I have a lot to say and not a lot to say about these Re: Zero episodes. As these episodes were something that you can theorized a lot about and I plan on making separate post about it along with analysis at least once a week until the second half of season 2 comes in January. But, this episode had a lot in it. With a lot to be yet unsolved so let’s talk about it.
What Is With all of the Witches?
Alright this will lead on to a theory that I will make in the future. But, something that really made me interested was the way that all of the witches were comfortable and supportive of Subaru. As if they knew him already. It might be for the contract or his favor. But, it interest me a lot about all of them. As we get a moment that I the viewer would think be an all out fight came to nothing really. As the person that supposedly murdered all of the witches walks in and has normal conversation with not that much hatred or hostility towards Satella. I don’t know if it was the world that they are in or the power of Satella is just unreachable but it is interesting how the witches all interact.
Satella
Now Satella is one of the most interesting people in the story to me. As she says very little and what she does say is her expression of love and care for Subaru. It makes me really interested why she cares so much and her motives about it. But, her main goal was to tell Subaru to care for himself more and be less sacrificing.
Love Yourself
Also all of the witches are trying to help Subaru in their own way. As when he bit his tongue to run it back again. But, somewhere trying to stop it while others try to let him go. So why are these powerful people going all this way for this man. Which is something that keeps leading me to this multiple timelines/subarus theory that is sounding more wild the more I think about it.
Multiple Timelines/Subarus Theory (in the works)
Actually let me talk about it a little bit, so this post is not as confusing. Also this is a theory that I will do more research on once I eventually read the light novel. But, I believe that another Subaru was reincarnated in this world many years ago and somehow had a relationship with all of the witches, specifically Satella. Who could be the mother or sister to Emilia.
Also I want to add that Subaru has a thing for silver hair waifus as shown in his room. So maybe he had a relationship with her in the past and died. Thus Satella did everything in her power to bring him back and never die. Causing a curse on herself maybe. (Note this is all of the top of my head after watching this episode twice.)
Roswaal forcing an impossible Choice
So Roswaal sent the assassins. He sent the rabbits. All to make Subaru choose between them so he can groom him to be like him. So one day he can take down this dragon. What goes on in this man’s head is something else. As I didn’t even think it was him. But, hell he basically made Subaru choose between Petra and Beatrice or Emila and the village. Leaving him lying on the floor helpless with no direction. Until his FRIEND Otto knocked some sense into him with a punch and reminded him that he has people that will help him along the way to the end of the first half of Season 2.
Final Thoughts
This is crazy that all of this is in one checkpoint and there is so much work to do. Roswaal is now the main antagonist of this arc. So much has to be done. With Subaru being a lot less self sacrificing. This was an amazing half of a season and I can’t wait to make theories and all of that in the gap till the second half returns. So thank you all for reading and viewing all of these reviews, hope you are here for the theories and character analysis between the gap, and here for the second half. Until then I hope you all be great my A&M people.
I just want to say that Echidna is an amazing character. But, my favorite witch is Minerva. Yup I said it.
SAE With a K 
I have a theory of souls that I came up with after episode 18 of Re:zero that I believe explains how Satella identified Subaru as being the one she loved, leading to her pulling him into Re:zero’s world across time and space. I posted it on crowsworldofanime for episode 35, and I’ll post a more detailed version of that in light of this episode somewhat confirming this is a multiverse with multiple timelines, which I speculated to be the case after episode 15 in the first season when that timeline continued to snow after Puck cut Subaru’s head off, leading to an awesome credits scene that was like a tribute to a movie.
There is an afterlife in Re:zero as Echidna has confirmed (when she indicated it was the land of death) in episode 28 when previously, Petelgeuse in episode 18 was all viewers had to go with on the matter when he indicated he’d be reunited with the Witch in death (not saying she is dead. Just saying the afterlife is the primary means for meeting her at this time since she is sealed), and there is also reincarnation as Arbiter Melakuera indicated in the Frozen Bonds OVA. 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 I reasoned that Subaru smells more strongly of Satella whenever he comes back from the dead 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. Subaru and Witch Cultists probably all reek of Satella’s stench because their souls are bonded to Satella’s, and Echida thought this episode that she could experience RBD with Subaru if she bonded her soul to Subaru’s, which is bonded to Satella’s.
I speculate that the foul smell of the Witch is the scent of her soul given that her immortal body is probably sealed and should have no biological function right now, so her foul stench shouldn’t be the smell of her body. And if that is the case, Satella’s soul being confined to the afterlife indicates that Emilia and Satella do not have the same soul, and therefore are different people. They also cannot be the same because they smell different.
That this is supposedly a multiverse suggests that every soul of one particular individual is part of a greater soul, and I speculate that each soul that is part of a greater soul has a consistent scent. The Witch of Envy having the same soul scent across all timelines is likely because the scent of the greater soul she is a part of smells really bad. Even if Satella has had previous lives where she wasn’t the Witch of Envy, I believe that those previous iterations of Satella in which she had different names also had that same foul stench that beings like Rem, Garfiel, and Witch cultists that can identify the smell even if those previous iterations of Satella all had different personalities from one another.
Okay, I’m only now getting to my point now. If supernatural beings like Rem and Garfiel can smell the scent of the Witch, perhaps they can also smell all people’s scents, not just Satella’s scent. Therefore, who is say that Satella, a very powerful supernatural being, cannot recognize Subaru’s scent and that that is the reason she was able to single out Subaru as being the one to summon? If Satella is indeed able to recognize Subaru’s scent across time and space though and possibly a different body though, it suggests that she had previous exposure to Subaru’s soul scent before Subaru was born in the modern world. The implication of this line of thought is that Subaru once existed in Re:zero’s fantasy world, and that is how Satella knew that Subaru was the one to summon. Perhaps Satella had met Subaru’s previous incarnation before she was sealed 400 years ago, and that previous iteration of Subaru had the same soul scent as the greater Subaru soul. Even if Subaru was not named Subaru 400 years ago, if his soul was indeed part of the greater Subaru soul, that man’s soul would smell the same as Subaru’s, and therefore, Satella pinpointed Subaru across time and space and even worlds by merely smelling him like Rem does, just on a much greater scale.
Assuming that my theory of souls and soul scents is correct, I also have a somewhat plausible theory that’s still being developed about why Satella summoned Subaru in that moment he walked out of the convenience store in particular. There are multiple signs of people from the modern world having been summoned to Re:zero’s fantasy world. Hitchhiking did not exist in a medieval society and was a 20th century invention, meaning that at the time Subaru tried to hitchhike, one or more of Aldebaran, Priscilla, and their carriage driver recognized what hitchhiking was, meaning that either one or more of them was born in the modern world or people summoned from the modern world in the past invented hitchhiking in Re:zero’s fantasy world. Additionally, Aldebaran recognized what Subaru was talking about when he mentioned that Anastasia spoke in the Kansai dialect, which suggests that Aldebaran is either a formerly Japanese man or a fan of Japanese culture. After Subaru pointed out the Kansai dialect, Aldebaran pointed out that the entire country of Kararagi speaks in the Kansai dialect, which suggests that Kararagi was either founded by a group of Japanese people or ruled by a Japanese person in the past that spread that dialect all throughout the country because for a significant period of time in Japan’s history, the Kansai dialect was standard Japanese. There are also hamburgers in Re:zero’s world as shown when Mimi was eating them in episode 16 of Re:zero, and hamburgers should not exist in a medieval society, which shows that someone from the modern world was summoned to Re:zero’s fantasy world and invented them himself/herself.
Assuming what I speculated is rooted in sound logic, perhaps Satella narrowed down that the Subaru we know lived in Japan, but she could not identify the era in which Subaru belonged in, and that is why there have been, if my speculation is correct, multiple summonings to Re:zero’s fantasy world. Then why would Satella repeatedly summon non-Subaru people if she knew he was somewhere in Japan? This suggests that something was distorting her sense of smell, and perhaps the contracts the legendary dragon made with the royal family could somehow cloud Satella’s one or more of Satella’s senses in a yet-to-be-determined way and make it harder for her to function at a normal level even after considering that her soul was sealed in the afterlife. This would necessitate that she engineer a way to kill off the royal family. Maybe that’s why the royal family perished in an epidemic. Perhaps after the king died and the rest of the family started dying out, Satella was able to do a better job of summoning Japanese people. Maybe she stopped summoning people from when cities such Nara and Kyoto were Imperial capitals and started summoning people progressively closer to the period of time in which Subaru lived until she eventually located Subaru himself and pulled him into the time period of her choosing in Re:zero’s fantasy world, which likely created resulted in a timeline without him being in it continuing on with Emilia 100% being murdered by Elsa. I wish I knew when exactly the royal family perished because that would clarify whether my theory has merit or not. If the royal family has actually been wiped out for many years, it weakens my theory, because that would mean that Satella has been sitting on her ass for a long time instead of summoning Subaru sooner.
A question this episode raised is how has Roswaal survived for over 400 years if he had met Echidna 400 years ago?
I also think the odds of Emilia dying at the end of Re:zero has increased with this episode. Satella asked Subaru to eventually come kill her, and given that the Witch Cult’s goal is test Emilia to see whether she’d be a good vessel for the Witch as instructed by their Gospels, I can see Satella possessing Emilia’s body at the end of the show, requiring for Subaru and a coalition of fighters to kill Satella and Emilia since Emilia’s body is killable unlike Satella’s original body that was immortal. I don’t think the odds are very good that Subaru will be able to save Satella or Emilia if my prediction comes to pass as Subaru is just a human after all.
I’ve thought about why Satella would want to be killed, and since she loves Subaru to extreme levels and wants him to love himself, maybe having Subaru kill her, leading to him becoming hailed as one of the greatest heroes in history, would be the ultimate proof of her love for him and a way for him to gain self-confidence. I don’t know if this is true, but if this is how she’s really thinking, Satella has not at all considered that Subaru having to kill Emilia would be devastating for him. I’m not sure Subaru would be happy with becoming a great hero if he had to kill Emilia, but if he had to choose between Emilia and saving the entire world, I think he’d choose the world (even if it was with great reluctance and angst) given that he told his not-actually-his-mom in the first trial that anyone who chooses mayonnaise over the world hates the world.
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Damn, this is crazy and amazing theory at the same time. The first thing I want to touch is the Aldebaran topic. (This was cut out of the first season so spoilers kinda if you want to skip go to the next paragraph) But, I watched a video of stuff that was cut out of the first season and it did state that Subara and Aldebaran who is the knight of Priscilla did come from another world. While also having a hatred towards Ram. Which sucks that we might not see that animated.
Now the burger thing is something that I didn’t think about. As that is something that is crazy think about that world. So their might be a collection of people in the world that have been sent in the world of Re:Zero. Which is a something that I like. As it can increase the crazy love Satella has for Subaru.
The soul theory and it being a multiverse theory is something that I can get into. Except I just have a hard time getting with the broken up souls in different timelines. Making it basically impossible to kill or eliminate a person fully.
Now that ending that you are predicting is something that could be really true and that scares me. As I feel like this might be something that needs to happen. With Subaru’s goal being a hero. Knowing that goal and Satella doing everything in her power to make that happen is beyond love.
Now Roswaal I don’t even know what to think of him. As he is a person that is so complex that I can’t even give a proper thought about him until I rewatch the 2 season along with that OVA again. But, I feel like some people in that world can live for many years. As people like Elsa and witch cultist. They way that they have these powers I can see Roswaal doing some trick to make him stay this old. Or he might not even be human.
Love the theory, Stuff like this is why I love this series so much.
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