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.
To deflect the topic about Priscilla’s trust or lack thereof in Al, Priscilla talked about the unseemly guilt Anastasia placed on her knight, and in the anime there’s no clear indicator of what Priscilla could be referring to at the time due to an information gap.
But later in Episode 60, we see Anastasia use magic, which both Al and Felix both assert that to their knowledge she shouldn’t be able to in Episode 65, so this suggests something happened to Anastasia during the first battle against the Witch Cult.
This would explain why Priscilla mused on the unseemly guilt Julius felt, and it’s because Julius while out to battle failed to protect Anastasia, which is what led to this shapeshifter or imposter, whichever it is, taking the real Anastasia’s place.
Whereas we saw Felt bring a metia that Beatrice activated, there was no sign of Anastasia using a metia. When there was an actual metia, we saw the magic emanating from it, not Felt or Beatrice, and given the magic came from Anastasia rather than an object, there was no metia, so it’s an imposter or shapeshifter.
And given the group didn’t incur serious setbacks against Sirius aside from Kiritaka’s capture, perhaps Anastasia had a mishap somewhere outside their base since everyone was buying time for her escape. In a big city, there are many potential hazards, so it’s not just the Witch Cult you should worry about.
As for Julius showing no discomfort upon returning, Julius has a reputation for being the most knightly of knights, the opposite of Subaru in Arc 3 the self-proclaimed knight, so I believe he could remain stoic if Anastasia had really been hurt due to him being away from her when others couldn’t.
This is the first key visual for Re:Zero all the back in 2015, and I think it could highlight some important things. First, I’ve highlighted two depictions of things that are either birds or closely resemble them. Given this is Re:Zero, these two objects, which could very well be birds or were intended to be seen as birds, could be important to the plot. Of note is that two birds were also initially present right as the From Zero moment was about to begin at 17:22 of Episode 18 before tons of them emerged at the height of From Zero and also during Subaru’s speech in Episode 57 in Season 3 when they hung out where Emilia was held captive at 25:37 before flying over to the government office where Subaru had his speech at 25:45.
Here’s a link to the image of the birds in Episode 18:
Birds were heavily featured even when Subaru was summoned to Re:Zero’s fantasy world:
So there may have been an unknown force observing Subaru since he was summoned through the birds in addition to Satella, who we know is always watching Subaru.
Given how important the number three is in Re:Zero, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were actually three forces watching Subaru from the moment he stepped out into Re:Zero’s fantasy world. Who could it be if such a thing is indeed happening?
I believe it is Echidna who is the third force that has been observing Subaru since the beginning. Echidna literally said at one point that she had watched Subaru every step of the way of his journey after he was killed by the Great Rabbit, and while it could’ve been a false statement since she has literally lied to Subaru three times already, I’ll share why I believe that she was telling the truth.
We’ve known since the beginning that Satella is choosing Subaru’s save points, which begs the question about how she knows at what point Subaru can make a difference. A lot of anime-onlies believe in the theory that Satella travelled back in time four hundred years to ensure that this current Subaru succeeds, and although I am adamant that this theory is false I will nonetheless use it to support my argument.
Let’s say that this is true and Satella actually is a future variant of Emilia. How would she know in the current day at what points Subaru can make a difference so that he succeeds this time? The answer is that she doesn’t. Even if she knew how the previous Subaru’s run through as the hero worked, that doesn’t mean Satella 100% has an ironclad way of knowing what’s the best point for him to still be able to make the most impact given what failed last time would obviously fail again while what would’ve worked last time may not this time. The only way to know for sure is with future knowledge for this current world, which is why I’m now proposing that Satella has a contract with Echidna in that Satella shares her field of vision with Echidna for some unknown price we viewers aren’t privy to.
If Satella did have this sort of arrangement with Echidna, it’d explain why she makes the save points she does, and it’d be ’cause she consults with Echidna beforehand, who we know to have future knowledge and acts with it in mind as shown when she turned Petra’s handkerchief into a spectral knife for Subaru to kill himself after he revealed RBD to her. Echidna also looked forward into the future hundreds of years ago given she made Puck with the express intention of defeating Melakuera only for Puck to lose his memories so that Roswaal could draw Emilia into his camp with Puck losing his memories of the Roswaal who co-existed with Echidna four hundred years ago, making him oblivious to Roswaal’s Soul Transcription. Evidence suggests that Echidna has been regularly using her Authority since at least hundreds of years ago.
Now I will draw your attention to the rest of the mural’s images, which show a city split in half with destruction to varying degrees all around it with the top right of the sky having cracks, similar to when Echidna’s Dream Castle shattered and when Beatrice’s Forbidden Library disappeared for good. Thus, I propose that the mural is depicting the beginning of the end of the world. I believe that Satella, Echidna, and the unknown force are probably working together to push Subaru to break the cycle of the world being constantly destroyed and reconstructed that has been alluded to by Melakuera in stating he has faced world-ending crises countless times that may be the result of an unrevealed Authority that affects the story path of the world. I believe hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago in the world’s history, an unidentified hero of the past chose his lover over the world in a moment of weakness, dooming it the destruction, and the big bad of the series used his Authority to keep the world biased towards repeating this general cycle, and it’s up to the characters from four hundred years ago to push Subaru to defy the unnatural story path so that this cursed cycle will end, bringing about an age of freedom from predetermination.
I retract what I had previously said when covering Season 3 given I was adamant that Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls had not fused and that Sirius was delusional in uttering that. I had tunnel vision about one of my previous theories and didn’t see what Tappei was trying to tell in that moment. I now believe Sirius was speaking the truth when she said that Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls amalgamated/fused, and I also believe Sirius, who happens to have elven ears, silver hair, and purple eyes, isn’t Fortuna but also an amalgamation of Fortuna and a spirit, which would allow Petelgeuse and Fortuna to parallel each other in how they continued to exist after they were supposed to die, and this would explain Sirius’s obsession with Petelgeuse given Fortuna said that she came back to ensure that she and Petelgeuse either both lived or that they died together due to her not being able to live on without him visiting her.
Why Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls likely amalgamated into one is that Sirius felt Petelgeuse’s presence when Subaru used Invisible Providence in Episode 53. Regulus was under the impression that Sirius thought that Petelgeuse had taken control of Subaru much like he did with his Fingers, but that was likely not correct given Sirius said in Episode 66 that Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls had amalgamated into one, showing she never thought that it was what Regulus said in the first place.
This is backed by how Emilia in Episode 62 thought to herself that that’s where Geuse was all along after Subaru used Invisible Providence to have a shadow hand phase through Emilia’s chest, and only then was Emilia able to sense Petelgeuse. Emilia may have subconsciously recognized Petelgeuse in Episode 23 of Season 1 after she defeated him when he had possessed one of his Fingers, but Emilia has never known Unseen Hand to be able to phase through objects, so she shouldn’t have been able to intuit that it was Petelgeuse just by the hand phasing through, and thus I conclude that what she sensed was the genuine Petelgeuse.
Now on Sirius, I believe Sirius isn’t Fortuna but also an amalgamation of Fortuna and a spirit, which would allow Petelgeuse and Fortuna to parallel each other in how they both continued to live on despite what should have been their deaths.
I think one of the spirits who guided Emilia to the Seal may have matured into a full-fledged spirit and felt strong emotions from Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s feelings for each other, fusing with Fortuna’s soul in the process with the hope that their love would continue. Pandora may have planted the seed in a spirit similarly to how she asked Regulus if he felt nothing from seeing Petelgeuse and Fortuna. The spirit may have been emotionally affected in a positive way whereas it sent Regulus into a flying rage since he had come to make Fortuna his wife and was incensed to see that she already loved someone else.
We know spirits that aren’t full-fledged can ensure that they don’t physically materialize, so you never know when there might be a spirit nearby. What we do know is that there were spirits when Pandora and Regulus arrived, and there were spirits when they brought Emilia to the Seal, so it’s possible one spirit vibed very strongly with Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s love and tried to ensure that it continued only for it to be all fucked up ’cause this is Tappei’s story.
Given Fortuna indicated she’d have nothing to look forward to if Petelgeuse stopped coming to the forest, and that’s why she came back to ensure that they either both lived or that they died together, Petelgeuse probably featured very heavily in Fortuna’s final thoughts, and said spirit I propose was there may have desired so much for Fortuna and Petelgeuse to be together that it amalgamated with Fortuna’s soul, hence becoming the entity we came to know as Sirius. This would be how she knows Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls fused ’cause it literally happened to her, and she was speaking from a position of experience.
For those who’ve been following my theories, I’ve made it clear that I don’t believe that Witch Cult Gospels direct their holders to their desired futures but actually serve to keep the world on a particular path that Pandora, Echidna, and Satella all desire.
There is a basis to believe this given that everything up until Season 2 was planned at least partially by Echidna centuries ago and probably by Flugel too given he made Petelgeuse promise to not take in the Sloth Witch Factor, which was implied by Petelgeuse apologizing to Flugel, most likely so that Petelgeuse wouldn’t until Pandora and Regulus invaded Elior Forest when he had no other choice to protect the love of his life, Fortuna, and Emilia. A similar event involves how a special font was used in the Frozen Bond OVA to denote a female’s speech regarding a contract with Puck in which he would lose his memories and perhaps other aspects of himself if he entered into a contract with Emilia with that female’s speech being revealed to be that of Echidna based on Season 2 reusing that font. That both Echidna and Flugel both made someone promise not to do something only for them to do it when there was no other choice with Regulus and Pandora’s arrival for Petelgeuse and Melakuera’s assault against Emilia for Puck may indicate that one of Echidna and Flugel learned that sort of behaviour from the other, meaning there was an age difference between them. Alternatively, they could’ve just closely collaborated on things like I have speculated, but these things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
As Season 2 revealed through Roswaal and Season 3 reiterated, Echidna’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, however many there are given Echidna might’ve lied about how many copies she made, is the prototype for the Witch Cult Gospels, meaning that they are most likely at least partially made by some of the same materials, and given how Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was not meant to bring about the return of the Echidna Roswaal knew, the same could go for Gospels in not directing their holders to their goals. I don’t buy into the theory that the reason Otto wasn’t in Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom is ’cause he was meant to have died as Ram, Petra, and Emilia all died in Arc 3, and with that being the case, it can be argued that all three of them were meant to have died, so the true reason Otto wasn’t in the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom must have been something else. As a text that supposedly tells the future and can update itself based on current happenings, there’s no good reason why Otto was excluded unless the source of the knowledge of the Tome just didn’t want it to be included, and if that’s the case, Echidna may very well have been responsible for its contents with the common denominator between the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels possibly being that they are made at least partially from a body part or body fluid of hers much like her tea in the tea parties.
For Arcs 1, 2, 3 and 4, Subaru (and Emilia in Arc 4, which is the Sanctuary arc) was put through very specific ordeals that developed his character in a particular way, and this character development with his desire for as few casualties possible from Arc 4, the arc that pushed him to be as greedy as possible, culminated in his decision to make the speech that inspired the Priestella citizens in Arc 5.
Now as for more on why I believe there’s a grand plan to keep the world on a particular path, we know in Episode 17 that someone ordered the White Whale to leave Subaru alone, and given the Gluttony faction likely had specific instructions to not let anyone interfere with Petelgeuse’s Ordeal to Emilia, which is why Otto was attacked but managed to send his dragon carriage back to Subaru, the most likely person to have saved Subaru at that point would be Pandora since although Lye could’ve done it, I don’t see him directly opposing the Gluttony faction’s purpose for being there. Pandora’s goal may have been to teach Subaru about the White Whale’s Fog of Elimination and set him up for From Zero by having him be in complete despair after inadvertently getting Emilia killed.
As for why I believe the info on the whereabouts of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony was leaked to Anastasia’s camp or merchant information network, we know from Arc 3 that the knights ignored Subaru’s warning about the Witch Cult attacking since they get a lot of false alarms that conditioned them to be skeptical. So it begs the question of why this info specifically made it to Anastasia’s ears and why she actually entertained it being true when it’s usually the case that no one has any info on the cult, and I believe it was to gather the Royal Selection candidates at Priestella in preparation for Subaru’s miraculous feat of making a plan to defeat/drive off four Sin Archbishops since there’s no reason for the Witch Cult to lure people to the city to defeat the cult. Priscilla may or may not have been leaked info by the same source that Anastasia got the info from, but I personally believe it’s likely as I don’t understand why Anastasia’s merchant network would go against her wishes to not let Priscilla know about her planned meeting.
Given we know from Season 3 that Witch cultists are very loyal to their Gospel with how Regulus specifically implied to Subaru that he should be grateful he adhered to his Gospel in not slaughtering a whole bunch of people en masse and how Anastasia implied that Capella follows her Gospel’s instructions to a tee even if Capella pushed back against describing it that way, the Witch Cult is known to follow their Gospels devotedly. Therefore, I put it out there that all the Royal Selection candidates were specifically gathered in Priestella for very specific things to be achieved in the story, such as Regulus’s death, Crusch being infected by black dragon blood, Subaru being infected by black dragon blood, Garfiel’s mom’s husband being turned into a black dragon, Otto restoring Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, Emilia acquiring a crystal that could bring back Puck, Sirius being captured by Priscilla, Joshua’s name and memories being eaten, Julius’s name being eaten, and so on. Cultists wouldn’t question why they are bringing their enemies to Priestella as they have complete faith in their Gospels.
I thought the episode was a satisfying conclusion to this season although there was one detail I hoped would be revealed that didn’t. Included in my post this time will be an update on how I believe Al relates to Subaru as I’ll be including something I didn’t in my previous write-ups.
The episode opens with Beatrice and the group fighting Lye, and she notes to Otto she can use up to five magic crystals as she needs to save one to bring back Puck. Two of them were used up as they fought with Lye eating the names and memories of three of the White Dragon’s Scales mercenaries with the special effect of them being shattered and reforming showing that they had entered the same state Rem and Joshua are in. When Felt returned, Lye attempted to eat her name but faced serious negative effects with his eyes becoming bloodshot and him feeing nausea that resulted in vomiting given it seemed to be a fake name Rom gave her in childhood. This gave them the opportunity to use two of the remaining of three crystals to fire the special metia Felt brought to them that appears to have once belonged to Echidna judging by Beatrice’s reaction to it. Lye was defeated, but he somehow swapped places with his sister, Rui Arneb, who gutted Dynas’s legs and then did the same to Otto when Rui had moved to strike Beatrice with Otto getting her out of the way. Apparently, one of the powers of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony is to transform into people you’ve eaten before although we have yet to see Lye or Roy do that since Rui had taken the form of a man before going into her true form. Rui realized that Felt herself didn’t realize that her name is not her true name upon interacting with her. Rui notes that she’s backing off, most likely due to her Gospel’s instructions, reasoning that since Lye was beaten to a pulp and since Roy just does as that woman, who I assume is Capella, says. Rui says it’s not whether you’re a gourmand or a foul feeder as what you eat isn’t important, and it’s who you eat with that’s important. Beatrice, with only one magic crystal she can use, since one must be saved for bringing back Puck, decides not to pursure Rui although Felt really wanted to even though they were clearly outmatched.
If it wasn’t clear from Rui’s interaction with them that she was holding back severely, I’ll make it clear now. It’s clear with how Regulus’s Gospel making him believe he’d meet the Emilia camp again despite it not happening until the fourth loop of Arc 5 is that Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path as I have long believed rather than being an object that makes the holder’s goals/dreams come true. This was also likely why Capella went to attack the government office the heroes had made their base of operations when if she had stayed with Theresia and Kurgan both Wilhelm and Garfiel would’ve both 100% died and why Capella was certain that she accomplished all that she had needed and was leaving, when her pursuing Al, Felix, and Anastasia would’ve resulted in one or more of them dying, and for this very reason, Rui left as well when she could’ve butchered them all since Beatrice only had one magic crystal left aside from the one she was saving for bringing back Puck. I believe people who have treated Re:Zero as a serious story are meant to pick up on this, but people who expect the usual from most isekai series that don’t have much happening on a story front don’t realize that Re:Zero is a deep story and that it wants you to draw conclusions from these things happening multiple times in succession. You have to actually think critically when you watch Re:Zero. After all, Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was basically a tool meant for Echidna to keep the world on a particular path, and it wouldn’t be a stretch if the Gospels had a similar purpose.
Kiritaka then announced that they had taken control of all four control towers and had driven away the Witch Cult. After Subaru and Emilia make their way to the government office seeing that it had been destroyed, they are reunited with Beatrice, and Subaru princess carries Beatrice, leading to Anastasia saying that Subaru can be a boy after all, which Emilia affirmed, although I’m not sure Emilia affirmed that in the same way Anastasia did. First with Ricardo joking earlier in the season that Subaru seduces little girls and now this bit with Anastasia showing that characters are openly mocking Subaru about him attracting little girls knowing that Subaru isn’t really that type of person as that’d be inappropriate, which isn’t a bad thing of course given how serious of a show Re:Zero can be.
Subaru and co. then pay a visit to Garfiel, who is proud of Subaru for showing off what a man he is by saving Emilia. He’s in good spirits given he joked that he didn’t want to hear about his condition from Subaru of all people, which Emilia could see, and Beatrice resorted that he’s feeling too good about himself given it’s usually when he’s nice and quiet that he’s actually suffering. Mimi then barges in and has her way with Garfiel with Otto saying that he really should’ve acted like a man who’s hurt. Otto is expected to be able to recover from his injury, and Subaru wishes that he’d consult with him before leaping into danger since they’re friends after all with Otto replying that there’s no way he could just sit back and do nothing when Subaru had so much on his plate, ESPECIALLY since he’s his friend, and that just shows why Otto is such a good person to have on your side. Otto says he’s sorry that Gluttony got away but that they did gain something from this since Priscilla captured Sirius.
They start interrogating Sirius, and when Subaru asks what made them think about demanding the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the artificial spirit, as in Beatrice, Sirius remarks that she doesn’t even care to think about what the others were thinking and that they only gathered here ’cause of the instructions from their Gospels. When Subaru puts it out that there that they follow their Gospels so religiously to revive the Witch of Envy, Sirius retorts by saying she doesn’t give a damn about that and that the only one she loves is Subaru with her going up to him to lick him, which Emilia struck her hard for doing so. When Beatrice urged them to leave, Sirius started singing horribly since she had realized the power of song from Lilliana, and Subaru says that she shouldn’t consider Liliana and her singing to be the same with it being completely different. Fortuna then taunts Subaru, saying the situation is the same with him in that he’s not Petelgeuse but with both his soul and body and Petelgeuse’s melding together with her goal being to drag Petelgeuse out from within him although it’s hard to say whether this is pure delusion or a fact. Although I do believe Petelgeuse exists in a pocket dimension within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul, I do not believe their souls have literally melded together. Before they leave, Sirius warns them that Gluttony will be after Subaru. The subs say Gourmand, Foul Feeding, and Satiation, but given the words are used to describe their representation of the Gluttony sin, I feel it should be Gourmet (since Lye wants Gourmet food, which is why he makes his prey feel strong emotions to juice them up and fights them as if to prepare them well for being eaten), Foul-Feeding (Hyphen for grammatical purposes), and Satiation are the right terms to use, and I will use them moving forward since I’m not going to expect Crunchyroll to have any sort of consistency moving forward. I’m guessing Sirius got wind of this ‘when she compared the text written in the Gluttony Archbishop’s Gospels compared to her own ’cause Lye, and Roy and Rui by extension, have been after Subaru since Lye ate Rem’s memories, which is part of the reason he was so hyped for a confrontation with Subaru in Episode 59.
After they walk out of Sirius’s cell, Al replies that they got nothing aside from making them feel gross, which Subaru shoots down immediately, leading to Al saying he sure knows how to make those freaks like him, which suggests that Al is not Subaru himself since it alludes to him not being able to ingratiate himself with some of the Sin Archbishops whereas Subaru has, possibly showing that he was a failed hero of the story. Beatrice then tells Subaru to not get too friendly with Al, which Al is disappointed to her after he helped wake her up, calling her Beako, which she remarked she only lets Subaru do, and Emilia thanks Al for helping her pass a message to Subaru, which Al reacts well to, similarly to how Subaru said in Arc 2 that he’s the type to like to be rewarded for his efforts. When they emerge from the underground, Beatrice reveals that Al visited her and got her Kiritaka’s magic crystal, which is what woke her up but that he wouldn’t tell her anything about how he got it, and that soured Al on Beatrice even though Subaru does the same thing to others. It was only after Emilia spoke well of Al that they were forced to admit that Al’s not a bad guy.
I have to mention this regarding Al now. I don’t believe he is Subaru himself since there is a good deal against it, but I do believe that he and Subaru both originally came from the same soul. Ever since Episode 22, A Flash Of Sloth, I have been looking up the names of Re:Zero’s characters since that title could’ve referenced multiple things from that episode, showing that names are important in Re:Zero. Subaru’s dad is named Kenichi, which means ‘wise man’. Subaru said in Episode 16 that Flugel’s Tree was planted by a wise man centuries ago, and while this wouldn’t mean something in a different show, its presence in a show with Re:Zero’s long-term planning suggests that Kenichi himself might be Flugel. As for the time period in which Flugel existed, Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama in Episode 43 for taking in the Sloth Witch Factor, which shows that Flugel was from the same time period Satella was from.
Episodes, 18, 25, and 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella as shown by how Puck indirectly revealed in Episode 18 the number of shadow hands Satella could generate to Subaru by asking Petelgeuse summon a thousand shadows if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (two thousand), Subaru using a number associated with Satella (two thousand) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in Episode 25, and Subaru suddenly having an upswelling of positive emotion for Satella in Episode 38 that led him to say that he’d save Satella after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows that Subaru and Satella may have a past history together.
Given we know Echidna succeeded in creating a soul clone of herself with how Echidna spoke in her own voice in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kenichi, if he is Flugel as I speculate, also did that as well and Subaru and Al were both split off from Kenichi’s soul, and Kenichi made his sons his soul clones, and that would explain why Al and Subaru both call Beatrice ‘Beako’, not ’cause they are the same person but because they were created from the same soul. It’d also explain why Subaru has dormant memories of Satella despite it not being possible for him to have lived at that time, why Al also likes being rewarded for his efforts, why he failed when Subaru succeeded, and why he didn’t know about Capella’s powers.
When the group reconvenes without Julius and Ricardo, Anastasia, or whoever she is, reveals she is against letting Sirius live, which upsets Felix since Sirius is their only lead on how to save Crusch. Anastasia doubts they’ll get anything useful on Gluttony or Lust from Sirius, but Subaru disagrees and doesn’t think it’d be a total waste of effort although he does understand she’d uneasy about keeping her in custody. Wilhelm then shuts Felix down for making a fuss of things. Reinhard also takes Subaru’s side and says he’ll transport Sirius to the castle since this is a rare opportunity to learn about the Witch Cult. Then the topic comes to Lust’s victims, and Felix says that they can’t be healed since they’re creatures that’ve been completely remade. Priscilla suggests giving the people turned to flies death since they’d probably prefer that, and when Subaru starts to protest, she calls him a fool and that ideals that are all talk have no value, which leads to Emilia saying she’ll handle that by putting all of Lust’s victims in cold sleep, and Priscilla backs down after seeing Liliana’s exuberant confidence in Emilia and even says she’ll make Emilia her rival after she does, probably ’cause she was again as I said in my write-up for an earlier episode saying things that were stressful to others to bring out the best in them.
As dawn breaks, Kiritaka thanked Subaru for saving the city, and that he was had been fully prepared to die until he heard Liliana’s song. We get shots of all the relevant parties and then have Subaru thank Subaru and for Reinhard to say it’s a tremendous honour to help a friend, probably since Subaru treats him like an actual person like others instead of a weapon.
Subaru and Emilia are then happy that Lusbel and Tina are safe, and Emilia says that they have to celebrate that since everyone worked so hard to make that happen. Subaru then sees Subaru, who is wounded in a lot of ways and has lost an arm. When he makes a remark about Julius, Ricardo doesn’t respond, but Subaru sees Julius all by himself in the shadow of a building, and Julius is astounded that Subaru remembers him since Emilia doesn’t. This shows that Roy ate his name, which rewrites reality as if no one ever remembered his existence. I don’t believe Julius’s possessions were also erased given how three members of the White Dragon’s Scales broke into pieces of glass and reformed into their current state of being in suspended animation, showing that they had become something fundamentally different than before. As Puck revealed in Episode 26, if a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony eats your memories, you lose your memories, your name, your existence erased, and if both your name and memories are eaten, you become a shell of who you were in suspended animation. Given even Rem’s possessions disappeared when she had been erased by the White Whale, your possessions probably don’t disappear unless both your name and memories are eaten, or Rem’s possessions were just thrown out ’cause no one could remember her.
What this shows is that Subaru has a resistance to Authorities for some reason. After Unseen Hand was used in his presence once, he was able to see Petelgeuse’s Authority the next time he saw it being used. When the White Whale, which Puck referred to as Gluttony in Episode 18, erased Rem, Subaru was the lone person who remembered her, which showed even back then that he had a resistance to the Gluttony Authority. When Rem was again erased by Lye, he still remembered her, proving that the White Whale was either made or modified somehow to have its mist have a similar effect to the Authority of Gluttony. After Sirius used her Authority on Subaru, in subsequent loops, it took longer and longer for him to fall under her control. This latest incident shows that Subaru still retains his resistance to the Authority of Gluttony. I don’t know where this resistance comes from though and expect it will be made clear towards the end of the series.
Anyway, with Season 4 being confirmed to be in production, I eagerly await to learn more about Re:Zero’s fantasy world and the aftermath of Julius having been forgotten. I also wonder what is up with whoever this Anastasia is. This season was fun and a refreshing change of pace compared to previous seasons.
This was my favourite episode of Season 3 so far. It had very compelling fights ’cause the fights themselves made you care about the characters either directly or indirectly due to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s powers, more compelling villains since Regulus was just a noob with an OP power who was just evil in contrast to Lye and Roy, interesting foreshadowing, and character writing that is consistent with what came before.
The first two scenes need to being looked at as a whole given how one interaction doesn’t make sense if you don’t do that, so I’ll be covering both the ongoing fight with Lye and the start of the fight with Roy, looking at them together as if they are a whole. The episode starts with a lot of the White Dragon’s Scales mercenaries making light of Lye since they think he’s just one brat, but he moves really quickly, leading to Gaston trying to take him on directly with him being taking a big blow from an attack Lye called the “Fist Lord’s Strike”, which seemed to pack a lot more punch than what Lye had attacked Gaston with a number of episodes back. Otto then used Earth Magic, which he had revealed he had in Season 2, to get Lye away from Gaston since he realized all of them would be in huge trouble if Gaston were to be killed. Otto then noted that he’s surprised by Lye’s lack of finishing blows considering he probably had the opportunity to kill Gaston then and there instead of merely hitting him with one blow. Lye then taunts them, saying that they’re useless for not being able to handle one brat and that he’s nothing compared to the indiscriminate Roy, and in this sense I believe he is referring both to how Roy is not a gourmand like he is and how Roy is unrestrained in dealing with his prey.
And now to the Roy fight, as I mentioned in an earlier episode, Julius reacted to Roy referring to him to Nii-sama, and it’s ’cause deep down he retains the feeling he had a younger brother even though Roy has erased Joshua by eating both his memories and his name, the latter of which causes all proof of your existence to be erased, and when both are eaten, you become like Rem, who is a shell of herself in suspended animation. That’s how Roy could dodge Julius’s Al Clauseria and then counter his 2-spirit combination attack after he demonstrated to Ricardo how much better as a swordsman he was. Then he dropped his swords and said, “Eclipse”, and struck Julius with his fist, which dealt a lot of damage to Julius. When Roy started using Water Magic, Ricardo was baffled that he had mastered sword arts, martial arts, and magic, and Roy had described himself as a humble, nameless mage after Ricardo asked him just what the hell he was, showing that he had gained access to the skills of a mage that he had erased, and perhaps the reason he said Eclipse after he dropped his swords the first time was to show he was switching to someone else’s memories to harvest his/her skills and knowledge, which allowed him to be skilled at martial arts. I believe Lye and Roy can only tap into one person’s memories and skills at a time basing this mainly on how Roy dropped his swords before he said, “Eclipse”, and switched to martial arts against Julius and how he called himself a humble, nameless mage when he used water magic against Ricardo and Julius. If they could tap into more than one person’s skills and memories at a time, Roy wouldn’t be speaking as if he was just a mage or dropping his swords when he intended to change his fighting style if he could just put them away, which shows he tapped into someone’s memories who isn’t used to moving around with swords on his/her person. Ricardo then dispelled the water dragon attack with a roar, leading to Roy being giddy about how it’s a long time anyone survived that attack, which shows that he is indiscriminate as Lye had indicated with him being unrestrained in handling his prey by going all-out from the beginning whereas Lye has seemed to be going easy on them by not dealing any of Otto’s group a finishing blow even though we’ve gotten much more of that fight and only the beginning of this Roy fight. Julius then remarks about why Roy has chosen evil despite his skills, and Roy taunts him with Joshua’s memories, calling him the brother he always idolized due to him picking an appa from a tree for him when he was sick, but Julius has no recollection of that even though clearly feels something deep down given his reaction to Roy’s words. Roy then says with Joshua’s memories that he always felt that he was a burden, but now with Joshua’s memories in tow, he implies it’s great now to be in control, saying he actually resented Julius for picking that appa for him since it’s something he couldn’t do himself at that age. It was then implied that Julius took a blow after rushing towards Lye, and that became a good time to segue into the Capella and Al fight.
Then it segues to Al having split Capella in half from the top of her head to her belly with Capella musing about how many more times will it actually take before he can actually kill her. Al then replies even if he dies a hundred times, he’s not sure that he could ever kill her but that maybe she is the one who hasn’t thought this through since he knew she’d come here which means they were prepared to give her an especially warm welcome with an attack that would shatter her very soul, and Capella just tells him to do it if they went through all that effort to do so. She says that if they did all that for her that her principles won’t let her turn down the thoughtfulness in what they had prepared for her. Al then has a cute interaction with Capella when he says that she’s seriously going to die and that dying hurts and is scary, especially the first time, saying she doesn’t want to do that, showing that Al does indeed have a power that lets him defy death, which was hinted at in Episode 60 when he said that she better get out of there before he dies. Al, for the lulz, even threw in a dirty joke for her about how she should save her firsts for when the time is right, which she really appreciated although she remarked that he’s probably doing that to lie to her, leading her to transform into her black dragon form, asking him which form he likes the most with Al replying that he can never love anyone. Al then steps on a part of the ground that caused the whole place to start collapsing, and he dives into the water.
When Al got out of the water, he nearly took off his helmet, but seeing Anastasia was there, he decided not do it, saying he’s self-conscious. Anastasia says she didn’t expect Capella to take the whole place down, and Al says he was secretly crushed three times, which suggests that Capella killed him three times. Then Felix also joined them, and when Anastasia asked whether it was pointless to hope that Capella had died, Felix remarked that even Anastasia blowing off Capella’s face with magic wasn’t enough and that she thought Anastasia couldn’t, leading to Al drawing his sword against Anastasia since he knows magic is something Anastasia’s not capable of using. I’m not sure who this could be in Anastasia’s body though, whether it’s a shape-shifter or a possession of sorts. Al only backed down ’cause Felix pressed Al’s sword against his skin, causing it to bleed.
The information suggests again that Al may have been the previous hero of the story given he knew the remains of the witch in Priestella is that of Typhon’s and that you shouldn’t give out your real name to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. As for why Al is very likely not a future Subaru, Al neither knew about the extent of Capella’s regeneration nor her power to transform into your ideal partner by reading all your reactions to her, showing he had limited to no exposure to her, meaning she may not have been the Sin Archbishop of the Lust during his run-through as the hero of the story. Another point against Al being a future Subaru is that Al can specifically mention that he has been dying to Capella with it implied that she knows that is the case, which Subaru is not permitted to do by Satella when he has the intent to share information about Return By Death. This suggests that Al simply has a different power than Subaru and that it’s not a matter of Al being able to control his power better. Granted, this is not definitive proof that he can’t be Subaru since we don’t know all the rules of Re:Zero’s world. We don’t know whether an Authority can change over time, and if it can, perhaps Al’s Authority used to be identical to Subaru’s before it became whatever it is now.
Capella then returns as she reforms from rats with her missing her eyes leading to her getting the last two rats to conglomerate into her full form. This may indicate that Capella has a minimum mass given when she was missing a couple of pieces of her body she couldn’t fully reform herself. Capella is acting very dere with how Al hit her with such a passionate attack even though it didn’t end doing any permanent damage to her. When Al draws his sword against her, she tells him not to misunderstand since she’s leaving due to her already having done what she wanted to do, and as Anastasia interjects, it’s what the Gospel ordered her to do, which Capella didn’t respond well to, saying that her feelings for them aren’t from some book and that they’re real, describing it as pure love, which triggers Felix, leading to him saying that if they kill her, she bets Crusch’s body will be returned to normal, something Capella shoots down immediately since her and her blood are two separate entities. She then sends out her Demi-Beasts that are alive yet dead since they’re so intent on chasing after her, which Felix makes Felix cry out in tears about how she could do such a thing with Capella remarking in an attempt to provoke Felix that it might be ’cause no one ever told her to not play with corpses. This does get under Felix’s skin since as a healer he probably values life and respects those who have died as opposed to Capella turning corpses into monstrosities and not allowing people to move on. Al then directs them to flee, and Capella tells them if they don’t keep up the fight that more people will die, creating more Demi-beasts in the process, urging them to slaughter them all before she splits her bodies in rats and starts fleeing from the city.
As I have stated before in my previous write-ups, I do not believe that Witch Cult Gospels are true texts that tell the future but are merely meant to keep the world on a particular path given how Regulus’s Gospel made him believe he would meet the Emilia camp again in the first loop of this arc despite it not happening again until the fourth loop. Capella escaping could be the way for the source of the knowledge of the Gospels to ensure that none of Al, Capella, or whoever this Anastasia is, die since if she had pursued them, one or more of them may have died, showing that it’s also keeping the world on a particular path. While they’re fleeing, Felix eventually cries out to somebody to help, leading to Reinhard using his super hearing to hone in on their location, and at Felix’s urging of him to kill all the Demi-beasts, he does. I believe Felix is crying for them to be given death since they currently can’t move on after dying due to what they have become. I believe Reinhard’s eyes were obscured for this week’s episode ’cause he is suffering while fulfilling his duty as the Sword Saint. ‘Cause Reinhard was adamant that the corpse soldier Theresia was just a corpse soldier, meaning he was justified in killing her, Wilhelm said that he had nothing left to say to him and urged “Sword Saint Reinhard-dono” to do his duty in using his immense strength on the battlefield, reducing him to merely being a weapon. Earlier this season, Wilhelm wanted to close the gap between him and Reinhard, but him saying in the previous episode “You’re right. I’m wrong. So I have nothing more to say to you”, followed by referring to Reinhard in an extremely impersonal and respectful way (full title with the -dono honorific) is a pretty clear indication that the gap is not closing anymore as you really don’t hit someone with a “I have nothing more to say to you, so respectfully go away” if you have any intention to be friendly with them afterwards. Reinhard just wants to be treated as a person as anybody else would, and that’s why he reacted so well to Subaru saying he’d make up for any of Reinhard’s shortcomings in Episode 58.
Back to Otto’s group and Lye, Gaston remarks that Lye is pretty damn good at fighting, and he knows this ’cause he was trained by the gardener at Reinhard’s place and can see that Lye’s movements aren’t that of someone who is innately talented but has trained for years. Upon hearing that, Otto realizes that Lye and Roy can gain the knowledge and skills of anyone they eat, and Otto plays dumb. Lye says that unspoken messages, which I’m guessing should actually be “hiding your body language” and was a mistranslation, isn’t a strong point of Otto’s, so maybe she should give up on being a merchant before he gets hurt. Lye then immediately eats one of the mercenaries, Hicks, and nobody remembers him, not even Dynas, the leader of the White Dragon’s Scales. Lye says it’s because this type of thing is so sad that they love to engage in this sort of one-sided reunion in which they taunt the people who have lost someone dear to them much like Roy had also been doing, and when Dynas says that he hasn’t seen the guy who had been eaten before despite clearly on some level knowing there’s something off, Lye taunts him with his memories, suggesting it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t protect Miriam (and Maylie? The subs said Mary, but there was someone with a similar name from Season 2).
Enraged, Dynas rushes towards Lye and gets knocked back easily with Lye musing that strong emotions are great ’cause they’re so rich, and that’s likely why he takes his time buttering up his prey as opposed to Roy who immediately escalates the situation with his prey, which is why Otto remarks that as a normal person he can’t think of people in terms of how delicious they are, prompting him to ask everyone to not say his name, only for it to be revealed that none of them knew it to begin with. Otto put it out there that he believes that what Lye is doing in letting them fight back is his idea of setting a table for a meal, and Lye remarks that people with keen instincts are hard to finish off and that they get away with it ’cause it makes them all the more tasty. Otto declares that he has won with Lye indicating that Dynas and Gaston are not bad but not worthy of a main course but that after losing Felt it would be bad to also let Otto get away too, especially Rui would rip him a new one, and this is not the first time Lye has mentioned Rui. Given Rui would rip him a new one if he were to let Otto go, it perhaps suggests that Rui is also a Sin Archbishop although who knows where she is given she is nowhere to be seen. Otto then tells everyone if he touches them that they’re as good as dead since he can eat anything he touches. They all rush towards Lye after Otto thanks him for his impeccable manners, and after Gaston creates an opening, Otto grabs Lye and puts two fire magic stones underneath his shirt, which explode on him, revealing many scars. Otto wonders whether those scars made him the way he is, which leads to Lye pestering him about giving out his name to him and also saying he has other ways to get him to talk, such as eating Otto’s fingers one by one. Beatrice then makes a grand entrance saying it’s rude to start eating before everyone is at the table. I’m not sure how she’s awake after she was in a severely mana-depressed state, but absent a proper explanation, maybe she restored enough mana to function after one day of sleep. Otherwise, someone restored her mana through some other means. Otto was about to say Beatrice’s name, but Lye tapped into Rem’s memories and already knew it, and his impersonation of Rem is just so disgusting on every level. He clamours to meet Subaru since Rem had talked about how Subaru would pass judgement on him in Episode 26, which is why he was so eager to meet Subaru in Episode 59. Beatrice is determined to not let Lye meet Subaru given that he’d be extremely hurt, possibly irreparably, which is why she and Otto have to take care of him here and now. Beatrice and Otto don’t really remember Rem themselves, but they have been told about Rem by Subaru and knows how much she means to them.
I just find Lye and Roy to be much more compelling villains than Regulus was, who was just an evil man-child with a broken power. Lye and Roy taunting people with the memories of people they used to know is more effective at making me care their fights both the characters fighting the Witch Cult and the Sin Archbishops themselves. Capella also steals the scene of basically every scene she’s in. The touch with Reinhard being disheartened over how his relationship with Wilhelm has relationship has deteriorated further and the bit with Anastasia being a possible fake was also great to watch, and I believe this episode was Re:Zero at its best.
This was an interesting episode even if it was a bit cliché how Theresia fell heads over heels for Wilhelm at first sight. Personally, that happened to me too, so I can’t complain about it being extremely unrealistic. Sometimes something just clicks immediately when you meet someone, and you are engrossed by them. I didn’t see anything that was obviously foreshadowing future events aside from what happened when Reinhard drew the Dragon Sword, which seemed very interesting. In a flashback, Theresia ignored Wilhelm’s question about what she’s doing out there at that time of day and instead asked him whether he likes flowers, and after learning that she fell in love with him at first sight, that may be ’cause her asking that is the equivalent of asking about the whether the moon looks beautiful given how precious flowers are to her.
Back to the fight, Wilhelm acknowledges that before Theresia picks up a sword she may have doubts, but never once it is in her hand and that she knew that better than he did given she deliberately cut Wilhelm on the shoulder so that he couldn’t stop her from going to battle against the White Whale. She had made a promise for when they come back, and Wilhelm declares that he will fulfill it. Wilhelm then gets into an advantageous position with him having Theresia on the backfoot, but Heinkel stumbles into the area, distracting Wilhelm, causing him to take a big slash through his right leg, which obviously means he can’t handle her anymore. Theresia then motions to kill Heinkel before she is stopped by Reinhard.
Interestingly, the first thing Heinkel thinks is what he did wrong (to deserve this?), and I’ll delve more into this later. Reinhard, fully aware of Theresia being a corpse soldier, muses that the dead shouldn’t move and that he will not allow such an absurdity, and I thought it was very curious how as Reinhard drew out his sword, part of the wall it panned to looked as if it was being cut from the act of drawing the sword, and the world shook as it were phasing in and out of existence, almost as if the Dragon Sword rewrites the world itself when drawn. If that’s the case, how can such a sword even exist? Did it even originate from this world? Wilhelm pleads to Reinhard to not kill her since that’s his Theresia, and Reinhard just says what the family has been telling him since he was a young boy, that Theresia died by his hand fifteen years ago, a testament to what a horrible grandfather and father Wilhelm and Heinkel have been. After slashing her with the Dragon Sword, Theresia’s eyes finally brighten to indicate that the mind control was beginning to end, and we get another flashback to when Theresia was younger.
Apparently, Theresia inherited the Divine Protection of the Sword Saint when she was twelve years old after she had just finished tending to a flower field. Her uncle had her defeat her brothers with wooden swords to confirm that, but given he was watching her when she received it, he probably knew she was indeed the one that got it. Her uncle urged her to take the Dragon Sword, but she feared it and swords in general. She had though her older brother who trained every day with his sword would’ve been a better recipient of her Divine Protection, and she loved him for his dedication and effort.
Theresia’s first campaign came two years later during the Demihuman War, Lugunica’s greatest and most horrific civil war. If you recall from Season 1, Theresia did her duty as the Sword Saint to protect Wilhelm, who had nearly died in this war, citing she didn’t dislike the idea of fighting to protect someone else, probably Wilhelm most of all since she loved him. At the time of the flashback, Theresia still hasn’t gone out to fight, and her older brother says he understand if she’s afraid since she’s the sort of sweet girl who wouldn’t even hurt a fly. Her brother revealed that although he was initially frustrated by his defeat to her two years ago, he was grateful to be born into the Astrea family and also grateful to the sword, his way of life. He said he’d protect her if she didn’t want to do this as her old brother, and due to Theresia’s refusal to do her duty, all of her brothers as well as her uncle, the previous Sword Saint, died during that campaign, but she still wasn’t allowed to step down as the Sword Saint since the Sword Saint is the moral support for the kingdom. She thought back to her uncle’s words about drawing her sword, and after picturing a flower next to the sword, which symbolized her foregoing her way of life to be the Sword Saint, she drew it, thinking back to the day at the flower field when she met Wilhelm, showing her inspiration for drawing the sword was to protect Wilhelm, the one she fell in love with at first sight.
We then get a flashback that covered material covered in the first season and more with Wilhelm defeating her in a duel, and saying he would inherit her reason for wielding a sword, showing that for the sake of Theresia he became the strongest in the world since he knew how much she didn’t want to be on the battlefield. Of course the series rehashes Wilhelm being too emotionally stunted to say that he loves Theresia, much like how it was implied in Season 1 that he never told Theresia he loves her while she was alive. They were happy though and had a son, Heinkel, who got married to a beautiful blonde woman, who gave them a grandson, Reinhard.
A middle-aged Wilhelm then said that he’s against Theresia fighting the White Whale, blaming Heinkel for putting silly ideas in her head, showing he’d rather have his only son die than let Theresia go out on the battlefield, which is quite a horrible stance for a father to have. He seems more and more ill-suited to being a parent as the episode goes on. She said calmly that neither he or herself have the right to say what he did given the White Whale suddenly appeared, and he, the leader of the Imperial Knights, the Sword Demon, was unavailable due to being tasked with searching for the princess of the Royal Family that had been abducted, making her the Sword Saint the right choice for the job as Heinkel indicated. The relevance of this is not lost to me given we are finally given a timeline regarding the princess’s abduction, which we didn’t get in Episode 51. Reinhard had said earlier in the episode that his grandmother died by his hand 15 years ago, and Felt was 15 in Season 1, so if she had been abducted when she was a year old, it makes sense why Reinhard said he personally reveres Felt as queen in Season 1, and that’d be ’cause he believes her to be that princess who had been abducted. Theresia then scratches Wilhelm’s shoulder on purpose so that he can’t follow her, and when he protested that he would no matter how bloody he got, she said but that would render what she did to him meaningless. She then says she’s the second strongest swordmaster after him, even if that’s merely ornamental since he’s truly the strongest, and as he still protests, she shushed him and told him that she loves him and wants to hear the words he couldn’t say to her at the moment the next time they meet, which is “I love you”.
As the battle begun, Theresia lost the Divine Protection of the Sword Saint and fell back to the rear as the order to retreat had begun. The whole strike force was lost without that Divine Protection, and she had realized that it had passed on to Reinhard. Pandora then makes an appearance, and Theresia instinctively believed that she was an enemy, so she rushed towards her, thinking at the same time that she hoped Reinhard wouldn’t be tied down by the sword and will have more encounters in life outside of his duty, much like she did. After Theresia seemingly cut off Pandora’s head, it was revealed that that was not actually the case, and she put her arms on Theresia and said, “I want to understand you”, which resulted in Theresia losing all of the strength in her body and dying with her last thought being about Wilhelm.
As for how Pandora killed Theresia, I have two theories:
Beatrice mentioned in Season 1 that curses require physical contact with the target, and given Pandora had both arms on Theresia, she could have launched a curse that drained all of Theresia’s mana similar to how Subaru died in his sleep to the Ulgarm curses in the second arc, so her saying she wants to understand Theresia might not have had to do with anything, and Theresia lost all the strength in her body due to running out of mana.
Theresia may have been hoping to be released from the burden of having to fight since she hates fighting, and Pandora made that a reality by killing Theresia with her Authority once she made herself understand Theresia. If Theresia were to die, she’d never have to fight again, and so, it happened. I have no idea what Pandora’s powers are, but I felt this could be plausible. This could be the reason she couldn’t make the Seal open in the reconstruction of the past in Emilia’s first Sanctuary trial since Emilia wished to respect Fortuna’s wishes.
After Theresia wakes up, she probably remembered her promise to Wilhelm and motioned for him to tell her something, but Wilhelm interrupted and said that his being bad with words, which manifested in his inability to tell her what she wanted to hear, ’caused her suffering. As tears began to stream down his face, Theresia comfortshim, implying him that his eyes, voice, bearing, and actions all this time have shown that he loves her, and after they exchanged an “I love you”, she started dissipating and some of her mana took the shape of flower petals, which I assume is an artistic liberty, much like in Episode 19 when the soldiers eyes were blinking as if they were cameras taking pictures, in Episode 37 when the animators animated the madness in Emilia’s eyes, showing that her mind had broken, and in Episode 61 when a green light coming from Liliana was meant to show that her music was resonating, not that she had some special singing power outside from her Divine Protection of Telepathy that lets her share how she feels. As she fades away, she thinks that her life was blessed from beginning to end given she had so many people supporting her and since she was able to meet Wilhelm. She believes that they’ll all be fine despite what we know of their current situation and that she’ll always love them.
After the ED finishes playing, Heinkel, like a douchebag, asks if Reinhard is satisfied since the title of Sword Saint is now his both in name and substance he defeated Theresia, which is clearly him acting out since Theresia was the heart of the family and perhaps his only emotional support 15 years ago. He then taunts Reinhard saying now there’s no denying the rumour that he let the previous Sword Saint die and stole her Divine Protection. Reinhard of course says he has no idea what Heinkel is talking about, and Heinkel interjects that he knows what what he saw, that Reinhard cut down his mother, and he’ll make sure everyone knows that so he isn’t accepted as the Sword Saint as it’s ridiculous that the Sword Saint killed his own flesh and blood. This makes sense that Heinkel feels this way since he was unconscious and not with the main strike force when it revealed that there were corpse soldiers among the Witch Cult’s ranks. Reinhard then shared that it couldn’t have been her since she was just a corpse that had been reanimated, and Heinkel spilled out drivel about the reproachful glare she had given to him and Reinhard, and given how happy she looked when she was fading it, it was probably his way of processing with the loss given he had a terrible reputation and wanted to believe Theresia was disappointed in him for falling to this point and in Reinhard for killing her since his mother was the most precious person to him in the world.
After Heinkel kept continuing on his rant, Wilhelm urged him to stop. He then put the remaining ashes from her body into the outer layer of his outfit that he had taken off during Heinkel’s rant. Reinhard wanted to console Wilhelm, but he just told him to stay back. He asks him whether he regrets killing his grandmother even though it was a merely a corpse soldier with her soul, which I guess isn’t surprising since this episode has clearly shown that Theresia was the entire world to him, and Reinhard merely says he did what was right and that he’d never regret that, which has Wilhelm begrudgingly, not that he believes it, says that Reinhard is right and that he is wrong, so he has nothing more to say to him as his strength will surely be needed elsewhere in this battle. When Heinkel actually showed concern for Wilhelm for the first time in the show given the state of his injuries, Wilhelm merely dismisses him saying that he should focus on his own safety, which is such an incredibly disrespectful thing to say to a family member, and it’s no wonder Heinkel just says that all of them, as in Reinhard and Wilhelm, should just die, given how cold and distant they were in what should have been an emotional reunion. From Heinkel’s perspective, it seems that Reinhard and Wilhelm are both forces of nature with ridiculous determination, and he’s the normal guy who just wants to feel like a normal person, as who wouldn’t be upset that their husband, mother, or grandmother just died. Although it’s obvious that Heinkel has fallen from grace, the blame probably has to go to Wilhelm for initially blaming Reinhard all those years ago when Heinkel needed an adult figure who he respected to give him guidance, and given what a terrible father and grandfather Wilhelm was, Heinkel spiralled into the person he is now.
I believe this episode was a fitting closure for Wilhelm and Theresia given Wilhelm clearly regretted not being able to tell Theresia he loved her, and it was clear that for the two of them, at least initially in Theresia’s case, the other was their entire world aside from their respective passions. As for Reinhard, he clearly told Regulus that he was a monster that hunts other monsters, and it’s no surprise he’d believe that given what his father and grandfather had been saying to him since he was young, so he of course ended up as cold and detached as he is now, as that’s what he feels he should be due to his upbringing. I hope that Theresia gets her wish that he will experience more than just living for his duty and that Heinkel eventually stops being such a mess.
This episode has a number of interesting implications as well as good character work that had been set-up since the premiere of Season 3. Not going to lie, I enjoyed all of that stuff more the last part of the fight between Garfiel and Kurgan, which was animated by Vincent Chansard, who I am not a fan of due how hard he makes it to understand what’s happening on screen.
The episode starts with Garfiel emerging in beast form from the black mass Capella had left there to trick them into believing she was there. As I noted in one of my previous write-ups, it’s a good thing Capella wasn’t also there as both Wilhelm and Garfiel would die if she had been present. I know some people will believe this is plot armour, but if my theory that Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path rather than being true texts that show how the holder can attain their dreams, then this is all part of the grand plan from characters 400 years ago to shepherd the world to a good future. Garfiel sees some demibeasts, but as they prepare to strike him, he again sees his hallucination of Elsa, asking if he can really kill them since they bore no grudge to him and were once humans. If you recall from my write-up from Episode 51, Garfiel has trauma both from killing Elsa and from having a bit of imposter syndrome due to the circumstances in which he defeated her since he won due to luck to an extent. It’s no surprise that a teenager like Garfiel struggled with processing his first kill, and I applaud Re:Zero for going in this direction when a lot of series would not even dare broach this topic. Garfiel then backed off, only for Kurgan to kill the demibeasts. You would think since they are on the side of the Witch Cult that he’d leave them alone, but it seems Kurgan still has some sense of individuality despite being a corpse solider and wanted a fair fight, which is why he killed them for interfering. Garfiel flinched at seeing those demibeasts die, which is no surprise since he doesn’t want to see people die as he even gave Elsa a chance to repent after all in Season 2 before continuing his fight with her. He then rushed at Kurgan and got beat down badly with Kurgan knocking Garfiel down many floors of the control tower.
Then it flashed back to the Otto and Felt group against Lye Batenkaitos, and Otto got multiple water dragons to attack Lye after he did a particular step with his feet. The group didn’t know how Otto did that, so I’ll explain it now. It was revealed in Season 1 and reaffirmed in Season 2 that Otto has a Divine Protection, specifically the Divine Protection of the Soul of Language that lets him speak to and understand all living creatures, even those regular people can’t. If you recall from Episode 58, Otto took a day off from the rest of the Emilia camp to go to the man who can repair what was Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom. He probably spoke with water dragons during that time in case the city came under attack since it surely doesn’t take a whole day to speak with one man. I’m guessing he bribed the water dragons with food or something since there isn’t anything else he as a merchant can offer them. Otto then asks why Felt is here in particular and name-dropped Heinkel, and Felt immediately interjects that she left Camberley to watch Heinkel, and I’m guessing that is the the last of three thugs that attacked Subaru in the alley in Season 1 since Rachins is accounted for. Felt was on her way to retrieve something they left at the inn, a powerful metia that a sorcerer in her camp gave to her.
Otto then interrupted her, likely ’cause he heard one of the water dragons crying for help, and it almost escaped the building the water dragons had slammed Lye into but was dragged back into it, which would most likely end in its death eventually. Felt then reveals after some prodding from Otto that Old Man Rom believes the metia is so powerful that even Reinhard would take damage from it, which Otto believes is a good benchmark for what could turn the tides in this fight, leading to him proposing that they stay here while Felt retrieves the metia. Lye then finishes off the last of the water dragons that attacked, and he said that gourmands can be particular about their appetizers, which is again different from how Roy Alphard approaches things. Felt even decides to leave Gaston, the most brawny of three thugs that attacked Subaru in Season 1, who if you recall from a previous episode, has a pregnant wife, with them. Lye then attacks as Felt is running away, and Gaston takes a hit from Lye in place of Felt, using mana flow to strengthen his body to prevent Lye’s attack from doing damage to him. After seeing Gaston’s battle prowess, Lye realizes what sort of plan they actually have. He then notes that with Felt gone that there are three that Rui might like, Otto, Gaston, and the person I presume is the leader of the White Dragon’s Scales. Otto then makes a meta remark that he’s had to fight more this year than most low-level fighters, and he wonders what kind of merchant makes him.
Back to the Al and Capella fight, the beginning of the scene with Capella and Al showed their shadows fighting with each other. After Al does significant damage to Capella, and she starts regenerating, Al says that couldn’t be more disgusting since he isn’t into gore. Capella remarks that nobody likes boys who speak too bluntly and wonders aloud whether all people who scheme in the shadows are like that, accusing Al to be the one who opened the watergate right as everything looked doom for the heroes and the one who killed off the other nine members of the Council of Ten who knew where the remains of the Witch were one by one with no involvement whatsoever from her. Al motions as if he has no idea what she’s talking about even if he probably opened the watergate and factually killed the Council of Ten as Priscilla hinted at in Episode 59. Capella then says she’ll forgive Al for playing dumb if he’ll take off his helmet, take her to bed, and love her, which may be showing that Al is her type of guy, and he just brushes it off while speaking in a higher-pitched voice that he appreciates the sentiment but that they don’t know each other well enough and that he doesn’t want his friends spreading weird rumours. Capella with some snark indicates that she doesn’t believe she’s such a bad option for masochists who are into being strung along by women given she has a penchant for reading into people’s type of ideal woman which has Al protesting only for him to be cut off as Capella transforms into Priscilla after changing her hair colour and probably age as well multiple times to suit Al’s tastes.
Al says that’s a repulsive thing to do and asks where she has seen the princess before, and Capella says she has never seen or have been aware of her, but judging the gestures you give off, the reactions you give, and the bearing you prefer is what she does best. Capella says everything about her should be in line with Al’s tastes, and he just playfully dismisses that by saying that the human race isn’t ready for that sort of expression of love, which is irritating Capella, leading her to ask why he is resisting her and what about her he dislikes, and he just trolls her by saying he doesn’t care, only to confirm that he finds her disgusting, so he actually hates her, to inflict maximum pain on her since Capella seems into him for some reason. Al then uses earth magic to fight Capella, cuts her head off and explodes her body to pieces, thinking that was enough, but it clearly wasn’t. Capella says her opinion of him has skyrocketed for sharing his intent to keep going even when the going gets though, showing that she is still really into him, but Al just keeps resisting her by saying he is more afraid of Priscilla in a bad mood than anyone, even someone who keeps changing appearances, which really pisses Capella off for daring to speak about another woman in her presence, and so she says she’ll teach him some manners with the interaction ending with Al saying the stars sure are aligned against me today.
Regarding Al not knowing the extent of Capella’s regeneration, I think this directly calls into question the theory that Al is a future Subaru since he should know Capella’s powers if that were the case. Thus, I believe this blindspot in Al’s knowledge is due to him actually being born as Subaru’s younger brother by blood and the previous iteration of the hero of the story with Subaru being frozen in time for hundreds of years. Al notably said the stars are aligned against him today, which shows he also has an awareness that his true name, Aldebaran, is based on a star, meaning he probably is an astronomy nerd much like Subaru was, and may have been named specifically due to his relation to Subaru.
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 in the Taurus constellation that follows the Pleiades star cluster in the night sky. In Arabic, Aldebaran means the follower for that reason. While some of the Arabic meanings for certain stars hint at the powers of Sin Archbishops, perhaps it would be better to consider Al’s name in relation to Subaru since Aldebaran isn’t a Sin Archbishop.
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. For more on why I am partial to Al being Subaru’s brother and the immediate previous iteration of the hero, read this:
Assuming my assumption about Al is correct, this episode shows either that Al had minimal involvement in fights with Capella when he was the hero of the story or that Capella wasn’t the Archbishop of Lust when he was the hero of the story as otherwise he wouldn’t believe that cutting off her head and making her body explode would kill her. In my theory, it’s mostly the hero and the heroine of the story who are different when the world is reconstructed after its destruction, but there are perhaps other small differences as well, as part of the world’s attempt to break the cycle of being destroyed and reconstructed may involve changing a few things up with the hope that the next iteration of the world will be the key to the end, which would account for something such as Capella being the Sin Archbishop of Lust in the current world but not in the previous iteration of the world.
Back to the Garfiel and Kurgan fight, Kurgan is standing there waiting for Garfiel, who is back to his normal form, to be battle ready again, showing he wants not only a fair fight but also a good fight. We then get a flashback to Garfiel calling Kurgan a living legend. He says that demihumans typically have a high aptitude for magic but that the many-armed race is an exception with comparably low aptitude, so even in the Vollachia Empire (the subs said Volakia in an earlier episode, so I’ll be using Vollachia from now on) where demihumans are a protected class, the many-armed race faced discrimination. It was Kurgan who turned that around when the local lord’s soldiers tried to kill them, turning the tables on all of them by himself, getting his race the acknowledgement they needed. Wilhelm interjected that most members of the many-armed race have four or five arms, but Kurgan was abnormal with eight of them, making him an outcast even among his own tribe, and despite that, he will took up the sword to protect his people. Garfiel indicated that his swords were referred to as Devil Cleavers, and Wilhelm said that he only draws them all against opponents he deems worthy, bringing those opponents great honour. Basically, Garfiel realizes that Kurgan wasn’t treating him as a serious threat. Garfiel then also starts using mana flow to boost the power of his legs, and he was able to get a large scratch on one of Kurgan’s arms in exchange for several blows. He also chips the main sword Kurgan is using before getting pushed to the area close to where the water is flowing out since they’re in the sewers, and as Kurgan strangles him, Garfiel musters up the strength to use mana flow again to destroy the ground underneath him so that they both fall into the water.
Then there’s a rupture in the wall of one of the shelters where Garfiel’s half-sibling are, and a demibeast finds its way into the shelter. As the citizens run to the opposite end of the shelter, Garf’s half-siblings fall to the ground, and Garfiel’s trauma regarding killing rears its ugly head again. He looks toward his brother and sister and finally gets the courage to kill the demibeast and the hallucination of Elsa with the hallucination saying she loves Garfiel with Garf replying that he doesn’t love her since she isn’t her (Ram), the one he actually loves, a callback to Season 2 when Garf let Elsa know he loves Ram during his battle with her. This makes Kurgan a foil to Garfiel since while Garf wasn’t outright an outcast like Kurgan was, he still decided to fight those he wanted to protect, his brethren, even to kill others for the sake of them, while being somewhat of a third wheel since his mother doesn’t remember him and started another family without him. Tappei clearly loves writing Garfiel’s character, and I believe the characters who suffer the most will have the biggest payoff at the end with those characters being Subaru, Crusch, Rem, and Garfiel.
Kurgan then also arrived at the shelter, and after seeing the dead demibeast and the whole shelter cheering for Garfiel, he honours him as a worthy opponent by drawing the rest of his Devil Cleavers. During the fight, Garfiel uses mana flow to launch himself to the ceiling while using earth pillars to block Kurgan’s arms, and in doing so, he managed to ruin one of Kurgan’s eyes in exchange for a slice to his abdomen. Then the strange directing began, and Garfiel rushes up towards Kurgan again using earth pillars to block some of his arms, and he used all the strength he had to destroy two of Kurgan’s Devil Cleavers in exchange for breaking his arms in the process. Kurgan thought he was about to finish off Garfiel, but he didn’t notice that one of his left arms wasn’t working well due to the large scratch Garg had done to him earlier before they reached the shelter in the sewers since he is a corpse soldier and can’t feel pain, and Garfiel uses mana flow again to launch himself to the ceiling and use the earth pillars to block Kurgan’s arms and descend down to bite through one of Kurgan’s arteries in his neck by attacking Kurgan from his left side due to eye being disabled, which was really, really hard to see, and I had watch that more than once with me not understanding until I saw a piece of his neck gone later after the fight had concluded, and I blame the lackluster directing there on my gap in understanding. Kurgan commended Garf and then crumbled to pieces like stone, which I’m assuming is ’cause the corpse soldier magic involves earth magic. Garfiel also looked like he couldn’t believe that he won during that scene, so that plays into his trauma regarding imposter syndrome for feeling that he won against Elsa due to a fluke. After that, Garfiel said noble doesn’t even begin to describe it, probably ’cause Kurgan didn’t use to cheap tricks and just wanted a fair, and more importantly, a good fight. His younger sister than calls for a healer as Garf collapses.
I wonder why Kurgan retained some individuality while Theresia ended up being a killing machine. Kurgan obviously still understands the concepts of honour, respect, and glory given he notably killed the demibeasts that were going after Garfiel ’cause they interfered with his fight, showing he still understood the concept of honour and wanting a fair fight. Later on in the fight, when Garfiel was laying down on the ground, he waited until Garfiel was ready to get back up before fighting, which showed he not only wanted a fair fight but a good fight, which was again shown when he demonstrated respect for Garfiel by fighting will all his Devil Cleavers, but Theresia is just a one-note killer now.
We then flash back to the fight between Wilhelm and Theresia, and he gets a fresh wound from her with him saying he never expected to last long in this fight, which was implied to be due to the old wound he got from her, and he says that he will have plenty of time with his wife when he joins her on the other side but that he will not dream with her being beautiful being why she can’t exist now since she was middle-aged when she died.
This episode was more straightforward than most Re:Zero episodes, but there were still some very interesting details in it, including Subaru honouring a fallen foe and a very important detail regarding Petelgeuse.
The episode opens with Emilia rushing to the chapel where the wives are, and it flashes back to Subaru whispering to her that the key to defeating Regulus lies with his wives and that they are the key to his little kingdom. Upon arrival, Emilia pleads to Regulus’s wives that they’re going to defeat Regulus but that they’ll need all of their help. Given Emilia knows that the wives have been beaten down, she acknowledges that she knows winning or losing a fight isn’t what determines who’s in the right and indicates if she loses here that she knows Regulus will trample over something precious to her. Emilia looked across the room to see if anybody reacted, and then Wife Number 184 asked if that precious thing is her life? Wife Number 184 then replies that for them life is really are there is after Emilia suggested there was more to life than just life being precious and that they don’t dare wish for anything more, showing just how fearful they are of Regulus. Emilia then changes her approach and asks for Wife Number 184’s name, saying that she doesn’t know anything about her, so it was selfish of her to ask for a favour, which noticeably affected Wife Number 184 if you had a look at her eyes. But still, Wife Number 184 responds that she has nothing further to say to Emilia as she is not even their husband’s bride anymore, so she’s different from them, which prompts Emilia to say that she’s a half-elf since she wants the wives to know that she has faced hardships even if their circumstances are different, sharing something they did have in common with their like of daisukiyaki. When pressed about what she’s trying to say, Emilia responds that they’re different, and that’s fine, again asking for Wife Number 184’s name and sharing that her name’s Emilia and that she’s different from them in many ways but is confident she shares things in common with them as well, which is a good way to try to connect with someone and build bridges with them. When Emilia puts it out there that she wants to help them, Wife Number 184 responds in frustration about why Emilia would go to the trouble of making them feel human after all this given that as long as they keep him satisfied, he won’t kill them, which is what they have believed all this time is the way they should be approaching things, prompting her to ask Emilia just what she even knows about them. Emilia responds confidently that she knows that they’re kind, that they’ve been trying their hardest, and that they’re all crying for help, saying everything about Wife Number 184 was pleading, “Help me”, both through her eyes and voice, so she’ll help them, but first they must allow themselves to be saved. It just shows how much kindness and compassion that Emilia had that she could soften Wife Number 184 like this.
This leads to Wife Number 184 asking if there are any of them among Regulus’s wives that love their husband, and none of them do, with most of them having disparaging things to say about Regulus, and Wife Number 184 finally reveals that her name is Sylphy and says that they all hate Regulus’s guts but didn’t have the courage to speak out and proclaims that they will help Emilia after all the effort she put into understanding their plight. After an offscreen talk in which Emilia explained the situation, some of Regulus’s wives questioned whether they really are the key to his kingdom as they doubt he’d entrust something like that to them, and when they put it out there that she may be mistaken, Emilia has full confidence that Subaru is right on matters such as this. Emilia then draws out one of her lesser spirits, which goes though Sylphy’s body, and that gives her the idea to listen to Sylphy’s heartbeat, which confirmed the existence of a second heart belonging to Regulus that he affixes to those he considers his brides. It then flashes back to Regulus and Subaru, who underestimates Subaru so badly that when Subaru reveals he knows that he is using his brides as his Authority, Regulus reveals that he has total confidence about the situation as even if his wives wanted to betray him, they’d have to stop the hearts of all his wives to defeat him. Clearly, Regulus is toying with Subaru since physical domination is not enough, and he wants Subaru despairing before he kills him.
Back to Emilia and the wives, Sylphy is emotional after having learned what Emilia found out, and she reached for a piece of glass thinking that killing herself is the only way to defeat Regulus since their hearts need to be stopped. She scraped herself thinking that that wound is proof of her freedom, and when Emilia posits that there must be another way as otherwise Regulus would have even more victims, Sylphy responds that there’s no way he’d give them an out as the only one Regulus is capable of loving is himself, and the rest of the wives also pick up shards of glass with the intent of killing themselves, leaving Emilia to think quickly to freeze them, saying that she can stop all their pulses as she herself had the experience of having been frozen.
At the same time that was happening, Subaru had gotten up and stopped pretending he was close to death, taunting Regulus about how he’d be the type to monologue against a dying opponent, which infuriated Regulus and got him attacking Subaru again with him dodging the attacks since Regulus just throws attacks straight at him with no regard for strategy. Subaru and Regulus then see that Emilia has frozen the chapel, and Regulus starts freaking out how normal humans wouldn’t do something like taking the lives of all those innocent brides, and Emilia having arrived, launches an attack on him, telling him to consider that the divorce paperwork from all his wives. Regulus then breaks free from the ice and starts taunting them as his Authority is still working as normal, so he thinks Emilia may have miscounted the number of lives she took or something, but it was really that Emilia had Regulus’s heart in her own chest since he still considers her a bride with all his yapping about not suitable for a bride and such in a previous episode, which shows he still considers her one of them. Regulus still thinks nothing of the situation and believes that Emilia and Subaru have checkmated themselves, and he then taunts Subaru, suggesting that he kill Emilia now to see whether his heart will have anywhere else to go. Emilia then makes an ice blade, which gives Subaru the idea that Emilia is going to kill herself, but he was probably mistaken, and she was planning to freeze herself as well, which is likely why she said, “But”, before Subaru interrupted her. Subaru was completely out of ideas, but then Regulus continues taunting him, saying he recognizes Subaru as the one who made the broadcast about having killed a Sin Archbishop and that killing a failure like that doesn’t mean he could kill him, and Subaru finally gets the idea after thinking back about how the shadow hands could phase through objects that the issue of Regulus’s heart will be solved by using Invisible Providence on Regulus’s heart. It appears he called it Unseen Hand this time to honour Petelgeuse as a worthy opponent given how much suffering he had put him through instead of disrespecting him as Regulus does given he has called it Invisible Providence every other time before this.
Regarding why Emilia said so that’s where you were, Geuse, when Subaru used his Authority of Sloth, we know Subaru’s entire body resets when he dies, so this means the soul is the seat of memories in Re:Zero. Given Satella can read Subaru’s mind and know whether he intends to reveal Return By Death or that he has lived more than one life, perhaps it indicates that Satella’s soul is the vicinity of Subaru’s soul, and that is how she reads his mind due to close proximity.
We’ve seen in Episode 8 in Season 1 when Puck used Shamak on Subaru that Subaru saw himself in a dark world where Satella was grabbing his heart, which was a memory from when he tried to reveal RBD to Emilia. You have to pause to see this as it doesn’t linger on this for long. Episode 20 also had Satella whisper “Aishiteru” to Subaru when he tried to reveal Return by Death, and that was also likely ’cause she froze the time of the world and pulled Subaru’s soul to where hers was so that she could whisper that to him. Satella being able to his read Subaru’s mind and thoughts suggests that her soul might currently exist in a pocket dimension in the vicinity of Subaru’s soul, and the closeness of their souls is what allows her to do that and also pull him into another dimension.
So if my hypothesis is correct, Petelgeuse’s soul may be currently in this dark world/dimension, and that is how Emilia sensed his presence, not ’cause she recognized Subaru’s Authority to be Geuse’s. This indicates Petelgeuse didn’t completely die and that his soul is where Satella is in the pocket dimension within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul. This explains why Sirius was convinced that Petelgeuse had returned after Subaru used Invisible Providence in Episode 53, and it’s ’cause, like Emilia, she also felt Petelgeuse’s presence. I would never have guessed that that moment in Episode 53 was foreshadowing, but I guess this is Re:Zero, and you can’t rule out something like that being foreshadowing. I would never have thought that Petelgeuse would actually get his wish to be with Satella after he was defeated. I’m glad he got a chance to be happy after he was driven insane by Pandora.
Anyway, as Regulus yaps, he doesn’t realize that his feet are wet, and Emilia starts attacking him, leading him to ask what they’ve done to his Authority of Greed as it’s clear Crunchyroll botched the translation with its text asking why they have the Authority of Greed. Subaru then responded that Regulus got counterattacked by an enemy he took too lightly, which shows he indeed was showing respect to Petelgeuse on this occasion by calling it the Unseen Hand instead of Invisible Providence since he got the inspiration to use his Authority on this occasion ’cause of Petelgeuse. Emilia then gives Regulus 53 punches for all of the wives that suffered under him, and then when she launched an Al Huma on behalf of herself, it was revealed he can still use his Authority by stopping his own heart temporarily to maintain some invincibility like before but with a time limit. The reason he was completely invulnerable before was that since his heart was gone from his body there was no need to stop it since it was if he had no heart in the first place.
A battered Regulus then suggests that Emilia and Subaru are playing unfair by ganging up on him. He then spouts a whole bunch of contradictions, which makes Emilia pity him, and as Subaru sees Reinhard descending from the sky, he suggests Regulus can get the 1-on-1 fight he wishes. Reinhard then arrives in fiery fashion while any normal human would’ve died from re-entering the atmosphere like he did. Regulus messed up royally by sending Reinhard to the moon instead of outward to the stars since that allowed him to come back. Reinhard then sends Regulus up into the sky, and Regulus then does more of his unhinged rants and then pictures in his head all his wives laughing at him in their final moments as an act of resistance to him, showing what a truly pathetic man he is, before Reinhard sends him down to a pool of water at ground level, breaking the ground and resulting in a vertical shaft being made as Regulus uses his Authority to prevent him from dying from being crushed by the impact of the rocks. As the water starts filling the shaft, he remembers that the Wife Number 79 position was originally meant for someone else and that Emilia was the one Fortuna and Pelgeuse adored. He said that the thought of Emilia getting to avenge them makes him want to vomit. Emilia can’t quite put where she has seen Regulus before as she is sure she has before, which she also thought in Episode 51. Regulus then intermittently uses his Authority to avoid drowning quickly, and this guy just never stops talking/thinking, and then finally the colour from his eyes fades, and he dies.
Previously, I put it out there that the reason Emilia might not remember Regulus was due to trauma and also ’cause she actually saw very little of the fight with Regulus in the first Sanctuary trial, and given she could remember Fortuna dying by Petelgeuse’s hand, it probably wasn’t due to trauma but that she saw so little of Regulus and also ’cause what little she saw of Regulus was when he was with Pandora, and given Pandora erased herself from Emilia’s memories, that affected what little she remembered of Regulus although she still subconsciously recognized him.
At the end of the episode, Emilia unfreezes all the wives she put in suspended animation, and she said she hopes everyone’s all right with Subaru remarking that’s what Reinhard is for. It then flashes to the Wilhelm and Theresia and Garfiel and Kurgan fight with Garfiel emerging out of the black mass in his beast form, so now we know what the focus of the next episode will be.
It’ll be interesting to see how that fight goes, and I very much look forward to seeing next week’s episode. I thought it was satisfying seeing a guy as terrible as Regulus get his just deserts and how Emilia won over the wives, and I’m curious how this Petelgeuse reveal will be relevant in the future. If you have anything to add, feel free to do so.
