Rin is the only decent magus we see that actually follow the path of the magus.
Cause using of magecraft =/= magus. To be a magus you need to follow the path. It is a cultural thing.
Except that Rin isn't even close. HF is the most obvious example, but even in Fate and UBW she is
way too nice. The idea of backstabbing Shirou never even enters her mind, and the one time she tries to "kill" him she ends up saving his life about a minute later (and even then, if she succeeds she just takes his command spells).
I personally like Kiritsugu's philosophy the best. Kill the few to save the many. Sure you're miserable if you follow it the full way then you'll be miserable but it has a net total good done.
I don't.
On a side note Mike:
Well would you even like Sakura if the things in canon didn't happen to her? Her past basically crafted her characterization and even appearance so without the traumatc backstory which is what makes Sakura basically Sakura would you still like her as a character?
It depends. In general, yes, I probably would, because I think Sakura is a genuinely good person (as is Rin) and that would not generally change. But, I wouldn't like versions written by people who have a different opinion of her, or versions who have been massively altered. Having said that, I do sympathise with this version of Sakura, Zouken is at fault for how she is.
Oh right, Sakura does not have purple her for Zouken. Or at least compleatly, using the Matou magecraft is starting to turn it that color.
Ah, OK.
Well, Sakura's daughter has black hair, since that is Sakura's natural colour.
Going to be odd for Zouken to see a purple haired, kind, shy, non-magus Sakura.
Well, that's only half right. She's kind and purple-haired, yes, but she's not really that shy any more (this is 30 years later) and, whilst she's not a magus in the practical sense she is reasonably competent at magic (plus she has infinite prana, which helps). Not to the level of his Sakura, no, but she's not incompetent.
Going to probably talk to her for like a couple a seconds though a familiar before realizing it has something to do with parallel worlds and starts trying to piece together what made her so different.
Then he loses all interest and never purposefully talks to her again because boring worthless non-heir Sakura is not at all noteworthy except as a prana battery.
Well, she is noteworthy, but in different ways, and I do doubt he'd have that much interest in her. She would, however, be more interested in
him, although in a very negative way. He'd need to do a lot to convince her that the best option wasn't "exterminate on sight", and I doubt he could succeed given what he is like as a person.
Sure, but magi are assholes, so that is hardly much of a defence. All of the remotely decent magi are ones who don't really follow the path of a magus.
Uh, no, all the shit or not-particularly-great magi are the ones that don't follow the path of the Magus, while all the good ones are the ones that do.
Bad: Rin (even if she can someday, in decades, reach the top 100 in terms of power in the MA, that is less due to her own skill and more to her future tutelage under Zelretch), Sakura, Caules, Shirou
Good: Darnic, Kayneth, Lorelei, The Director, Zouken, etc.
I meant "decent" in terms of morality, not ability as a magus.
Also, Zouken is not a great magus. If he were he would not be a rotting pile of worms....
Ditto Kayneth, for that matter. He fails pretty damn hard at the whole "being a successful magus" thing when it comes to the Grail War. He pisses off his student to the point of losing his catalyst, and then fails miserably to deal with Kiritisugu effectively.
And, Rin is genuinely a good magus in terms of ability, she just lacks the mindset. Also, Zelretch never teaches her as far as I can tell. In HF he comes and finds a bunch of other people to teach and leaves her largely alone.
Nah Brah, Rin is the one exception.
She a really good magus cause she still focuses on development and mastery of magecraft. Also has massive potential.
She more of a hybrid, she follows the path of a magus but does not have the complete mindset for it. So she kinda a gray area.
Everything else is spot on though.
Having Zeltretch as a teacher also helps. She doesn't need to do dubious experiments and stuff because Zeltretch will just teach her anything she could learn personally.
I don't recall it being said that Zelretch teaches her, though. He oversees her somewhat, but he doesn't say anything to her. Plus, Rin experiments quite a bit from what I can tell, she is just more ethical about it than many magi would be (and, I don't get the impression that the average magus uses things like human experimentation too often anyway, secrecy would disappear pretty quick if they all did it).
