Irisviel von Einzbern

"You don't need to grieve over me. I am already part of you. Enduring only the pain of your own sundering is enough."

- Irisviel von Einzbern

Irisviel von Einzbern is the lead female character of Fate/Zero. She is a homunculus coined by the Einzbern family based on the archetype of Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern, thus referred as a Justeaze-late model. The one who became the mother body of the ultimate homunculus, among all Einzbern homunculi in the past, she is the only who experienced motherhood and gave birth to a successor. She loves Kiritsugu Emiya, her husband, and Illyasviel von Einzbern, her daughter. In spite of his normally restrained attitude, Kiritsugu calls her "Iri" out of affection. Irisviel is a vessel of the Holy Grail, but compared to Illyasviel, she is a less refined model.

Background
Because the plan of conceiving Illyasviel was decided after Irisviel was coined, her pregnancy of Illyasviel was not much of a natural development since it was an additional role imposed onto her that she originally was not supposed to have. An exception among Einzbern homunculi whose functions are determined when they are designed. Such an exception happened due to Jubstacheit von Einzbern’s judgment that doing so would be more efficient to nurse a child rather than producing a homunculus.

Thus, despite being a homunculus, Irisviel had a human woman’s experience of giving birth to and raising a child (similar to herself) as a mother, and this has a greater influence over her feelings than Jubstacheit expected. Made to be a puppet with no desires, she managed to find happiness in her existence when she gave birth to Illyasviel.

Furthermore, nine years is a long time to maintain a relationship with a human. Before her there were no precedents of an Einzbern-made homunculus with such colorful and eccentric personality. To put it bluntly, she was the first Einzbern homunculus to be treated like a human being and learn human emotions to such an extent. Originally an existence that surpassed humans solely through the functions of mind and body, her personality did not collapse even after going through an uncommon development, and she managed to attain self-consciousness without any feelings of inferiority just like any human being.