Faith/Stay Night part 2: The Four Horsemen Classes

Welcome back to Part 2 of the Faith/Stay Night series, where we take figures from the Bible, both famous and little-known, and see which Fate/Stay Night servant types they could appear as. Last time, we covered the three Knight classes. Today, we’re going to look at the rest of the original Heroic Spirit categories: the Four Horsemen.

Rider

Rider servants are tied to something they could ride, even if they had never ridden that thing in the first place. Their mounts could be any number of things. Medusa had Pegasus who, according to Greek mythology, sprung from her neck after she was slain. Alexander the Great has his horse, Bucephalus. Martha, one of the few Biblical characters already in the Fate universe, was rumored to have tamed a dragon called the Tarasque when she and her family fled to Europe during Christian persecution (this one’s out-of-original-text, so I have no idea if that was an actual rumor or if Type-Moon just made it up).

Hero: Elijah (1&2 Kings)

Elijah was a prophet who operated in the northern kingdom of Israel, during the rule of King Ahab (see Part 1 for his entry). A perpetual thorn in Ahab’s side, Elijah prophesized against him on a regular basis. He called him out on his evil practices and caused some significant damage when he declared that God would bring a drought to the land.

One of his biggest claims to fame was when he had a mountaintop showdown with hundreds of prophets who served the pagan god Baal, all employed by Ahab’s wife, Jezebel (we’ll learn more about her later). Toward the end of the aforementioned drought, he dueled these prophets to see whose god was the real one. The challenge was simple: offer a sacrifice to their deity, but they couldn’t light it on fire. Instead, they would have to ask their god to prove their existence by igniting it for them.

Elijah clearly had an attitude, because while the prophets of Baal called on their god, he taunted them like he was at a high school basketball game. “Call louder! Baal might be on a trip. He may be asleep, or relieving himself!” When it was his turn to call on God, he dumped gallons of water all over the altar he set up (remember, they were in the middle of drought). Once he prayed, fire fell from Heaven and consumed the sacrifice, the water, and the stones they were set on. To further add insult to injury, as the winner of the duel, he ordered that all the prophets of Baal be killed.

Despite his confidence and bravado, Elijah’s story also gives us a helpful clue into mental health. Upon hearing that her prophets were slain on Elijah’s order, Jezebel put a kill order on him. Elijah fled into the wilderness. He grew so tired and stressed that he prayed the equivalent of “God, just kill me now. I can’t take this anymore!” God sent an angel to attend to him. Did the angel give him a command or a word of encouragement? Nope. The conversation played out like this:

“Here, eat this. Now, go to sleep. Oh, you awake? Cool, eat this.”

After that, he walked for forty days and nights until he reached Mount Sinai. Moral of the story: never underestimate the spiritual power of a snack and a nap.

Now, how does Elijah fit into the Rider class when he was known for calling fire down from Heaven? Elijah has two chariot-related acknowledgements. First, when the drought was about to end, he sent word to Ahab that a storm was coming and that he should ride back home soon. Then, in typical Elijah fashion, he caught up to and outran Ahab’s chariot in the middle of that storm. The other instance was the last record of him in the Old Testament. After passing the prophetic torch to his successor (whom we’ll learn about in the next list), he got whisked away by a heavenly chariot and horses, all of which were on fire. The chariot took him to Heaven, and he was never seen again. Elijah was officially one of only two people who never died, and that list does not include Jesus, the Son of God.

As a servant, Elijah would have a lot of fast, fire-based attacks. He would also have incredible endurance, possibly rivaling the potential in Archers. Admittedly, I’m torn between his Noble Phantasm manifesting as his fire-from-Heaven call or the fiery chariot.

Antihero: Jonah (Jonah)

Now we come to the greatest fish tale in the Bible: the story of Jonah. Jonah was another prophet who lived during the Divided Kingdom period. Jonah received a command from God to tell the city of Ninevah to repent of their evil ways, lest they be destroyed. In response, Jonah hopped on a boat and fled in the other direction. Ninevah was the capital of Assyria, one of Israel’s foreign enemies, and he didn’t like the idea of God extending mercy on them. Can’t escape destruction if you’re not given the chance to repent, right?

Obviously, that wasn’t going to fly. The boat was caught in a violent storm, and Jonah was thrown overboard. I doubt he knew how to swim, but he didn’t have to worry about that. Instead of drowning, he endured the nightmare that was getting swallowed by a massive sea creature (the jury’s still out on if said creature was a whale or a fish). After three days of repenting and soaking up stomach acid, he was spat back onto shore so that he could do what he was supposed to do.

Due to his notoriety, Jonah would be powerful as a Fate universe Rider. Unfortunately, I have a strong suspicion that his Noble Phantasm would involve him getting swallowed again, and it would not be pleasant.

Caster

As the name implies, Caster class servants are capable of incredible magecraft, including sorcery and alchemy. Now, I do understand that this could seem sacrilegious when taking people from the Bible and associating them with magic, but remember: this is a fictional series and these lists are made in good fun.

Hero: Moses (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)

Moses is one of the most recognizable people from Jewish and Old Testament Scripture. He was the man behind the great exodus from Egypt, parting the Red Sea for people to cross safely, and hand-delivering God’s law to the people of Israel.

One of the most fascinating factoids about Moses is how targeted the 10 Plagues truly were. At first glance, they just seem like random catastrophes God unleashed whenever Pharaoh denied Israel’s release. However, when Moses and his brother Aaron first came to him to request his people’s freedom, Pharaoh asked, “Who is the Lord? I don’t know Him. Why should I obey Him?” So, God made Himself known in the most creative and brutal way possible: by undermining the power of Pharaoh’s gods. Each of the 10 Plagues targeted a specific Egyptian deity.

Hapi, the god of the Nile: God turned the water of the Nile river into blood, leaving the Egyptians bereft of clean drinking water.

Heket, the frog-headed goddess of fertility and water: God caused frogs to swarm all over the land, getting into every nook and cranny (the smell when they all died was horrid).

Geb, the god of the earth: On Moses’s order, Aaron struck the dust with his rod. That dust turned into lice, which bore down on the Egyptians and their livestock.

Khepri, the fly-headed god of the sun’s movement and creation: God summoned a swarm of flies on the Egyptians (remember: flies bite).

Hathor, the cow-headed goddess of protection and love: God struck Egypt’s livestock dead, leaving them without food and means of farming and transportation.

Imhotep, the god of medicine: God caused painful boils to fester on the Egyptian people.

Nut, the goddess of the sky: God rained massive hail on Egypt, causing severe property damage and loss of life.

Set, the god of storms and disorder: God sent massive swarms of locusts buzzing across Egypt, devouring the food and grain that had barely survived the previous plague of hail.

Ra, the falcon-headed god of the sun: God blotted out the sun for three days straight, but only in the area the Egyptians lived.

The tenth plague, the Death of the Firstborn, could apply to three Egyptian deities. The first would be Osiris, the god of life. A plague against the “firstborn” would be a direct assault on his live-giving power. The second would be Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death and the underworld. This plague would encroach on his domain over the afterlife.

The third possible candidate was Pharaoh himself. In those days, the Egyptians believed that every Pharaoh was a divine child of the gods and worshipped him as such. This personal attack on Pharaoh’s household was the final nail in the coffin.

Calling down the 10 Plagues was just one of Moses’s many feats. He parted the Red Sea, led the Israelites through the wilderness for forty years, and so much more. However, despite all of this, Moses did not make it to the Promised Land.

Remember Joshua and Caleb from Part 1? I mentioned that they were the only two of the original Israelites from Egypt who lived in the Promised Land. Moses was not in their number.

During their trek through the wilderness, the Israelites complained…a lot. They irritated both Moses and God with their grumblings. At one point, when they were begging for water, God instructed Moses to speak to a certain rock to make water flow from it. However, Moses was so peeved that he smacked it with his staff instead. Water still came out, but because of his anger-fueled disobedience, God forbade him from entering the Promised Land. Moses was able to at least see it from the top of a mountain, but once he did, he passed away.

Because he is so well and widely known, Moses would be one of the most powerful Casters in the Fate franchise. Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t put him in already. Every plague, every miracle he performed, could be a Noble Phantasm on its own. Unless someone made him frustrated enough to use poor judgement, having Moses for a Servant would lead to nothing but victory.

Antihero: Jezebel (1&2 Kings)

Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of Sidonia. She married King Ahab of Israel and flung the entire nation into a downward spiral of idolatry and wickedness. Under her influence, Ahab constructed temples to the god Baal, the Canaanite god of storms, and Asherah poles, dedicated to the Canaanite goddess of fertility of the same name. Jezebel also ordered the slaughter of God’s prophets. Thanks to her, Israel fell into one of its most depraved periods.

Her greatest foe during her reign was Elijah. Not only did he openly defy her and her husband, he had over eight hundred of her prophets slain when they lost at Mount Carmel. As mentioned before, she put an unsuccessful hit on him in retaliation. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told him about it ahead of time…?

Jezebel’s death is one of the most gruesome described in the Bible (though probably not the worst). After her loss against Elijah, Jezebel heard that Ahab was denied a vineyard he wanted to purchase. Not wanting to see her husband depressed, she organized an assassination of the vineyard’s owner, Naboth.

Of course, who better to call her and Ahab out on this than their good friend Elijah? He prophesied both of their demises: Ahab’s dynasty would die with his children, and Jezebel would be eaten by dogs in Jezreel. This came to pass when Jehu, an Israelite commander, led a rebellion against King Joram, Ahab’s son and successor. She tried to gussy herself up and taunt Jehu from her window. However, a group of eunuchs loyal to Joram threw her out of said window. While it’s possible to survive falling from that high, she was then trampled by Joram’s horses and left in the street. When someone finally went out to bury her, they found nothing but her hands, feet, and skull. A group of stray dogs had devoured her corpse, fulfilling Elijah’s prophecy.

In the Fate universe, Jezebel would be a powerful Caster servant. Since Item Creation is a basic skill for Casters, Jezebel’s Noble Phantasm would revolve around the Asherah poles she constructed, aiding allies and cursing enemies. Whoever summons her should probably keep her away from the front lines, since it’s easy for someone to throw her.

Assassin

The Assassin class servants are masters of espionage and silent killings. With multiple ways of masking their presence, these silent killers keep their opponents constantly on edge. Although most of the original Assassin servants in the Fate universe were different members of the Hassans (which is where we get the word “assassin”), Type-Moon has since expanded the roster considerably. Let’s add a couple more to that list.

Hero: Ehud (Judges)

As odd as it sounds, yes, there were some heroic people in the Bible that would count as assassins.

During the Judges period, long before kings had been anointed, Israel had a notorious habit of drifting away from God. As a consequence of their choices, the tribes and nations around them would take over and persecute them. In Judges 3, when they repeated the cycle, King Eglon of Moab conquered and ruled over them for eighteen years.

When the Israelites finally repented, God sent Ehud, from the tribe of Benjamin, to rescue the people as a judge. Unlike the some of the brawnier judges’ feats, like Samson killing hundreds of Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone, Ehud’s approach was much more subtle. When taking his tribe’s money tribute to Eglon, he snuck a foot-and-a-half long dagger under his clothes.

Obviously, his plan would have been exposed if the guards did a proper pat-down. However, there was one major catch: Ehud was left-handed. Most people are right-handed, so if the guards did check for weapons, they would have patted his left thigh, where a right-handed person could comfortably draw a weapon. Ehud, being a lefty, strapped his dagger on his right thigh. Using that to his advantage, Ehud smuggled his dagger in, caught Eglon alone in his room, and stabbed him in the stomach.

His escape gets some notable spotlight for a few of reasons.
First, he couldn’t escape with his weapon. Remember how I said his dagger was a foot-and-a-half long? It turns out that Eglon was so fat that Ehud’s dagger, including the handle, sank so far in that Ehud could not retrieve it.
Second, with the door locked to keep witnesses from discovering him, Ehud escaped through the ancient world’s equivalent of a latrine.
Finally, Eglon’s servants found the door locked and assumed he was using the bathroom. Only after waiting a long while did they grow concerned enough to get a key and check on him. By the time they found their master dead on the floor, Ehud had escaped, rallied his men, and led them into battle.

As a Fate servant, Ehud would be a master of sleight-of-hand. Instead of concealing his own presence, he could hide the tools of his trade to great effect. Considering that he led a small army, he could also hold his own in open combat, unlike most other Assassins.

Antihero: Cain (Genesis)

When it comes to a class that specializes in murder, it’s only right that we include the man behind the world’s first murder.

Cain was the first child of Adam and Eve. He specialized in growing crops of all sorts. It was as if the soil listened to him. He offered some of his harvest as a sacrifice to God, but it was not accepted as favorably as the lambs his younger brother Abel offered. In his anger, he lured his brother out into the fields and killed him with a stone.

A question many people, including myself, have asked is why God looked at Cain’s offering unfavorably. Was this God’s way of saying that we should eat more meat than vegetables?

In multiple translations, the Bible says that Cain brought a part of his harvest, or some of his crops. It doesn’t imply that what he gave was bad. However, the lambs Abel sacrificed were the “firstborn.” The book of Hebrews mentions how Abel brought a more acceptable offering “by faith.” These lambs were the very first ones born to Abel’s flock. He didn’t know for sure if his sheep would birth lambs as healthy as these, if any more at all. However, he had faith that God would provide for him even if he gave up the very first product of his hard work. Cain, on the other hand, did not give the very first of the fruit he harvested, but only some. There was less faith, less reliance on God’s provision, expressed in his offering.

Cain’s punishment for murdering his brother was to wander the Earth. The soil would no longer yield good crops for him, no matter how hard he worked. Cain lamented this consequence, claiming that anyone who found him would kill him. In an act of grace, God placed a mark on him to warn others that anyone who killed Cain would receive a punishment seven times greater.

Cain’s Noble Phantasm as a Fate servant would certainly be vengeance-based. Any damage he takes would be reflected and amplified back on the user, almost like a form of curse. The original concept for the Holy Grail War was for the opposing Heroic Spirits to be slain in a battle royale. One would need to be very careful if Cain was summoned to the field, or else his defeat would spell your own.

Berserker

As their name suggests, Berserker class Servants are famous figures who lost their rational minds. This manifests in increased strength at the cost of their sanity. Though powerful, they can be hard to control.

Hero: King Saul (1 Samuel and 1 Chronicles)

At the end of the Judges period, the Israelites came together and decided they wanted a king, just like the other nations. I’ve heard many people say that this choice for a human leader instead of relying on God’s guidance must have been heartbreaking. While true, the book of Deuteronomy, which was written long before this point in history, dictates the guidelines a king would need to follow should Israel decide to appoint one. Some of these requirements included not acquiring many horses, refraining from marrying multiple wives, and writing a copy of these instructions for himself to read every day. Looks like God factored in human behavior and thought patterns when He wrote the Law.

Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, was the first king of Israel. He was handsome, and almost a head taller than the average man. He brought many victories to Israel, but he also made life difficult for his citizens with some of his demands. He also had an unfortunate habit of ignoring God’s directions and doing things his own way. Because of this, God rejected him and had David anointed to take his place as king. Ironically, David eventually entered Saul’s service.

There came a point where Saul was tormented by “an unclean spirit.” He suffered from intense headaches and mood swings. Music from David’s harp could soothe it, but there were times when Saul would give in to his rage and hurl a spear at David. He even pulled the spear-slinging schtick on his son, Jonathan.

Saul was a brilliant general, so there is no doubt he’d make for a powerful Servant in the Fate universe. His “unclean spirit” condition could power his attacks and throws. However, music would be able to weaken his abilities, possibly even lulling him to sleep.

Antihero: Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel)

Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon when the split kingdom of Judah was conquered. Although mentioned in historical accounts such as 2 Kings and prophetic books like Jeremiah, we see more of his story played out in the book of Daniel. His records there got pretty wild (in more ways than one).

After capturing Judah, Nebuchadnezzar had a vivid dream of a multi-layered statue. Its head was made of gold, its chest and arms of silver, its legs of iron, and its feet a mixture of iron and clay. According to Daniel, who had risen to prominence in the king’s court, God had revealed to Nebuchadnezzar the future kingdoms to come. The golden head was Babylon, the silver torso was Persia, the iron legs were Greece, and the mixed-material feet were Rome.

Despite this revelation (or perhaps because of it), Nebuchadnezzar built a massive gold statue of himself and ordered everyone to worship it and, by extension, him. On his signal, everyone bowed down to it except for three Israelite officials: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They denied worshipping him to his face, choosing to remain loyal to God. Enraged, Nebuchadnezzar had them thrown into a furnace, only to witness them survive completely unscathed. He admitted that God had spared them.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for him to grow full of himself again. While admiring his kingdom, crediting himself for its success, God made Nebuchadnezzar lose his mind. He ate grass like a cow, and his hair and nails grew long. Driven out of the palace, he lived in a field for a long while until God restored his sanity to him. What’s interesting about this account in the Book of Daniel is that it was shared to all of Babylonia’s citizens through a personal declaration from Nebuchadnezzar himself. He had been so impressed by both the power and the mercy of the Most High God that he had to tell everyone about it, even if it meant exposing his scandalous behavior.

As a Fate Servant, Nebuchadnezzar’s default state would be his unhinged, animalistic appearance. Although human, his movements, attacks, and behavior would be very bestial. The only time he would regain his sanity would be during the temporary use of his Noble Phantasm: the manifestation of either the statue from his dream, or the golden statue he built for himself.

Thanks for tagging along on this second installment of Faith/Stay Night. Tune in for Part 3, where we tackle half of the Extra classes (yes, we need to split them into two parts, too). See you then!