GeneralJ posted:
I was actually referring to Muramasa (only available on JP for now):
Because I don't actually consider Emiya and Shirou as the same person (even though they technically are). But fair enough, the same can be said for Muramasa and Ishtar (because OF COURSE the goddess of love would use Rin's body)
Oh. I didn't know he become vessel for servant in JP already. Since I don't bother to check it, my friend always tell me about news for JP, so I guess he didn't see it yet xD But yea, I agree. I don't consider Shirou and Archer the same people, but they technically are. In fact I despite Shirou and love Archer. Their personality (and Archer looking way more cooler) is all the difference.
Parnifia the Bastard posted:
Don't forget Saber Extra. Even if she isn't the same person, the fact that she's still called "Saber" only serves to further confuse newcomers...
That is actually whole other can of worms. I was talking strictly only about different versions of Artoria Pendragon (majority that comes from FGO). The whole usage of class names used to make perfect sense, but now with the amount of games etc. it got so convoluted, even image sites like boorus stopped using their "titles" and finally switched to just their names, since it is just much easier. So short history lesson on the subject:
Originally you got 1 Fate game, Fate/Stay Night portraying a Holy Grail War between 7 mages called Masters. Every one of them uses the power of Grail to summon a Servant, someone from history, myths or legends (which means, it is mostly heroes from myths and legends), who fit the criteria of becoming a Heroic Spirit. Winner of the war gets to make wish upon a holy grail, all that good stuff. So because you are using "existing" people, everyone who knows about their story, will know about their abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Basically knowledge is power.
There is 7 classes servants can be summoned in and you get to summon only one of each during 1 grail. So you got Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin and Berserker. So because reveling your servant's true name will give your enemy big advantage, you try to refer to them by their class instead. The same goes for servants battling each other. From the lack of names, they usually end up simply calling each other by their class. Sure knowing class is also important, but it isn't nearly as important as knowing your opponent legend and what they are capable of, so it is a small trade off. Identities of all the servants are left mysterious at the beginning. Learning who they are through the story is also part of the game. So that means outside of the game people usually used class as well in order to avoid spoiling it for other people. Because of that the original 7 servants basically become know by their classes. Especially Seiba (Saber), which I don't think is ever properly called by her name (though I only watched first shitty anime adaptation and never played game) and Archer, in whose (?) case calling him like that is especially helpful, since he is Shirou from the future, so you usually would end up adding Archer to his name anyway. The point is, originally calling them by their classes names made sense and was easy, because you only got 7 servants.
But then you got Fate/Extra, adding new Red Saber or Saber Extra along with one more new Saber, as well as Archer, 2 Casters, Lancer, 2 Berserkers, Rider and Assassin. So they are all Extra, servants. And of course you got sequels Fate/Extra CCC and Fate/Extella which again add even more servants.
Then you got Fate/Zero introducing next 6 new servants (since they reuse Seiba)
Then you get freaking Fate/Apocrypha that introduce next 2 sets of 7 classes with 2 Ruler classes on top of it. They are divided in 2 groups named Red group and Black group, so depending on which side given servant is they are called "Saber of Black" or "Saber of Red" (to not confuse with Red Saber aka Saber Extra).
And that is probably not all. I'm sure I'm missing some other games, visual novels etc.
And then you get Fate/Grand Order that not only tries to allow you to summon all of servants mentioned above on top of that they add at least 50+ new servants to it.
So yea, protecting being spoiled is important, but at this point I'd say trying to stick to that convoluted mess while doing it is just not worth it. And as Parnifia the Bastard, for someone new, understanding all of this is pretty much impossible. I have hard time tracking all of this and I'm somewhat fan of a franchise. So if you want to have easier time in understanding it and have character tagged with their actual names, go and pester Drpepperfan about changing them.