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.