As it stands I would say there are only two characters in anime(Or even all of fiction) who can say “I know hell” and make me truly believe it. The first being Sakura Matou who experienced a childhood so horrific that it could drive an ordinary person to madness just to experience three days of what she endured. The second being Natsuki Subaru who has experienced death a total of sixteen times and gone through experiences that, despite what they may claim, would break any watchers mind down to splinters. Though to know hell is but one thing and while Subaru has experienced it, I doubt he has gone through the worst it has to offer. With another episode Re:Zero continues a string of great episodes that could very well go to the end of the cour and the viewers will be experiencing the hell of cold turkey.
When we last left things off Satella was having a bit of an episode over Subaru being able to talk about return by death without her permission and the start of this episode has us right back with Subaru and Garfiel fleeing her malice. We get a good picture of Satella’s power as she swats away Garfiel and many clones of Ryuzu without even acknowledging them to any degree. Indeed Satella doesn’t seem to truly register anything and just professes continuous empty love at Subaru. Looking at this, I can’t help but get an idea. I may be reaching but I would look at Satella’s love like a symbol of the kind of love between Otaku and waifus. I myself am guilty of such a fascination(Look at my season one posts and see how much I fanboy about Rem) but I can in a way view that kind of love like the love the Satella has for Subaru. An empty love professed without true feelings, one that looks at a character not as a person but rather as an ideal. The real joke of it being that this is essentially what Subaru felt entitled to in episode one by virtue of being a Isekai protagonist. Any otaku wants to go to another world and encounter a beautiful girl that will love them no matter what. Well Subaru you got your wish, her name is Satella and she loves you to literal bits whether you want it or not. Indeed if I overthink this I could connect Satella’s behavior to the toxicity of parasocial relationships or the entitlement of fans in idol communities that somehow believe that this girl that sings on a screen is their personal true love that must never be tarnished or taken by any other. Honestly I kinda laugh at the idea that this show which has anime fans professing best girls has an in universe surrogate with Satella who is doing the same for her best boy.
Thinking on that I am coming to see why Emilia is likely the best choice for Subaru as she truly is a kind soul that wishes for Subaru to truly be himself. For her to put aside her own mental breakdown for the sake of comforting Subaru instead truly speaks to how selfless she is. She wants to see both his good and bad sides while Rem encourages Subaru to only show his best side to those who he loves. I love Rem(Gah! My hypocrisy!) but she’s admittedly someone who more enables Subaru rather than encourages him to be better. Her actions were a bandaid rather than a cure and in the long run it does appear to be a codependency that has led Subaru to regress. Indeed he certainly seems to be getting worse before he gets better as this episode marks a time where he had decided to purposefully waste a life for the sake of gathering information. To some this is a good change as Subaru is finally taking advantage of Return by Death but there was something…off about Subaru in this episode. Even in heartwarming scenes there was something about the look in Subaru’s face that just didn’t sit right and you could very easily write it off as maybe the artists not quite getting his facial emotions correct. Perhaps that could be the case but we can definitely see that he’s once again making mistakes with the key clue being his stubbornness to do things alone. This has never worked out well for Subaru in the past and often leads to dead ends. Often the solution to each arc is to rely on others more rather than do everything yourself, as his strength has always been getting the right people to the right places at the right time.
I wouldn’t call this episode perfect as there were some questionable directing choices. When Satella enveloped Subaru in her darkness the visual effect was a bit too intrusive that it made it somewhat difficult to see what exactly was going on. Along with the reveal of Satella’s face and Subaru’s rather odd declaration to save her, much like he said to the dead Emilia in episode one. Garfiel and Subaru’s conversation near episodes end was a bit obtuse as well considering that it was rather difficult to understand what exactly Subaru was talking about.(To put it into perspective, he was basically just egging on Garfiel to learn more about him, something Garfiel caught on to and was shocked about as he thought it was insane that Subaru was treating his life so lightly) When thinking about it and giving it a rewatch you could get a better idea of what is going on but I think the presentation somewhat failed in conveying the intent. That “I know hell” line and Garfiels reaction was completely on point though. Much like Wilhelm being able to see that Subaru had experienced death in some form, Garfiel was also able to tell that his words were not light. Well next week appears to be a Beatrix episode and all signs appear to point to disaster even if we take into account that we are a long way away from the finale of this arc. So the question is, just how will Subaru die this time?
I agree that when the shadow enveloped Subaru that the visual effect was not done well enough to see what was happening. I’d be surprised if anyone could tell from those visuals that Subaru was going to head to a different building where the original Ryuzu Meyer was located.
Subaru realized when he was in the shadow that Echidna knew what was going to happen. That’s probably why she meddled with the handkerchief and turned it into a special knife/blade. But if she did know what was going to happen, that means that she too can see the future. If Beatrice and Roswaal have the two copies of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom (Beako reveal episode 7, Roswaal reveal episode 9), that means Echidna must have the original Tome of Wisdom. I wonder what her endgame goal is since she’s deliberately helping Subaru, and if I’m right, even changed up Emilia’s trial three times two loops ago in an attempt to get Emilia to break out of her shell.
I also wonder why Ryuzu’s Meyer’s body was insufficient to hold Echidna’s soul. That could have used some explaining without taking too much time in my opinion.
Judging by Beatrice’s reaction at the end of the episode, she expected Subaru to come back through her not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and is expecting Subaru to free her from her current contract of being the guardian of the Forbidden Library. Let’s see if adding Beatrice to Subaru’s party will change anything. Does Beatrice even have any offensive spells?
Yeah, Subaru’s declaration to save Satella really was odd. Granted, her crying face does suggest that there’s more to her than mere cruelty and malice: that the reason she’s acting the way she does is not so much that she enjoys watching the world burn, but that she may rather be starved of love and is acting out because she’s in pain. But even so, she just killed many of Subaru’s closest comrades, including Emilia, and he expressed his contempt for her just a few moments before, so the sudden switch in his mindset was rather peculiar. Besides, he doesn’t know nearly enough about her to even understand what saving her would entail: hell, maybe she’s already too far gone for that to be a realistic possibility.
That being said, if he actually decides to go through with this, it could be a pretty interesting development. I always assumed Satella would be the final boss, but if she’s someone Subaru wants to save instead of merely vanquish, that certainly complicates things: either she isn’t the final boss after all, or Subaru will have to stop and save what is quite possibly the most powerful being in the Re:Zero universe at the same time. Good luck with that…
I think what happened with Subaru declaring that he’d save Satella is that he mistakenly thought that Satella had possessed Emilia’s body solely because of the similarities of their faces.
But Subaru is wrong about that because Emilia was not wearing a veil over a head, was not wearing a strange thing on her neck like Satella does, and was not wearing an 8-petal hairpin on the right side of her head like Satella does. For reference, Emilia wears a 4-petal hairpin on the left side of her head.
Subaru is very bad at missing small details. An example would be when Wilhelm spoke about his wife in the past tense, indicated that his wife was dead. If Subaru had figured that out, he would have realized that Crusch asking him if he knows why Wilhelm serves her in episode 14 meant that Wilhelm serves Crusch because she wants to help Wilhelm get revenge after episode 16 when Anastasia told Subaru that it was Crusch who was gathering a large stash of weapons. Luckily for him, with Rem’s help, he was able to do negotiate with Crusch properly even though he didn’t know about Wilhelm.
That Subaru was talking about saving Emilia (rather than the Witch) was actually my first thought as well when watching that scene. But in the discussion threads of the episode the vast majority of people seemed to think that he was talking about the Witch, and as far as I could tell source readers didn’t correct that interpretation (as they tend to do when anime only viewers misinterpret something), so I figured that I must have been mistaken. However, going by the relevant chapter from the webnovel, I think it is pretty clear that Subaru was talking about Emilia after all:
“Seeing Subaru commit suicide, for the first time, an emotion other than love detonated in the Witch of Envy.
But, drowning in his own blood, Subaru’s already-detached consciousness wasn’t aware of this.
Only, seeing the girl’s familiar face twisted in grief, regardless of what was residing inside her, it still pained his heart all the same to see her like this――
His throat was filled with blood, making it difficult to formulate speech. But even so, Subaru spoke, not to the counterfeit residing in her vessel, but to the girl.
[Subaru: I, will――]
――Definitely save you.” (https://translationchicken.com/2017/11/08/rezero-arc-4-chapter-51-loveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveloveme-part-2-2/)
So I guess it was more of a reaffirmation of Subaru’s determination to save Emilia, instead of him sympathizing with Satella’s suffering – which would certainly make a hell of a lot more sense. Seeing how many people have misinterpreted the scene, though, the show arguably didn’t get this across very well.
As for whether Satella possessed Emilia, I don’t think the differences in appearance necessarily undermine that idea: it is pretty common in anime to mark a character being possessed with certain visual changes, and with the Witch’s vast magical powers it is hardly unthinkable that she could tweak her appearance a bit. And going by the existing lore of the show (e.g., Betelgeuse saying that Emilia is a candidate for becoming the vessel for the Witch, which suggests that she needs one to manifest herself), it would make a lot of sense.
Source readers are not infallible. They too can misinterpret scenes if they take Subaru’s thoughts as gospel. Remember when Subaru mistakenly thought that Emilia didn’t want to be a part of the Royal Selection after a conversation with Beatrice in season 1? It was blatantly incorrect and shows that Subaru is the type to jump to conclusions. That is why I refuse to believe Subaru’s interpretation that Emilia was possessed by Satella. I will go into detail about how I believe the Witch manifested herself in my final paragraphs.
When I think of possession, I go by Petelgeuse’s multiple possessions that lead to zero change in appearances. I don’t buy that Satella can magically tweak her appearance until it is explicitly shown in the anime even though she has enormous magical power. I believe Re:zero is the type of show to not resort to that kind of writing.
As for the Witch being able to manifest herself, I don’t think it requires a vessel. Remember that in episode 17 in Season 1, Satella killed Emilia when Subaru decided he would tell Emilia about Return by Death even if his heart gets squeezed. What happened when he did that was the space around Subaru was warped by Satella, and her hands killed Emilia. Satella seems to be able to manifest parts of herself through Subaru, and I suspect this is because Subaru’s soul is linked to Satella’s soul.
Forgive me for going on a tangent now, but I believe I need to post about where I believe Satella’s soul to be located. There is an afterlife in Re:zero as Echidna has confirmed in episode 28 when previously, Petelgeuse in episode 17 was all viewers had to go with on the matter when he indicated he’d be reunited with the Witch in death. We know from Beatrice that the legendary dragon, sage, and hero sealed Satella, the Witch of Envy’s because they could not destroy her body, and it’s likely that the reason Subaru smells more strongly of Satella whenever he comes back from the dead is because Satella’s soul is sealed in the afterlife, and Subaru’s soul and her soul come into close proximity after he dies, leading to him smelling more strongly of her after deaths because of increased exposure to her. In case it wasn’t obvious, I speculate that the foul smell of the Witch is the scent of her soul given that her body is sealed and should have no biological function right now, so her foul stench shouldn’t be the smell of her body.
And since Subaru and all Witch cultists bear the foul stench of her soul, I believe it means that Subaru and all Witch cultists’ souls are linked to Satella’s soul, and she can manifest herself through Subaru and possibly all Witch cultists, but if it’s not all Witch cultists, maybe just the Sin Archbishops.
You’re absolutely right that Subaru could be mistaken in his assumption that Satella possessed Emilia: my point was just that his assumption is not an unreasonable one, and the fact that he has been wrong in the past hardly means that he must be wrong about this too. It is true that Petelgeuse did not change his appearance when he possessed others; but Petelgeuse only had a small fraction of Satella’s powers, so that doesn’t prove much. And it is true that Satella has affected the outside world before; but that is clearly very different from what happened this time, and the Witch Cult, at least, seems to firmly believe that she needs a vessel in order to manifest her full powers. So I would say that, at this point in the series, the exact magical capabilities of the Witch and the rules surrounding her manifestation in the world are simply unclear. Maybe she possessed Emilia, maybe she didn’t: no one can say for sure – it is probably meant to be ambiguous at this point – and we can only wait patiently for the answers to slowly be revealed.
As for the Witch’s smell, it’s an interesting theory, but I would personally go for the more simple explanation that Subaru has the Witch’s smell on him after reincarnating because (i) she used his powers on him, and her smell seems to linger on him whenever she does so (even when she just wants to stop him from talking), and (ii) the Witch’s smell seems to be linked to his mental state to some extent (the more hopeless he feels, the stronger the smell), and it is only to be expected that he would feel a bit out of sorts after having just, you know, died.