Regulus specifically stated in Episode 51 that fate would have him meet the Emilia camp again. This info explicitly shows that Regulus’s Gospel made him believe that they would meet again despite it taking until the 4th loop for it to actually happen. This shows, as I have long proposed elsewhere, that the Witch Cult Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path rather than being texts that give real forecasts about the future.
TL;DR: I do not believe Witch Cult Gospels or the not-quite-Tome of Wisdoms that Roswaal and Beatrice had actually truly tell the future but are merely connected to Echidna’s mind, and she can freely decide what appears on those texts.
If Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom actually told the true future, it would account for Otto’s actions. I do not buy into it being what happened in the alpha timeline or first loop as some have proposed based on Petelgeuse having no knowledge of Subaru in Episode 24 since it’s a document that updates and should be able to account for changes like that unless the source of that text didn’t want to happen. That kind of flaw literally should not exist in a document that can update itself on future happenings. I don’t consider a stretch at all that the Gospels are also Echidna’s creation given how Echidna’s Tome of Wisdom Authority was still active in Season 2 with how her Authority could reconstruct the past as well as show the future, and making something ‘inferior’ to the not-quite Tome of Wisdom would be very easy for her, especially if the common denominator of those texts is that they are linked to her mind rather than being anything particularly special. If how some people believed it worked was correct, none of Ram, Emilia, or Petra would be in Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom since they also died in a previous loop much like Otto did, so the idea that Otto wasn’t included in it ’cause he died in a previous loop is categorically false.
While there’s some mystery on where the Witch Cult Gospels came from, I believe the simplest explanation that they are Echidna’s creation is what is likely the reality of things. Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama a long time ago back when he was already a member of the Witch Cult, which suggests that Flugel may have been the original leader of the Witch Cult as Petelgeuse shouldn’t have been subservient to someone else in the cult. Maybe Echidna distributed many, many Gospels to Flugel 400 years ago, and that is how the Witch Cult was founded. She may have distributed enough Gospels for all cultists who existed at the time and would exist in the future, so there wouldn’t have been an issue with the supply of them. Pandora, if she is the current leader of the Witch Cult, probably took control once Flugel was gone.
How Garfiel’s mom’s amnesia plays into this is that the reason Garfiel stayed in the Sanctuary is ’cause he had seen that his mother’s carriage had been caught in a landslide, which was the reason he was afraid of the outside world due to a fear of death, and Garfiel’s issues forced Subaru to learn to depend on his friends to win over Garfiel so that he would be able to defeat Elsa. I believe Echidna specifically had Lye Batenkaitos eat Garf’s mom’s memories through a suggestion in Lye’s Gospel, which resulted in her current situation with her new family. I believe this was specifically done to give Garfiel more character development in the future since he will likely be a huge key piece in the story with my prediction that he will become the next Sword Saint when Reinhard is sealed.
How would Reinhard even get sealed? I believe there will be a plot to seal Subaru, and it won’t be just any seal, but a seal that if broken, results in the person who was sealed dying. Now I know what you’re thinking… Why would there would be a seal that kills the person sealed if the seal is broken when you can just kill that person? The simple answer is that everything from Seasons 1 and 2 and even hundreds of years before that was planned out in advance with Echidna having Roswaal drawn Subaru into the Emilia camp, with Pandora commanding the White Whale to leave Subaru alone so that he could make it back to Roswaal’s mansion and inadvertently kill Emilia by invoking the Taboo, leading to the From Zero moment, with Subaru being trapped with the Sanctuary and mansion dilemma that required him to sacrifice nobody to succeed and lean on his friends, which Echidna deliberately pushed him toward even if she seemed to really want Subaru to accept her contract on the surface. I’ll elaborate on all of what I just typed, but I have to finish up my point on what I believe will be a future seal on Reinhard. Therefore, there is a seal that kills the person sealed if the seal is broken because it is another plot to trap Subaru into making a very specific decision, and that would be to get Reinhard to be sealed.
If you’re not understanding what I mean, I believe there will be a plot to seal Subaru because it is meant to force Subaru to loop until he has Reinhard take one for the team and be sealed. Why would the Witch Cult come up with such a convoluted plan? That would be because I surmise that Witch Cult Gospels do not truly tell the future but are merely connected to Echidna’s mind through magic, so she can make whatever she wants to appear in any Gospel, and since Witch Cultists try to follow their Gospel exactly as shown in Episode 53, they would make such a weird seal and not question their Gospels’ instructions. Subaru having to work through issues without the incredible Reinhard would be a good way for him to build confidence in himself, and considering Subaru loving himself is one of the principal goals of the story, I believe this is a likely development.
If in every arc, there is one big choice Subaru must make (whether to abandon Emilia, Rom, and Felt, whether to take Beatrice’s offer to be sent elsewhere, abandoning the residents of the mansion and Arlam Village, whether to run away with Rem, abandoning the Emilia camp in the process, and whether to accept Echidna’s contract), there will be a time in a future arc where he has to choose between having some yet-to-be-determined character or Reinhard get sealed in Subaru’s place and one final choice he makes at the end of Re:zero where he will have to choose between Emilia and the world, which I believe was foreshadowed by the dilemma the construct of Subaru’s mom proposed to him with choosing between mayonnaise and the world having Subaru retort that only someone who hates the world would choose mayonnaise. The big choice Subaru has to make in the Priestella arc is so far unclear, but there should be one.
There is a basis to believe this in the anime when Minerva said that sometimes good things happen from Echidna’s evil plots, which shows that the dead Witches of Sin may be in on Echidna’s plans, whether they be stopping Subaru from accepting Echidna’s contract when Echidna strongly favoured Subaru rejecting her contract or other things. I believe a large group of characters from 400 years ago, including Satella, Echidna, Pandora, the dead Witches of Sin, and possibly more are trying to steer the world away from destruction with the Seal in the Elior Forest one day being open under unfavourable conditions, so they plan to forcefully open it under their own terms using Subaru and Emilia and that everything that has happened so far in Re:zero is meant to push Subaru and Emilia to that very specific future.
I believe if this Seal is opened that there will be droves and droves of creatures that cause AoE damage just from existing and that not even Reinhard can stop the world from being destroyed in this case, which would require Satella to possess Emilia since Satella’s power is necessary to counter this threat that emerges from the Seal, most likely because powerful yin magic is needed to handle said threat. I believe Satella knows full well that she needs to be put down after she takes care of the threat from the Seal, and that is part of the reason she requested that Subaru come kill her since she will not have full control of herself and because this is one of the final pieces of the plan those characters from 400 years ago came up with.
Now I’ll get to why I believe everything starting from 400 years ago and even up until this season has been planned by Echidna. Echidna most likely deliberately wanted Subaru to turn down the contract she offered to him in Season 2. And it’s specifically because her actions didn’t line up with her goal of wanting Subaru to accept her contract. Echidna let it slip in Episode 34 that she tried to vary up the trial with 3 days of trial and error for Emilia in an attempt to help Emilia pass the 1st trial, which shows she was actively trying to help Emilia succeed. She then proceeds to tell Subaru that maybe he can give the cowardly princess wings, which is basically telling Subaru that the correct course of action that will lead to him achieving his goals is to have Emilia take the trials. However, this flew over Subaru’s head, and he was determined to do the trials in Emilia’s place after that interaction. Why would Echidna do this if she wanted him to accept her contract? It makes no sense.
Another example in which I propose that Echidna’ intentions were obscured is that she said she gave Beatrice a blank book because Echidna had wanted to see who Beatrice chose. I believe Echidna fully knew that Subaru is the one who would free Beatrice and that Echidna specifically chose to tell Subaru what she did was because she wanted to seem so outrageously evil so as to deter Subaru from accepting her contract. This is backed up by Echidna saying to Subaru after he rejected her contract that she didn’t want him to think she was the only one of the Witches of Sin who is evil, which led to her revoking Subaru’s qualification for entering the tomb. Subaru was using his right to enter the tomb as a crutch at that point, and Echidna did him a major solid by taking it away so that he’d be forced to do all he could to help Emilia pass the trials. Echidna clearly knew how evil what she said about Beatrice was. Echidna’s actions do not read as somebody who wanted to force Subaru to accept her contract no matter what. The true reason Beatrice’s book was empty was probably because Echidna needed Beatrice to stay in the library in case she died or something, and since all she did was stay in the library, there was no need for further instruction. As I have indicated before, Otto not being included in Roswaal’s not-quite Tome of Wisdom, was likely intentional and was constructed this way by design as Echidna fully intended for Otto to be the key to defeating Roswaal.
Given I have proposed that most Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path instead of being true predictors of the future, that begs the question of why the White Whale let Subaru go in Episode 17. I believe that Pandora has a Gospel that also accounts for Subaru’s decision-making much like Roswaal’s not-quite Tome of Wisdom since the common denominator is that these texts are connected to Echidna’s mind. That would explain why the White Whale stopped pursuing Subaru and blew him away with its breath after pursuing him for such a long time with the intent of eating him and then likely left the area. Given that Pandora had some control over the Black Serpent in Emilia’s past during her invasion of Elior Forest with Regulus in Season 2, it is not a stretch to believe that she had similar control over the White Whale. I therefore conclude that in Episode 17, Pandora saved Subaru by ordering the White Whale to leave him alone so that he could make it back to Roswaal’s mansion since he intended to warn of the threat of the Witch Cult. Lye Batenkaitos may have called the White Whale their pet, but I don’t believe that the White Whale listened to Subaru’s words “I don’t want to die.” is the reason it let him go. The White Whale stopped in its tracks and blew Subaru away with its breath before Subaru ever said that he doesn’t want to die, which shows that the White Whale was already letting Subaru go. And considering what viewers found out in Season 2 about Daphne and her creations finding Satella and consequently, Subaru, to smell irresistibly delicious, there was no reason for the White Whale to let Subaru go unless it was ordered to.
I believe the point of that happening was to have Subaru try to tell Emilia about Return by Death so that he could indirectly cause her death when Satella would emerge from him to kill Emilia and have Puck admonish Subaru, leading to him wanting to run away with Rem, which led to the From Zero moment. I believe this loop also happened so that Subaru could one day figure out that the White Whale has a special mist that erases someone from existence, which would be something he needed to know for the White Whale fight. I believe Echidna specifically instructed Pandora through her Gospel to have the White Whale leave so that Subaru could finally make progress toward defeating Petelgeuse. I do not believe that Pandora is Subaru’s enemy but that she is merely trying to make a future she and some other characters from 400 years ago wanted to happen be realized. If my speculation is right, viewers should be thanking Pandora for allowing the From Zero moment to happen because she pushed Subaru to his breaking point by saving him from the White Whale.
Okay, so here comes the elephant in the room. Why would Echidna, who thirsts for knowledge, propose a contract with Subaru if she had no intention of forcing him to accept it even though it’d be a dream come true for her to have that contract considering she has an unsatiable desire for knowledge? I surmise that one reason was to keep Subaru in the dark about Echidna’s true role in the story. I have to go on a tangent right now before I get back to this.
Episodes 18, 25, 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella with how Puck indicated how many shadow hands Satella could generate in Episode 18 by saying Petelgeuse must summon 1,000 shadow hands, half of what Satella could in order to kill him, how Subaru used a number associated with Satella (2,000) to describe how much he loves Emilia in Episode 25, and Subaru swearing that he’d save Satella after she told him to one day come kill her, showing he randomly had a swell in positive emotions for Satella. This shows that he previously existed in Re:Zero’s fantasy world in some form, probably as Satella’s lover.
Given that we know Echidna’s Tome of Wisdom can fully reconstruct the past with her trials and show glimpses of the future after watching Season 2, it’s possible that Subaru gleaned some information about the world’s future 400 years ago through Echidna’s Authority and saw that the world was coming to an end. He could have convinced Echidna by saying that the destruction of the world will end her pursuit of knowledge to help him create a plan to avoid the world’s destruction.
Echidna would have a crucial role as the one who guided the actions of the Witch Cult and Roswaal for 400 years up to the present day with Pandora causing Emilia to freeze Elior Forest and herself and drawing Subaru into the Emilia camp. The Frozen Bond strongly indicated that the one who sent Puck to search for Emilia was no other than Echidna with the reveal in Season 2 where the same font used in the OVA was used for Echidna’s speech in that season. So Echidna knew that Emilia’s memories would be sealed by Puck, and I surmise that Echidna created the Sanctuary trials as a way for Emilia to unseal her memories, regain her memories of Pandora that were erased, to help Subaru learn to rely on his friends and also get Emilia over that hump with the trials instead of bearing the weight of everything by himself, and for Echidna to attempt to give herself time to achieve immortality. Whatever the future holds may require a strong relationship between Subaru and Emilia and needed for Emilia to be traumatized and frozen in the past so that Subaru could help her get past that when all the pieces were in the right place.
If you think Echidna wouldn’t keep tabs on the future, there is clear evidence of Echidna 100% keeping tabs on the future in the anime. She turned Subaru’s handkerchief into a special knife in anticipation of Satella engulfing Subaru in her mass of shadow for all time and made sure there was a way for him to kill himself. She also instructed Puck to find Emilia 400 years ago, and that was also likely an instance of her keeping tabs on the future. Flugel having Petelgeuse promise to not take in the Sloth Witch Factor and Echidna forcing Puck into a contract where if he enters into a contract with Emilia he’d slowly lose his memories shows that both those characters likely had kept tabs on the future to ensure that Petelgeuse and Puck wouldn’t take those actions until there was no other choice. Flugel was also the one who planted what was called Flugel’s tree, and it happened to be in the right spot for the White Whale expedition force to burn down its trunk to trap the White Whale, leading to its defeat, which shows more keeping tabs on the future.
Echidna probably has set it up so that Subaru doesn’t realize that he’s being manipulated into making specific choices, and that’s why she may have hijacked the Witch Cult since the start of its creation to develop Subaru’s character into being a proper hero with high self-esteem who won’t let the world burn over his extreme attachment to his lover. Maybe Subaru will find out about this plot towards the end, but he will need to willingly make the choice to choose to save the world over Emilia.