There was three layers of acceptance to it, too, to help it along:
First, in Fate/Stay, you don't learn Saber's identity until like 5 hours into the game. You're invested, that's like a full season worth of an anime, and that's in Saber's story-focused arc (and mandatory first arc). You learn to love "Saber", and then "Saber" simply gains a second name. There is no attempted theft or coattail-riding of an IP's protagonist. This buys a LOT of goodwill.
Second, multiverse theory is multiverse fact: There IS a male version. You meet him a couple times in the expanded universe. Saber isn't erasing the male hero-king, she's just another iteration.
And third, Saber does suffer narrative penalty for being R63'd: Iskander disrespects her for slacking in personal strength, Gilgamesh tries to own her (both in-character for their heroic eras of the past with women). One of her masters literally never spoke to her except to use command spells, because she was supposed to be male in-universe too.
Easy fix, have the new OC be added part way through the game and then make the titular character actually evil and the big bad at the end you now have to kill because he was infected by faraltrightmemes for reasons and now needs replacedrepatriated liberated by his internalised evil.
Done with all the nuance and subtlety of multiple bricks through a window, of course 🙄
They would have made it a black girl with an afro if "Prince" wasn't part of the title. I'm surprised they didn't do it anyway.
They did have a whole movie about a "woman king".
The only fiction that ever made that work was Fate/Stay Night, and that was partly due to making her beautiful.
Badass, too.
"Thing, Japan" is a cheat code for finding exceptions to the rule.
There was three layers of acceptance to it, too, to help it along:
First, in Fate/Stay, you don't learn Saber's identity until like 5 hours into the game. You're invested, that's like a full season worth of an anime, and that's in Saber's story-focused arc (and mandatory first arc). You learn to love "Saber", and then "Saber" simply gains a second name. There is no attempted theft or coattail-riding of an IP's protagonist. This buys a LOT of goodwill.
Second, multiverse theory is multiverse fact: There IS a male version. You meet him a couple times in the expanded universe. Saber isn't erasing the male hero-king, she's just another iteration.
And third, Saber does suffer narrative penalty for being R63'd: Iskander disrespects her for slacking in personal strength, Gilgamesh tries to own her (both in-character for their heroic eras of the past with women). One of her masters literally never spoke to her except to use command spells, because she was supposed to be male in-universe too.
Easy fix, have the new OC be added part way through the game and then make the titular character actually evil and the big bad at the end you now have to kill because he was infected by
faraltrightmemesfor reasons and now needsreplacedrepatriatedliberated by his internalised evil.Done with all the nuance and subtlety of multiple bricks through a window, of course 🙄
Afaik this isn't even the titular prince, but some dude who's got to save him. But it's been a while, since I saw the trailer.