Xena Parker 
The first episode of the new Fate media Fate/ Strange Fake, has just dropped on Crunchyroll. This comes a whole year after the premiere of the series with Fate/ Strange Fake: Whispers of Dawn. The special episode ushered this new universe where the Holy Grail War does not occur in Japan, but is in the United States. But this new episode has a lot of changes that most people most probably got confused over, for example, why King Arthur looks different.
King Arthur’s lore in fate is one that has a lot of different media and canonity, not including the multiverse being a core structure in the Fate franchise. There are two main characters who bare the name of King Arthur; That is, Artoria Pendragon( Female) and Arthur Pendragon( Male). The common known King Arthur is Artoria, who has appearances in almost all fate media including the core of the story Fate/ Stay Night. Arthur Pendragon on the other hand was what Kinoko Nasu( the creator of fate), had in mind for what the King of Legend actually had to be. But not many people know about The Lionheart King, King Richard I.
The male version of King Arthur was introduced in the Fate/ Prototype timeline as the Saber for the first Holy Grail War. He was summoned by Manaka Sajyou who is incidentally the Older sister of the main character of Fate/ Strange Fake, Ayaka Sajyou. His appearance is that of Artoria, from the way his armor looks to Excalibur. His back story also matches that of Artoria as they are the same person just from different universes. But why does he look that different in Fate/ Strange Fake.
The only explanation that is there is Originality. Fate/ Strange Fake was not written by Kinoko Nasu, but by Ryōgo Narita. This warrants originality to distinguish ones character from another. This is not the first time we have seen a character in Fate look completely different from their counterpart seeing as they are the same person. We have a good example with Lion King Artoria who looks completely different from Artoria herself, so it has been done. The name of this King Arthur is Richard I, a King who grew up listening to the legends of King Arthur to the point he took on the role and personified it. He was so in tune with the legend that any weapon he took was directly converted to a version of the Holy Sword Excalibur.
As for differences between King Arthur from Fate/ Prototype and Fate/ Strange Fake, he has a more Golden and shiny look to him, kinda like Gilgamesh. He has a younger look to his face and downs a red cape instead of blue. A red lock of hair on top of having red eyes instead of blue. His Excalibur is also Golden with red as the overarching color instead of the usual blue. All in all they are the same character only distinguished by character design and universe in which they play a role in. This is all in the fact that Richard embodies the Legend of King Arthur that he literally became him. Fate is back and is as good as ever, and A-1 pictures are doing a good job in adapting the Fate/ Strange Fake light novels. As we are now in 2025, do not forget to follow the series as it airs on Crunchyroll.
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