I think the contract thing can work out. All the arranging was done in advance, so if his goal of having the character die is magically removed after the completion of the contract, he’s fine unless a a goal of actively saving his life is also magically added.
Perhaps there was a nuance in the original Japanese, but as I read the deal in the fansub and thought about exactly the question “are there any loopholes in this?”, I was sure that the answer was no and the language completely excluded any clever tricks Kiritsugu pulled or could pull… until I saw that the shooter was Maiya (rather than any other faction), at which point I was furious.
(And if the contracts are that easy to subvert, Lord Kenneth should have easily spotted the loophole as a pretty devious and experienced mage himself.)
I’m also a bit skeptical about the contract implementation, but from a plot perspective it doesn’t matter very much. Even with Excalibur sealed and her left hand disabled, Saber outclasses Lancer. Even without the self-Geis scroll, Kayneth has no other option for evading Kiritsugu. It was probably still a bad writing decision to add a plot hole simply to make Kiritsugu look badass.
(A better subversion, IMO, would have been to have Kiritsugu not inherit the Emiya family crest—which is what it looks like from the perspective of Fate/Zero anyway. Then the self-Geis fails for a reason Kayneth may have genuinely not known.)
The bigger WTF, in my mind, is why Saber’s left hand was injured at all. That whole sequence required her to hold the Idiot Ball twice. Where did she ever get the idea that Servants only have one Noble Phantasm? And since when does her magical armor slow her down? Argh....
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 think the contract thing can work out. All the arranging was done in advance, so if his goal of having the character die is magically removed after the completion of the contract, he’s fine unless a a goal of actively saving his life is also magically added.
Perhaps there was a nuance in the original Japanese, but as I read the deal in the fansub and thought about exactly the question “are there any loopholes in this?”, I was sure that the answer was no and the language completely excluded any clever tricks Kiritsugu pulled or could pull… until I saw that the shooter was Maiya (rather than any other faction), at which point I was furious.
(And if the contracts are that easy to subvert, Lord Kenneth should have easily spotted the loophole as a pretty devious and experienced mage himself.)
I’m also a bit skeptical about the contract implementation, but from a plot perspective it doesn’t matter very much. Even with Excalibur sealed and her left hand disabled, Saber outclasses Lancer. Even without the self-Geis scroll, Kayneth has no other option for evading Kiritsugu. It was probably still a bad writing decision to add a plot hole simply to make Kiritsugu look badass.
(A better subversion, IMO, would have been to have Kiritsugu not inherit the Emiya family crest—which is what it looks like from the perspective of Fate/Zero anyway. Then the self-Geis fails for a reason Kayneth may have genuinely not known.)
The bigger WTF, in my mind, is why Saber’s left hand was injured at all. That whole sequence required her to hold the Idiot Ball twice. Where did she ever get the idea that Servants only have one Noble Phantasm? And since when does her magical armor slow her down? Argh....
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.