It’s just like. He honestly holds himself to the standard of being kind on principle. Or understanding people as humans before anything else. That’s what the point of all of the “whydunnit” stuff is - as he says, mages are fundamentally human.
But there’s so many other things. The way he holds himself to the point of making sure that his students are taken care of, and reprimanding the ones who try to insist that he go along with that rich-mage-like point of view that allows children to be hurt. The way Waver openly condemned the murderer of the Princess of Gold, Maio, explicitly because Maio was cowardly and didn’t have the guts to ask his childhood best friend/lover to die for him, even though Maio knew she loved him.
There’s a lot of other things.
The way that he tells Gray & Add not to insult Gray in front of him. The time in Adra when Gray wanted to give a funeral and say prayer rites for Rosalind’s deceased brother, Heine, and when Gray forgets the last bit of the prayer, Waver follows up with it for her. When Reines fucks up in Iselma and texts Waver to let him know what’s going on, he literally drops everything to go help her out (because - honestly speaking, he had literally no other choice since she was in such a terrible situation as a whole, her having picked up a smoking gun, but one can only imagine what would’ve happened if he had elected to ignore her and let her deal with it). He says at one point to her that even though he’s not her biological brother that he has a duty to act like an older brother at times.
And then, when we get along that topic, whenever Reines brings up the notion of her maladaptive coping incest jokes, Waver reprimands her (while he’s in visible, palpable agony, I should note) and says that he truly detests “[the] political way of thinking” that makes young mages believe that they need to put their interests into the family through marriage and bearing children and getting good magic circuits - even moreso because he knows, deep down, Reines is a good person, too, and she’s coping with her trauma of being put in the position of head of family at such a young age and literally almost dying because of it. In the Case Files event she tells us a bit about how she was poisoned as a child. I have no doubt that this shaped her perception and ability to trust the true intentions and integrity of others, and is why she keeps trying to insist that like the rest of the mages, Waver must be the same.
At that, Waver also is an absolute stickler for absolutely NO teacher/student relationships, and in a drama CD even says he could never do such an immoral thing - there’s a slight commentary on the weirdness that teachers go through in the Willes episode of the anime, and in general, he’s just completely put off and repulsed by any notion of the topic. It literally gives him severe, instant stomachaches.
And like, to me, knowing deeply how those relationships can harm students, and how incest also harms families and children as well, hearing Waver say out loud that he’s 1) not interested and 2) finds it repulsive and disgusting to even think about it, as he’s getting a stomachache, I feel a little justified amongst all my pain.
After all, I spent years and years helping teens who were groomed unlearn their harmful ideas too about what they should be in relationships and how to interact with others in a way that allowed them to create and respect their own boundaries. I’ve experienced firsthand what it’s like to be a teen who is groomed and acting like this and to know what it’s like to be teaching others that this way of living is only going to come at more harm and pain to your life than anything else.
Waver is insistent on reinforcing the humanity of others. That is his modus operandi. He understands how humans act and what makes them act in certain ways, and he makes a point of acting as a human, himself, even though he tries to be a mage - he’s not able to be simply boiled down to that. The boy who wrote for 3 years a massive thesis about how Magecraft should not be limited only to those who are rich and have good bloodlines/magic circuit quality had a fundamental idea about how to expand the world of magecraft to include ordinary humans, himself included. And so as he grew he carried that with him, the notion that if even he can summon a powerful servant, that surely the same principle can be applied to other mages who are more human than mage; rather, that is to say that many mages who consider themselves more “mage” than “human” are those who exist on the upper echelon gatekeeping the world of magecraft away from those who don’t have high quality magic circuits and long family history and access to resources (all of which are known to be heavily tied to class in the world of mages). His principles insist on stating that humanity > mage ideology. The reason he’s able to get to the heart of so many cases he’s involved with is explicitly because he thinks of the matter from the point of view not just as “what a mage would do” but “what a human would do”.
And then there’s Gray. Waver initially met her because he was looking for someone to hire who was experienced in defeating spirits for the 5th Holy Grail War. And who he found was a girl living sheltered, traumatized, suicidal, and he took her to London and gave her a home and friends and an education and a supportive found family. And she has said, multiple times, that he saved her; and his students similarly remark that he’s saved them.
In Fate/Grand Order alone, as well, when he finds out that Mashu is a demi-servant and a designer baby, he admits that he would’ve put a stop to it if he knew that this was what was going on at Chaldea - apologizing immediately and clarifying to Mashu that he doesn’t mean to imply she’s at fault or anything like that. Similarly, in the Case Files event, he has sympathy for Guda because he understands what it’s like to undergo trauma. He gives advice about how to cope, as well.
He cares about people, and he tends to care about them whether he thinks about it actively or not. In Case Files he encourages Olga Marie multiple times - with a story that tells her she’s brave for having the courage to throw her feelings in his, an adult’s, face when she’s upset; with an encouragement that she can prove to others that she won’t give up or simply sit back when her attendant is murdered; with an encouragement that she’s allowed to be herself, and to be strong as herself, as Olga Marie Animusphere, and not just exist as Lord Animusphere’s Daughter.
In Adra, where the above screenshot is from, the scene has him assuring the young Rosalind that it’s okay to drink tea with sugar and cream and that everybody does it, gentleman or lady. In Fate/Strange Fake, when he talks to Jack the Ripper, he says to him that he believes that people are fundamentally shaped by their interactions with others. He promises Jack that he will remember the iteration of him as he exists now, and asks him to take care of his student, Flat. Later on in Fate/Strange Fake, Waver is involved again and even says that he is something like Flat’s guardian. Flat and Svin both have said that Waver saved them. To them, he’s somebody who has irrevocably shaped them and helped them grow, and he is irreplacable.
Nearly anybody who has ever interacted with him has had an impact left on them.
His kindness inspires his students, helps them learn and grow and consider themselves as real people and not just a bundle of magic circuits in a body or as a heartless mage... he has done so much for the people around him. He does it because he feels that this is what he’s supposed to do.
This was a similar reason I had for starting to mentor others as well.
I had gone through so much turmoil in my life totally unsupported and unguided by anybody, living off of scraps of guidance from others, that when I met teens who were like how I was living as a teenager, groomed and unsupported and unwell, I couldn’t turn my eyes away anymore. I just felt that, at the time, it would’ve been worse if I had done nothing. I wanted to do the right thing, and so I did my best to do it. And eventually, I started meeting more younger people living like I was, and I couldn’t bear to look away. What was I supposed to do?
For him and me, similarly, because we hold ourselves to this, but we have this sense that we’re not really... standing up for anything, but just doing the right thing because what ELSE are you literally supposed to do, it’s hard to give yourself credit. No, I would even say you don’t want to give yourself credit, because that means that the baseline default isn’t being kind to others. And imagining a world and believing in a world where kindness to others isn’t a default state, that humans don’t actually want to help each other to survive, is unbearably cruel, and doesn’t help make that world exist, and factually isn’t even true.
In a world that’s cruel and allows the younger generation to be shaped by that cruelty, just one hand reaching out can change everything. I agree with Waver, who said that people are fundamentally shaped by their interactions.
I think that, and this is hard for me to say for myself, but I want to say it to him: trying to do the right thing and making a point of being kind to others and making a point of going against self-harmful ways of living to those who are young and impressionable ... makes you a good person. I think he is doing the right thing. I know that it’s difficult to think of yourself as a good person. Maybe the best thing to do isn’t to think of it as being a good person at all, and maybe the point is that you’re simply a person in general, neither good or bad (which tends to be the base, really). But I think that the way he acts and the way he chooses these things on the principle and fundamental idea of kindness and reinforcing others’ humanity makes him good. And I know how hard it is to have this at heart as a mentor to others when everything else you’ve done has fallen through and you haven’t improved very much over time compared to your peers and etc. etc. etc. but.
I think if you save just one person, it’s all worth it. And I think if you’re able to save many people, who are grateful to you, and you can guide them through life, you might be able to feel a little lighter at the end of the day, rather than having to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.
Well, anyways, I would like to have a coffee with him at some point and tell him this, but he’s not real, so.
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