Cú Chulainn

Cú Chulainn from Fate/stay night and related works is my top favourite character and has been so pretty much since I first laid eyes on him in ye olde 2013. In the years since then I've written many words of character analysis about him scattered across just as many years of tumblr blog posts. After writing my Scáthach character analysis, I figured it would only be right if I wrote a similar extended look at my number one, and set out to do so in late 2018.

This document was never actually completed to the level I intended for various reasons. I just graduated, I would have to re-read several dozen hours of video game to get my sources in order, it looked like they were going to do something with Caster soon that I wanted to wait out before continuing and then it took another three years before he made his next appearance, my Fate/hollow ataraxia save files got corrupted when I moved PC's, and so on.

In the end only the first of five chapters I'd planned out actually made it onto digital paper by the time I started building this site. That first chapter is still 14k words though, and already covers a lot of ground regarding Lancer's role in Fate/stay night, so I decided to still move it over here. Doing so hopefully also makes it more official as a project to me, and I'll more easily come back to write the rest.

Only chapter 2 is currently actually written, the rest has some of my notes to give an idea of what is to come. All visual novel screenshots presently use the Mirror Moon translation unless stated otherwise, for simple reasons of that was what I had available when I started writing. Some of the FHA screenshots were taken with the incomplete version of the translation patch and might differ from the most recent revision.

Introduction

I will be going into the fine details of the characterisation of Lancer, Caster, Alter, and Setanta, how they play into each other, and how they relate to the characters around them and the narrative as a whole. Rather than going over each version of his character one by one, I will be discussing several themes that drive Cú Chulainn throughout the series and explore how his various appearances play into it. Because of how little impact Prototype Lancer has on the other three, and how little content he has in the first place, I will not be discussing him. A base knowledge of the events of Fate/stay night, Fate/hollow ataraxia, and Fate/Grand Order is assumed from the audience, though you better believe relevant plot points will be explained in excruciating detail

This analysis attempts to be as comprehensive as possible, but the more I write the less feasible that feels. To understand one character requires understanding the characters around them, understanding of one Fate work is enhanced by understanding of another even when they don't share any characters, and at some point to keep deepening your understanding you're gonna have to get a PHD. Therefore, while this will confidently cover the majority of what there is to say about Cú Chulainn Fateseries, don't mistake it for everything there is to say.

Ireland's Child of Light: Cú Chulainn as Hero

This chapter is about Cú Chulainn's status as a legendary hero, what “being a hero” means to him, and how this makes him clash with other Heroic Spirits. It's mostly centered around the events of Fate/stay night, with a special focus on the similarities and differences between the three knight classes in the fifth Fuyuki Grail War.

The Name of the Hero

Cú Chulainn is one of the leading characters in the Ulster cycle of Irish literature, and one of the most famous Irish heroes if not the single most famous one. His greatest heroic act is no doubt the way he defended his home country of Ulster from the invading Connacht through a series of one-on-one duels, described in the Táin Bó Cúailnge.

Note that while it's tempting to think of "The Ulster Cycle" as a coherent body of texts, it's really just a collection of medieval to early modern manuscripts that have happened to survive into present day, which modern scholarship groups together because they share characters and setpieces to a degree that make it reasonable to conclude these texts are written in conversation with each other. No single manuscript contains the entire sequence of events that falls under the modern understanding of "the Ulster cycle," individual texts describing ostensibly the same events can and will frequently contradict each other even if they were written closer than a century apart from each other, and anything presented as "the Ulster Cycle" that actually offers a single coherent story is pretty much guaranteed to be a retelling rather than a translation of the source material. These retellings and the way they shape popular understanding of the story are interesting in their own right, but for the sake of academic integrity it's important to make the distinction. Medieval Celtic literature is a very small academic field suffering a lot from persistent misconceptions caused by Victorian-era scholars just making shit up to glorify the past in whichever way served their own agenda, and I don't want to misrepresent it.

What I write in this next section, too, is a retelling to give you the gist of the stories Lancer Fatestaynight is based on, and not anything approaching a comprehensive literary re-interpretation, let alone an academically respectable representation of the medieval texts. It's largely based on Thomas Kinsela's general-audiences translation of the Tain, and I skip over various events to focus only on what's relevant to the guy I'm actually trying to talk to you about. For Type-Moon scholarship this degree of accuracy is sufficient, not only because it can be reasonably assumed that Type-Moon's writers and reserachers are working from the same kind of popular secondary and tertiary sources rather than getting into the academics of it all, but because Heroic Spirits are explicitly shaped by popular interpretation of the material as much as if not more than the material itself.

In chapter 9 I have listed a few resources for reading up on the Táin Bó Cúailnge and other Ulster Cycle and medieval Irish texts. For all my academic gravity up there, these stories are more often than not incredibly entertaining, and it's not hard to see how they inspired centuries of literary tradition. If you ever wanted to read about Cú Chulainn beating the literal shit out of someone, or getting his ass kicked by a flock of magic birds, or learn about his absolutely batshit friends, they are but a few clicks away.

In Myth

Cú Chulainn was born as Setanta. His mother Deichtine was the sister of the king of Ulster, Conchobar, and his father was the god Lugh. As a half-god half-human child he possessed incredible strength and skill from a very young age, and many of his childhood escapades are detailed in The Boyhood Deeds of Cú Chulainn. Most of the boyhood deeds describe various acts of general asskickery (all performed when he was like five years old), but the most notable ones are how he obtained the name Cú Chulainn and the day he took up arms.

The origin of his name starts when the smith Culann hosted a feast for Conchobar. Conchobar decided to invite the like 6 year old Setanta to come with him, but Setanta told him he'd catch up after he won the game he was in the middle of playing against the other kids, which amused Conchobar so much that he allowed it. Once arrived at Culann's house, Conchobar forgot that Setanta was still coming, and so Culann let his fierce guard dog out. Setanta was attacked by the monstrously strong hound when he arrived, but he killed it with his bare hands, much to the surprise of many a shocked onlooker. Culann mourned the loss of his splendid guard dog, but Setanta offered to raise its pups to be just as great, and in the meantime he would take the dog's place and guard Culann's home and cattle. To honor this incredible strength in both combat and character, the druid Cathbad thereby granted him the name Cú Chulainn, or Culann's hound.

Cú Chulainn taking up arms happens a year after this incident. On a day where Cathbad was teaching his students at the capital, he made the prophecy that whichever young warrior would first take up arms that day would be immortalised in legends, but in exchange their life would be short. Cú, upon hearing this, immediately rushed over to Conchobar and demanded to be given arms, claiming that Cathbad had decreed it. He smashed every weapon given to him until finally Conchobar's own weaponry was able to withstand the sheer force of Cú wielding them, then demanded a chariot and repeated the same process. Fully armed and rearing to perform great heroics, Cú Chulainn took his newly granted chariot for a ride and returned with the severed heads of various enemies of Ulster, a whole entourage of game meat, and a literal burning lust for battle that only simmered down after he was dunked into three successive barrels of water.

As puberty hit him, Cú Chulainn became such a massive stud that the men of Ulster were worried all their wives would cheat on them with him, so they became desperate to find him a wife of his own. He rejected all offers though, until he happened across Emer, a princess of one of the many kingdoms in Ulster. They flirted a lot and hit off well, but depending on the version either Emer or her father refused to let them get married until Cú became more famous, and told him to seek out Scáthach and train under her. Scáthach lived in what is called the Land of Shadows, now known as Dunscaith Castle in Scotland. She infamously trained the strongest warriors of the known world, but students who couldn't keep up with her training would just outright die, and in the versions where it is Emer's father who objects it's because he hopes Cú won't return alive.

To even reach Scáthach's castle and ask to be trained, Cú had to muscle his way through several traps to prove himself strong enough for her to bother, and after some additional threats of violence Cú was accepted into class. While in the Land of Shadows he befriended Ferdiad, a warrior from Connacht said to have impenetrable skin, and they quickly became joined at the hip. He also had sex with nearly everything that stood still long enough, including the enemy warlord Aoife (Scáthach's sister in some versions, unrelated in others) who tried to invade the Land of Shadows but lost. When it became time to leave, Ferdiad and Cú Chulainn both asked the other to come with them to their country, realized they would never budge, and then parted on good terms. On his safe return, Cú finally got to marry Emer, and they remained married until his death.

An odd few years later, the events of the Táin Bó Cúailnge are set in motion and Queen Medb of Connacht invades Ulster in order to steal its prize bull. Because of a curse, all the men of Ulster are bedridden with the pain of childbirth, and Cú Chulainn, still a teenager at this point and thus exempt from the curse, is the only one in fighting condition. On his own he terrorises the Connacht armies, killing them by the hundreds and severely hampering their advance.

To make it easier on both sides, he corners Connacht into agreeing to a series of one-on-one duels, with the condition that they would only be allowed to advance for as long as the duel lasts. Medb bribes one hero after the other to duel against Cú Chulainn, and he beats all of them with varying levels of effort. One such opponent was Cú's uncle and foster father Fergus, who had defected to Connacht. The night before they were to fight, Medb's husband had stolen Fergus' sword, and he was forced to face Cú unarmed. Cú agreed to yield the fight this time, provided Fergus would yield to him another time, and Fergus became one of few people who got to walk away from these duels alive.

After months of nonstop duels against increasingly powerful opponents, Cú passes out and sleeps for three days straight. While he's asleep, Connacht breaks their part of the deal and tries to advance. The boy troops of Ulster jump into the fray to hold them off, but they are young and inexperienced and all of them die in the process. On the third day Cú awakes fully refreshed, only to find nearly all of his peers dead. His rage transforms him into a monster and he brutally slaughters like a third of the population of Ireland in revenge. The next day he's embarrassed about showing such a terrifying side of him, and holds a victory parade in his best clothes to re-establish his good image.

The duels continue after that, but Medb is having a real hard time finding anyone still willing to go up against Cú Chulainn by now. Eventually her eye falls on Ferdiad, Cú's rival and best friend from their training days. Ferdiad initially refuses to fight his friend, but she gets him drunk and riles him up until he agrees. With both sides unable to back down out of duty, they have no choice but to duel to the death. Their fight lasts for three days and is so intense it reshapes their surroundings, and at sunset each day they kiss, go to their separate camps, and send each other supplies. On the third day Ferdiad manages to corner Cú and Cú had no choice but to use Gáe Bolg to pierce Ferdiad's impenetrable skin. The spear tears Ferdiad apart from the inside and he dies in the arms of a crying Cú Chulainn.

That was the last duel to be fought. At this point the men of Ulster are starting to recover from their curse and slowly begin to join the war as well, so Medb stages one last offense with Fergus at the lead. Cú sees Fergus leading the charge and runs towards the frontlines, still heavily injured from his combat with Ferdiad, and tells Fergus to yield as part of their earlier deal, to which he agrees. The sight of their commander retreating without even a fight throws the remaining Connacht soldiers into a panic, and they scramble to get back across the border, marking the end of the Táin.

Some years after the end of the war, a young boy is picking fights on the coast and Cú is sent out to deal with him. They have a fierce duel and Cú is once again cornered into having to use Gáe Bolg to secure his win. The boy's dying words reveal him to be Connla, the son he had with Aoife. Cú had left Aoife with a number of rules for their child to follow, which left Connla unable to give his name or back down from a fight, and so he dies at the hands of the father he'd left Scotland to find.

Finally, Cú Chulainn's death is put in motion when Medb gathers the sons of various warriors Cú had killed and offers them the chance for revenge. They stage a violent uprising, which Cú is sent to suppress, and attempt to gang up on him. They manage to weaken him through trickery and lethally wound him, but he simply ties himself to a rock to remain upright and continues to fight so fiercely that nobody dares to come close, even after he's stopped moving. When a crow lands on his shoulder his killers at last think he might be dead for real now, but when they come close to confirm his sword arm moves one last time to slice off their hands. And thus Cú Chulainn met his untimely end, undefeated even in death.

In Fate

Fate adapts all of this without much deviation. The gist of all of it is generally the same, it only shuffles a few things around in order to streamline things into something more coherent (like any other retelling) and, more importantly, tailored to the role Cú Chulainn plays in the series. Most of the changes are fairly inconsequential too, and could easily be ascribed to different translations and iterations of the source texts, but I'll list the most notable differences from the texts that I'm aware of.

Fate makes Cú a tad older when performing his boyhood deeds, pushing him up from 6-7 to 12-13. Culann denied Setanta's offer of being his guard dog, saying that the newly named Cú Chulainn was destined to protect far greater things. It wasn't Cathbad's students who asked for prophecies but the boy troops, who were all too scared to take up on it, and Conchobar initially denied Cú arms until Cú trashed the room and threatened him into allowing it. Rather than being too young for the curse on the Ulstermen to affect him, he's excempt because he was born in a fairy mound rather than Ulster proper. Most notably, Scáthach had become immortal by the time Cú arrived in the Land of Shadows, and trained him partially in order for him to kill her.

What we can take away from it all is that Cú's life was, well, pretty fucking shitty. Pushed around by his superiors to fight their petty wars, he was forced to kill many of those close to him and eventually died a gruesome death at a young age. Even so, it was also exactly the grand life he was promised. His exploits are remembered to this day, and he is arguably the single most famous Irish hero. This apparent contradiction shows up in many parts of his character down to his name: Culann's hound was the first life he ever took, and so he was given its name to honor his compassion in taking its place. From the very start his life has been marked by death and glory in equal measure.

A Worthy Fight

Everyone who joins the Holy Grail War is looking for something. For many of the Servants, especially those in Fate/stay night, that something is absolution from their past. They seek to redo their life, or to undo it, or to move on from it, or otherwise somehow get rid of their regrets. Cú Chulainn with his bloodstained past however claims he has no need for the grail, and no idea what he'd do with it if he managed to get his hands on it anyway.

He maintains this claim in wildly different circumstances and towards different people, so there is no reason to assume he's lying about it. That doesn't mean there is nothing he wants though, otherwise he wouldn't be in the war at all. As he says in Unlimited Codes, what he's looking for is the chance to fight to his heart's content. Cú makes no secret of his love for battle, and it is in fact such a defining characteristic for him that Scáthach brings up the fact that Cú Alter isn't having fun with fighting as the number one thing that shows something is wrong with him.

A little more insight in the reason why he likes to fight is found in his final stand against Saber at the end of Fate route.

What Lancer wishes for isn't just battles, it's battles appropriate to Heroic Spirits. He doesn't care whether he wins or loses as long as the fight is worth having as a hero. This mentality can also be gleaned from the very start of the game, where he complains about how it's unfitting for heroes to be killing innocent bystanders when he first kills Shirou at the school building, and later tries to kick a decent fight out of the kid when coming into his house to finish the job. If he's going to be killing innocent bystanders anyway, he wants them to at least fight back a little.

Cú fights to protect his pride as a hero. I'll get into this in detail in later chapters, but Cú's heroic pride is probably the single most important thing to him. Cú Chulainn chose to be a hero at a very young age, lost many of his loved ones in the life that followed that choice, and in order to live with that he has to believe that choice was not mistaken. To keep moving for the sake of those left behind is a central theme in Fate route, so it is no coincidence that this part of Cú's motivations shines through in this route. Both Shirou and Saber arrive at this conclusion almost verbatim during the confrontation in the orphan basement. Kirei offers them the nearly-completed grail to fulfil their wishes and undo their pasts, but both of them reject him. They can't justify undoing all the suffering left in their wake, because it would mean all of that suffering was in vain.

When Shirou and Saber face off against Kirei and Gilgamesh in the orphan basement, Lancer eventually chooses to take their side, key word being eventually, because not much earlier he affirmed to Kirei that he would follow the priest's orders.

What happened between that moment and Lancer's betrayal is this affirmation from Shirou and Saber, and the subsequent appearance of Gilgamesh. He protects the two of them from Gilgamesh's attack with a clarification that he's not taking their side, he's merely following his own beliefs. The unspoken addition here is that in this moment Shirou and Saber represent those beliefs: the belief that by continuing to follow this way of life after death and show himself as hero to the world, he can prove to those who died as a result of that life that their deaths were not in vain.

Of course, the only way fighting to preserve his pride works is if it's a fight he can take pride in. Saber warns Lancer about Gilgamesh' power, to which he reacts dismissively, and when she says this is no time to be bluffing Lancer tells her to get lost. Lancer's reason to fight in this moment is the same as Shirou and Saber's, but because he's been following that way of life for much longer than them, he gets annoyed when Saber tries to tell him how to do it. Winning or losing doesn't matter to him as long as the fight is worth having, and he's not fighting to defeat Gilgamesh but to protect his beliefs. While the two of them are leaving Gilgamesh even reveals that he was planning to let them go from the start anyway, so if it were about the two of them as people Lancer's betrayal would have been meaningless. It's not about the people though, he doesn't even particularly like these two at this point, it's about the principle of the matter. As long as Saber and Shirou make it out of that basement alive, he will have won the war even if he loses the battle, because he will have stood up for what's important to him as hero even if the result is the same.

But why did he become a hero in the first place? What is it about heroism that enticed Cú so much that he was willing to die young and gruesomely for it? As it turns out, the answer is the “being a hero” part.

It wasn't a sense of justice or a thirst for glory that motivated him. He didn't do it with the intent to protect or save anything. He simply saw a shooting star, thought it was beautiful, and decided he wanted to live his life the same way. The very embodiment of “live fast die young,” Cú chose to do everything in his power to outshine all the other stars in the sky, even if for a moment.

Cathbad's prophecy was just a convenient means to that end, his resolve was set far before it even came up. To be a hero means to fight. It means to stand strong with spear in hand and face everything that is thrown at him with his head held high. And above all, it means to be really fucking cool.

Cú enjoys fighting, and he enjoys showing off, and he enjoys leaving an impression. To become immortalised in public consciousness as a hero you don't just have to be really good, you have to have people see you be really good. In his very introduction scene in the prologue of FSN he blatantly takes his sweet time to introduce himself to Rin and put the fear of death in her, and with Shirou he again keeps dragging things out so he can show off to his victim a little (Fate route day 3, “Night of fate” and “One more time”, FSN). The visual novel already described Lancer as spinning his spear several times, and the Ufotable Unlimited Blade Works anime gladly capitalised on that by making him spin it all the damn time, even in the middle of combat, just because he can. First Order continues this by having Caster Cú spin his staff around before holding it as a spear and then setting it on fire on top of it, just for the drama of it all.

In Fate/hollow ataraxia he is one of the Servants that adapts to modern day Fuyuki the best, but even so he still frequently does everything in his power to show off his skill as warrior. When he works as a florist he shows off by using his spear to cut the flowers from all across the shop without moving from his spot (Day 1 streets, “Spearman at work (flower shop edition)”, FHA), and he also uses his spear to steal Shirou's lunch during the pool date with Saber (Special, “Waterfront king”, FHA). When flirting with the track and field club, he states that he is one of the best spearmen in the world with such absolute confidence that none of them think to question it (Day 4 streets, “Blue panther vs. black panther”, FHA). In Today's Menu, he gladly uses his supernatural strength as a Servant to kick Shirou's ass at volleyball (Today's Menu episode 7). Cú participates in modern society without problem, but he doesn't blend in and makes no attempt to, because his intention has never been to blend in.

He's prideful and a showoff, but he's not arrogant, and freely admits when something is beyond him or would give him trouble. His pride is founded in a strong understanding of exactly what he's capable of, so when he says he can handle fighting Archer and Saber at once, or when he calls himself one of the best spearmen in the world, that's not a boast, it's an objective assessment. He's not so insecure that he gets indignant about other people being stronger than him, because what he seeks to prove isn't that he's better than others, but that he's capable in his own right.

A fight worth having is a fight where he gets to show off. Winning or losing doesn't matter, what matters is that he looked really fucking cool and heroic during it. That's why he complains about having to kill bystanders, and why he gets annoyed when Archer uses disposable swords against him rather than his Noble Phantasm and thus clearly isn't taking him seriously. It is also why he is able to laugh even as he dies miserably time and time again, in Unlimited Blade Works, in Fate/EXTRA, in his route in Unlimited Codes, and even way back at the end of his human life. Cú fights to justify the life he lead, but it's also exactly the life he wanted to lead in the first place, and the fact that he is summoned as a Heroic Spirit to the Holy Grail War is proof enough that his wish is already granted. Cú has won just by showing up, actually winning the war is secondary. He is exactly the person his 12 year old self set out to be and he loves it.

Three Knights

Lancer stands among the cast of FSN as basically the only Servant who doesn't hold any regrets (save Assassin Sasaki Kojirou, who doesn't have a past to regret in the first place), despite his life being just as bloody as the others. Because the glory and gore are both rooted in his very name, he is the only one able to reconcile those two into what it means to be a hero. He is introduced in the prologue to give the audience an idea of what a Heroic Spirit is supposed to be like before every single subsequent Servant proceeds to break that mold, and as a result Lancer is quite literally the exemplary hero. His role in the story is to be the hero that the others are not. Lancer is the coolest motherfucker in the room and he knows it, and the others know that he knows, and his role is to fucking flex that.

Lancer actually hardly has any arc to speak of in FSN, especially when compared to the other knight class Servants, because his role isn't to grow himself but to show others what they could be and prompt them to grow. In both Fate and UBW routes, the climax of his arc isn't a change in himself but a simple reflection of himself. He betrays Kirei because Kirei disrespects him personally as a hero, and he would've done so at any point in the story if he knew what he knows at the time of each betrayal. He is confident in his own status as hero and through that leads by example.

I already briefly went over the form this takes in Fate route, when he protects the ideal represented by Shirou and Saber, but it's most blatant in Unlimited Blade Works as a response to the central question of the route: What does it mean to be a hero? Saber and Archer struggle with this in tandem with Shirou, and in the midst of that struggle Lancer stands as a rock of heroic pride. In Fate route Lancer is the hero Saber realizes she could be, and in UBW he is the hero Archer can't bring himself to be. Cú Chulainn takes pride in his life even if it was tragic, he is glad to be a hero even if that path is littered with corpses, he simply enjoys being the person that he is, in a way that few others can. He's the coolest hero out of the three of them, and he knows it, and they know it, and they know that he knows.

All three of them chose to become heroes at a young age. Saber pulled the sword from the stone, Archer promised Kiritsugu to become a hero of justice, and Lancer took up arms knowing it'd lead to an early death. None of them became heroes by accident, it was a deliberate move on their part regardless of whatever grand destiny hung above their head. Out of all of them, Lancer is the one who had the clearest idea of what was waiting for him and what “being a hero” even meant for him before he set out on his path to become one. From the start he knew that glory came with death, that you'll become a hero after killing a million people, it's in his name after all. All of them were aware that protecting the many would mean sacrificing the few, but Lancer was the only one who knew it. As the only one of them who knew exactly what it means to take a life with your own hands before setting out on his path, naturally he has the least regrets about taking many more lives since.

Saber wants to deny her choice and place someone more capable on the throne, hoping that someone else would be able to save more than she did. Archer wants to deny the world that was cruel enough to necessitate his choice, one where nobody can be saved without sacrificing others. And Lancer wants to deny any alternative choice. He scoffs at the very notion that he wouldn't be proud of who he is, proud of what he achieved in spite of and because of all the tragedy he faced. He joins the Holy Grail War not to change his life, but to continue living the exact same way. This is the only way Cú Chulainn ever wanted to live, and it puts him at odds with the other two knights.

The definition of a hero they operate on is different: Saber and Archer's heroism is selfless, but Lancer's is selfish in that he became a hero only for his own sake. He didn't do it with the intention to protect his country or save anyone, those were just side effects of his desire to be someone admirable. To live for your own sake is something Saber slowly learns to accept throughout Fate route, but to call yourself a hero when there are so many you couldn't save is something Archer cannot accept. Lancer in turn says he can't stand well mannered knights like Saber who don't get that they can live for themselves, and he can't understand how someone as capable as Archer doesn't have any pride in himself. All of them are heroes, all of them saved as many as they killed, but Lancer is the only one who lives up to his own definition of heroism. In a story filled with people who deny themselves in order to be heroes, it is being himself that makes Cú Chulainn the most exemplary hero of them all.

Between Saber and Archer the game asks what it means to be an ideal, and by extension what it means to surrender your humanity to that ideal. This forms a key part of their bond in UBW route, but it falls outside the scope of this discussion, so I won't be going into detail about it. The conflict between Cú and Archer asks what it means to be a hero, to such an extent that I'll be discussing them in excruciating detail in chapter 2.4. More understated next to those two bonds is the way Saber and Cú explore what it means to be a king.

On Kingship

Cú was never a king himself until the 5th singularity in FGO, so this bond isn't nearly as developed or explored as it could be, but it's very much there. Cú Chulainn, despite his overwhelming loyalty and dedication to carrying out the orders he's given, actually really hates kings. The rare occasion where he references Conchobar in Fate is loaded with disdain, he scoffs that it's no wonder Gilgamesh is a piece of shit when he is world's first king, and Cú Alter says that he has taken the form of destructive beast in order to fulfil his role as king because that is what a king is to his eyes. All the kings (and many of the queens for that matter) Cú Chulainn had known in life were selfish pricks who used warriors like him to fight their petty conflicts for them. Experience tells him that to be a king means to be a greedy asshole, so naturally he doesn't exactly have a high opinion of them.

Saber, of course, holds a far more noble ideal of kingship. To her the king is someone who selflessly dedicates themselves to the country. While she never held any illusions about the cruelty and sacrifice it would demand of her, she considers the way her reign ended to be a failure on her part to live up to what a king should be, and that's why she wants to put someone more capable on the throne. The flaw lies with her, not with the role of king. At the end of Fate route she can cautiously but honestly say that she did the best she could for the good of her people in accordance with her duty as king, and at the end of UBW she can stand firm in the belief that her intentions were good even if the result wasn't what she wanted. As far as Saber is concerned, to be a king means to bring peace and prosperity to your people, and those kings who fail to do this cannot truly call themselves king.

To Cú kings are selfish and to Saber they are selfless. Saber holds an ideal and Cú faces the less than stellar reality of that ideal. That is why, when they are Altered, both of them become tyrants who maintain a vicious rule of the strong. Cú Alter, upon being made king, acts in accordance with his image of kingship, and Saber Alter, stripped of the ability to believe the sacrifice of her rule was worth it, acts as the tyrant that stands opposite to her image of kingship. Kings trample the weak, so if he is to be king he will be a tyrant who tramples the weak. Kings protect the weak, so if she failed to protect the weak she must be a tyrant who tramples them instead.

In addition, both of them within the context of Heaven's Feel respectively the 5th singularity wield this immense tyrannical power in order to protect a single girl as she lashes out at a cruel world. They became heroes for different reasons and joined the war for different reasons, but once their heroics are stripped away they turn to protect a single person for the exact same reason: Because they were made to, and because nobody else will, and because even though they will not rage at the unfairness of the world themselves, they will not deny anyone who will. The details of Sakura's connection with Saber (Alter) lie outside the scope of this discussion, but I will be talking extensively about Medb and Cú Alter in chapter 4.

Ultimately, the two of them get along pretty well. Lancer thinks Saber is a bit too stiff, but he respects her skill and dedication. He's someone who will gladly get along with damn near anyone, and this is no exception. Saber in return things Lancer is a bit too wild, but she too holds respect for his skill as well as his adaptability. In FHA, while they don't appear to hang out much, they're clearly on good terms. Saber speaks well of Lancer behind his back, and Lancer will help Saber out when she's getting harassed at the pool for example.

Lance of Sure Hit, Shield of No Loss

The third law of my posts is that any Lancer post that goes on for long enough will inevitably become about Archer as well. And for good reason: the two are deeply bound together as eternal rivals in ways which can be traced back to the very conception of their characters.

Rivalry

The first fight of FSN is the skirmish between Lancer and Archer, and from there on the two of them follow similar paths throughout each route even if they don't actually meet again after that first battle. There hasn't been a single Fate instalment where one of them appears without the other also being present, even if it took adding Cú in a bonus fight in CCC to do it, to the point where in FGO it's just outright stated that they're fated to always meet again. Even Lancer's iconic blue suit was designed in order to highlight his rivalry with Archer and his red coat.

Connection with other characters
All characters that appears in “Fate/stay night”: An undesirable but inseparable relationship, especially with Cú Chulainn, whom he ends fighting against no matter where.
(EMIYA profile, Fate/Grand Order material)

TAKEUCHI: Yeah, Saber's blue too…. Why did we make Lancer blue, then?
NASU: Blue's really the only color that suits his concept, don't you think?
TAKEUCHI: Come to think of it, I've never seen a non-blue variation of Lancer. I guess it was also because he was clearly positioned as Archer's rival.
NASU: The ancient rivalry between red and blue…
(Lancer character discussion, Fate/Complete Material II)

Although they're rivals cosmically destined to forever duke it out across time and space, their relationship consists of far more than just mutual vitriol. In fact, the first thing Archer ever says to Lancer on screen is overly familiar, and the second is a compliment. Most of the initial hostility between them comes from Lancer's side; Archer doesn't get vicious with the insults until their rematch in UBW route, and even then he compliments Lancer just as much. More on that later, first let's talk about how this exchange sets up the basis of their conflict for the rest of the series.

As explained in the previous section, Lancer's role in Fate/stay night is to be the biggest coolest hero in the room at any given time. He has a famous name, famous deeds to that name, and great pride in both. His skill and reputation are such that it's entirely plausible to him that someone can deduce his identity just by watching his fighting style. Archer is the opposite of that, he's a shit ass nobody without name or deeds to be remembered by, and although his unique style as sword-using bowman should make it easy to identify him, nobody has any idea who he's supposed to be.

Even so, he's able to avoid being instantly skewered by Ireland's greatest hero. A nameless modern-day spirit going up against a 2000 year old legend shouldn't be able to stand a shadow of a chance without use of his Noble Phantasm, or at least his strengths as a bowman. Lancer was even willing to show manners and wait until he'd taken out his bow! He wants a fight between equals as heroes after all. But for Archer to then go on and keep up with him while blatantly not even hinting at his true powers is just plain insulting, no matter how many compliments he tacks on. An additional insult to injury that is easily overlooked is that Lancer's Protection from Arrows skill makes him effectively immune to projectiles, it's impossible to hit him with a projectile attack unless he can't perceive it or it explodes on impact, and the Archer of this Holy Grail War specialises in twin sword melee combat and exploding arrows.

The relationship between Lancer and Archer questions what it means to be a hero and more specifically a heroic ideal, and Archer challenges Lancer's status as hero just by existing. This first fight establishes what a Servant truly is and shows off the kind of power they hold even without using the full extent of their abilities, made painfully obvious when in true Nasu fashion the narration cuts away from the fight multiple times to explain at length how Heroic Spirits are made into Servants. Lancer in this situation is the model hero, a proud warrior whose name is almost instantly deduced by sheer force of fame, while Archer is the strange nameless outlier, whose identity remains a mystery until halfway through the second route, and who claims to have no pride to speak of. The fact that someone like Archer is able to exist on nearly equal footing with the legendary Cú Chulainn forces Cú to reconsider what makes him a hero too. If not fame and pride, then what?

From this fight onwards, the two of them follow similar plot beats for the rest of FSN even if they never cross paths again in the game. In Fate route, both of them sacrifice themselves to fight off an overwhelmingly strong enemy, leaving parting words that steel the resolve of those left behind. Archer gives Shirou the hints needed to figure out how to project before somehow managing to hold off Heracles for half a day and take several of his lives in the process, and Lancer pinballs Gilgamesh around the church basement for just as long in order to protect the beliefs Saber just learnt. They know they can't actually beat their opponent, they'll only be able to hold off their enemy for so long, they're going to die here, and that's exactly why they take the chance to drop some heroic oneliners while they still can. Because, different as they may be, they are heroes who protect what's truly important even if they die.

NASU: He was defeated by Gil in the church basement. We didn't elaborate on this in the game, but Lancer was actually battling against Gil for half a day before he lost, so I think it's safe to say that Gil sustained some serious injuries from that encounter.
(Lancer character discussion, Fate/Complete Material II)

Meanwhile in Heaven's Feel, even though Lancer is taken out of the game almost immediately, his role still matches Archer's. Both are done in by the shadow, after which part of their body is used to power up another character. Cursed Arm Hassan is unable to speak when he'd just been summoned, but by taking and devouring Lancer's heart he is able to develop higher cognitive functions, and he even takes on Lancer's speech patterns (“True Assassin” entry, Fate/Side Material). Similarly, Archer's arm is used to save Shirou's life and later essentially speedrun learning projection magic.

The real meat of these similar paths is of course found in the route where those paths cross again. Lancer first appears as an enemy to be repelled, but halfway through the route he has become the ally while Archer is the enemy. The fight that follows is one I don't think I'll ever be done talking about, but I will make a valiant attempt nonetheless. And in the last stretches of the route, even when thought to be long dead, they both manage to return once more to take out one of the members of team yuetsu and leave Rin with some cool parting words.

As I said earlier, Lancer and Archer's relationship is far more than simply vitriolic. They hate each other's guts, yes, but they also respect each other's skill. Although Lancer was suspicious and aggressive towards Archer in their first fight and is fucking mad at him in the second round, he will admit that Archer is strong. In fact, he takes issue with Archer not taking pride in his own skill even though he's undeniably strong. Cú Chulainn is a great hero, strong and proud of it. Regardless of who Archer is, if he's here, if he's fighting in the Holy Grail War and keeping up with a big shot like Cú Chulainn, then surely he must be a great hero too. To stand and fight as a Heroic Spirit and not have anything to take pride in is something Lancer can't understand. It's not how a hero should be.

Archer's response is to deny that heroes should have pride at all. He is bitter and disillusioned with the heroic ideal and can't find it in him to hold any pride in the path that led him to kill countless people when all he wanted was to save them. So, he tells Lancer that taking pride in the title of “hero” is meaningless, because nobody cares how disgraceful your methods are as long as the result is convenient for them.

Naturally, this pisses Lancer the fuck off. It's the angriest he gets in the entire game and arguably even entire series. He's just about ready to eviscerate Archer after that insult, but in a display of frankly monumental self control he gives Archer a chance to backpedal by pretending it was the dog part he was mad about rather than the whole “lethal insult to his pride and entire way of life” part. And Archer, undaunted by the threat of death because he kind of wants to die anyway, responds with “I said FUCK your pride”. This is the first and only time in all of FSN where Archer calls him “Cú Chulainn” instead of “Lancer”, and it serves to rub it in that Archer knows exactly who Lancer is. He's not calling an unidentified enemy Servant a bitch, he's telling Cú Chulainn to his face that he knows exactly what he did, and that he shouldn't be able to proudly call himself a hero after all the bloodshed it took to get here.

This is the culmination of everything their conflict revolves around, namely their different definitions of what makes one a hero. For Lancer, to be a hero means to be memorable. He is a hero because he performed impressive feats and is remembered for them, and therefore simply by being summoned as a Heroic Spirit he can proudly say that he successfully became a hero. For Archer however, being a hero means to be good, and he cannot call himself a hero, because for every person he saved he had to kill another. If he is to be called a hero, then that means the very title of “hero” is an empty one.

Cú Chulainn, as a supernaturally gifted demigod, had all the means to a heroic legacy effectively presented to him on a silver platter, except for his independently formed desire to have that legacy. Archer EMIYA however started out with nothing at all, and had to work harder than human limits should have allowed in order to obtain everything that now makes him a hero, except for the desire to become a hero at all, which he received from Kiritsugu. Cú Chulainn carries a deep understanding of what it means to save or take lives in his very name, but Archer is unable and unwilling to accept the reality of “to save one person means to kill another” even now. It is only by Lancer's definition of heroism that they succeeded, so Lancer doesn't get why Archer doesn't have a shred of pride in himself even though simply being here means he must have succeeded at something, while Archer doesn't get how Lancer can stand so proudly when all the blood on his hands means he can't possibly be a real hero.

Lancer then uses his Noble Phantasm on Archer. The version of Gáe Bolg that always pierces the heart is actually a variation that he came up with himself and not something taken from the myths (“Gáe Bolg” entry, Fate/Side Material), its true use and the way it is actually passed down in legend is as a throwing attack that explodes into countless barbs upon piercing the target, skewering them from within. If Lancer wanted to simply kill Archer here, the single target thrusting attack would have been enough, but it was never a matter of simply winning the fight for him and especially not in this situation, where his pride is on the line more than ever. He's not going to simply defeat Archer, he's going to crush him with everything he stands for as a hero. We'll see how worthless that heroism is when it vaporises you, shithead.

Despite this, Archer manages to block it. It tears through six layers of Rho Aias and only loses momentum upon shattering the seventh, an impossible feat which cements it as more powerful than Gungnir and just keeping it from hitting him gives Archer the physical and mental beating of a lifetime, but he fucking blocks it. Because, mutually exclusive as their definitions of heroism seem to be, neither of them is wrong. If all it takes is to be memorable, then even the most vile, evil people can be lauded as great heroes if what they did had enough of an impact. If it takes being perfectly good, then nobody can ever be a hero, because the world isn't black and white enough to allow perfect goodness. The unstoppable force of Lancer's pride cannot overcome Archer's ideal, but neither can Archer's immovable ideal withstand the force of Lancer's pride.

With his body and mind this thoroughly trounced, Archer is too exhausted to keep up his bitterness, and his true feelings on Lancer shine through in the form of praising him from the bottom of his heart. A lot of Archer's animosity towards Lancer comes from wanting to drag him down to his level in order to justify his self hatred, just like how he doesn't actually believe killing Shirou will erase his own existence and he's simply lashing out (UBW route day 15, “Einzbern Castle”, FSN). For Cú Chulainn to take pride in a similar life to his when he can't do so himself pisses him off, but he also admires it.

The VN doesn't show his face at all from deploying Rho Aias until his appearance in the church basement, but the anime has him give Lancer a tired yet fond smile for their entire conversation after their Noble Phantasms cancel each other out. In fact, this fight is the most Archer smiles in the entire anime, and one of only two times he does so genuinely. Archer is derisive towards the reality of being a hero precisely because he holds the heroic ideal so close to his heart, for all his bitterness he admires Cú Chulainn as a hero and enjoys their combat as heroes. Like in their first exchange he acts overly familiar and praises Lancer, doubly so now that he experienced firsthand just how much of a Big Damn Hero Lancer is.

Lancer wanted a fair fight between equals with their pride as heroes on the line, and Archer appeared to spit on that wish from the moment he faced Lancer with disposable swords instead of the weapon that should embody him as a heroic spirit. Even when he does use a bow as an Archer, the arrows he uses are Broken Phantasms, a spiteful destruction of the symbol of another's pride. Archer never does reveal his reality marble to Lancer. However, every projection Archer makes is an expression of Unlimited Blade Works - unbeknownst to Lancer, Archer had in fact been meeting Lancer's Noble Phantasm with his own and facing him on equal footing the whole time.

Lancer meanwhile is so confused about who the fuck Archer is supposed to be that he almost forgets to be mad that this six piece chicken mcnobody was able to block the brunt of an attack meant to cement the difference between them. A hero like Archer cannot possibly exist, so if he's here anyway, Lancer has no choice but to reconsider how he's defined his own heroism too. The fact that they really aren't that different at all is then underlined by Archer telling Lancer his plans of double crossing Medea, or rather implying them, and Lancer immediately understands what he means. Now that they've each experienced the force what the other stands for as hero, even though they've barely interacted before this point and Lancer still has no idea who Archer is supposed to be, Archer knows exactly how to get through to Lancer with just a few words, and Lancer knows what Archer is on about with just those few words.

Forcing each other to question the premises behind their concept of heroism also forces them to think about who they are outside that heroic concept. Both of them define themselves through their status as hero first and as person second, and they lived their lives entirely in order to be heroes rather than people. If the very definition of their heroic ideal is challenged, they have no choice but to reconsider their sense of self as well. In Archer's Fate/EXTRA route this leads to him following a path similar to Shirou in Heaven's Feel, where he comes to selfishly protect one person even if it comes at the cost of the world, and Cú in FGO ends up frequently being faced with how he very much has no idea how to act if he's not here to be The Great Hero Cú Chulainn. As much as I love to talk about it Archer's route is outside the scope of this discussion, but Cú's identity as hero and not-hero is discussed extensively in later chapters.

Friendship

This relationship of fighting-yet-understanding and forcing the other to be an individual instead of a hero continues in all their other appearances, especially Fate/hollow ataraxia, where they're “suddenly” friends and hang out all the time despite constant bickering. It's mentioned several times that the two of them went on some sort of outing, such as the fishing scenes (Day 1 streets, “Lancer's Heaven II”, FHA), going home together after the cultural festival (Day 3 temple, “Day of the festival”, FHA), and going to the pool together in Saber, Rin, and Illya's special pool scenes (Special, “Waterfront king”, “Sisters' summer (apple)” and “Quartet”, FHA). Seeing them together, whether on-screen or not, is such a frequent occurrence that Shirou even refers to them as “that macho servant duo” when young Gilgamesh tells him the two of them tried to break into the pool after seeing it was closed for Illya's pool party (Special, “Quartet”, FHA). In Today's Menu too they once again show up at the pool together (Today's Menu episode 7), and Archer goes out of his way to help Lancer out at his job no matter how exasperated he acts about it (Today's Menu episode 11).

Archer actually spends most of his screentime in FHA being a nuisance to either Shirou or Lancer, and he's barely shown interacting with other people. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Lancer is Archer's only friend in FHA, despite appearing to be mortal enemies half a year earlier. And, like with their fights, it is often Archer who keeps being overly familiar with Lancer and seeking him out while Lancer just goes along with it. Archer is usually withdrawn and serious, but around Lancer he becomes more outspoken and occasionally even childish. It's especially blatant in the “Lancer's Heaven” scenes, where Lancer is out fishing at the harbour and Archer and later also Gilgamesh come bother him.

On the surface level, Archer is doing this because he's a petty bitch and wants to show off that even if he can't beat Lancer in combat, he sure as FUCK can beat him at fishing. He can't match Lancer in raw skill (the first Lancer's heaven points out that Lancer doesn't even use a fishing stand, meaning he just holds the rod perfectly motionless for the entire day), but he compensates with having far more and better tools at his disposal and being VERY loud about this being the case. Compared to how he acts for most of FSN and especially UBW, it's almost like he's an entirely different (and infinitely more childish) person, because this time he's acting as a person.

Lancer ignores the challenge though. He told Shirou several times before that he may not looking for a fight but he won't hesitate to respond to a challenge either, but while Archer is blatantly picking a fight here, he doesn't escalate it into an actual fight and just insults Archer back while continuing to fish. It's not a challenge from another hero, it's a case of Archer just wanting to hang out with him but not knowing how to be direct about it, and Lancer understands Archer well enough to know when there's real fighting intent behind his words and when he's just being kind of a dick.

Additionally, and something I will discuss in more detail later, Cú respects people who try to improve themselves, and doesn't care for people who are complacent in their misery. Like in their fight in front of the church Archer is trying to provoke Lancer, but in UBW he was trying to drag Lancer down with him and was answered with a royal ass whooping, while in FHA he's trying to get him riled up by being better than him and Lancer banters right back at him. Lancer's role in FSN was to lead by example on how to be the coolest version of yourself, so he doesn't mind being used as a springboard for other people's development.

Particularly the exchange they have as they return from the temple festival is like a microcosmos of their entire dynamic post-FSN. It's only these four lines, but each is a thinly veiled insult delivered with a smile. Archer tells Lancer he's too casual and Lancer tells Archer he's too stiff. Lancer tells Archer he should move the fuck on sometime and Archer tells Lancer he should calm the fuck down sometime. Even though it's just playful banter, they each land precision hits on each other's issues while shrugging off the other's attacks. They understand each other incredibly deeply and keep challenging each other to become better versions of themselves.

The bond formed over the course of FSN and FHA carries over into their other summonings too. In Fate/EXTRA Cú's role is small, but the in-battle banter he has with Archer is the first time they refer to having this kind of connection, and there is a special animation for when you use Rho Aias to block Gáe Bolg. Archer also brings Cú Chulainn up as someone “capable of hooking up” in a scene where Hakuno interrogates him about past girlfriends, referring to the various scenes of Lancer hitting on girls in FHA. The two of them recognising each other on the moon is actually the first case of Servants remembering past summonings after FSN claimed this was impossible outside Saber's unique circumstances, long before FGO officially threw that bit of lore out the window.

In Fate/Extella they are on even more friendly terms than usual now that they're on the same team for the first time in the whole series. Where it was previously mostly Archer wanting Cú's attention, Cú is now also shown demanding Archer's attention and Archer gladly complies. Extella Link doesn't show much in the way of interactions story-wise, but in battle they have the usual arguments when facing each other as enemies, and they also have unique dialogue when acting as each other's support troops (though this is voice-only and in Japanese, so I can't tell you what they actually say).

Fated Connection

In Fate/Grand Order we see for the first time how the very state they are summoned in seems to influence the other. In the Fuyuki prologue, Cú is summoned in the Caster class, lacking the Gáe Bolg that made him a hero and instead using a borrowed druid technique as Noble Phantasm, and Archer appears as an equally “incomplete” shadow servant. They again are some of the first Servants to recognise each other across Grail Wars, even in the game that threw out the rule that this is supposed to be impossible. Even then it's not uncommon for a FGO Servant to not remember someone from a previous summoning, or only get a strong sense of deja vu, but Cú and Archer consistently and clearly remember each other every time.

In the game itself their conversation in the prologue is short and it's copied almost verbatim and then expanded upon in First Order, so I'll skip over the game right towards the anime in a bit. In the Type-Moon Ace comic of the battle against Archer they also don't interact much, but Cú is surprised about Archer actually using a bow and Archer reacts disappointed when Cú leaves the battlefield and then catches himself being disappointed by it, showing the usual great familiarity with each other as well as Archer once again vying for Cú's attention. Despite the unusual circumstances, they appear to enjoy facing each other once again.

When they cross paths in First Order they waste no time showing that they totally know who the other is, and Cú tells Archer to put up his dukes if he's not a fucking pussy, to which Archer responds with a barely noticeable smile and the raising of said dukes. They face each other as a bowman and a magus for a while, but once Cú successfully lured Archer into his bounded field, he challenges him to “our usual fight” and switches to holding his staff as a spear. Archer agrees with another brief smile and takes out his swords, turning the battle from one between simply a bowman and a magus into the one between Cú Chulainn and EMIYA. Like before, fighting each other makes them think of themselves as individuals outside their current role, something which this time they do gladly instead of reluctantly.

Once Cú stops trying to fight like a magus and instead fights like himself, he starts overpowering Archer like usual. This fight is arguably more equal than all their battles in previous instalments, because where normally Cú is a spearman fighting as one while Archer is a magus pretending to be a bowman pretending to be a swordsman, this time both of them are magi pretending to be warriors. They have their usual banter throughout the whole battle, throwing quips like “Seems you've become smarter than usual” and “You've become rusty” at each other. Cú is distracted by Mash's own fight however, and Archer manages to get his swords against Cú's neck. Instead of taking his kill when he can, he savours the feeling of having the upper hand a bit, and they end up talking about the battle that tied them in the first place: the paradox of the unstoppable spear and the immovable shield.

Gáe Bolg is a deeply cursed weapon that inflicts wounds which cannot be healed and has the death of the target as a premise of its use, a curse which even its wielder cannot escape (UBW route day 15, “End of a hero”, FSN). It's such a powerful conceptual rule that if the target cannot die, then Gáe Bolg cannot be used (Scáthach interlude 1, FGO), because its nature demands that the target dies before it is used. Shirou surviving back in the prologue despite the fundamental rule of “heart pierced by Gáe Bolg” == “victim dies” caused a logical paradox, which was only further amplified when Archer in UBW once again avoided death by Gáe Bolg through creating another paradox. In order to correct this paradox the world itself will pit them against each other in as many grail wars as it takes until the day “Shirou Emiya” in whatever form finally dies by means of Gáe Bolg.

Someone who can survive having their heart pierced by Gáe Bolg shouldn't exist, but unfortunately for the logical order of the world, Archer's Noble Phantasm is literally the ability to make things that don't exist in this world appear, and to overlay reality with his own inner world. On top of that, the reason Shirou's origin and alignment became “sword” and his inner world changed to “something that contains swords” is because he had Avalon, the sheath that protects from all harm, inside him. The pendant that Rin used to save Shirou's life and thus defy that curse is even the catalyst that summons Archer. Archer's very existence was specifically conceptually engineered to both piss Cú off and make it impossible to resolve the paradox, and so they continue to fight across time and space.

Cú denies that the contradiction of their weapons is all there is to their battles though. If the weapons cancel each other out, then they'll just have to compensate with skill, something he then underlines by using his newly obtained druid techniques to escape Archer's swords, fake out on getting stabbed in the back, and crush Archer with a Noble Phantasm that has no ties to any fate. This is actually the only time Cú has ever managed to kill Archer, despite being the objectively stronger one no matter the form they take. All the other times something came up to keep him from landing the finishing blow, or in EXTRA's case he outright lost fair and square because Rin lacked the resolve to kill Hakuno. Gáe Bolg can never be the cause of Archer's death because Archer's existence is “one that has survived Gáe Bolg,” but if Gáe Bolg is taken out of the equation Cú simply wipes the floor with him, because in that case it comes down to raw skill instead of conceptual rules.

The two of them are always summoned in matching states. If Archer is there then Lancer will also be, and if Cú Chulainn is somehow different then the same is the case for EMIYA. In Lostbelt 6 Odin's influence has changed Caster Cú to the point where he prefers to call himself Grímr now, but that just means a more different than usual EMIYA in the form of Muramasa shows up to do the routine with him instead.

Even more interesting is the way they are when not summoned together. In the 5th singularity Cú Alter is summoned with Archer nowhere in sight, and even though the Shinjuku singularity was the great alterfest and EMIYA Alter's debut, Cú was nowhere to be found, Alter or otherwise. The SE.RA.PH event also had a lot of EMIYA Alter screentime and a notable lack of any trace of Cú Chulainn in its story (he did appear as enemy unit in a farm quest). Alter Servants are aspects of the Servant that normally would never come to the forefront: Cú and Archer are so deeply tied at this point that the only version of them that can be summoned to a Grail War where the other isn't present is one that isn't really supposed to be summoned at all. They're a Cú Chulainn moulded by Medb's desires and an Archer EMIYA who is literally tearing apart at the seams.

Their Altered personalities also try to compensate for the missing half of the pair by imposing the traits that originally made them clash on them. Cú Alter (appears to) lack pride as a hero, and EMIYA Alter (appears to) no longer resist the nature of his ideal. Cú Alter fulfils someone else's ideal, and EMIYA Alter understands exactly how much bloodshed his own ideal requires. With nothing stopping him Cú Alter has effectively become his weapon, and with nothing to stand against EMIYA Alter is losing access to even his own Reality Marble. Additionally, Cú Alter's profile suggests the best way to deal with him would be to summon “a certain Archer” so they can duke it out like on the sunday morning shows, and although EMIYA Alter is holding on to his sense of self with splintered bleeding fingertips and can barely remember who he even is, the myroom line where he sounds most like himself is the one where he addresses Cú Alter.

This is, notably, the second time Archer has ever used the name Cú Chulainn, and one of very few instances of anyone acknowlwedging Cú Alter's kingship outside the fifth singularity. When Archer said Lancer's name in UBW it was with the intent of being as insulting as possible, to underline that he wasn't just making sweeping statements about heroic pride, he was telling Cú Chulainn specifically to fuck off. For the rest Archer always calls him Lancer, across all the other games, even in FGO where everyone throws around true names like it's nothing.

Archer's behaviour in Fate/EXTRA gives additional context to this. Archer never calls Hakuno by name either, opting for their title of Master rather than the nicknames Nero and Tamamo use to get around a renameable protagonist in a voiced game. All three playable Servants in EXTRA have reason to hide their true name from Hakuno, but in Archer's case it's becasue he has no name whatsoever. The true name of a Servant is where all their achievements come together, it is the one thing they can carry with them from life, but Archer lacks even this. Hakuno meanwhile has nothing to their name except the name itself, so by treating it the way a Servant would treat their own true name and only using Hakuno's title, by refusing to use Hakuno's name when he can't offer any name of value in return, he assigns it the only kind of value that remains meaningful to heroic spirits after death.

Knowing this, Archer using Lancer's true name gains another layer. If Archer refuses to use Hakuno's name because his own empty name is not a fair exchange for it, then calling Lancer by name is another way of dragging him down to his level. It's saying that no matter the glory attached to the name Cú Chulainn, it is still equal in value to Archer's meaningless empty name.

Archer becomes more casual with other people's true names in FGO, out of necessity more than anything, and people will casually call him EMIYA out of the same necessity. However, both Cú Chulainn and EMIYA continue to call each other Lancer and Archer respectively. Archer is no longer lashing out at Lancer, a hero he continues to greatly admire in spite of himself, so he sticks to using Lancer's class name to convey respect the same way not using Hakuno's name conveys respect. Lancer in turn pays respects to the value Archer assigns to this manner of address by not forcing him to offer the name EMIYA in exchange for the name Cú Chulainn, and calling him Archer instead. They're the only two who continue to call each other by class in Chaldea, so the use of titles indicates a higher degree of intimacy than if they were to use each other's true names, because although there are many Archers and Lancers present there is only one that either of them could be talking about. They don't need to exchange names, they're already much closer than that.

The exception to this is, as mentioned, EMIYA Alter's line for Cú Alter. Cú chulainn is someone who is himself and proudly so, which is what made him such an admirable figure to Archer, who had always denied his self in order to follow his path as a hero. But Cú Alter, in being forced into the role of Medb's king, had this core self as a hero ripped away from him and is now desperate for something to replace it with, something I explore in detail in chapter 4. The option of being a hero is no longer available to him, and so he gets hung up on what roles he does have left, on what it means to be a king, or an Alter, or a Berserker, losing sight of the fact that even so he is still himself. He claims to have abandoned his ideals, but the truth is that he was his own ideal, and now he is no longer himself, and it's making him miserable and frustrated because he knows he's better than this. "Cú Chulainn" is a hero, and yet here he is, being a mad king of beasts instead. And whereas in FSN Archer used that name in order to destroy its value, the Archer whose name is even more worthless, and who has lost even more of his self, instead says it to restore its value. Why are you so hung up on being a beast with a crown? Why cling to something you're not when you are your own ideal? Aren't you still Cú Chulainn?

Cú Alter was stripped of his role as hero leaving him only a beast, and with it he lost his pride as hero despite being a beast, but it is because he is himself that he became a hero while being a beast. The "thorns of death", the title of the thrown Gáe Bolg that represents Cú Chulainn's heroic glory, the sight of which left Archer praising the spearman from the bottom of his heart, is still his. The spear is still in his hand, the bones it was made of are the armour on his body. And it is EMIYA Alter, the man who has nothing left of himself but the ideal that broke him and his unyielding admiration for it even so, who acknowledges that Cú Alter's heroic ideal, too, is still beautiful.

One of the promotional CE's for the Heaven's Feel movies features Cú Alter and Archer fighting, much like Cú Alter's profile suggested. Notably it's the one time (insofar a CE can be considered a ‘real' situation) where their “status” doesn't match, with Cú being altered while Archer is his regular self. Coincidentally, or perhaps consequently, this is also the one time where Cú doesn't remember Archer, but even so he still gets a sense of deja vu and unknowingly recreates his first encounter with Archer.

Being separated throws them completely off the rails, and being reunited undoes some of that damage. After their clash in front of the church forced them to reconsider their heroic ideal, their very conception of themselves as heroes has changed to incorporate the other's views, letting them meet in the most contrived ways and remember each other when they shouldn't. As far as the fabric of reality is concerned they're one unit at this point, a Cú Chulainn summoned without Archer EMIYA and vice versa is, almost literally, incomplete. They are an integral part of each other's existence, as heroes and as characters in the story.

Red Spear of Fate

As briefly mentioned earlier, Gáe Bolg is by nature a throwing attack, and the part where it reverses causality to always pierce the heart is something Cú created himself. Despite not being its original function, it's such a powerful curse that it is classified as one step below a divine Authority, the ability to make something happen not through effort but purely because you have the right to make it happen.

Also, it’s a bit of a digression, but this version of Gáe Bolg is something Lancer came up with himself.
The original Gáe Bolg is actually a throwing weapon, and is anti-army rather than anti-personnel.
(“Gáe Bolg” entry, Fate/Side Material)

While Gáe Bolg is strictly anti-unit and specifically targeting the heart, it’s actually a manifestation of the super power ability to alter destiny. As a Noble Phantasm Gáe Bolg is one step away from being classified as an Authority, but that is only to be expected seeing as its wielder is Cu Chulainn, the child of a god.
(“Gáe Bolg” entry, Fate/EXTRA Material)

An Authority is a power that is on the level of creating a world, and includes things like altering events, time-flow manipulation, and kingdom building.
Authorities existed in the age known as the Age of Gods, which was about 6000 years ago, but after entering the Common Era human civilization advanced to the point where Authorities were no longer needed, and so Authorities became a relic of the past.
A normal skill “is able to accomplish a certain task by following a corresponding principle,” but an Authority works “simply by making things happen because one has that right.”
("Authority" entry, Fate/EXTRA Material)

This makes Gáe Bolg the representative of Cú's own tragic fate. Anyone targeted by it literally has their fate sealed: the spear hits before it's even thrown, and the wounds it inflicts cannot be healed. Gáe Bolg, like all Noble Phantasms, is an embodiment of Cú's glory, but also of his own inescapable death. To avoid it requires enough luck to alter fate, to heal its wounds takes more mana than anyone would normally be able to store in their lifetime. As long as Cú wields Gáe Bolg his fate is to die on the battlefield, that fate was sealed the moment he took up arms. Consequently, the only time he ever made it to the end of a Holy Grail War alive was when he didn't have his spear on him.

It doesn't just seal his own fate though, it also connects his fate to others. Across both the myths and Fate, the only kills it's scored are against people Cú cares about. In a way the spear is a red string of fate, a fated connection to the hearts of his loved ones, but because it has the form of a weapon it instead leaves him fated to kill them. Its very conception was as “a weapon meant to kill someone Cú Chulainn loves,” as it was created and given to him by Scáthach as a way for him to kill her. If the thrown version of Gáe Bolg is the height of Cú's heroic glory, then the thrusted version is the height of his heroic tragedy. The weapon, much like his name, carries equal amounts of glory and tragedy.

Gáe Bolg was the first Noble Phantasm to be conceived in the plotting stages of Fate/stay night, and it is what gave shape to the series as a battle between conceptual rules rather than raw powerlevels. It is also, in a way, the catalyst that sets off the events of Fate/stay night. It's because Lancer stabbed Shirou that Rin used her pendant to save his life, creating the connection that let it serve as a catalyst for Archer's summoning later.

Tell me your favorite character and setting!! If possible, tell me both the one you really like as well as the one used for jokes! <NiceKnock>
Nasu: When I wrote Fate, we thought the concept of Gáe Bolg would work, and so it became the first Noble Phantasm, so it is always special to me. I never dreamed of being able to use it for humor so easily later on.
(Q&A section, Fate/stay night [UBW] Animation Material I)

Nasu: The ancient rivalry between red and blue... As a side note, Gáe Bolg was Lancer's Noble Phantasm in old "Fate" as well. When I was coming up with the abilities for it, I thought the notion of a battle between the "rules" laid out by Noble Phantasms would be a new and fun idea.
(Lancer character discussion, Fate/Complete Material II)

With that in mind, you could go as far as to say the spear is fate itself, something which is actually somewhat reflected in the logos of the series as a whole.

The slash in the FSN logo is vaguely shaped like Gáe Bolg's blade, and in the FHA logo it's clearly the blade of Fragarach, the sword that severs fate and the natural counter to Gáe Bolg as the spear which seals fate. In the logo for Zero, which was in development at the same time as FHA and was the first next instalment to release, the slash has become faded and scratchy, and all the logos since then have left it out almost completely beyond alluding to it with diamond shapes.

When Fragarach and Gáe Bolg faced off and mutually destroyed their wielders, it echoed through the series as a whole, on a very abstract level through the logos, but on a more tangible level in the different versions of Cú Chulainn that have appeared since then, which I'll be going over in later chapters.

A Life With No(?) Regrets

Cú Chulainn is a great hero, and through his existence as such inspires others. His life was filled with tragedy, but it's not stopping him from taking pride in it, and despite the wealth of traumatic events in his past he's mostly just chilling. This attitude comes under duress in Fate/hollow ataraxia, where he is once again cornered into killing someone he cares about, and it gives insight into how he copes with the bad in order to enjoy the good.

Sealed Fate and Severed Fate

>bazett as someone who can't recognise her own achievements
>bazett never understood why cu chulainn chose to live his tragic life & therefore couldn't have prepared for gae bolg's causality reversal that symbolises cu's fate
>gae bolg and fragarach are attacks with the wielder's death as premise, but gae bolg seals it while fragarach severs it
>"even so you can be proud of what you achieved" vs "even so you can wish things had been different" vs "it's sad to live like you already died" (mutual)
>first time lancer complains about his fate is after fragarach rips him in two

Check Your Burning Castle For Fires

section about lancer trying to avoid killing bazett at all cost as example of his general avoidant habits

>physically verbally and emotionally distances himself from anything that casts doubt on how okay he really is with having lived the life he did
>scathach's death(?) was the turning point of cu's life and the first regret he remembers
>all his regrets are not being able to do more for others, not becoming enough of a hero fast enough to do what they needed him to
>bazett is the same kind of hypercompetent loser as scathach in the same kind of undead situation
>easy to claim he'd do everything the same way again when he's not in a timeloop thats saying "oh yeah? then do it again bozo"
>it takes angra pointing out the similarity with scathath before lancer finally makes moves
>he verbally denies knowing bazett when they face off but all his actions that fight convey that he does in fact know her

The Name of the Hero (Reprise)

>setanta's profile claims a cu chulainn who does not have gae bolg or the "gae bolg user in training" skill is impossible (because that's his fate)
>lancer's fate was severed, allowing the appearance of caster as a cu chulainn that does not have gae bolg
>lancer's fate was severed, meaning he did not die where he was fated to, meaning the crow that landed on his shoulder to signal his death was instead odin's ravens bringing news of fairy britain
>caster outlived the death that belongs to cu chulainn and stopped calling himself cu chulainn
>setanta is at an age where he was already called cu chulainn but does not use that name and the dog is just there chilling with him (caster also has the white dogs)
>"the hound of culann" dies as premise of the story but setanta killed it because he wanted to live
>setant wants to become cu chulainn but seeing how that turned out has him thinking 'hm skill issue perhaps'
>draco rejected the death that belongs to the 'true' nero to become an impossible nero that lived beyond her death
>setanta wielding a sword represents determining for himself where his path as hero starts and ends
>caster retroactively has a noble phantasm thats based on a roman description of ritual human sacrifice by fire because setanta went through lilim harlot
>locusta keeps trying to feed setanta poisonous mushrooms and locusta's poison facilitates draco's self actualisation through suicide and grimr kills himself every five turns for the bit

Wish Upon a Shooting Star

the expectations scathach and medb place on him and how those fuck him up because they misunderstand the kind of hero he actually is and knows how to be

Medb

section about medb's expectations of cu, what he represents to her and how she forces him to conform to that image and how they actually get along really well when she just asks him to hang out normally and grimrs fondness of cnoc na riabh as a medb who didn't have to turn out like medb did (but watch out)

Scáthach

section about how scathach is equally demanding of him and the way she represents an impossible goal to him that alter destroys himself to overcome. their stupid murder rituals. we've been over this.

The Hero's Pedestal

talk about how this shows that cu is dependent on the framework of being a hero for his sense of self and therefore doesn't know what to do with himself if that falls away. caster spending a lot of time complaining about not having his spear before finally settling into being grimr and [alter's two interludes posted verbatim] and so on. every cu chulainn that is not lancer kinda wishes he was lancer instead.

The Shooting Star Lands at Your Side

conversely, as long as someone has faith that cu chulainn is indeed a hero, he will answer that faith, as naturally as breathing.

What Manner of Man is this Hound?

digging into his nature as monstrous demigod hero putting him just outside established boundaries of identity which is what makes people misunderstand him so easily. flex some actual academia here maybe.

The Loyalty of a Knight

The Pride of a Hero

The Dignity of a Beast

cu alter so cooooooooool

Lancer from the Flower Shop

collection of smaller characterisation details that get overshadowed by his position as hero and symbol and element of a story like how surprisingly thoughtful he is (his fgo valentines gift) or how he's always spinning shit around and how the fishing shows unexpected patience. the way cu chulainn lives in a society. anything I didn't manage to squeeze into the other sections.

Sources

1. Fate/stay night visual novel (original 2004 version)
2. Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]
3. Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Animation Material I Q&A
4. Fate/Side Material https://www.tmdict.com/book/#fate-side-material
5. Fate/Complete Material II: Character Material
6. Fate/Complete Material III: World Material
7. Fate/Hollow Ataraxia visual novel
8. Fate/Unlimited Codes
9. Carnival Phantasm
10. Today's Menu for the Emiya Family
11. Fate/EXTRA
12. Fate/Extella
13. Fate/Extella Material
14. Fate/Extella Link
15. Fate/Grand Order
16. Fate/Grand Order Material
17. Fate/Grand Order -First Order-
18. Type-Moon Ace vol. 11 pg. 215-278

Further Reading

These are some books or online resources that have been recommended to me by Celticists as good ways to access the Ulster Cycle and other Celtic literature. The general advice is to steer away from victorian/early 20th century retellings, since those were usually working with incomplete manuscripts and tend to be misleading (I've been warned against Rolleston and Yeats especially. Celticists hate those guys). Those texts are often the ones that are public domain by now though so they do tend to be the more accessible ones, just be aware of the context in which they were written when reading them.

• The Tain - Thomas Kinsella. A translation of the Tain Bo Cuailnge and the events leading up to it. Focussed on telling a somewhat coherent story over giving an accurate translation, which means it's a good and accessible introduction to the Ulster Cycle but not so much when it comes to the finer details.
• The Tain - Ciaran Carson. Same as Kinsella's, just a different translation. Which one is the “better” translation seems to be a matter of personal preference.
• Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz. More general than just the Ulster cycle. This book is public domain and can be found here. It dates from 1981 so take the introduction with a grain of outdated salt, but the translation itself is directly from the source texts rather than based on other translations and retellings like many others.
• Ireland's Immortals - Mark Williams. One of few recent books on Celtic literature, which unpacks a lot of issues with persistent Victorian views and ideas. Very extensive but written in accessible language. This book is the way to go if you want what the introductions of Gantz' book without the outdated academia.
• CELT (Corpus of Electronic Texts) - An online collection of various translations, though generally on the older side, with bibliographic info. A bit hard to navigate if you don't already know what you're looking for, but very extensive. It can be found here.
• The Celtic Literature Collective. A free online collection of translations of old Celtic texts which can be found here. It has even more texts than CELT, although it's unclear when and by who each text is translated so the accuracy of any one text is completely up in the air.