Fate Stay Night's Least Popular Heroine
...Also happens to be my favorite. She does not deserve the hatred she gets. Spoilers within for Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night
Matou Sakura is the second daughter of Tohsaka Tokiomi and Tohsaka Aoi and the younger sister of Tohsaka Rin. She is the adopted daughter of the Matou family. Sakura has had a rough life. She's been separated from her family, her adopted uncle died, and her senpai doesn't seem to notice her feelings for him.
Oh, and she's spent the 11 years being thrown to rape worms, and at least three years being raped by her adopted brother. In the Heaven's Feel route, she finally gets the guy. The bad news is, her powers go out of control and she goes crazy. Luckily, she snaps out of it at the end.
I used to lament the fact that I'm in a lot of female-dominated fandoms and think that if there were more guys, there would be less wank and idiocy. Then I joined the FSN fandom and realized that truly, stupidity knows no gender. Some dumbasses even claim that "Mind Of Steel" (the Bad End where Shirou allows Rin to kill Sakura for the sake of his ideals) is the True Ending of the Heaven's Feel route.
One of the most common things thrown at Sakura is that she's a "slut". Even without the horrible implications of calling a woman a slut for not being a virgin for being a rape victim (I notice that no one seems to be calling Kohaku from Tsukihime a slut), these fans seem to ignore what exactly the Crest Worms are doing to her.
Once swarmed by these lust worms, men will have their spine crushed, brain sucked, and will be made into a cripple. The worms will transform when attacking a woman, so that they are only able to violate her nerves. They will spread their tentacles all over her body and devour her spirit. The lust worms will wet the woman's skin with their mucus, excite and destroy her central nerves of pleasure, and satisfy their hunger. It must be their instincts, as the worms seem to love the woman's womb. They do not eat female flesh, but seek the organs within them. They give the woman huge enough orgasms to fry her brain, and they go into her body to devour her placenta. Unwilling to eat human flesh, the worms have only one way to get what they desire. As a result, the woman's mind and body are completely violated and destroyed.
Basically, it is not fun to be a woman attacked by crest worms. And Sakura's put up with them for 11 years. Because her body is filled with worms, she's very easily, shall we say, "stimulated". Matou Zouken instructed Shinji to rape Sakura in order to relieve her sexual tension (though Shinji already resents her and likely would have done so anyway). So apparently a woman is a slut for enjoying sex. With one specific guy. Good job, fandom.
Another common complaint is that she's a "doormat". How dare Sakura not be a badass tsundere like her sister Rin! Hey, do you know what would happen to Sakura if she ever fought back? Zouken would activate the worm he implanted in her body, causing her agonizing pain that would eventually kill her if she kept being defiant. Or she'd get eaten by the worms, like what happened to Kariya. People bitch about her cold response to Kariya's death, but that's just because she's completely demoralized. She just saw the only person in her adopted family defy his father (is Zouken Byakuya and Kariya's father? I'm not sure), and look what happened to him? His body was broken down by crest worms and he died in a dark, lonely basement. Yeah, that'll make a 5-6 year old girl want to go against her grandfather! Being submissive was Sakura's only option. Once Zouken and Shinji are no longer an issue, her backbone comes in full force.
People say that the romance is written badly, but that's not the fault of the characters. Remember, Sakura is the only heroine who already has a history with Shirou. There's no big show for them because they've already spent a lot of time together.
Finally, there are people who hate the fact that she goes on murderous rampage. Most people don't hold her killing of Shinji against her. But people whine about how "Shirou had to kill Saber because of her!" Now, Shirou is my precious, precious, baby, but the decision to kill Saber is his alone (or rather, the player's). Yes, not killing Saber will get you what is pretty much the worst ending of the route, but at that point Shirou has made the decision to stand by Sakura no matter what. As for Sakura herself, the game makes it clear that yes, what Sakura does is wrong (even though most of her kills are done while she's under Zouken's control) and that yes, she needs to be stopped. But allowing Rin to kill Sakura ends up is not going to help the characters any. Rin clearly doesn't want to do it. And allowing Sakura to be killed ends up turning Shirou into Kiritsugu. What really pisses me off about this is the fact a lot of these fans hate Shirou and think Kiritsugu is awesome, when Kiritsugu is essentially what Shirou becomes if he continues down the path of his ideal to become a hero - a path that the story makes very clear is filled with despair and misery. Kiritsugu stuck to his ideals and ended up dying with a ton of regrets. Archer (another character fans drool over) is literally the end result. And he hates the way his life has turned out so much that he resolves to kill his past self in the hopes of erasing himself from existence. And fans actually want that to happen to Shirou? What the hell?
In short, Sakura is unfairly hated by the fandom and that makes me sad.
Matou Sakura is the second daughter of Tohsaka Tokiomi and Tohsaka Aoi and the younger sister of Tohsaka Rin. She is the adopted daughter of the Matou family. Sakura has had a rough life. She's been separated from her family, her adopted uncle died, and her senpai doesn't seem to notice her feelings for him.
Oh, and she's spent the 11 years being thrown to rape worms, and at least three years being raped by her adopted brother. In the Heaven's Feel route, she finally gets the guy. The bad news is, her powers go out of control and she goes crazy. Luckily, she snaps out of it at the end.
I used to lament the fact that I'm in a lot of female-dominated fandoms and think that if there were more guys, there would be less wank and idiocy. Then I joined the FSN fandom and realized that truly, stupidity knows no gender. Some dumbasses even claim that "Mind Of Steel" (the Bad End where Shirou allows Rin to kill Sakura for the sake of his ideals) is the True Ending of the Heaven's Feel route.
One of the most common things thrown at Sakura is that she's a "slut". Even without the horrible implications of calling a woman a slut for not being a virgin for being a rape victim (I notice that no one seems to be calling Kohaku from Tsukihime a slut), these fans seem to ignore what exactly the Crest Worms are doing to her.
Once swarmed by these lust worms, men will have their spine crushed, brain sucked, and will be made into a cripple. The worms will transform when attacking a woman, so that they are only able to violate her nerves. They will spread their tentacles all over her body and devour her spirit. The lust worms will wet the woman's skin with their mucus, excite and destroy her central nerves of pleasure, and satisfy their hunger. It must be their instincts, as the worms seem to love the woman's womb. They do not eat female flesh, but seek the organs within them. They give the woman huge enough orgasms to fry her brain, and they go into her body to devour her placenta. Unwilling to eat human flesh, the worms have only one way to get what they desire. As a result, the woman's mind and body are completely violated and destroyed.
Basically, it is not fun to be a woman attacked by crest worms. And Sakura's put up with them for 11 years. Because her body is filled with worms, she's very easily, shall we say, "stimulated". Matou Zouken instructed Shinji to rape Sakura in order to relieve her sexual tension (though Shinji already resents her and likely would have done so anyway). So apparently a woman is a slut for enjoying sex. With one specific guy. Good job, fandom.
Another common complaint is that she's a "doormat". How dare Sakura not be a badass tsundere like her sister Rin! Hey, do you know what would happen to Sakura if she ever fought back? Zouken would activate the worm he implanted in her body, causing her agonizing pain that would eventually kill her if she kept being defiant. Or she'd get eaten by the worms, like what happened to Kariya. People bitch about her cold response to Kariya's death, but that's just because she's completely demoralized. She just saw the only person in her adopted family defy his father (is Zouken Byakuya and Kariya's father? I'm not sure), and look what happened to him? His body was broken down by crest worms and he died in a dark, lonely basement. Yeah, that'll make a 5-6 year old girl want to go against her grandfather! Being submissive was Sakura's only option. Once Zouken and Shinji are no longer an issue, her backbone comes in full force.
People say that the romance is written badly, but that's not the fault of the characters. Remember, Sakura is the only heroine who already has a history with Shirou. There's no big show for them because they've already spent a lot of time together.
Finally, there are people who hate the fact that she goes on murderous rampage. Most people don't hold her killing of Shinji against her. But people whine about how "Shirou had to kill Saber because of her!" Now, Shirou is my precious, precious, baby, but the decision to kill Saber is his alone (or rather, the player's). Yes, not killing Saber will get you what is pretty much the worst ending of the route, but at that point Shirou has made the decision to stand by Sakura no matter what. As for Sakura herself, the game makes it clear that yes, what Sakura does is wrong (even though most of her kills are done while she's under Zouken's control) and that yes, she needs to be stopped. But allowing Rin to kill Sakura ends up is not going to help the characters any. Rin clearly doesn't want to do it. And allowing Sakura to be killed ends up turning Shirou into Kiritsugu. What really pisses me off about this is the fact a lot of these fans hate Shirou and think Kiritsugu is awesome, when Kiritsugu is essentially what Shirou becomes if he continues down the path of his ideal to become a hero - a path that the story makes very clear is filled with despair and misery. Kiritsugu stuck to his ideals and ended up dying with a ton of regrets. Archer (another character fans drool over) is literally the end result. And he hates the way his life has turned out so much that he resolves to kill his past self in the hopes of erasing himself from existence. And fans actually want that to happen to Shirou? What the hell?
In short, Sakura is unfairly hated by the fandom and that makes me sad.