UBW Part 2
Anyway, the first quarter of the circle is the setup, and both characters hit each point pretty well.
Shirou is the prototypical hero who is going about his everyday life in mediocrity, wanting more than he has and with great aspirations.
Archer's "ordinary world" is odd, though, in that it's not our ordinary world. The ordinary for him is extraordinary, but nonetheless he's called upon and ends up catapulted into something even more out there. However, he's still unhappy with how his life is and is looking to change it. That's an important point-- almost every Hero starts unhappy with their situation.
For Shirou, this would be the summoning of Saber and getting thrown headfirst into the Grail War.
For Archer, it's much more literal-- he is "called" by the Grail, summoned, and pulled into the War.
Shirou is overwhelmed by everything and doesn't want to participate in a murder game.
Archer tells Rin to GTFO and that he won't listen to anything she says or does.
The mentor for both characters, interestingly, is Rin. It does kind of make sense that they'd have the same mentor in that they're technically the same person. Her advice and approach to life is what they both need to hear because their past is the same one, so she's the guidance they get through their ordeals.
The Hero concedes to partaking in the adventure. Shirou decides to participate in the War to prevent another tragedy, and Archer gains respect for Rin and agrees to work with her.
The first arc gets the story started, and the second arc is, suitably, the rising action. You get 6. Tests, Allies, Enemies, all of which 7. Approach and build to the climax.
Worth noting is that whoever wrote this wasn't paying attention. The Rebirth should happen later in the cycle, and just the Death happens here. And, indeed, the Resurrection is a point that comes up later. Not sure what they were thinking, but like I said, this is the best visual representation I found.
The climax-- the Ordeal-- of UBW is obvious; it's the battle between Archer and Shirou.
The Death, though is where things start to break down for Shirou, which kind of makes sense with my complaints about his character arc-- this is where something big happens to a character, so big that it could even be a metaphorical "death and rebirth," and that leads into the second half of the cycle, which is the learning from the Big Thing and bringing that knowledge back home.
But Shirou doesn't really have a death-- I'd say he has more a second refusal. To have a Death is to lose something of who you were before and gain something new, but Shirou ends the story very much the same person he begins as. Shirou doesn't lose anything in this fight. Sure, what he believes is challenged, but he doesn't really even seem to consider the challenge so much as brace against it and refuse to acknowledge it. It's like he reaches the top of the arc and just kind of evens out, but it's called a character arc and not a character linear relationship precisely because the character is expected to lose something and grow from it and end up in a different place, not the same one but better.
Now, there's the obvious caveat here that the intent in Fate as a whole was to have Shirou grow over the three arcs, and I think there's a degree to which is this a valid counterargument, but I also think the stories should really be able to stand on their own. I think this one can, but Shirou's non-arc is the biggest strike against it as a standalone story (that I think gets solved by shifting the protago-focus to Archer).
Speaking of Archer. Often, particularly in classical literature, the "death" is accomplished metaphorically via a trip to the underworld. It can also just be the "lowest" point in the story for a character, the one in which they completely despair or come near giving up. Often the mentor character will show up to offer guidance and pull them out of the hole.
Obviously there's no way to know if this was intentional, but that's why it was so interesting to me that Archer's lowest point-- where he's threatening and abandoning Rin, who he cares deeply about-- also takes place in a basement, the lowest physical point, and occurs right before an actual "death." It's hard to chalk up to coincidence, and I have enough faith in Nasu that I'm willing to say it was on purpose. Nonetheless, this is exactly what the lowest point on the cycle is supposed to look like: despair, regression, the underworld, and death.
Archer's defeat at the hands of Shirou, the smashing of his worldview and everything he was fighting for, and his being presumed dead at the end come to together to create basically the ideal encapsulation for what this point in the Journey should look like.
When a Hero sets off on a quest, they're usually out to accomplish something. Almost always, the Hero brings something back. Sometimes, it's a literal elixir; maybe they're trying to save someone at home. Sometimes it's a literal sword, as Saber would know. Very often, though, it's not a tangible reward, but knowledge and answers that change the way the Hero's world works.
What does Shirou bring back? I don't know. Reaffirmation of his goals? That's not what's meant here; the reward is specifically something that inspires change and the hero didn't have before. A relationship with Rin and the support he needs? You could kind of swing that, I guess, but it doesn't really work. While the Hero very often Gets the Girl, she herself is almost always a bonus prize and not the actual reward (except in instances where her rescue was the goal, and that's not the case here).
I think the biggest thing Shirou potentially gets from the whole experience is in fact Rin's support and the chance to not lose himself in pursuit of his ideal, but it's more something he's given and not really something he actively brings back himself, as he doesn't seem to realize he needs it. Archer tells Rin to take care of him, but not Shirou to take care of himself, and I think that matters: the Hero's boon has to be something they earn and strive for, and that's just not true of Rin's support. All Shirou strives for is something he already has, and that's the complete antithesis of a Journey.
What Archer brings back, as we learn in the final epilogue, is an Answer. A beautiful one, the refinding of himself. The remembrance of why he set out in the first place. And at the end of the day, a thing that saves his world, even though the world is just himself. This is the essence of he hero's Reward: something they could only have accomplished by going through the Journey, something they bring back with them, and something that changes things forever.