The Hidden Tragedy of Illya – An Analysis (I)

What’s the deal with Illya? Why does she keep randomly appearing in the shopping district? What are her true feelings about Kiritsugu? Does she really want to kill Shirou? And most importantly, why is she so cute? At least some of these questions will be answered today!

previous writing

In both routes, Shirou meets Illya at the shopping district (or the park near it), several times in the earlier parts of the story. The first scene in the sequence actually has the same name in both routes: The Daughter of Winter – Illya (I). This initial relationship leads to Illya living at Shirou’s house in the latter half of both of those routes, after Berserker is defeated.

On the other hand, in UBW these meetings never happen, and Illya never ends up living at Shirou’s house because . . . you know. Fuck Gilgamesh.

Given my general obsession with comparing things, we’re going to get into the exact details of the similarities and differences between these scenes, but first I want to take a look at their overall placement in the story. The first Illya scene in Fate takes place on Day 7, when Shirou goes out to buy supplies because Saber hungry.

The first Illya scene in HF, on the other hand, takes place on Day 5, due to Shirou going out to buy supplies in preparation for Sakura staying over at his house.

Shirou doesn’t go out to buy food on day 5 in Fate because Rin is the one cooking that night, and she specifically told him to go straight home after school. This doesn’t happen in HF since he doesn’t initially ally with Rin.

In UBW, he doesn’t go buy food on day 5 because he gets into a fight with Rin that afternoon after school, followed by getting into a fight with Rider, and then going to Rin’s place. He also doesn’t go buy food on day 7 because they’re in the middle of dealing with Shinji, something that happens at different time depending on the route.

All this to show that even the minor changes in plot between routes have some thought put into them and seem to flow naturally from Shirou’s initial decisions.

. . . Except, there’s one thing I realised as I was writing this. That just explains Shirou’s decisions. How come Illya appears on different days depending on the route? The first encounter with her goes the same way in both Fate and HF, so there shouldn’t be a reason for her actions to change.

Options

• Illya is using magic to observe/track Shirou and changes her plans based on whether he goes or not.

It might be initially appealing, but this doesn’t make sense. It takes hours to get from the Einzbern castle to the shopping district. The time lag would prevent Illya from being able to effectively respond to Shirou’s decisions, which aren’t planned that far in advance.

• Nasu is lazy and just decided that it would work like that.

Nothing much to say here. It’s obviously possible, but leaving this as the conclusion feels lazy on my part, as well.

• Illya goes to the shopping district and waits for Shirou every day.

Well, not necessarily every day, but at least 5 and 7, probably 6, maybe even 4, and potentially more if she still hasn’t met Shirou by that point as in UBW. I think this is the most reasonable conclusion for a few reasons.

Firstly, even if the days of the meetings didn’t vary by route, it would still be a coincidence for Illya to show up just on the day that Shirou happened to go shopping. The only realistic way for Illya to meet Shirou (and yes, she is explicitly going to the shopping district with the intent of trying to meet Shirou) is if she just repeatedly wanders around places that he might go to. I mean, she doesn’t know where his house is, right?

Illya is also seen waiting for Shirou without any expectation of him being there in both Fate and HF. The second meeting in Fate is by chance, with Illya waiting in the park in case he shows up. The same occurs in HF, with Illya not thinking Shirou would show up. What’s to say she isn’t doing the same on other days?

And besides, Illya has the motivation to go into Fuyuki besides just meeting Shirou, as she enjoys sneaking away from the maids and going outside. What else does she even have to do during the daytime?

Like, I initially thought this line where Illya mentions how long she’s been waiting to talk to Shirou is in reference to the years in between being told he exists and actually meeting him, but now I’m pretty sure it’s just in reference to her waiting for hours in the shopping district.

But hey, that’s just a theory. A game theory!

Seriously, though, after thinking about it a bit I don’t really know if I can call it a theory. Illya spending a lot of time alone isn’t exactly a hidden feature of the text. It’s just that these scenes are crafted to give one the impression that the world rotates around Shirou. An important character shows up to talk with him the moment he has some free time, and his later choices over whether or not to go to the park feels as though you, the player, are manifesting Illya into existence with the push of a button.

All of that means you rarely think about what this involves, in practice, and it’s a sobering realisation: Illya shows up, whether you are there or not.

First Meeting

The flow of their initial meeting is very similar, with Illya and Shirou learning each other’s names, Shirou realising that Illya just wants to talk to him, and then going to the park.

The primary difference, however, is that in the Fate version, Shirou is coerced into going along with her because he thinks she’ll attack if he doesn’t. In Heaven’s Feel, Illya lets Shirou make the decision, and he talks with her because he wants to.

This difference arises because in Fate, Shirou is rougher with pushing Illya off him, leading to her being much scarier in response. And this of course all ultimately stems from the fact that Shirou shows more consideration to Illya in Heaven’s Feel, being much less concerned with the fact that she’s an enemy Master.

Look at the leadup to Shirou shoving Illya in Fate. He emphasises that they’ve already fought, and notes how casually she speaks of violence towards others. After shoving her away, he immediately wonders why he did it. It was clearly unjustified – Illya wasn’t attacking him, and at least physically he’s far stronger than her, so there’s no need to use that much force.

But at the same time, it’s pretty obvious why he does, right? She was directly responsible for getting him basically chopped in half, what, three days ago? And here she is coming into a place that he thought would be safe, reminding him, however unintentionally, that it is not, forcing him to suddenly be concerned not only for himself but all the people in the shopping district, violating his personal space, and then talking like she doesn’t give a shit about any of it.

We talk about Shirou’s trauma from the fire a lot, but I think it’s worth recognising that his introduction to the Holy Grail War, where he gets fatally wounded like three times in the first day, is plenty trauma-inducing itself. It’s not uncommon for the protagonist to be surprisingly calm about the terrifying new world they’re thrust into, but here I think Nasu is intentionally deconstructing the trope. Shirou is surprisingly calm, but it’s because he’s already accustomed to death as a result of the fire. The fact that he still gets jumpy and stressed on occasion like this is just a testament to Nasu being subtle about it.

In any case, Heaven’s Feel takes a different route, with Shirou and Illya’s initial interactions being less fraught. This is of course the main and most obvious difference between their interactions in the two routes in general, as Shirou and Illya get into an argument on their second meeting in Fate, culminating with Illya’s kidnapping of Shirou, while in HF they grow closer by the end of things.

But there are some interesting kinks to this. For one thing, their first conversation in Fate still manages to be a really good scene, despite the ‘strangely tense atmosphere’ which isn’t present in the HF counterpart. Illya snuggling close to Shirou and eating the dora-yaki is cute, Illya talking about how she was never allowed outside the castle is sad, and the two of them sharing what they received from their parents just makes me really happy.

However, in HF, a lot of the conversation is skipped over, and instead the main content of the scene is Shirou and Illya getting angry at each other.

So, it turns out that just because Shirou feels more sympathetic towards Illya in this route, it doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the whole ‘getting chopped in half’ thing.

However, this outburst coming later in the interaction changes something interesting about how Illya acts. The thing that prompted it was Illya asking Shirou whether he liked her, which is the same question that Illya asks after Shirou shoves her in Fate. However, the delivery is very different.

Heaven’s Feel: unprompted, embarrassed, clearly cares a lot about the answer.

Fate: plausibly in response to Shirou doing something that indicates he might not like her, said in a direct and threatening tone, doesn’t even seem to expect an answer.

Now, if you remember my last Illya post, you’ll know I concluded this persona of Illya is a defense mechanism against painful situations. With the addition of the information from Heaven’s Feel, it becomes clear that whether or not Shirou likes her is actually something she really wanted to know, but when he hurt her feelings by pushing her, she retreated emotionally and was unable to ask in a genuine way as she does in Heaven’s Feel, even when they started getting along better later in the conversation.

Types of Smiles

The other thing you’ll remember is that this shift in persona is indicated through Illya’s facial expressions. Well, I’m pleased to announce that in HF we unlock new types of Illya faces! By which I mean that these expressions are primarily used in HF. If anyone has some examples of them being used earlier, please let me know, by the way.

Firstly, there are some variants of the ‘default face’. On its own that’s interesting. The default face, in Illya’s case, is used to show an unusual lack of emotion on her part (as opposed to other characters’ default faces, which tend to just be neutral). However, now we have some happy versions, so perhaps these are supposed to be viewed as more natural expressions of emotion for Illya.

Notice how it replaces the smile that was used when she first sees Shirou in Fate. It communicates a more reserved fondness than her usual smile, but at the same time there’s a greater sense of familiarity that makes it really stand out in certain contexts. For example, the one time I know of it being used in the Fate route.

It’s like a hint that there’s more going on with her than we haven’t learnt about yet – that is, until it’s immediately dismissed as a joke. In the context of that scene it is used as a joke, with all the characters surprised that Illya would chill out and display an appropriate amount of politeness to Shirou now that he’s welcomed her into his house, only for her to immediately tackle him. However, the idea that Illya would conceal her true feelings by acting like a kid is not exactly implausible, as we’ll see in a bit.

We also get some new Illya expressions that look directly forward, to go with the threatening ones that we’re already familiar with. I feel comfortable grouping them all together, because while the emotions portrayed are quite disparate, the directness of them all contributes to making them feel more deliberate than Illya’s other expressions. Here, Illya deliberately tries to scare the shit out of Shirou. Here, though, the smile is used to try and cheer Shirou up. This sad-looking one, on the other hand, is used when Illya is making an effort to communicate something emotional.

Taken altogether, I think these new expressions all contribute to making Illya feel more mature, especially when she acts more like an older sister to Shirou.

Shopping

With that in mind, I think it’s time to look at some of the HF-specific Illya scenes – in particular, the times when Shirou takes Illya shopping. And yes, that’s ‘times’ plural, Die Lorelei isn’t the only Illya scene in the entire VN. I dunno, I’m just assuming that a lot of people will have missed the first time, since Nasu in his infinite wisdom gated it behind a multiple-choice question. But we’ll start with Lorelei.

It begins with a lot of focus on Illya running around and enjoying herself. Then we get to the part where they walk home. Illya starts singing, and while Shirou initially assumes she’s happy, he then speculates the actual reason she makes a habit of singing while walking home is to distract herself from her loneliness. Having made that connection, he then extrapolates that the only reason Illya is able to have fun like this is because she’s suppressing her emotions. Note that the thing Illya is avoiding discussion of is basically how screwed she and Shirou are at this point, between her being a homunculus and Shirou having to deal with Archer’s arm.

But the underlying behaviour here, of disguising her true feelings by acting happy, is one that’s core to Illya as a character, as the earlier scene of Shirou and Illya going shopping makes clearer.

This one is Illya and Shirou’s third meeting, back when we’re still in the paradigm of Shirou randomly encountering her at the park. Except Shirou totally misses her, she gets mad, and to make it up to her, Shirou has to . . . choose one of two options! (The third is to just not, which is -1 Illya affection point, I guess. Don’t choose that one.)

This is the option where Shirou decides to let Illya make him do whatever she wants, and she chooses the surprisingly trivial option of going shopping with him. She asks for an ‘everyday event’. I think this phrasing is important, because it’s ‘everyday’ for Shirou, but not for Illya. She asks to do something normal that you might do with a family member, because she hasn’t had anyone that she could do it with for the past 10 years.

So, she acts happy and Shirou, again, initially thinks this is normal. It’s normal for her to be having a good time. But it’s not. This is a special, out of the ordinary event for Illya. She’s trying her best to make the most of it, and not make Shirou feel bad about it. Because, in the end, she accepts that she can’t have this permanently.

She ‘yearns for ordinary life’ more than Shirou, but ‘casts away her wishes far more readily’. Here, it’s accepting that she and Shirou are enemy Masters. In Lorelei, it’s that they can’t both survive. In both, Illya sees the possibility of a life she could have and chooses to give up on it to make things easier for the people around her.

I started with the theory that at the beginning of the story, Illya waits for hours every day in order to eventually see Shirou.

I think the saddest part is that Illya just acts like it’s normal. Part of the reason why we might not consider whether she’s there on other days is because she doesn’t mention it. She has a fun time meeting Shirou and doesn’t really complain about how long it took or how cold she was. To some extent that makes sense – just based on info from the Fate route, we can see that Illya was treated poorly by the Einzberns and doesn’t really know what a normal life is like.

But in Heaven’s Feel we see Illya understanding what she’s missing out on and choosing to let it go anyway. She says the most heartbreaking things with a smile because she doesn’t want Shirou to be concerned.

That’s the hidden tragedy of Illya – why would we think her smiling face is only an attempt to conceal her true emotions in one or two scenes? All the other times that Shirou comments on how cute and innocent she is can’t really be considered more accurate than this just because he hasn’t made the followup realisation yet.

I don’t mean to say that Illya is secretly depressed in every scene – she’s clearly having a good time after the end of the Fate route, for example. It’s just that now we have to read that in the context of her knowing that she’s going to die soon and simply not telling anyone because she thinks it will make things worse.

And I think I’m going to stop there before I start crying.

Okay, so I ended up not mentioning Kiritsugu at all. Well, this is marked part (I) for a reason. I might hold off on (II) until I get up to Illya’s final scene, though. Or maybe that’s (III). In any case, the subject of the next post is either More Illya or Nine Lives Blade Works, depending on how I feel when I finish reading Heaven’s Feel.