions and intentions behind them.

http://i.imgur.com/5MrNk.jpg and
http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/180-Fate-stay-night-Fate-Route

In the Fate route, having access to Saber's memories allows him to see a girl who abandoned her humanity to become a king that would dedicate herself to protecting her kingdom as King Arthur (her name being Arturia/Altria) and the intensity of her regrets as she constantly blames herself for its downfall to the point where she even seeks to erase herself using the Grail (not knowing it was corrupt) for her failings as a king. His disagreements with her extreme regret over the past slowly allows him to realise that his own pursuit of his ideals had been motivated by his own regret and guilt of being the one who did not die and that he had been seeking to atone by being a hero. At the end, he acknowledges that the past can never be changed and that what matters is the present and future therefore, there is no need to constantly regret and atone for the actions long passed. He cannot save those that died that day but he can live to save the survivors and stop future disasters. Even if he cannot save the victims of a disaster, he can save the survivors. He develops an unbreakable will as a result of his trials, one that could face the curse of All the World's Evils and withstand it long enough to summon the one thing that it could not affect. At the end, he is left with an unbreakable resolve and an affirmation of his ideals, albeit improved and having meaning (a reunion with Saber in Avalon (the ever-distant utopia) who had finally accepted her failings and no longer regrets them). At the end, his unwavering resolve to pursue his ideals to be worthy of Avalon allows him to become a being of legend that is worthy of Avalon upon his death. As a result, he is finally reunited with Saber who had waited for him in this afterlife and both are allowed an eternity to be together.

http://pm1.narvii.com/5847/23941edb870618d8552c115e433eef0ca65b0305_hq.jpg and
http://aminoapps.com/page/anime/1516898/the-7-wonders

In the Unlimited Blade Works route, Shirou faces Archer, an alternate future version of himself and a a possible culmination of his ideals. Archer's existence as a Counter-Guardian (a guardian of the Earth, not it's inhabitants) shows Shirou the dangers of his ideals as they are borrowed ideals that do not have true meaning to him. To him, he saw them as a beautiful ideal that would allow him to derive joy through the act of saving and as a result of his emptiness, he had no other passions or desires beyond his ideals. A blind pursuit of these ideals that naivety creates would lead him to a life of eternal torment and despair that persists even past his death as Archer indicates. Despite this difficult truth, Shirou still embraces his ideals, reasoning to his future self that even if he faces Hell, the ideals he followed were not mistaken ideals that deserve to be trampled upon. The very act of saving people and being a hero is not a bad thing, only blind adherence to those actions would be bad. As a result, this Shirou, while retaining these ideals, understands his limits and can probably retire from being a hero when the time comes. With the help of Rin Tohsaka (the main heroine of this route and a major character in all routes along with Saber and Sakura), he may never become Archer.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/5/51/Shirou_Archer_Arm.png/revision/latest?cb=20100726222455

In the Heaven's Feel route, Shirou comes to love and care for Sakura to the point where he abandons his ideals to protect her. This crops up when it is revealed that Sakura (through a long plot device that take too long to explain) would harm others as a result of her magic, Shirou chooses to protect her and stay with her even if others would be harmed, a vast departure from the hero that will save those in jeopardy. He becomes selfish as he dedicates his empty self to caring for Sakura and in this route, his counterpart (and a main antagonist of each route), Kirei Kotomine, is featured prominently as the latter is an empty person who can only derive pleasure through the suffering of others and yet possesses a moral compass (that disappeared due to the events of Fate/Zero). His determination to protect Sakura results in a more bloodier conflict that results in much harm to himself and nearly destroys him but ultimately, he triumphs through the aid of others who care for him and Sakura, achieving a happy ending of sorts (I am aware that this is not a complete happy ending due to the extensive damage done to Shirou).

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/4/44/Shiroubw.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100903223040

Thus, we see that Shirou's ideals are improved upon rather than developed from scratch, where a capable and intelligent boy gains the wisdom to pursue, or abandon, his ideals to become a man that either becomes a hero or is able to live a relatively normal life. Out of these three, I am of the opinion that Fate Shirou is the strongest of the three. This is based one key aspect, will. While UBW and HF Shirou have access to the titular ability (Unlimited Blade Works - a mental world that can be manifested in reality while allowing him to Trace with a low cost and high speed, along with telekinetic control over the weapons produced by said Tracing) and a special form of Tracing (Projection - the ability to reproduce copies of weapons that are nearly equivalent to the legendary weapons that Heroic Spirits use), Fate Shirou still has access to these abilities though these will have to be learnt over time and will be the same as the others. The other two have the advantage of early lessons through a mental link to a future self (in UBW) or (in HF) having the arm and access to the abilities of said future self (save for the UBW). Either ways, each Shirou will be same. What makes Fate Shirou the strongest is his unbreakable will as a result of his trials in the Fate route, a will that could face every curse of mankind and yet, remain unbroken. This will makes him most unlikely to become Archer as he would not fall into despair from failing to save others (having fixed this through an improved restructure of the ideals) and has an ultimate goal to achieve (though the presence of a multiverse could allow for this Shirou to still fall and become Archer). The fact that he could reach Avalon in the Last Episode (VN version) to the Fate route shows that he could (and probably would) succeed in becoming a hero worthy of being declared as legendary and achieving the status of mythological heroes by the public of a modern age.

Once again, this is just my opinion on Shirou Emiya. It is a subjective opinion capable of discussion and there is nothing wrong with differing opinions. I just wrote this piece since I forgot to make a post on Wednesday.

EDIT: Since I decided to update this post to reformat the walls of text I made, I've made a new evaluation of the best incarnation of Shirou. Fate is still up there but there is another far superior to him:

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/c/c1/Prisma_alter_shirou2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160520060516

Miyu Edelfelt's brother, Shirou Emiya, from Fate/Kaleid Prisma Ilya 3rei, is my favorite incarnation of Shirou so far. He is similar to the Shirou of Heaven's Feel but where he differs is his skill with his particular Magecraft, his motivations (that I feel are more justified since he is attempting to save Miyu, a sister he has cared for throughout his life) and his unyielding determination to save his sister despite the costs. 

I once described him as the amalgamation of each Shirou Emiya from the three routes and it would seem to be the case: 

Firstly, this Shirou is protective of his loved ones and has an unbreakable will like the Shirou of the Fate route without the superficial misogyny that people tend to unfairly attribute to this Shirou. 

Secondly, this Shirou is a skilled combatant and has enough mastery over his unique Magecraft that he can match stronger opponents using skill and pragmatism in his tactics like the Shirou of the UBW route without the sudden plot assisted advancement of the anime.

Lastly, this Shirou has chosen to sacrifice his ideals to protect his loved ones even if the cost becomes too high for the world and will never stop until he succeeds in doing so like the Shirou of the Heaven's Feel route with a stronger and more reasonable justification than Heaven's Feel Shirou in my opinion.

The reason why I am following the manga series at the moment is to see his own campaign in the Ainsworth Holy Grail War and how he ultimately succeeds in rescuing Miyu from them. I leave the reader with this blurry picture from the recent manga chapter:

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/typemoon/images/4/45/UBWPrisma.png/revision/latest?cb=20160624191915

EDIT: For newcomers to this old blog, this is 2021 me. My opinion on Miyuverse Shirou still strong but that is it, it is my opinion. You do not have to agree with me and are free to disagree.