I’ve seen these arguments used as an excuse to pass around some pretty outrageous takes as fact (like base ryougi beating archetype Earth), so I’m getting rid of them. I feel like the OP of the OG also left a lot of context out, or straight up misinterpreted the scans.
1. (The shikis have no chance against servants). The actual text doesn’t say “no chance”,but closer to this:
“Can’t quite hold a candle” doesn’t exactly mean “no chance”, just a lower one than the other characters on this. Which makes sense,because although he may measure up in speed, he doesn’t in durability and attack power, which is made clear through tsukihime. The Nanaya are the best of the best when it comes to assasination,but their physical prowess in direct combat lags far behind. This is a major plot point in Red Demon God.
Nero Chaos wanted to “eat him slowly”, which Arc comments on him not going for the kill instantly was the reason for his loss. Melty blood shiki fights a weakened copy of Nero from Tsukihime, and still struggles extremely. (All versions of Nero in melty are weakened, btw. Actress Again recreates the conditions of the OG melty’s TATARI perfectly, where Nero was weakened, so same applies here.)
Shiki-Roa is also considered far weaker than a full DAA in strength here. (By full power, arc obviously means her full power at 30%, before we get A:E level Nero agenda)
"Well, he should be many times superior than The Dead earlier. I haven't met him this time, but he has been latent for eight years so maybe he's a Class Five by now."
"---You're saying he's stronger than The Dead before?"
Looking like she was in so much pain from fighting just him, isn't she taking him a little lightly?
"―― Class Five? I don't get it, but does that mean he's stronger than Nrvnqsr?"
"Not a chance. Nrvnqsr was special. He was a pure, supreme vampire that would be difficult to defeat even with my full power. Compared to him, this enemy is pretty weak."
"----Oh. Then there's no way you'll be defeated."
I breathe out in relief.-
Tsukihime
Ryougi being = to a servant directly is also shaky considering she:
Extra ryougi got summoned by something similar to a Holy Grail, so she may have been buffed for her appearance, disregarding the fact that she loses to each playable servant in the game,which includes Tamamo no Mae, who is about 10x weaker than an A-rank servant. You know who is an a-rank servant? Elizabeth Bathory. It’s consistent through the game that she is very frail, and could be one shot by Lu Bu, iirc.
We don’t know a single thing about the “99 servants” she fought, they could have had an NP weaker than thrown Gae Bolg, which is the upper end of the “average” NPs nasu was talking about.
2. void shiki defensive against servants lol.
Yea, this isn’t contradicted, I made
an entire thread about it, but I’ll just repeat some of what is argued there+ some additional info.
Her statements about “being the root” itself use a high degree of uncertainity and based on her question, being “The part and the whole of nothingness are the same,right?” Unless we want to call ether lumps ( a common substance in magecraft), the 3 characters who share her origin, and Manaka the root, it’s best to stay consistent.
She calls arc manifesting her millennium castle impressive (in the context of denying that she has god-like powers, in the sense of “But look at what she can do!”), even saying that she must have no limits. From Ryougi and Artoria's perspectives, it might seem she doesn’t, asserting her superiority over both characters. Given a weaker character may view a markedly stronger one as almost without limits. (This is a casual 30% arc feat). I’ll move on from this, since this isn’t supposed to be “look how op arc is lol”, and “if she calls this impressive compared to her own supposed reality warping, how strong is it really?”
In the KNK manga, we get additional context proving that a personality switch to Void happened when she used self suggestion. First, I’ll send the scans from the original novel and additional side material.
A more literal translation:
It’s stated many times during the epilogue that Void, unlike the other 2 personalities, technically is not Shiki at all.
“Shiki” is also regarded as a vessel/container (器),regarding voids nature as the “vessel” or “empty container/box”
She also exhibits feminine behavior, while Ryougi is noted to act much more masculine after the death of SHIKI. This fact is further proven in the manga, as she gets additional lines, and the way she speaks is feminine, and not like her normal masculine speech at all, which is an integral part of Ryougis character. Araya even says “So we finally meet”,which wouldn’t make sense if this was the same personality as before.
One of Voids skills (Skills are given based on what fits the characters actions and lore, and even has short lore info at times based on the character), literally references this scene here:
See this as well:
Dictionary definition for a “flat personality”:
Yea, this fits Void to a tee. How is this relevant you may ask? Well, besides amping her physicals heavily, the only new “ability” that she obtained was precognition. (Void’s nigh-omniscience made combat applicable, basically.) none of that supposed reality warping here. She also gets injured by arayas attacks, which are hyped to “shatter concrete” and “fell trees”
What does this mean? One of 2 things.
Void’s supposed “reality warping” is either not combat applicable/not at the scale where it would be super relevant for combat, or she doesn’t have such abilities at all.
In FGO even, she says “nothing could be done against primate murder”, and said she would “have to fight like her life depended on it” against shadow servant Dantes. She was not nerfed,because she straight up denies being a heroic spirit, and “Psuedo-Servants” use the body of the host as a container, instead of a traditional container. Why is this relevant? The host is just Ryougi, and Void Shiki is literally just Ryougis body. This is like saying taking yourself as a vessel nerfs you. It makes no sense.
That should be enough for this point, the rest should be easy to counter.
3. Contradictory “the strongest” statements.
I’ll just paste what I said on discord. I’m not even sure how this one in particular wasnt looked at through a watchful eye, as @Qliphoth_Backal was present.
“the JP for that statement (arc's) can actually mean (highest level, or highest rank) of power, not specifically the strongest, which is also problematic if you think about it, nothing should be on the same level as the supposed root personified.”
All credible Type-Moon translators agree with this as well, so…
4. ….
Again, im not sure HOW this wasnt looked at with more scrutiny. Aoko’s title of “Miss Blue” does not have a direct correlation to when she gained magic, thats never said. Aoko actually gained the access rights to the Fifth before Mahoyo, with the narration calling her the newest magician even during the flat snark fight. Yet the title she gained later “Miss Blue”, is never mentioned in the story. (or even in Mahoyo materials).
5. Yea, I agree this seems kinda contradictory… but the OP misframed this statement. The 2 statements that the OP linked come from the exact same source, but the one where Nasu tells you to ask Urobuchi literally comes right before this statement. This is intentionally putting a questionable/outlandish statement in order to reinforce his earlier point. But regardless, CS can buff servants to operate far beyond their usual capabilities, a similar boost is probable.
6. The statement doesnt say Shiki will die, just ignoring the drawbacks that they would both have from displaying their abilities (MEODP and Tracing), at full power.
Also, shirou doesnt just trace the NP’s themselves, but all the history that comes with it… INCLUDING the stats and skills of the original wielder, thats why he can use Nine lives. It’s not just “killing the NPs.” Shiki did not kill Gaia, he killed the leylines for a bit. Thats how Arc gets her back up. Approaching true chaos is vague here, as it did not yet reach this state, so we dont know how susceptible to death it is.
7. Archer would be projecting only what he calls a "very convincing replica" that would consume all of his magical energy in a suicide attack. He wouldn't be projecting Excalibur, just something that looks like Excalibur and explodes the same way. Same with shirou. Thats why he doesnt say he is projecting “Excalibur”, but a “holy sword”. It has many of the same properties, but it is NOT meant to be confused with the actual weapon. Which is in line with:
There might be some degraded NPs with similar performance in stock though.
8. The trump card is referring to MEODP. In MB he’s “buffed” in the sense that he got a general stat increase. In most of his fights, he struggled pretty damn hard.
Ciel Route shiki is amped by having the added stats of a Dead Apostle, but he still struggled.
Ciel also secretly did not want to kill Tohno at all.
Melty Blood Tohno still couldn't defeat Ciel even with Sion and Akiha's help. Nero was also explicitly “playing with his food”, with Arc citing that as the reason for his loss.
I think you get the point by now.
9. Saber Alter isn’t even supposed to exist in a normal grail war, only being created via the unique conditions of HF. Makes complete sense for nasu to exclude her from the 1st statement.
Nasu is also obviously referring to living Artoria.
TLDR: mix of shitty translation and lack of context, a lot of these “issues” can be solved with a bit more contextual information. Either way, im not sure why Nasu gets the special treatment besides the usual of “If it contradicts itself, throw it out, otherwise its fine”.