I still have a little time before I need to do my Hardcore Mad Insane Crazy study session followed by Self-Study under the guise of eating pie in Denny's, so I will stop containing my excitement having watched episode 11.
I call this the "Turnaround" episode because Shirou quite literally "turns around" from his actions as of late.
1. Rin notices that Shirou's true sorcery is not reinforcement, but apparently creating something out of nothing. I already knew this much about him after brutally spoiling myself, but the way they said it in the episode sounded confusing. "Equal substitution?" I guess magic isn't a zero-sum game.
2. After a rude awakening from Shinji (basically realizing that Shinji is a contemptible bastard who will hurt people who are already down), Shirou "throws off the gloves" and dons the cojones of an Alpha Male. Earlier he says he will avoid fighting when he can, but once the school is threatened by Shinji and Rider, he not only decides to fight but also threatens to
kill Shinji and demands Shinji to give up at that instant. In other words, Shirou starts fighting in the Holy Grail War as if it were a
War.
This is also a turnaround for Shinji, as he turns from a slithering slimy bastard into a whimpering whiny bastard when Shirou throttles the sumbitch.
3. Shirou also realizes the error of his ways and admits it to Saber. He agrees to let her do the fighting since it's her job. I admired Shirou earlier on because of his determination and nobility, but he had been fouling it up do to his imprudence (read: idiocy). Shirou is finally getting some sense to temper his idealism. But the pendulum at least doesn't swing too far the other direction and make Saber do all the hard work for him.
4. Even though reinforcement isn't his true power, Shirou improves even that almost instantaneously. I think this is thanks to Rin helping him turn on his "magical circuit." Up until now, Shirou's reinforce has had dubious effects on whatever he tried to reinforce (i.e., they still broke after enough stress). But he managed to turn a broomstick into some impressive metallic substance, which shows us that he's been doing it wrong all along (the metal poster and the table from the previous episodes didn't change color or composition or anything).
Also, the "magic circuit" animation that they showed whenever he tried that spell changed too. Whenever he did reinforce before, there was an animation of a circuit board and a green line of energy that would pulse through it. Now, several green lines pulsed through and "overflowed," as if some huge increase in his power were realized. I liked the effect of how his magic circuit overloaded when he heard Shinji brag about his own glorious assholishness.
All in all, it looks like even the Shirou haters will have to quiet down a little. I hope we learn about his future as YOUKNOWWHO, but I doubt that will happen. Oh well, I could at least gloat about it when the series ends.
