Further, Kiritsugu explains his goal as eliminating master & servant simultaneously, but this seems entirely unnecessary. You should prefer to eliminate a servant first, so it can’t contract with another master or act as a free agent, and also eliminate a master so they can’t hang around and fight you or contract with a spare servant—but there’s no need to do them simultaneously in the same battle, and with Kayneth there was even less need: he was completely crippled physically & magically, so he could neither fight nor, I think, contract again!
I think I’m going to leave this as a plot hole like in Death Note. Yes, it may be ‘cool’ that Near just magically deduces who Mikami is. But it’s still stupid and unnecessary.
Even if he couldn’t fight or contract again, couldn’t he still have given away his Command Seals to someone else, if he hadn’t been forced to use them all up?
I largely agree with your points.
Further, Kiritsugu explains his goal as eliminating master & servant simultaneously, but this seems entirely unnecessary. You should prefer to eliminate a servant first, so it can’t contract with another master or act as a free agent, and also eliminate a master so they can’t hang around and fight you or contract with a spare servant—but there’s no need to do them simultaneously in the same battle, and with Kayneth there was even less need: he was completely crippled physically & magically, so he could neither fight nor, I think, contract again!
I think I’m going to leave this as a plot hole like in Death Note. Yes, it may be ‘cool’ that Near just magically deduces who Mikami is. But it’s still stupid and unnecessary.
Even if he couldn’t fight or contract again, couldn’t he still have given away his Command Seals to someone else, if he hadn’t been forced to use them all up?
My impression was that unused Command Seals automatically went back to the Church, so he wouldn’t have them to give away.