#fgo darius

[hasmashdoneanythingwrong]

Would Darius III pass the Tiamat Vibe Check?

Yes

No

Yes, but…

No, unless…

Voting ended onNov 6, 2023

Context:

[nu-omicron-alpha-eta]

Fate Grand Order Servant Comparisons

Darius III

Left - FGO

Right - Alexander Mosaic (c. 100 BC)

[300iqprower]

Darius got shafted because Iskandar exists and he's the one fate cares about. Boudica on the other hand had the unfortunate fate of being someone who despises Nero and that isn't allowed in fate. Also, Septem killed her dead and fgo has made no attempts to fix her.

Yes to Boudica, you'd THINK for Darius but not really.

Iskandar has like. No presence in FGO at all. I didn't even realize he was exclusive for a year because I was used to exclusives making regular appearances (ya know, to flog them at ya) but I've never seen Iskandar with a direct role outside of Septem which was Alexander actually, and interludes like Darius's. Has he even appeared in the main story once now that I think about it...?

But regardless it goes further beyond that because while Boudica gets painted over, Darius actually gets glorified. IRL he was pretty much a massive coward, and that's part of why he's the only person to face Iskandar and live. Even then he still eventually died ingloriously, not even at Alexander's hand but by his own men who overthrew him after Darius tried to flee Persia and leave it to Alexander. Alexander was the only one who even showed Darius respect in death; Darius' own family disowned him for how Darius had abandoned them when Alexander pursued him (to which Alexander treated them as honored guests), to the point his own mother Sisygambis claimed Alexander was her true son and lived the rest of her life as such, with him even referring to her as his mother, and Alexander was even welcomed as Persia's conqueror. But despite all that, Alexander insisted Darius have a funeral and be buried with his ancestors.

That, from what little they've given him, seems to the be the basis of Fate Darius: For whatever reason, Alexander saw him as a true equal. There are plenty of characters who Fate uses as glorified ways to hype up the characters it ACTUALLY cards about, but Darius doesn't seem to be one of them....if only because after establishing what little character he has, they then did absolutely nothing to elaborate on any of it. Ever.

[300iqprower]

How do you plan to have Darius as a rider version? You can’t exactly focus too hard on his rivalry with iskandar, and outside of that he was mainly only remarkable for not getting poisoned by Bagoas. Hell even his rivalry with Iskandar was embellished in Fate, as during his time period every was mostly pissed he kept retreating his army.

So I'm pretty sure before I've talked about how FGO unintentionally made Darius more interesting than he was historically, but the search bar doesn't seem to want to help so to recap:

By highlighting the connection between Darius and Iskandar, as well as focus on the respect the latter holds for the former, Fate kinda made Darius seem way cooler than his historical self who pretty much got one good sneak attack on Alexander and then it was all a bunch of running away to the point his own family despised him and chose Alexander as their new family, most famously Darius's mother Sisygambis.

Rider Darius then has two ways one could pretty easily expand on the character.

Firstly one could hyperfocus on the Iskandar thing, turning it from a berserker frenzy of wanting to beat Iskandar to a more sane and simple question of "why"? Why does Iskandar respect someone like that? What do they see in Darius that the world does not?

Secondly, one could focus on Darius himself. He certainly led an interesting life if not a glorious one, from surviving poison and poisoning in kind, to a frankly astounding number of retreats in a single campaign, to cowardice that made the world hate him, to the pressure to succeed as a descendent of Darius the Great, to even another thing Fate unintentionally made cool with the Door of Babylon thing and how much more weight that could hold.

[i-want-men-and-attention]

I can’t believe Alex was able to charm his future rival through the romance of non-toxic rivalry so much that Darius actually ascended. IS HIS SHOTA POWERS THAT STRONG??? THE CHARISMA OF THE KING AND THE CHARM OF ADONIS IS TOO STRONG

[300iqprower]

Probably the only healthy way I deal with gacha games is that as a writer I don’t have to invest precious resources in making terribly designed units I like as characters usable let alone snap my spine bending over backwards to make them viable.

Why would I when I can just write a story where they get to ACTUALLY be powerful and badass