Why are so many male historical figures female in this universe?
Tradition (stemming from genders of protagonist and Servant being flipped well into writing on what became F/SN) mixed with the need for fanservice characters in the context of being restricted to a class of characters (well known historical/legendary figures) that trend male.
Why are so many male historical figures female in this universe?
1) Tradition from Artoria being the main icon of the entire franchise. If Arthur wasn't genderswapped to begin with as was originally planned in Prototype, you would see far, far less genderswap Servants. Arguably the franchise also might end up less successful. 2) Need for fanservice because it's easy whale-bait. Fate started as a dating game and modern gacha game steers towards rolling for waifus. Fujoshis are also a big target demographics but most of the time they'd rather not see themselves date the character unlike your typical male ota. 3) Too lazy to research other female historical/legendary figures so it's easier to go by the household name people already recognize. Many non-genderswapped characters(Edison, Arjuna Alter, etc) also suffered similar character assassination through sheer laziness, btw. 4) Lazy character design. A good deal of the genderswapped characters also happens to be Saberface with a new name. Which means they literally exist only to milk more from this design over and over and over. 5) The original character would have been bland otherwise. Not technically a genderswap, but everyone who knows Matter of France knows that Astolfo is a minor character without a personality. So the "genderswap" was done to spice the character up. Again, case is applicable regardless of genderswap. 6) It's a game that employ freelance artists to design characters. Servants are sometimes designed first and written for later. These artists are not necessarily interested in history/mythology and therefore might just want to push out a design, not the character. Combined that with the fact that it is statistically known that many male artists these days literally draw only girls for a living they confessed to not knowing how to draw men, and you get your answer. 7) Sheer whim. Many female characters' role in the story would have played out the exact same if they were male, so there seriously is no narrative merits to the genderswap apart from Nasu going "eh, throw it in".
1) Tradition from Artoria being the main icon of the entire franchise. If Arthur wasn't genderswapped to begin with as was originally planned in Prototype, you would see far, far less genderswap Servants. Arguably the franchise also might end up less successful. 2) Need for fanservice because it's easy whale-bait. Fate started as a dating game and modern gacha game steers towards rolling for waifus. Fujoshis are also a big target demographics but most of the time they'd rather not see themselves date the character unlike your typical male ota. 3) Too lazy to research other female historical/legendary figures so it's easier to go by the household name people already recognize. Many non-genderswapped characters(Edison, Arjuna Alter, etc) also suffered similar character assassination through sheer laziness, btw. 4) Lazy character design. A good deal of the genderswapped characters also happens to be Saberface with a new name. Which means they literally exist only to milk more from this design over and over and over. 5) The original character would have been bland otherwise. Not technically a genderswap, but everyone who knows Matter of France knows that Astolfo is a minor character without a personality. So the "genderswap" was done to spice the character up. Again, case is applicable regardless of genderswap. 6) It's a game that employ freelance artists to design characters. Servants are sometimes designed first and written for later. These artists are not necessarily interested in history/mythology and therefore might just want to push out a design, not the character. Combined that with the fact that it is statistically known that many male artists these days literally draw only girls for a living they confessed to not knowing how to draw men, and you get your answer. 7) Sheer whim. Many female characters' role in the story would have played out the exact same if they were male, so there seriously is no narrative merits to the genderswap apart from Nasu going "eh, throw it in".
Let's be a little fairer here. In an interview, Nasu reveals that he actually vetoes a lot of genderswapped designs even from Takeuchi, as he only sees genderswapping as a way to balance the male-female ratio of Servants.
1. True. Several characters are simply variants of Artoria's design, usually to bridge the series together. This is especially the case early on, when Takeuchi did all the work in designing the characters used. That said, he at least is consistent in making his references often years before he shows a character. See Jeanne d'Arc being noted as looking like a sexier Artoria years before her design was shown.
2. Less so, but still true enough. It really depends on the artists tapped for a given character. Some put a lot of work into making clever designs, but fanservice is a tool in the box if they choose to justify it enough for money or mass appeal.
3. Not true. Most of the time (I won't say always or never) a lot of research goes into designs, with often obscure aspects of a given character or multiple versions of a given legend referenced in the character's personality or appearance. There are exceptions of course, but if you dig beyond the surface, you can find remarkable trivia that makes you realize that the designer might simply know more than you expect or drew from more than just one telling of a legend. Edison is the big known exception, his silly design having been thrown in simply because it got a laugh out of everyone at the studio and was so over-the-top. Keep in mind that many of the alternate designs that are jarring are deliberately so, often with the plot of a given event or story chapter explaining WHY they are so very off from how they are so supposed to be. Arjuna Alter was explicitly messed up in the head via Caster of Limbo and consumed many gods which screwed his mind up even more, for example.
4. True... somewhat. Most of the saberfaces are outright alternate/other versions of Artoria anyway, and Okita was a self-aware joke the company made on that very topic, along with genderbending (based on Okita almost always being played by women in period dramas). Many of them relate to the plot in some way to justify their appearances, such as the Lion King. That all said, Takeuchi loves drawing Artoria's face, so he overuses it whenever he gets the chance. No denying that.
5. False in the example used. Astolfo is not genderswapped. He's a male trap in reference to a sequence where he dressed up as a girl to cheer up Roland from a broken heart. He's noted to be beautiful even in his stories, and his insanity as also a reference to him leaving his wits on the moon to bring back another paladin's. He is noted as showing up more in several Italian romance epics more than just the Matter of France, and a lot of his feats and traits are drawn from those epics.
6. True. Even then, Fate is a big enough series over there that artists will at least try to justify a genderbend if they opt to do so. Some of these make more sense than others. Nagao Kagetora/Kenshin Uesugi, for example, has been theorized even to this day to have been a woman in disguise given some odd habits, characteristics and traits in old texts about them. Such as having monthly cramps bad enough to incapacitate them like clockwork. In contrast, Ushiwakamaru was just done for the hell of it.
7. I can't think of any that really fit this argument based on gender alone. Will withhold commentary.
Note that my reasons were pointing "to specific cases", each character was genderswapped for different reasons, not that all 7 must be applicable to ALL genderswapped characters.
2. Please explain the purpose of not only genderswapping Attila and Minamoto no Yorimitsu, but explicitly giving her such look if not for fanservice. These two are the biggest examples of characters who does not have anything resembling their source.
I also state that point because have you seen how Fate fandom talks? I can bet that 90% of the people pouring their entire lives savings into Fate merchandise still wouldn't even be able to say what their "waifus" did in actual mythology/history(emphasis on actual, not Fateverse). JP Fate community seems to be more interested in trying to find out if real life Marie Antoinette have big boobs over how her action affects France. And that's not even talking about the doujin community.
3 and 6. False. Again characters like Okita happens all the time in Fate. Where the artist drew a random design out of their whim, Nasu approve it, then give it to someone else to try and find what mythological/historical names they can arbitrarily tact onto it.
This is not to mention characters like Salieri, Ivan the Terrible, Kato Danzo or again, God Arjuna where the design is NOT based on mythology/history, but out of random, convoluted in-universe reason that contradicts actual source material.
The entire point of Bhagavad Ghita is to tell Arjuna to be humble and fulfill his duty as a human warrior who is inconsequential to gods, so the existence of God Arjuna is greatly contradictory to his mythological character's entire philosophy. Characters like Krishna, Indrajit, Ravana, or Yudisthira could have easily fulfilled the "I have ascended to become god and went crazy" role, but they weren't chosen exactly because of the reasons I spoke of. Either because Arjuna is too much a whale-bait for the fujoshis, or sheer lazy research, or both.
5. You seem to have missed the thing where I explicitly stated Astolfo was "technically not genderswapped". I am merely referring to his design as a trap which regardless of actual gender, puts him into waifu status in the eyes of the whales. And even in Orlando Furioso, Astolfo still was just Charlemagne's drone who does whatever he was told, that was the point that I was saying why the character needed spicing up nevertheless.
I could pull up a dozen more examples, most from Fate's obsession with making things far more convoluted than it needs to be, which just ended up butchering mytholgy/history for no reason. Like how Bathory was turned into a dragon, when her historical concept as a blood countess would have sufficed. Or Semiramis, who very quickly strayed from her theme as "primal poisoner" to queen of floating laser castle with whatever snake dragon that never appeared in her mythology. Or how Gae Bolg was turned into reverse-causality spear just to make the description sound smarter(because you know, the reverse-causality OHKO never actually worked and therefore was only there just so Nasu can go "look how cool this person is to be able to evade the OHKO spear!") when the actual mythological spear instakilling you by spreading spikes throughout your bloodstream was plenty cool enough.
7. Example would be Musashi, who was stated that canon Fateverse Musashi is male, yet THIS Musashi is from the alternate universe where she's female. Just because. Likewise, most in-universe justification for genderswap was merely "was recorded in history as a male but is actually female", which is as flimsy as excuses come. Most of the so-called "justification" aren't so much justification, but convoluted way of making excuses to fanservice and lazy research.
I'm willing to give that in the current Fate writing team of 20-30 people, maybe a handful of them do care about mythology/history. But the fact that even Japan's own top historical figures like Nobunaga and Ryouma got relentlessly butchered just showed that a lot of them will still intentionally butcher the character even if they knew the historical source.
