Attributions

In this post, I explain how Kiritsugu became a cold-hearted yet mentally strong person from the perspective of attributions.

I start by describing Kiritsugu's past. He was born as a child of Norikata Emiya, a mage, and they were living on a small island called Alimango. Norikata's interest was in creating a new immortality potion, and because he remained generally uncontacted with the other islanders, he was considered dangerous by most of the local residents. However, one local girl, Shirley, became interested in his work, and since she was a highly intelligent person with a cheerful personality, Norikata decided to hire her as his assistant and also asked her to be friends with Kiritsugu. Shirley was a couple of years older than Kiritsgu, and they became good friends. In fact, Kiritsugu had a secret crush on her. 

Shirley was the only one on the island who was in close contact with the Emiya family, and she knew that both of them were good people. Because of this, she was always frustrated by the other islanders' attitudes toward the family, and one day, she secretly took one of Korekata's immortality potions and drank it in front of Kiritsgu. She told him that she wanted to prove to the other islanders that Korekata's work was not dangerous and that she would go talk to the islanders to show them that Korekata's potions did not affect her negatively. However, the potion she drank was imperfect and backfired, and started to turn her into a zombie-like creature. As she realized that she was transforming into a monster, she begged Kiritsugu to kill her before she started attacking the other islanders. However, Kiritsugu panicked and eventually ran away from her as he was unable to kill his friend/first love. Then, completely turning into a zombie-like monster, Shirley started to attack the other islanders, turning them into zombies as well. Soon after, all the residents except for the Emiya family in the Alimango island became zombies. Norikata sacrificed his life to save Kiritsugu, and when all the zombies on the island were exterminated by the mages who came for rescue, Kiritsugu was the only survivor.

Kiritsgu's ensuing thoughts and behaviors were highly influenced by this incident. Throughout his life, he could not forget the hell-like sight of the island being filled with zombies, and this experience made him strongly wish for world peace. More specifically, he perceived that this tragic incident occurred because he was unable to kill Shirley when she begged him to do so. In other words, he attributed the disaster to his lack of mental strength. This attribution was internal, which made him blame himself severely. However, he did not view this attribution as stable and uncontrollable; rather, he believed that he could become mentally stronger in the future. In a sense, he had a growth mindset, which allowed him to believe in his capabilities to overcome difficulties and be someone who can even kill one's loved ones if it is necessary to avoid a further disaster.

After this incident, Kiritsugu was raised by a mercenary, Natalia, who also impacted his life in both positive and negative ways. I may be able to write about her in future posts, and I look forward to it!