How Fate/Stay Night’s Saber is a Dad. Wait, What!?

Are you a Fate fan? Then you should know about the complicated history between Arturia and Mordred to some extent.

If you haven't noticed already, we have quite a huge elephant in the room that's been long ignored by people. This is due to King Arturia being specifically female in Fate lore, but Mordred keeps calling her dad. So, what gives?

I'll share to you here what I found that most don't know about: how the inception of Mordred really happened.

Mordred, Armor, No Helmet, How Fate/Stay Night’s Saber is a Dad

First, let's get on the same page- Saber's past doesn't get much spotlight in the anime as the writer probably assumed that people know about King Arthur’s legend already. Though we have FGo and its upcoming Camelot movie soon!

That, or maybe they just wanted to make things simpler and not explain to people the intricate changes made after they gender-swapped King Arthur to be a beautiful and capable chick hot enough to be an anime protagonist's waifu.

Curious about the gender change? Arthur really did start as a dude paired with a female protagonist in the author's original concept (which you can now see in the anime special Fate/Prototype), but they realized that having a male protagonist with a female lead had much more potential to sell.

And so, voila! Make the protagonist a guy and turn his partner, Arthur, to Arturia. They just worked the other details after the fact. So what are those origin details of Arturia and Mordred that pretty much avoided much of the Fate consumables? Well, what do you know- we have surprising news!

Whilst trapped in a black hole reading deep within the uncharted territories of Type-Moon’s Wikia, I came across some interesting stuff regarding Arturia and her life when she was still alive as King.

Yes, she had a rebel son who is part of the Round Table, Mordred, yada yada. What shocked me was that she, Arturia, being female and having girl parts, was the one who literally fathered him! Or her. So wait, what? How the heck did that happen?

Saber, Arturia, King Arthur, Modred, Battle of Camlann, How Fate/Stay Night’s Saber is a Dad
Fate/Zero ED: Saber, killing her son, Mordred, in the Battle of Camlann

I could see the idea of having the protagonist's waifu (also the fantasy of the viewers) being pregnant and having a kid would pose a problem, even if it was on her past life. Because in the world of manga and anime, along with their hikikomori and otaku inhabitants, the female lead should be young and pure. In a business perspective, it just catches more fish.

To get around that, Kinoko Nasu devised a peculiar twist to his own Arthurian legend.

In the original story, Mordred is actually the illegitimate son of Arthur and his sister, Morgause.

But if we made Morgause as male and partner him with Arturia, then it too would be a problem as he would then need to violate Arturia's purity in order to conceive. Big no no.

So what did author Kinoko Nasu do?

He combined the concept of Morgause with Morgan le Fay. Meaning the manipulative Morgan le Fay would not only be the sister of Arturia and antagonist to Camelot as originally intended, but she would also be the mother of Mordred.

Mother? But both Morgan and Arturia are female? And they're sisters? Dafuq?

This is where Merlin and his powerful (or weird) magic comes in.

Long story short, here goes: Merlin temporarily made Arturia a pseudo-male and Morgan took advantage of that to get his man-juice. Yeah. That's actually what happened lol!

Don't believe me? Here's the actual excerpt:

She eventually enchanted Artoria, a pseudo-male at the time due to Merlin's intervention to produce an heir, and extracted sperm from Artoria to develop as a homunculus clone within her ovary. Mordred was soon born and aged rapidly, and Morgan raised her in secret while telling her of her right to the throne. She told Mordred to never remove her helmet and recommended her to the Round Table. She directed Mordred to hide her status and obey the King until she could defeat Artoria and take her place.

I know, right?

Still, in the end, Nasu got away with it and kept Arturia's purity...I think? Though for the fans who fantasize about her coming across the idea of her being a man, even for just a 'magical' moment, would also be weird. Personally, I'm fine with it. They probably never explained it in detail on the anime, manga and whatnot because they also probably thought it was ridiculous to some extent.

Anyway, the first time Mordred is shown in anime form is on the 21st episode of the original Fate/Stay Night series. You can see that Saber pierces this masked soldier, but then later on show’s a face similar to hers, and then calls Saber her ‘father.’ Really, it was a very confusing scene when I first saw it, and it is if you didn’t do your research on their story. I thought that the subbing group just made an error or something lol.

Saber, Arturia, King Arthur, Modred, Battle of Camlann, How Fate/Stay Night’s Saber is a DadSaber, Arturia, King Arthur, Modred, Battle of Camlann, How Fate/Stay Night’s Saber is a Dad

Why did Mordred look like Saber? It is said that like Irisviel Von Einsbern, he is a homunculus. As Type-Moon explains it, a homunculus is a creature given birth through alchemy by the combining of human genetic material with several special substances and making the resulting embryo develop without the use of a womb.

Well, that’s the ever-so-interesting Nasuverse for ya. Hope you enjoyed!

Here’s a video of the scene from where that picture is taken:


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8 Comments

  1. that is sooo fucked up couldn't just Lancelot be the father or Murdred just be Arthuria clone in my opinion Arthuria not being a vergin is much better then her being a dick girl... truly the dude who created that show is sick!

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    Replies
    1. Sick and/or creative? 😅 Regardless how he did it, the creator and Type-moon would still be probably swimming in cash anyway 😂

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    2. dude he is a lier here i looked at the Wiki and this is whjat i found "Morgan laid a trap that, due to a certain someone's womanizing, caused Artoria to lose Caliburn. However she would later go on to replace it with Excalibur, which she received from Vivian.[8]

      At some point she had an affair with Lancelot.[1]

      Her children were Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth,Agravain ,Mordred whom she had with King Lot of Orkney.[2] All of them would become Knights of the Round Table, though Agravain was sent by her as an assassin.[6] Once Camelot was built, she went into seclusion and was not heard of much by the knights.[8] "

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    3. dude the father is not fucking Arturia the mother is indeed Morgan but the father is Lancelot. just read the dam wiki
      and read it carefully.
      you see that part in the wiki?

      Morgan laid a trap that, due to a certain someone's womanizing, caused Artoria to lose Caliburn. However she would later go on to replace it with Excalibur, which she received from Vivian.[8]


      At some point she had an affair with Lancelot.[1]

      Her children were Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth,Agravain ,Mordred whom she had with King Lot of Orkney.[2] All of them would become Knights of the Round Table, though Agravain was sent by her as an assassin.[6] Once Camelot was built, she went into seclusion and was not heard of much by the knights.[8]

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    4. Lancelot is the father and the mother is Morgana....
      here read https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Morgan_le_Fay

      At some point she had an affair with Lancelot.[1]

      Her children were Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth,Agravain ,Mordred whom she had with King Lot of Orkney.[2] All of them would become Knights of the Round Table, though Agravain was sent by her as an assassin.[6] Once Camelot was built, she went into seclusion and was not heard of much by the knights.[8]

      so NOOO Arturia being a pasudo male is not canon its just one route at a game thaty have alternative endings so none of it is canon. what canon is that Lancelot is probably the father and Arturia being the father is probably a lie that Morgana told to Mordred....

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    5. Bro, read the paragraph after the one you just posted in the link. It's also in my article lol. I'll copy-pasta it for ya:

      Her children were Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, Agravain ,and Mordred whom she had with King Lot of Orkney.[2] All of them would become Knights of the Round Table, though Agravain was sent by her as an assassin.[6] Once Camelot was built, she went into seclusion and was not heard of much by the knights.[8]

      She eventually enchanted Artoria - a pseudo-male at the time due to Merlin's magic so she could produce an heir with Guinevere - and extracted sperm from Artoria to develop as a homunculus clone within her ovary. Mordred was soon born and aged rapidly, and Morgan raised her in secret while telling her of her right to the throne. She told Mordred to never remove her helmet and recommended her to the Round Table. She directed Mordred to hide her status and obey the King until she could defeat Artoria and take her place. While Mordred was initially idealistic and served as a proper knight, Morgan shattered her innocence with the truth of her birth to guide her towards the path of rebellion.

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  2. Realmente me quedé atónito el pensar n cómo Merlín no pensó en solo hacer un cló de Arturia en vez de darle un gran pp para que luego le saquen el ''jugo'' XDDD

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