As shown by Eps. 51 and 67, Subaru has still has major self-image issues with him thinking he’s such a loser for having been the only one to lose his cool and his insecure remarks to Julius lightly throwing a jab his way as someone self-confident wouldn’t have been phased by Julius’s remark. While I can see why somebody would think it was just a casual roasting between friends, I don’t think that was the case.
What backs up my read is that people who have unresolved trauma are more likely to lash out ’cause those with strong memories of past unpleasant situations may have disrupted/irregular emotional regulation if they were impacted by them enough, and that was definitely the case with Subaru’s inferiority complex centered around his dad. Even Naoko’s comments in the 1st Sanctuary trial put pressure on Subaru to become half as cool as his dad, who’s a freaking gigachad, so while that may have alleviated some of the crushing weight he felt being in his dad’s shadow, his feeling of being in Kenichi’s shadow didn’t go away entirely and wouldn’t from a talk like that for somebody with a trauma as complex as his centered around failing to live up to being his dad’s son and also how he was abandoned by those he’d developed surface-level relationships with just to act out in an effort to compensate for his not being as great as his father was.
Thus, given all Subaru has achieved up until this point, the previous Subaru still being stuck in a state of self-loathing necessitated amnesiac Subaru challenging that by saying that Natsuki Subaru is an amazing guy as he’d experienced all of the challenges and all the setbacks that the previous Subaru had gone through to know that he’s objectively achieved a lot even if he needed a lot of support to do so unlike in many of the anime and light novel isekai slop he’d most likely consumed before being summoned to the fantasy world.
This was an excellent use of dissociation in fiction with how amnesiac Subaru reading Subaru’s Books of the Dead and how the two Subaru’s interacting helped the other understand something about himself he hadn’t realized, which any serious take on dissociation needs to get across, and better yet, the two of them merged into one rather than one just absorbing the other, showing that Tappei does his research on the subject matter for his story, and I expect amnesiac Subaru to keep up the good fight in pushing against Subaru’s poor self-image in a corner of his mind in his long journey to achieving self-love. I believe Episode 82’s title being Subaru’s named episode was very appropriate. Once again, this episode demonstrated how much care Tappei put into his story in creating an enjoyable and layered narrative by using an amnesia plotline as an avenue for character development rather than simply as a plot device.
Much like for Ep. 72 when my write-up almost entirely centered around Julius, I believe any write-up that doesn’t do Subaru justice this episode is grossly lacking. I believe this is an episode that distinguishes between casual watchers of Re:Zero who’re just there for the ride and watchers who are there to engage with what the story is telling, who I call the core fans of Re:Zero, regardless of their degree of understanding of the details given Re:Zero is a highly complex story that’s not always easy to follow, but those who try are whom I qualify as being core fans. While I personally think this episode isn’t as strong as some of the absolute best episodes of this season, those who merely think the episode was fine fall into the casual watcher category while those who have greater appreciation for Subaru’s character arc across four seasons, the groundwork laid from Season 1 up until now, and/or the setup from previous episodes of this season are the core fans. While some people had heard from novel readers about this episode, Natsuki Subaru, being amazing and how it’d be the best episode of all time before even knowing what was in it, I stay off social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, so I had no preconceived notion of the episode’s quality going into it, and that helps me approach gauging this episode better than most others would in my opinion.
As one could tell when amnesiac Subaru was reading Natsuki Subaru’s many Books of the Dead, amnesiac Subaru was looking for what made the previous Subaru special since he believed he fundamentally lacked something the previous Subaru did, which is why he’s been struggling so hard. I’ll get back to this after a bit of a detour.
I ended up being right about that there being one Book of the Dead for each death in Ep. 71, although that doesn’t clear up whether new timelines are being created when Subaru dies, a straight up time rewind every time, or it’s a re-creation of the world from a particular point, but Melakuera’s words about the Witch’s return, the world imbalance, and how he’d faced world-ending crises countless times suggest that it’s more likely a straight up time rewind or a re-creation of the world given it appeared to be a clear cut adaptation and involved no creative liberties. Ep. 15, which had Puck cut off Subaru’s head as after he was crying and shouting aloud Petelgeuse’s name due to what Petelgeuse had done to those he cared about, especially Rem, followed by ending credits with the scene continuing was likely not in the source material as Tappei almost certainly hadn’t written those ending credits into his story, meaning the continuation of the world we’d seen in that episode was perhaps not canon to the source but a creative liberty much like when Ep. 36 had the dark mist/clouds in Emilia’s eyes which were meant to show that Emilia had gone insane, and that’s why she hadn’t realized how heavily injured Subaru was with him being on the verge of death. For Subaru’s 2nd Sanctuary trial, Echidna also said that it wasn’t possible to know whether the “unthinkable presents” he saw truly happened unless you’re Satella herself, but I potentially call bullshit on that, and the reason is that my speculation on Ep. 71 posited that in addition to the alternate timelines possibility, the other possibility is that Subaru is partially a product of Echidna’s Authority with the world being re-created from a certain point with Subaru’s soul having been sent back to his body since his entire body resets with his soul, which is the seat of memories in Re:Zero, being why he just doesn’t outright forget everything. Melakuera’s words about how he’d faced world-ending crises countless times in the Frozen Bonda OVA also lend to it being a straight up time rewind or the world being re-created due to implying he’s either being repeatedly sent back into time or re-summoned into the re-created world after its destruction. I do believe there’s very much something that suggests that Return by Death is a power that re-creates the world though, which I’ll get into next.
Someone who follows Tcrow on Crow’s World of Anime would know of most of what I’m planning to post next given I used to post theories there before I started my blog, but it won’t be a full rehash as I’m now including more content in light of Ep. 70 and Ep. 79. My entire theory here hinges on giving White Fox the benefit of the doubt and not assuming it screwed up in animating Re:zero, and I’m confident that everything was intentional. I believe that, in addition to reloading at a save point, reality is sometimes warped so that Subaru and his surroundings within a TBD radius or select objects/people/buildings in that radius (trying to cover all my bases here in case the Authority) somehow arrived at that point somewhere between a minute and a few minutes earlier each time he dies and that reality is warped to account for this discrepancy much like how the White Whale’s Fog of Elimination can erase a person entirely and adjust people’s memories that involved a person that was erased as well as erasing that person’s material possessions, and that is what is actually Return by Death. Why do I believe this to be the case? The primary reason is because of the difference between Subaru’s first loop and his third loop in Arc 1 and because of what happened with Subaru’s ringtone for the White Whale hunt in Arc 3 although I have evidence from Arc 2 as well.
A stone statue of the insignia was shown right after Subaru’s realization that he was summoned into another world, which then cut to a scene at 2:30 in Episode 1 showing Felt running on rooftops and jumping across them with Emilia’s insignia in hand long before Subaru had even met the appa guy at the 3:30 mark, which is where his first save point would be. At 5:02, Felt is again being shown running and jumping across rooftops, which shows she had the insignia before meeting Subaru in the alley. This suggests that RBD not only resets time when he dies but that there’s a spacetime displacement on top of the reset or else he wouldn’t have ever been able to see the the theft in the first place in the third loop given that he had time to pass out in front of the appa guy’s shop and see Emila pass the appa guy’s shop and have a brief conversation with her during that third loop.
Subaru would not be able to figure out that there is a spacetime displacement by checking out his phone after a death since his phone resets with him and would show the same time reading every time he Returned by Death, but it would be possible to figure this out by checking his phone during an event that consistently happens such as his first meeting with Roswaal and the mansion’s residents in Arc 2. However, Subaru did not check the time during these meetings, so he missed the opportunity to see whether he experiences a spacetime displacement. Subaru asking Rem and Ram what the date and time were in Episode 6 showed that Subaru just did the bare minimum, which is to see what time it was when he started his save point, but he made no effort to discern whether there was anything more to RBD. I will now post some circumstantial evidence involving Arc 2 and some more damning evidence in Arc 3 that I believe supports my theory.
In the first loop of the mansion arc, Puck awoke after Subaru and Emilia had exercised briefly, and he wasn’t tired in the least. They spoke a bit and then Ram and Rem inform that Roswaal has returned. After his first death, Subaru had time to run around the mansion and find Beatrice so that he could mope in the library. He then left the library and met Emilia outside, speaking to her somewhat briefly, and Puck was visibly tired after waking up. They had time to spare since the twins didn’t come to announce Roswaal’s return. In the third loop, Subaru spent an even longer time with Beatrice, got knocked out of the mansion by Beatrice twice, and got cleaned by a visibly tired Puck, yet he still had time for banter with Puck before the Roswaal meeting. So he wastes more and more time in loops two and three but still seemingly started the meeting at the usual time. I speculate that in the second and third loops, Puck is more tired because he is waking up earlier than he did in Loop 1, which shows there is a spacetime displacement on top of the time rewind.
Now, here is the big one. During the loop the alliance between three Royal Selection camps actually fought the White Whale, Subaru’s phone rang for a while before the whale showed up. The sky was also clear. In the loop directly before that in which Otto and Rem were erased by the White Whale, the area was already foggy and the whale had already attacked by that point. This suggests that Subaru’s phone started ringing a bit too early because it had been running for a longer period of time due to a spacetime displacement on top of a reset. If the strike force had been defeated, forcing Subaru to reset once more, everyone might have just deserted him because the Whale would have taken longer to arrive on yet another loop. I also believe that the reason Subaru saw Russell Fellow in Episode 16 is because Subaru died enough times to finally witness Russell leaving Crusch’s mansion, and that would be because of that spacetime displacement. You know what they say. Once is by chance, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern. There’s no way White Fox messed up in animating Re:zero 3 arcs in a row.
However, we never see incidents of Subaru appearing to gain time again after the White Whale hunt, and Russell Fellow took Subaru’s phone as part of the deal made for the White Whale hunt to happen, so even if something like that were to happen, it’d be harder to confirm without that cellphone. Thus, to extrapolate from my newer theory about how Subaru’s Authorities are shaped by the biggest regret of each of those in the dark world, Return by Death may be shaped by Satella’s biggest regret being that her and Subaru’s love for each other wasn’t enough to win four hundred years ago, and I’ll explain why Subaru and Satella were likely lovers in the past.
Eps. 18, 25, and 38 show Subaru has dormant memories of Satella as shown by how Puck indirectly revealed in Ep. 18 the number of shadow hands Satella could generate to Subaru by asking Petelgeuse to summon a thousand if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (two thousand), how Subaru used a number associated with her (two thousand) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in Ep. 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 commented on why he chose that number, and how Subaru suddenly had an upwelling of positive emotion for Satella in Ep. 38 that led him to say that he’d save her after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows Subaru and Satella likely had a past history together as lovers given just moments ago in that episode Subaru had been calling her an unfathomable monster he could never hope to understand, showing they must’ve had a very positive relationship in the past.
Satella saying in Ep. 38 that Subaru gave her everything supports that the two of them have a past history with each other, and Shaula saying she wouldn’t mind becoming “the half-witch’s apprentice” regarding Emilia in Ep. 73 shows Shaula knew that Satella was a witch as she’s been stuck in a tower for four hundred years, so they came from the same era. Shaula saying what she did showed that she drew a parallel between Satella and Emilia in that both of them may have the affection of Subaru, who she believes is Flügel, and Flügel, who I believe was Kenichi and Subaru in the same body (Kenichi’s body), through their cooking, meaning learning from Emilia, who she likens to Satella, would be a good way of increasing Subaru’s affection for her. Given Shaula specifically singled out Emilia’s cooking rather than Ram’s, I believe there was definitely a point to that, which was probably Emilia’s physical appearance.
So to sum it all up, I believe Satella’s biggest regret may have shaped Subaru’s Authority of Envy in that Subaru can loop back to a certain point of her choosing to overcompensate for their love not being enough in the past. I don’t know whether that is an active or passive choice/power from Satella. All I know is that I believe Subaru’s power by himself isn’t what the anime has shown thus far as being Return by Death likely involves Satella to be able to loop that far back, and I believe if Subaru can trigger the Authority of Envy himself, it would only bring him back 3 minutes at most due to what happened in all of Arcs 1, 2, and 3. I also don’t know whether Satella’s involvement in Return by Death can be disabled by an external force, but I believe Subaru when he is in the dark world after death, with situations with him being in the dark world being after death or when he breaks the Taboo, may choose to not activate his expression of Return by Death that manifests in a spacetime displacement of up to three minutes, meaning only Satella looping him back to a savepoint happens, and in that situation there’s no warping of Subaru’s surroundings in a TBD radius or select objects/people/buildings in that radius as if they’d occurred however much time before that (variable?) amount of time he’d gained. If I am right about this being how Subaru’s Authority of Envy, Return by Death, works, it’d support that Return by Death re-creates the world from a certain point, so it’s more than just a time rewind.
Now back to Subaru’s character, there’s very much a point to this GIF. The shots of Ep. 1 and Ep. 3 show that Subaru was drawn toward Emilia’s kindness, and that’s what helped him persevere through all that pain and suffering to save others. The kindness Emilia showed Subaru when no one else had given a damn started Subaru’s trajectory of saving so many people.
When he was on the verge of giving up in Ep. 18, From Zero, due to getting his shit kicked in over and over with him wallowing in despair about how he’d never done anything, Rem reminded Subaru that he is kind, telling him how he saved her in multiple ways, and that moment clearly linked to Ep. 37 when Subaru said that Rem would tell him to stand up instead of telling him to leave everything to her since he knows that she’d want him to persevere, which then connected to Ep. 79, Stand Up, having Rem say those very words.
This is why amnesiac Subaru thanked the previous Subaru for all he’d done, ’cause he literally was kind and ’cause it’s what amnesiac Subaru needed to see to fully accept that he’s Subaru, that the previous Subaru was a kind guy who could do all he did along the way due to the support he got along the way, not ’cause he was a superman, fully destroying Rui’s plan to eat Natsuki Subaru infinitely. Amnesiac Subaru ultimately saw that the previous Subaru is kind and resilient, and that’s how he has so many people he cares about now and objectively saved many people. That’s what led to amnesiac Subaru calling the previous Subaru amazing, pushing back against his low self-esteem, which is ultimately why he said he won’t tell the previous Subaru to do his best since he knows what that Subaru’s capable of and was jealous that it would’ve taken the previous Subaru much less time to solve the problems at the tower before they finally merge into one. And as for why the previous Subaru would even have a manifestation in the Corridor of Memories, it’s just like how amnesiac Subaru mixed with Meili when he read her Book of the Book, only it was only possible in the Corridor of Memories since Rui had eaten his memories, meaning that was the only place that could happen.
The people sending death threats to White Fox and the director of Ep. 82 should be ashamed of themselves. There didn’t need to be some fancy insert song for this scene. The core content of this episode is that amnesiac Subaru needed to see that the previous Subaru was a guy who at his core is drawn to kindness who’d work really hard to save those he cared about due to his being kind and being inspired by their kindness when he struggled.
Re:Zero exists ’cause Tappei genuinely believes in the goodness of people and all this hate directed to the staff who worked on this episode is disgusting given the staff still got the core message of the episode out there. I get that many believe find Subaru extremely relatable to the point of self-inserting into him and living vicariously through Subaru when they watch him, but need I remind you that in a post-Season 1 interview, a White Fox staff member who’d worked on Re:Zero had been told many times that if they drew Subaru to look cool they’d be told to redraw it until it suited Tappei’s fancy ’cause Subaru isn’t mean to be a self-insert outlet with Re:Zero being a real story showing the struggles of how an average Joe with specific, severe self-worth issues sent to a fantasy world would react and behave unlike all those standard isekai power fantasy slop series, so IMO, there was no need for some insert song to give the scene a stronger sense of hype or aura as that was never the point of the scene to begin with.
While I acknowledge actual faults of the episode, such as there being too many stills or anything else one didn’t enjoy that is within reason, I believe being mad at there being no insert song when amnesiac Subaru met the previous Subaru is a rather strange thing to get upset about given Tappei having implored the staff to not make Subaru look cool in Season 1, and IMO, the absence of such a song shows that the staff members involved are living up to Tappei’s intended vision even if one personally thought that amnesiac Subaru calling the previous Subaru an amazing guy warranted hype or aura. I can’t say I understand why novel readers are upset about this episode, but from an anime-only perspective, I believe this episode gets across the core message very well.
And why amnesiac Subaru calling the previous Subaru amazing was important is that he still very much as self-esteem issues that needed to be pushed back against by someone who’d seen all he’d done and wasn’t as biased as the previous Subaru was regarding himself. If you thought that Subaru’s issues with poor self-esteem had been solved after Ep. 29, Parent and Child, you are wrong. In Season 2, even after Ep. 29, Subaru saw no value in his life aside from being to able to reset things to solve problems, and that’s likely why Satella and the dead Witches of Sin had their intervention in Ep. 38, which culminated in Patrasche dragging Subaru out of the tomb, and Otto outright telling him, maybe not in these exact words, that there are people who appreciate him and value him. In Season 3, Subaru was very much upset and thought that everybody else could stay calm while he’s the only one unable to do, showing a continuation in his issues with poor self-esteem in Ep. 51, and even in Season 4, Subaru was insecure when Julius made a light jab about his ability in Ep. 67, showing again that his issues with self-esteem weren’t cured just like that, not to mention how his self-esteem issues may be abnormally difficult to overcome if my theory about the main antagonist’s Authority making it difficult for the Hero of the story to overcome his character flaws has any truth to it.
As for my last two pieces of analysis, I’d shared in my write-up of Ep. 79, Rui had split herself in two as part of her plan to infinitely eat Subaru, which is why she was doing crazy things such as kill Meili to make amnesiac Subaru think the previous Subaru was a bad guy, but there was more to it than I had thought. A duplicate had not only eaten Subaru’s memories but also merged with amnesiac Subaru’s being and was experiencing his deaths whenever he died, which I guess is possible due to Rui being a soul that failed to be born, which I had speculated was a possibility in Ep. 79, meaning she’s just a whole bunch of egos as she’d stated in that episode. And her being horrified and despondent about how death wasn’t the delicious experience she’d thought it be backs up my read that Rui’s biggest regret is having eaten so many memories just to experience pain and suffering, only wanting to experience just the highs or a high and none of the lows of life, something Subaru himself noted in this episode, which I believe bodes well for how Subaru’s Authority of Gluttony in the future may be shaped by this regret. And if the other Rui merges with the Rui who’d eaten amnesiac Subaru’s memories, she’d also be in for a rough time. Since the one Rui had fused with was amnesiac Subaru’s ego/personality, when amnesiac Subaru merged with the previous Subaru, possibly by using his Authority (I’m not sure) given Rem had imparted how she felt about Subaru to amnesiac Subaru by touching the center of his chest, and amnesiac Subaru put a fist to the previous Subaru, I guess Rui either was driven off due to amnesiac Subaru fully accepting that he’s Subaru or she willingly relinquished her hold on him since she didn’t want anything more to do with Subaru.
The last bit of analysis I have is that Tappei showed that his having Subaru use the -tan honorific to address Emilia was very much intentional as Subaru would never have thought of doing that without having experienced Emilia’s kindness and saw how consistent she was in being kind in Arc 1 of Re:Zero, which is backed by how the first time he used the honorific, he’d asked Emilia if she’d healed him, showing he believes she’s just intrinsically that kind, and that’s the cherry on top on Emilia being cheerful about hearing Emilia-tan ’cause it was showing that Emilia’s initial kindness to Subaru in Arc 1 had more of an impact on Subaru than Emilia’s confession of being in love with Natsuki Subaru to amnesiac Subaru, showing just how important that Arc 1 content was, and it’s foundational to Subaru falling for Emilia.
All in all, while I can understand some people’s gripes with the direction of the episode, such as there being too much flashback content or there being too many still frames, I nonetheless am adamant that this is an episode of Re:Zero that was very much worthwhile to watch and implicitly tied back to so much of the series.
While I guess Season 1 might make one think of Elsa as being nothing but a vicious predator, Season 2 had Elsa deliberately save Meili, her little sister figure, and Elsa revealed in Episode 48 that owing to her having been abandoned as a child, she came to love disemboweling people when she’d nearly gotten sexually assaulted in Gusteko with its very cold climate that both served to ensure that she didn’t think about things such as living well or being happy while potentially numbing her emotions due to your body doing what it can to preserve heat and served to alter the regulation of serotonin and endorphins in her body, so when she killed for the first time and felt the warmth of blood and innards, she thought to herself that if there’s happiness in the world it’s the warmth that makes one forget the cold, in essence sharing how she became the Bowel Hunter. Maybe this was a twisted happiness, but her horrible life up until that point is what resulted in her becoming what she was, and Re:Zero has a big emphasis on nurture versus nature.
But the Bowel Hunter isn’t all Elsa is as she was kind to Meili when she taught her how to be civil, allowing Meili to bite into her without retaliating against her, and while it may have been on Capella’s orders, I believe Elsa felt for Meili on some level due to them having both been abandoned as children. I believe Episode 76 showed that Elsa wanted more for Meili than just being a killer as she said that for anyone other herself, no number of lives would be enough, implying that if Meili took on enough jobs she’d eventually find a job too tough for her, showing very much that Elsa cared about her well-being, which is why she told Meili not to be Capella’s puppet, and they were very much sisters as Garfiel had called them in the relevant episode. Elsa also protected Meili when part of the ceiling was about to fall on her, and Elsa stopped her assault on Garf when she’d been in a winning position, so she definitely cared about Meili and wanted her to live on to put herself in such a bad position with a reset of sorts when she’d otherwise have won against Garfiel.
Elsa and Meili was also shown having a sisterly relationship in the Re:Zero Break Time Season 2 shorts, and given one of them pointedly had Elsa talk about how she hates Subaru’s eyes ’cause they show that he believes that death isn’t the end for him, Elsa may have alluded to this in some way between the end of Arc 2 and the end of Arc 3 or even between the start of Season 2 and before the pair began their duties later, leading to Meili having a curiosity about Subaru dying, which may partially be why Meili mused about whether a Book of the Dead would spawn if Subaru were to drop dead in Episode 71. I believe that Break Time content actually shows that Elsa values life on some level given her hatred for Subaru’s eyes, which demonstrates that she believes that you should live life to your fullest, whereas at that point in the story in Season 2, Subaru had been treating his life as disposable and a means to an end, and it’d also be why she treated Meili well, highlighting that she’s not just some monster even if she developed an unhealthy fixation on blood and innards.
I don’t believe Meili really wouldn’t feel sad about Elsa, which is why she was the most likely candidate for having pushed amnesiac Subaru to his death twice, and look at him in anger during the recollection of her life when her Book of the Dead had been being read while tiptoeing in anticipation of killing him, if she had never once thought Elsa had ever genuinely cared for her, showing Meili felt shame about being caught caring, frustration over caring at all, and anger towards Subaru since she was indeed sad, and given she had never really properly processed her emotions aside from killing what stood in her way, of course it likely ended up in her desiring to kill amnesiac Subaru since he was no longer her big brother figure but the one who killed her big sister figure, who she had affection for.
Based on Muse Asia’s subs through Bilibili, Shaula replied that Meili kicked the bucket and that that sort of thing happens after the topic of her having died was brought up, and I believe that may have been her trying to diminish Meili’s death as possibly similar to that of an everyday occurrence to cover for amnesiac Subaru. While I acknowledge if she was with the Hero’s Party 400 years ago, they would’ve been accustomed to death, the way she spoke knowing of this Subaru being kinder compared to Flügel seems out of place since it seems she’d possibly been intentionally making light of the situation.
What may back this up is Shaula clasping her hands together and raising her leg at 4:46 in the episode, telling him that it’d be faster to read Meili’s Book of the Dead, which may have been her love language in trying to cover for amnesiac Subaru so that he’d read the book before anyone else given her insistence on it. She basically coached him into doing it with the reasoning she provided when Beatrice and Emilia had been against it, and she may have said what she said to ensure he would be the first to read Meili’s book before someone like Julius could decide to read it himself.
There’s also the prolonged shot of Shaula at 13:52, showing she was very attentive to him, showing she may have known that he was the one who killed her and how much suffering it was causing him, and given the question she asked later, it suggested that may have indeed been the case since she was implicitly asking amnesiac Subaru whether she should dispose of the corpse.
In earlier episodes, Meili taking to Shaula and basically clinging to her seems surprising to me. Shaula also said that she has a scorpion tail, and maybe that was what she was using to snipe Subaru with in Ep. 68 given Shaula means “the stinger” or “the raised tail”. Given Ram saw a magic circle from Earth anime and manga, which shouldn’t exist in Re:Zero’s fantasy world unless they were invented by people from Earth when she used her Clairvoyance, whatever Shaula was sniping with wasn’t a regular weapon powered by magic stones, which indicates that her creation may have involved somebody from Earth, such as Flügel, even if he didn’t outright create her on his own.
Shaula also increasingly appears to be a mabeast given her affinity with Meili with the teenager clinging onto her in Eps. 70 and 71, how Meili also never referred to Shaula by her name but as “naked lady”, which could be showing that Meili considers herself superior to Shaula, not requiring showing her the basic respect others get. A regular human even with eternal youth also wouldn’t be able to smell Subaru’s miasma like Shaula can. To top it all off, in Ep. 73, Shaula indicated she loved cooked food since her diet usually consists of raw mabeasts, not to mention she said that she had a mother to amnesiac Subaru in Ep. 75, and we do know there was a female Witch of Gluttony, Daphne, who lived around the time period of four hundred years ago, and given she created the Three Great Mabeasts, she could certainly create Shaula too if Shaula’s actually a mabeast.
Given many animals in real life have much stronger, potentially on the order of a few to several magnitudes stronger, senses of smell than humans do, that may also apply to mabeasts, meaning it’d be very well within Shaula’s capability to smell Meili’s corpse. Thus, it wouldn’t be out of the question that Shaula, if she’s indeed a mabeast, could smell that a corpse was in the tower itself, and that might explain her happy-go-lucky attitude with her saying that Meili kicked the bucket. Alternative, Shaula may have just been able to smell that amnesiac Subaru handled a corpse on his way to the library without cleaning up after himself.
This episode makes things from previous episodes more clear while perhaps hinting at other things. It starts off with amnesiac Subaru continuing his identity crisis in that he was often speaking as if he weren’t Subaru, and now having “Natsuki Subaru was here” carved into his left arm with him having no recollection of it is giving him a fit, and he’s often smacking his arm across the ground due to thinking it makes no sense as he has a look of terror on his face, culminating with him asking himself, “Who are you?” referring to who he believes is the original Natsuki Subaru.
The scene then transitions to him putting Meili into a bag and hiding her behind a counter as he thinks of a way to buy more time to dispose of the body, musing that the detective being the killer is overdone as a trope in mystery stories. Outside, he runs into Emilia immediately, who asks him whether she startled him due to him legit looking like he may have pissed himself or something due to being caught in the act, but she hasn’t caught on aside from knowing he’s not doing well, and she shows so much concern for him and clearly has feelings for Subaru even if they aren’t yet at the point of love, to the point of putting his hand on her heart to show him that she’s not angry, encouraging him to not handle everything all on his own. During this scene, Emilia also brings up that she wants to give Meili a proper life even if it’s too early to be thinking about that, and the name drop spooked him for a moment, but Emilia ultimately reveals that since Meili’s the reason they got across the Dunes she should get better treatment and get moved out of her basement cell, leading to him angrily remarking about how she can be even thinking about the future when they’re stuck here at the tower, and Emilia is almost able to convince him to confide in her due to how she shows through her words and in her actions that she doesn’t think less of him for struggling, which is a problem he had with others treating him different in Ep. 75, leading to him trusting Patrasche and Shaula, but Ram ushers them to the library immediately due to a Book of the Dead on Meili having appeared, which Beatrice had found.
At the library, Beatrice says that Meili’s Book of the Dead having appeared is an ill-omen, and when he asks her why she hasn’t read it yet, she puts it out there that these books should be approached with extreme caution due to how distressed Subaru and Julius had been when they read the ones they were able to ’cause it’s as if they experienced the original person’ felt’s emotions and sensations, and thoughts/personality themselves, which can do real damage to their psyches if they’re not mentally prepared for that. Emilia is of course thinking of how Meili might be feeling at this point even though she’s dead, and Beatrice points out that it’s too late. Shaula then waltzes in and suggests that Meili must’ve kicked the bucket due to there being a book on her, which amnesiac Subaru takes issue with, and she merely replies that if he wants to find out what happened to her faster, he should just read her book, which is perhaps pointing to Shaula already having an understanding that Meili is dead. Given Shaula was shown at the end of Ep. 74 to be able to sense who has left the tower, which is why she said, “Master…” she may also be able to sense when one of the tower’s inhabitants has passed on, meaning she may have been trying to cover for him even from that point in the conversation, and if she’s indeed a mabeast, can probably smell that there’s a corpse. Beatrice does warn him that he’ll experience Meili’s entire life, and he still believes that it should be him who bites the bullet for the team since he doesn’t want anyone else reading it. Emilia, given she knows he’s really struggling heavily, suggests that she be the one to read it, but Beatrice objects, saying that it should be Subaru or Julius, and I’m guessing it’s ’cause she perceives both Subaru and Julius to have the strongest personalities or the strongest sense of selves, potentially even being the ones that had the best relationship with Meili of this group with Julius perhaps having conversed with Meili more than the others, not realizing Subaru amnesiac Subaru has lived lived for fewer than four days and would actually be one of the worst people to read a Book of the Dead given he currently has a very weak sense of self. Amnesiac Subaru then puts it out there that it might be a misunderstanding to try and deflect from the topic of Meili having died, and Emilia replies that if something happens that she’ll pull on his hair with him replying he’d prefer that she tap him on his shoulder or call out his name instead. And it once again begins with his soul being pulled into another Book of the Dead.
As Meili had revealed in the past, she’d been raised by mabeasts and had basically become the feral queen of beasts who escaped being prey for them and learned to desire to live among them before Elsa one day slaughtered her family on Capella’s orders to bring her back. Elsa apparently had taught Meili manners and such given she didn’t fight back when Meili had bitten into her after she’d washed her and was brushing her hair, showing she knows how to handle kids at least and didn’t use fear to force Meili to submit. When Meili had become presentable for Capella, the Sin Archbishop of Lust, she apparently told Capella that she didn’t know how to grieve, fight back or even live, which Capella just considered excuses and transformed her into various creatures to force her into submission, considering that something a mother must do.
In the next part of her backstory, Elsa, showing more of her patience with Meili, told her not to become Capella’s puppet ’cause for anyone other than herself, no amount of lives would ever be enough to satisfy Capella, meaning she didn’t want Meili to only live to kill, which is strangely kind of her even though she’s a bloodthirsty assassin, showing she knows it’s not most people’s nature to be like she is. Meili shot an angry look at Elsa while she was purchasing apples, and she wondered whether it was hatred she felt. She also wondered when she was killing people whether she felt sorrow and what it even was even whether she’d moved into the basement cell in Roswaal’s mansion. Since she had merely drifted through life, mimicking those around other, she had a weak understanding of emotions. Having lost Elsa, who she basically considered a sister, she didn’t know whose example to follow from now on. She thought that if Capella had told her to die, she would’ve willing done it, but she hesitated and came to the conclusion that she really didn’t want to die given Subaru’s kindness and her own will to live. At the very least, she wanted an answer, probably as to what she really wanted to do, which is likely why she agreed to tag along with Subaru to the Pleiades Watchtower.
In the penultimate part of the flashback that takes place during the time skip between Subaru’s meeting with Foxidna and Julius and waking up in the green room in Ep. 73, Meili worked up the courage to find Elsa’s Book of the Dead, and she was caught in the act by Subaru and was horrified, likely ’cause she felt shame over someone seeing that she could truly care about someone else given when Subaru had asked her to come to the tower, she’d explained that she didn’t do it for him but moreso herself since she didn’t want to lock herself away forever. Meili, for pretty much her entire life, did what she could to survive, whether as a feral child and as an assassin, so I think it scared her on some level to really care for somebody else, and that’s what led to her immediately leaving and thinking all sorts of negative thoughts about Subaru, ultimately culminating with her thought, “I don’t want him to know.” which shows she was thinking of killing Subaru for having found out about that since she never learned to process her emotions given the majority of her life centered around killing or being killed. When she headed back to the library, the one who spoke was certainly a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony given the manner of speech, and Rui had likely possessed Subaru, deciding to speak up after she tried to sneak up on her, and given Rui doesn’t have a broken gate, she could probably very well killed pre-amnesia Subaru or amnesiac Subaru given his gate is broken, and Rui encouraged her to find out what she really wants to do and confirm who she really is as a person, probably since her Gospel told her to do that. I’ll be calling Rui in Subaru’s body, Ruibaru from now on since it’s easier to do that. As for more specific hints on it being a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, his saying that Meili’s face looks full of flavour was very much a hint that it’s a Gluttony wielder given those with the Authority of Gluttony love tasting the emotions of their victims. His also saying that he’ll remember it all when Meili’s acting more like herself is also very much a thing a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony would do and is what I believe is a sign that Rui or another one of the Gluttony trio is considering eating Meili’s memories.
The final part of the flashback showed her having licked her lips next to amnesiac Subaru and after she’d put out continuing their conversation from last night given she wasn’t exactly sure what he’d meant, showing she knew it wasn’t the kind Subaru who cared for her, and Ruibaru choked Meili to death, saying that asking him that question directly is against the rules since she can’t be outed like that. In the end, Meili thought that her life had amounted to nothing and that she’s being killed.
Ultimately, while I can see why someone would believe Meili didn’t want to kill amnesiac or RuiSubaru, I believe it’s more likely than not she did want to, and that’s ’cause while Meili wanted to grieve Elsa in finding her Book of the Dead, she was at a crossroads between whether to imitate Elsa or Subaru, and so since she felt some shame in being found out about that, she looked at Subaru with eyes full of anger. I’m guessing Meili blushing regarding Ruibaru sniffing her hair is ’cause she as someone who’d hit puberty had her hormones in flux, and it’s not ’cause she wanted to be his girlfriend. The title of the episode, “Murder Is a Habit”, from Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia backs up this read that if you use violence to solve issues, you become more prone to doing it in the future, and that’d be why Meili wanted to kill him since she never learned to process her emotions and issues in a healthy manner.
And now it’s time for a theory, and it’s that Meili’s Book of the Dead appearing to this group of people so soon when the group had concluded initially that the books aren’t sorted by name or date of death in Ep. 71 suggests that there’s a will behind when and where Books of the Dead that can be read appear. This is backed by how in that relevant episode, both Subaru and Julius were able to find one they were able to read almost right away, suggesting a will or higher power is what allowed for that to happen. We know from the anime there’s someone who has the power to see a perfect reconstruction of the past, and that’s Echidna with her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, and if my speculation about Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels are correct, the Books of the Dead may also be partially a product of Echidna’s Authority, and the Great Pleiades Library may be constructed in part from her her Authority and also magic from herself and possibly others such as Flügel, meaning she can possibly choose which books appear to certain people at any given opportunity, which would be very useful given she has the power to see the future and likely had been a major force behind all the events of the past four hundred years up until the end of Season 2. Its appearance was very convenient since it allowed amnesiac Subaru to be the first to read Meili’s Book of the Dead to prevent most of the others from suspecting him, and it allowed him to gain insight on Meili’s troubled past as well as seeing how it was his body that killed her.
Back to the episode itself, Beatrice tells Emilia she mustn’t read the book since amnesiac Subaru has mixed his mind with the memories of the original person, which is why he’s stating, “I’m being”, repeatedly as in “I’m being killed”, and “Elsa’s gone”. After a time skip when he’d calmed down, Foxidna asks him what did he see, and before he answers, he sees an imaginary Meili next to him, talking about how it much it hurts to flail around while being strangled since he’d internalized her memories as his own, leading to Beatrice telling him to calm down and find himself. Beatrice of course tells him to lean on her at times like these due to their relationship. Ram then calmly implies that Meili must be dead after Julius asks her what she makes of the situation, and the imaginary Meili tells amnesiac Subaru that they must’ve never trusted her much in the first place given how they’re so calm about this, which is still more pain for him mentally, and Foxidna stops Julius from reading Meili’s Book of the Dead due to the state amnesiac Subaru is in. Emilia then again puts out looking for Meili as the kind person she is, saying that they can’t leave her like that since she believes in treating the dead with respect as she did during her flashback with Fortuna in Season 2. And then the imaginary Meili says that she didn’t even care about her before she died, which is perhaps showing this isn’t just Subaru being haunted by Meili, but her memories/personality have literally mixed into his being, meaning he has multiple personalities right now, and that’s why this seems to be driving him insane. When Julius asks him whether he saw what happened to Meili, amnesiac Subaru can’t even look him in the eye and says that he didn’t, only knowing that something happened in the tower, and much like how most people realized he wasn’t himself in Ep. 75, I believe there should be a fair number here that didn’t believe what he said there either or at least realize that something is amiss.
In the next scene, much of the group’s members are shown looking to no avail, and Ram seems to think of an idea in the moment after looking at Rem in the green room. Back in the library, Shaula asks amnesiac Subaru whether she should look for Meili, and the imaginary Meili suggests that it’s almost as if Shaula knows what he did, so that subconscious influence from her leads to him telling her to take care of Meili, which is Shaula taking it to mean that she’ll dispose of the corpse, probably sniping it until there’s nothing left. And here comes the kicker, the one in Subaru’s body says, “Natsuki Subaru is a despicable coward who’s trying to hide “my” death, as in Meili’s death since amnesiac Subaru had less than four days of memories and internalized years of Meili’s life experiences, and that’s why he used the “watashi” pronoun in that scene, which he never uses, but Meili always does, so Meili Portroute lives on through him in that there are occasions he thinks like her, speaks like her, and acts like her, which is why he asks Beatrice why she’s treating him so well, not ’cause he’d lost Subaru’s memories but ’cause to Meili herself, Beatrice has no reason to treat her well. That’s why he thinks about why the group loves Subaru so much and that he wants to know, and it’s ’cause Meilibaru, which I will be referring to from now on whenever it appears that Meili’s personality is speaking, is in control at that moment. When he muses about whether he can love Emilia and the others or hate them, Meilibaru suggests that he kill them to read their Books of the Dead, which is really dark stuff and is consistent with the story of the episode. Beatrice then suggests that he go back to the green room due to how unwell he is.
In the green room, amnesiac Subaru thinks about why they’re so nice to him, and Meilibaru tells him to give Beatrice’s neck a little squeeze as it’ll snap like a twig, and he strongly considered it before fighting back that thought. Beatrice then notices the condition of his hand with him thinking that she has realized that he killed Meili, only for her to heal him. When Meilibaru tells him that there’s no fun since he stopped wanting to kill Beatrice, he says aloud for the first time when conversing with her, “You’re wrong. You’re wrong!” He then has an internal monologue with Meilbaru about how murder is a habit in that if you solve a problem with a murder once, you’ll become more likely to solve future problems with murder.
Later at the dining table, nobody was able to find Meili’s body, and Emilia had even asked Reid to no avail. Foxidna and Ram basically shoot down Emilia’s suggestion to continuing searching for the body tomorrow since Anastasia’s life is being worn away, and their food supply is finite. When he says that Meili wouldn’t want them to be sitting around here, Meilibaru taunts him in telling him that he doesn’t believe a lick of that, and I believe there are others who can tell that this is not the real Subaru given he’d take Emilia’s side on this.
At night in the green room, Subaru tells Meilibaru that he has to be sure or neither of them can rest easy ’cause of the corpse, and then he gestures to Patrasche to shush when she pokes her head up after he tries to leave quietly. After he goes to the room where the corpse was and finds that it’s gone, Ram enters the room and suspects that he’s the killer due to her having spied on him when he told Meilibaru that she’s wrong, when he talked about them resting easy, and when he shushed Patrasche using her Clairvoyance given the idea dawned on her when she went to visit Rem. Ram sets a trap in using the name Natsuki Subaru, which she has never done in all four seasons prior to this point, ’cause the real Subaru would flip out over her actually using his name, and all he can think of is strangling her due to it indeed being the case that resorting to violence once makes it easier to resort to doing that again, not having figured out that Ram knows he isn’t the real Subaru.
One final theory I have on this episode is that Rui perhaps didn’t enter directly through the tower’s entrance given Shaula can detect how many lifeforms are in the tower given how she knew amnesiac Subaru had left the tower at the end of Ep. 74, so perhaps reading the Book of the Dead of someone whose memories were eaten by the Authority of Gluttony can result in a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony emerging to use his/her Authority against you, and that may be how Subaru’s memories were eaten given that deceased person’s memories would be that Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s possession, so Subaru likely read the Book of the Dead of someone tied to Rui or the other two Sin Archbishops of Gluttony.
