

DISCLAIMER: My only knowledge about fate is the Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade
Works anime adaptations, as well as the Fate/Extella video game. This is
something I'm genuinely curious about.

The Fate franchise is all about summoning Heroic Spirits to participate in the
Holy Grail War. It is filled with fictional depictions of historical and
mythical figures, such as Hercules, Achilles, King Arthur, Alexander the
Great, and more.

There are many instances of turning male historical figures into female Heroic
Spirits, including but not limited to King Arthur, Nobunaga Oda, Musashi
Miyamoto, Francis Drake, and many more.

However, the reverse doesn't happen. Female historical figures stay female
when summoned as Heroic Spirits and aren't turned into males.

Why is this? Is it for artistic reasons? Story-telling reasons?


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question
fate-stay-night fate-zero fate-series fate-apocrypha
In Fate, why do some male historical figures get turned into females, but not vice versa?


The in-universe explanation for this is that these characters **WERE** female
in history, it's just that the legends that became their legacy portrayed them
as male. In the case of Saber she was seen as a young boy whose ageing was
halted when 'he' pulled the sword from the stone.  
(Her full story is up on the [F/SN
wiki](https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Saber_\(Fate/stay_night\)#Identity),
some parts of it are pretty ridiculous though)

With Saber being the flagship Heroic Spirit of the Fate universe her backstory
is by far the most elaborate and fleshed out, but it is assumed that other
supposed-to-be-male characters have similar backstories/explanations.  
One notable exception / edge case is Astolfo (The Rider for the Black team in
_Fate/Apocrypha_ ) who is supposed to be male in the Fate universe as well,
but just looks feminine, even though the wikis insist that this is
androgynous: [![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/COYrJ.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/COYrJ.jpg)


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answer