As the title indicates, I don’t believe that Subaru can have both his name and memories eaten like Rem or the three Lye had eaten in Ep. 66 of Re:Zero, and Subaru potentially not being able to experience this doesn’t disprove my previous speculation about him not having immunities to Authorities.
Given Melakuera likely didn’t exist at the start of the time if Re:Zero’s fantasy world had ever been molten as lesser spirits take time to become Great Spirits, his words indicated that the world is constantly getting destroyed, and given Melakuera has retained his memories, it’s likely not an infinite loop as at least one entity is being re-summoned into the next iteration of the world with his memories, and that’s how I formed this theory.
In the distant past the final boss could very well have used his/her Authority to bias the story path of the world after the handsome, conceited, and overpowered hero of that era chose his lover over the world, and since then all iterations of the Hero of the story had to fit that mold of handsome, conceited, and overpowered until Flügel, Satella, and Echidna interrupted the story path of the world being destroyed for that iteration of the world/story to make artificial Heroes of the story in Al and Subaru. That would be why Flugel was such a bastard ’cause the final boss’s Authority forced him into that mold I mentioned, assuming my theory is sound.
I don’t believe Subaru is fully Flügel but moreso half of Flügel in the past given Naoko in Subaru’s first Sanctuary trial said that all Subaru needs to do is become half as cool as his dad, which is a strange thing to say to your son you know has an inferiority complexity centered around his dad, especially since he’s her husband, and thus, Naoko’s remark could have been foreshadowing of the situation from 400 years ago given Kenichi means “wise man”, Subaru called Flügel a wise man who lived centuries ago in Episode 16, and Shaula called her master, Flügel the Wise Man in Episode 70.
While Flügel was the Hero of the story, his soul may have been indivisible since the story required for the Hero to make it to the end and repeat the cycle since dying due to soul eradication wouldn’t be permitted, meaning he couldn’t split Subaru from himself then, but after returning to Earth and losing his Hero designation, he should freely be able to do that using whatever tool Echidna used to cut her soul off as part of her immortality experiment since he wouldn’t have that privilege he previously had as he’d lost his Hero designation.
Thus, Subaru likely cannot have both his name and memories eaten since it’s basically akin to your soul being eaten with your existence erased from the world, and as the current Hero of the story, his soul should be indivisible, meaning Subaru can only have either his name or memories eaten, not both, due to his unique privilege as the Hero of the story, not some innate immunity to the Authority of Gluttony.
I believe Episode 74 shows may show the limits of the Authority of Gluttony’s ability to erase memories since amnesiac Subaru perhaps still having subconscious memories of Reid, given the words Reid said in the last two images may have been meant to highlight just how strange it was that he went to a higher floor, and particularly to him, even though he was told that the group was more interested in going to the higher floors ’cause they wanted to find out what happened to him and pass the exams so that they could leave, suggests something’s up.
First, I need to go over certain content I have before to ensure this theory makes sense. As shown by Ep. 69, Subaru may have chosen the path on the right since much of Freud’s work involved one acting on hunches and subconscious thoughts. The girls thought that the doors were meant to keep out mabeasts due to Patrasche’s irritability, but given the increasing levels of miasma, that path most likely lead to Satella since someone with a Witch Factor would emit the extremely high amount of miasma that could be found at the end of the tunnel given we know Satella’s sealed somewhere in the Auguria Dunes.
Given Subaru was requested by Satella to kill her some day after he comes to love himself, it may have been a promise he made to her 400 years ago. And whether he wanted to kill Satella or save her, he subconsciously realized she was at the end of the tunnel, and that’s why he chose the path on the right.
Where I’m going with this is that I’ve extrapolated the Freud content from Subaru in Eps. 69-70 to show that Subaru wasn’t crazy or stupid to think he’d Returned By Death at the start of the episode when he woke up on Emilia’s lap given he woke up in a new place, and it was ’cause he subconsciously realized that he’d been to the dark world, and since most of the situations Subaru finds himself in the dark world are after he dies, he instinctively thought that he’d died, not ’cause he has no brain or is a super irrational person, but ’cause he subconsciously linked dying with going to the dark world.
As such, I theorize Subaru thinking of Reid despite it having been explained earlier in the episode that Reid died of old age years ago is also ’cause subconsciously he knows what’s in the tower much like he knew the path to the right in the cave/tunnel led to Satella, and he knows there’s probably a Reid on one of the higher floors, and that’s why Subaru thought about Reid in the moment Shaula said she gives no thought to who she’s killed, not ’cause he can’t remember basic details, but since he’s letting his subconscious thoughts and hunches drive him.
Previously, I suspected that the Authority of Gluttony erases memories from the world you’re currently in, which is why Subaru’s memories of Earth have been retained with Subaru’s memories of Earth likely being erased if his memories had been eaten on Earth, but this current situation with Subaru perhaps having subconscious memories of Reid could show that the Authority of Gluttony cannot erase memories of Reid from 400 years ’cause they are considered from a different world entirely, possibly due to the power of the Authority of the final boss of Re:Zero, who I believe has the power to bias the story path to his/her liking with the story of whoever the Hero of the story is at the time considered a different world entirely from the Hero who came before and the Hero who came after and so on. I believe the true final boss is a man/woman with an Authority that biases the story path based on actions that had happened in the past.
To rehash something I need to get across, I don’t believe Subaru is fully Flügel but moreso half of Flügel in the past given Naoko in Subaru’s first Sanctuary trial said that all Subaru needs to do is become half as cool as his dad, which is a strange thing to say to your son you know has an inferiority complexity centered around his dad, especially since he’s your gigachad husband, and thus, Naoko’s remark could have been foreshadowing of the situation from 400 years ago given Kenichi means “wise man”, Subaru called Flügel a wise man who lived centuries ago in Episode 16, and Shaula called her master, Flügel the Wise Man in Episode 70, which are three elements that may be pointing to the same thing given how often Re:Zero makes use of the number three.
I believe “The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End” could actually be referring to Subaru’s summoning being the endgame scenario, much like the MCU’s Endgame after Thanos did his snap, meaning a whole shitload of planning happened before that. I believe Echidna, Satella, Flügel, (Kenichi and Subaru in the same body) and potentially others, such as Reid, started a grand plan 400 years ago to make Subaru the Hero of the story in the story who would break the trap the world is currently bound by.
It’s possible Subaru was built up the way he was to end the cycle of the world being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed that was alluded to by Melakuera in his remarks about the Witch and the world imbalance and how he’d faced world-ending crises countless times. Given Melakuera likely didn’t exist at the start of the time if Re:Zero’s fantasy world had ever been molten as lesser spirits take time to become Great Spirits, his words indicated that the world is constantly getting destroyed, and given Melakuera has retained his memories, it’s likely not an infinite loop as at least one entity is being re-summoned into the next iteration of the world with his memories, and that’s how I formed this theory.
In the distant past the final boss could very well have used his/her Authority to bias the story path of the world after the handsome, conceited, and overpowered hero of that era chose his lover over the world, and since then all iterations of the Hero of the story had to fit that mold of handsome, conceited, and overpowered until Flügel, Satella, and Echidna interrupted the story path of the world being destroyed for that iteration of the world/story to make artificial Heroes of the story in Al and Subaru. That would be why Flugel was such a bastard ’cause the final boss’s Authority forced him into that mold I mentioned.
And thus, since Reid was from the era when Flügel may have been the Hero of the story four hundred years ago, which would be considered a different world due to the Authority that biases the story path that I posit exists, meaning memories from the time period of the story of Flügel cannot be erased even though the world wasn’t destroyed in that era due to the current world setting being the story of Subaru, the current Hero of the story, which could perhaps point to the absolute limits of the Authority of Gluttony in only being able to erase memories that came after Flügel’s time as the Hero of the story, aka the current story. I don’t know how Al’s time in this world plays into it, but we’ll see in the future, I guess.
As for why I believe Subaru doesn’t have resistances to Authorities like I had believed in the past, first up will be Subaru’s interaction with Sirius’s Authority of Wrath. Subaru was always shown falling for Sirius’s Authority. It may have taken longer in subsequent loops, but it always happened, and that suggests it’s just ’cause he learned what exactly it did to try to keep him himself in the right state of mind to delay falling under Sirius’s control. Others were also able to resist the effect of this Authority, like with Priscilla, who’d closed her heart to an extent due to a past incident, and Liliana, whose singing could counter it and who was focused on doing her duty to save those under Sirius’s control, which Priscilla worked to make her feel passionate about, including kissing her when she momentarily fell under Sirius’s control herself.
Next up is Subaru’s interaction with Capella’s Authority of Lust. Given that Capella’s blood transforms others if they are defeated by its curse and that she can transform herself, her blood itself may be tied to her Authority of Lust. Thus, I believe Subaru handling Capella’s dragon’s blood way better than Crusch did can be explained by how that blood essentially contains a curse, and since Subaru was already filled with dormant Ulgarm curses which never activated due to Roswaal and Rem slaughtering all those that cursed him, they acted to counteract that black dragon curse.
Episode 56 (Season 3 Episode 6) depicted the Ulgarm curses battling the black dragon curse, and they seemed to reach a harmony of sorts, which is why instead of Subaru getting transformed into something else entirely, the parts of his body affected by the black dragon curse heal when damaged, making it kind of a hybrid state in that his body tries to return to its previous human shape, but due to the black dragon curse, it regrows into the mutated state. So it wouldn’t be that Subaru has a resistance to this Authority but that extraneous factors manifested in him seemingly manifesting a resistance to it.
On the platter next is that many fans have long wondered why Subaru could see Petelgeuse’s Authority of Sloth: Unseen Hand when nobody else could after he’d died after seeing it once. Perhaps this is due to Petelgeuse having licked Subaru’s eye in Ep. 15, and when this happened, part of Petelgeuse’s soul entered Subaru or maybe he was already preparing Subaru as a Finger like he’d done with his one hundred minions in Season 1, and that carried over when Subaru looped, which is how Petelgeuse was able to possess Subaru easily in Ep. 18 after Puck destroyed his main body, laughing until Subaru reset, and again possess him in Ep. 23. So it may not be Subaru having a resistance to his Authority but also externals factors that contributed to Subaru having an advantage against Petelgeuse.
As for Subaru remembering Gluttony victims who’ve had their names eaten, I believe Foxidna also remembers Julius too even if that’s a controversial take. It could just be Subaru being Subaru with his having resistances to Authorities, but Foxidna in Season 4 with how she thought that there’s more to it than that on Reinhard and Felix being friends to Julius in Ep. 67, how her gaze was directed at Julius along with her look of discomfort in Ep. 70 when Shaula was shattering Julius’s fantasy of Reid Astrea being a man of exemplary character ’cause of his sword skills whereas nobody else paid him any heed, suggesting that she knew that Reid had been his idol from his childhood whom he looked up to, indicating a closeness to Julius the others this arc don’t have, and in Ep. 72 when I believe she spammed Jiwald to direct Subaru’s thoughts to be primarily focused on Julius to avoid one of the bad futures in Emilia’s third Sanctuary trial.
Thus, I believe Foxidna herself remembers Julius, either due to having a Witch Factor or witch miasma, which are the common denominators between the original Echidna and Subaru, that they were both hosts of Witch Factors. Echidna may have split her soul into Foxidna 400 years ago, which would make Foxidna speaking with Echidna’s speech pattern in Episode 67 and Break Time Season 4 Episode 8 make sense.
Of course, with Regulus having died without using his Authority on Subaru, we’ll never know whether he can speed up Subaru to into a fast projectile as that might’ve been the best way to find out if Subaru had a resistance to his Authority, but I conclude with the use cases we have currently that, no, Subaru doesn’t have a resistance to other people’s Authorities, and every instance that seems to be an innate resistance can be chalked up to being due to something else.
After Shaula explained the rules of the Pleiades Watchtower, she said, “Also, as long as none of those rules are broken, my body belongs to me! Oops! I mean it belongs to my master!” And given Shaula was blushing the entire time, I take it to mean she was intimate with Flügel and that it wasn’t entirely referring to her becoming a killing machine that loses her own will.
Shaula explaining that Reid used to grope her boobs as she bounces on Subaru’s stomach is a very strange soothing motion, especially for someone who was a victim of sexual assault and in the midst of remembering having been assaulted, making me believe there was something more to her relationship with Flügel given the choice of what she did.
Then there’s her saying that she’ll become Emilia’s apprentice to win Master’s heart through his stomach and make him say, “I’m not letting you sleep tonight.” And the implications of that are that Flügel and Shaula were potentially more than just master and apprentice in my opinion and that she wanted a relationship moreso like what she previously had with Flügel.
Additionally, I believe Shaula saying that she’d become “the half-witch’s apprentice” to win over Master’s heart shows that she at least knew Satella in the past and drew a parallel between Satella and Emilia in that both of them may have had her master’s affection 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. I don’t know if this makes sense to others, but it does to me.
As for Satella, 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 shadows if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (two thousand), how Subaru used a number associated with Satella (two thousand) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in 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 commenting on why he chose two thousand, and how Subaru suddenly had an upwelling of positive emotion for Satella in Ep. 38 that led to him saying he’d save Satella after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows Subaru and Satella may have had a past history together as lovers given just moments ago, 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 calling Emilia “the half-witch” in Ep. 73 shows she knew that Satella was a witch, so they came from the same time period. While I don’t believe Subaru is fully Flügel and moreso half of Flügel given Naoko in Subaru’s first Sanctuary trial said that all Subaru needs to do is become half as cool as his dad, which is a strange thing to say to your son you know has an inferiority complexity centered around his dad, especially since he’s her husband, and thus, it could be foreshadowing of the situation from four hundred years ago given Kenichi means “wise man”, Subaru called Flügel a wise man who lived centuries ago, and Shaula called her master, Flügel the Wise Man.
Thus, I believe Flügel may have had multiple partners with both Satella and Shaula at minimum, and he may not have even been limited to them given Shaula indicated that Flügel isn’t exactly the most kind and big-hearted person around in Ep. 71 since she apparently gets extremely itchy when she tells a very blatant lie and given she praised Subaru making a false accusation as something expected of her master, showing Flügel was a man of questionable character overall. Flügel may have been conceited on some level in the past due to having been handsome and overpowered despite all he did for Satella.
One final note I had on Episode 70 itself is that when Shaula said, “Again?”, in reference to her master forgetting many things once more, that may have been the single most suspicious line in the entire anime as there are a number possibilities for what it means, the first of them being that if Al was split from Kenichi’s soul, he may also have the same scent as Subaru, meaning Al may have reached the Pleiades Watchtower within the last nineteen years he had been summoned to this current fantasy world. As for the implications of Shaula having previously met Al before, there are four things that come to mind:
Shaula has Alzheimer’s disease after having lived for so long, meaning it slipped her mind that Al, who she would’ve recognized as her master, had visited her within the last twenty years, which is plausible given she remembered her master forgetting many things, and if Al was in a similar position as Subaru, this would make a lot of sense since he wouldn’t have recognized himself as Flügel. Based on the allusion to Atlas, this thematically makes sense for consideration.
Shaula has a secret oath with Al that she made sometime between the last nineteen years he arrived in the current fantasy world and now, and Shaula is deliberately withholding info from Subaru’s group, and Al was the one who ordered Shaula to shoot anyone who approaches the Pleiades Watchtower as he’s getting instruction from the copy of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom I believe he may possess, which means this was a part of the plan from Echidna and the heroes from four hundred years ago. It could still make thematic sense with the allusion to Atlas since Shaula still forgot that Reid was a human.
Al visited the Pleiades Watchtower when he was the Hero of the story in the immediate previous iteration of Re:Zero’s fantasy world before Subaru became the current Hero of the story. In this scenario, Shaula would’ve recognized Al as her master, and then after this iteration of the world was destroyed, Shaula was re-summoned into the next iteration of the world in which Al would eventually be re-summoned into that Subaru would eventually be brought to Lugunica in in which I believe that Subaru had been frozen in suspended animation in Flügel’s tree for hundreds of years, so Shaula’s memories are jumbled up or potentially have been modified to an extent with Shaula saying, “Again? in reference to her master not having her many memories being her subconsciously remembering her time from when Al was the Hero of the story in the previous iteration of the world before the current world. Thematically, this still fits since it’d show that the passage of time has really done a number on Shaula, making the allusion to Atlas fitting. As for Shaula being re-summoned into the world, it’s 100% possible since Melakuera referenced himself facing world-ending crises countless times, which shows he remembers himself being re-summoned into the world after it is destroyed repeatedly by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed.
Al visited the Pleiades Watchtower both when was the Hero of the story and during the years between he was summoned into the current world and Season 4 with an oath or straight up memory modification being responsible for Shaula saying that she had been waiting for four hundred years.
But Shaula having referenced her master forgetting many things again could also involve different scenarios including the original Flügel, who I believe was originally both Kenichi and Subaru, and even Kenichi himself after having split Subaru away from his soul, and I can think of two possibilities for such situations:
Flügel, who I believe was originally Kenichi and Subaru, literally lost many memories himself, possibly ’cause something happened, whether it was someone in the tower that caused it or something that occurred during his time as the hero. Thus, that time from four hundred years ago would be the true context for Shaula saying, “Again?” to her master forgetting his memories again. This isn’t thematically in line with the allusion to Atlas as if Shaula was referring to a moment four hundred years ago, she would’ve been thinking hard of other characters who were alive at the time, such as Reid, meaning it could’ve been a simple slip of the tongue ’cause of her reminiscing of the past for a moment, and this is the possibility I’m least in favour of since it contradicts what I believe is an allusion to Atlas given the Sigmund Freud reference in Episode 69 since Freud is known for emphasizing subconscious thoughts, hunches, and slips of the tongue, and given Subaru also showed signs of acting on two subconscious thoughts in Episode 70, Shaula may have acted on a subconscious thought, resulting in her having a slip of the tongue, to make the episode have three moments of acting on subconscious thoughts given how important the number three is in Re:Zero.
Kenichi, after having split Subaru from his soul when he returned to Earth to set up Subaru and Al as future Heroes of the story, may have returned to Re:Zero’s fantasy world at one point using his super Authority to fly through dimensions and visited the Pleiades Watchtower, and he lost his memories ’cause he was no longer the Hero of the story as that would’ve been Al or Subaru, meaning there was a drawback to what would usually be a drawback-less super Authority. In this scenario, Shaula would’ve been referring to her master forgetting many things “again?” ’cause of that moment, and whether Kenichi returned before Al’s time as the Hero in a previous iteration of the world, before Al became the Hero in the iteration of the world after that while Subaru was frozen in suspended in animation in Flügel’s tree, during Al’s time as the Hero in that same iteration of the world in which Subaru had been in suspended in animation up until that iteration of the world was destroyed, or in between Al’s time in the current world up until Season 4, which could’ve been an indication of Shaula having become senile, having been re-summoned into the world with her memories in a mess or modified in some way, having been sworn to silence by an oath with Kenichi she can’t divulge, and it could be thematically relevant to the allusion to Atlas depending on what the actual scenario is, which I don’t hazard to guess what it exactly is.
Flügel lost his memories for some reason 400 years ago, and then after he returned to Earth to split his soul and make Subaru and Al heroes, Kenichi also returned returned to the fantasy world and lost his memories with an oath or straight up memory modification being the reason Shaula said that she’d been waiting for four hundred years.
In actuality, there are still three more distinct possibilities I can think of with variable expressions of them since Flügel having forgotten in the past doesn’t necessarily mean that Al never went to the Pleiades Watchtower, so here’s what I can think of:
There’s the scenario of Flügel having lost his memories for some reason that I had previously mentioned along with any of the four distinct Al possibilities I had mentioned came after that with memory modification being possible for all of them.
Kenichi, having returned to Earth and lost his Hero designation of the fantasy world, created his two sons to be future Heroes of the story, and then due to any variable expression of what I had mentioned before, returned to Pleiades Watchtower with no memories, and then any of the four distinct Al possibilities I had mentioned came after that with memory modification being possible for all of them.
Flügel lost his memories for some reason 400 years ago, and then after he returned to Earth to split his soul and make Subaru and Al heroes, Kenichi also returned returned to the fantasy world and lost his memories with any of the four Al possibilities being on the table with an oath or memory modification being the reason Shaula said that she’d been waiting for four hundred years.
I’m serious when I talk about just how suspicious this line is as based on current content it’s impossible to know what it really could be even if I have narrowed it to down to roughly ten possibilities, the last three of which could manifest in several different ways.
