Tag: Re:Zero Season 2

A Re:Zero Theory: The Divine Dragon is on the side of multiple characters from 400 years ago, which includes Satella, Flugel, and Echidna

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We’ve seen repeatedly through Re:Zero that many characters are acting with future knowledge or at least what they think is future knowledge, such as Satella with her setting Subaru’s savepoints, especially in light of Episode 13’s savepoint, which had extremely intentional timing, Roswaal with his not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, Echidna with her real Tome of Wisdom given how she set up Puck perfectly to be Emilia’s protector all while having lost his memories so that he wouldn’t recognize Roswaal as being the one he knew 400 years ago, which was crucial to the story in many ways, Petelgeuse having been implied to have promised Flugel not to take in the Sloth Witch Factor only to break that promise to protect the love of his life and Emilia, paralleling how Echidna deterred Puck from entering a contract with Emilia until there was no other choice, and with Witch cultists and their Gospels. The central question is what is the purpose for all of these characters having the knowledge they do or think they do?

Why I believe some of these texts, such as Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and Witch cultists’ Gospels, only delude their holders into thinking they provide actual future knowledge is due to the end result of some of the actions taken in the story so far, current up until the end of Season 3. We know Roswaal’s goal was to resurrect his dear teacher, Echidna, but I question whether the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom really was supposed to help him achieve that given the absence of Otto from its pages as a true future-telling text shouldn’t have that problem and should be able to account for everyone in the world, meaning Otto was excluded ’cause the source of the knowledge intended for that to happen. We know the tea party Echidna still had her Authority: Tome of Wisdom given her Sanctuary trials could fully replicate the past and show glimpses of possible futures, showing it truly was an extremely powerful Authority that could read the history of the world, so the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, if it really was based on the genuine article, shouldn’t have a problem with missing all the actions of a particular individual from its predictions, so that suggests Roswaal was basically strung along by a book to set up the story of Re:Zero with Subaru meeting Emilia and saving her and leading him down the path that he took to defeat Petelgeuse and sacrifice nobody in the Sanctuary Arc and allowing the tea party Echidna to revive herself given she spoke in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 48. Thus, perhaps the source of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom’s knowledge is Echidna herself with her Authority, and she just makes whatever she wants to appear in the text due to a connection to her mind with her Authority’s guidance. I’ll delve more into why this may be important after the next item on the agenda, which is the Witch Cult Gospels, the apparently defective copies of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom..

I’ve always found the Witch Cult Gospels to be suspicious given how apparently no one can read them aside from the holder of an individual Gospel, which, on the surface, could be a good way of preventing any faction opposing the Witch Cult from learning about how the cult works, but based on what I observed of Season 3, I believe Gospels aren’t even intended to bring their holders to their desired future, much as is the case I proposed with the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom. I challenge you to think about a very important detail from Season 3 in that Regulus Corneas said in Episode 3 that Subaru should thank him for adhering to his Gospel when he only did heavy damage to Subaru’s leg and nothing else. If the Gospels are meant to bring their holders to their desired future, which in this case was Regulus making Emilia his wife, there shouldn’t be an order to limit casualties as that does nothing but play into Subaru’s hands. Since Subaru and the crowd was under the effect of Sirius’s Authority, everyone connected to Sirius took the same damage to their legs that Subaru received, forcing Beatrice to expend all her mana to heal everybody so that they wouldn’t be in critical condition, resulting in Beatrice ending up in a state of suspended animation similar to Rem. This suggests that Regulus Gospel’s main purpose in that scene was to put Beatrice in suspended animation so that Aldebaran would give her a healing crystal later, waking her up just in time to have Beatrice join the fight against Lye Batenkaitos close to the end of the arc. Of course I need not remind you of Capella’s retreat as ordained by her Gospel when she probably would’ve been able to kill one of Felix or whoever this Anastasia is before Reinhard arrived since Aldebaran is hardly some amazing fighter that can handle all the Demi-Beasts and Capella at the same time. Thus, Witch Cult Gospels likely aren’t future-telling texts either or defective for the matter but also texts connected to Echidna’s mind since the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was their prototype, meaning they likely were made at least partially by the same materials, which may have been pieces of Echidna’s hair, fingernails or body fluids, which would be how the connection to Echidna’s mind I have proposed would be established.

I have long believed that multiple characters from 400 years ago, including Satella, Echidna, and Flugel, are pushing Subaru to end the cycle of the world being constantly destroyed and reconstructed, which was alluded to by Melakuera, who said that he faced world-ending crises countless times since the only way Melakuera’s words can actually be right is if in the world is constantly getting destroyed, and now I posit that the Divine Dragon is also one of the characters in on this plot. I have always found it suspicious that Subaru arrived in the world after Lugunica’s Royal Family had perished, setting up the perfect conditions for him to meet Emilia and for Reinhard discover that Felt was the final Royal Selection candidate, and the Divine Dragon and the other characters from 400 years ago may have planned out this scenario centuries ago. How this theory could be tested is if the Divine Dragon shows any hint of having future knowledge in the future, which would make such collusion between different characters possible and have a wide-reaching impact through Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels for the last 400 years.

A Re:Zero Theory: Echidna is possibly lurking near the Emilia camp, and if not the Emilia camp, Roswaal himself due to a line in Emilia’s 3rd Sanctuary trial

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Emilia said in Episode 48, “Who is this? This should be Echidna’s grave…” ’cause she didn’t recognize the corpse, which was that of an older woman compared to the Echidna seen in the Sanctuary trials. Roswaal and Beatrice, however, recognized the corpse as their teacher/mother, showing that the Echidna in the Sanctuary trials and tea parties was not the same as the one Roswaal and Beatrice knew, showing that Echidna had previously cut off a piece of her soul when she was younger, which would explain the presence of the younger Echidna in the tea parties. Episode 50 confirmed this with a small animation of the older Echidna Roswaal and Beatrice knew whose face was closer to that of the corpse.

We know from Season 2 the Echidna from the tea parties had been able to place her soul into Ryuzu Shima, which is how Echidna spoke in her own voice after Emilia’s remark about saving the original Ryuzu Meyer got Echidna annoyed, which caused her to break her act momentarily, allowing for viewers to hear Echidna’s voice through Ryuzu Shima’s body, showing that Echidna’s immortality project had succeeded and that she created at least one soul clone, so it’s not out of the question that the Echidna Roswaal understood to be his teacher may also have been revived at one point. The Echidna Roswaal knew to be his teacher also may not have even been the original Echidna, but she is the one he long sought.

In Episode 48 of Re:Zero, one of the lines from the possible futures Emilia could face had Roswaal say, “I made the realization that I have not walked alone all this time. That is all.” For Roswaal, whose single goal that has kept him alive these past four hundred years is to bring back his teacher, it suggests that there’s an Echidna, not just any Echidna, but his original teacher, who is lurking near the Emilia camp, and if not the Emilia camp, then Roswaal himself, given he would never speak like that in reference to anyone else. What he spoke of suggests a physical closeness to Echidna that made him come upon a happy realization, and I wonder who in the cast could be her vessel or whether it’s someone not yet revealed.

A Re:Zero theory: Before Arc 12, the final boss will in a moment of hubris give Subaru the chance to bring back one person who was lost during his journey

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I believe that before the final arc the big bad will give Subaru a chance to bring back one person who was lost on his journey since I believe the big bad’s Authority allows him/her to affect the story path. This would be why Melakuera in The Frozen Bond OVA said that he faced world-ending crises countless times, and it’s ’cause the world is stuck in a cycle of being destroyed and reconstructed due to the actions of an ancient selfish hero, and the big bad used his/her Authority to make the world highly biased to repeat the general story path the Hero of the world at the time went through when the Seal was likely opened with the Heroine of the story becoming the Witch of Envy in order to stop what comes out of the Seal only for the Hero to not put her down after she becomes a world-ending threat when the threat from the Seal is gone.

I believe that due to the locked-in story path, the big bad cannot meet Subaru much until they are destined to meet late in the story, and due to the big bad having won hundreds of thousands of times or even millions of times, when he/she sees how physically weak Subaru is compared to past heroes, in an act of hubris he/she will give Subaru the choice to bring back a person, who turns the tables on the big bad and shows that perhaps the fucked up story path might be heading in a different direction ’cause of Subaru overcoming his character flaws unlike past Heroes of the story. The big bad would be able to do this due to his/her Authority allowing the guaranteed return of any one person since that Authority is largely responsible for this warped cycle to be present in the first place. The villain would do this since he/she sees no way for Subaru to win since he/she expects for Subaru to be like all the other failed heroes who never overcame their character flaws.

Whether that person outright died due to mortal injuries, had his/her soul destroyed, was sealed, never to return, or taken out of the story through some other means, I believe the big bad will give Subaru a chance, and whether it be through instinct, intellect, or a combination of both, Subaru will choose the right person for the job.

A Re:Zero Theory: Echidna didn’t cast the complex spell in the tomb entirely by herself but with an associate as well

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As you might recall in Re:Zero Season 2, after Emilia passed all the trials, she was able to enter the room with Echidna’s corpse, which had a complex, interweaving spell emanating from it. On the surface, it may seem like she alone casted it, but upon thinking it over, I don’t 100% believe that’s the case if one thinks about one crucial detail in how Roswaal spent four hundred years traumatized by his defeat to Hector.

That detail is that Roswaal, Echidna’s most loyal follower, spent four hundred years imitating Hector’s speech pattern, showing that defeat by Hector’s hand caused him to see Hector as being power incarnate likely ’cause Hector caused him to lose the one most precious to him, Echidna. It’s possible Roswaal had trauma from that fight even if Echidna didn’t die as a result of it, but I’ll explain why I believe what I do.

Trauma can manifest in different ways and even different timeframes. One’s relationship to what/who caused the traumatizing incident, one’s relationship to other victims of the perpetrator, one’s stress levels at the time, one’s mental resilience, and one’s temperament all factor into how one processes difficult events in their lives. The question is whether Roswaal’s trauma manifested immediately or over time.

I know for some people, something as small as a bug bite can traumatize them. Whether one becomes traumatized has a lot to do whether the particular event(s) change their worldview. Is it likely for Roswaal to be instantly traumatized after his loss to Hector? I’ll try to answer this by showing why I don’t believe Echidna necessarily successfully repelled Hector from the Sanctuary without lasting physical injuries.

If Echidna had specifically repelled Hector from the Sanctuary, I’m not entirely convinced that Roswaal would see Hector as being power incarnate since Echidna would’ve defeated him. If Roswaal actually lost his beloved, it’d increase the chances he’d view Hector that way, but if Echidna successfully set up the Sanctuary and repelled Hector as well, there’s fewer reasons for Roswaal to worship him like that.

What I mean is that Echidna’s the world to Roswaal. If Echidna had successfully expelled Hector from the Sanctuary, would Roswaal really see Hector as being power incarnate? Smaller things have caused people to be traumatized, so it’s possible, but considering his relation to Echidna, I think Echidna dying by Hector’s hand or as a result of injuries from that fight would be more believable for the ensuing trauma.

We never saw the aftermath of Echidna and Hector’s fight, but there are three outcomes I can see having occurred in light of my proposing Echidna dying due to Hector making more sense, the first being Echidna died in her fight against Hector, the second being she was mortally wounded and cast the spell in her last moments, and the third being she received lasting injuries, dying from complications from them.

In the first scenario, there was no chance Echidna cast the spell in the tomb. For the second, it’s possible she did, but it most likely wasn’t since one’s mind deteriorates with the condition of one’s body, and I believe it’d be too laborious for a dying person to cast it. The third scenario best supports that she cast it, but if she were dying, she may also not have had the mental faculties to do it given the spell’s complexity.

Your mileage may vary, but this makes sense to me taking into account what a person on death’s door is capable of. Thus, given my theory that Echidna, Satella, and Pandora and potentially other characters from four hundred years are all in on a grand plan to steer the world to one specific future, I propose Echidna had assistance in casting the spell, and that person who assisted is a part of that group from the past.

Thus, sussing out who had the capability of casting it and the knowledge of Echidna making the Sanctuary her home may be a future clue to whether my theory about the grand plan to steer the world to one specific future with Subaru being the designated hero who does what all the previous heroes of the story refused to do, ending the cycle of the world being destroyed and reconstructed, is true.

In conclusion, I know it’s possible Roswaal was traumatized even if Echidna had survived with minimal injuries, but I wanted to explore what I described as a legitimate possibility and a genuine thought exercise. Of course future content could contradict this, but given how much of what the characters know about from the period four hundred years ago is false, I won’t yield easily unless a flashback contradicts it.

For the record, here is a list of info that is guaranteed to be false or highly likely to be false that has been spread throughout the story as of Season 3, and I will use logic to explain why the info is false:

  1. Beatrice and Echidna have said that Satella, the Witch of Envy, killed and devoured the other witches of sin, which is 100% false since if that were the case, there would be no corpse of Echidna at the Sanctuary. Echidna has likely been speading this lie deliberately to unite the world against Satella in the future, and she likely had Beatrice unknowingly cooperate with her by having her tell this to outsiders like she did with Subaru.
  2. Beatrice also said that legends say that the Witch of Envy doesn’t understand human language, which was proven false when Subaru said that he’d rather love Echidna than her, which had her flying into a rage. After rewatching Season 2 a third time, I believe the Witch of Envy and Satella are separate personalities given Subaru directly called the being that manifested in the Sanctuary the Witch of Envy, while all the dead witches aside from Echidna referred to the one who manifested in Echidna’s Dream Castle Satella, or Tella, in Typhon’s case. That would explain why she can only repeat “love you” and “love me” in the physical world if she’s a separate personality and why Satella is clear of mind and can speak normally in the Dream Castle as compared to the Witch of Envy that manifested in the Sanctuary. I’m not sure why there are two personalities though. Suffice to say, there is more than enough reason to believe that Echidna and others tried to pin the blame on Satella for everything, likely to unite the world against her at the end of the story.
  3. Ram previously indicated that folklore indicates that the great dragon that protects Lugunica lies beyond a great waterfall. Echidna said that Sekhmet, the Witch of Sloth, drove a dragon past the Great Waterfall all for a chance to rest. Why this info is almost certainly false is ’cause if said dragon really were trapped beyond the Great Waterfall, how would the Royal Family have entered a covenant with it? This fake lore is probably meant to keep people from seeking out the holy dragon.
  4. Crusch called mabeasts the creation of the Witch of Envy, but if mabeasts really were created by the Witch of Envy, of which Subaru smells like, why do mabeasts try to eat him? In Season 2, it was revealed that mabeasts were created by Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony, and that she and her mabeasts find Satella and Subaru’s scent irresistibly delicious, and there’s no way the creator would make beasts that want to eat her, which could have been sussed out in Season 1 with logic.
  5. Echidna said that Carmilla gave emotions to non-human beings, which is demonstrably false since insects likely existed long before she even existed, and we know insects can feel emotions.
  6. Hoshin was believed to have been one of the founders of Kararagi, where Anastasia and others who speak in the Kansai dialect live. In Season 3, buildings in Priestella were constructed with Japanese-style architecture with uniquely Japanese meals served with different names, and Priestella was also noted to be built by Hoshin, leading to Subaru believing that Hoshin was also Japanese, but given the Isekai Quartet movie revealed Alec Hoshin isn’t Japanese and how he indicated that problems from specific worlds should be handled by those who are natives to it, he may actually not have been one of the founders but somehow ended up being credited for the founding of Kararagi and Priestella since it’s an odd statement to make for someone who was isekaied.

A Re:Zero theory: Echidna might have a deep respect for 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.