>>3999702Well, when she lived as Arthur, the King, she lived as a man, but from the scarce times her gender is brought up in the VN you do get the feeling that it was a very unimportant aspect of her life for her, just another part of her humanity to be sacrificed for her ideal, to the point where she would probably be more accurately described as genderless, at least in her own perception of herself. Abandoning her feminity and acting and identifying as a man was just another part of the job, not something she internalized as a part of her.
That's why when she's slowly humanized throughout the VN, she returns to her true identity and starts to resemble Artoria, the girl, more and more. To the point where in some parts of F/HA it's truly difficult to reconcile the idea of King Arthur with the girl playing football at the park, or struggling to learn how to swim in the pool, or wearing cute clothes and getting flustered when going out on a date.
It's quite beautiful character development tbqh.
