#but then struggle so uch in other relationship areas

[joshnekuu]

I think one of the things that gets me and sells me the most on Siegstolfo is how they choose to be each other's Master and Servant. There's no ulterior motives behind it, either. Sieg doesn't care about the war. He isn't thinking about how helping Astolfo will help him to achieve his goals. Astolfo is content to fade away knowing Sieg is alive and relatively safe, he protests to Sieg making a contract with him at first because he knows he's not the best servant and doesn't want Sieg getting dragged further into the war. But he obviously cares about Sieg and respects his wishes and has faith that they're both making the right choice and goes along with it- and then later acknowledges that he chose Sieg, by thinking of him as the "Master he chose, and that chose him in return."

They're not the first duo to do this, but the only other pair I can think of that was actually focused on and didn't have some ultimate plan behind their motivation is Medea and Kuzuki- who are literally married and in love in Hollow Ataraxia. It's not a perfect parallel, but Rin and Saber's new pact gets like no focus at all before rin gets kidnapped and saber is back to working with Shirou, and Gil and Kirei's pact was calculated and planned before hand and they both had things they wanted to gain that they knew this relationship would help them with. And all those relationships are viewed by many as romantic (Kotogil is one of the most popular mlm ships in the series, with a lot of meta on Kirei’s sexuality; Rin is pretty much canonically bisexual and is shown to be attracted to and care for Saber and it is a fairly popular wlw ship for both of them as well). But Kuzuki has no stakes or interest in the war, Medea doesn’t really have a wish until she meets Kuzuki, their pact is formed based on Kuzuki wanting to save her and help her, and they fall in love and get fucking married in HA. So like... damn!! Looking at Sieg/Astolfo alongside the other ‘Servants Who Were Saved After They Lost Their Original Master’ duos, it’s really hard not to read their relationship as romantic?

Especially when Sieg shows so much understanding and acceptance toward Astolfo for the kind of person he is? And has faith in him despite everyone else doubting him, and knowing that he can be an erratic and ditsy person? Like, Sieg doesn’t connect with a lot of people in the story and he doesn’t understand how humans work for quite awhile, but he understands Astolfo and can tell when Astolfo is worried or afraid, and comforts him and tells him that he’s okay just the way he is and that Sieg doesn’t value him for his strength as a Servant. And this is all on top of their meeting, which is an establishing character moment for Sieg as an actual character and Astolfo as a protagonist, and all the other moments they have together. Just. Wow! I love them.