Hotel 1969 App

[untilavalon]

Mun
Name/Nickname: Luciano/Luc
Age: 20
Dreamwidth Username: pocketprince
Contact: colibriprince @aim
Current Characters in Game: N/A

Character
Character Name: Arturia Pendragon, Saber Class
Canon: Fate/Zero
Age: Appears around late teens but is around 23; does not age physically
Appearance: Suit Armor
Canon Point: Post Series, plus Ruby City development
How will your character react to the initial night period?: Saber is, first and foremost, a knight and king. As a result, she will not very easily fear the darkness itself so much as she will fear what damage the night period could do to the people in the hotel. Coming straight out of an event where she had done her best to protect people from the effects of a mock grail war, she will be focused on defending whomever she may come across.
History: Type-Moon Wiki
AU History:

While some of the CR from another game is unaccounted for on this chart, Saber's Ruby City CR chart is here.

In the confines of the city, Saber has had quite a lot of time to develop. In the very beginning she received a shock to her system when an older Waver, now Lord El-Melloi II, told her of the final fate of the Holy Grail; it was cursed, and because every wish made on it would cause nothing but disaster, Waver and his companions had dismantled it. Since then, Saber has been forced to learn to live for herself a little instead of for a wish. She has not quite yet grasped the entirety of the need and is still self-sacrificing, but is slowly learning that her rule was not altogether a failure or a mistake.

She has become close to a castmate, Kariya Matou, who is from a time before the grail war in Fate/Zero. They are very close friends, and Kariya has opened her heart up to enjoying herself more. So too has Waver, who Saber regards as a valued colleague. Integra Hellsing, who re-established the Hellsing corps in the city, is also a close friend of Saber's. She even met her country itself in the form of Hetalia's England, who assured her that though her rule may not have been what she desired, she was a treasured King. They, along with the Lancer of another war (Cuchulainn) and a number of the city's children have helped to soften Saber's heart. Duty and honour still take precedence, of course, but slowly Saber is learning to feel less like a pit of grief and guilt. She's barely changed physically, but summer in the city has left her complexion freckled.

Notable events in the city in which Saber has participated include one where hers and Kariya's powers were swapped for about a week, as well as one during which the city's defense was compromised. Saber provided defensive aid during this event. Kirei Kotomine and other dubious members of Saber's cast have also interacted with her during her time in the city and she considers them enemies. Just prior to the last event, Saber and Kariya go on an adventure and encounter the world's Fire Lizards and impress them. The final event that Saber will complete before her entry into the Hotel will be a mock Grail War event (for which the grail is useless and actually does not grant wishes), during which Saber has to act as master to a designated servant. During this event, Saber takes initiative as leader and with the assistance of Waver, Integra, and those allied with Integra, aims to break apart the grail as Waver suggests. She is very protective over a young boy, Adam (from Good Omens), who is forced to be a master during this event as well.

In addition, she has met with her 'son', Mordred, and arranged a pact; she will acknowledge Mordred as her child in exchange for Mordred's loyalty as knight. Saber herself is beginning to doubt her goals more and more, and relearning her place as a Heroic Spirit.

Personality:

It is important to note that this personality section accounts for Arturia's behavior prior to entering the city. The differences in her behaviour are discussed in the AU history portion.

To understand Arturia Pendragon truly, one must bear in mind that above all, Arturia is King (though it is notable that there exist differences in her character in /Zero and /Stay Night due to different writers). From the day she was born she understood that to become king was indeed her destiny and accepted it with grace; unfortunately, she also accepted and never questioned a fair number of ideals that would lead to her fall. Rather than be raised by her father, Uther Pendragon, Arturia was raised as a squire by Sir Ector alongside foster brother Kay. Disregarding her sex, which Uthur had believed to be the reason she could not be raised as heir, Arturia was taught to be a knight and Merlin himself knew that the signs pointed to Arturia’s becoming king-- the king Britain had been promised. Arturia would eventually choose to pull the sword from the stone despite Merlin’s warnings that her life would never be the same; she knew that to be the king was her destiny no matter her sex and she would do all in her power to be the king that Britain then needed.

Her response to gender as a king can very easily be interpreted as Arthur accepting alternate gender roles (such as the idea of Knight or king as a gender role), or even shedding roles to be king. Without outright objecting to her female physical form or believing it to be of any detriment, Arturia adopted the masculine role of king and became so in spirit, ‘posing’ as male during her rule. She believed that, were she a good king, her people would be loyal to her no matter if they thought her to be the male king Arthur or the female king known by the same name. Arturia, then, is used to being referred to both as male or female and will not make grand efforts to change the perception of others. Her concentration is on the respect they give her as King. At the end of Arturia's canon she seems to prefer masculine clothing, is rather androgynous due to physical age, and has an androgynous vocal quality as she stopped ageing at the time she pulled Caliburn from the stone. She is uncomfortable in /Zero with people treating her as one would traditionally a girl, likely because she was raised as a squire and king and is not used to such actions. The fact that so many react as though she is a joke (or other bad reactions; see the next paragraph) once they learn that King Arthur’s biological sex was female bothers her intensely. She is not afraid to resort to harsh words and actions to prove her worth as king, as seen when she challenges Alexander when he gleefully exclaims “who would have thought that the king of knights was a little girl?”

Notable to this tie in is her master Kiritsugu's reaction to her sex; he distances himself from her at first and has an unrevealed reaction that Arturia seems to think is disrespectful. Irisviel explains that Kiritsugu doesn't believe that it is fair for a 'young girl' to have been forced into the position of king, but Arturia responds that she was not forced. She chose to draw the sword from the stone, believing it to be her destiny. Later, in Fate/Stay Night, she tells the protagonist that her existence as male or female did not matter; only her duty as king. Both events help to show that Arturia barely believes herself human; her response to Merlin before pulling the sword from the stone only helps to solidify it. He warns her that upon drawing Caliburn from the stone, she will no longer be human, and Arturia assures him she has been prepared for this fact her whole life.

During Arturia's stay as Uthur's son, only Merlin, the king, and her adoptive brother Kay were aware of her identity. Though she covered herself in steel to protect this idea, those who knew the king's son blamed the youth in her face on the protection of the fairies and the immortality brought to her from the sword. She was honoured as an immortal and mighty warrior, ruled better than any other king of her people, and all of her decisions were considered correct. She threw herself into the idea that a king must not be human, however, and showed no grief or emotion-- this would be what drove her people from her.

They began to believe that a king who was not human could not rule over humans, and some left her and betrayed her. One of her own knights even believed that "King Arthur does not understand human feelings" and many knights left Camelot because of this. However, engrossed in her role, there was no right or wrong to the King; if they left her, feared her, or abandoned her, it was trivial. Her own feelings did not matter; as something not human, those feelings shouldn't have existed. All that mattered was the good of Britannia. Still, she won a brief period of peace for her country until her death, when she bargained with the Throne of Heroes for the chance to win the grail.

“King of Knights” seems to be the favoured title of Arturia in Fate/Zero, and she certainly does take her role as king very seriously. Alexander the Great says of her:

"You saved them, but you never led them. You never showed them what a king should be. You abandoned your men when they lost their way. Then, alone and untroubled, you followed your own petty little ideals. Thus, you are no true king. You are only a little girl, enraptured by a false idol of the king who serves others, but not themselves."

His assessment of her is not far from the truth. Though she has a heart dedicated to Britannia and the people, her ideals keep her from being the king she could have been. She expects people to act honourably and seems disappointed when they don’t, as though no cynicism has had the common sense to enter her mind. She believes in chivalry and honour and seems not to understand that such ideals are not the top of everyone’s agenda. Arturia abandons herself as a human when she becomes king and takes on the persona in full, but does not truly understand that she must both serve and be served as king. She does not understand that the King cannot rule as something not human, nor can they rule alone; she even tells Alexander that the king must be alone, and it is clear she believes this. The selflessness she shows becomes selfish; rather than work for a real Britannia, she worked only toward an ideal one-- one that could never be. This, along with distrust among the Knights of the Round Table, only contributed to their fall, a mistake Arturia believes herself responsible for fixing and at complete fault for. She can be and often is a machine of her own guilt.

On a lighter note, Arturia’s personality isn’t entirely insufferably chivalric. She tends not to get the sexual implications of jokes, but can sometimes poke fun at her peers. She had a very close friendship with Lancelot as well as her foster-brother Kay. In /Stay Night it appears that she loosens up on the tightness of her emotions, following the pattern implied by her grieving after killing Berserker in /Zero; this means it is logical for her to develop to become more expressive, though she has not yet reached it at her canon point. For someone so kingly she can be surprisingly sassy at times as well, but is usually genuine in her intentions and optimism. There are also a number of things she likes, so it isn’t as though her dedication to kinghood left her devoid of personality, and food is definitely one of Arturia’s favourite things. She has an absolutely voracious appetite and a seemingly infallible metabolism, likely one of the effects of Caliburn's magic.

In canon Arturia is usually referred to by her fighting class, “saber” (referring to her position as swordsman) to protect her identity, as identities can be used in battles during the Holy Grail War to reveal weapons as well as any fallibilities. She is likely to avoid using her real name at first in Ruby City (and will likely use earlier translations of the name) as she won’t know the status of the Grail War and does not expect most to know all translations of the name of the legend.

In the beginning of her stay in Ruby City, Arthur will be dealing with the final events of the Fourth Grail War. It is revealed to Arturia that the servant summoned to be driven mad, Berserker, is actually Arturia's dearest friend Lancelot. After she defeats him he explains that he went mad because though Arturia knew of his affair with Gwenivere, she never raised a hand to punish him:

"Because I could not stop myself from loving Gwenivere, I was unable to forgive myself. But King Arthur, you never so much as questioned me or sought recompense. You simply stood before us in your righteousness. But I wished for judgement at your hand. Had your anger punished me, I might not have fallen into madness in my quest for atonement."

He continues on to tell her that though this occurred, he could say with certainty that Arturia was the greatest of kings. This statement does not stay with her; she still feels the need to fight for the grail and fix the mistakes she has made. When her master orders her to destroy the grail, she is unable to do so, instead perishing before the grail is destroyed. As she delivers the attack of her Noble Phantasm, she states

"What could [my master] have learned about me from issuing a mere three orders? After all, I never even knew my closest companions. Perhaps this is my punishment for being the king who could not understand the feelings of others."

And upon Arturia's return to her place at the lost battlefield at Camlenn, she weeps heavily for her loss and believes herself unworthy, stating that she was never meant to become king. This is where Arturia's canonpoint will be taken, at a time when she is beyond recompense herself and believes herself to be unworthy. She still believes she must redeem herself for the sake of her people and fight for the grail.

It's a shame for her, honestly, as she is not completely to blame. Lancelot says of her again in a post-death short,

"One of the knights left the castle for good, saying the king did not understand how others felt. I believe those words were what triggered my madness. Who was the one unable to understand? Did he not know she loved her people until the end, even as it isolated her people in Camelot? Who really was the one who nobody loved, from beginning to end?"

In this and a prior assessment from Arturia's dearest companion we learn that though as King Arthur she struggled to understand the feelings of others, she loved her people regardless of any fault and to the point it isolated her. She wished only to be the perfect king for them, but in her drive to do so, lost sight of what was needed; not solely to lead, but to understand. In her selflessness she lost herself, becoming less than human and more of a tool, doing all she could for everyone else and taking nothing for herself. This brings about her isolated end at Camlann, and a selflessness that becomes selfishness at the end of the fourth grail war. By forfeiting any blame from any of her people and taking it all upon herself, she incites the almost frenzied pain she experiences after losing the grail war.

Abilities:

Saber has a grand number of abilities that can sometimes be hard to explain due to the nature of magic in the Nasuverse. Her official abilities list (with explanations) can be found here.

Samples
First Person: During Ruby City's Grail War event.
Third Person:

None of it really made any sense. Saber had never stopped to consider that perhaps Ruby City was not the only strange, world-pulling place out there. She couldn't even be sure if the existence of this bizarre hotel was a part of Ruby City's magic itself, or if it existed completely separately. She'd supposed the second; after all, Kariya and Waver were not present. How could it be that so many people she'd never met in the city were there, and those two were not?

If she could, the first thing she'd do was tell Waver that yes, other such places existed. Since she couldn't, however, Arturia was forced to take her first few days simply wandering around, observing the grand hotel and its bustling activity. But after her exploration, she found herself returning to her room, closing the blinds to get some rest in a desert where the sun showed no signs of setting. As she lay on the bed, she found herself deeply troubled.

So many people seemed absorbed in-- and perhaps deluded by-- the overly kind guests. Arturia herself could not see the virtue in such self-indulgence. Was no one else worried that this was not a trick? If anything, the more enjoyable everything seemed, the more worried Arturia became.

Such a place could not be, and to fall into such a trap would be folly. She would have to find like-minded allies and prepare for the moment this hotel showed its true colours. Straightening up, she fixed the buttons of her shirt, dusted off her trousers, and straightened her folded-up sleeves.

"Make connections," Waver had advised her, and make connections she would.