Tag: Echidna

A Re:Zero theory: Echidna might actually like or love both Emilia and Satella despite seemingly hating them

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The way I interpret Re:Zero scenes is to look at the entire series holistically. Echidna notably cried during Emilia’s 2nd Sanctuary trial in Episode 47, in which Emilia was shown an unthinkable present in which Petelgeuse and Fortuna had frequently gone out together with them going on a picnic with Emilia on that particular occasion. I can’t believe that Echidna had been crying at the sight of Emilia being happy although if she hates Emilia as she claims, it’d make sense since seeing Emilia happy and strong would be infuriating. I don’t know of any woman or man who can hate someone so much that he or she would cry at the sight of her being happy, and so tonight, I’ve formulated an alternative interpretation as I can’t help but believe that something is amiss.

We know based on Petelgeuse apologizing to Flugel-sama before taking in the Sloth Witch Factor meant that Petelgeuse likely promised Flugel not to do so, and that Flugel may have had more Authority in the Witch Cult than Petelgeuse, possibly being a potential founder. Echidna also had Puck enter into a contract with her in which if he entered a contract with Emilia he would lose some of his memories, the tell being when the special font from The Frozen Bond OVA was reused in Season 2 to denote Echidna’s speech, and these two incidents show that both Flugel and Echidna possessed future knowledge and did what they did so that Petelgeuse and Puck would only take in the Sloth Witch Factor and enter a contract with Emilia when there was no other choice, which shows that they were specifically trying to steer the world to a particular future, which we know was 100% true with regards to Echidna for 400 years before the start of the story up until even the end of Season 2 and possibly beyond. Pandora also specifically said that her goal in bringing Regulus to Elior Forest had already been fulfilled, leading to her returning him home with powers, which shows that she specifically brought Regulus to the forest to force Petelgeuse to take in the Sloth Witch Factor, eventually drive him insane by having him kill Fortuna, and have Emilia freeze the whole forest.

So judging by all of this, all of Echidna, Flugel, and Pandora are trying to make a specific future happen, and I’d be surprised if there was no collaboration or knowledge of what the others are doing, which is why I have proposed that they are all on the same side. If that’s the case, perhaps the reason Echidna was crying is that she robbed Emilia of being potentially happy with Petelgeuse and Fortuna. Perhaps, they didn’t have to instigate Emilia losing everything back in the past when that event in Elior Forest happened when Echidna brought Regulus and the Black Serpent with her, and in that sense, Echidna feels guilty for what actually happened, which would be the reason for her tears.

And yes, I know the big thing I have yet to do is suggest why I believe Echidna might actually like or love Satella, and I’ll get to that eventually. We know whereas other Witches of Sin simply call Satella by her name, Echidna calls her Satella, the Witchy of Envy. We know from Seasons 1 and 3 that there is knowledge about the Witches of Win that have been lost to history with Crusch believing Satella created the White Whale when it was Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony, who was revealed to have created the Three Great Mabeasts in Season 2, and that Typhon’s name didn’t become commonplace with how nobody knew the corpse of the witch in Kararagi in Season 3 belonged to Typhon except for Al. This shows perhaps a deliberate intent to conceal or make lost to history information about the dead Witches of Sin, which is an activity Echidna deliberately partakes in as seen by how she said that Satella killed the other witches and used them for sustenance, which some critical thinking debunks since if Satella had done so there would be no corpse of Echidna at the Sanctuary. Thus, I conclude that for whatever reason, Echidna is very invested in making sure that Satella is the bogeyman for all the evils of the world, and this is likely part of her grand plan to ensure that the world, including Subaru, unites to kill Satella at the end of the story.

How does any of this show that Echidna likes or loves Satella? In Episode 49, Echidna spoke in Ryuzu Shima’s voice, saying “Unbelievable. You see this, and that’s the first thing you think of?” after the first thing that comes to Emilia’s mind is getting the original Ryuzu Meyer out of the crystal and taking her to the graveyard. How this is relevant is that Echidna has acted very clinical in how she presents herself to others, so Emilia’s words must have stirred something within her. We know that Echidna can break out of the character she plays as seen by how she said she didn’t want Subaru to think that she was the only one of the witches who was evil, leading to her taking away his qualification for entering the tomb since he was using that as a crutch instead of genuinely helping Emilia. Perhaps the reason Echidna had that thought is despite sounding/being irritated she respects and even admires Emilia’s selflessness and propensity to help others. We know that Echidna hinted that she isn’t even adverse to helping Emilia with how she revealed to Subaru that after three days of trial of error she had no hope of breaking Emilia out of her shell, which shows she tried to help Emilia pass the trial even against Subaru’s wishes since he had been determined to not let Echidna keep making Emilia cry, and that isn’t something you do for someone you actually hate even though Echidna claims that to be the case.

If Satella was a previous heroine of the story much like I have proposed in my main theory, she may have been a lot like Emilia since I expect the heroines to mostly fit the same mold even if they aren’t exactly the same person, and thus, Echidna might have also respected or admired Satella. If my theory about a group of characters from 400 years creating a grand plan to steer the world to a future in which the world is saved, breaking the cycle of the world being destroyed and reconstructed, is true, Satella might have sacrificed all of her life’s potential to help enact this plan by becoming the Witch of Envy, and Echidna might have seriously respected that decision despite the cost it would bring to Satella. If Echidna knows that Emilia is headed towards her life also being sacrificed, maybe that’s the true reason for her tears.

A Re:Zero theory: Why Subaru was summoned and Al, quite possibly the brother Subaru never knew and a previous iteration of the Hero

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I believe Subaru was summoned to bring the world to a free future and stop the cycle of the world being destroyed/reconstructed. The key is to have Subaru be born weak and improve Subaru’s self-esteem so that he isn’t conceited like past heroes.

In The Frozen Bond OVA, Melakuera, the previous Great Spirit of Fire, stated he had faced world-ending crises countless times and ranted about the Witch’s return. Some people may dismiss it as pure discrimination against Emilia ’cause of Satella and Emilia’s resemblance, but he may have physically witnessed a Witch returning repeatedly with the world burning every time.

This implies a powerful curse was casted thousands or even millions of years ago (just ’cause the world was destroyed repeatedly doesn’t mean those events weren’t part of the world’s history) in which the world is reconstructed repeatedly after its destruction from a very powerful Witch. In the distant past a yet-to-be-determined hero may have faced off against the big bad of the story, and in a moment of weakness in which the hero had to choose between the world and his lover, he chose his half-elf lover, dooming the world to destruction, and the final boss cursed the world to be extremely biased toward repeating the failure of that hero for all time.

What I mean by bias is the Seal in Elior Forest, or the equivalent of that, was probably opened during the first instance of the proto-hero of the story, and so the world’s biased towards that happening. The proto-heroine, who was probably a half-elf, most likely had the power to defeat what comes out of the Seal by becoming the Witch of Envy, after which she’d need to be put down as she’d become a world-ending threat. The world thus became biased towards repeating those events again even if the reconstructed worlds and people aren’t 1 to 1 with the original world.

In my theory, a group of characters from 400 years ago are working to push the world to one specific future in which the world is saved by forcably opening the Seal in Elior Forest on their own terms instead of one day having it be opened under unfavourable conditions if it will open no matter what. If the Seal is opened, a monstrous horde of creatures that have a passive AOE aura not even Reinhard can protect the world from may emerge, which will require Satella’s yin magic to defeat without bringing the world to ruin. Satella would return by possessing Emilia’s body before needing to be killed due to having limited bodily control. Multiple instances up until Season 2 show that characters are acting with future knowledge, and that’s why I believe this is true.

Echidna has shown she was reading ahead in her Tome of Wisdom with how she (the special font from a female in the OVA was revealed to have been the words of Echidna in Season 2) had Puck search for Emilia and have him enter a contract with her in which if he starts a contract with Emilia he’d slowly lose his memories, showing she wanted him not to do it until there was no choice, and how she turned Petra’s handkerchief into a special knife after Subaru spoke with her about Return by Death so that he could kill himself. Why would a Witch who wants unlimited knowledge be so invested in Subaru’s success when she could enter a contract with Subaru and learn about RBD, a pipe dream for someone who loves knowledge? It’s probably if a threat is approaching in the future in which the world’s end is coming, which would end her quest for knowledge.

It’s likely that it’s not just Echidna who had future knowledge but also past Subaru, Flugel, Satella, Pandora, and the other Witches too. Flugel planted what was known as Flugel’s tree centuries ago in the exact spot the Whale subjugation force needed for it to burn the trunk off to trap the White Whale underneath it, showing Flugel did that to help Subaru succeed. Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama after making the decision to take in the Sloth Witch Factor, which likely shows Flugel made him promise not to take it in so that Petelgeuse wouldn’t take it in until he had no choice like Echidna did with Puck. If most Witch Cult Gospels don’t show anything after the first loop, then it was likelly Pandora who ordered the White Whale to stop chasing Subaru in Episode 17 and blow him away with its breath, likely to give Subaru time to reach the mansion before resuming its chase ’cause Pandora might’ve been purposely trying to bring Subaru to his breaking point so that From Zero with Rem could happen. Season 2 showed that mabeasts and Daphne find Subaru to smell irresistibly delicious ’cause of his Envy Witch Factor, so the White Whale wouldn’t have left Subaru of its own accord, and since normal Witch Cultists’ Gospels’ only have info from the first loop, it had to be Pandora’s meddling.

So Subaru and Emilia may have been born and put through suffering specifically so that they could be the hero and heroine of the story in an attempt to the lead the world to a future with free choice. Even if Subaru’s self-esteem is built up properly, he’ll likely never be okay with sacrificing Emilia unless Emilia herself tells him she won’t suffer and accepts her role in the story, which is why Emilia herself needs her self-esteem to be built up in order to be the queen piece who willingly allows Satella to possess her to defeat what comes out of the Seal and be killed by Subaru. The story of Re:zero likely requires the building up of Subaru’s self-esteem and that Subaru be born with a weak body relative to those of Re:zero’s fantasy world so that he isn’t conceited and can one day put down Satella and then finally challenge and defeat the final boss.

I know people will call it a poor development for the story for it to be preordained that Emilia will die at the end, but if the world’s cursed to have the hero of the story let the world burn for his woman, then it’d really be defying fate for Subaru to kill Emilia/Satella, ending the long-standing curse.

As anime-watchers up to Season 2 know, the lore of the Witches of Sin was likely falsified. That is why Crusch wrongly believed that Satella created the White Whale when it was Daphne who did so. If you didn’t know, Subaru not only means “Pleiades” but also “unite”, and this’s likely one of the reasons why the lore was falsified, and that’s so Subaru can unite the world against Satella at the end of Re:zero.

Echidna stated in Season 2 that the Witch of Envy consumed the other Witches of Sin and used them for sustenance, but if Satella really did that, there wouldn’t be a corpse of Echidna at the Sanctuary, which means that info isn’t true. Echidna’s a calculating person. There’s no way she spread a false piece of info on a whim. Therefore, I put it out there that uniting the world against Satella isn’t the only reason the lore of the Witches of Sin was falsified. I propose a secondary reason to falsify this information would be to obscure or make lost to history what the dead Witches of Sin were capable of, and that’d be ’cause those Witches’ll be revived. Just like how Emilia’s choice to say her name is Satella was meant to scare Subaru off ’cause she didn’t want to put Subaru in danger and ’cause he was slowing her down, I believe there are two reasons why the lore of the Witches was falsified. This would explain why nobody except Al knew that Typhon was the witch who had died in Priestella.

So the hero of the story during the time of Satella and Season 2’s Witches (including Pandora but excluding Hector) might have found out about the world being biased toward repeating this failure of a long deceased hero, so they took a step to defy fate by enacting a grand plan hundreds of years in the making. The hero might’ve returned to Earth after acquiring future knowledge with his allies to inject Subaru into Re:zero’s fantasy world in the future as the hero of the story.

As we have seen in the anime, Flugel is the name of the person who planted what was known as Flugel’s tree, and the White Whale subjugation force burned part of the tree off to defeat the White Whale by trapping it underneath the tree’s trunk.

Flugel itself means wing and can also be a nickname for someone with conspicuous sleeves at a time of dress regulations. So what this points to is that Flugel is a person not from Re:zero’s fantasy world who somehow came to be there given the nickname is for someone who dresses strangely, and this suggests that Flugel is from Earth. Flugel may have been the past hero of the story who returned to Earth as part of the plan to save the world.

Assuming this is true, the only way Melakuera’s mind could’ve persisted even as the world restarted repeatedly if there is some yet-to-be-determined force saving Melakuera just as the world is about to be destroyed and summoning him into the reconstructed world, and that would be how his mind persists. I wonder who has been doing the summoning in this case.

Regardless of whether the characters in the past were tipped off by Melakuera or someone else, they probably agreed to steer the world to a future that defies the bias of the world repeating the proto-hero’s failure. The first episode of Re:Zero being titled the End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End could mean that Subaru’s summoning is the equivalent of the endgame of MCU’s cinematic universe in the battle against Thanos.

I know Emilia’s goal to reduce racial discrimination and rehabilitate the image of half-elves is a topic Tappei intends to address. And I believe there’s no better way for Emilia to show that half-elves aren’t monsters than to sacrifice herself for the world in allowing Satella to possess her body to use her combat powers against the monstrous horde from the Seal. If Subaru and those in the know do a good job of spreading the word about Emilia’s noble sacrifice, even her biggest detractors would have to take a step back and acknowledge what she did for the betterment of the world.

The reason I have predicted that a statue of Emilia would be erected at the end of the story and that people of the world would make pilgrimages to it and bow to this statue in reverence is ’cause it’s the ending that I believe most dovetails with Satella dying and Emilia still being a very respected figure. This is an ending where Subaru can still be happy about his accomplishments while not being destroyed by Emilia’s death because Tappei took care to give him achievements outside of protecting Emilia while also rehabilitating Emilia’s image.

Now I will explain how Al factors into this. 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 that in the Taurus constellation that follows the Pleiades star cluster in the night sky. In Arabic, Aldebaran means the follower for that reason. While the Arabic meanings for Petelgeuse (named after the Betelgeuse star and Batenkaitos (also named after a star) hinted at a couple of Sin Archbishop’s powers with Orion’s hand indicating that Petelguese’s power would involve hands and belly of the sea monster indicated Lye’s power would involve eating, since Aldebaran isn’t a Sin Archbishop, perhaps it would be better to consider Al’s name in relation to Subaru.

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 real story, not shit 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 undoubtedly 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.

Now I know some fans of time travel stories might be rubbed the wrong way by what I have posted, but that has never stopped me from posting something controversial. Re:zero being a logical series isn’t the only reason I believe that time is linear in this story. We as viewers know that when Subaru shows the intent to reveal anything about Return by Death that Satella drags him to a dark world where she often squeezes his heart. Given we know that what is known as Return by Death resets Subaru’s body, meaning that the soul is the seat of where memories and thoughts are held instead of the brain in Re:zero, I surmise that the reason Satella can so easily read Subaru’s mind is that that dark world is a pocket dimension located within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul, and since that would mean she is always lurking around Subaru’s soul, she can readily read his thoughts.

This could explain why Satella’s witch scent is so strong after Subaru dies, and that’s because Satella lurks within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul through that dark world. I believe that in between the time Subaru was snatched away from Earth and Al’s summoning, Satella was building this dark world for some purpose, which I believe is for her to help Subaru bring about her desired future where she is killed by him as she requested in Episode 38. Satella will one day emerge from the dark world that is within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul to possess Emilia in order to fight what comes out of the Seal in Elior Forest, and then Subaru will need to lead the force that kills her after the threat of the Seal is gone for good. There had to have been a period of time where that dark world was built after all. It wouldn’t have existed “just because”.

Thus since I’ve speculated that Al was summoned after Subaru but came to Re:Zero’s fantasy world before Subaru did, I believe Al might’ve been the immediate previous iteration of the hero of the story who chose his lover over the world, and Al’s summoning might have meant to be a trial run for Subaru’s success. It’s possible Al knew that Priestella was Typhon’s grave ’cause in his past world before he was summoned to the current world, the Witch Cult might’ve successfully extracted Typhon’s remains, leading to Priestella’s destruction. That would also be how Al knew that it’s possible that all the remaining Archbishops would be in Priestella and how Gluttony’s powers work. I believe that after the time period from 400 years ago in which Satella caused the calamity which destroyed half the world, the world is reconstructed to be right after that point after its destruction due to that group of characters’ successful intervention, which would be why Al isn’t from an alternative timeline but just the previous iteration of the world. Al would get summoned into the world Subaru is in after his world was destroyed by the same force that re-summons Melakuera repeatedly, the previous Great Spirit of Fire who seemed to have knowledge of the world facing world-ending crises countless times. Satella, Echidna, Pandora, and co. would’ve hijacked the path the world would follow by injecting Al and Subaru to be the heroes of the story, and this could be the only way to break the cycle of the world being destroyed and reconstructed.

A Re:Zero Theory – The implications of Regulus’s words in Episode 51 and Garf’s mom being alive but without memories of her past

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Regulus specifically stated in Episode 51 that fate would have him meet the Emilia camp again. This info explicitly shows that Regulus’s Gospel made him believe that they would meet again despite it taking until the 4th loop for it to actually happen. This shows, as I have long proposed elsewhere, that the Witch Cult Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path rather than being texts that give real forecasts about the future.

TL;DR: I do not believe Witch Cult Gospels or the not-quite-Tome of Wisdoms that Roswaal and Beatrice had actually truly tell the future but are merely connected to Echidna’s mind, and she can freely decide what appears on those texts.

If Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom actually told the true future, it would account for Otto’s actions. I do not buy into it being what happened in the alpha timeline or first loop as some have proposed based on Petelgeuse having no knowledge of Subaru in Episode 24 since it’s a document that updates and should be able to account for changes like that unless the source of that text didn’t want to happen. That kind of flaw literally should not exist in a document that can update itself on future happenings. I don’t consider a stretch at all that the Gospels are also Echidna’s creation given how Echidna’s Tome of Wisdom Authority was still active in Season 2 with how her Authority could reconstruct the past as well as show the future, and making something ‘inferior’ to the not-quite Tome of Wisdom would be very easy for her, especially if the common denominator of those texts is that they are linked to her mind rather than being anything particularly special. If how some people believed it worked was correct, none of Ram, Emilia, or Petra would be in Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom since they also died in a previous loop much like Otto did, so the idea that Otto wasn’t included in it ’cause he died in a previous loop is categorically false.

While there’s some mystery on where the Witch Cult Gospels came from, I believe the simplest explanation that they are Echidna’s creation is what is likely the reality of things. Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama a long time ago back when he was already a member of the Witch Cult, which suggests that Flugel may have been the original leader of the Witch Cult as Petelgeuse shouldn’t have been subservient to someone else in the cult. Maybe Echidna distributed many, many Gospels to Flugel 400 years ago, and that is how the Witch Cult was founded. She may have distributed enough Gospels for all cultists who existed at the time and would exist in the future, so there wouldn’t have been an issue with the supply of them. Pandora, if she is the current leader of the Witch Cult, probably took control once Flugel was gone.

How Garfiel’s mom’s amnesia plays into this is that the reason Garfiel stayed in the Sanctuary is ’cause he had seen that his mother’s carriage had been caught in a landslide, which was the reason he was afraid of the outside world due to a fear of death, and Garfiel’s issues forced Subaru to learn to depend on his friends to win over Garfiel so that he would be able to defeat Elsa. I believe Echidna specifically had Lye Batenkaitos eat Garf’s mom’s memories through a suggestion in Lye’s Gospel, which resulted in her current situation with her new family. I believe this was specifically done to give Garfiel more character development in the future since he will likely be a huge key piece in the story with my prediction that he will become the next Sword Saint when Reinhard is sealed.

How would Reinhard even get sealed? I believe there will be a plot to seal Subaru, and it won’t be just any seal, but a seal that if broken, results in the person who was sealed dying. Now I know what you’re thinking… Why would there would be a seal that kills the person sealed if the seal is broken when you can just kill that person? The simple answer is that everything from Seasons 1 and 2 and even hundreds of years before that was planned out in advance with Echidna having Roswaal drawn Subaru into the Emilia camp, with Pandora commanding the White Whale to leave Subaru alone so that he could make it back to Roswaal’s mansion and inadvertently kill Emilia by invoking the Taboo, leading to the From Zero moment, with Subaru being trapped with the Sanctuary and mansion dilemma that required him to sacrifice nobody to succeed and lean on his friends, which Echidna deliberately pushed him toward even if she seemed to really want Subaru to accept her contract on the surface. I’ll elaborate on all of what I just typed, but I have to finish up my point on what I believe will be a future seal on Reinhard. Therefore, there is a seal that kills the person sealed if the seal is broken because it is another plot to trap Subaru into making a very specific decision, and that would be to get Reinhard to be sealed.

If you’re not understanding what I mean, I believe there will be a plot to seal Subaru because it is meant to force Subaru to loop until he has Reinhard take one for the team and be sealed. Why would the Witch Cult come up with such a convoluted plan? That would be because I surmise that Witch Cult Gospels do not truly tell the future but are merely connected to Echidna’s mind through magic, so she can make whatever she wants to appear in any Gospel, and since Witch Cultists try to follow their Gospel exactly as shown in Episode 53, they would make such a weird seal and not question their Gospels’ instructions. Subaru having to work through issues without the incredible Reinhard would be a good way for him to build confidence in himself, and considering Subaru loving himself is one of the principal goals of the story, I believe this is a likely development.

If in every arc, there is one big choice Subaru must make (whether to abandon Emilia, Rom, and Felt, whether to take Beatrice’s offer to be sent elsewhere, abandoning the residents of the mansion and Arlam Village, whether to run away with Rem, abandoning the Emilia camp in the process, and whether to accept Echidna’s contract), there will be a time in a future arc where he has to choose between having some yet-to-be-determined character or Reinhard get sealed in Subaru’s place and one final choice he makes at the end of Re:zero where he will have to choose between Emilia and the world, which I believe was foreshadowed by the dilemma the construct of Subaru’s mom proposed to him with choosing between mayonnaise and the world having Subaru retort that only someone who hates the world would choose mayonnaise. The big choice Subaru has to make in the Priestella arc is so far unclear, but there should be one.

There is a basis to believe this in the anime when Minerva said that sometimes good things happen from Echidna’s evil plots, which shows that the dead Witches of Sin may be in on Echidna’s plans, whether they be stopping Subaru from accepting Echidna’s contract when Echidna strongly favoured Subaru rejecting her contract or other things. I believe a large group of characters from 400 years ago, including Satella, Echidna, Pandora, the dead Witches of Sin, and possibly more are trying to steer the world away from destruction with the Seal in the Elior Forest one day being open under unfavourable conditions, so they plan to forcefully open it under their own terms using Subaru and Emilia and that everything that has happened so far in Re:zero is meant to push Subaru and Emilia to that very specific future.

I believe if this Seal is opened that there will be droves and droves of creatures that cause AoE damage just from existing and that not even Reinhard can stop the world from being destroyed in this case, which would require Satella to possess Emilia since Satella’s power is necessary to counter this threat that emerges from the Seal, most likely because powerful yin magic is needed to handle said threat. I believe Satella knows full well that she needs to be put down after she takes care of the threat from the Seal, and that is part of the reason she requested that Subaru come kill her since she will not have full control of herself and because this is one of the final pieces of the plan those characters from 400 years ago came up with.

Now I’ll get to why I believe everything starting from 400 years ago and even up until this season has been planned by Echidna. Echidna most likely deliberately wanted Subaru to turn down the contract she offered to him in Season 2. And it’s specifically because her actions didn’t line up with her goal of wanting Subaru to accept her contract. Echidna let it slip in Episode 34 that she tried to vary up the trial with 3 days of trial and error for Emilia in an attempt to help Emilia pass the 1st trial, which shows she was actively trying to help Emilia succeed. She then proceeds to tell Subaru that maybe he can give the cowardly princess wings, which is basically telling Subaru that the correct course of action that will lead to him achieving his goals is to have Emilia take the trials. However, this flew over Subaru’s head, and he was determined to do the trials in Emilia’s place after that interaction. Why would Echidna do this if she wanted him to accept her contract? It makes no sense.

Another example in which I propose that Echidna’ intentions were obscured is that she said she gave Beatrice a blank book because Echidna had wanted to see who Beatrice chose. I believe Echidna fully knew that Subaru is the one who would free Beatrice and that Echidna specifically chose to tell Subaru what she did was because she wanted to seem so outrageously evil so as to deter Subaru from accepting her contract. This is backed up by Echidna saying to Subaru after he rejected her contract that she didn’t want him to think she was the only one of the Witches of Sin who is evil, which led to her revoking Subaru’s qualification for entering the tomb. Subaru was using his right to enter the tomb as a crutch at that point, and Echidna did him a major solid by taking it away so that he’d be forced to do all he could to help Emilia pass the trials. Echidna clearly knew how evil what she said about Beatrice was. Echidna’s actions do not read as somebody who wanted to force Subaru to accept her contract no matter what. The true reason Beatrice’s book was empty was probably because Echidna needed Beatrice to stay in the library in case she died or something, and since all she did was stay in the library, there was no need for further instruction. As I have indicated before, Otto not being included in Roswaal’s not-quite Tome of Wisdom, was likely intentional and was constructed this way by design as Echidna fully intended for Otto to be the key to defeating Roswaal.

Given I have proposed that most Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path instead of being true predictors of the future, that begs the question of why the White Whale let Subaru go in Episode 17. I believe that Pandora has a Gospel that also accounts for Subaru’s decision-making much like Roswaal’s not-quite Tome of Wisdom since the common denominator is that these texts are connected to Echidna’s mind. That would explain why the White Whale stopped pursuing Subaru and blew him away with its breath after pursuing him for such a long time with the intent of eating him and then likely left the area. Given that Pandora had some control over the Black Serpent in Emilia’s past during her invasion of Elior Forest with Regulus in Season 2, it is not a stretch to believe that she had similar control over the White Whale. I therefore conclude that in Episode 17, Pandora saved Subaru by ordering the White Whale to leave him alone so that he could make it back to Roswaal’s mansion since he intended to warn of the threat of the Witch Cult. Lye Batenkaitos may have called the White Whale their pet, but I don’t believe that the White Whale listened to Subaru’s words “I don’t want to die.” is the reason it let him go. The White Whale stopped in its tracks and blew Subaru away with its breath before Subaru ever said that he doesn’t want to die, which shows that the White Whale was already letting Subaru go. And considering what viewers found out in Season 2 about Daphne and her creations finding Satella and consequently, Subaru, to smell irresistibly delicious, there was no reason for the White Whale to let Subaru go unless it was ordered to.

I believe the point of that happening was to have Subaru try to tell Emilia about Return by Death so that he could indirectly cause her death when Satella would emerge from him to kill Emilia and have Puck admonish Subaru, leading to him wanting to run away with Rem, which led to the From Zero moment. I believe this loop also happened so that Subaru could one day figure out that the White Whale has a special mist that erases someone from existence, which would be something he needed to know for the White Whale fight. I believe Echidna specifically instructed Pandora through her Gospel to have the White Whale leave so that Subaru could finally make progress toward defeating Petelgeuse. I do not believe that Pandora is Subaru’s enemy but that she is merely trying to make a future she and some other characters from 400 years ago wanted to happen be realized. If my speculation is right, viewers should be thanking Pandora for allowing the From Zero moment to happen because she pushed Subaru to his breaking point by saving him from the White Whale.

Okay, so here comes the elephant in the room. Why would Echidna, who thirsts for knowledge, propose a contract with Subaru if she had no intention of forcing him to accept it even though it’d be a dream come true for her to have that contract considering she has an unsatiable desire for knowledge? I surmise that one reason was to keep Subaru in the dark about Echidna’s true role in the story. I have to go on a tangent right now before I get back to this.

Episodes 18, 25, 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella with how Puck indicated how many shadow hands Satella could generate in Episode 18 by saying Petelgeuse must summon 1,000 shadow hands, half of what Satella could in order to kill him, how Subaru used a number associated with Satella (2,000) to describe how much he loves Emilia in Episode 25, and Subaru swearing that he’d save Satella after she told him to one day come kill her, showing he randomly had a swell in positive emotions for Satella. This shows that he previously existed in Re:Zero’s fantasy world in some form, probably as Satella’s lover.

Given that we know Echidna’s Tome of Wisdom can fully reconstruct the past with her trials and show glimpses of the future after watching Season 2, it’s possible that Subaru gleaned some information about the world’s future 400 years ago through Echidna’s Authority and saw that the world was coming to an end. He could have convinced Echidna by saying that the destruction of the world will end her pursuit of knowledge to help him create a plan to avoid the world’s destruction.

Echidna would have a crucial role as the one who guided the actions of the Witch Cult and Roswaal for 400 years up to the present day with Pandora causing Emilia to freeze Elior Forest and herself and drawing Subaru into the Emilia camp. The Frozen Bond strongly indicated that the one who sent Puck to search for Emilia was no other than Echidna with the reveal in Season 2 where the same font used in the OVA was used for Echidna’s speech in that season. So Echidna knew that Emilia’s memories would be sealed by Puck, and I surmise that Echidna created the Sanctuary trials as a way for Emilia to unseal her memories, regain her memories of Pandora that were erased, to help Subaru learn to rely on his friends and also get Emilia over that hump with the trials instead of bearing the weight of everything by himself, and for Echidna to attempt to give herself time to achieve immortality. Whatever the future holds may require a strong relationship between Subaru and Emilia and needed for Emilia to be traumatized and frozen in the past so that Subaru could help her get past that when all the pieces were in the right place.

If you think Echidna wouldn’t keep tabs on the future, there is clear evidence of Echidna 100% keeping tabs on the future in the anime. She turned Subaru’s handkerchief into a special knife in anticipation of Satella engulfing Subaru in her mass of shadow for all time and made sure there was a way for him to kill himself. She also instructed Puck to find Emilia 400 years ago, and that was also likely an instance of her keeping tabs on the future. Flugel having Petelgeuse promise to not take in the Sloth Witch Factor and Echidna forcing Puck into a contract where if he enters into a contract with Emilia he’d slowly lose his memories shows that both those characters likely had kept tabs on the future to ensure that Petelgeuse and Puck wouldn’t take those actions until there was no other choice. Flugel was also the one who planted what was called Flugel’s tree, and it happened to be in the right spot for the White Whale expedition force to burn down its trunk to trap the White Whale, leading to its defeat, which shows more keeping tabs on the future.

Echidna probably has set it up so that Subaru doesn’t realize that he’s being manipulated into making specific choices, and that’s why she may have hijacked the Witch Cult since the start of its creation to develop Subaru’s character into being a proper hero with high self-esteem who won’t let the world burn over his extreme attachment to his lover. Maybe Subaru will find out about this plot towards the end, but he will need to willingly make the choice to choose to save the world over Emilia.