The Foils of Emiya Shirou.
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Spoilers for Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night(all routes), Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, and Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 3rei in that order, so you'll know where to stop if you want to avoid spoilers.

Probably one of the best things about Shirou as a protagonist is just how many of the key characters surrounding him parallel and contrast him, in a way that adds more to both them and Shirou.

Starting with Kiritsugu, both him and Shirou experienced the same "hell" as kids, however they both reacted differently to it, it gave Kiritsugu his resolve to change the world and "save everyone", while for Shirou it took everything from him to the point

where he latched onto the first thing he saw: Kiritsugu.

If Shirou is a fake then Kiritsugu is the real thing, he wasn't empty and did what he did out of a genuine desire to save the world, while Shirou was doing it because he had nothing else.

They both were picked up by parental figures who taught them how to live afterwards, however, in Kiritsugu's case, Natalia didn't know how to live outside of her job which involved killing, which led Kiritsugu to develop a dark approach regarding saving people from very early on

One where he is fine with sacrificing the minority for the sake of the majority, Kiritsugu truly believed that his ideal can come true if he keeps moving forward so he didn't care about the sacrifices it took to get there, not knowing that it's impossible in the first place.

Shirou on the other hand, was raised by a peaceful Kiritsugu who had already learned his lesson, and all Shirou saw was that Kiritsugu, so he admired him, thinking that it would be great if he could become like that idolized version that didn't exist

Shirou stubbornly believed that no sacrifice is necessary, that saving everyone, literally everyone, is the ideal he should aim for. But there is a version of Shirou that followed the same path that Kiritsugu did; the one from the Mind of Steel ending in Heaven's Feel.

This difference in their reasons for pursuing their ideals is what ultimately caused Kiritsugu to fail and Shirou to succeed, ironically, Shirou being a fake is what led him to realize that it's fine even if achieving the ideal is impossible.

Next is Archer, who is none other than Shirou's alternative future self, Archer is the outcome of Shirou stubbornly believing he can save everyone without sacrifices, until he was faced with the reality that he couldn't and broke

Turning him into the same thing that Kiritsugu was before his realization at the end, a person who believes that the ends justify the means, and will sacrifice as many as necessary to save the majority. Fate/Stay Night is the story of how Shirou can avoid his fate as Archer

With 3 different answers to that, the first one being the Fate route's answer, Shirou in this route has a realization that Archer never did, which is that no matter how much you may regret the past, you cannot and *should* not attempt to change it, instead you should aim

to change the future through your present actions, this realization combined with his success in helping Artoria come to the same conclusion, led him to gain an unshakable resolve that Archer didn't have, as long as he was guided by Artoria's light, he would never falter again.

Unlimited Blade Works gives us a direct confrontation where Shirou comes up with an even stronger answer, that doing what you truly believe to be good can never be a mistake, regardless of the results or anything else, just attempting to do that is good enough on its own.

Heaven's Feel is where Shirou diverges from Archer the most, by betraying the ideals that he has promised to follow, and ultimately surpassed Archer.

Artoria and Shirou are both burdened by their pasts, both believed that their path won't be a mistake regardless of the result, and yet both of them doubted that same path at some point, and their arc is about helping each other overcome those doubts by being each other's sheath.

Where it gets interesting though is how both of them view themselves, they both sacrificed themselves and their image in people's eyes for the sake of others, but while Shirou does it out of survivor's guilt and lack of self-value

Artoria believes that it is the only way to achieve the ideal she sought, due to how much she genuinely cared for others as she is a King and not a regular person, so her way of doing things makes sense considering her position, which is why

from her perspective, Shirou is being nonsensical as he has no such reason to sacrifice himself so much, which makes their dynamic in Fate very interesting, two people who are equally troubled are bothered by each other's way of living, but unable to recognize their similarities.

So far the foils have all been similar to Shirou in philosophies but different in approach/methods, but Shirou and Kirei's case is the exact opposite, they are on opposite extremes in the way they live, but the place they come from is fundamentally the same, that being emptiness

They were both broken from the get go, empty without anything they were passionate about, and so they latched on to the one thing that made them feel alive, the one way they knew how to live, but those ways were opposing, Shirou could only live through others' happiness, while

Kirei could only do it through their misfortune. This makes Kirei the perfect antagonist for Shirou and visa versa, as neither of them are fighting because they think their beliefs are more righteous, they are just simply unable to fight for anything else.

This strange similarity despite how opposing they are, makes their relationship an interesting one, because neither of them can hate the other despite being the most incompatible people ever, after all how can you hate the one person that you understand and who understands you

More than anyone else in the world?

This relationship gets even more interesting when you take both of their relationships with Kiritsugu into account, because unlike the both of them, Kiritsugu was never empty, his reason for fighting was because he believed he was right

And while realizing this disappointed Kirei, as he couldn't find the person whom he could understand and who could understand him in return, this realization gave Shirou strength and resolve to surpass Kiritsugu, despite being only a fake compared to him.

Next up is probably the most unique case in all of these, none other than Angra Mainyu, again this will contain MASSIVE Hollow Ataraxia spoilers so if you want to avoid any of it please stop here.
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Okay so, with Angra not being an actual "person" so to speak, the Angra we are most familiar with in HA is more like a Shirou Angra, he is the result of how Shirou would've turned out if he was the villager that was tortured and turned into a demon

So naturally, this Angra is very connected to Shirou, but it's complicated.

Now bear with me but I need to break down Angra a little bit before how he foils Shirou, there's actually 3 Angras in HA and all are part of the same entity, but represent different aspects of him:

1. The Servant Avenger, as explained above.
2. Emiya Shirou, who in the other way around, is how Angra would've turned out if he was given the carefree daily life that he wasn't allowed to have originally.
3. The Cursed Holy Grail, All Evils of the World that we see in F/SN.

It's important to make this distinction because all 3 Angras have different motivations here, the Servant one is basically acting as Bazett's Servant to keep the Holy Grail War going. The Shirou one on the other hand wants to end it all because he is a "hero of justice"

And lastly, the Holy Grail Avenger, is the one that wants the loop to keep going, he is the part of Angra who wants the happy days that he couldn't have to continue forever.

So basically there are 2 conflicting parts of Angra here, one wants to keep going and one wants it to end

What I'm trying to say here is that the fact that Angra's desire to end it overcame his desire to keep going, simply due to how much Shirou's desire to be a Hero of Justice resonated with him, speaks volumes to how much Angra was impacted by him.

He wanted to have something he was passionate about, just like Shirou, but he was never even allowed that, so this was the one time where he could live for something bigger than himself, the one time where he could do something he *wanted*, as Emiya Shirou.

And this little time he lived as Shirou saved him, even though he eventually returned to nothingness and had to give up his happiness for Bazett, he was satisfied.

For this connection to exist between Shirou, who wants to save people, and Angra, who can only hate them

Says a lot about both of them.

Similar to Kirei earlier, Angra doesn't hate people because that's an emotion he chose to feel towards them, it's the only way he can interact with them, the only thing that he was allowed to have, but love and hate are two sides of the same coin

He hated humans, but while this sounds weird, he didn't do it out of hatred, he did it out of love, he accepted his role as All Evils of the World and saw the beauty in humanity and the world. And all this allowed him to understand Shirou on a deep level

Sure, he makes all sorts of remarks about how stupid Shirou is and how he hates people who are wannabe heroes of justice, but in reality he respects the fact that Shirou is willing to live that life despite of all the hypocrisies it brings

Because Shirou never does it out of pity, he doesn't feel any negative emotions when he is trying to save others, he has no doubts about his existence, just like Angra has no doubts about his own, they both accept their only allowed roles in the world despite how harsh they are

In the end, this is all one sided, Shirou never gets to interact with Angra directly, and the only time they ever did in any way was during the Fate Route where Angra wasn't even a person but just a collection of curses, but I like to imagine that the reason Shirou survived

That encounter, is because unlike any other human that Angra interacted with(like Kiritsugu), Shirou resonated with him and so he let him go.

Last one, is probably the least known one among these, but I felt it's worth bringing up nonetheless, Shirou and Julian in the Oath Under Snow timeline, these two have a unique dynamic going, they were friends, best friends even, but ultimately had to be enemies

Due to their motivations clashing, but it all came down to the same thing, they both wanted to save the person they cared for the most, but the difference between them is that Julian's resolve was too weak, he gave up on truly saving Pandora and decided to let her die.

Shirou was fine with being considered evil, he was fine with endangering the world, as long as the one person he wanted to be happy was saved. This made Julian feel weak and pathetic, and he felt like he didn't have the right to pursue that idealistic path that Shirou did.

It might not be as deep as the the rest of the foils, but it's still really cool to have someone who is the same as Shirou, just another kid whose wish is too big of a burden to bear, and it highlights just how strong Shirou is to be able to go through with it regardless.

It's also interesting because the roles are flipped over from usual here, Julian is the one who wants to "save the world" like a hero of justice while Shirou is just concerned with one person's happiness. Oath Under Snow Shirou is basically another foil to regular Shirou.

What makes all of these foils so interesting to me, is that they are all unique from each other, which leads to very specific and interesting dynamics, and they also foil each other, it adds a lot of depth to those characters and proves how brilliant Shirou's character writing is

There are still more foils like Muramasa, Amakusa and Sieg, but they are not major enough to focus on, but worth mentioning regardless.

And if you made it this far:

Thank you for reading :)