A New Pact - Rin Tohsaka and Saber (Arturia Pendragon aka King Arthur)
The first time I watched this scene, I had a frisson of ‘this is the way it should have been from the start!’.
Nasu has gone on record to say that Rin and Saber would’ve been an awesome partnership and they would have been the most likely Master and Servant partnership in the Holy Grail War*
In the Fate series, Mages fight in a long drawn out war to achieve the mythical Holy Grail, fighting with legendary Heroic Spirits from across time. The Mages are called Masters and the Heroic Spirits are called Servants. The Masters provide the energy (Mana) for the Servants to both function and exist, without it the Servants will fade away.
In this scene, an enemy Servant depleted Saber’s Mana and so all she could do was watch Shirou Emiya, her former master battle with someone vastly superior to him in combat, experience, and magic.
And this is what makes this so cool Archer (the man in the red coat) forgets all about Rin (his former Master whom he betrayed to pursue his own goals) and Rin realizes that both she and Saber are Servant and Master-less.
And so Rin forges a new contract with Saber and it is amazing. Saber’s been hampered by Shirou’s inability to properly provide Saber with Mana and has been fighting less than optimally. Meanwhile, Rin who really wanted a Saber-class Servant from the start is not only magically gifted but has enough Mana to spare.
Honestly, Saber and Rin are so well matched its a pity we don’t see more of them together.
This had me shook
