Do you know who the Director of the Clock Tower is? Not much is known about him, what with him staying hidden throughout most of Type-Moon’s works despite the prevalence of the Mage’s Association. Two things are known about him however, thanks to Case Files:
He is still the same director as when the Association was first founded, making him thousands of years old.
He was a student of Solomon.
That’s right. One of the founding members of the Association and the director of the Clock Tower, who oversaw the evolution of mage culture from its beginnings at the end of the Age of Gods, was one of Solomon’s students. What Solomon taught him would become the basis for the teachings of mage culture, and would become the cornerstone of thousands of years of oppression, violence, and great cruelty.
In the Type-Moon universe, mage culture is one of the most enduring and powerful legacies of King Solomon, even if he never intended it to be. The eugenics, the experiments, the fratricide, all of it and more can trace their origins to the moment Solomon began teaching magecraft.
That’s why it is so, so important that Romani turned out to be Solomon. It wasn’t just so that Chaldea had an ace up their sleeve in the Temple of Time — everything that Romani did was Solomon rejecting his legacy, replacing it with one crafted from the humanity he gained with his wish upon the grail.
He found Mash, a victim of that mage culture, a test tube baby to be thrown away if she didn’t prove useful, and cared for her. He read her books, he showed her movies, he taught her as much of the world as he could while inside Chaldea, and very little of what he showed her involved the traditions of magic. What is it that Mash speaks of when she mentions her readings? Different cultural habits. Historical events. Seasonal holodays and festivals. The lives of heroes. All things that breathe and bleed the humanity Roman couldn’t have for himself as Solomon. These he gave to her, in direct contrast to the distant fathers who leave their daughters tomes of esoteric knowledge and family heirlooms of power, who leave them instructions to study their lives away and marry upwards, sacrificing their individual selves in place of the family’s climb, who pit them in fights to the death against their own sisters for only the strongest one can be called worthy.
Just as the children of magic are put through unimaginable pain in the name of growing up, so does Mash as she’s made to fight through the singularities and lostbelts. But what does Mash focus on through her trials? What does she recall? The people she’s met. The experiences she’s had. All the friendships she has made from all over time and space. While magi children grow their shield from numbness to trauma, Mash’s quite literally grows from her drive to protect others, from her spirit. All the love she experienced in her short life fed her soul. Made it strong. Made it tough. Made it so that even with Galahad gone, with Roman and Da Vinci dead, with Chaldea forced to kill or be killed, she does not forget to be kind. Her spirit is her shield just as her shield is her spirit: unbreakable. (she should still see a therapist once this is all done though)
Mash does not need an ancient lineage. She does not need a magic crest compounding centuries of knowledge. With the Lostbelt arc, she doesn’t even need heroic spirit superpowers either. All she had was an unassuming doctor (who was new to this whole frail humanity bit himself), teaching her there was so much to value in people. And with the help of a time machine, she’s gotten to see and experience more out of life than virtually any mage alive, only possibly being rivaled by… By someone thousands of years old, sitting at the very head of one of the most powerful organizations on Earth.
When FGO ends, I hope it ends with Mash and Guda meeting the director of the Clock Tower. It would be a fantastic way to tie it all back to Romani and the thematic importance of Chaldea to the Type-Moon universe, if it were to end with Mash and the director speaking in the same room, the sole living disciples– no, the the living legacies, of King Solomon.
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