u/Either_Young_8183

So who does he actually like more—Sakura or Rin???

Original text :

After losing Saber, I sought Tohsaka’s assistance.

Tohsaka also responded to me, and we firmly made a promise.

To let Tohsaka win.

We promised that Tohsaka would become the victor of the Holy Grail War.

But that promise can no longer be kept.

So at the very least, this one promise must be fulfilled.

Back then—

She believed in me, even though I had nothing. For the girl named Rin Tohsaka, the girl I loved.

The characters I used to like were usually cool, powerful, and crazy characters. For example, when I first got into the Fate series, the first ones I watched were Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works. Back then, my favorite character was Gilgamesh because his appearance and personality perfectly matched my tastes. I was an obsessed fan of his for several years.

And about ten years ago, my favorite character was Kurumi Tokisaki. That kind of craziness was exactly my thing.

But when I first watched the Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works anime, the first thing Shirou saw after waking up was Sakura Matou, and I immediately became attracted to her. I was a little disappointed when I found out she didn’t have much screentime in that route.

After finishing UBW, I watched the Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel movies, and then I watched videos of the original Heaven’s Feel route from the visual novel. That’s when I completely fell in love with Sakura Matou as a character. She’s insecure, repressed, and emotionally withdrawn — honestly not the kind of character I would normally like at all — yet she became my favorite female character in Fate. I can’t even properly describe her charm.

And then I saw so many discussions where people completely misunderstand Sakura’s personality, call her a murderer who deserves to die and “pay for her sins,” or even sexually mock the tragic abuse she went through in the past. It genuinely makes me sad. Being a Sakura fan really requires a strong mentality.

Rather than genuinely caring about Sakura, Rin is more like comforting herself out of guilt. Everything revolves around what she wants, not what Sakura wants. “I want this,” “I think this is better” — it’s always about Rin’s own feelings. If you actually look at the story, most of her so-called concern for Sakura is superficial.

Leaving aside the whole “saving Shirou on the first day for Sakura’s sake” thing — because honestly, it’s impossible to tell whether that decision was really for Sakura or just for herself, considering that Rin naturally has high affection for Shirou in all three routes — let’s look at what Rin actually does for Sakura.

1. Rin forms an alliance with Shirou “for Sakura,” and practically sticks to him the whole time. Later, after realizing Sakura had already started making moves herself by bringing Shirou lunch boxes, Rin backs off. In the other two routes, Rin just moves into Shirou’s house herself and pushes Sakura away, even though all Sakura wanted was to stay by Shirou’s side.
2. Rin raids the Matou household and discovers Sakura’s secret: eleven years of sexual abuse. During her confrontation with Shinji, she also learns Sakura was forced into slavery. At this point, Sakura still hasn’t gone berserk yet, so what does Rin do? She doesn’t seek revenge for Sakura — she could’ve at least beaten Shinji up. She doesn’t comfort Sakura either. She doesn’t even discuss things with Shirou, the only person who might actually be able to save Sakura. Instead, she just verbally abuses Shinji, provoking him even though he literally holds Sakura’s life in his hands. Then she leaves without protecting her own sister, leading directly into the school massacre incident later.
3. After the school incident, Sakura tries to kill herself on the spot because she doesn’t want to hurt Shirou or Rin. Then Kirei shows up and turns it into a three-way confrontation. Kirei acts neutral on the surface, but is actually encouraging Shirou to save Sakura. Shirou outwardly wants to save her too, but he’s still hesitating because of his ideals. Rin, despite already knowing about Sakura’s miserable eleven years of suffering, immediately insists that killing Sakura is the best option. But did she ever stop to think about what Sakura herself wanted?

And what did Sakura want? While they were arguing, she literally escaped out the window. She never wanted to die. Even if she did die, she wanted it to be at her senpai’s hands.

Then comes the famous confrontation between the sisters in the Great Hollow. When Sakura talks about how miserable her life has been, Rin responds with that ridiculous line about how Sakura “wasn’t someone especially privileged.” That line is honestly absurd. If Rin didn’t know about Sakura’s past, or had only just learned about it, maybe it would make sense. But Rin already knew everything. She had personally visited the Matou house and learned Sakura’s dark history long ago. She even saw Sakura attempt suicide just to save Shirou.

Rin herself suffers terribly because of her magic crest, yet Sakura’s entire body has effectively been turned into one giant crest since childhood. And despite knowing all this, Rin still insults her and says things like that. It completely breaks the character image she’d maintained across all three routes about “loving her little sister.”

The moment Sakura’s situation became serious, Rin never once asked what Sakura wanted. She never properly communicated with Shirou either. Instead, it was all just:
“I think Sakura dying would be better.”
“I think my life would be easier if Sakura were dead.”
“I think I love you, and you love me, so one of us has to die.”

Isn’t that just insane?

If Rin had communicated more normally with Shirou and coordinated tactics instead of spending time flirting with him over the phone while Sakura and Shirou were practically already together, then maybe during the final battle she would’ve pulled out Caster’s dagger instead of just an ordinary knife.

Any normal person with common sense knows that you shouldn’t verbally provoke someone who is mentally unstable, because doing so will only make the situation worse. But Rin, for some reason, thought it was a good idea to keep provoking a mentally unstable person anyway.