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I've only seen Ufotable's adaptation of UBW (and the movie too but that was
long ago).

It's still not very clear to me what's up with Archer:

  * He's Shirou from the future. Does he not remember the events of this war? He would also know that Shirou is going to beat him.
  * How did Shirou die? There is a scene in which a giant glowing ball absorbs Shirou (like some sort of pact), so I assume that's when he became a Heroic Spirit too. Did he **_die_** at that point? (so he killed himself)
  * So Archer wants to kill Shirou because he _regrets_ his decision of becoming a Heroic Spirit? Why does he regret it? Because Kiritsugu was right? (that you have to kill people to save others).
  * Why does Archer have Rho Aias from the Trojan War?

And finally,

  * Is this Archer the same Archer from Fate Stay/Night? In other words, is the Archer from the original series also Shirou from the future?


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fate-stay-night
What is Archer's background in Unlimited Blade Works?


> He's Shirou from the future. Does he not remember the events of this war?

In the version of the war that Archer experienced as a Master, Rin summoned
someone else as a servant (still an Archer-class Servant, but we're never told
who). Archer has no experience of having met his future-self.

I forget where - maybe it's some kind of side material or maybe it's Last
Episode or something - but we _are_ explicitly told that Archer vividly
remembers having summoned Saber when he went through the war (this is
something that happens in every timeline, because of Avalon). Something to the
effect of "even were he to die a thousand times, he would never forgot Saber's
radiance" or some similar schlock.

The thing Archer pulls at the beginning where he claims not to remember who he
is _is_ initially because Rin genuinely did mess up the summoning, but he
regains his memory relatively quickly and maintains the facade of memory loss
for some time afterwards.

> How did Shirou die?

Archer explicitly mentions in episode 19 or 20 that he was scapegoated by one
of the people he saved, and was executed shortly thereafter.

> There is a scene in which a giant glowing ball absorbs Shirou (like some
> sort of pact), so I assume that's when he became a Heroic Spirit too. Did he
> die at that point? (so he killed himself)

Yes, that's when Archer (then-Shirou) "contracted with the world" (to use the
parlance) and became a Counter Guardian. He only died later.

> So Archer wants to kill Shirou because he regrets his decision of becoming a
> Heroic Spirit? Why does he regret it? Because Kiritsugu was right? (that you
> have to kill people to save others).

Archer regrets having become a Heroic Spirit because he did so by becoming a
Counter Guardian (as opposed to by becoming an actual Hero). What this means
is that he gets dispatched to situations where mankind is destroying itself.
He stops mankind from destroying itself by killing the people who are the
cause, generally after they've already done their damage.

Implicitly, this does mean that Kiritsugu was right, though I don't think that
Archer is specifically bothered by the mere fact that Kiritsugu was right.

> Why does Archer have Rho Aias from the Trojan War?

This is somewhat mysterious. The implication is that Archer must have been
dispatched to the Trojan War at some point (in his capacity as a Counter
Guardian), where he must have seen Ajax using his shield and copied it.

> Is this Archer the same Archer from Fate Stay/Night? In other words, is the
> Archer from the original series also Shirou from the future?

By "Archer from the original series", do you mean "Archer from the 2006 DEEN
anime"? If so, yes - that Archer is also Shirou from the future.


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This information isn’t from the F/SN-UBW but rather the Fate/Extra game. In
there almost close to the end of the game you talk to Archer (if he’s your
servant) and he tells you that there was a nuclear meltdown that was going to
kill tens of thousands of people. He also says he needed someone to help him
with the job. Yet he didn’t ask for help. So what happens is Archer goes past
security and everything and deactivates the melt down alone and manually. But
it causes him to die. And become a heroic spirit. (I think that’s the glowing
giant ball in the anime.) Also as for him not knowing the exact past, you can
consider him from an alternate future. Because the Throne Of Heroes contains
heroic spirits form all times and parallel universes.


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AFAIK Archer is a version of Shirou from a very specific timeline. He comes
from one of the bad (arguably) ending of the third route of the visual novel,
Heaven's Feel(it's the one where the main romance interest is Sakura). I don't
remember if this still stands in the anime adaptation


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