I have recently started watching the Fate series but I watched it in the order of Fate/Zero then Fate/Stay. But, thats's not the thing that concerns me. While I was watching Fate/stay, this question kinda popped into my head.

Do Servants contain memories of their past Masters?

People keep telling me to read the visual novel but I can't find it online. I would really appreciate if someone could answer the question for me!


A Servant that has been summoned and then returned to the Throne of Heroes will not remember their first summoning during any subsequent summonings. Under normal circumstances, each time a Servant is summoned, it is actually a copy of the Servant derived from the Throne of Heroes that manifests into the world, and changes to that copy do not affect the version of the Hero stored in the Throne of Heroes. (Servants have copy semantics, so to speak.)

However, in Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero, Saber and Gilgamesh do not follow this general rule.

  • Gilgamesh remained in the world from the start of the 4th Grail War until at least part way through the 5th Grail War, and hence has memories of this entire time period (but he would not have memories of other summonings).
  • Saber, having not yet died at the time of her summoning to the 4th and 5th Grail Wars, was not copied from the Throne of Heroes in the first place. She retains continuity of memory between the two wars. (Saber has move semantics, if you will.)

Yes, If they have master then they remember because the spirit is summoned from the other dimension and after it is done then they go back

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    What episode are you referring to? – Rumpelstiltskin Nov 12 '18 at 1:23

Senshin is correct, but there's another example to point out.


Senshin is correct that heroes from the throne do not remember individual summons (for any purpose), as the copy that is stored in the throne is fixed. There is, however, a mechanic which can generate exceptions: reality marbles. The stored hero and his various summons all share the same reality marble. A reality marble, being somewhat literally the user's internal world (which is then made manifest upon the world in some sense and extent), changes in response to changes to that internal world. As such the reality marble becomes the channel through which memories and personality changes are conveyed and imposed upon the stored hero and subsequent summons.

This is how Archer becomes distorted and warped, and develops a plan to try to end his own existence by paradoxically killing himself should he ever be conveniently summoned into the grail war in some alternate timeline. He was frequently summoned as a pawn devoid of the ability to enact his own will to mop up the messes of humanity, and to kill and destroy as demanded. He had made his pact with the world thinking he would prevent suffering and tragedy and death, not simply be a murderous janitor that comes in after the fact. His reality marble effectively records these things and it results in twisting the personality of the heroic spirit.

So in such a case, yes, a spirit can remember "prior" summons. Though exactly how the "order" of summons gets determined when the throne itself exists outside of time, I don't know; clearly the Fuyuki HGW we see occurs after many other summons for other purposes.

In principle this could apply to any other hero with a Reality Marble, such as the 4th War's Rider. Indeed, some people felt they saw an adult Waver in his reality marble's army in the Fate/Zero animation, but this seems fan speculation at best and may have been someone else with a similar look.

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