Re:Zero Episode 77 (Season 4 Episode 11) – Analysis + Important Details

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This episode isn’t filled to the brim with content, so I’ll take a more standard approach and try not to recap as much as humanly possible. The episode leads with Ram calling amnesiac Subaru an imposter, so he charges right at her with the intent to kill, leading to Emilia trapping him in an ice cage with Ram threatening to kill him if he implies one more time that he forgot about Rem, having pushed Emilia out of the way when Ram had otherwise initially intended to torture him due to believing he might be a Sin Archbishop.

I don’t consider Ram’s anger at Subaru to be misplaced. Ram was really reliant on Subaru ’cause she can feel that Rem carries the same blood in her veins as she does, and given Rem’s feats in the mansion arc were adjusted in her mind, she has a higher opinion of Subaru than before Rem was erased by Lye Batenkaitos. To Ram, Subaru is the anchor tying her to Rem, and was the lone person, to her knowledge, who remembered her, and it just shows much she’s relying on Subaru that she’s lashing out in anger due to her own feeling of powerlessness since Subaru not remembering Rem means that Rem has lost her greatest champion. I feel calling Ram’s anger misplaced shows that one’s not being empathetic enough of the current situation as even though Julius had completely forgotten Joshua in Season 3, he still felt an emptiness and sense that something was missing, which is why Roy Alphard was able to mess with him, showing that Ram can also certainly feel that something was missing herself. It’s all the more understanding that Ram had the level of anger she did at amnesiac Subaru since to her Subaru’s possibly the only person in this world who’d never forget Rem even if everyone else did, so this man before her acting as suspiciously as he has would of course test her patience given she doesn’t know him to be the Subaru she put her faith in for restoring her sister, and we know how much she approved of Subaru’s relationship with Rem and his resolve to save her in Ep. 67 despite having no memory of it herself.

Amnesiac Subaru then blacks out and finds the ice cage destroyed with “Natsuki Subaru was here” carved into so much of the wall, and Reid comments on that with the scene change showing that it was almost certainly Rui Arneb, who could change into the form of somebody who’d previously been eaten, who made the carvings as there were carvings even above the door, which Subaru wouldn’t have the strength to carve into the wall himself given his height. He then asks Reid whether he didn’t previously say that he couldn’t leave the second floor, to which Reid says that the whole premise behind that is gone now, likely ’cause whatever mind manipulation magic or spatial loop that stopped him from leaving was no longer in effect due to one of the tower’s rules having been broken in that the tower was under attack, which of course comes with a flick to amnesiac Subaru’s head since amnesiac Subaru isn’t thinking things through, and I believe it’s a valuable lesson he needs to learn, possibly an intentional lesson from Reid given his cryptic remark at 3:22, “Ah, finally,” showing he may have been been waiting for that specific moment when the tower starts crumbling as a cue to when to engage Julius due to this version of him possibly still being on the side of Satella and Echidna with his mind being linked to Echidna’s, giving him future knowledge that can explain why he may have wanted to teach amnesiac Subaru a lesson.

Once they’ve made it to where Julius is, Julius is fighting a ton of those centaur/horse mabeasts, and when Julius is about to take a fireball at full strength, amnesiac Subaru warns him, saving him from certain death, much to Meilibaru’s chagrin, and Reid joins Julius and just shreds all the mabeasts to death while putting up a stink about how the exam is beginning again, forcing Julius to fight him once more, and Julius remarks that he leaves Foxidna and Anastasia to amnesiac Subaru, which stirred something in him given most of the group hadn’t been trusting him.

He then runs into Beatrice and Foxidna, the latter of whom “outwardly projected” that she believes he can’t be trusted, and Foxidna right then and there drops the most suspicious lines she’s had all season as if the previous stuff wasn’t already enough to make her suspect in that she believes she should’ve trusted Anastasia’s intuition and not have brought anyone else here aside from Subaru, showing she lied about Anastasia lying asleep deep within her od all this time, which is the container of her soul, since that comment shows she had talked to Anastasia about her plans to an extent, and given this is the linchpin of her arguments around having nothing to hide, I believe it calls into question pretty much everything she’s said this season. I believe Foxidna fully has the Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, much like the original Echidna and also Tea Party Echidna, and that’s why she put it into Subaru’s head to bring Rem with him to the Pleiades Watchtower, ’cause Foxidna had been driving Subaru to one very specific future, which required Rem to be at the tower.

He then has an identity crisis and doesn’t care about Foxidna’s supposed blunder ’cause he’s not like the Subaru they know, retorting that it’s not an act since nobody would actually willingly choose to be Natsuki Subaru and the asshole that he is. As he’s breaking down due to how unfair the situation seems to him, he starts berating himself and asks to be forgiven and sent home due to this being too much for him. Foxidna says that that’s enough and that Beatrice can stay with him since she intends to find Julius, but amnesiac Subaru won’t let her go due to it being in his nature to help others and abide by Julius’s request. They then get attacked by a scorpion mabeast trying to snipe them, which is probably Shaula when she becomes a mindless killing machine when one of the tower’s rules are broken, and he saves Foxidna from falling to her death, leading to her asking him to stop being so unpredictable, and what he’d done was as much of a surprise to him as it was to her. She then blasted Shaula with El Jiwald, which tore off a piece of the scorpion mabeast.

Foxidna then asks him, “What in the world are you? Whose side are you on, and what is your goal?” probably to continue her ruse, and Beatrice finished his sentence in saying that he doesn’t remember, but she’s okay with that since she remembers that he brought her out of the Forbidden Library and always will, showing that Subaru’s words in Episode 49 were correct in that the time she spends with him would be so fun that he’ll forever be ingrained in her memories. Then Foxidna steps on a piece of Shaula’s body that was left behind, and it explodes, killing Beatrice, who took on the full brunt of the explosion so that her beloved contractor would survive. Later, even as Foxidna is getting dragged along the ground by him, asks him whether it should’ve been Beatrice over her that he took with him, which may have been survivor’s guilt or just really good acting, to make him think back to how Beatrice sacrificed herself for him and how he was loved. He then apologizes for Foxidna’s pain, and she merely retorts that her pain is penance for Anastasia given if she were to return her body now Anastasia would experience this pain and the horror of death, so she requests of him that she wouldn’t mind being put out of her misery, and once he again, he hears Meilibaru implying it’s a perfect opportunity to finish her off so that he can read her Book of the Dead, and he seriously considered doing so with a piece of rock but ultimately rejected Meili’s approach, showing he still had his own identity even if he’d taken in the Meili personality as his own, leading to Foxidna forgiving him and being sorry for having doubted him even if it’s potentially a ruse meant to give him the courage to believe in himself.

Then the Witch of Envy appears with her shadow hands from yin magic, not the Authority of Sloth, given Garfiel could see these hands in Season 2 ’cause yin magic can produce these hands, and the tell is that her vocabulary is limited to “I love you” as seen here or “Love me” from Season 2. Amnesiac Subaru is of course ranting that he doesn’t leave love himself, so how can anyone love him? This is despite knowing that his parents loved him deeply ’cause he’s rejecting other people’s love for him due to how much self-hatred he has for himself, much like in Season 1, when Rem had to put it so much effort for his From Zero moment. And he’d realized deep down that people who treated him so well couldn’t possibly be bad, so he wished that this could be his last life for ever having doubted them in the first place due to his doubt of them making him believe he was even more unlovable still, leading to the Witch of Envy enveloping him with her shadow hands before Emilia cuts the hands down and takes him away.

After they’d ran for a while, he then protests that that’s enough as he doesn’t understand why she and all the others trusted him and protected him, and after sharing the news of Beatrice and Foxidna’s death, he says that they’re all idiots for expecting anything of him. Emila then gives amnesiac Subaru a touching pep talk sharing all that he did for her, eventually resulting in her falling for him as he’s in complete despair, mirroring Ep. 40, A Reason To Believe, when she was the one with memory issues and at her breaking point, and as this happened, he ranted about how risking his life for somebody else, instinctively saving someone’s life, running around trying his best for someone else other than himself, and putting his life on the line to accomplish something for someone other than himself are things that Subaru couldn’t do as he believes he knows Subaru better than anyone and how pitiful, pathetic, and hopelessly rotten he really is due to his not having any of his memories from his time in the world prior to experiencing amnesia, emphasizing what a piece of trash he believes Subaru is, sounding so pained in admitting it, showing how great of a job his seiyuu is doing. He then says that it doesn’t have to be him as surely there are others stronger and smarter out there who’s more capable of solving the issues here, and Emilia’s patient with him, merely requesting that he tell her his name even though she has so much she wants to say to him and ask him, and when he pleads to her to give him a reason, she says that she knows there are many people who are stronger and smarter than he is but that she wouldn’t want it to be anyone other than him ’cause rather than someone else doing it just ’cause they can or ’cause they happen to be there, it’s so much better when it’s the person she loves, a callback to when Subaru said in Ep. 40 that he realizes that Emilia isn’t perfect and causes him a lot of trouble but that he loves her regardless and also a callback from Ep. 18, From Zero, when Rem shared all that she loved about him he wouldn’t accept as being legitimately a part of himself, both great moments in the series that rejuvenated Emilia and Subaru respectively.

Amnesiac Subaru then decides he will accept that he’s Natsuki Subaru when prompted by Emilia once again, the one Julius relies on, the one Beatrice believes in, the one Foxidna forgave, and the one Emilia wishes for him to be, taking on the mantle/mask of someone he believes is greater to get him through this situation much like how he became Rem’s Hero in Ep. 18, and he does want to help her and the others and save her from the tower, and if Subaru can do that, he’ll be him, thanking her from the bottom of his heart for allowing him to believe in himself, and then the ground underneath Emilia crumbles, leading to her falling into a deep void with him following her and managing to take her hand before they end up in a pit of miasma that depicts his memories, which I’m guessing is a creative liberty rather than him actually falling into his own memories, and he resolves to remember them all and not to choose to see it as an end but a beginning even though the others will forget since he won’t. While he says that he’s back after he’s looped, his hair is still in the same style as amnesiac Subaru, showing what he regained was his resolve and conviction, not his memories. From having watched Vivy: Fluorite’s Eye’s Song, which leaned hard into the message that autonomous AI who have a back-up of itself loaded isn’t exactly the same entity, I’m guessing Tappei has a message that’s not entirely the same in that it’s in Subaru’s core to be himself in wanting to help others even if it retains that same message in that memories and experiences shape who you are since amnesiac Subaru is taking on the mantle/mask of Natsuki Subaru rather than truly becoming him outright. Re:Zero seems to be supporting the belief that the nature and nurture approaches are intrinsically linked with its story across four seasons, and I welcome that instead of a hard nature vs. nurture approach.

Here’s the link to the relevant Break Time short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_YBFHSCVWA

Character Analysis: Elsa Granhiert was more than just a bloodthirsty killer but also a sister in some sense

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While I guess Season 1 might make one think of Elsa as being nothing but a vicious predator, Season 2 had Elsa deliberately save Meili, her little sister figure, and Elsa revealed in Episode 48 that owing to her having been abandoned as a child, she came to love disemboweling people when she’d nearly gotten sexually assaulted in Gusteko with its very cold climate that both served to ensure that she didn’t think about things such as living well or being happy while potentially numbing her emotions due to your body doing what it can to preserve heat and served to alter the regulation of serotonin and endorphins in her body, so when she killed for the first time and felt the warmth of blood and innards, she thought to herself that if there’s happiness in the world it’s the warmth that makes one forget the cold, in essence sharing how she became the Bowel Hunter. Maybe this was a twisted happiness, but her horrible life up until that point is what resulted in her becoming what she was, and Re:Zero has a big emphasis on nurture versus nature.

But the Bowel Hunter isn’t all Elsa is as she was kind to Meili when she taught her how to be civil, allowing Meili to bite into her without retaliating against her, and while it may have been on Capella’s orders, I believe Elsa felt for Meili on some level due to them having both been abandoned as children. I believe Episode 76 showed that Elsa wanted more for Meili than just being a killer as she said that for anyone other herself, no number of lives would be enough, implying that if Meili took on enough jobs she’d eventually find a job too tough for her, showing very much that Elsa cared about her well-being, which is why she told Meili not to be Capella’s puppet, and they were very much sisters as Garfiel had called them in the relevant episode. Elsa also protected Meili when part of the ceiling was about to fall on her, and Elsa stopped her assault on Garf when she’d been in a winning position, so she definitely cared about Meili and wanted her to live on to put herself in such a bad position with a reset of sorts when she’d otherwise have won against Garfiel.

Elsa and Meili was also shown having a sisterly relationship in the Re:Zero Break Time Season 2 shorts, and given one of them pointedly had Elsa talk about how she hates Subaru’s eyes ’cause they show that he believes that death isn’t the end for him, Elsa may have alluded to this in some way between the end of Arc 2 and the end of Arc 3 or even between the start of Season 2 and before the pair began their duties later, leading to Meili having a curiosity about Subaru dying, which may partially be why Meili mused about whether a Book of the Dead would spawn if Subaru were to drop dead in Episode 71. I believe that Break Time content actually shows that Elsa values life on some level given her hatred for Subaru’s eyes, which demonstrates that she believes that you should live life to your fullest, whereas at that point in the story in Season 2, Subaru had been treating his life as disposable and a means to an end, and it’d also be why she treated Meili well, highlighting that she’s not just some monster even if she developed an unhealthy fixation on blood and innards.

I don’t believe Meili really would feel sad about Elsa, which is why she was the most likely candidate for having pushed amnesiac Subaru to his death twice, and look at him in anger during the recollection of her life when her Book of the Dead had been being read while tiptoeing in anticipation of killing him, if she had never once thought Elsa had ever genuinely cared for her, showing Meili felt shame about being caught caring, frustration over caring at all, and anger towards Subaru since she was indeed sad, and given she had never really properly processed her emotions aside from killing what stood in her way, of course it likely ended up in her desiring to kill amnesiac Subaru since he was no longer her big brother figure but the one who killed her big sister figure, who she had affection for.

A Re:Zero Theory: How did Subaru lose his memories given Shaula knows when tower challengers leave the tower, perhaps implying she can sense the quantity of higher-order beings in the tower?

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There’s been a lot of speculation on how Subaru lost his memories. Based on Eps. 74, 75, and 76 with amnesiac Subaru remembering “Memories are what shape a person.” which was said by Rui in Ep. 74 at 19:26, potentially hinting at her having possessed Subaru, his blacking out and waking up around a bunch of dead mabeasts he hadn’t killed himself and waking up having strangled Meili to death in Ep. 75, and Meili’s memories of what happened two days ago in Ep. 76, I believe this points to Subaru being possessed, but how did Rui (and potentially Lye and Roy) enter the tower given Shaula can detect who has left the tower since she knew amnesiac Subaru had left and given her prior warning that challengers to the tower cannot leave, which perhaps indicates she can sense how many challengers to the Pleiades Watchtower there are? Which means it may not be as simple as the Gluttony trio coming straight through the entrance even though the distortion and Sand Time had been dispelled.

“Memories are what shape a person.” may point to a second meaning in that those memories have been eaten can be claimed/possessed by Gluttony wielders. Perhaps reading the Book of the Dead of someone whose memories had been eaten by the Authority of Gluttony can result in a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony emerging to use his/her Authority against you, and that may be how Subaru lost his memories, ’cause they’d been eaten due to that deceased person’s memories being that Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s possession, so Subaru likely read the Book of the Dead of someone tied to Rui, Lye, or Roy or perhaps even a previous Sin Archbishop of Gluttony (although I doubt this), and then the Gluttony wielder seized control of the recollection of the memories, using the Authority of Gluttony on Subaru. And I’m referring only to those who have had their memories eaten, not those who had both their name and memories eaten, leading to them being erased from the world. I know Rem appeared to be possessed in Ep. 74, but I have no idea what could explain aside from Rui teleporting from wherever she had been in during Season 3 before switching places with Lye in Ep. 66 when she swapped with Lye in the form of the green-haired woman (man?).

That’d be why Subaru had been reading many Books of the Dead and was normal when he interrupted Meili searching for Elsa’s Book of the Dead, and then when Meili returned, he was no longer himself as his memories had already been eaten, which is why he said that Meili’s face looks full of flavour, a very Gluttonyesque thing to say. It may not have been amnesiac Subaru, but the old Subaru should already have been gone at that point, which is why Meili thought to ask him about whether she could hold him to what he said last night in Ep. 75. This’d explain how Shaula, with her very keen sense of smell, didn’t smell other beings with high levels of miasma inside the tower aside from Subaru, and it’s that the Authority of Gluttony can be used when one is reading a Book of the Dead. Given Subaru by himself already emits a ton of miasma, Shaula may not have been able to detect a discernible difference unless she were really close by given miasma levels dissipate over distance like any other gas as shown by Ep. 69 by the ever increasing amounts of miasma as the group got closer and closer to the source of the miasma, not to mention she may have already retired for the night.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this.

A Re:Zero Theory: Shaula perhaps knew of Meili’s death much sooner than viewers realized

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Based on Muse Asia’s subs through Bilibili, Shaula replied that Meili kicked the bucket and that that sort of thing happens after the topic of her having died was brought up, and I believe that may have been her trying to diminish Meili’s death as possibly similar to that of an everyday occurrence to cover for amnesiac Subaru. While I acknowledge if she was with the Hero’s Party 400 years ago, they would’ve been accustomed to death, the way she spoke knowing of this Subaru being kinder compared to Flügel seems out of place since it seems she’d possibly been intentionally making light of the situation.

What may back this up is Shaula clasping her hands together and raising her leg at 4:46 in the episode, telling him that it’d be faster to read Meili’s Book of the Dead, which may have been her love language in trying to cover for amnesiac Subaru so that he’d read the book before anyone else given her insistence on it. She basically coached him into doing it with the reasoning she provided when Beatrice and Emilia had been against it, and she may have said what she said to ensure he would be the first to read Meili’s book before someone like Julius could decide to read it himself.

There’s also the prolonged shot of Shaula at 13:52, showing she was very attentive to him, showing she may have known that he was the one who killed her and how much suffering it was causing him, and given the question she asked later, it suggested that may have indeed been the case since she was implicitly asking amnesiac Subaru whether she should dispose of the corpse.

In earlier episodes, Meili taking to Shaula and basically clinging to her seems surprising to me. Shaula also said that she has a scorpion tail, and maybe that was what she was using to snipe Subaru with in Ep. 68 given Shaula means “the stinger” or “the raised tail”. Given Ram saw a magic circle from Earth anime and manga, which shouldn’t exist in Re:Zero’s fantasy world unless they were invented by people from Earth when she used her Clairvoyance, whatever Shaula was sniping with wasn’t a regular weapon powered by magic stones, which indicates that her creation may have involved somebody from Earth, such as Flügel, even if he didn’t outright create her on his own.

Shaula also increasingly appears to be a mabeast given her affinity with Meili with the teenager clinging onto her in Eps. 70 and 71, how Meili also never referred to Shaula by her name but as “naked lady”, which could be showing that Meili considers herself superior to Shaula, not requiring showing her the basic respect others get. A regular human even with eternal youth also wouldn’t be able to smell Subaru’s miasma like Shaula can. To top it all off, in Ep. 73, Shaula indicated she loved cooked food since her diet usually consists of raw mabeasts, not to mention she said that she had a mother to amnesiac Subaru in Ep. 75, and we do know there was a female Witch of Gluttony, Daphne, who lived around the time period of four hundred years ago, and given she created the Three Great Mabeasts, she could certainly create Shaula too if Shaula’s actually a mabeast.

Given many animals in real life have much stronger, potentially on the order of a few to several magnitudes stronger, senses of smell than humans do, that may also apply to mabeasts, meaning it’d be very well within Shaula’s capability to smell Meili’s corpse. Thus, it wouldn’t be out of the question that Shaula, if she’s indeed a mabeast, could smell that a corpse was in the tower itself, and that might explain her happy-go-lucky attitude with her saying that Meili kicked the bucket. Alternative, Shaula may have just been able to smell that amnesiac Subaru handled a corpse on his way to the library without cleaning up after himself.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this.

A Re:Zero Theory: Natsuki Subaru can’t have both his name and memories eaten, only one or the other

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As the title indicates, I don’t believe that Subaru can have both his name and memories eaten like Rem or the three Lye had eaten in Ep. 66 of Re:Zero, and Subaru potentially not being able to experience this doesn’t disprove my previous speculation about him not having immunities to Authorities.

Given Melakuera likely didn’t exist at the start of the time if Re:Zero’s fantasy world had ever been molten as lesser spirits take time to become Great Spirits, his words indicated that the world is constantly getting destroyed, and given Melakuera has retained his memories, it’s likely not an infinite loop as at least one entity is being re-summoned into the next iteration of the world with his memories, and that’s how I formed this theory.

In the distant past the final boss could very well have used his/her Authority to bias the story path of the world after the handsome, conceited, and overpowered hero of that era chose his lover over the world, and since then all iterations of the Hero of the story had to fit that mold of handsome, conceited, and overpowered until Flügel, Satella, and Echidna interrupted the story path of the world being destroyed for that iteration of the world/story to make artificial Heroes of the story in Al and Subaru. That would be why Flugel was such a bastard ’cause the final boss’s Authority forced him into that mold I mentioned, assuming my theory is sound.

I don’t believe Subaru is fully Flügel but moreso half of Flügel in the past given Naoko in Subaru’s first Sanctuary trial said that all Subaru needs to do is become half as cool as his dad, which is a strange thing to say to your son you know has an inferiority complexity centered around his dad, especially since he’s her husband, and thus, Naoko’s remark could have been foreshadowing of the situation from 400 years ago given Kenichi means “wise man”, Subaru called Flügel a wise man who lived centuries ago in Episode 16, and Shaula called her master, Flügel the Wise Man in Episode 70.

While Flügel was the Hero of the story, his soul may have been indivisible since the story required for the Hero to make it to the end and repeat the cycle since dying due to soul eradication wouldn’t be permitted, meaning he couldn’t split Subaru from himself then, but after returning to Earth and losing his Hero designation, he should freely be able to do that using whatever tool Echidna used to cut her soul off as part of her immortality experiment since he wouldn’t have that privilege he previously had as he’d lost his Hero designation.

Thus, Subaru likely cannot have both his name and memories eaten since it’s basically akin to your soul being eaten with your existence erased from the world, and as the current Hero of the story, his soul should be indivisible, meaning Subaru can only have either his name or memories eaten, not both, due to his unique privilege as the Hero of the story, not some innate immunity to the Authority of Gluttony.

Re:Zero Episode 76 (Season 4 Episode 10) – Analysis + Important Details

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This episode makes things from previous episodes more clear while perhaps hinting at other things. It starts off with amnesiac Subaru continuing his identity crisis in that he was often speaking as if he weren’t Subaru, and now having “Natsuki Subaru was here” carved into his left arm with him having no recollection of it is giving him a fit, and he’s often smacking his arm across the ground due to thinking it makes no sense as he has a look of terror on his face, culminating with him asking himself, “Who are you?” referring to who he believes is the original Natsuki Subaru.

The scene then transitions to him putting Meili into a bag and hiding her behind a counter as he thinks of a way to buy more time to dispose of the body, musing that the detective being the killer is overdone as a trope in mystery stories. Outside, he runs into Emilia immediately, who asks him whether she startled him due to him legit looking like he may have pissed himself or something due to being caught in the act, but she hasn’t caught on aside from knowing he’s not doing well, and she shows so much concern for him and clearly has feelings for Subaru even if they aren’t yet at the point of love, to the point of putting his hand on her heart to show him that she’s not angry, encouraging him to not handle everything all on his own. During this scene, Emilia also brings up that she wants to give Meili a proper life even if it’s too early to be thinking about that, and the name drop spooked him for a moment, but Emilia ultimately reveals that since Meili’s the reason they got across the Dunes she should get better treatment and get moved out of her basement cell, leading to him angrily remarking about how she can be even thinking about the future when they’re stuck here at the tower, and Emilia is almost able to convince him to confide in her due to how she shows through her words and in her actions that she doesn’t think less of him for struggling, which is a problem he had with others treating him different in Ep. 75, leading to him trusting Patrasche and Shaula, but Ram ushers them to the library immediately due to a Book of the Dead on Meili having appeared, which Beatrice had found.

At the library, Beatrice says that Meili’s Book of the Dead having appeared is an ill-omen, and when he asks her why she hasn’t read it yet, she puts it out there that these books should be approached with extreme caution due to how distressed Subaru and Julius had been when they read the ones they were able to ’cause it’s as if they experienced the original person’ felt’s emotions and sensations, and thoughts/personality themselves, which can do real damage to their psyches if they’re not mentally prepared for that. Emilia is of course thinking of how Meili might be feeling at this point even though she’s dead, and Beatrice points out that it’s too late. Shaula then waltzes in and suggests that Meili must’ve kicked the bucket due to there being a book on her, which amnesiac Subaru takes issue with, and she merely replies that if he wants to find out what happened to her faster, he should just read her book, which is perhaps pointing to Shaula already having an understanding that Meili is dead. Given Shaula was shown at the end of Ep. 74 to be able to sense who has left the tower, which is why she said, “Master…” she may also be able to sense when one of the tower’s inhabitants has passed on, meaning she may have been trying to cover for him even from that point in the conversation, and if she’s indeed a mabeast, can probably smell that there’s a corpse. Beatrice does warn him that he’ll experience Meili’s entire life, and he still believes that it should be him who bites the bullet for the team since he doesn’t want anyone else reading it. Emilia, given she knows he’s really struggling heavily, suggests that she be the one to read it, but Beatrice objects, saying that it should be Subaru or Julius, and I’m guessing it’s ’cause she perceives both Subaru and Julius to have the strongest personalities or the strongest sense of selves, potentially even being the ones that had the best relationship with Meili of this group with Julius perhaps having conversed with Meili more than the others, not realizing Subaru amnesiac Subaru has lived lived for fewer than four days and would actually be one of the worst people to read a Book of the Dead given he currently has a very weak sense of self. Amnesiac Subaru then puts it out there that it might be a misunderstanding to try and deflect from the topic of Meili having died, and Emilia replies that if something happens that she’ll pull on his hair with him replying he’d prefer that she tap him on his shoulder or call out his name instead. And it once again begins with his soul being pulled into another Book of the Dead.

As Meili had revealed in the past, she’d been raised by mabeasts and had basically become the feral queen of beasts who escaped being prey for them and learned to desire to live among them before Elsa one day slaughtered her family on Capella’s orders to bring her back. Elsa apparently had taught Meili manners and such given she didn’t fight back when Meili had bitten into her after she’d washed her and was brushing her hair, showing she knows how to handle kids at least and didn’t use fear to force Meili to submit. When Meili had become presentable for Capella, the Sin Archbishop of Lust, she apparently told Capella that she didn’t know how to grieve, fight back or even live, which Capella just considered excuses and transformed her into various creatures to force her into submission, considering that something a mother must do.

In the next part of her backstory, Elsa, showing more of her patience with Meili, told her not to become Capella’s puppet ’cause for anyone other than herself, no amount of lives would ever be enough to satisfy Capella, meaning she didn’t want Meili to only live to kill, which is strangely kind of her even though she’s a bloodthirsty assassin, showing she knows it’s not most people’s nature to be like she is. Meili shot an angry look at Elsa while she was purchasing apples, and she wondered whether it was hatred she felt. She also wondered when she was killing people whether she felt sorrow and what it even was even whether she’d moved into the basement cell in Roswaal’s mansion. Since she had merely drifted through life, mimicking those around other, she had a weak understanding of emotions. Having lost Elsa, who she basically considered a sister, she didn’t know whose example to follow from now on. She thought that if Capella had told her to die, she would’ve willing done it, but she hesitated and came to the conclusion that she really didn’t want to die given Subaru’s kindness and her own will to live. At the very least, she wanted an answer, probably as to what she really wanted to do, which is likely why she agreed to tag along with Subaru to the Pleiades Watchtower.

In the penultimate part of the flashback that takes place during the time skip between Subaru’s meeting with Foxidna and Julius and waking up in the green room in Ep. 73, Meili worked up the courage to find Elsa’s Book of the Dead, and she was caught in the act by Subaru and was horrified, likely ’cause she felt shame over someone seeing that she could truly care about someone else given when Subaru had asked her to come to the tower, she’d explained that she didn’t do it for him but moreso herself since she didn’t want to lock herself away forever. Meili, for pretty much her entire life, did what she could to survive, whether as a feral child and as an assassin, so I think it scared her on some level to really care for somebody else, and that’s what led to her immediately leaving and thinking all sorts of negative thoughts about Subaru, ultimately culminating with her thought, “I don’t want him to know.” which shows she was thinking of killing Subaru for having found out about that since she never learned to process her emotions given the majority of her life centered around killing or being killed. When she headed back to the library, the one who spoke was certainly a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony given the manner of speech, and Rui had likely possessed Subaru, deciding to speak up after she tried to sneak up on her, and given Rui doesn’t have a broken gate, she could probably very well killed pre-amnesia Subaru or amnesiac Subaru given his gate is broken, and Rui encouraged her to find out what she really wants to do and confirm who she really is as a person, probably since her Gospel told her to do that. I’ll be calling Rui in Subaru’s body, Ruibaru from now on since it’s easier to do that. As for more specific hints on it being a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, his saying that Meili’s face looks full of flavour was very much a hint that it’s a Gluttony wielder given those with the Authority of Gluttony love tasting the emotions of their victims. His also saying that he’ll remember it all when Meili’s acting more like herself is also very much a thing a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony would do and is what I believe is a sign that Rui or another one of the Gluttony trio is considering eating Meili’s memories.

The final part of the flashback showed her having licked her lips next to amnesiac Subaru and after she’d put out continuing their conversation from last night given she wasn’t exactly sure what he’d meant, showing she knew it wasn’t the kind Subaru who cared for her, and Ruibaru choked Meili to death, saying that asking him that question directly is against the rules since she can’t be outed like that. In the end, Meili thought that her life had amounted to nothing and that she’s being killed.

Ultimately, while I can see why someone would believe Meili didn’t want to kill amnesiac or RuiSubaru, I believe it’s more likely than not she did want to, and that’s ’cause while Meili wanted to grieve Elsa in finding her Book of the Dead, she was at a crossroads between whether to imitate Elsa or Subaru, and so since she felt some shame in being found out about that, she looked at Subaru with eyes full of anger. I’m guessing Meili blushing regarding Ruibaru sniffing her hair is ’cause she as someone who’d hit puberty had her hormones in flux, and it’s not ’cause she wanted to be his girlfriend. The title of the episode, “Murder Is a Habit”, from Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia backs up this read that if you use violence to solve issues, you become more prone to doing it in the future, and that’d be why Meili wanted to kill him since she never learned to process her emotions and issues in a healthy manner.

And now it’s time for a theory, and it’s that Meili’s Book of the Dead appearing to this group of people so soon when the group had concluded initially that the books aren’t sorted by name or date of death in Ep. 71 suggests that there’s a will behind when and where Books of the Dead that can be read appear. This is backed by how in that relevant episode, both Subaru and Julius were able to find one they were able to read almost right away, suggesting a will or higher power is what allowed for that to happen. We know from the anime there’s someone who has the power to see a perfect reconstruction of the past, and that’s Echidna with her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, and if my speculation about Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels are correct, the Books of the Dead may also be partially a product of Echidna’s Authority, and the Great Pleiades Library may be constructed in part from her her Authority and also magic from herself and possibly others such as Flügel, meaning she can possibly choose which books appear to certain people at any given opportunity, which would be very useful given she has the power to see the future and likely had been a major force behind all the events of the past four hundred years up until the end of Season 2. Its appearance was very convenient since it allowed amnesiac Subaru to be the first to read Meili’s Book of the Dead to prevent most of the others from suspecting him, and it allowed him to gain insight on Meili’s troubled past as well as seeing how it was his body that killed her.

Back to the episode itself, Beatrice tells Emilia she mustn’t read the book since amnesiac Subaru has mixed his mind with the memories of the original person, which is why he’s stating, “I’m being”, repeatedly as in “I’m being killed”, and “Elsa’s gone”. After a time skip when he’d calmed down, Foxidna asks him what did he see, and before he answers, he sees an imaginary Meili next to him, talking about how it much it hurts to flail around while being strangled since he’d internalized her memories as his own, leading to Beatrice telling him to calm down and find himself. Beatrice of course tells him to lean on her at times like these due to their relationship. Ram then calmly implies that Meili must be dead after Julius asks her what she makes of the situation, and the imaginary Meili tells amnesiac Subaru that they must’ve never trusted her much in the first place given how they’re so calm about this, which is still more pain for him mentally, and Foxidna stops Julius from reading Meili’s Book of the Dead due to the state amnesiac Subaru is in. Emilia then again puts out looking for Meili as the kind person she is, saying that they can’t leave her like that since she believes in treating the dead with respect as she did during her flashback with Fortuna in Season 2. And then the imaginary Meili says that she didn’t even care about her before she died, which is perhaps showing this isn’t just Subaru being haunted by Meili, but her memories/personality have literally mixed into his being, meaning he has multiple personalities right now, and that’s why this seems to be driving him insane. When Julius asks him whether he saw what happened to Meili, amnesiac Subaru can’t even look him in the eye and says that he didn’t, only knowing that something happened in the tower, and much like how most people realized he wasn’t himself in Ep. 75, I believe there should be a fair number here that didn’t believe what he said there either or at least realize that something is amiss.

In the next scene, much of the group’s members are shown looking to no avail, and Ram seems to think of an idea in the moment after looking at Rem in the green room. Back in the library, Shaula asks amnesiac Subaru whether she should look for Meili, and the imaginary Meili suggests that it’s almost as if Shaula knows what he did, so that subconscious influence from her leads to him telling her to take care of Meili, which is Shaula taking it to mean that she’ll dispose of the corpse, probably sniping it until there’s nothing left. And here comes the kicker, the one in Subaru’s body says, “Natsuki Subaru is a despicable coward who’s trying to hide “my” death, as in Meili’s death since amnesiac Subaru had less than four days of memories and internalized years of Meili’s life experiences, and that’s why he used the “watashi” pronoun in that scene, which he never uses, but Meili always does, so Meili Portroute lives on through him in that there are occasions he thinks like her, speaks like her, and acts like her, which is why he asks Beatrice why she’s treating him so well, not ’cause he’d lost Subaru’s memories but ’cause to Meili herself, Beatrice has no reason to treat her well. That’s why he thinks about why the group loves Subaru so much and that he wants to know, and it’s ’cause Meilibaru, which I will be referring to from now on whenever it appears that Meili’s personality is speaking, is in control at that moment. When he muses about whether he can love Emilia and the others or hate them, Meilibaru suggests that he kill them to read their Books of the Dead, which is really dark stuff and is consistent with the story of the episode. Beatrice then suggests that he go back to the green room due to how unwell he is.

In the green room, amnesiac Subaru thinks about why they’re so nice to him, and Meilibaru tells him to give Beatrice’s neck a little squeeze as it’ll snap like a twig, and he strongly considered it before fighting back that thought. Beatrice then notices the condition of his hand with him thinking that she has realized that he killed Meili, only for her to heal him. When Meilibaru tells him that there’s no fun since he stopped wanting to kill Beatrice, he says aloud for the first time when conversing with her, “You’re wrong. You’re wrong!” He then has an internal monologue with Meilbaru about how murder is a habit in that if you solve a problem with a murder once, you’ll become more likely to solve future problems with murder.

Later at the dining table, nobody was able to find Meili’s body, and Emilia had even asked Reid to no avail. Foxidna and Ram basically shoot down Emilia’s suggestion to continuing searching for the body tomorrow since Anastasia’s life is being worn away, and their food supply is finite. When he says that Meili wouldn’t want them to be sitting around here, Meilibaru taunts him in telling him that he doesn’t believe a lick of that, and I believe there are others who can tell that this is not the real Subaru given he’d take Emilia’s side on this.

At night in the green room, Subaru tells Meilibaru that he has to be sure or neither of them can rest easy ’cause of the corpse, and then he gestures to Patrasche to shush when she pokes her head up after he tries to leave quietly. After he goes to the room where the corpse was and finds that it’s gone, Ram enters the room and suspects that he’s the killer due to her having spied on him when he told Meilibaru that she’s wrong, when he talked about them resting easy, and when he shushed Patrasche using her Clairvoyance given the idea dawned on her when she went to visit Rem. Ram sets a trap in using the name Natsuki Subaru, which she has never done in all four seasons prior to this point, ’cause the real Subaru would flip out over her actually using his name, and all he can think of is strangling her due to it indeed being the case that resorting to violence once makes it easier to resort to doing that again, not having figured out that Ram knows he isn’t the real Subaru.

One final theory I have on this episode is that Rui perhaps didn’t enter directly through the tower’s entrance given Shaula can detect how many lifeforms are in the tower given how she knew amnesiac Subaru had left the tower at the end of Ep. 74, so perhaps reading the Book of the Dead of someone whose memories were eaten by the Authority of Gluttony can result in a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony emerging to use his/her Authority against you, and that may be how Subaru’s memories were eaten given that deceased person’s memories would be that Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s possession, so Subaru likely read the Book of the Dead of someone tied to Rui or the other two Sin Archbishops of Gluttony.

Here’s the link to Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Episode 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77SS_SdiQKg

A Re:Zero Theory: Ep. 75 may be more evidence of Satella + Echidna coordinating on RBD, and the point’s for Subaru or at least a part of him to become more self-confident

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on A Re:Zero Theory: Ep. 75 may be more evidence of Satella + Echidna coordinating on RBD, and the point’s for Subaru or at least a part of him to become more self-confident

Given Regulus told Subaru to thank him for mauling a chunk of his leg off when he would’ve preferred doing more, and in Eps. 53/54 after the tower bell rung, Sirius shouted she must cease hostilities ’cause they were told to stop and Capella had to move into the government office in, and Foxidna indicated Capella’s blindly following whatever the Gospel says in retreating, this shows there’s a grander plot at play rather than Gospels telling the holder’s best path to happiness.

That’d be why whoever was in Rem’s body said, “Try to figure it out next time” to amnesiac Subaru, and whoever it was knows he can Return by Death by either having eaten his memories or having been told of it by Rui. Ultimately, I still expect Subaru to win since I believe Gospels don’t truly tell the future but are meant to keep the world on a particular path which would be why Regulus thought he’d meet Emilia again in Ep. 51 despite it not happening until the fourth loop.

This’d also be why Patrasche was unharmed while everyone else killed, and it’s ’cause the Gluttony trio’s Gospels didn’t tell them to kill Patrasche ’cause Echidna, who I believe is the one making the text in the Gospels appear, wanted amnesiac Subaru to trust Patrasche for now and find out about there being an unknown attacker. It’d also be why they were cornered at the hidden passage to the balcony ’cause Satella likely broke out of her Seal given he’d made multiple doors disappear, making it easier for the Seal to be broken, and the black smoke was actually either her miasma or her mass of shadows with her coordinating with Echidna to make that happen since that loop was clearly a disaster, and heneeded to learn to trust at least one of his allies since Patrasche would never betray him. This would be why the miasma or shadows deliberately cornered him and Patrasche where it happened so that Patrasche would be forced to toss him through the hidden passage leading to the balcony.

Additionally, this would be why amnesiac Subaru opts to trust Shaula later since she treats him the same as always as Patrasche does unlike the others who notice that he’s acting differently, leading to him learning to trust a second person, which he very much needs at this point in time given he’s not in the right mindset to trust others due to being in the shadow of both his father and pre-amnesiac Subaru, as shown by him talking about how they’re pushing their problems onto him, not to mention having been pushed to his death twice being on his mind, showing a direct through-line between the third loop and the fourth loop of Ep. 75.

We’ve known since the beginning that Satella is choosing Subaru’s save points, which begs the question about how she knows at what point Subaru can make a difference. A lot of anime-onlies believe in the theory that Satella and Subaru travelled back in time four hundred years to ensure that this current Subaru succeeds, and although I don’t believe in this theory I will nonetheless use it to support my argument.

Let’s say that this is true and Satella actually is a future variant of Emilia. How would she know in the current day at what points Subaru can make a difference so that he succeeds this time? The answer is that she doesn’t. Even if she knew how the previous Subaru’s run through as the hero worked, that doesn’t mean Satella 100% has an ironclad way of knowing what’s the best point for him to still be able to make the most impact given what failed last time would obviously fail again while what would’ve worked last time may not this time. The only way to know for sure is with future knowledge for this current world, which is why I’m now proposing that Satella has a contract with Echidna in that Satella shares her field of vision with Echidna for some unknown price we viewers aren’t privy to.

If Satella did have this sort of arrangement with Echidna, it’d explain why she makes the save points she does, and it’d be ’cause she consults with Echidna beforehand, who we know to have future knowledge and acts with it in mind as shown when she turned Petra’s handkerchief into a spectral knife for Subaru to kill himself after he revealed RBD to her. Echidna also looked forward into the future hundreds of years ago given she made Puck with the express intention of defeating Melakuera only for Puck to lose his memories so that Roswaal could draw Emilia into his camp with Puck losing his memories of the Roswaal who co-existed with Echidna four hundred years ago, making him oblivious to Roswaal’s Soul Transcription. Certain parts of the fandom say that Echidna doesn’t use her Authority, but I call BS as she has clearly used it well in advance hundreds of years ago.

This situation in Ep. 75 would also force Subaru to confront his insecurities about how the pre-amnesiac Subaru was such an incredible guy with his comment about “Just what the hell are you?” showing he thinks that his past self was a helluva guy, and if my write-up three days ago had some truth to it, it’d serve a point on pre-amnesiac Subaru perhaps having dissociated due to the imminent threat of his memories being either about to be eaten or in the midst of being eaten by Rui given Subaru remembering her seiyuu stating, “Memories are what shape a person.” in Ep. 74 at 19:26 with Tappei clearly planning to address this in some way, possibly by having Subaru become more self-confident or at least a part of him becoming more self-confident.

As for how the text in the Gospels may appear due to Echidna, given Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom didn’t include Otto in it, I posit that this is also the case for that text as well, and it was also meant to keep the world on a particular path rather than be a true future-telling text and since the prototypes of the Witch Cult Gospels is Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, they may be partially made of the same materials, such as Echidna’s fingernails, toenails, hair, body hair, dead skin, or body fluids, and if they are indeed partially constructed by such materials, the Witch Cult Gospels and Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom could be connected to Echidna’s mind through magic, and she’s the one who makes the text in the Gospels appear, meaning Echidna may be stealthily manipulating the Witch Cult through her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom with the Witch Cult being created four hundred years ago so that it could eventually be used to give Subaru and others character development and achievements.

I guess Echidna could be using Satella, but a potential relationship with this level of coordination suggests that Satella might not just be being used but is closer to that of an equal partner compared to Roswaal. And if Echidna does in fact love Subaru given she said that she’s very fond of him in Ep. 38, she and Satella could have the same goal in trying to get him to save the world from being destroyed in part through the eventual slaying of Satella at the end of the story.

Echidna being partners with Satella could explain why she cried during Emilia’s second Sanctuary Trial with the reason being that she’s actually fond of Satella in spite of supposedly hating her with all her heart, and whatever the relationship between Satella and Emilia is, Echidna may hate that she herself’s the reason Emilia’s going down the path she’s headed toward, not that she truly hates Emilia after all without ever really having met her, and it might’ve been a moment of self-hatred. That may even be the reason she let Minerva see Emilia if Minerva is Emilia’s mother due to her feeling that she robbed Emilia of a happy life.

I believe the final boss biased the story path when an ancient hero, after his lover, the heroine, became the Witch of Envy, chose not to strike down his lover after her yin magic power was used to defeat what came out of the Seal in Elior Forest, which I posit was a monstrous horde of creatures with passive AoE auras that Reinhard cannot protect the world from due to not being able to be everywhere at once, and that’s why the heroine had to become the Witch of Envy, and then the world was destroyed due to the heroine not having complete control over her powers with that being the start of the wretched cycle. And Subaru may be the first Hero of the story since the cycle had started who’s overcoming the fatal character flaw all the previous Heroes of the story had, which is that they considered their lovers everything to them, leading to them choosing their lovers over the world, which is why the cycle has persisted up until now.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this.

Re:Zero Episode 75 (Season 4 Episode 9) Analysis + Important Details

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on Re:Zero Episode 75 (Season 4 Episode 9) Analysis + Important Details

This episode has so much interesting things to bite into, and I’ll do my best to put forward my best possible theories into this write-up. It opens with amnesiac Subaru venturing out of the tower as he did last episode and is immediately attacked by a sandworm, which before it can eat him, is filled with holes by Shaula and crumbles to pieces. Shaula, however, doesn’t continue her onslaught, which is a surprise given she said in Episode 71 that she’d have to kill Subaru if he were to leave, and I reckon that indicates she’s being attacked by others, which is why she didn’t one-shot Subaru right then and there.

He then sinks into the sand having pleaded to Natsuki Subaru, asking what he should do, and then he sees a bunch of mabeasts, specifically oiran bears, and then the screen flashes to a no signal screen one would see on a TV back in the day, and that is what’s referred to as a blackout. Maybe the younger generation isn’t as likely to know about it, but anyone older than thirty is highly likely to know that this was probably a creative liberty to indicate that he lost consciousness. When he regains consciousness, all those oiran bears are dead, and he has no idea what happened and runs off. After having traversed through the path on the right he originally took in Episode 69, in which he likely took ’cause of him subconsciously remembering Satella, Subaru again passes through three doors and can’t get past a fourth, and as he slams his head against the slab of rock due to having been driven insane by the miasma, he starts glowing, and he has no idea what’s happening, and as he tries to slam his head again, he finds himself teleported back to the entrance of the tower where he’d left.

As for what could be the reason for amnesiac Subaru glowing before teleporting, I see four possibilities:

  1. Beatrice, due to her bond with him, could feel his distress and pain, and in her final moments as she died, she teleported him using the last of strength, hoping he’d have a less painful death, although this is the one I least like due it not explaining why it’d become night when Subaru returned.
  2. I suspect the Books of the Dead are based on Echidna’s Authority, and depending on which particular scenario it could be regarding how many Books of the Dead Subaru is and what RBD actually does regarding multiple timelines being created or whether the world itself is re-created, Subaru himself may be a product of Echidna’s Authority, so this may give Echidna some direct control over him, meaning she either planted a spell on him around the time he was born for this specific moment or actively teleported him right at that moment. It having become night could be ’cause Tea Party Echidna spoke in Ryuzu Shima’s voice in Episode 49 and made the crystal with the original Ryuzu Meyer in cryostasis disappear along with Ryuzu Shima, meaning she faked her death and may have more than one facility that can sustain Ryuzu Meyer’s cryostasis crystal, and she teleported amnesiac Subaru into a different cryostasis crystal, or Subaru was stuck in suspended animation within Flügel’s tree for hours before being teleported back to the tower’s entrance. And it’s actually not a novel idea for animanga/LNs to have people in suspended animation within a world tree.
  3. Satella, given she is always nearby, likely ’cause she lies within the dark world within the vicinity of his soul, teleported him ’cause she still had more plans for him in guiding him along the future I believe she, Echidna, and Flügel are trying to make a reality. As for why night had fallen, Subaru may have either been pulled into the dark world for an indeterminate number of hours before being teleported back, or Satella also sent Subaru into Flügel’s tree where he’d been laying in suspended animation before getting teleported back. As for why the dark world is likely within the vicinity of his soul, it’d explain why the miasma Subaru gives off massively increases whenever he is pulled to that place.
  4. Flügel himself, or Kenichi, since I believe Flügel was originally Kenichi and Subaru in the same body, may have planted a spell on Subaru specifically to have it be activated at that exact moment, and thus, Subaru was teleported into Flügel’s tree where he was again in suspended animation for a indeterminable amount of time before he got teleported back to the tower.

It’s now night, and he decides that instead of running, he’ll just kill the one who pushed him as he thinks of the everyone he’s met here while eventually their faces are altered as if they were angry at him while he gets crazier and crazier and starts moving up the stairs in a strange way, repeating, “Kill” over and over, before being very eager as he makes his same weird movements after he’s done with the stairs, and he finds Shaula dead with her spine having been ripped out. He concludes it wasn’t Shaula who pushed him, and then thinks Beatrice and Meili would be easy since they’re just kids as he continues searching, saying that Emilia didn’t seem wary of him, making Ram and Foxidna the real threats to him along with Julius, who he hopes is already dead, probably since he knows he can’t take on Julius in a fight. Amnesiac Subaru then finds Ram dead, sprawled over at Rem’s wheelchair, with her spine ripped out much like Shaula’s had been. As he continues his search, he finds Julius dead, having protected Meili, who had also been killed, and he picks up Julius’s broken sword. After that, as he finds the path to Reid on the second floor, he sees a dead Foxidna.

He then comes to the conclusion it’s either Emilia or Beatrice who killed him since he hasn’t found their bodies and stumbles upon Patrasche, who keeps following him before he gets pissed up and stabs her, and she doesn’t even flinch in the slightest. Upon seeing how selfless Patrasche is, he directs his energy to ranting about how everybody is pushing their problems onto him as he very much has his own problems as he begins to start crying. In Season 1 and 2, Subaru had been trying to live up to his daddy’s name due to his inferiority complex toward Kenichi, his dad, and now he’s in the shadow of the previous version of him who everyone thought highly of, whereas they are dismissive of him and don’t include him in their plans. Patrasche then approaches him, and then this huge, thick mass of smoke shoots out and does huge damage to the tower, leading to Patrasche tossing him onto her back as she tries to get him to safety. When it appears as if they’re surrounded, he stops ranting about how he doesn’t want to die, and Patrasche tosses him through the hidden passage leading to the balcony, which I’m guessing she knew was there given how the air would flow differently at that spot. As he sees the tower getting destroyed, he asks himself, “Just what the hell are you?” since he probably sees the previous Subaru as being somewhat akin to a monster if he could handle the situations he finds himself currently in. Someone in Rem’s body then lops his head off, telling him to try to figure it out next time. Now it’s time to drop a theory given it really made no sense how all those oiran bears had been killed as I could see Subaru perhaps defeating one of them if he had his memories, but without them, he wouldn’t be able to take out any of them.

As you can see, someone in Rem’s body killed amnesiac Subaru, but it wasn’t Rem herself. We have seen from Episode 66 (Season 3 Episode 16) that Rui could take the form of somebody she’s erased, so it’s possible that Lye could do that with regards to Rem given he asked for the group to let “us” see our hero in Episode 65, meaning he’s very interested in Subaru.

However, each member of the trio tends to speak as if all of them are speaking instead of individually with each of them doing that at one point (First time for Lye Ep. 26, Roy Ep. 54, Rui Ep. 66). Given all 3 have their own eating style and thoughts, there should be something more to this given Tappei uses speech patterns to indicate relations to other characters.

We’ve seen this with how Roswaal mimicked Hector’s speech pattern for four hundred years ago ’cause he’d been traumatized from his beatdown by him, not ’cause he’d merged with him and how Foxidna speaking momentarily in an Echidna-like cadence in Ep. 67 and also in Break Time Season 4 Ep. 8 shows that she may not just be an artificial spirit but also a soul clone of Echidna’s.

Where I’m going with this is that when Bennett Mossa, August Valen, and Carsiff Finrell were eaten in Ep. 66, they shattered into glass and became like Rem, being in suspended animation. The green-haired person Rui had taken the form of also shattered when she transformed back into Rui, and maybe this is the key to what the three of the trio could possibly share in common.

Maybe everyone who has his/her name + memories erased are gone so that not even the Great Pleiades Library has a Book of the Dead on them since it’s like they never existed. Thus, the memories/true bodies had to go somewhere as if the Gluttony trio can morph into them and use their memories, what consists of their memories and bodies must lie somewhere.

Perhaps it may be a central shared system between the trio that’s not a hive mind created by the Authority of Gluttony, a shared mindscape of a world between the 3, a special pocket dimension for those who’ve had their names and memories eaten, or something I haven’t thought of. I believe the Gluttony Trio must have some way to access them.

So assuming my speculation isn’t entirely off, any of the three could’ve been in Rem’s body when amnesiac Subaru was decapitated. Even if it makes the most sense for it to be Lye Batenkaitos, it may also be Roy Alphard or Rui Arneb with Rui being more likely due to amnesiac Subaru remembering a line from her seiyuu in Episode 74 at around 19:26 in the episode, “Memories are what shape a person.” showing she likely ate Subaru’s memories.

That’d be why whoever was in Rem’s body said, “Try to figure it out next time” to amnesiac Subaru, and whoever it was knows he can Return by Death by either having eaten his memories or having been told of it by Rui. Ultimately, I still expect Subaru to win since I believe Gospels don’t truly tell the future but are meant to keep the world on a particular which would be why Regulus thought he’d meet Emilia again despite it not happening until the 4th loop.

Given Regulus told Subaru to thank him for mauling a chunk of his leg off when he would’ve preferred doing more, and in Eps. 53/54 after the tower bell rung, Sirius shouted she must cease hostilities ’cause they were told to stop and Capella had to move into the government office in, and Foxidna indicated Capella’s blindly following whatever the Gospel says in retreating, this shows there’s a greater plot rather than Gospels telling the holder’s best path to happiness.

This’d also be why Patrasche was unharmed while everyone else killed, and it’s ’cause the Gluttony trio’s Gospels didn’t tell them to kill Patrasche ’cause Echidna, who I believe is the one making the text in the Gospels appear, wanted amnesiac Subaru to trust Patrasche for now and find out about there being an unknown attacker. It’d also be why they were cornered at the hidden passage to the balcony ’cause Satella likely broke out of her Seal, and the black smoke was actually her miasma with her coordinating with Echidna to make that happen since that loop was clearly a disaster with Subaru having opened three doors making it easier for Satella to break out.

Of course, there’s something I believe may be more likely than someone morphing into Rem. Perhaps Rui’s spoken line from amnesiac Subaru’s memories have a second meaning in that if memories are what shape a person then whoever ate that person’s memories has a say in shaping that person’s life, as in those who’ve had their memories eaten can be claimed/possessed by the one who ate their memories. Given there was no trace of Rem’s body among the many corpses even though she was defenseless, one of the Gluttony trio may have possessed her. This’d also explain how Subaru survived in the midst of so many oiran bears, and it’d be ’cause Rui, who likely ate Subaru’s memories, possessed him. We’ve seen with Foxidna that when you possess someone the possessor can use their gate, which is why she can use magic in Anastasia’s body, so Rui possessing Subaru’s body should be able to use mana flow to boost her strength while also tapping into any skills she may need from people she’s eaten.

As for how the Gluttony trio would even be at the tower:

  1. Sirius warned Subaru that the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony are targeting him, meaning they may have followed them to the Pleiades Watchtower, and given Shaula has stopped taking up her sniper role, they were free to directly come to the tower given Subaru walking away not being affected by the distortion meant that Beatrice’s yin magic may have deactivated the distortion and the Sand Time.
  2. I’ve speculated that the second floor where Reid is on another dimension/plane of existence, meaning the Pleiades Tower could be multidimensional. Thus, perhaps there is a room or floor at the Pleiades Watchtower that connects to the space where I believe the memories and the bodies of the people who had both their names and memories eaten lay. Given Rui clearly teleported from somewhere in Season 3 to switch places with Lye, that could’ve been the place she came from. As for why Shaula had never been able to detect them, maybe it wasn’t possible until recently for whatever reason. Maybe it physically required for Subaru to be there, or the exam on the third floor needed to be successfully completed before that could happen.

Back to what’s airing, amnesiac Subaru then wakes up, and his first instinct is to strangle Emilia although he stops after she asks him what’s wrong, and this isn’t surprising given he’d been insane for at least a few hours due to the miasma and had just woken up while thinking that one of the members of the group had killed him due to the events of Ep. 74. Beatrice thinks he’s just asleep and is none the wiser, and he then sees Patrasche and showers her with affection as Beatrice remarks that she’s unhappy about that given she and Emilia are the ones that found him and at least expected praise as the spirit he’s contracted to, but Emilia is fine with it given the bond she knows the two of them have, showing she probably doesn’t see a land dragon as a threat to her relationship with Subaru.

When they’re at the dining table, Emilia asks if he’s sure that he’s feeling all right, probably ’cause she can feel the negative energy he’s giving off negative energy, and she ends the interaction by telling him to tell them if he feels tired, probably ’cause she doesn’t want to overstep and make him admit to something he doesn’t want to. He’s resolved himself to not tell everybody of his amnesia since he wants to see whether it’s connected to why he keeps getting killed. He sees no reason for somebody wanting to kill him ’cause he’d lost his memories, but he can’t rule it out, and Subaru having lost his memories would be a reason for Meili to kill him. He then concludes that although he didn’t find Beatrice’s and Emilia’s bodies, the voice he’d heard didn’t belong to either of them. Ram then asks him to fetch water with her and says that he shouldn’t try and do things on his own given he fell asleep in the archive by himself, showing her worry for him and how despite his best efforts to play it cool, people can tell something’s off. Shaula then greets him, saying she dreamed of the past with herself, him, and mom, who I assume was Daphne given Shaula doesn’t seem human and could very well be a mabeast given Meili’s obsession and disrespect for her, the magic circle seen from her sniping vision, her ability to smell his scent, mabeasts themselves being her main diet, and quite possibly her inability to read social cues given she didn’t sense anything off with him, which is why he decided to trust her.

Julius then walks by with Foxidna, likely to share the news on Foxidna being here in Anastasia’s place, and the look he gives amnesiac Subaru shows he’s still thinking about last night. He has a man-to-man talk with Julius and realizes that Foxidna apparently doesn’t remember Julius, but he doesn’t understand why due to his lack of memories. Through this conversation, Julius also realizes this isn’t the Subaru he knows, which is why he said to himself, “There’s no way to know now, however.” in response to saying that if Subaru had apologized, he himself wouldn’t know how he would’ve responded. Shaula then springs out of a barrel after Julius leaves the storeroom, and when she asks amnesiac Subaru whether he’s okay with leaving it at that, he answers that it’s fine since he realizes that Julius didn’t have anything to do with what happened in the archive, leading to Shaula asking for her promised reward, and although Subaru is reluctant, he eventually yields and gives her her hug. He’s still unsure of what’s go great about Subaru that makes Shaula’s goal of making herself as convenient as possible for him worth it, but Shaula then immediately thinks of going for a kiss after getting her hug, and it makes me think Flügel indeed had something going on with her for Shaula to say that she’d been waiting hundreds of years for him to propose to her.

Back in the dining room, he thinks back to how everybody was treating him differently and believes that Patrasche is the only one he can trust after all and muses about a paradise with just the two of them, which catches Meili’s attention. She says that even if that’s how he really feels, she can’t blame him since she was raised by mabeasts, which he comments on, demonstrating to Meili that he isn’t the Subaru she knows. She reveals that her mom, the one who’d taken her in, is really strict, and Elsa, who she was around all the time, was really lax, so she had tons on her plate when she was working with Elsa, and I guess that explains why Meili’s so mature for her age. When he remarks that she’s making his head hurt even more racking over the details and tells her to play with Shaula, but Meili says that he’s the one she has business with, and she licks her lips in a manner striking similar to how Elsa used to do it before attempting to murder her prey, and after she asks him how seriously she should take what he said yesterday, which could be him saying he’d help her find her parents or something else entirely sometime before Subaru lost his memories and the end of Ep. 73, he again blackouts and finds that Meili is dead, having been strangled after he got the shock out of seeing her on the ground like that after he tried to do CPR on her. He wonders whether he was the one who did it given the condition of his own hands, and then after feeling a sharp pain, rolls up his sleeve and sees that “Natsuki Subaru was here”, and it wasn’t transcribed using Re:Zero’s writing system but actual Japanese, and now it’s time for yet another theory to close this post.

It would be easy to just claim that Rui possessed amnesiac Subaru’s body given his memories were eaten by her, but carving “Natsuki Subaru was here” into his flesh is probably not something Rui would do since it would’ve been such a troll move even if she instantly learns Japanese with Subaru’s memories as I feel it’d be borderline ridiculous if she did do it although I guess it’s possible if her Gospel told her to do it, so I’m partial to an alternative explanation.

Thus, given he spoke as if he wasn’t Subaru multiple times this episode, perhaps Subaru dissociated right before Rui ate his memories or even as his memories were being eaten. Given Subaru in Seasons 2, 3, and 4 has emphasized how his goal to save Rem is driving so much of his actions, he likely felt an intense desire that he can’t possibly let Rem down with that being something he cannot accept, and as a defense mechanism, he dissociated to give himself some hope given his memories would be gone soon.

It is known in real life that people who have powerful emotions about having something or someone they can’t lose may experience dissociation. And given Subaru has been busy forming his own identity separate from his father, that may be an additional factor that could’ve increased his chances of experiencing dissociation. This would also explain why after amnesiac Subaru fell to his death a second time in Ep. 74 he heard a voice very much like his own say, “Who are you?” before he looped. If he has another self who may have some memories who’s lying underneath the surface, that could explain why he carved “Natsuki Subaru was here” into himself when he was unconscious.

If that other self has Subaru’s memories, it may explain why Meili had been strangled, and it’s ’cause Meili had taken on some of Elsa’s mannerisms, much like the licking of her lips before going for a kill, and that’d be why the other self killed Meili, ’cause she was a threat to his life, which he picked up on due to viscerally being reminded of Elsa and how she’d slaughtered him so many times.

As for why this other self killed Meili rather than restraining her like pre-amnesiac Subaru would’ve done, when one dissociates, the other new self isn’t exactly like the original person and could be kinder or crueler depending on what suits the needs of the situation. Given the new environment is hostile to this new personality, he could be more prone to killing his perceived enemies.

And there’s one more possibility regarding what went down between amnesiac Subaru and Meili that doesn’t involve dissociation, and that’d be that Meili had both her name and memories eaten like Rem did with Meili being up and about while being remembered by others being conditional on a Gluttony wielder possessing someone who’d been completely erased resulting in that person being remembered while being possessed. Thus, Rui could have been going back and forth between Meili and Subaru, resulting in both of them going in and out of consciousness as Meili goes back and forth between struggling for dear life and going back into suspended animation like Rem is. And all of that could’ve been due to deliberately troll Subaru according to Rui’s Gospel since Witch cultists follow whatever they say. Tappei would be such a troll if he’d thought of this.

I’d say this episode drastically increased the odds of Meili having been the one who pushed Subaru to his death twice assuming Subaru experienced dissociation. Subaru without his memories is basically the one who killed Meili’s big sister rather than a big brother figure, so it’s not a surprise she wants to kill him right now since their relationship is basically starting again from zero. I’m guessing the title of the episode “Empty Shell” refers to how amnesiac Subaru is very different to the past version before he’d lost his memories and how pretty much everyone can see it aside from Shaula and perhaps Patrasche.

Suffice to say, I’m really looking forward to seeing how the rest of this season goes. This was quite a whammy of an episode with a lot of content to chew on. As for the link to the relevant Break Time short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exix9t4o490

A Re:Zero Theory: Shaula lied when mentioning there’s no fifth rule, and it may be that she can’t directly comment on Satella’s looks given she thinks Emilia looks like her

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on A Re:Zero Theory: Shaula lied when mentioning there’s no fifth rule, and it may be that she can’t directly comment on Satella’s looks given she thinks Emilia looks like her

Foxidna stated that there are 5 secret rules Shaula has for protecting the tower in Ep. 71, and judging by Shaula’s reaction, Foxidna was almost certainly right on the money, meaning Shaula saying that there’s no fifth rule may have been a lie with Foxidna pointedly asking if that’s the last of them meant to show her belief that there’s definitely one more, showing again that she’s probably a soul clone of Echidna given Echidna was from that time period of four hundred years ago.

And as we see from Ep. 73, Shaula herself believes that Emilia bears a striking a resemblance to Satella, which is why she wouldn’t mind becoming the half-witch’s apprentice, which is a comment showing both that she knew who Satella was and that she was a witch, likening Emilia to Satella. Given this, I believe it’s plausible Flügel had a very good reason to hold Shaula to this if that’s indeed the fifth rule.

Thus, Flügel may have ensured Shaula can’t directly comment on Shaula’s appearance, possibly ’cause of a future situation in which Satella or the Witch of Envy appears, such as an exam in which a much weaker version of Satella appears or much like in Season 2, Satella and the the Witch of Envy appear in the Dream Castle/Sanctuary due to the Taboo, and this was done to prevent Subaru or the others from losing trust in Emilia later.

Given we’ve already seen one instance of the Taboo being invoked when amnesiac Subaru’s heart was stroked and calmed down in Episode 74, likely due to the presence of an enemy, such as a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, that may have also stealthily psychologically primed viewers to expect that to happen again given he has no idea what the Taboo is and what situations allow for Satella or the Witch of Envy to appear.

As to hazard a guess what Flügel specifically told Shaula, it may have been something along the lines of “One day when I return, and you see someone with a striking resemblance to Satella, you are not to directly comment on it under any circumstance whatsoever, and you are forbidden from revealing this rule to anyone. The other four are okay, but this one is absolute no-go territory. Do I hear an okay?”

As for what Shaula’s true purpose is, I think it’s somewhat like Season 2 Tea Party Echidna’s, only her role is split between herself, Foxidna due to all the suspect things she’s done, and perhaps the unseen force I believe was spying through the birds that led Foxidna, Subaru, and Julius to the hidden passage to the balcony to develop the cast in a certain way for a larger plan to steer the world to a good future.

A Re:Zero Theory: Episode 74 perhaps shows the limits of the Authority of Gluttony’s ability to erase memories + Why Subaru may have no resistance to Authorities

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on A Re:Zero Theory: Episode 74 perhaps shows the limits of the Authority of Gluttony’s ability to erase memories + Why Subaru may have no resistance to Authorities

I believe Episode 74 shows may show the limits of the Authority of Gluttony’s ability to erase memories since amnesiac Subaru perhaps still having subconscious memories of Reid, given the words Reid said in the last two images may have been meant to highlight just how strange it was that he went to a higher floor, and particularly to him, even though he was told that the group was more interested in going to the higher floors ’cause they wanted to find out what happened to him and pass the exams so that they could leave, suggests something’s up.

First, I need to go over certain content I have before to ensure this theory makes sense. As shown by Ep. 69, Subaru may have chosen the path on the right since much of Freud’s work involved one acting on hunches and subconscious thoughts. The girls thought that the doors were meant to keep out mabeasts due to Patrasche’s irritability, but given the increasing levels of miasma, that path most likely lead to Satella since someone with a Witch Factor would emit the extremely high amount of miasma that could be found at the end of the tunnel given we know Satella’s sealed somewhere in the Auguria Dunes.

Given Subaru was requested by Satella to kill her some day after he comes to love himself, it may have been a promise he made to her 400 years ago. And whether he wanted to kill Satella or save her, he subconsciously realized she was at the end of the tunnel, and that’s why he chose the path on the right.

Where I’m going with this is that I’ve extrapolated the Freud content from Subaru in Eps. 69-70 to show that Subaru wasn’t crazy or stupid to think he’d Returned By Death at the start of the episode when he woke up on Emilia’s lap given he woke up in a new place, and it was ’cause he subconsciously realized that he’d been to the dark world, and since most of the situations Subaru finds himself in the dark world are after he dies, he instinctively thought that he’d died, not ’cause he has no brain or is a super irrational person, but ’cause he subconsciously linked dying with going to the dark world.

As such, I theorize Subaru thinking of Reid despite it having been explained earlier in the episode that Reid died of old age years ago is also ’cause subconsciously he knows what’s in the tower much like he knew the path to the right in the cave/tunnel led to Satella, and he knows there’s probably a Reid on one of the higher floors, and that’s why Subaru thought about Reid in the moment Shaula said she gives no thought to who she’s killed, not ’cause he can’t remember basic details, but since he’s letting his subconscious thoughts and hunches drive him.

Previously, I suspected that the Authority of Gluttony erases memories from the world you’re currently in, which is why Subaru’s memories of Earth have been retained with Subaru’s memories of Earth likely being erased if his memories had been eaten on Earth, but this current situation with Subaru perhaps having subconscious memories of Reid could show that the Authority of Gluttony cannot erase memories of Reid from 400 years ’cause they are considered from a different world entirely, possibly due to the power of the Authority of the final boss of Re:Zero, who I believe has the power to bias the story path to his/her liking with the story of whoever the Hero of the story is at the time considered a different world entirely from the Hero who came before and the Hero who came after and so on. I believe the true final boss is a man/woman with an Authority that biases the story path based on actions that had happened in the past.

To rehash something I need to get across, I don’t believe Subaru is fully Flügel but moreso half of Flügel in the past given Naoko in Subaru’s first Sanctuary trial said that all Subaru needs to do is become half as cool as his dad, which is a strange thing to say to your son you know has an inferiority complexity centered around his dad, especially since he’s your gigachad husband, and thus, Naoko’s remark could have been foreshadowing of the situation from 400 years ago given Kenichi means “wise man”, Subaru called Flügel a wise man who lived centuries ago in Episode 16, and Shaula called her master, Flügel the Wise Man in Episode 70, which are three elements that may be pointing to the same thing given how often Re:Zero makes use of the number three.

I believe “The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End” could actually be referring to Subaru’s summoning being the endgame scenario, much like the MCU’s Endgame after Thanos did his snap, meaning a whole shitload of planning happened before that. I believe Echidna, Satella, Flügel, (Kenichi and Subaru in the same body) and potentially others, such as Reid, started a grand plan 400 years ago to make Subaru the Hero of the story in the story who would break the trap the world is currently bound by.

It’s possible Subaru was built up the way he was to end the cycle of the world being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed that was alluded to by Melakuera in his remarks about the Witch and the world imbalance and how he’d faced world-ending crises countless times. Given Melakuera likely didn’t exist at the start of the time if Re:Zero’s fantasy world had ever been molten as lesser spirits take time to become Great Spirits, his words indicated that the world is constantly getting destroyed, and given Melakuera has retained his memories, it’s likely not an infinite loop as at least one entity is being re-summoned into the next iteration of the world with his memories, and that’s how I formed this theory.

In the distant past the final boss could very well have used his/her Authority to bias the story path of the world after the handsome, conceited, and overpowered hero of that era chose his lover over the world, and since then all iterations of the Hero of the story had to fit that mold of handsome, conceited, and overpowered until Flügel, Satella, and Echidna interrupted the story path of the world being destroyed for that iteration of the world/story to make artificial Heroes of the story in Al and Subaru. That would be why Flugel was such a bastard ’cause the final boss’s Authority forced him into that mold I mentioned.

And thus, since Reid was from the era when Flügel may have been the Hero of the story four hundred years ago, which would be considered a different world due to the Authority that biases the story path that I posit exists, meaning memories from the time period of the story of Flügel cannot be erased even though the world wasn’t destroyed in that era due to the current world setting being the story of Subaru, the current Hero of the story, which could perhaps point to the absolute limits of the Authority of Gluttony in only being able to erase memories that came after Flügel’s time as the Hero of the story, aka the current story. I don’t know how Al’s time in this world plays into it, but we’ll see in the future, I guess.

As for why I believe Subaru doesn’t have resistances to Authorities like I had believed in the past, first up will be Subaru’s interaction with Sirius’s Authority of Wrath. Subaru was always shown falling for Sirius’s Authority. It may have taken longer in subsequent loops, but it always happened, and that suggests it’s just ’cause he learned what exactly it did to try to keep him himself in the right state of mind to delay falling under Sirius’s control. Others were also able to resist the effect of this Authority, like with Priscilla, who’d closed her heart to an extent due to a past incident, and Liliana, whose singing could counter it and who was focused on doing her duty to save those under Sirius’s control, which Priscilla worked to make her feel passionate about, including kissing her when she momentarily fell under Sirius’s control herself.

Next up is Subaru’s interaction with Capella’s Authority of Lust. Given that Capella’s blood transforms others if they are defeated by its curse and that she can transform herself, her blood itself may be tied to her Authority of Lust. Thus, I believe Subaru handling Capella’s dragon’s blood way better than Crusch did can be explained by how that blood essentially contains a curse, and since Subaru was already filled with dormant Ulgarm curses which never activated due to Roswaal and Rem slaughtering all those that cursed him, they acted to counteract that black dragon curse.

Episode 56 (Season 3 Episode 6) depicted the Ulgarm curses battling the black dragon curse, and they seemed to reach a harmony of sorts, which is why instead of Subaru getting transformed into something else entirely, the parts of his body affected by the black dragon curse heal when damaged, making it kind of a hybrid state in that his body tries to return to its previous human shape, but due to the black dragon curse, it regrows into the mutated state. So it wouldn’t be that Subaru has a resistance to this Authority but that extraneous factors manifested in him seemingly manifesting a resistance to it.

On the platter next is that many fans have long wondered why Subaru could see Petelgeuse’s Authority of Sloth: Unseen Hand when nobody else could after he’d died after seeing it once. Perhaps this is due to Petelgeuse having licked Subaru’s eye in Ep. 15, and when this happened, part of Petelgeuse’s soul entered Subaru or maybe he was already preparing Subaru as a Finger like he’d done with his one hundred minions in Season 1, and that carried over when Subaru looped, which is how Petelgeuse was able to possess Subaru easily in Ep. 18 after Puck destroyed his main body, laughing until Subaru reset, and again possess him in Ep. 23. So it may not be Subaru having a resistance to his Authority but also externals factors that contributed to Subaru having an advantage against Petelgeuse.

As for Subaru remembering Gluttony victims who’ve had their names eaten, I believe Foxidna also remembers Julius too even if that’s a controversial take. It could just be Subaru being Subaru with his having resistances to Authorities, but Foxidna in Season 4 with how she thought that there’s more to it than that on Reinhard and Felix being friends to Julius in Ep. 67, how her gaze was directed at Julius along with her look of discomfort in Ep. 70 when Shaula was shattering Julius’s fantasy of Reid Astrea being a man of exemplary character ’cause of his sword skills whereas nobody else paid him any heed, suggesting that she knew that Reid had been his idol from his childhood whom he looked up to, indicating a closeness to Julius the others this arc don’t have, and in Ep. 72 when I believe she spammed Jiwald to direct Subaru’s thoughts to be primarily focused on Julius to avoid one of the bad futures in Emilia’s third Sanctuary trial.

Thus, I believe Foxidna herself remembers Julius, either due to having a Witch Factor or witch miasma, which are the common denominators between the original Echidna and Subaru, that they were both hosts of Witch Factors. Echidna may have split her soul into Foxidna 400 years ago, which would make Foxidna speaking with Echidna’s speech pattern in Episode 67 and Break Time Season 4 Episode 8 make sense.

Of course, with Regulus having died without using his Authority on Subaru, we’ll never know whether he can speed up Subaru to into a fast projectile as that might’ve been the best way to find out if Subaru had a resistance to his Authority, but I conclude with the use cases we have currently that, no, Subaru doesn’t have a resistance to other people’s Authorities, and every instance that seems to be an innate resistance can be chalked up to being due to something else.