So it was revealed that Al killed a bunch of Witch cultists to obtain the metia from Capella’s tower. I apologize to my those reading my blog about about my conclusion from the previous episode. I had gotten tunnel vision over the watergate opening, which ended up saving Subaru from certain death, and believed that it must have been Al when it could have been any cultist who opened it if I’m right about how the Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path. This episode also had emphasis on the watergate being opened at a time that helped them, so I’m sure this will be an important plot point in the future. Al’s behavior while on call with Emilia was very interesting. Al told her that if she needed help that she can just ask for Subaru for help and that she doesn’t need to act tough, which seems as if he wants Emilia to be completely dependent on Subaru much like Roswaal had wanted to happen based on Echidna’s plan. If Al was the immediate previous hero of the story as I have speculated, he may have lost his bet to Roswaal and became focused on doing everything for his lover, never allowing her to grow. Al seemed quite taken aback by Emilia’s confidence, which shows his lover was probably more meek and relied solely on him.
While Subaru, Anastasia, and Julius had a brief talk about the broadcast metia’s ease of use, Al returned earlier than expected as Anastasia noted, which shows that they knew what he would be doing. Al had returned sooner ’cause he had a message he wanted to deliver to Subaru from Emilia. Anastasia questioned Subaru whether he believed the message since Capella can transform into people and even mimic their voices, which was unstated but must have been the case, and Subaru said that last part about Beatrice was totally in character for Emilia. Anastasia reacted well to that remark, but Al didn’t with his “hmph”, which made me think that Al had accepted Echidna’s contract since the only other person we know that dislikes Emilia’s selflessness that much is Echidna herself in Episode 49 when she broke her ruse in Ryuzu Shima’s body to speak with her own voice out of irritation when Emilia suggested that they all take the original Ryuzu Meyer back to the graveyard, the moment which showed that Echidna had successfully revived herself. This shows that Al in time took on some of Echidna’s dislikes with how Echidna hated Emilia’s selflessness even if the object of Al’s affection when he was the hero of the story was someone else if it was a different heroine that fits the same mold as Emilia and Satella. Subaru indicated that that’s what makes him want to believe in Emilia but that he just hopes that she isn’t being too reckless, which Al agrees with strongly, likely ’cause he had become someone who focused exclusively on one person when he was the hero as Roswaal had intended and projected his past situation onto the current situation given the heroine when he was the hero was probably similar to Emilia in some ways if most of the heroines fit most of the same mold given what we’ve seen from Emilia and also Satella when she was in the Dream Castle.
Wife Number 184 then caught Emilia coming back and dematerializing her ice stand-in, and she remarked that she was surprised that Emilia came back. She had hoped that Emilia would run away ’cause she had mustered up the courage to defy Regulus in what she believed were her final moments. Of course Emilia would never have done that since she cares deeply about others and didn’t want to create trouble for her and the other wives.
Back to Subaru and the group, Subaru answers that the metia will be the key to taking back the city after Al inquires what the group here is doing and what is the huge metia there, and it’s a quintessential Subaru plan. There’s a lot of talk about how Sirius’s Authority of Wrath affects the citizens and how evil it is, which leads to Garfiel asking Subaru what his plan is, which Subaru and Julius responded to by saying that since the Authority of Wrath amplifies the anxieties of people in the city that were caused by Capella’s malicious broadcast they need to spread a message of hope to counter that. Garfiel believes they need to use this plan ASAP, and Anastasia interjects by saying that the Witch Cult might not close the watergate this time if they do that. They had determined that it was the First District’s watergate and that Capella had not been in it when the watergate opened due to Emilia’s info, so why did it open up as if to help them escape and then close right away? Subaru remarks that the Witch Cult can be inconsistent, but there must be some rules, and I maintain that the only rule is to adhere to their Gospels as Regulus and Sirius had done in Episode 53. If the whole point of the Gospels is to keep the world on a particular path as I have long speculated, the watergate was opened primarily to save Subaru and prevent him from dying by falling onto pavement. They speculated about why they left the metia intact, and Al interjects by saying that the cult doesn’t care what is that they do ’cause they’ve never lost. As he put it succinctly, “What dragon would care what the ants at its feet are planning?”
Anastasia then notes that she’s on board with the plan and that the only question is who will do it. Subaru brings up and tries to volunteer a whole lot of people, and all his suggestions get turned down until Garfiel brings up that Subaru himself should do that since he’s the only one here who has directly defeated a Sin Archbishop and beaten the Witch Cult, and to this city, there’s probably nothing more important than that. Everyone aside from Al gives Subaru encouragement, saying that if Subaru has doubts he shouldn’t do it. After Al asked if the guy standing there really that great to the crowd, Garfiel got pissed, and Al responded by saying if taking everything upon himself somehow makes everything work out, then yeah, he’s great, but the majority of ordinary folks can’t handle that burden. He says he’s sure he can’t, and he knows Garf can’t either, so he questions why Subaru has to do it at all and that he feels sorry for him, and it might be ’cause Al was speaking from experience due to having been defeated by Roswaal. Al then asks Subaru if that little lady more important to him than anything else, regarding Emilia. Al says he everything he does is for his princess, and that it’s why he’s happy to put off everything else, which is eerily similar to how Roswaal wanted Subaru to be. He suggests that Subaru should do the same, which is focus on saving Emilia ’cause Witch cultists are just passing evildoers and that nothing good can come from getting involved with them.
Continuing on with the context gleaned from Re:Zero Season 3 Breaktime Episodes 5 and 6 with the confirmation that Al was also summoned and likely specifically from Japan, Subaru then responds that if a kid jumped out into the street at a red light he’d grab the kid’s hand and pull them back to the sidewalk without thinking about why, and that’s what the situation’s like, and Al responds that if he does that, the only thing he’ll be carrying is heroic delusions with losing being unacceptable and that he must win since he’d carry people’s hopes, shoulder their expectations, and fight for the future. Subaru replies that isn’t losing always unacceptable, to which Al responds that it carries a different weight ’cause his losses won’t be his own anymore. Subaru thinks back to a lot of moments and says that it’s just business as usual. Subaru gets more encouragement and when he makes a self-deprecating quip to Julius, Julius indicates that he’ll be completely respectful the whole time, which grosses Subaru out since he still bears a lot of resentment to Julius, and I hope he gets over that one day. Subaru then thanked Al for helping him make his decision, and Al kind of sulks and picks a spot far off where the others aren’t to sit as Subaru prepares to make his speech.
It then switches back to Emilia and Wife Number 184, who indicated that she hoped Emilia didn’t return so that Regulus would’ve killed her and that now everything will remain the same. Emilia tells that if she was able to back up, she should try again and that she herself has never given up. Wife Number 184 tells Emilia that she is free to insist she will never give up but that she herself will never be tempted again with the other wives being in agreement with that. She revealed that she was a simple girl living in a small village and that to make her his wife, Regulus killed everybody who knew her and that the same thing happened to all his other wives.
Subaru then begun his speech much like how someone would test a mic back on Earth. He said he apologized for startling the citizens, but he just wanted to get it across that he is not with the Witch Cult. The people in the shelters had gotten their hopes up that the Witch Cult had been run out, but Subaru indicated that the threat from the Witch Cult had not yet ended as they took back the government office but still hadn’t regained control of the control towers. He wanted to level with them that the city can still be flooded and that the cult’s demands are still very real. Subaru then said he’s sure they’re all really anxious and him doing a broadcast that got their hopes up probably got some of them thinking, “Who does he think he is?” It showed what a lot of characters were up to, including that Heinkel had knocked out one of three thugs from Season 1 with an alcoholic beverage bottle and unbound himself. Subaru says that like everyone else he is at the mercy of what is going on here. He feels that the unfairness of it is crushing him and shares that he’s really scared, and that’s just who he is. As such, he feels he’s in no position to be calling out to them like this and that he thinks there were better people for the job. He says a lot of people a lot more amazing than he is insisted that he should do it and that it would have more meaning that way. He says a lot of self-deprecating things, which leads to the citizens being downcast, and then says that he can’t run, and that’s why he fights. Subaru says a lot of things that show his concerns for them, and he urges them to not end up alone even if it’s a selfish thing to ask, and they don’t understand the request. He says when they’re alone that their heads just fills with senseless thoughts and that he’s speaking from experience. He encourages them to look at the face of someone around them. He says a lot of things about what motivates him and indicates that he wants the citizens to stop casting their gazes downward ’cause staring at their feet all the time won’t change anything and that making eye contact with people who share the same anxieties they do and who don’t want to lose will make them stronger due to him believing that’s the way to overcome Sirius’s Authority. He wants them to all believe in each other ’cause if they do he can fight with all his heart, which lifted their spirits. It’s a very powerful speech to uplift people, and Tappei does seem to get what moves people.
Back to Emilia and Wife Number 184, Emilia reveals that the one who was speaking was her knight to Wife Number 184 when prompted and says that he’s someone who always tries really hard. Emilia says that she won’t run and leave the rest of the wives. When Wife Number 184 presses Emilia on why she’d do that for them, Emilia indicates it’s ’cause she knew she was scared but still helped her when Regulus pressed Emilia on why she had such a bitter look on her face, which was also unstated and another moment Tappei expects viewers to remember the details from previous episodes. Emilia wants them all to be happy due to her belief that marriage should be with the one you love so that you can be happy. She knew that Fortuna and Petelgeuse loved each other and couldn’t get married and that it still hurts to think about them and indicated she’d never want to be in a relationship in which she was married but unhappy. Wife Number 184 says that’s an admirable thought, but if she’s going to act, she should act alone, and Emilia says she’s not alone and says let’s do the wedding. Emilia indicated that she almost made a mistake, likely ’cause she had intended to save all the wives by herself instead of working to encouraging them to help themselves.
Subaru is then embarrassed but got a lot of kudos for his speech, and they say that they have to conquer all four control towers at once. Otto then shows up and reveals that he managed to make it back despite some things having happened and that he brought Reinhard with him, and we get the title of the episode, which is “The Newest of Heroes, and the Most Ancient of Heroes.” On the surface, it may seem like the title is mainly about the original Sword Saint, who was an ancient hero, and consequently Reinhard as the current Sword Saint, but I believe the title also refers to Al. Al was also much more prominent in the episode than Reinhard was with how he tried to talk down Subaru from being the hero and focusing on Emilia, and that may be a hint to the sort of path Al previously took when he was the Hero of the story. One meaning of “ancient” is “bygone”, and if Al was from a bygone world, that would also mean he is an ancient hero even if he weren’t that old himself. I believe the title also refers to the group of characters from 400 years ago in my theory, such as Satella, Echidna, Pandora, Flugel, Subaru from 400 years ago, and others as well since they were heroes for enacting the grand plan for a good future.
I believe Subaru was summoned to bring the world to a free future and stop the cycle of the world being destroyed/reconstructed from the curse of the selfish hero who lets the world burn in an attempt to save his love, which has led to countless iterations of the same type of story happening with a different hero and heroine every time. The key is to have Subaru be born weak and improve Subaru’s self-esteem so that he isn’t conceited like past heroes and also to develop Emilia to be someone whose wishes Subaru will not dare trample over.
The time period from 400 years ago in which Satella, Echidna, Pandora, Flugel, Subaru, and others existed may have been the first time in the world’s history that the world didn’t come to an end and be reconstructed, and it’s most likely due to a grand plan that was formed in that time period. I believe Satella may have willingly become the Witch of Envy to destroy half the world, becoming the bogeyman of all the world’s evils in the process with the help of those other characters, in particular, Echidna and Pandora, in order to ensure that the possibility to unite the world against the Witch of Envy exists in the future to reduce the odds off the Hero of the story going against the plan.
Whatever the situation was at the time, since I’ve speculated that Al was summoned after Subaru but came to Re:Zero’s fantasy world before Subaru did, I believe Al was the immediate previous iteration of the Hero of the story who chose his lover over the world, dooming it to destruction, and that yet-to-be-determined force that constantly re-summoned Melakuera into reconstructed worlds re-summoned Al into the newly constructed world (Subaru’s world) after Al’s world came to an end.
I believe that in the age of Satella after she caused the calamity, she caused enough of a divergence from the story that whenever the world is reconstructed after its destruction it is reconstructed to the point right after she caused the calamity as a self-preservation mechanism from the world, so Al would also have been frozen in time in some place (perhaps the dark world Subaru is pulled to when he tries to reveal the Taboo) for hundreds of years much like I propose Subaru was before Al was re-summoned 18 years before Subaru’s arrival in Lugunica.
Al probably loved a different silver-haired half-elf in his iteration of the world, who may or may not have looked exactly like Satella and Emilia, and for whatever reason, he ended up being one of the failed heroes. Episode 57 suggests that Al may have lost his bet against Roswaal in the Sanctuary arc and accepted Echidna’s contract with how he was beseeching Emilia to ask for help from Natsuki Subaru and that she doesn’t have to act so tough, which is strikingly similar to Roswaal’s vision in Arc 4 to have Emilia be completely and utterly dependent on Subaru, and thus, Subaru may be the successful hero in the end whereas Al was a failure.
Maybe Al being a failure is exactly why Echidna is even playing along with the grand plan despite her desire for endless knowledge. Echidna may have deliberately pushed Subaru to reject her contract ’cause she had already seen through her Tome of Wisdom and saw Al’s playthrough as the Hero since the Tome of Wisdom can likely see all of the world’s history given how it could fully reconstruct the past and show glimpses of the future. This episode did strongly hint that Al entered a contract with Echidna with his implied dislike of Emilia’s selflessness that Echidna also had.
Thus, the title of the episode would refer to Subaru, the newest of heroes, and the most ancient of heroes, being the Sword Saint, both the original from 400 years ago and the current one Reinhard, Al, and many characters from 400 years ago with Echidna being the most important of them given the hint that Al accepted Echidna’s contract.