Kiritsugu Emiy Unorthodox Cycle Of The Tragic Hero

Within the modern fantasy anime Fate/Zero, originally written and created by Gen Urobuchi, the audience is introduced to the epitome of the tragic hero Kiritsugu Emiya. In an archetypically-filled work, Kiritsugu Emiya goes through a unique and unorthodox Cycle of the Hero, be it by changing certain steps to suit his own needs or skipping them all together. In his quest to obtain the Holy Grail to rid the world of All the World’s Evil, he discovers that even the purest of dreams, such as ridding the world of evil or becoming a Hero of Justice, can be corrupted by the very methods used in order to obtain said dreams. Kiritsugu’s Call to Adventure came eight years before the start of the Fourth Holy Grail War portrayed in Fate/Zero in the form of a marriage proposal. Kiritsugu was born a mage and sole heir to the Emiya family line. However, he rejected the mage’s way of life after a devastating accident which wiped out the civilian population of the island he was living on and ended up with the death of his father by Kiritsugu’s own hand. He became known as the Mage Killer, a mercenary specializing in the killing of mages from across the globe with the use of modern day
As the destructive fire raged from the destroyed Grail, Kiritsugu wandered the wreckage in search of survivors. Having lost all hope in himself and his ideals, he wanders the ruins in the hope of finding someone he can actually save for once in his life. When all hope is lost, he finds a young boy named Shirou, who is on the brink of death. This gives Kiritsugu the opportunity to prove to himself that everything he did was not for naught and that he can redeem himself by saving this one person when he failed to save so many innocent people. From the bottom of his heart, and for the first time in many years, Kiritsugu feels joy and repeatedly thanks Shirou for saving him. By saving Shirou, Kiritsugu is saved as