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Artoria Pendragon is the protagonist of the multimedia franchise Fate created by Type Moon, which consists of visua novels, light novels, anime, manga, and video games. She's the Saber Class Servant of the Fourth Holy Grail War in Fate/Zero and the Fifth Holy Grail War in Fate/stay night. In Fate/Zero her master is Kiritsugu Emiya, and in Fate/stay night her master is Shirou Emiya, the adoptive son of Kiritsugu.
Why She Rocks
- She has an incredibly adorable and appealing character design, which has become iconic in the Type Moon fandom.
- It's become so memorable that they tried to recreate this design for other characters, such as Mordred, Grey, Saber of Red, Red Saber, and Jeanne 'd Arc, along with many others, including other versions of the King Arthur Saber, but none of them have had the appeal of the original.
- She's very powerful; in fact, she's one of the most powerful characters in Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero together, probably the only one topping her being Gilgamesh.
- Outstanding voice in both sub and dub.
- Her best dub performance is undoubtedly in Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works, where she's voiced by Kari Whalgren.
- She has interesting, complex relationships with many other characters in Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night.
- Shirou Emiya is her lover during the Fate route of Fate/stay night; this is untrue during the Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel routes, as during those routes Shirou is the love interest of Rin Tohsaka or Sakura Matou, respectively. However, in every route Shirou is still her Master, so they still spend lots of time together. Aside from growing to lvoe each other, they are often at odds because Shirou doesn't want her to keep going into battle and risking her life, while Saber wants to win the Holy Grail War to get her wish.
- Rin Tohsaka did not initially get along with her, due to Rin's belief that Servants are the personal property of the Masters, and not to be trusted or valued as human beings, but the two eventually end up forming a decently strong comradarie while in battle, despite the fact that they're still technically adversaries in the Holy Grail War.
- She doesn't get along with Kiritsugu Emiya, due to their differeing ideologies; Saber believes that the battlefield is a glorious place, a belief which is what kept her going during her life, while Kiritsugu believes that it's nothing better than absolute hell.
- She doesn't like Rider because of how much he criticized her goals during the Holy Grail War.
- She and Lancer gets along very well, due to how similar their personalities are, the way they believe in a Knight's honor and how they both carry the weight of their actions during their lives.
- She really gets along with Irisaviel von Einzbern, Kiritsugu's wife. In fact, one might think that she's Saber's Master instead of Kiritsugu, due to how much time the two spends together. Their scenes are usually filled with comedic scenes, and Irisaviel takes Saber's side during her argument with Kiritsugu in the latter half of the show.
- While they aren't seen togerther very often, Saber does seem to like Illyasviel von Einzbern, Kiritsugu's and Irisaviel's daughter, as she watches Kiritsugu play with her while staring out a window, and she's smiling pleasantly.
- "Ex-Calibuur!!!"
- Saber is an extremely noble and honorable individual. While she was King she felt personally responsible for the fate of her Kingdom, and after its downfall she felt like it was her fault, which led her to eventaully becoming a Servant.
- While many of her scenes do involve her being sad, she is balanced out with comedy scenes. Many of these scenes are with Irisaviel von Einzbern, and probably the best is when Irisaviel is driving a car for the first time.
Trivia
- Saber was originally supposed to be male when Kiniro Nasu was developing the original Fate/stay night visual novel, (the actual gender of King Arthur, which is Saber's true identity), and the protagonist was going to be female. It was going to be formatted like a reverse harem. However, he didn't think that a reverse harem would sell in a visual novel in 2004, so Saber was changed to female, and the protagonist to male.
- Saber is voiced by Ayako Kawasumi in every subbed appearance. In the dub, she's voiced by Kate Higgins in Fate/stay night TV 2006, Michelle Ruff in the Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works Movie from 2010, and Kari Whalgren in Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works TV, and the Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel Movies.
- Gen Urobuchi, the author of Fate/Zero, believes Saber's relationship with Shirou Emiya, the protagonist of Fate/stay night, doesn't seem like a realistic relationship between a male and a female, but a complicated relationship with a boy who became a girl. He further explains that it is not a relationship fueled by instinct like the relationship between a man and a woman, but a romance of logic between two people who need each other from the heart. He thinks the Fate route could have been told as a story through the ancient Greek views on love.
- She often ranks near the top of official popularity polls, and she ranked first out of the female characters during the TYPE-MOON Fes. tenth anniversary poll.
- In the Fourth character popularity poll in 2003, Saber was ranked 54th.
- In the first Popularity polls of Fate/stay night in 2004, Saber was ranked 1st.
- Tsuku Saber (Tiger Dojo) was ranked 53rd.
- In the second Popularity polls of Fate/stay night in 2006, Saber was ranked 1st.
- Hetare Saber was ranked 77th.
- In the Type-Moon's 10th Anniversary Character Poll, Saber from Fate/stay night was ranked 1st.
- Saber from Fate/Zero was ranked 119th.
- She has one of the most variations on her character in the entire Nasuverse. They are currently the following:
- Saber (Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero)
- Saber Alter, Saber Lily
- Saber Class Card, (Fate/kaleid liner prisma Illya),
- Lancer
- Lancer Alter
- Lion King
- MHX
- MHXX
- MHX Alter
- Master Artoria
- Artoria (Koha-Ace)
- Hana no Miyako
- Galactica Saber
- Saber Lion.
- Despite the Fate franchise starting off a Visual Novel, it is primarily known for its anime. Any association that the franchise has with its videogames has been overshadowed by that with anime. Because of this, Saber cannot qualify as a videogame character, and is considered an anime character instead due to Adaptation Displacement.
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