Kinoko Nasu’sFateseries is one of the most intricate modern fantasies out there, and like many modern takes on magic and sorcery, most of the fantasy is kept secret from the world. But especially inFate, the central conflict of which is the Holy Grail War, it seems pretty outrageous that anything that happens stays secret.
2004’sFate/Stay Nightfollows young Master Shirou Emiyaparticipating in the Fifth Holy Grail War in Fuyuki, Japan, where he and his Servant, Saber, fight for the chance to win the wish-granting Holy Grail. It’s a secret war, but all the Servants, Heroic Spirits across history and legend, are quite powerful figures with a knack for destruction.Fateis a series that relishes in large-scale magical fights with plenty of destruction, especially in Ufotable’s time bringing the Nasuverse to life. While watching, it can be easy to wonder how the public doesn’t suspect a thing after a long enough while, but the answer is actually pretty straightforward.
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The Supervision of The Grail War
As discussed in a previous article,the Holy Grail War didn’t start as a war, but rather as a meeting of powerful houses, the Einzberns, the Tohsakas, and the Makiri (later Matou). They wanted the power of the Holy Grail but found that it would only give one victor a wish, and so the convening of mages for the Grail would be made a war.
The problem was, it was a complete disaster and basically turned into a bloodbath with no victor, so when the Third Grail War happened, the mage families decided to get a mediator. But it couldn’t be another mage because of the conflict of interest, so instead, they turned to the Church, which could be trusted to be impartial.
In Nasu lore, the Church refers broadly to the Roman Catholic Church’s special agents that hunt heresy, be it monsters or anything that might stray from the word of god. Any time a priest is in a Nasu work of fiction,they are most likely a trained killer, and they definitely will have several knives on hand. Because they have a somewhat rocky relationship with the mages, they make serviceable supervisors.
InFate/ZeroandFate/Stay Night, it is a priest that offers asylum to Masters who have perhaps lost their Servants or any others that need protection during the war. They are also able to offer extra command seals from previous Grail Wars that were unused, as seen inFate/Zero. The priest acts as a mediator and referee to the war.
The Cover-Ups
Because the war is meant to be secret to the public, the Church has the responsibility of making sure that no one becomes aware of what is happening. The most common method is through the manipulation of witnesses' memories,akin to the Men in Black movies. However, they don’t act alone.
The Church handles peoples’ memories, but in the modern era, when information can spread like wildfire, more modern solutions are needed. The Mage’s Association does its part as well by doing the same thing the church does but through media coverage. When a Servant causes an explosion (or several), secrecy is one story about a gas leak away.
But there is also the matter of damages and how to account for them. Through the anime, the visual realization of the visual novel’s battles has been glorious but has also made the damages that much greater thanks to the enormous explosions. To deal with that, the Einzbern family fronts the bill.
And when worse comes to worst, there’s always the scorched earth method. InFate/Zero, after the inhabitants ofthe island where Kiritsugu grew upturned into Dead Apostles, the Mage’s Association and the Church showed up to clean up all traces of the incident, which meant killing the ghouls and any survivors.
Keeping the Kids In Line
With all the protections, it isn’t as though the Masters and Servants have a blank check to do whatever they want. There is still the matter of discretion and should things get out of hand, someone typically bears the blame, like Kirei Kotomine, though he had plenty of schemes he was up to besides.
A lack of discretion is what got Shirou involvedin the war when Archer and Lancer’s battle was spotted by him, as he was still at the school. Before Rin realized it was Shirou, she understood that he likely had to die to keep the war secret. And if a Master/Servant pair create too much unrest, the Supervisor may direct the members of the war to target the troublemakers.
After Caster’s string of child kidnappings and murders inFate/Zero, the Church put a halt to the war and directed everyone to go and prioritize killing Caster. As an incentive, the Church would grant the Master that killed Caster an additional Command Seal, the kind of offer that one doesn’t turn down.
Of course, the Holy Grail Wars are never simple, even with the rules, the supervision, the money backing, and the cover-ups. Regardless of the Church’s involvement, the Grail Wars are as wrought withbetrayals, trickery, and backstabbing as the Mage societyofFate/Stay Nightis normally, which is to say, a scary amount.
