Again, as I stated in a previous write-up, I feel I didn’t do a good job doing Ep. 77 justice by not being thorough enough in my reasoning as I shouldn’t just assume that everyone remembers everything I’ve posted before, especially since it’s been four episodes since I last commented on Foxidna being suspicious, so I am again posting a supplementary write-up.
As seen from the content of the GIF, which I have brought up before previously, Foxidna stated that she didn’t share her secret with Julius ’cause he didn’t see through her act like Subaru did, but Subaru’s first glimpse of Foxidna not being Anastasia was when she said that she thinks that Reinhard and Felix were more than just friends to Julius, something Subaru found surprising due to the face he made since he had previously not known anyone who could remember someone whose name had been eaten by Gluttony.
That’s why Subaru said later on that something’s been off the whole time ’cause of that moment hinting that Foxidna remembers Julius before talking about how coldly Foxidna spoke about Ricardo, which I believe was Foxidna deliberately cluing in Subaru on her identity since she had already given him a hint, meaning that next hint would confirm his suspicions.
Then when the tower’s under attack, Foxidna said, “I should have listened to Ana’s intuition. I shouldn’t have brought anyone else here.” (which is in the GIF) meaning that she shouldn’t have brought anyone else to the tower, going with those from her own camp and listened to Anastasia. This calls into question pretty much everything she’s said this season given she said that Anastasia had been asleep in her od ever since the battle with the Witch Cult in Priestella, but apparently, she either had a talk with Anastasia sometime during the battle or pre-planned the Priestella visit with Anastasia’s consent, bringing into question her motives for gathering everyone to Priestella. Any way you slice it, Foxidna is a serial liar.
To top all of this off, Foxidna also says in the GIF that this pain is penance for Ana since if she were to give back control to her, Anastasia would feel the extreme pain and the horror of death, implying she had the power to give back her body to Anastasia the whole time but didn’t, flying in the face of her previous remarks about not being able to give back Anastasia’s body, showing she’s just very suss in general since she contradicted her statement about not being able to give Anastasia’s body back twice in the same episode.
I believe Foxidna was outright trolling/following the Tome of Wisdom when she said that she should’ve listened to Anastasia’s inuition, and that was to stay in character regarding her not trusting Subaru when she knows full well that he’s trustworthy. That would be why I propose she said it should’ve been Beatrice instead of her that Subaru was dragging along with him, highlighting that Beatrice is an unfortunate girl to draw sympathy to Beatrice from Subaru despite Foxidna not really even knowing Beatrice well to aid in learning to believe in himself. While it may just be survivor’s guilt, Foxidna is just so suspicious that this interpretation I’ve come up with just can’t be ruled out.
And I do believe Foxidna still remembers Julius given the content of Episodes 67, 70, and 72 with Episode 72 providing a further hint of Foxidna remembering Julius with how she aggressively used Jiwald to try to defend Julius when he was fighting Reid. Someone who barely knows him wouldn’t do that, and Subaru even pondered about why she’d go to such lengths, which means Tappei intended for viewers to think hard about that detail. After Episode 67 with Foxidna putting it out there that Reinhard and Felix were more than just friends to Julius, which Subaru notably reacted to with his face before later saying something’s been up the whole time after she talked coldly about Ricardo, which was a reference to that first scene, and her general gaze toward Julius along with her look of discomfort in Episode 70 when Shaula was shattering Julius’s fantasy about Reid Astrea being a man of great character ’cause of his sword skills when nobody else was paying him any heed, showing she knows that Reid had been Julius’s idol since childhood, there’s a clear pattern of Foxidna showing a level of connection with Julius no one else in the group has, not even Subaru.
As I said with my post from four weeks ago, I believe Foxidna staged the talk she had with Subaru and Julius following her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom due to her being a soul clone of Echidna’s, not just an artificial spirit, so that Julius would feel insecure about his role as Anastasia’s first knight as well as cause a fight between Subaru and Julius right before Subaru loses his memories to bring Julius to a new low with the one person he believed to have remembered him also forgetting him and that she likely spammed Jiwald not for the reason she stated in Ep. 73 with being unsure about Reid having lethal intent but ’cause she wanted to direct Subaru’s thoughts to Julius instead of the exam so that she could prevent the bad future from Emilia’s third Sanctuary line in Episode 48, and Muse Asia’s translation was: “I have bent my knees and lost even my sword. Just what do I have left?” This line suggests that that depicted a future in which Julius had to bend his knees in deference to Reid while also having lost his sword, leading to him being crushed emotionally and possibly suicidal.
Why Foxidna would be able to psychologically prime Subaru to do this is that he’s the type to follow his hunches and subconscious thoughts, as seen by when he likely chose the path on the right in Episode 69, ’cause of the ever-so increasing miasma and the doors that he could open that may have been built or cast by himself, subconsciously remembering his promise to Satella to kill her as she’d requested for him to do in Episode 38, and when he thought he’d Returned by Death when he woke up in a new location without it being exactly warranted since he associated a visit to the dark world/shadow garden with death, and why he thought to Reid as an answer for the exam on the third floor even though he had learned that Reid died of old age not that long ago, ’cause he subconsciously knew that Reid is in the tower.
If she’s indeed a soul clone, Foxidna should also have the same Authority the original did. And given Satella wouldn’t know which savepoints to choose without future knowledge, she probably has either an oath or contract with at least one or more Echidna soul clone(s) given Satella wouldn’t know what would be the right future/path to follow based on Subaru’s previous time as the Hero and what worked then wouldn’t necessarily work now.
As for how Foxidna would remember Julius, the common denominator between Subaru and Echidna is that they were Witch Factor holders who emitted miasma, so I believe the mechanism by which Subaru and Foxidna would remember Julius would be either ’cause of their Witch Factors or their miasma.
I believe Foxidna stating in Episode 67 that she will choose the option that has the highest possibility of success, no more or less, may be low-key a consistent character trait of all of Echidna’s soul clones, and that’s why Tea Party Echidna pushed Subaru to reject her contract even if she would’ve liked for him to take her contract since the world continuing rather than being destroyed very much aligns with her goal of attaining more knowledge. This would be the reason I posit that all Echidna soul clones follow the plan of the original Echidna.
And as for Anastasia being pragmatic and someone who would follow the mindset Foxidna mentioned, plenty of merchants do not choose the option with the highest probability of success ’cause that option may yield the smallest margins, so they weigh their decisions against their personal risk tolerance to go for something that has a higher reward, and if Anastasia is indeed a skilled merchant, this would perhaps be moreso her mindset, not that of which Foxidna shared, and you know since it’s Tappei, he’s done his research and should know the type of reasoning merchants deal with with it not simply being going with the option with highest probability of success.
If Foxidna is a soul clone of Echidna and her Authority, I also posit that she wouldn’t grant Anastasia her every wish much like those who genuinely believe in Foxidna’s goodness believe. Tea Party Echidna followed the plan of the original Echidna in Season 2, and the original Echidna may have made her soul clones specifically ’cause she knew they’d follow her plan ’cause of the core personality trait I’ve proposed they all have, so if that means following one specific future, Foxidna would do it even if it wasn’t the optimal choice every time but the choices that helps Subaru learn important info and give the cast character development.
I acknowledge a possible counterpoint anyone in that anyone with adequate social awareness should realize that Reinhard and Felix were more than friends to Julius based on Julius’s reaction, and I I may have been reading too much into Foxidna’s apparent connection to Julius, but the attention she showed him in Ep. 70 when none of the others paid Julius any attention when he was going on about Reid makes me believe there’s something more to it as it would’ve been easy for her to treat Julius like all the others did, not acknowledging him at all, if she really doesn’t remember him, and given Re:Zero is a series with a ton of details while also being short on available time, showing Anastasia’s reaction at all appeared to be like a big thing to me given her previous attempt to distance herself from Julius in Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Ep. 6 even if I acknowledge she may have just figured out that Reid was his idol.
The episode opens with Subaru introducing himself to Emilia and Beatrice, which leads right away to a time skip of an indeterminable amount of time, and they’re very surprised that he remembers nothing of what he has experienced recently along with having no recollection of either of them. During that event I mentioned, Subaru came to the realization that he really remembers nothing of his time in this world with his musing about his hand not being in the condition he remembered it was in, and Emilia was at the same time clasping her hands together much like in Season 1 when she figured that Subaru was the one wearing her cloak that made it hard for people to recognize the person wearing it during the battle against Petelgeuse and was praying for his safety, only in this scene she was praying for him to get back his memories partially due to the distress it was causing her. After Subaru told the two to cheer up since everything will probably be okay in two hours much like in similar movies, Emilia says that she has no idea what he’s talking about, but Subaru often did that when he had his memories, which is try to approach things with a good attitude even if others didn’t understand what he was talking about as it cheered her up, leading to her smacking herself on the face since Subaru clearly has it worse than she does, meaning she can’t just mope around either. Beatrice herself is also quite distraught by Subaru not knowing what she meant by contractor given how close they had become and how Subaru told her to choose him in Season 2 ’cause he’d make sure she has so much fun that it’ll be worth it even after he dies given she was suicidal at that point and lonely about how those she knew were all leaving her behind, which is why she said that this better be the last time Subaru has amnesia, or she’ll lose all patience with him, and I believe this is a possible hint that Tappei will not abuse Subaru forgetting his memories as some authors do with making the same person forget his/her memories repeatedly. Subaru then snaps his fingers and requests for Emilia and Beatrice’s names, and Emilia is taken aback since she remembered that that’s exactly how he asked for name in the loot house arc when Elsa was tasked with stealing her insignia, but that melts into a smile since it’s further proof that this he’s still the same person. She replied that she’s Emilia, just Emilia, to harken back to that moment and treat it genuinely as a fresh start with amnesiac Subaru, which is what I’ll be referring to him from now on.
The next scene is when they’re back in at the dining table where they both discuss strategy and have meals, and Ram’s immediate reaction is whether it’s a joke since she’s really relying on Subaru to wake Rem since he’s the one who comes through in a pinch for everybody with his plans and ’cause he’s the only one she believes still remembers her sister, serving as her anchor to her dear sister. When amnesiac Subaru replies whether her nickname for him, “Barusu”, is referring to a spell, it is a callback to Season 1 when Ram first used that nickname to disrespect him, and he remarked about it being a blinding spell/curse due to the pronunciation of the Japanese. Ram obviously didn’t like hearing that since it called back the situation from the mansion, showing her that he may not be joking about his memories, and what hurt even more, which is why her facial expression immediately changes to that of someone who’s pained, is when amnesiac Subaru asked if she’s the sleeping girl’s sister since Subaru is the one she knew as the one lone connection to her sister that had remained, probably not even including herself since she personally has no memories of Rem. And when he makes his comment about saving her complaints for when his memory comes back, which is in the spirit of something Subaru would’ve said in the past, she said that that makes it hard for her to believe he’s actually lost his memory since she desperately hopes that he remembers Rem and wants for it to be the case with all her heart given he’s still acting like the Subaru she knows. Of course, he continued to be oblivious to who Meili and Shaula were given he’d lost his memories, and this changes Foxidna’s and Julius’s plan to reveal that she’s an artificial spirit right away since Julius is horrified by this latest development since his last interaction with Subaru was speaking to him in anger, and to his knowledge, Subaru was the only one who remembered him although I believe Foxidna also does but just isn’t revealing that, which is horrible for Julius given his current struggles with his identity.
Then Ram asks Emilia if she can borrow amnesiac Subaru, and he says that he’s fine when Emilia protests, calling her Emilia-chan, which upsets Emilia as her expression clearly gives way to her becoming crestfallen since the Subaru she knows would use Emilia-tan. He does notice Emilia’s discomfort, but he doesn’t understand what could’ve brought about that change in expression. Ram then openly confronts him on their fake water-hauling run, which is a pretext to grill him due to her being desperate and wanting to convince herself that this is an act from him even though he truly presents as having lost his memories. Her suggesting that it’s nothing new for him to shoulder something everything alone is her desperately trying to convince herself that’s what he’s doing since she’s having difficulty keeping it together. When she suggests to him that he tell her everything, promising that she’ll keep it a secret, his reply that having a secret between the two of them has a nice ring to it being followed by a “but” seriously pisses her off due to the change in expression on her face ’cause more and more, he’s confirming that Rem has lost her most powerful ally. Ram using physical force and her eyes narrowing in anger show just hard this is on her, which is why she starts pleading to Subaru to reveal everything ’cause if he has forgotten too then Rem will truly have nobody. It’s a very sombre cry for help due to how powerless Rem feels in this situation with having lost her pseudo-brother-in-law who was her sister’s biggest champion. Subaru replies by telling her, “Sorry”, in a manner that suggests he’d like to do as she says since he himself realizes just how much Ram is struggling.
When they’re back in the dining room, Julius introduces himself once again saying that he and Subaru were something akin to friends, and when Subaru asks why he sounded so unsure about that, Emilia replies that he and Julius are really close, and I’m guessing Julius sounding so unsure about their former relationship is ’cause Subaru harboured some residual resentment from since the time Julius emasculated him at the Royal Selection and had never really let it go except maybe until recently when he’d seen that Julius had similar issues to what he did and that they are at least somewhat alike. Meili then puts it out there that that’s the least of Julius’s problems since Foxidna had dropped her Anastasia act since this morning and many among the group had already picked up on her being somebody else. Foxidna then reveals that had hoped to build a similar relationship with Anastasia as the one Beatrice and Subaru had and the true situation of how things are concerning Anastasia. When Emilia hears that her name’s Echidna, she has a strong negative reaction, much like Subaru did, and Foxidna says that she’s a completely different person, which I suspect is false given even in the Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Episode 8 short, Foxidna is speaking similarly to Echidna, much like she did in Episode 67, suggesting she may very well be a soul clone of Echidna’s who also doubles as an artificial spirit,. Emilia then says that she’ll need to give Echidna a piece of her mind next time with Foxidna replying that she’d give Emilia her full support in doing so ’cause she keeps getting slandered due to the association between their names, and the reason from the short is supposedly that Foxidna was destined to die due to people hunting her ’cause of her name, but I’m convinced Foxidna completely planned out her meeting with Anastasia with her Tome of Wisdom specifically so that she wouldn’t die even if she grew to become fond of Anastasia in time. As for the link to the short, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yc4z2iYkKE
Amnesiac Subaru then changes the subject, bringing up that they’re all here to help people, and Ram rudely interjects that now they’re here and working through the tower that Subaru has gone and forgotten what little memory he had of his time in this world while Anastasia’s consciousness isn’t available at all. When he brings up that there’s no good news at all and seems down, Emilia says that they shouldn’t mope around as it won’t get them anywhere, which was something Subaru taught her, leading to him perking up and saying that they should look on the bright side since he’s free from the logic of this world and may be able to cook up some fresh ideas that resolve the situation, turning a crisis into an opportunity, which Beatrice remarks is very much a Subaru-ism. That also freshly reassured Emilia that he’s still Subaru given she’d been shaken earlier when he’d called her Emilia-chan. Julius himself also seems to feel better upon hearing that, saying that amnesiac Subaru’s loss of memories hasn’t affected his inability to differentiate between bravery and recklessness, which is the sort of thing he’d say to Subaru. When he broaches the subject of Subaru’s amnesia, Emilia and Beatrice note that they found him lying on the ground unconscious in the library, and that’s when they carried him to the green room where he was lying down at the end of Episode 73 and the beginning of this episode. Foxidna believes that the library’s likely the problem given all the Books of the Dead with the group explaining what they are to the amnesiac. They’re not ruling out that it’s one of those books that messed up Subaru’s memories and believe it’s worth investigating, but the group decides that amnesiac Subaru won’t investigate with them, and he curses himself for giving into peer pressure as he walks aimlessly before deciding to say, “Status Open!” hoping he’d find a game screen like many of the isekai stories he’s read and seen have, only to be completely disappointed, confirming Beatrice’s words to him that since he destroyed his gate using beginner magic he can never use magic again. He also whips himself when he thinks of the remaining tool he has at his fingertips, failing so hard that he wondered why he didn’t make a diary for if something like this happens, which we know that Otto (From the Season 2 Break Time shorts) and Julius (from a Season 4 Break Time short) are doing by documenting things of importance to them. He then gets himself together, thinking that in this world, even someone like him can do it, as in do great things, due to his belief that he’s an isekai hero even if didn’t really do anything when he was still on Earth. He then spots a really long staircase and thinks it may go on forever and is pushed off and dies headfirst.
When he awakes, amnesiac Subaru is confused about what happened and believes he may have had a prophetic dream since Emilia and Beatrice act similarly to before, and he explained everything like he did before only omitting that he believes he has the power of prophetic dreams. Then the interactions with all the rest are mostly the same aside from Shaula running back to him, saying that he has a scary look on his face when the group had again decided on leaving him, snuggling up him to him really hard before Meili pulls her scorpion tail since she doesn’t want Ram and Beatrice getting mad at her, which Shaula is very hurt by, leading her to suggest that he tell Meili off and him thanking Meili instead since he doesn’t really know Shaula and doesn’t want her clinging to him, and that deeply saddens Shaula, resulting in her slamming the door as tears flow from her eyes. I really feel for Shaula given the visual and symbolic allusion to the Titan Atlas in Episode 70 and then her remarks in Episode 73 that pointed to loneliness that one might say is as deep as the Mariana Trench. This leads to Meili to say that he really doesn’t remember anything given he’d tasked her with handling Shaula and his surprise of having thanked an assassin, and Subaru talks about how he may have made an important promise and forgot the next day, showing that his past self was careless, which Meili readily agrees with given even she isn’t happy with amnesiac Subaru either given her earlier remarks about him being hopeless in the first loop after having lost his memories given the reason she’s even at the Pleiades Watchtower is ’cause of her wanting to help him due to the good relationship they had since they had a big brother-little sister dynamic, somewhat similar to Meili’s sisterly relationship with Elsa which was depicted in the Break Time Season 2 shorts.
The next scene after that has amnesiac Subaru observe the staircase where he fell, and he looks back to see if he’s about to get pushed since he remembered being pushed and feels reassured that there was nobody there. Then with oddly precise timing, he walks by to overhear Foxidna saying it might be dangerous to have him accompany them, which I find highly suspect as if she guided the conversation in that way so that he’d hear that right during the moment he did with her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, which I still suspect she has. The whole group aside from Emilia and Beatrice are against having Subaru aid them given he may be very unreliable and even a liability due to his lack of memories, although Ram is at least quite concerned for his safety given she mentioned it and wouldn’t have if the thought hadn’t come to mind, and the only one part of the group without any lines during that scene was Meili, either due to her not being there or due to the others not counting her as part of the group.
Subaru is of course distressed in hearing that and ran back to where the large staircase was, and as he becomes despondent about whether the group will even believe him about the prophetic dream given his lack of credibility, someone shorter than him pushes him down again as he falls while remembering things that had been said regarding the group’s lack of trust in him, how he’s still Subaru, and one line which I believe was huge foreshadowing.
Around 19:26 of Episode 74, Subaru heard Rui’s words, which shows he remembered her words as he fell, showing Rui may have eaten his memories. After she ate them, she likely said what she did either immediately after eating them, as she was carrying him to the library, or after she had dropped him off at the Great Pleiades Library. Subaru may have heard something while he was in between unconsciousness and being awake, which is the N1 light sleep phase when she said what she did. She could have knocked him out and then carried him to the library. She likely carried him to the libary to provide cover for herself, which if she did, worked very well since the group appears to believe that Subaru’s amnesia is due to a Book of the Dead. Given Shaula’s no longer sniping due to her orders, that should’ve opened the door for others to come to the Pleiades Watchtower.
Why amnesiac Subaru would remember this as he’s dying is that when someone is dying, the brain can trigger a surge of gamma brain waves associated with long-term memory retrieval, which is responsible for the life flashing before your eyes phenomenon, so Subaru may have remembered that specifically ’cause he was dying and otherwise wouldn’t have. Given Subaru’s identity issues and his fear of abandonment that had been revealed in Episode 7, reinforced in Episode 13, and shone a light on in Episode 29 as well as his hearing of “Who are you?” which very much appears to be his own voice after he awoke from his second death, that may be why that memory of Rui’s words surfaced since it was highly relevant to what he’s going through with regards to his identity crisis.
He then panics upon looping, and after Emila pats him on the back in an effort to comfort him, he remembers being pushed off the ledge, and that’s what led to him freaking out and shoving Beatrice to the ground, causing him to run straight to Reid on the second floor, which possibly was ’cause of his subconscious memories of Reid hinted at in Episode 70 given he lacks any memories of the group he’s with, possibly suggesting that Reid was a friend of his four hundred years ago, and if Subaru was indeed half of Flügel as I speculate, it’d make sense given Flügel, Reid, and Volcanica travelled together in the past. Upon reaching Reid, who was standing close to the stairway, Reid mocks him in saying what he’s doing here so early and asks amnesiac Subaru whether he had a fight with his friends since he’s crying and saying that he shouldn’t have ran, especially not to him, puncturing his body in the process. Anyway, I find it suspicious that Reid was hanging by the stairwell given the two others times people came through it he was quite a ways off from it, perhaps implying that he was waiting for amnesiac Subaru in that very moment.
While Reid saying that Subaru came too early may imply he’s aware of the passage of time, in all the instances Reid had screen time, there was zero indication of where the sun was shining, and given how heavily Re:Zero focuses on details and how I’d previously speculated that the huge field Reid is in another dimension entirely, Reid shouldn’t be able to perceive how much time had passed as getting exposure to sunlight is important in ensuring one has a normal circadian rhythm, and this space possibly has no sunlight but merely mimics daytime conditions, so even this Reid who apparently only remembers having swung a sword for three months may be on the same side as Satella, Echidna, and Flügel and is acting with future knowledge from Echidna through a soul link, contract, or oath with the assistance of her Tome of Wisdom. More to potentially back this up is that Reid basically said that amnesiac Subaru shouldn’t have ran and instead hashed things out with his people, which is useful advice for someone who’s supposed to be an enemy. Thus, Reid may have told amnesiac Subaru that he’s early ’cause he knew that the poor guy wasn’t really ready to face him. Yes, Reid’s the type who likes to bully the weak as Shaula had said, but I suspect there was more to this interaction than what was on the surface.
Reid then pushes him down the staircase, and amnesiac Subaru is writhing in pain as he remembers having been with his parents not that long ago before being summoned and not having washed his dirty cup after his meal with his mom not complaining about that, ruing how she should’ve replied to her “Take care” and how he never paid his parents back, both of which were callbacks to Episode 29, Parent and Child. He then hears laughing, whether it be internal or external, who knows? And now it’s time for a detour as I go into who I believe are the most likely suspects for having pushed him down the ledge, and I promise I will segue back into what comes next as I discuss the options.
As for who are the suspects for having pushed Subaru off the ledge, the only people in my opinion who would push Subaru are people I believe who have future knowledge, supposed future knowledge, or are interested in whether there is more for Subaru after death, of which only apply to Lye Batenkaitos, Roy Alphard, and Rui Arneb, the three Sin Archbishops of Gluttony, Foxidna, and Meili.
Given Season 3 revealed that Witch Cult Gospels don’t actually truly tell the future but are meant to keep the world on a particular path, which is why Regulus thought that he’d meet Emilia again in Episode 51 despite it not happening until the fourth loop, showing what was depicted in his Gospel was meant to make the Sin Archbishops act the way they did in the fourth loop when Subaru had a successful run until the end. This is backed by Regulus telling Subaru in Episode 53 to be grateful to him that he adhered to his Gospel in only shredding much of his leg off since he’d have preferred a massacre. Sirius and Capella also backed this up in Episodes 53 and 55 respectively when they were listening to the toll of the clock tower to either cease their hostilities or change their plans. Additionally, Episode 65 had Foxidna point out that Capella does whatever her Gospel says, and that’s why she was retreating, suggesting that some other force is what is causing the text in the Witch Cult Gospels to appear, indicating they are meant to keep the world on a specific path. 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 given 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.
Where I’m going with this is that if any of Lye’s, Roy’s, or Rui’s Gospel told each of them to push Subaru, he/she would do it to adhere to his/her Gospel, no questions asked, even if the whole point was to ensure Subaru learns about Return by Death. Even though the footsteps of the one who pushed Subaru indicated that person was wearing shoes, and the Gluttony trio’s known to go barefoot, Rui in Season 3 transformed into somebody she had previously eaten, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the other two can as well.
The one thing that makes Rui more likely to have pushed Subaru than the others is that this episode hinted that she was the one who ate his memories given Subaru remembered while he was falling the second time that Rui speaking about how precious one’s memories are right before he remembered Emilia saying that Subaru’s still Subaru. And given Satella emerged to slow down his Subaru’s heart after he was punctured by Reid when he was talking about specifics regarding Return by Death in that he’ll die and return, it means that the Taboo had been triggered, and there was an enemy observing him, which was likely one of the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony, and that’s why the time stop happened to get Subaru to calm down and not talk about dying, which would otherwise risk an enemy figuring out Return by Death.
And given what I’ve brought up about Foxidna across most of my write-ups this season, I’m not going to rehash it but only talk about new content. Foxidna bringing up the danger of having Subaru accompany them right as he walks by is incredibly suspicious, and if she timed the conversation with the Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, it’d make a lot of sense. She said that just in the nick of time to make Subaru hear what would distress him the most, leading him to think that one of the members of the group pushed him when it could’ve been a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, which may be intentional to bring Subaru to a new low this season. Suffice to say, if I’m right about all Echidna soul clones having the Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, she could’ve had a vested interest in pushing Subaru to force him to learn about Return by Death as I believe Echidna both in the past and now is collaborating with Satella, which is how Satella knows which moments should be Subaru’s savepoints in which there is zero chance he’ll get trapped in a death loop.
As for why Meili’s a suspect, she said in Episode 71 that she’s wondering what would happen if Subaru were to drop dead right then and there regarding whether a Book of the Dead would appear as that’s what piques her interest. Why this is relevant is that in one of the companion shorts to Season 2, Elsa shared with Meili that she dislikes the look in Subaru’s eyes ’cause they indicate that he believes that death isn’t the end for him, and Elsa may have mused about this in the past in between the mansion arc and Season 2 or even between the start of Season 2 and when their assassination duties began in Season 2 given Elsa even protected Meili in that season, showing that Meili might’ve been the only one on this earth Elsa considered a friend.
Alternatively, Meili could’ve figured it out herself due to being a seasoned assassin and observing Subaru after he’d looped in Season 4, showing some great astuteness despite her young age, and given she showed much more maturity compared to most of the cast in Season 4, it wouldn’t be a shock for her to have arrived at that conclusion. And what Meili also has going for her is that she was the only one who’s part of the group without any lines during that scene in which the group was questioning whether to take amnesiac Subaru with them, either due to her not being there or due to the others not counting her as part of the group, and I lean toward the former although I don’t rule out the latter. Additionally, Meili may hold it against Subaru for killing Elsa, and now that she’s lost her ‘big brother’ due to his amnesia, her good relationship with him no longer applies, especially given Meili only came to the Pleiades Watchtower in the first place ’cause of Subaru and only has weak ties to the rest of the group.
As for who I think are the most likely suspects to have pushed amnesiac Subaru out of the five I mentioned, I’d say it’s the three female characters I listed with my leanings being Rui first, Meili next, and Foxidna last given Rui would have the speed to creep up on him, and we knew that one of the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony was likely observing him, given Meili didn’t have a line when the group was discussing him and since the sound of the footsteps of the one who pushed Subaru best matches Meili’s from earlier in the episode when she walked out after Shaula slammed the door on her way out as she was bawling her eyes out due to his not being open to sharing with her what burdened him as well as what I’d previously mentioned, and given Foxidna may have timed the conversation on Subaru for maximum impact, but since she’d been in that room in which they were discussing him, it would’ve been very difficult for her to catch up to Subaru without mana flow, which we saw multiple people, such as Gaston and Garfiel, use during Season 3.
Back to the chronological order of events, Emilia then appears and brings amnesiac Subaru back to the green room with him looking as if he’s living his own personal hell. Ram outright says that she feels sorry for Rem given Subaru was the only one she believed to remember her, showing she’s devastated for her sister given she approved of the relationship between Subaru and Rem and ’cause Subaru was her hope for restoring Rem, and Beatrice swears that she’ll figure something out as they won’t leave him to suffer alone, probably indicating that they’ll do yet another search of the library. Subaru then walks down the stairs after the group has left him and calls his ability Return by Death, swearing he won’t allow the group to kill him again, which is why he leaves the tower, triggering Shaula losing her mind and becoming a mindless killing machine that she stated would happen in Episode 71. I don’t believe that he didn’t know the rules of the tower as there were multiple scenes in this episode that involved a time skip of some indeterminate number of minutes or hours, and Subaru even mentioned at one point that he was looking forward to turning a crisis into opportunity, implying that he does know about the group being trapped in the tower, so Subaru was just so paranoid that someone among the group had been killing him that he chose to leave willingly rather than being pushed off the ledge again.
I found this episode to be outstanding given the directing, the character work involving so much of the cast, including Ram, Subaru, Emilia, Meili, Beatrice, and Julius, the sound direction as Subaru fell to his death the second time, the attention to details, and the potentially powerful foreshadowing in it, all of which are what made me fall in love with Re:Zero to begin with. In my book, this is clearly the best episode of the season so far, and I can’t wait to watch the rest of it. While I can see why people might claim that the group leaving Subaru on his own is bad writing, I believe that a significant amount of time had passed in between him having passed out and getting people back up to speed, so the individual members probably spent quite some time with him, and given how horrible he looked, they probably didn’t expect that he’d actually leave the tower given what they were told about Shaula becoming a mindless killing machine.
I’m just going to let readers know ahead of time that this write-up will be different than most of what I’ve done before since the bulk of the episode is dedicated to one character, so it’s only fitting the crux of my post is a complete character analysis of Julius across four seasons. Any other miscellaneous points will be dumped at the end of the post. I love when previous episodes properly build up to something, which is why Episode 29, Parent and Child, is still my favourite episode of the series since it used the build-up from Episodes 7 and 13 to outright confirm just what the entirety of Subaru’s issues of self-worth involved, and this episode was similarly a long time coming with all of the foreshadowing.
What I realized after this episode after seeing the brief flashback with child Reinhard and child Julius is that Julius’s mantle of being the most knightly of knights is a mask he puts on due to feeling inferior to Reinhard, which is why this episode flashed back to child Reinhard easily defeating Julius’s swordplay instructor. This is also why Julius insisted on being called Juli when he and Subaru met again, both ’cause he subconsciously wanted a break from being Julius the most knightly of knights due to having had to do things he detested as a knight in beating Subaru even though he wouldn’t like to have if the circumstances had been different and not speaking out about so many people smearing Emilia during the initiation of the Royal Selection, not just ’cause it was unbecoming of a knight to take on the role of a mercenary, and ’cause he may have thought Subaru would react better to him if he did that even though Subaru ultimately didn’t at the time since he found it to be annoying roleplaying.
This is why Julius said in Season 3 that he was extremely angry at what Heinkel did and wished he could have done what Subaru did, which was yell at Heinkel since everybody was mad at that bumbling oaf but didn’t dare say anything ’cause of Heinkel’s rank as he saw proper decorum as being a liability in that moment with Subaru’s outburst allowing everybody to stay calm. This is why Julius kind of saw the light when Subaru told him to be Juli more since the mask he puts on is very much a burden to him with him realizing how much brighter the light out is when he first decided to be Juli ’cause Subaru was right about how having more flexibility would help him out in more situations rather than being so rigid with closing off his heart.
People who are less discerning when consuming media or have a very rigid worldview saw Episode 51 (Season 3 Episode 1) of Re:Zero as lowering Re:Zero to that of being like standard isekai slop, which is straight up incorrect, and I will call it as I see fit. Julius himself said that sometimes Subaru’s imprudence is useful on certain occasions, showing he understands the ugliness of Subaru’s actions, but nonetheless, he saw Heinkel turning what was an otherwise orderly gathering between people who respected each other with a reconciliation between Wilhelm and Reinhard being near given they were acting at least somewhat warmly to each other for possibly the first time since Theresia, his mother, had died, into a dumpster fire was disgraceful, and that’s why Julius thanked Subaru for his righteous indignation, not ’cause he was trying to put out there that every time Subaru has an outburst that it’s a good thing, but basic media literacy is dying off quickly in this day and age, partially due to kids and adults alike being glued to slop from their phones, resulting people in being unable to remember things said on screen a few minutes ago due to acting mostly on emotion and wanting immediate gratification.
Julius saw some of himself in Subaru in Episode 13, only Subaru chose a different path than he did, and even if he recognizes that what Subaru did was quite ugly and doesn’t condone all of what he did, which is why he took multiple shots at Subaru’s behaviour, saying that it can reflect badly on those around him, some people, such as Julius, feel a sense of awe or kinship with those who allow you to see a different approach to life. He saw Subaru as being someone rough around the edges but still fundamentally a good person even in spite of Subaru’s flaws, and that’s why he was calling Subaru a friend after the White Whale fight.
The reason Julius deliberately challenged Subaru to a duel ’cause he knew one of the knights or multiple of them would probably attempt to execute Subaru for insinuating that they inherited their status as knights from their families, and Julius saw that as being an injustice that must not be allowed to happen given he knows that Emilia is a good person and since he himself doesn’t discriminate against demihumans as seen by how he did a curtsy to kiss her in Episode 12, which is typical for someone to do for a woman of higher status, and nobody in Anastasia’s camp is allowed to think of demihumans as lesser. So of course he shared those same values and took to Subaru to an extent after the latter said that he chooses to stand by Emilia’s side ’cause she’s special, and Julius acknowledged those feelings given his own feelings for Anastasia. This is backed by how in Season 2 Subaru’s second Sanctuary trial had Julius saying, “I wanted to call you a friend.” since he ultimately sees that both he and Subaru want to fight against the injustices of the world.
As for the Kingdom of Lugunica itself, Julius knows that it’s far from a utopia given he acknowledged to Subaru that the White Whale was left unchecked for too long, which is why he thanked Subaru from the bottom of his heart for ensuring it was defeated in Episode 22. He most likely personally believed that the job should’ve been carried out much sooner and that that too was an injustice, which is why he was so keen on mending fences with Subaru since Subaru took action to make that happen when the kingdom would probably have kept dillydallying.
Basically, since Julius can’t be the strongest, he used the mask of the most knightly/courtly knight since that was something he could realistically aspire to, and now that most people don’t remember him he doesn’t have that anymore, which is why he took to heart Subaru saying that his humiliation is a testament to Julius’s strength and why he’s so adamant about proving his strength, mirroring Arc 3 Subaru to an extent.
This is backed by how Julius thought back to being made Anastasia’s personal knight in Episode 72 and defeating Petelgeuse, which he considered badges of honour that validated his self-worth. I believe even Julius saying, “I am the Kingdom’s sword that will slay you.” was also potentially signifying his insecurities about being inferior to Reinhard while also signifying kinship with Reinhard with it not being just a cool line for a knight to say but something Julius said to mean he’d be the weapon of the Kingdom that slays Petelgeuse, much like how Reinhard is first and foremost thought of as weapon of the kingdom before he is a person. Thus, it both signified that he was stepping into that role and that it was something he very much relished doing. The flashback to Petelgeuse was followed by a shot of Emilia, who Subaru had indicated passed Reid’s exam, and then to Subaru, who remembers him, intermixed with shots of him being frustrated about his current predicament after becoming a Gluttony victim, before finally remembering Subaru saying that his humiliation is a testament to Julius’s strength and then finally hearing Subaru call out to him, which was showing to viewers that Julius was going through much of the same thing Subaru was going through in Arc 3 and that Subaru rushing toward Julius was to stop him from having something worse happen to him, much like how Julius beat down Subaru in that arc to prevent worse happening to him, which is backed by how Subaru remarking that he hopes Julius isn’t too feeling too down since he’s realized that Julius also has self-worth issues from the talks he’s had with him, like during the scene he mentioned that his humiliation is a testament to Julius’s strength and his talk about the situation regarding Julius’s spirits when he said that Subaru is currently the one who knows him best.
There’s even a bit of a Subaru Season 2/Arc 4 parallel in that after Subaru lost Rem, who was his main pillar of support, to Gluttony, he saw no value in himself aside from Return by Death ’cause of the transactional nature of the events of Arc 3 that allowed him to win given the main point of Arc 3 for Subaru was to see that others have their own wants and goals, and how that applied to Julius is that since his reputation as being the most knightly of knights was gone due to the masses forgetting him, which was his big loss, he would use the only tool he believed he had at his disposal, which is his sword skills, to prove his worth given he believed that he had nothing else left that could validate him as a person, although it’s not a 100% parallel since Subaru was struggling due to him taking on the role as Rem’s hero only to lose Rem, resulting in him losing the mask he put on, and Julius right now is struggling ’cause of all the self-worth issues he had in the past, which have been exacerbated by the world forgetting him, as well as trying to live up to the ideal of being the strong knight Subaru believes he is, so the difference ultimately lies in his emotional support ultimately being an able-bodied person right now.
And that’s why Subaru and Julius’s voice-acting during the stairs scene, the direction overall, the effects regarding the footsteps, as well as the silence and tone of melancholy as Julius struggled, followed by Subaru seeing just how much Julius’s current situation reminded him of what he went through, allowing for him to comfort Julius and for the pair to grow closer made for a fantastic viewing experience.
I believe Julius’s character arc this season will almost certainly involve not clinging to his identity as the most knightly of knights since Reid was having the most fun with him when Julius tried to kick him instead of using just the sword, showing that Tappei very much intends for Julius to embrace Juli to finally overcome Reid. Julius can very much stay true to his character and fight against injustice without needing to stay fixated on chivalry and fighting with knightly honour, which would get him to be more on Wilhelm’s speed, who said in Episode 22 that chivalry was becoming a thing of the past. Tappei has plotted out Julius’s character arc so well from the beginning in making him a foil to Subaru, and he’s an amazingly well-written character. If I can make even one person realize how great of a character Julius is with this post, I will consider it mission accomplished.
Now for the stuff on the periphery, this episode provides further proof of Foxidna remembering Julius with how she aggressively used Jiwald to try to defend Julius when he was fighting Reid. Someone who barely knows him wouldn’t go to such lengths, and Subaru even pondered about why she’d go to such lengths, which means Tappei intended for viewers to think hard about that detail. After Episode 67 with Foxidna putting it out there that Reinhard and Felix were more than just friends to Julius and her general gaze at Julius along with her look of discomfort in Episode 70 when Shaula was shattering Julius’s fantasy about Reid Astrea being a man of great character ’cause of his sword skills when nobody else was paying him any heed, showing she knows that Reid had been Julius’s idol since childhood, there is a clear pattern of Foxidna showing a level of connection with Julius no one else in the group has, not even Subaru.
A line from Episode 48 (Season 2 Episode 23) depicting a possible future had Julius remarking about how he’d bent his knees and lost even his sword, pondering what he even had left, which could’ve been a future in which Reid forced Julius to yield to him, stripping him of all his dignity, and given Julius was thinking his sword skills were all he had left, implying he may have been borderline suicidal, this could suggest that Foxidna, again, as I have speculated has the Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom that I have posited she has like the original Echidna and Tea Party Echidna did, which is why she suggested to Subaru to take Rem with him to the Pleiades Watchtower and why she forced Shaula to reveal her hidden rules/orders for protecting the tower, the reason being she’s invested in Subaru’s success as the Hero of the story and also didn’t want to see Julius be reduced to a hollow shell of himself with nothing to live for, preventing that future from happening, meaning that her spamming of Jiwald was to deliberately signal to Subaru to think hard about why she’d do that instead of thinking of how to overcome the exam for the entire group, leading to his thoughts drifting to Julius instead of the mission of passing the exam even though Ram wanted him to focus on the exam given Subaru is somebody who follows his instincts and hunches as shown by Episodes 69 and 70.
As I have stated in the past, I believe the reason Satella knows what savepoints to choose for Subaru is that she has a soul link with Echidna, whose Authority allows for her to see into the future, meaning they are close collaborators and that Echidna is also observing Subaru, which would make her statement that she was watching Subaru every step of the way on his journey a true statement, and I believe Foxidna much like Tea Party Echidna has the Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, so she was attempting to advance Subaru to a point in which Satella could update his savepoint to a point favourable for him to succeed, which would be sometime after Subaru has gone down the stairs with Julius. I believe Foxidna acting like she doesn’t know how Anastasia acts in Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Episode 6 was meant to take away Julius’s sense of pride of being Anastasia’s personal knight and push him into starting a second duel against Reid due to him feeling he lost even that role as her knight, making him feel isolated much like Roswaal would isolate Emilia by making it snow in the Sanctuary Arc in addition to summoning the Great Rabbit. As for a link to the short, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8DLpvo_4cc
As for Emilia, it was smart of her to appeal to Reid’s ego and get him to agree to passing her if she can make him move a single step. Reid seemed to really appreciate her appealing to him like this and relented, saying that she’s the biggest idiot he’s met since Trisha, who is likely to be a character from four hundred years ago although it remains to be seen how long it’ll take for Trisha to be relevant since it took until Season 4 for more information to be revealed about Flügel. To sum it up, Reid lost ’cause he decided to cop a feel on Emilia’s boobs with his chopsticks, and she didn’t even realize that she had been sexually assaulted, probably ’cause the person responsible for her education, Roswaal, doesn’t care to teach her about that. Of course, the episode wasn’t condoning sexual assault given Subaru’s reaction and how the series has previously tried to humanize Elsa by depicting her as having become a cold-blooded killer when she was close to getting sexually assaulted, so anyone who says otherwise is incorrect. Of course, Reid wasn’t satisfied with letting them all pass if Emilia beat him, and everyone aside from Rem will also have to do it since the seven people Reid referred to are Subaru, Beatrice, Emilia, Ram, Julius, Anastasia, and Meili, which is a real predicament.
The group heads back to a lower floor due to not being up for that task, and Ram revealed that there is one person in each nation that can claim to be the strongest with Cecilus Segmunt the Blue Lightning, Divine General from the Empire of Vollachia, the Mad Prince from the Holy Kingdom of Gusteko, and from Halibel the Admirer from the City-States of Kararagi, but none of them fit the description of the stick swinger ’cause they had forgotten Shaula’s nickname for him and don’t know anything about him aside from his wearing Kararagi folk clothes and being skilled with chopsticks, and Shaula reveals that it’s Reid after Subaru gives her a description not long after she has woken from her sleep due to having fallen unconscious due to intense fear ’cause of Reid being a sexual predator. Subaru wanted to ask Julius what he knew of Reid, but Julius had already headed out for a second bout with Reid after having been healed in the same room Rem and Patrasche were in.
Subaru of course was reminded of himself with the way Julius was acting in that he didn’t want Subaru to carry him down the stairs and was straight up iterated that he doesn’t desire for help from him since Subaru was acting out hard at the start of the White Whale and Petelgeuse arc ’cause the world was making him feel small and insignificant, leading to him behaving as if he was more important than he really was due to both an inferiority complex stemming from comparisons with his father, Kenichi, and a fear of abandonment from childhood, and showing his growth Subaru supported Julius the best way he could by not going against his desire to not be carried by lending him his shoulder instead, saying that he doesn’t need to act tough since he knows from experience that Julius shouldn’t be walking down the stairs, implying he knows how alone Julius feels.
There’s less to talk about regarding just this episode itself compared to Episode 67, but I still have some big things I want to emphasize here, so this will still be a long write-up since I’ll be highlighting how past content may apply heavily to the content of Season 4. The first of which is that names are very important in Re:Zero, which is why I have kept tabs on the names of Re:Zero characters since Episode 22 from Season 1, “A Flash Of Sloth”, since it could’ve referred to multiple things in the episode.
Based on Sin Archbishops having star names (Regulus’s name was a big plot point in Season 3) and Subaru revealing he was named after a star cluster in Memory Snow, it’s clear stellar names have significant importance in Re:Zero. Subaru is the Japanese term for “Pleiades”, a star cluster referred to as the Seven Sisters, the reason why the Seven Deadly Sins are a plot point, with six of the brightest stars in the Pleiades being visible to the naked eye under average conditions being why are there six dead Witches of Sin. Given Aldebaran means “follower of Pleiades”, this begs the question of why Al seemingly arrived in the world sooner than Subaru did given his name suggests he should’ve came after Subaru.
Thus, I theorize that Subaru was in suspended animation, the state Rem currently is in, within Flugel’s tree for hundreds of years, and that’s how Al seemingly arrived in the world sooner than Subaru did despite his name being follower of Pleiades, which should indicate that Subaru was summoned before Al was. This would be why I propose we see Flugel’s tree slowly grow from a sapling into a world tree before transitioning to the shot of Subaru since Subaru’s whereabouts were a mystery of sorts based on the connection between Al’s name and Subaru’s. And this is hardly a novel idea as other animanga have used the plot element of a person or multiple people being either in suspended animation or at least not aging inside a special tree.
Also of note is that in the OP, Subaru’s depicted as a hunk of flesh in clothes before his skin slowly surfaces when there were back-to-back shots of Echidna, Anastasia, Beatrice, and Subaru. This is very peculiar, and two things I can think of is that Subaru is either a homunculus or at least an artificial human, and both of the things I just mentioned merits raising the point about whether he was always a homunculus or artificial human or became one after being summoned, but now it’s time for a detour to remind readers of a previous theory of mine as my previous speculation actually supports Subaru being a homunculus or artificial human.
Al, Priscilla’s knight, in Season 3 also referred to Beatrice as Beako much like Subaru does, and I don’t believe that this means that Subaru and Al are the same person. However, I do believe that he and Subaru both originally came from the same soul. As I have said before, I have been researching the names of Re:Zero characters since Episode 22, and what’s very relevant is that Subaru’s dad is named Kenichi, which means ‘wise man’. Subaru said in Episode 16 that Flugel’s Tree was planted by a wise man centuries ago, and while this wouldn’t mean something in a different show, its presence in a show with Re:Zero’s long-term planning suggests that Kenichi himself might be Flugel. As for the time period in which Flugel existed, Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama in Episode 43 for taking in the Sloth Witch Factor, which shows that Flugel was possibly from the same time period Satella was from since the sama honourific suggests Flugel was deeply respected by Petelgeuse. Liliana also knew of Flugel when she was in a travelling band with her parents, so it’s clear that whoever Flugel is he’s important to the lore of the series.
Episodes, 18, 25, and 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella as shown by how Puck indirectly revealed in Episode 18 the number of shadow hands Satella could generate to Subaru by asking Petelgeuse summon a thousand shadows if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (two thousand), how Subaru used a number associated with Satella (two thousand) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in Episode 25 when he said that if Emilia named ten things she hated about herself he’d list two thousand things he loves about her, which Emilia herself commenting on why he chose that number, and how Subaru suddenly had an upwelling of positive emotion for Satella in Episode 38 that led him to say that he’d save Satella after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows that Subaru and Satella may have a past history together as lovers.
Given we know Echidna succeeded in creating a soul clone of herself with how Echidna spoke in her own voice in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49 and how Foxidna herself may also be a soul cone of Echidna’s, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kenichi, if he is Flugel as I speculate, also did that as well, and Subaru and Al were both split off from Kenichi’s soul, and Kenichi made his sons his soul clones with that explaining why Al and Subaru both call Beatrice ‘Beako’, not ’cause they are the same person but because they were originally from the same soul. It’d also explain why Subaru has dormant memories of Satella despite it not being possible for him to have lived at that time, why Al also likes being rewarded for his efforts much like Subaru does, and why Al didn’t know about Capella’s powers, all of which shows that Al isn’t Subaru but that his origins are likely similar, and that something is up with Subaru and Al that doesn’t involve time travel or straight up reincarnation, so Al and Subaru may be homunculi or artificial humans who were split off from Kenichi’s soul.
I believe Subaru, and previously Al, is being put through the wringer to fulfill the grand plan I believe the heroes from four hundred years ago implemented, which included Satella, Echidna, and probably Flugel, to save the world from being stuck in a cycle of being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed as hinted by Melakuera in the Frozen Bond OVA due to the actions of prototypical overpowered generic fantasy Heroes of the Story who encountered and lost to the Final Boss of the story every time due to the story path that began when an ancient hero in a moment of weakness of weakness, chose his lover over the world when the Seal in Elior Forest was opened, resulting in Re:Zero’s fantasy world being inevitably destroyed with the final boss of the time either activating an Authority or cursing the world to be extremely biased toward following the trend of that story path for all time with Satella destroying half the world perhaps being a deliberate intervention that was needed to allow the heroes of that era to deviate from the archetypal story path to pave way for Subaru.
As for how Kenichi could split his soul when he was the Hero of the story in Re:Zero’s fantasy world, I believe that would be impossible. Given Kenichi would have to follow the general story path I propose is happening, the Hero wouldn’t be allowed to split his soul while in Re:Zero’s fantasy world as the Hero of the story would be pushed to make it to the end to repeat the cycle, so dying by having his soul destroyed by an enemy or by himself, accidentally or intentionally, wouldn’t be allowed, so I propose that Kenichi at some point somehow returned to Earth to cut parts of his soul when he no longer had the designation as the Hero of the story, and eventually made Subaru and Aldebaran, who would eventually become his sons, Aldebaran after Subaru was whisked away. I think after all that I’ve finally explained why I believe Subaru being a homunculus or artificial human is line with my main theory.
As for the last part of the OP, it also has audio saying, “Let the magic stitch you back together”, when depicting Subaru’s sense of self seeming fraying with that out-of-character expression he had on his face and all the weird colours as he’s climbing stairs, so there may be something really stressful or traumatizing that causes some sort of identity crisis.
The first important detail is probably that Emilia still considers Subaru to be someone that needs to be protected, which is sort of a reversal of before in Arcs 1 and 2 when Subaru was doing all he could to protect Emilia regardless of whether she wanted him to, which is why she wanted Subaru stay behind in Arc 3 ’cause of his damaged gate, which eventually ended up being destroyed in Season 2 (Arc 4). Even after Arc 5 when Subaru and Emilia fought together against Regulus, Emilia still considers Subaru to be one of those who need protecting, much like Anastasia and Rem, to Subaru’s chagrin. Thus, since Emilia doesn’t consider Subaru an equal, I’m glad that they aren’t yet together especially since Subaru still has serious abandonment issues that flare up when Emilia doesn’t react to him well.
After that, the ground dragons react badly to Meili since those many years of handling mabeasts means she smells of them, which results in Patrasche and Joseph both picking on her with Joseph having Meili’s cape in his mouth. Julius settles things down by revealing that most ground dragons calm down if you stroke their necks. Roswaal then makes an entrance and tells Emilia and Subaru something offscreen that based on content from Seasons 1 and 2 implies that since Ram lost her horn she can’t replenish her mana, examples being after she expended a lot of mana in the mansion arc and after Roswaal nearly killed her in a fit of rage, both scenarios requiring for Roswaal to tend to her since as Beatrice revealed in Episode 1 one’s mana is that organism’s lifeforce itself, which is why the subs talked about regulation, and I’m guessing it should’ve been rendered as mana regulation.
When the group arrives at Mirula, which seems to be a town close to the Auguria Dunes, Subaru and Emilia meet a man at a bar who tells them that nobody has reached the Pleiades Watchtower in four hundred years and that the place is crawling with mabeasts and miasma, urging them to not attempt the trip. Despite hearing that, the pair aren’t at all perturbed, and before they depart, the man calls out to them and tells them about how locals have always seen birds headed toward the tower, so if they get lost they should follow a bird since it may show them the way. Subaru sees his metal leg, and it’s clear why the man told them what he did as he was genuinely concerned for them as Emilia had said earlier and just wants them to live life and be healthy.
Once they’re out there, Subaru prods Julius about his spirits, and Julius replies that the situation is the same as it was since his name was eaten in that his contracted spirits stay by his side but are perplexed by the situation since they do not remember him. The contract he made with them is still intact, but he cannot use them in battle, probably until his name is recovered from Roy Alphard should that be possible. Thus, Julius shares in that moment that he’s weaker in combat now although Subaru’s reaction proves that he’s not great at keeping secrets, which Julius already knew from spending more and more time with him. And of course, Subaru banters with Julius in a somewhat sour way when he says he doesn’t want to have the title of the one who understands him the most in the world after Julius put that out there, showing that Julius considers Subaru, just like in the previous episode, a source of strength since Subaru’s the lone person proving that he exists.
Then the sand time arrives, and it’s just a huge sandstorm with the group continually headed toward the tower yet making no progress whatsoever. Subaru is wearing something over his nose and mouth to pretend him from breathing in the sand, and Anastasia tells Subaru after he opens the window of the carriage that she will keep her promise since they’re in the same boat here, and Subaru obviously is pretty close to Beatrice given he shared that it’s Foxidna rather than Anastasia operating right now in that body even though he said that he didn’t want to tell the others and cause a stir when they least needed it, but it also reinforced Julius’s earlier point that Subaru’s bad at keeping secrets. Subaru then goads Meili into showing that she has been keeping the mabeasts from acting up by commanding a gigantic sandworm into nearly attacking them before harmlessly sinking back into the sand since he didn’t realize that Meili could command mabeasts with her mind, and that’s a very powerful skill.
Finally, Foxidna chimes in that it’s clear that they might be going in circles ’cause the space here is warped with the sand here not connecting to the Pleiades Watchtower, which she calls a distortion, clearing showing Foxidna has at least some of Echidna’s knowledge on magic, and she says that the sand time when the wind picks up is the recoil from space twisting and returning to normal, meaning that the periods between the sand times are when the distortion is weakening, and that’s when they can find the real path to the tower with the one best suited to the job being Ram since she can use her Clairvoyance, which was revealed in Season 1, to guide them to the right path by tracking the mabeasts’ vision. Mabeasts that are still active obviously came from where the real tower is since Meili has already tamed the ones in their vicinity, but Ram is clearly struggling, and then Foxidna remarks that she saw a bird feather, prompting Subaru to look out and tell Ram to see through the birds based on what the man from earlier told them, which is successful.
They then arrive to what seems like an endless field of flowers, which Meili states are the hideout of Oiran Bears, leading her to quickly tell everyone to can it since this is a mabeast that is difficult to control as most mabeasts she can settle down just with her mind, but with this species of mabeast since she needs to also make eye contact with it and command it with verbal gestures and repeating a tch sound to express disapproval. However, Joseph gets unsettled, resulting in them being chased by a horde of Oiran Bears, and once they’ve nearly made it past the flower field, Subaru gets his head blasted straight to pieces by a light from the tower. Upon Returning by Death, Subaru has no idea what happened, and the same sequence happens again except Subaru tells the group they can’t run straight for the tower, leading to Subaru, Beatrice, and Ram being separated from the group. Then that same light is shot at Subaru again, only Patrasche knocks Subaru partially out of the way before being killed, and Beatrice seeing how hurt Subaru is, tells him with tears in her eyes and an expression of great sadness that he can’t die and leave her alone since before Season 2 all she had experienced time after time again was loss with losing Echidna, Roswaal, Ryuzu Meyer, Petelgeuse, and probably others given in Season 2 Beatrice remarked that Petelgeuse left her too, which was one of the reasons she was suicidal and needed to be persuaded by Subaru to leave the Forbidden Library, which was burning to the ground as part of Roswaal’s mansion, since she was waiting for a person who she thought might never come. Then that same light kills Beatrice before a final shot kills Subaru.
During the third loop of this scenario, Subaru, thinking back to Julius calming down Joseph by stroking his neck before they departed, decides to use his Invisible Providence to calm Joseph down so that he doesn’t make a ruckus, leading to the Oiran Bears attack not happening, and he thought back to Beatrice first, so his not wanting Beatrice to cry and be in despair may have given him the inspiration to dig deeper for a solution. He also put his hands over Beatrice’s mouth during that incident, likely ’cause Beatrice would feel the air current from the hand emerging and potentially get startled, so he couldn’t have her crying out in surprise. He then remarks about a hunch of his about a light from the tower, and the group takes him seriously with Ram pointing her Clairvoyance to the tower and seeing a living being looking at Subaru before shooting something at him, which took the combined efforts of Emilia and Julius to stop, and the light ended up being a needle supercharged by magic, probably yang magic since a lot of yin magic involves debuffs like Shamac, making something powered up like up most likely an application of yang magic. Ram then notes that another needle is coming, and Subaru and Beatrice use their combination technique E-M-T, most likely named after Emilia as in “Emilia, my Tenshi (as in angel)”, which nullifies all other magic from the field generated, which protects them from the needle, but E-M-T also resulted in the distortion in space coming undone, resulting in the group falling to who knows where, whether it be back to the disconnected sand or somewhere else entirely.
Now the rest of my post will be about names or tangentially related to them. I have to give Tappei props for coming with the name Oiran Bears. Oiran is a collective term for the highest-ranking courtesans in Japanese history. The highest-ranking oiran, the tayū, had the prestige of being able to refuse clients, and the kanji for oiran consist of two characters, 花, meaning “flower”, and 魁 meaning “leader”.
Thus, this is almost certainly why Oiran Bears hang out under what seems to be an endless field of flowers and why they are hard to control even for Meili, and this is why making moderate- to-loud noises makes oiran bears go berserk, making them the “leaders” among regular mabeasts in the difficulty to control them even for mabeast tamers.
Tappei has often shown that he carefully considers how he names characters, whether it be due to the star lore (Subaru is the Japanese term for Pleiades, which is also referred to as the Seven Sisters, which is why the seven deadly sins is an important part of the story), plot details (Otto refers to attar, which is a fragrant essential oil, and Otto bought a bunch of oil out of season that he desperately needed to sell), personality traits (Petra means ‘stone’, and she is fearless considering she told the others to abandon her when Elsa took hold of her), mabeast species traits (Guiltylowe has “lowe” in it referring to lion, which is why a Guiltylowe has the head of a lion), character roles (Wilhelm means “resolute protector”, and he did devote his life to ensuring Theresia fought as little as possible), character powers (Betelgeuse means Orion’s hand, which is why his power is Unseen Hand), and names in relation to others’ names (Frederica and Garfiel and Fred and Rafiel to show that Liara subconsciously remembers Garfiel and Frederia), so I’m sure this is another instance of that. Well done, Tappei, my man, in giving that species of mabeast an intriguing name that fits the traits it was given.
As for the name of the Sage, Shaula, it’s a name of Arabic origin translating as the raised tail of a scorpion. It’s also a star representing the stinger of the Scorpius constellation, which is likely how Shaula came to have that meaning. Let’s see whether this is referring to a power, lore, or something else. Tappei surely has cooked up something good for Shaula.
As a reminder from Seasons 2 and 3, Baten Kaitos meaning “belly of the whale”, Alphard meaning “the backbone of the serpent, and Arneb meaning “hare”, likely meant that each of them could control one of the Three Great Mabeasts, which is why Lye referred to the White Whale as our pet since the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony speak as if they are a unit. I’d hazard a guess that Meili cannot control any of the Three Great Mabeasts.
And since Subaru itself is the word for Pleiades in Japanese, the Pleaides Watchtower bearing his name is interesting. We’ll see what’s in store. It could indicate that the Pleiades Watchtower itself was planned to be built with Subaru’s arrival hundreds of years later in mind, meaning it may have been part of the plan the heroes from four hundred years ago I propose made to bring the world to a free future as alluded to Melakuera talking about the world imbalance and the Witch as well as him facing world ending crises countless times, suggesting that the world is stuck in a cycle of being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed with Subaru being the one they hope will break this cycle.
We’ve seen repeatedly through Re:Zero that many characters are acting with future knowledge or at least what they think is future knowledge, such as Satella with her setting Subaru’s savepoints, especially in light of Episode 13’s savepoint, which had extremely intentional timing, Roswaal with his not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, Echidna with her real Tome of Wisdom given how she set up Puck perfectly to be Emilia’s protector all while having lost his memories so that he wouldn’t recognize Roswaal as being the one he knew 400 years ago, which was crucial to the story in many ways, Petelgeuse having been implied to have promised Flugel not to take in the Sloth Witch Factor only to break that promise to protect the love of his life and Emilia, paralleling how Echidna deterred Puck from entering a contract with Emilia until there was no other choice, and with Witch cultists and their Gospels. The central question is what is the purpose for all of these characters having the knowledge they do or think they do?
Why I believe some of these texts, such as Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and Witch cultists’ Gospels, only delude their holders into thinking they provide actual future knowledge is due to the end result of some of the actions taken in the story so far, current up until the end of Season 3. We know Roswaal’s goal was to resurrect his dear teacher, Echidna, but I question whether the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom really was supposed to help him achieve that given the absence of Otto from its pages as a true future-telling text shouldn’t have that problem and should be able to account for everyone in the world, meaning Otto was excluded ’cause the source of the knowledge intended for that to happen. We know the tea party Echidna still had her Authority: Tome of Wisdom given her Sanctuary trials could fully replicate the past and show glimpses of possible futures, showing it truly was an extremely powerful Authority that could read the history of the world, so the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, if it really was based on the genuine article, shouldn’t have a problem with missing all the actions of a particular individual from its predictions, so that suggests Roswaal was basically strung along by a book to set up the story of Re:Zero with Subaru meeting Emilia and saving her and leading him down the path that he took to defeat Petelgeuse and sacrifice nobody in the Sanctuary Arc and allowing the tea party Echidna to revive herself given she spoke in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49. Thus, perhaps the source of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom’s knowledge is Echidna herself with her Authority, and she just makes whatever she wants to appear in the text due to a connection to her mind with her Authority’s guidance. I’ll delve more into why this may be important after the next item on the agenda, which is the Witch Cult Gospels, the apparently defective copies of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom..
I’ve always found the Witch Cult Gospels to be suspicious given how apparently no one can read them aside from the holder of an individual Gospel, which, on the surface, could be a good way of preventing any faction opposing the Witch Cult from learning about how the cult works, but based on what I observed of Season 3, I believe Gospels aren’t even intended to bring their holders to their desired future, much as is the case I proposed with the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom. I challenge you to think about a very important detail from Season 3 in that Regulus Corneas said in Episode 3 that Subaru should thank him for adhering to his Gospel when he only did heavy damage to Subaru’s leg and nothing else. If the Gospels are meant to bring their holders to their desired future, which in this case was Regulus making Emilia his wife, there shouldn’t be an order to limit casualties as that does nothing but play into Subaru’s hands. Since Subaru and the crowd was under the effect of Sirius’s Authority, everyone connected to Sirius took the same damage to their legs that Subaru received, forcing Beatrice to expend all her mana to heal everybody so that they wouldn’t be in critical condition, resulting in Beatrice ending up in a state of suspended animation similar to Rem. This suggests that Regulus Gospel’s main purpose in that scene was to put Beatrice in suspended animation so that Aldebaran would give her a healing crystal later, waking her up just in time to have Beatrice join the fight against Lye Batenkaitos close to the end of the arc. Of course I need not remind you of Capella’s retreat as ordained by her Gospel when she probably would’ve been able to kill one of Felix or whoever this Anastasia is before Reinhard arrived since Aldebaran is hardly some amazing fighter that can handle all the Demi-Beasts and Capella at the same time. Thus, Witch Cult Gospels likely aren’t future-telling texts either or defective for the matter but also texts connected to Echidna’s mind since the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was their prototype, meaning they likely were made at least partially by the same materials, which may have been pieces of Echidna’s hair, fingernails or body fluids, which would be how the connection to Echidna’s mind I have proposed would be established.
I have long believed that multiple characters from 400 years ago, including Satella, Echidna, and Flugel, are pushing Subaru to end the cycle of the world being constantly destroyed and reconstructed, which was alluded to by Melakuera, who said that he faced world-ending crises countless times since the only way Melakuera’s words can actually be right is if in the world is constantly getting destroyed, and now I posit that the Divine Dragon is also one of the characters in on this plot. I have always found it suspicious that Subaru arrived in the world after Lugunica’s Royal Family had perished, setting up the perfect conditions for him to meet Emilia and for Reinhard discover that Felt was the final Royal Selection candidate, and the Divine Dragon and the other characters from 400 years ago may have planned out this scenario centuries ago. How this theory could be tested is if the Divine Dragon shows any hint of having future knowledge in the future, which would make such collusion between different characters possible and have a wide-reaching impact through Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels for the last 400 years.
To deflect the topic about Priscilla’s trust or lack thereof in Al, Priscilla talked about the unseemly guilt Anastasia placed on her knight, and in the anime there’s no clear indicator of what Priscilla could be referring to at the time due to an information gap.
But later in Episode 60, we see Anastasia use magic, which both Al and Felix both assert that to their knowledge she shouldn’t be able to in Episode 65, so this suggests something happened to Anastasia during the first battle against the Witch Cult.
This would explain why Priscilla mused on the unseemly guilt Julius felt, and it’s because Julius while out to battle failed to protect Anastasia, which is what led to this shapeshifter or imposter, whichever it is, taking the real Anastasia’s place.
Whereas we saw Felt bring a metia that Beatrice activated, there was no sign of Anastasia using a metia. When there was an actual metia, we saw the magic emanating from it, not Felt or Beatrice, and given the magic came from Anastasia rather than an object, there was no metia, so it’s an imposter or shapeshifter.
And given the group didn’t incur serious setbacks against Sirius aside from Kiritaka’s capture, perhaps Anastasia had a mishap somewhere outside their base since everyone was buying time for her escape. In a big city, there are many potential hazards, so it’s not just the Witch Cult you should worry about.
As for Julius showing no discomfort upon returning, Julius has a reputation for being the most knightly of knights, the opposite of Subaru in Arc 3 the self-proclaimed knight, so I believe he could remain stoic if Anastasia had really been hurt due to him being away from her when others couldn’t.
I thought the episode was a satisfying conclusion to this season although there was one detail I hoped would be revealed that didn’t. Included in my post this time will be an update on how I believe Al relates to Subaru as I’ll be including something I didn’t in my previous write-ups.
The episode opens with Beatrice and the group fighting Lye, and she notes to Otto she can use up to five magic crystals as she needs to save one to bring back Puck. Two of them were used up as they fought with Lye eating the names and memories of three of the White Dragon’s Scales mercenaries with the special effect of them being shattered and reforming showing that they had entered the same state Rem and Joshua are in. When Felt returned, Lye attempted to eat her name but faced serious negative effects with his eyes becoming bloodshot and him feeing nausea that resulted in vomiting given it seemed to be a fake name Rom gave her in childhood. This gave them the opportunity to use two of the remaining of three crystals to fire the special metia Felt brought to them that appears to have once belonged to Echidna judging by Beatrice’s reaction to it. Lye was defeated, but he somehow swapped places with his sister, Rui Arneb, who gutted Dynas’s legs and then did the same to Otto when Rui had moved to strike Beatrice with Otto getting her out of the way. Apparently, one of the powers of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony is to transform into people you’ve eaten before although we have yet to see Lye or Roy do that since Rui had taken the form of a man before going into her true form. Rui realized that Felt herself didn’t realize that her name is not her true name upon interacting with her. Rui notes that she’s backing off, most likely due to her Gospel’s instructions, reasoning that since Lye was beaten to a pulp and since Roy just does as that woman, who I assume is Capella, says. Rui says it’s not whether you’re a gourmand or a foul feeder as what you eat isn’t important, and it’s who you eat with that’s important. Beatrice, with only one magic crystal she can use, since one must be saved for bringing back Puck, decides not to pursure Rui although Felt really wanted to even though they were clearly outmatched.
If it wasn’t clear from Rui’s interaction with them that she was holding back severely, I’ll make it clear now. It’s clear with how Regulus’s Gospel making him believe he’d meet the Emilia camp again despite it not happening until the fourth loop of Arc 5 is that Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path as I have long believed rather than being an object that makes the holder’s goals/dreams come true. This was also likely why Capella went to attack the government office the heroes had made their base of operations when if she had stayed with Theresia and Kurgan both Wilhelm and Garfiel would’ve both 100% died and why Capella was certain that she accomplished all that she had needed and was leaving, when her pursuing Al, Felix, and Anastasia would’ve resulted in one or more of them dying, and for this very reason, Rui left as well when she could’ve butchered them all since Beatrice only had one magic crystal left aside from the one she was saving for bringing back Puck. I believe people who have treated Re:Zero as a serious story are meant to pick up on this, but people who expect the usual from most isekai series that don’t have much happening on a story front don’t realize that Re:Zero is a deep story and that it wants you to draw conclusions from these things happening multiple times in succession. You have to actually think critically when you watch Re:Zero. After all, Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was basically a tool meant for Echidna to keep the world on a particular path, and it wouldn’t be a stretch if the Gospels had a similar purpose.
Kiritaka then announced that they had taken control of all four control towers and had driven away the Witch Cult. After Subaru and Emilia make their way to the government office seeing that it had been destroyed, they are reunited with Beatrice, and Subaru princess carries Beatrice, leading to Anastasia saying that Subaru can be a boy after all, which Emilia affirmed, although I’m not sure Emilia affirmed that in the same way Anastasia did. First with Ricardo joking earlier in the season that Subaru seduces little girls and now this bit with Anastasia showing that characters are openly mocking Subaru about him attracting little girls knowing that Subaru isn’t really that type of person as that’d be inappropriate, which isn’t a bad thing of course given how serious of a show Re:Zero can be.
Subaru and co. then pay a visit to Garfiel, who is proud of Subaru for showing off what a man he is by saving Emilia. He’s in good spirits given he joked that he didn’t want to hear about his condition from Subaru of all people, which Emilia could see, and Beatrice resorted that he’s feeling too good about himself given it’s usually when he’s nice and quiet that he’s actually suffering. Mimi then barges in and has her way with Garfiel with Otto saying that he really should’ve acted like a man who’s hurt. Otto is expected to be able to recover from his injury, and Subaru wishes that he’d consult with him before leaping into danger since they’re friends after all with Otto replying that there’s no way he could just sit back and do nothing when Subaru had so much on his plate, ESPECIALLY since he’s his friend, and that just shows why Otto is such a good person to have on your side. Otto says he’s sorry that Gluttony got away but that they did gain something from this since Priscilla captured Sirius.
They start interrogating Sirius, and when Subaru asks what made them think about demanding the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the artificial spirit, as in Beatrice, Sirius remarks that she doesn’t even care to think about what the others were thinking and that they only gathered here ’cause of the instructions from their Gospels. When Subaru puts it out that there that they follow their Gospels so religiously to revive the Witch of Envy, Sirius retorts by saying she doesn’t give a damn about that and that the only one she loves is Subaru with her going up to him to lick him, which Emilia struck her hard for doing so. When Beatrice urged them to leave, Sirius started singing horribly since she had realized the power of song from Lilliana, and Subaru says that she shouldn’t consider Liliana and her singing to be the same with it being completely different. Fortuna then taunts Subaru, saying the situation is the same with him in that he’s not Petelgeuse but with both his soul and body and Petelgeuse’s melding together with her goal being to drag Petelgeuse out from within him although it’s hard to say whether this is pure delusion or a fact. Although I do believe Petelgeuse exists in a pocket dimension within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul, I do not believe their souls have literally melded together. Before they leave, Sirius warns them that Gluttony will be after Subaru. The subs say Gourmand, Foul Feeding, and Satiation, but given the words are used to describe their representation of the Gluttony sin, I feel it should be Gourmet (since Lye wants Gourmet food, which is why he makes his prey feel strong emotions to juice them up and fights them as if to prepare them well for being eaten), Foul-Feeding (Hyphen for grammatical purposes), and Satiation are the right terms to use, and I will use them moving forward since I’m not going to expect Crunchyroll to have any sort of consistency moving forward. I’m guessing Sirius got wind of this ‘when she compared the text written in the Gluttony Archbishop’s Gospels compared to her own ’cause Lye, and Roy and Rui by extension, have been after Subaru since Lye ate Rem’s memories, which is part of the reason he was so hyped for a confrontation with Subaru in Episode 59.
After they walk out of Sirius’s cell, Al replies that they got nothing aside from making them feel gross, which Subaru shoots down immediately, leading to Al saying he sure knows how to make those freaks like him, which suggests that Al is not Subaru himself since it alludes to him not being able to ingratiate himself with some of the Sin Archbishops whereas Subaru has, possibly showing that he was a failed hero of the story. Beatrice then tells Subaru to not get too friendly with Al, which Al is disappointed to her after he helped wake her up, calling her Beako, which she remarked she only lets Subaru do, and Emilia thanks Al for helping her pass a message to Subaru, which Al reacts well to, similarly to how Subaru said in Arc 2 that he’s the type to like to be rewarded for his efforts. When they emerge from the underground, Beatrice reveals that Al visited her and got her Kiritaka’s magic crystal, which is what woke her up but that he wouldn’t tell her anything about how he got it, and that soured Al on Beatrice even though Subaru does the same thing to others. It was only after Emilia spoke well of Al that they were forced to admit that Al’s not a bad guy.
I have to mention this regarding Al now. I don’t believe he is Subaru himself since there is a good deal against it, but I do believe that he and Subaru both originally came from the same soul. Ever since Episode 22, A Flash Of Sloth, I have been looking up the names of Re:Zero’s characters since that title could’ve referenced multiple things from that episode, showing that names are important in Re:Zero. Subaru’s dad is named Kenichi, which means ‘wise man’. Subaru said in Episode 16 that Flugel’s Tree was planted by a wise man centuries ago, and while this wouldn’t mean something in a different show, its presence in a show with Re:Zero’s long-term planning suggests that Kenichi himself might be Flugel. As for the time period in which Flugel existed, Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama in Episode 43 for taking in the Sloth Witch Factor, which shows that Flugel was from the same time period Satella was from.
Episodes, 18, 25, and 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella as shown by how Puck indirectly revealed in Episode 18 the number of shadow hands Satella could generate to Subaru by asking Petelgeuse summon a thousand shadows if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (two thousand), Subaru using a number associated with Satella (two thousand) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in Episode 25, and Subaru suddenly having an upswelling of positive emotion for Satella in Episode 38 that led him to say that he’d save Satella after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows that Subaru and Satella may have a past history together.
Given we know Echidna succeeded in creating a soul clone of herself with how Echidna spoke in her own voice in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kenichi, if he is Flugel as I speculate, also did that as well and Subaru and Al were both split off from Kenichi’s soul, and Kenichi made his sons his soul clones, and that would explain why Al and Subaru both call Beatrice ‘Beako’, not ’cause they are the same person but because they were created from the same soul. It’d also explain why Subaru has dormant memories of Satella despite it not being possible for him to have lived at that time, why Al also likes being rewarded for his efforts, why he failed when Subaru succeeded, and why he didn’t know about Capella’s powers.
When the group reconvenes without Julius and Ricardo, Anastasia, or whoever she is, reveals she is against letting Sirius live, which upsets Felix since Sirius is their only lead on how to save Crusch. Anastasia doubts they’ll get anything useful on Gluttony or Lust from Sirius, but Subaru disagrees and doesn’t think it’d be a total waste of effort although he does understand she’d uneasy about keeping her in custody. Wilhelm then shuts Felix down for making a fuss of things. Reinhard also takes Subaru’s side and says he’ll transport Sirius to the castle since this is a rare opportunity to learn about the Witch Cult. Then the topic comes to Lust’s victims, and Felix says that they can’t be healed since they’re creatures that’ve been completely remade. Priscilla suggests giving the people turned to flies death since they’d probably prefer that, and when Subaru starts to protest, she calls him a fool and that ideals that are all talk have no value, which leads to Emilia saying she’ll handle that by putting all of Lust’s victims in cold sleep, and Priscilla backs down after seeing Liliana’s exuberant confidence in Emilia and even says she’ll make Emilia her rival after she does, probably ’cause she was again as I said in my write-up for an earlier episode saying things that were stressful to others to bring out the best in them.
As dawn breaks, Kiritaka thanked Subaru for saving the city, and that he was had been fully prepared to die until he heard Liliana’s song. We get shots of all the relevant parties and then have Subaru thank Subaru and for Reinhard to say it’s a tremendous honour to help a friend, probably since Subaru treats him like an actual person like others instead of a weapon.
Subaru and Emilia are then happy that Lusbel and Tina are safe, and Emilia says that they have to celebrate that since everyone worked so hard to make that happen. Subaru then sees Subaru, who is wounded in a lot of ways and has lost an arm. When he makes a remark about Julius, Ricardo doesn’t respond, but Subaru sees Julius all by himself in the shadow of a building, and Julius is astounded that Subaru remembers him since Emilia doesn’t. This shows that Roy ate his name, which rewrites reality as if no one ever remembered his existence. I don’t believe Julius’s possessions were also erased given how three members of the White Dragon’s Scales broke into pieces of glass and reformed into their current state of being in suspended animation, showing that they had become something fundamentally different than before. As Puck revealed in Episode 26, if a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony eats your memories, you lose your memories, your name, your existence erased, and if both your name and memories are eaten, you become a shell of who you were in suspended animation. Given even Rem’s possessions disappeared when she had been erased by the White Whale, your possessions probably don’t disappear unless both your name and memories are eaten, or Rem’s possessions were just thrown out ’cause no one could remember her.
What this shows is that Subaru has a resistance to Authorities for some reason. After Unseen Hand was used in his presence once, he was able to see Petelgeuse’s Authority the next time he saw it being used. When the White Whale, which Puck referred to as Gluttony in Episode 18, erased Rem, Subaru was the lone person who remembered her, which showed even back then that he had a resistance to the Gluttony Authority. When Rem was again erased by Lye, he still remembered her, proving that the White Whale was either made or modified somehow to have its mist have a similar effect to the Authority of Gluttony. After Sirius used her Authority on Subaru, in subsequent loops, it took longer and longer for him to fall under her control. This latest incident shows that Subaru still retains his resistance to the Authority of Gluttony. I don’t know where this resistance comes from though and expect it will be made clear towards the end of the series.
Anyway, with Season 4 being confirmed to be in production, I eagerly await to learn more about Re:Zero’s fantasy world and the aftermath of Julius having been forgotten. I also wonder what is up with whoever this Anastasia is. This season was fun and a refreshing change of pace compared to previous seasons.
This was my favourite episode of Season 3 so far. It had very compelling fights ’cause the fights themselves made you care about the characters either directly or indirectly due to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s powers, more compelling villains since Regulus was just a noob with an OP power who was just evil in contrast to Lye and Roy, interesting foreshadowing, and character writing that is consistent with what came before.
The first two scenes need to being looked at as a whole given how one interaction doesn’t make sense if you don’t do that, so I’ll be covering both the ongoing fight with Lye and the start of the fight with Roy, looking at them together as if they are a whole. The episode starts with a lot of the White Dragon’s Scales mercenaries making light of Lye since they think he’s just one brat, but he moves really quickly, leading to Gaston trying to take him on directly with him being taking a big blow from an attack Lye called the “Fist Lord’s Strike”, which seemed to pack a lot more punch than what Lye had attacked Gaston with a number of episodes back. Otto then used Earth Magic, which he had revealed he had in Season 2, to get Lye away from Gaston since he realized all of them would be in huge trouble if Gaston were to be killed. Otto then noted that he’s surprised by Lye’s lack of finishing blows considering he probably had the opportunity to kill Gaston then and there instead of merely hitting him with one blow. Lye then taunts them, saying that they’re useless for not being able to handle one brat and that he’s nothing compared to the indiscriminate Roy, and in this sense I believe he is referring both to how Roy is not a gourmand like he is and how Roy is unrestrained in dealing with his prey.
And now to the Roy fight, as I mentioned in an earlier episode, Julius reacted to Roy referring to him to Nii-sama, and it’s ’cause deep down he retains the feeling he had a younger brother even though Roy has erased Joshua by eating both his memories and his name, the latter of which causes all proof of your existence to be erased, and when both are eaten, you become like Rem, who is a shell of herself in suspended animation. That’s how Roy could dodge Julius’s Al Clauseria and then counter his 2-spirit combination attack after he demonstrated to Ricardo how much better as a swordsman he was. Then he dropped his swords and said, “Eclipse”, and struck Julius with his fist, which dealt a lot of damage to Julius. When Roy started using Water Magic, Ricardo was baffled that he had mastered sword arts, martial arts, and magic, and Roy had described himself as a humble, nameless mage after Ricardo asked him just what the hell he was, showing that he had gained access to the skills of a mage that he had erased, and perhaps the reason he said Eclipse after he dropped his swords the first time was to show he was switching to someone else’s memories to harvest his/her skills and knowledge, which allowed him to be skilled at martial arts. I believe Lye and Roy can only tap into one person’s memories and skills at a time basing this mainly on how Roy dropped his swords before he said, “Eclipse”, and switched to martial arts against Julius and how he called himself a humble, nameless mage when he used water magic against Ricardo and Julius. If they could tap into more than one person’s skills and memories at a time, Roy wouldn’t be speaking as if he was just a mage or dropping his swords when he intended to change his fighting style if he could just put them away, which shows he tapped into someone’s memories who isn’t used to moving around with swords on his/her person. Ricardo then dispelled the water dragon attack with a roar, leading to Roy being giddy about how it’s a long time anyone survived that attack, which shows that he is indiscriminate as Lye had indicated with him being unrestrained in handling his prey by going all-out from the beginning whereas Lye has seemed to be going easy on them by not dealing any of Otto’s group a finishing blow even though we’ve gotten much more of that fight and only the beginning of this Roy fight. Julius then remarks about why Roy has chosen evil despite his skills, and Roy taunts him with Joshua’s memories, calling him the brother he always idolized due to him picking an appa from a tree for him when he was sick, but Julius has no recollection of that even though clearly feels something deep down given his reaction to Roy’s words. Roy then says with Joshua’s memories that he always felt that he was a burden, but now with Joshua’s memories in tow, he implies it’s great now to be in control, saying he actually resented Julius for picking that appa for him since it’s something he couldn’t do himself at that age. It was then implied that Julius took a blow after rushing towards Lye, and that became a good time to segue into the Capella and Al fight.
Then it segues to Al having split Capella in half from the top of her head to her belly with Capella musing about how many more times will it actually take before he can actually kill her. Al then replies even if he dies a hundred times, he’s not sure that he could ever kill her but that maybe she is the one who hasn’t thought this through since he knew she’d come here which means they were prepared to give her an especially warm welcome with an attack that would shatter her very soul, and Capella just tells him to do it if they went through all that effort to do so. She says that if they did all that for her that her principles won’t let her turn down the thoughtfulness in what they had prepared for her. Al then has a cute interaction with Capella when he says that she’s seriously going to die and that dying hurts and is scary, especially the first time, saying she doesn’t want to do that, showing that Al does indeed have a power that lets him defy death, which was hinted at in Episode 60 when he said that she better get out of there before he dies. Al, for the lulz, even threw in a dirty joke for her about how she should save her firsts for when the time is right, which she really appreciated although she remarked that he’s probably doing that to lie to her, leading her to transform into her black dragon form, asking him which form he likes the most with Al replying that he can never love anyone. Al then steps on a part of the ground that caused the whole place to start collapsing, and he dives into the water.
When Al got out of the water, he nearly took off his helmet, but seeing Anastasia was there, he decided not do it, saying he’s self-conscious. Anastasia says she didn’t expect Capella to take the whole place down, and Al says he was secretly crushed three times, which suggests that Capella killed him three times. Then Felix also joined them, and when Anastasia asked whether it was pointless to hope that Capella had died, Felix remarked that even Anastasia blowing off Capella’s face with magic wasn’t enough and that she thought Anastasia couldn’t, leading to Al drawing his sword against Anastasia since he knows magic is something Anastasia’s not capable of using. I’m not sure who this could be in Anastasia’s body though, whether it’s a shape-shifter or a possession of sorts. Al only backed down ’cause Felix pressed Al’s sword against his skin, causing it to bleed.
The information suggests again that Al may have been the previous hero of the story given he knew the remains of the witch in Priestella is that of Typhon’s and that you shouldn’t give out your real name to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. As for why Al is very likely not a future Subaru, Al neither knew about the extent of Capella’s regeneration nor her power to transform into your ideal partner by reading all your reactions to her, showing he had limited to no exposure to her, meaning she may not have been the Sin Archbishop of the Lust during his run-through as the hero of the story. Another point against Al being a future Subaru is that Al can specifically mention that he has been dying to Capella with it implied that she knows that is the case, which Subaru is not permitted to do by Satella when he has the intent to share information about Return By Death. This suggests that Al simply has a different power than Subaru and that it’s not a matter of Al being able to control his power better. Granted, this is not definitive proof that he can’t be Subaru since we don’t know all the rules of Re:Zero’s world. We don’t know whether an Authority can change over time, and if it can, perhaps Al’s Authority used to be identical to Subaru’s before it became whatever it is now.
Capella then returns as she reforms from rats with her missing her eyes leading to her getting the last two rats to conglomerate into her full form. This may indicate that Capella has a minimum mass given when she was missing a couple of pieces of her body she couldn’t fully reform herself. Capella is acting very dere with how Al hit her with such a passionate attack even though it didn’t end doing any permanent damage to her. When Al draws his sword against her, she tells him not to misunderstand since she’s leaving due to her already having done what she wanted to do, and as Anastasia interjects, it’s what the Gospel ordered her to do, which Capella didn’t respond well to, saying that her feelings for them aren’t from some book and that they’re real, describing it as pure love, which triggers Felix, leading to him saying that if they kill her, she bets Crusch’s body will be returned to normal, something Capella shoots down immediately since her and her blood are two separate entities. She then sends out her Demi-Beasts that are alive yet dead since they’re so intent on chasing after her, which Felix makes Felix cry out in tears about how she could do such a thing with Capella remarking in an attempt to provoke Felix that it might be ’cause no one ever told her to not play with corpses. This does get under Felix’s skin since as a healer he probably values life and respects those who have died as opposed to Capella turning corpses into monstrosities and not allowing people to move on. Al then directs them to flee, and Capella tells them if they don’t keep up the fight that more people will die, creating more Demi-beasts in the process, urging them to slaughter them all before she splits her bodies in rats and starts fleeing from the city.
As I have stated before in my previous write-ups, I do not believe that Witch Cult Gospels are true texts that tell the future but are merely meant to keep the world on a particular path given how Regulus’s Gospel made him believe he would meet the Emilia camp again in the first loop of this arc despite it not happening again until the fourth loop. Capella escaping could be the way for the source of the knowledge of the Gospels to ensure that none of Al, Capella, or whoever this Anastasia is, die since if she had pursued them, one or more of them may have died, showing that it’s also keeping the world on a particular path. While they’re fleeing, Felix eventually cries out to somebody to help, leading to Reinhard using his super hearing to hone in on their location, and at Felix’s urging of him to kill all the Demi-beasts, he does. I believe Felix is crying for them to be given death since they currently can’t move on after dying due to what they have become. I believe Reinhard’s eyes were obscured for this week’s episode ’cause he is suffering while fulfilling his duty as the Sword Saint. ‘Cause Reinhard was adamant that the corpse soldier Theresia was just a corpse soldier, meaning he was justified in killing her, Wilhelm said that he had nothing left to say to him and urged “Sword Saint Reinhard-dono” to do his duty in using his immense strength on the battlefield, reducing him to merely being a weapon. Earlier this season, Wilhelm wanted to close the gap between him and Reinhard, but him saying in the previous episode “You’re right. I’m wrong. So I have nothing more to say to you”, followed by referring to Reinhard in an extremely impersonal and respectful way (full title with the -dono honorific) is a pretty clear indication that the gap is not closing anymore as you really don’t hit someone with a “I have nothing more to say to you, so respectfully go away” if you have any intention to be friendly with them afterwards. Reinhard just wants to be treated as a person as anybody else would, and that’s why he reacted so well to Subaru saying he’d make up for any of Reinhard’s shortcomings in Episode 58.
Back to Otto’s group and Lye, Gaston remarks that Lye is pretty damn good at fighting, and he knows this ’cause he was trained by the gardener at Reinhard’s place and can see that Lye’s movements aren’t that of someone who is innately talented but has trained for years. Upon hearing that, Otto realizes that Lye and Roy can gain the knowledge and skills of anyone they eat, and Otto plays dumb. Lye says that unspoken messages, which I’m guessing should actually be “hiding your body language” and was a mistranslation, isn’t a strong point of Otto’s, so maybe she should give up on being a merchant before he gets hurt. Lye then immediately eats one of the mercenaries, Hicks, and nobody remembers him, not even Dynas, the leader of the White Dragon’s Scales. Lye says it’s because this type of thing is so sad that they love to engage in this sort of one-sided reunion in which they taunt the people who have lost someone dear to them much like Roy had also been doing, and when Dynas says that he hasn’t seen the guy who had been eaten before despite clearly on some level knowing there’s something off, Lye taunts him with his memories, suggesting it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t protect Miriam (and Maylie? The subs said Mary, but there was someone with a similar name from Season 2).
Enraged, Dynas rushes towards Lye and gets knocked back easily with Lye musing that strong emotions are great ’cause they’re so rich, and that’s likely why he takes his time buttering up his prey as opposed to Roy who immediately escalates the situation with his prey, which is why Otto remarks that as a normal person he can’t think of people in terms of how delicious they are, prompting him to ask everyone to not say his name, only for it to be revealed that none of them knew it to begin with. Otto put it out there that he believes that what Lye is doing in letting them fight back is his idea of setting a table for a meal, and Lye remarks that people with keen instincts are hard to finish off and that they get away with it ’cause it makes them all the more tasty. Otto declares that he has won with Lye indicating that Dynas and Gaston are not bad but not worthy of a main course but that after losing Felt it would be bad to also let Otto get away too, especially Rui would rip him a new one, and this is not the first time Lye has mentioned Rui. Given Rui would rip him a new one if he were to let Otto go, it perhaps suggests that Rui is also a Sin Archbishop although who knows where she is given she is nowhere to be seen. Otto then tells everyone if he touches them that they’re as good as dead since he can eat anything he touches. They all rush towards Lye after Otto thanks him for his impeccable manners, and after Gaston creates an opening, Otto grabs Lye and puts two fire magic stones underneath his shirt, which explode on him, revealing many scars. Otto wonders whether those scars made him the way he is, which leads to Lye pestering him about giving out his name to him and also saying he has other ways to get him to talk, such as eating Otto’s fingers one by one. Beatrice then makes a grand entrance saying it’s rude to start eating before everyone is at the table. I’m not sure how she’s awake after she was in a severely mana-depressed state, but absent a proper explanation, maybe she restored enough mana to function after one day of sleep. Otherwise, someone restored her mana through some other means. Otto was about to say Beatrice’s name, but Lye tapped into Rem’s memories and already knew it, and his impersonation of Rem is just so disgusting on every level. He clamours to meet Subaru since Rem had talked about how Subaru would pass judgement on him in Episode 26, which is why he was so eager to meet Subaru in Episode 59. Beatrice is determined to not let Lye meet Subaru given that he’d be extremely hurt, possibly irreparably, which is why she and Otto have to take care of him here and now. Beatrice and Otto don’t really remember Rem themselves, but they have been told about Rem by Subaru and knows how much she means to them.
I just find Lye and Roy to be much more compelling villains than Regulus was, who was just an evil man-child with a broken power. Lye and Roy taunting people with the memories of people they used to know is more effective at making me care their fights both the characters fighting the Witch Cult and the Sin Archbishops themselves. Capella also steals the scene of basically every scene she’s in. The touch with Reinhard being disheartened over how his relationship with Wilhelm has relationship has deteriorated further and the bit with Anastasia being a possible fake was also great to watch, and I believe this episode was Re:Zero at its best.
We start off this episode with Capella back the government office. Apparently, Felix and Anastasia prepared a ruse for Capella with Felix’s hope that Capella would tell her how to cure Crusch, but Capella herself doesn’t know how to heal a body that has given in to dragon blood as she wishes she knew the answer herself. Capella also remarked that Crusch’s blood couldn’t overcome her blood even though it’s noble herself, which suggests that some bloodlines may have special properties. We know there was an Emerada Lugunica that existed 50 years ago was beautiful, intelligent, and feared by all. Could Capella be Emerada who was resurrected by black dragon blood? Or did she see herself in Emerada’s story and took on her name? After it is clear that Capella doesn’t have the answer to what they want, Anastasia gets out of bed and hits Capella with yang magic (Season 2 revealed that yin and yang are the two other elements aside from the four primary ones with shadow from Season 1 appearing to be a mistranslation) and activated her trap, which broke part of the floor, revealing that they had already dug a tunnel down to a lower floor as part of their prep for this encounter. Anastasia had worn a wig and wore bandages to mimic Crusch’s condition, which was very well-played, and then used the same magic from before to knock Capella to that lower floor, where she encountered Al, who warned Capella to get out of there before he dies. This indicates that just like for Subaru, death is likely not the end for Al, which was something Elsa hated about Subaru’s eyes since he clearly didn’t see death as the end of the road.
Theory crafting the specifics about Al’s powers outside of it involving time seems to be an impossible endeavor given how many things it could possibly, so I won’t bother doing that. Instead I will reiterate that I believe Subaru was summoned to bring the world to a free future and stop the cycle of the world being destroyed/reconstructed. I propose the key is to have Subaru be born weak and improve Subaru’s self-esteem so that he isn’t conceited like past heroes I believe existed in the world. Al and especially Subaru were perhaps both born weaker compared to previous heroes to give the world a chance to end the cycle of the world being destroyed and reconstructed by making it so that their lived experiences were different from that of the previous very strong and conceited heroes I believe existed in the past with both of them probably having been summoned by Satella. For more on my main theory, read one of my previous posts here: https://thoroughwatch.org/?p=36
Afterwards, after Reinhard tries to follow one of Subaru’s plans, which ends in failure with Reinhard being knocked probably across the whole town, Regulus says that he is a perfect, complete human and that he’s entirely fulfilled with there not being such a thing as more or less for him. Emilia has a great moment where she calls him out by saying that has been coming out of his mouth has been “I want this” and “I want that”, citing that he’s an incredibly selfish person. She says that if he’s fulfilled then he should take better care of his wives. Sounding very hurt, she mentioned how Regulus tied his wives down and made them give up, and then she realized that she absolutely hates Regulus on every level, which pissed Regulus off so much he started picking up huge portions of water into cubes and accelerating the water once he stops having them stay in place.
After that, an ice chase ensues as Emilia freezes water as they try to escape Regulus with Regulus in hot pursuit of them since he can walk normally on ice and doesn’t need to skate like Emilia and Subaru do. Emilia then suggests handing Subaru one of her lesser spirits and asks if he can hang on by himself, to which Subaru replies that as a kid he was called the “Ice Princess”, which suggests he either cross-dressed or cosplayed as a girl frequently in his youth while skating for whatever reason, possibly as a way to avoid being compared to his dad due to him being desperate to get out of his dad’s shadow. Subaru having an inferiority complex was a plot point in Episode 29 (Season 2 Episode 4), and I thought it was the best episode in the series for the subject matter it touched upon, which explained Subaru’s behaviour throughout the first season and up to that point. There is no filler in Re:Zero, so whether it was cross-dressing or cosplay, perhaps Subaru will be forced to pull out a trick from his youth.
I’ll stray from the scene order now to focus on Priscilla. Sirius again does something to make herself the center of attention. If you recall from Episode 51, Sirius’s antics at the clock tower in Episode 51 and 52 were meant to get people’s attention on her specifically given her power allows her to nudge people’s emotional states to what she desires after first getting their attention. In this recent episode, Sirius makes a fuss about how she brightened up the place since it was so dark, and this led to Liliana falling under her control. Priscilla, being the scene-stealer she is, decided to give Liliana a passionate French kiss to free her from Sirius’s control, which was not a bad idea since she already knew Liliana had some level of attraction to her. After that, Sirius directs a whole bunch of people from the city who had fallen under her control towards Priscilla and Liliana, which led to Priscilla using her Yang Sword to create a line of fire on the bridge leading to them, which stopped those under Sirius’s mind control from advancing. She then tasked Liliana with breaking those people from Sirius’s control, putting extra stress on Liliana by emphasizing that all of their lives are depending on her voice. This reminds of earlier this season in Episode 58 (I didn’t include that in my analysis, which was an oversight, I guess) when Priscilla said something that appeared to demean Liliana which motivated Liliana to do her best to live up to her family name. Perhaps Priscilla has the habit of saying something that is demeaning or stressful to the recipient of her words so that she can draw out a person’s best qualities. This was again shown in a more extreme fashion when Priscilla tested Subaru’s strength of character with her proposal that Subaru lick her foot in Episode 16. Priscilla had intended for Subaru to reject that offer, but Subaru was in very poor shape mentally to consider that was what she was gunning for.
Priscilla then engages Sirius and is definitely a match for her in combat, but Sirius appeared to taunt Priscilla with the mentioning “Iris and the Thorn King”, “Teleos’s Rose Knight”, and “Magritzer’s Gibbet”, which provoked Priscilla into becoming enraged. Whatever these three terms are, they clearly have a personal significance to Priscilla. I have an idea of why Priscilla had such a strong reaction based on previous content. Clearly from Episode 12, Priscilla must’ve come from a very high-class background given she had no idea that appas have red skin. Given “Iris and the Thorn King” and “Teleos’s Rose Knight”, whatever they are, involve a king and a knight, Priscilla may not be your average noble and might be royalty, and given it’s clear that Priscilla is not from Lugunica’s Royal Family since everyone would recognize her and ’cause Lugunica’s Royal Family perished, she might be royalty from a different nation. When Priscilla remarked in Episode 13 that Felt must’ve remained a slum dweller ’cause she can only manage tedious conversation, that might not have been a random insult but a hint that Priscilla went through hardship and lost her status as royalty at some point. I always thought the way Priscilla spoke to Subaru in Episode 16 at points made it seem like she was a queen or empress given the sort of inflections the voice actress used, and perhaps that was intentional and just phenomenal voice-acting.
Also of note and relates to the stuff with Priscilla is that I missed something for last week’s write-up. I had noticed that Julius looked surprised after Roy said something to him, but I was unsure of what to make of it, so I rewatched Episode 59, and Roy addressed Julius by “Nii-sama”, meaning Crunchyroll botched the translation, showing that Roy knew Julius is an older brother, and that is why Julius seemed taken aback. We know that Sirius did not know Priscilla personally yet said the perfect things to unnerve her, so it seems the reason Julius didn’t stick with the original plan to not use your real name if you encounter the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony is ’cause Roy probably said things that made Julius believe Roy knew info about him. We know Sirius didn’t actually seem to know Priscilla at the start of their encounter, so either the Gospel gave her instructions, or there was some other tell we’re not aware of. Perhaps Sirius and Roy both had instructions from their Gospels to say what they did or had good info from the Witch Cult’s spy network, and that’s the main reason Julius abandoned their well-thought out plan.
After many failures regarding penetrating Regulus’s seeming invincibility, Subaru asks Emilia for a hint by asking what happened to her after she was taken prisoner. Emilia responded by saying that he asked her if she’s a virgin, that he calls his wives by numbers, and when she said that that makes him seem like an evil king, one of them (Wife #184) called him “Little King”, which Subaru knew as the Latin name for Regulus, and he stated that it has another name, which is implied later in the episode to be “Lion Heart”, and I will get back to that at the end of my post, but I first I have to leave it out there that the Memory Snow OVA hinted that Subaru is a star nerd since he knew his own name was referring to a star cluster in that animation project that happened in the off years between Season 1 and Season of Re:Zero. Subaru then asked Emilia what Regulus’s hand felt like when he was strangling her, and she said it felt like nothing, which prompted Subaru to ask Reinhard to find out whether his heart is beating, which Reinhard confirmed it wasn’t to Subaru as he was being sent flying into the moon. This leads to Subaru beating Regulus at his own game at yapping by saying that Regulus has a right to hear about how he’ll lose since he’s all about his rights. Regulus, who says he is merciful, will allow Subaru to talk, and Subaru first says that Regulus’s power is the ability press the start button in the middle of the game, maybe ’cause when you start a game there’s a rush of momentum with all the animations starting up and everything, and that’s how he can launch dirt, air, and even water as we see in this episode at very high speed. Subaru says his ability is Lion Heart, the ability to stop time for his own body, and Regulus’s face shows that Subaru nailed it.
As I have noted in a previous post of mine, I have been looking up Re:Zero names ever since Episode 22 of Re:Zero, “A Flash of Sloth”, in which there were several instances of sloth that impacted the story. I had already looked up the names of the Sin Archbishops before, but it appeared my initial search was not enough with how Subaru was able to draw conclusions about Regulus’s ability when I couldn’t, so I expanded my search to more star facts and even mythology.
Betelgeuse, the name Petelgeuse is based off, is a star, in particular, in the constellation of Orion and the ninth-brightest star of the night sky. It’s called “Orion’s hand” in Arabic, which is almost certainly why Petelgeuse’s Authority was the “Unseen Hand”.
Baten Kaitos meant “belly of the sea monster” in Arabic, and I reasoned after Season 2 that that must be about Lye’s eating ability, but after seeing that Alphard is referred to in Arabic as the “backbone of the Serpent”, Baten Kaitos is most likely hinting at the White Whale while Alphard refers to the Black Serpent, the last of the Three Great Mabeasts. Lye Batenkaitos had called the White Whale “our pet” when he and Regulus attacked the White Whale extermination force on its way back to the capital. At the time, I thought it may have just been a pet in general of the Witch Cult, but since Season 3 shows that the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony have a speech quirk in which they speak as if they are more than one person despite being individuals themselves, Lye probably had direct control over the White Whale, and that’s why he personally came to avenge it. Interestingly enough, on names.org a user-submitted meaning indicates that Lye means “fog” in a Native American language, and this may be how Tappei decided to have the White Whale emit a dense fog.
The ancient Greeks observed that the appearance of Sirius as the morning star heralded the hot and dry summer and feared that the star caused plants to wilt, men to weaken, and women to become aroused. Owing to its brightness, Sirius would have been seen to twinkle more in the unsettled weather conditions of early summer. To Greek observers, this signified emanations that caused its malignant influence. All people perceived to be suffering from its effects were said to be “star-struck”, which may be how Tappei decided to make Sirius’s Authority involve people falling under her control and feeling a sense of closeness to Sirius. Sirius means “glowing” or “scorching”, and the glowing part could be referring to how she makes herself the center of attention while the scorching part could be how Tappei decided to make her a fire-magic user.
Capella means “little goat” in Latin. In Greek mythology, the star represented the goat Amalthea that suckled Zeus. It was this goat whose horn, after accidentally being broken off by Zeus, was transformed into the cornucopia, or “horn of plenty”, which would be filled with whatever its owner desired. Perhaps this is how Tappei decided to allow Capella to transform into anything she desired. Since she took the Royal Family’s name, “Emerada” could be a perversion of “Emeralda” much like “Satella” is a perversion of Satellite. “Emeralda” is a variant of “Emerald” with emeralds symbolizing rebirth and wisdom, which may be why Capella is good at reading people and why she might have been resurrected by that black dragon blood in her body.
The Arabic meaning of Regulus is Lion Heart, and that should be part of how Subaru figured out Regulus’s power. Regulus is a fixed star, and fixed stars are luminary points, mainly stars, that appear not to move relative to one another against the darkness of the night sky in the background. Due to their immense distance from Earth, fixed stars appear to move so slowly in the sky that the change in their relative positions is nearly imperceptible on human timescales, except under careful examination with modern instruments, such as telescopes, that can reveal their proper motions. Hence, they can be considered to be “fixed” for many purposes, such as navigation, charting of stars, and timekeeping even though they do move but not to an extent that the naked eye can detect such movements. This should be how Subaru concluded that Regulus’s Authority freezes time for his own body since a fixed star seems frozen in time. As for how Subaru concluded that’s what makes him invincible, the Nemean lion in Greek mythology had impenetrable fur, and that should be how he figured that Lion Heart had something to do with Regulus’s actual heart.
Now I will explain how Al factors into this and why I believe he is Subaru’s brother and a previous iteration of the hero of the story. Although I posted the link to my main theory, you might not have time to read it, so I’ll post mainly the Al portion of my main theory. Subaru means Pleiades in Japanese, and Pleiades is referring to a star cluster in the Taurus constellation. Al’s true name, Aldebaran, is a star in the Taurus constellation that follows the Pleiades star cluster in the night sky. In Arabic, Aldebaran means the follower for that reason. While some of the Arabic meanings for Sin Archbishops hint at their powers, perhaps it would be better to consider Al’s name in relation to Subaru since Al isn’t a Sin Archbishop.
Since Aldebaran follows the Pleiades star cluster, perhaps he was given that name because he was Naoko and Kenichi’s next son after Subaru, which showed a fixation from at least one of his parents on their first son who disappeared. Al told Priscilla not to call him Aldebaran in Episode 16 of Re:zero, and that might be because that name is a constant reminder that his parents loved Subaru more than they loved him.
Since names have power in Re:zero, Aldebaran as a name could very possibly mean that Aldebaran would be the next person to be summoned after Subaru was. Aldebaran is pretty much guaranteed to have been summoned to Re:zero’s fantasy world since at least one of the carriage driver, Priscilla, or Al recognized Subaru’s attempt at hitchhiking when hitchhiking shouldn’t exist in a medieval society, meaning Subaru’s attempt to catch a ride should’ve fallen flat on his face, since Al literally knew what Subaru meant by the Kansai dialect when he was exasperated about hearing it in Episode 12, since Priscilla used the English word “chance” knowing Subaru knew the word (and given that Priscilla doesn’t know what apples are, she probably isn’t from Earth since pretty much every grown adult on Earth has at least seen an unpeeled apple before), which shows that she did so knowing Subaru was from the same world as Al, and since Mimi was eating cheeseburgers, which shouldn’t exist in a medieval society, meaning someone from Earth has previously invented them in Re:Zero’s fantasy world. This means Al is either formerly a Japanese citizen, an immigrant who had not yet become a Japanese citizen, someone whose work brings him to Japan sometimes, or a fan of Japanese culture.
Now, I have to say that Re:zero is a logical series. Unlike tons of poorly made isekai series out there, all characters in Re:zero have their own underlying motivations. Something like the isekai protagonist of other bad isekai stories would be made to look good for being self-righteous against Lugunica’s knights, but Subaru got his shit kicked in ’cause Re:zero is a serious story not meant to solely be wish fulfillment. It’s clear that Re:zero is a story where there are actual consequences ’cause of this.
Where I’m going with this is that there are time travel stories out there that posit that all of time is happening at once, meaning there are no real rules and almost anything can happen with it being a matter of the writer’s discretion. The bootstrap paradox commonly featured in time travel stories is also highly illogical and only exists “just because” rather than there being an actual legitimate reason for being used that can be reasoned through logic aside from the author said so.
‘Cause Re:zero is a highly logical series, I posit that time is linear in Re:zero, and I think the main reason Al was summoned to the fantasy world to a point before Subaru’s arrival at Lugunica’s Capital is that Subaru was transported to somewhere in Re:zero’s world or a place that was a limbo between worlds where his body never aged even the slightest before he suddenly arrived in Lugunica’s Capital in Episode 1 of the series and that this period where that happened was before the time Al was summoned to Re:zero’s fantasy world. This is why I do not believe Al is a future Subaru.
Re:Zero is back after 2 and a half months, and it had some very interesting details that will probably be relevant to the plot in the future, and details like those are why I love series such as Re:Zero and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) since I adore series with very strong long-term planning and foreshadowing. The first two important details are that Priscilla doesn’t completely trust Al since he keeps a lot of secrets from her when Liliana put it out there that she must trust Al a lot since she was leaving him to defend their stronghold at the government office and that Anastasia was keeping secrets of her own from Julius, which has been leading to him increasingly feeling an unseemly guilt from Priscilla’s perspective, and of course, Anastasia retorts that Priscilla shouldn’t make it sound so nasty, showing either a lack of empathy for Julius from Anastasia or a playful jab from Priscilla to get the attention off of herself due to her trust or lack thereof in Al being highlighted. While it may make sense to think that Priscilla was talking about something regarding Anastasia’s arrangement with Kiritaka, I’m more inclined to believe it is referring to something else, which may be brought up again either during Arc 6’s adaption, which is rumoured to be 22-episodes-long after this 16-episode adaptation of the Priestella arc, or a fourth or fifth season. As I’m not a source reader, I don’t know when Tappei intends to flesh out this reveal.
After that, we see the introduction of several of the groups and who they run into, and aside from Wilhelm confiding in Garfiel about his deceased wife, which was probably meant to inspire Garf and motivate him to fight at his best, the two most relevant pieces of info are that Theresia’s soul is being warped and that Priscilla knew that someone got ahead of the Witch Cult’s plan to learn the details of Typhon’s corpse by slaying the other nine members of the Council of Ten aside from Kiritaka. Why the point about Theresia’s soul being warped is important is after Wilhelm slashed off the hood of Theresia’s outfit, the face we saw was that of a young Theresia despite her having died when she was middle-aged when Reinhard was young. In some other fantasy series, modifying or changing someone’s soul can result in that person’s physical appearance changing, which mostly confirms Wilhelm’s belief that her soul is being warped. Back to Priscilla, the Witch Cult’s plan was most likely to kill some of its members to get the remaining members to talk, which the cult can no longer do after the slayings. Priscilla spoke as if that person wasn’t herself, so it was likely either Al or a close associate of hers after the process of elimination. The only named Priscilla associates viewers know of in this arc are Al, Heinkel, and Schult. We know it couldn’t have been Heinkel given the sort of shit he was doing around that time that happened, and little Schult definitely didn’t do it, so that leaves Al unless it was someone yet to be revealed.
A big point from a previous episode is that Al left right as Subaru and his group were getting prepared to fight the Witch Cult in Episode 54, and he said he was looking for Priscilla, but Priscilla confirmed in Episode 58 that he did no such thing, which makes that time period the perfect opportunity for him to kill nine members of the Council of Ten.
More of the presentation this episode indicated that was the case with how Priscilla indicated earlier to Liliana and Anastasia that it’s not a matter of whether she trusts Al as there’s a lot he doesn’t tell her. Perhaps Al didn’t tell her why exactly he needed to kill the other members aside from Kiritaka instead of simply relocating them.
If you recall from one of my theories, I believe Al was the previous iteration of the hero of the story in the immediate previous iteration of the world. Perhaps Al took Beatrice’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom from that previous world and is acting based on knowledge from Echidna, meaning there were more than just 2 copies since Al had a copy from his previous world. That may be why the First District’s watergate was opened right as Subaru would’ve fallen to his death, and that is ’cause Al’s acting with instructions from Echidna. In a previous write-up, I suggested that Al accepted Echidna’s contract unlike Subaru when he was the hero of the story, but maybe that wasn’t it, and Al has a different sort of arrangement with her. He must know Echidna on a personal level to some extent given his distaste for Emilia making others a priority before herself, which appears to be the reason Echidna appears to dislike Emilia even if she has a deep respect for Emilia and Satella if one of my previous theories is correct, showing that Echidna’s tastes rubbed off on Al.
When the show flashes back to Reinhard and Subaru, Regulus is exasperated that Emilia chose Subaru over him. He could understand if he had lost in love to Reinhard, the manliest of men there are, but losing to Subaru is an insult to him, especially since Regulus had forgotten about ever having met Subaru in Episode 53, which called back to Al saying that the Witch Cult had never lost before, and the reason they never made any preparations in case of a counterattack from their group was that no dragon would care what the ants at its feet are planning. This is also relevant later on with Otto, Felt, and the White Dragon’s Scales, what I had previously thought was an item but was actually an armed group employed by Kiritaka that helped Otto escape the first time he met Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, Lye Batenkaitos. Lye had no recollection about meeting Otto, which was shown by how Lye said so you met us (Roy Alphard) before meeting us (him) when Otto mentioned he thought the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony went by a different name, showing Lye completely forgot about Otto much like Regulus did regarding Subaru. Thank goodness I have exposure to someone who knows Japanese as he indicated that Crunchyroll botched the translation and that Otto said something along the lines of “You’re different from the one at the government office” instead of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony went by a different name, which completely changed the translation. The correct translation shows that Otto thought that Lye was a fake Sin Archbishop at first, but this encounter now shows that Lye is the real deal, meaning there is at least two Sin Archbishops of Gluttony.
Lye then said that now that you’re all here you might as well help us look for the hero who will judge us. This is actually a callback to Season 2 with how Rem said that her great hero, Subaru, would bring them to justice. As Lye was the one who ate Rem’s memories and could likely feel the strong emotions Rem felt about how Subaru would defeat them, Lye hearing Subaru’s broadcast hyped him up big time for a showdown against Subaru. I don’t think the narrative will allow that to happen in this Priestella arc as Subaru’s group is really strapped for battle-ready personnel with how it’s just Garfiel and Wilhelm against Kurgan and Theresia, Julius and Ricardo against Roy, and Priscilla against Sirius. There’s just no way Subaru will be able to help with Regulus’s wives and Regulus himself and fight Lye, so this showdown will probably be postponed for a future arc.
Otto motioned to bring Lye to Subaru in exchange for his life as a negotiation tactic, but Lye was furious as he had a very visceral negative reaction to Otto being a merchant who would put a price on anything to line his pockets, so it’s clear he and Roy were either ripped off badly by a merchant or were slaves to one. As Lye prepares to attack, Otto used his Divine Protection to get two Water Dragons to attack Lye before it skips over to Julius and Ricardo engaging Roy Alphard, who is another Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. Interestingly enough, Julius forgo calling himself Juli when the last time he engaged Roy he was careful not to use Subaru and Crusch’s actual names, calling them Little Girl User and Valkyrie instead. Perhaps during his last battle with Roy, which was offscreen, Roy revealed he already knew Julius’s name, potentially due to Julius being a well-known member of the Royal Guard with very distinct physical features. With how episodes this season not being extended-length for the most part aside from Episode 57, it’s possible an explanation for Julius’s decision was cut out of the adaptation although it’s possible to still infer the reason for that decision.
Back to Subaru and Emilia, it seems Regulus’s wives truly fear Regulus on every level. Earlier in the episode, Subaru remarked that they have nerves of steel with how none of the wives reacted to Regulus threatening to kill them all if Reinhard and Subaru advanced any further. Now, they can’t come to believe Regulus can be beaten even though Reinhard had performed a miracle in front of their eyes with how he came back to life after dying due to his Divine Protection of the Phoenix. It’ll take a lot of work to win them over, but I believe Subaru and Emilia have to be able to do something about this, as otherwise they will never be able to stop Regulus’s apparent invincibility. As Reinhard hinted at earlier in the season, he has the ability to wish for any Divine Protection he wants, which is how he could transmit his thoughts to Subaru while fighting Regulus as it seems he received the same Divine Protection that Liliana has. It seems Reinhard also has super hearing as otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to hear what Subaru had been saying. It seems one of Subaru’s plans is to have Reinhard kick Regulus really far away to give them alone time with the wives, so Subaru quite possibly thinks Regulus’s wives might know the secret behind Regulus’s invincibility.
As we get back to Wilhelm and Garfiel towards the end of the episode, Garfiel takes a big blow from Kurgan, and his trauma from his fear of death has again reared its ugly head, and Garf wills himself to continue on as he reasons the only thing he’s good for is fighting. I wonder how they will get out of this situation as retreat is not an option given how completely stretched thin the forces of the side fighting the cult is, and if one part of their group fails they all fail since they must take seize control of all four control towers at once. Garf realizes that the black piece of mass is not actually Capella after all, which may be a blessing in disguise ’cause if she were really with the two corpse soldiers, he and Wilhelm would certainly die.
Felix is then caught off guard by Capella who pretended to be several people on his side, but she’s here to wreak havoc, and given Priscilla left Al to defend the government office, it looks like we’ll have an Al and Capella showdown even though they aren’t in the same room yet. Felix should not be able to put up a good fight against Capella due to Capella’s insane regeneration. A lot is happening this episode, but things are definitely moving along, and I’m looking forward to more strong content from this season.
