The number three is pretty important in Re:Zero. Subaru died three times before realizing he had Return by Death. There are three opposing pairs of magic attributes. The Pearlbaton siblings are triplets. The three entities who sealed Satella were known to be the Divine Dragon, the Sword Saint, and the Sage. There were the Three Great Mabeasts. There were 3 different Sanctuary trials. Liara had three different baby daddies and bore children for all 3 of them. The Sin Archbishops of Gluttony are a trio. Capella made 3 more demands outside of the main demand for the remains of the dead witch in Priestella, Typhon’s corpse. Suffice to say, we know that three is a prominent number in Re:Zero. Where I’m going with this is that there were three moments from Season 2 that are likely a telltale sign of plans from Echidna and Flügel.
First up is with Puck’s oath. Viewers know that a female speaker’s words which had been denoted by a special font in the Frozen Bond OVA were revealed to be the words of Echidna in Season 2 based on one of the episodes of Season 2 reusing that font. Echidna had made an oath with Puck in that if he got too close to Emilia, as in form a contract with her, he would lose that which makes him himself, which were some of his memories. I suspect this oath was made to ensure that Puck didn’t enter into a contract with Emilia until it was absolutely necessary when Melakuera decided to arrive in his main body to kill Emilia, for the very specific moment Echidna intended for it to happen using her Tome of Wisdom.
And this oath is how Puck even allowed Emilia to join Roswaal with him as her backer in the Royal Selection and how he also didn’t realize that Roswaal had been speaking like Hector did for hundreds of years since he didn’t regain his memories until he broke his contract with Emilia, thereby restoring his memories, showing clear intent that Echidna had planned this out hundreds of years ago, or else the whole scenario of Seasons 1 and 2 wouldn’t work.
Next is Subaru rejecting Echidna’s contract. Puck’s oath with Echidna coupled by how Tea Party Echidna suggested to Beatrice to wait for that person who will free her from her duty of maintaining the Forbidden Library are quite suspicious. Echidna stated that she had wanted to see who Beatrice chose, but I believe she fully knew that it was Subaru, and she wanted to ensure that Beatrice didn’t choose Subaru or anybody else until Subaru pleaded to Beatrice to choose him in a location that was burning down. As for why this is likely, what suggests that Echidna intended for Subaru to reject her contract and take Beatrice’s hand are these three situations:
- Echidna told Subaru that even after three days of trial and error she had no hope of breaking Emilia out of her shell, which indicates, if Echidna was being truthful, that she varied up the first Sanctuary trial to help Emilia pass it, not making it as hard as possible for Emilia as some people believe. Echidna then requested that maybe Subaru could do it and give the cowardly princess wings, and this amounts to two instances Echidna hinted or outright told Subaru that the way out of Roswaal’s trap in Season 2 is to have Emilia do the trials.
- Echidna stated what she said about having Beatrice stay in the library ’cause she knew how evil it sounded so that Subaru would reject her contract. This is both backed by Subaru’s actual reaction and Echidna saying that she didn’t want him to think that only she among the dead Witches of Sin was evil, showing she understood how vile what she’d stated had sounded.
- Echidna, after stating that she didn’t want Subaru to think she was the only evil Witch of Sin, took away Subaru’s qualification for entering the tomb, which had to be done since Subaru was using entering the tomb as a crutch instead of supporting Emilia, which is why the first thing Subaru did after Otto talked some sense to him after Patrasche dragged him out of the tomb was try to go back into the tomb. Only after that was no longer an easy option, was he able to be the emotional support Emilia needed.
This shows that both the oath with Puck and the suggestion to Beatrice were part of a greater plan.
And lastly, there’s Petelgeuse having promised Flügel, whether it was a direct order or a promise, to not take in the Sloth Witch Factor, and given Petelgeuse apologized to Flügel-sama in the flashback, showing he’d considered it an important promise, and this also reeks of a scenario in which Petelgeuse didn’t do it until it was absolutely necessary when Pandora and Regulus came to Elior Forest as part of a plan to steer the future to a particular path by Flügel. Thus, Echidna intended for the future in which Petelgeuse killed Fortuna, leading to freeze the forest and the elves, leading to her eventually being drawn into Roswaal’s camp and for Petelgeuse to be the main antagonist of Arc 3.
Thus, the point of Shaula’s rules for protecting the Pleiades Watchtower, which were given to her by her master, Flügel, may be to force Shaula to lose her mind and become a killing machine later in Season 4/Arc 6 given the pattern of the 3 moments from Season 2 in which 3 characters were told not to do something so that they wouldn’t do that thing until it was no longer avoidable for them to put it off. It stinks of a grand plot guide the world to a desired future in which the world avoids being destroyed through Subaru, the current Hero of the story. Flügel potentially having created Shaula for her to become a berserk killing machine seems pretty uncalled for, but maybe he had good intentions in guiding the world to a good future along with Echidna and Satella. I’m not saying it’s not a horrible thing for him to have done, but I guess I could understand why he did it if there is a greater plot at play.