Line #117 WMG/ReZero


1	[[WMG:Elsa could have defeated Reinhard in their first encounter]]
2	The entire event was a massive WorfHadTheFlu affair. She had wasted a lot of energy fighting Emilia and Puck. Elsa's foot was injured, which likely reduced her already incredible speed. She also lost her anti-magic cloak, which might have been enough to neutralize Reinhard's magic sword technique and get a fatal blow. Not least of all, thanks to his timeloop experience, Subaru was able to warn Reinhard that Elsa carried multiple blades in {{Hammerspace}}. She had odds seriously stacked against her in that duel. Reinhard's only handicap, was not being able to use his OneHitKill technique right at the start, as Elsa allowed him to use a sword found in the shop to make the fight interesting.
3
4	** Probably not. Reinhard is so OP that he hasn't pulled out his dragon sword for any enemy, no matter how strong they were.
5	** Definitely not. Reinhard is literally the strongest character in Re:Zero, strong enough that no one in-universe can actually beat him in a fight, even if they teamed up, according to Q&As by the author.
6
7	[[WMG:Subaru doesn't actually turn back time when he dies, but instead transfers his memories to another universe.]]
8
9
10
11
12	[[WMG:Subaru's power was given to him by Satella to make it impossible for him to end up with anyone but her]]
13	It's all but stated at this point that Subaru's power comes from the Witch of Envy Satella. Setting aside how this power is keeping him alive it has some sever drawbacks. As we've seen no one but Subaru remembers anything after he comes back, but since he remembers he sometimes seems to forget how much he's interacted with each person. Like with Emilia in episode 13 when he thought she would understand why he as acting the way he was, when thinking about it he hasn't really done much with this cycle's Emilia to build that kind of trust. Sure he saved her once but they hadn't met before that, he was just a stranger who helped out, and he seems to forget that.
14	The point is that with his power his relationships can be reset easily, given how frequently he dies. But since his power comes from Satella it would make sense for her to remember what happens as well. What if she gave him that power so it will slowly drive him away from everyone else. After all no one will be able to understand what he's going through, since he literally can't tell them without killing them. We've already seen him start to crack under the pressure of having to do so much by himself, along with the arrogance that comes with his successes.
15	Satella gave him his power to keep him alive and to shape him, to make him stand apart, to make it hard for anyone to get close to him without the possibility of them being taken away. But she would understand, she knows that loneliness and isolation. Its a very Yandere thing to do, drive away everyone they see as a threat, so their loved one has only them.
16
17
18
19	[[WMG: Satella is an alternate timeline version of Emilia.]]
20
21	Here's my theory of what the backstory and plot of Re:Zero is. Satella is a version of Emilia from another universe that is exactly like this one, but the Witch of Envy never existed. As a result, this Emilia is named Satella as the name doesn't have a stigma. Cue an alternate Subaru showing up.
22	This Subaru doesn't have Return by Death and he ends up having the normal transported to another world plot without dying or actually getting into trouble. He gets Satella to fall for him and so on so forth. In addition, the Witch Cult doesn't exist and the other Witches are still alive. Somewhere along the line Subaru does die, but without Return by Death, he doesn't come back. As a result, Satella tries to revive him by going back in time in a way similar to how time travel works in Steins;Gate and travels to another universe. But along the way Satella ends up going far too back and ends up, like 400+ years back. As a result, she is stuck in an era where she doesn't know anyone, except for the Witches who are just extremely long lived.
23	Satella decides to make friends with the original witches and gain their trust. In order to survive long enough to meet Subaru again, because while elves live long they don't live long enough, Satella ends up absorbing the Envy Witch Gene. However, she was incompatible and goes insane. The Witch of Envy, Satella's new alternate personality goes on a killing spree until she is sealed away by the Reid Astrea, Flugel, and Volcania. While in sealed away, Pandora, the Witch of Vainglory, takes the remaining Witch essences and hands them out to the Archbishops and makes the Witch's Cult in the name of Satella. Skip 400 years and Subaru appears. This time Subaru gets killed almost immediately due to Elsa, who was sent by Roswaal according the Witch of Greed book of prophecies. Satella realizing that Subaru would have trouble surviving, gives him Return By Death as a way for him to survive as well as get him to free her.
24	* That's... That's actually very plausible and accounts for many [[spoiler: bits of information on Satella revealed in the novels.]] This could even account for the fact that the Witches [[spoiler: view Satella and the Witch of Envy as separate entities and seem to like Satella.]]
25
26	[[WMG: Satella is Emilia, and Flugel is Subaru, or at least alternate versions of them]]
27
28	What if Subaru is Flugel and Emilia and Satella are the same person or at least alternative timelines? [[spoiler:There are too many coincidences - Roswall told Subaru he was supposed to become a Sage, Subaru's name means the Pleiades, like Flugel's Watchtower, and Flugel's own creation calls Subaru Master, not to mention Satella and Emilia both look and act pretty much the same.]] The theory goes like this:
29	* Originally, Emilia is born in Elinor Forest and is ostracized for looking like a Dreaded Witch (e.g. both Emilia and Dreaded Witch have silver hair). Subaru is pulled from another world by chance. She meets Subaru (with some version of [=ReDo=] maybe like Al) and he falls in love with her, and she adores him back. They become a BattleCouple and Subaru is in this timeline Sage.
30	* Then due to shenanigans of Dreaded Witch Cult (Dreaded Witch not necessarily being the Witch of Envy in this timeline), both Subaru and she are tossed in the past. She is found by the Witches and takes on the name Satella and Subaru is found by other people and takes on the name of Flugel. Why do this? Perhaps one of them or both forgot some of their past when going backward in time, maybe it was what they were known in their original timeline. Or what others nicknamed them.
31	* After hanging out with Witches Satella!Emilia looks for a way to return back and probably stumbles about a part of Book of Wisdom, that says she'll need to consume other Witches to be with Subaru, so desperate, she steals an essence of a dead Witch, causing her own Witch Gene to go wild becomings Witch of Envy. With Gluttony, Satella!Emilia can retcon the Dreaded Witch out of existence however now Satella!Emilia assumes her place. [[spoiler: This also explains why Echidna calls Emilia witch-child and hates both Satella, Emilia and Witch of Envy. Present Day Echidna knows Emilia will become Witch of Envy plus absorb her friends, maybe even attack her, to become Witch of Envy. Other Witches mostly died due to unrelated causes and thus they bear Satella!Emilia no ill will.]]
32	* Flugel being Subaru, would attempt to save Emilia and leave an escape hatch for her to be freed in 400 years when he came to this world, rather than in the past.
33
34	[[WMG: The "Scent of the Witch" has a powerful influence on all beings of darkness, or people with darkness in their hearts, and it only grows with time. A literal example of ThisIsYourBrainOnEvil.]]
35
36	Take Rem, for example. Even by the darkest of antihero standards, her actions were friggin' monstrous. I mean, yes, she was almost certain he was in the employ of the devil incarnate (and Satella being responsible for the deaths of her friends and family certainly helps) but the deaths she dealt were ''brutal'', and she never even ''considers'' he was telling the truth, even after he went out of his way to spare her life, after she informed him he'd die either way, after she tortured him, and not even at he very end, when he's reduced to sobbing over what he clearly felt was ''her'' betrayal. The fact that she spent much of their talk babbling on about Ram like a woman obsessed only adds fuel to the fire. Oh, and all these violent deaths? They were just when he appeared to be getting ''close'' to her sister. Contrast Ram herself, who, even when she was sure he had ''killed'' Rem, and was half-mad with grief still seemed to hold back more than was necessary and even partially believe him when he told her how much he loved them.
37	Furthermore, Rem, is shown to be violently overprotective, filled with quite a bit of hatred and self-loathing and is much less hesitant than Ram about shedding blood, whereas Ram is generally more compassionate and doesn't seem to have nearly the emotional baggage Rem does, or really much at all. It's not hard to see who'd be more easily corrupted by this dark influence.
38	Then there's those three thugs. Chin stabbing him certainly seemed to be an accident, and he's clearly shocked by what just happened, but all of them seem to get over the action, if not the potential consequences, fairly quickly. Especially jarring when it's heavily implied they'd never killed anyone up to that point.
39	It seems likely that the scent made the evil within them even stronger, enough to push them towards acts they wouldn't have committed, or wouldn't have been nearly so quick to commit, otherwise.
40
41	[[WMG:The lyrics of the anime's first ED, STYX HELIX, is written from Satella's perspective.]]
42
43
44
45
46	[[WMG:The time resets are triggered by Emilia's death, not Subaru's.]]
47
48	In episode 18, Puck says he must destroy the world now that Emilia is dead. He implies he's going to destroy himself, as well, and mentions the White Whale's fog. Apparently "destroy the world" is meant very literally--he's going to erase everything from existence, in much the same way as the White Whale, allowing it to "start from zero" (coincidentally, the TitleDrop hits in the same episode, though for an unrelated reason).
49
50	The obvious assumption was that Subaru jumps back in time when he dies... but we only see things from his point of view, so this may not be technically accurate. Instead, whenever he dies, Emilia is eventually going to be killed (by Elsa in the first arc, and later by the Witch Cultists) because he wasn't there to save her, so Puck destroys the world. Then, something--which may or may not be Puck--causes the universe to restart from the beginning. After many eons, it advances to the "save point," Subaru gets his memories from the previous world, and he ''appears'' to have jumped back in time. His immunity to the White Whale's RetGone ability implies that RippleEffectProofMemory is his only actual unique power, not time travel. This also fits better with the title, which says nothing about time travel, only "starting life in another world." And another, and another...
51
52	The purpose for Subaru having this ability is not so clear--Satella's ghost seems to be manipulating him, but her goal isn't protecting Emilia (or isn't ''just'' that) because she killed Emilia without hesitation, and Puck seems to be on Satella's side in all this (he boasts about her power while killing the cultists). Satella may be transporting herself and Subaru's memories between worlds, trying to get Emilia on the throne before taking over her body to become an evil dictator, or some such thing.
53
54	[[WMG: Return by Death is the Authority of Pride, much like the Unseen Hand is the Authority of Sloth.]]
55	This is a theory from one who hasn't read the light novels, so sorry if it was already shot down by them.
56	* Sadly Jossed: The Archbishop of Pride has the same powers as Typhon.
57
58	[[WMG: Subaru isn't the Archbishop of Pride…]]
59	He's actually representing the eighth Sin from Orthodox Christianity, Despair. Return by Death is still his Authority, much like the above WMG, but put it in perspective. Subaru constantly suffers from mental trauma from his loops and on more than one occasion has had a HeroicBSOD due to it. And this can be inverted, due to the same reason. He inflicts despair on all who attempt to fight him. No matter what strategy you have, he will have the perfect counter due to looping time. You'll be reduced to despair from his actions, because no matter what, FailureIsTheOnlyOption.
60	* Jossed; [[spoiler: the Authority of Melancholy fills in for Despair, and works completely differently from Subaru’s Return by Death.]]
61
62	[[WMG: Subaru loves Emilia because she looks like the Witch]]
63	He was Satella's lover in a previous life, or Satella put something like a love spell on him, or something. This is why he instantly fell so madly in love with Emilia.
64
65	[[WMG: Subaru was summoned by Satella to keep Emilia alive...]]
66	... because while Satella is ''going to'' posses Emilia's body, The Time Is Not Yet Right.
67
68	[[WMG: Someone has subverted the Witch Cult to get it to ''stop'' the resurrection of Satella]]
69	Someone is messing with the Gospel books to change the Ordeal from whatever it's supposed to be to "try to kill the female half elf, and if she survives then she is The One". Or maybe the Gospels and their brainwashing power is entirely the work of someone who wants to divert those susceptible to Satella's influence from helping her, but that person can't make them consciously turn against Satella, so the victims are brainwashed into doing the Ordeal.
70
71	[[WMG:Subaru only forgets the first two loops because he wasn't perfectly in sync with Return by Death yet.]]
72	The reason Subaru doesn't remember the first two loops is because he hadn't fully attuned himself to Return by Death yet. Every time he dies, he gets more in sync with it. As a result, he is able to keep more of his memories as well as having the Witch Miasma around him growing deeper and more intense. In addition, the more often he dies, the more resistance he gains to witch related powers, like Petelguese's Invisible hands and being able to see them after a certain point.
73
74	[[WMG:The romantic line in the series will repeat the path of Manga/{{Nisekoi}} and Manga/KoiToUso]]
75	Watching these two series, I'm getting more and more feeling that the persistent transformation of Rem into ButtMonkey against the background of the monotonous PuppyLove with Emilia is moving along their path and is deliberately created by the author to increase more drama and tension in the romantic line and evoke in fans greater sympathy for Rem, like these series. Similar to the girls who won in these series, Rem gets more development than the first girl and demonstrates the sincerity of her feelings, stating that she is primarily interested in the happiness of the protagonist and she will not interfere with "their happiness". And similarly to the protagonists of these series, Subaru gradually realizes that he loves not only the "first girl", but also Rem, beginning to experience {{Angst}} because of the romantic feelings for both girls and the inability to choose from them. Thus, I think that the author deliberately contrasts them to each other and makes the development of the Rem's ship more consistent against the background of Emilia, so that later he could bring the victory of Rem as TheWoobie and EnsembleDarkhorse.
76
77	[[WMG: If the author ever follows up on the Rem IF timeline, the plot threads resulting will be addressed.]]
78	And they'll bite his whole family in the ass. ''Hard.''
79
80	[[WMG:Subaru is the Archbishop of Despair. that's why he always so despairing and stuff and that he has the same kind of scent as the other archbishop guy that mabeasts are attracted to]]
81	Jossed; [[spoiler: Clind is implied to be the Archbishop of Melancholy, which is the stand-in for Despair.]]
82	[[WMG:Satella is in love with Subaru and gave him Return By Death because she mistook his dying promise to save Emelia in the first timeline to mean he would save ''her''.]]
83	The first timeline shows Subaru falling in love with Emelia. She told him that her name was Satella. Emelia and Satella are identical to one another. Add that all up and you can see everything Subaru's feeling about Emelia in that moment could be accidentally directed towards Satella.
84
85	[[WMG: The first time Subaru stepped into the Isekai world, the silver-haired half-elf that saved him and who he fell in love with really was Satella and not Emilia.]]
86	Re-watching Episode 0, Puck never says her name and when he mentions that she has terrible taste, this is after the silver-haired elf looks over Subaru's hands and concludes that he is part of a high-born family because his hands aren't worn. It's ambiguous enough that Puck may have been referring to the silver-haired half-elf's taste in Subaru. Some might argue Puck josses this theory, but Puck's limiter means his old memories were sealed away so he's not reliable in determining whether Subaru's first meeting was really with Emilia as we all presume. Subaru repeatedly calls her half-elf appearance cute, says she's a very nice and thoughtful person, and that he insists on keeping his promise of finding what she's lost. This would be consistent with Satella claiming Subaru is the only one who gave light to her life and a purpose to live. It's worth noting that when "Emilia" states that her name is Satella, Subaru has already been spending a lengthy amount of time helping her find Felt by talking to townspeople and they're getting along really well. There's no reason for "Emilia" to lie and say her name is their world's equivalent of Adolf Hitler as she isn't showing any signs of seeing Subaru as a nuisance or hindrance to her investigation. Later on, they help the green-haired girl find her mother and there's even commentary about how they're like a married couple. Even more interesting, when we see Subaru bleeding out and slowly dying as he watches "Emilia" get knocked down and bloodied, we don't technically see "Emilia" die and Subaru's last wish before blacking out is hoping he can do everything that he can to save her, just as he does for Satella later in the series.
87
88	While there are some doubts, Trial 2 brought up the possibility that Subaru is drifting into parallel worlds each time his Return by Death ability kicks in. If this is the case, what if his first time in the Isekai world was a parallel world where he really did have a mostly fun day with Satella and helping her out? Thus, the very beginning of the story would be the "mystery" of how and where Subaru met Satella. This would also mean his feelings and relationship with Emilia is built on a total lie since he assumed that she faked her name, the first time they presumably met. Consequently, Subaru's first real meeting with Emilia was by insulting her by confusing her with Satella since he had no idea of the major differences in the parallel world that he had just died in.
89
90	[[WMG:Subaru is related to [[Franchise/SouthPark Kenny McCormick]]]]
91	You knew this one was coming didn’t you?
92
93	[[WMG:Satella is not Emilia but Emilia is Satella.]]
94	Future Satella, who has travelled back in time to keep her differently insane younger self from screwing things up with Subaru.
95
96	[[WMG: Satella is Future-Rem.]]
97	Satella is called the Witch of Envy. Rem's backstory has a focus on her envy of her sister's greater abilities with magic, and her current circumstances lend themselves to envy of Emilia's position in Subaru's thoughts. So she somehow absorbs the Envy Witch factor and then does some time-travel becoming "Satella" and then "Emilia" or vice versa to gain the pre-eminent position in Subaru's heart.
98	* Also, consider how easily a story about half-a-demon might be twisted into a story about a half-elf, given the demon clan's infanticidal policies about twins.
99
100	[[WMG:The whole thing is a deep immersion Matrix style video game Subaru is playing.]]
101	It suppresses his conscious memories of starting the game, and may be the very game he alluded to playing at the start of the series. This explains his absurd lack of curiuosity about how he got there, why there are save points (obviously),why there are only the same 3 thugs and several absurdly lucky coincidences that he did not arrange by save scumming- those events are actually scripted (for example, meeting Priscilla and then hitchhiking his way into a secure government meeting.) and of course why everyone speaks a language functionally identical to Japanese minus some jargon and slang.
102	** Alternatively, the game is supernatural to an extent that it sends its players into an identical copy of said video game world. It WOULD explain the figurines of suspiciously white-haired elf girls in his room. They're from the same game! Like that one episode of ''Manga/{{Chobits}}''.
103
104	[[WMG:Sekhmet will be voiced by Creator/YuuAsakawa]]
105	Asakawa said on [[https://twitter.com/Julia320/status/1206586981892780035 Twitter]] that she was voicing a wicked witch, who was thought to be Echidna or Sekhmet, although the former actually turns out to be voiced by Creator/MaayaSakamoto. The latter might be intentional, given Sekhmet's [[CastingGag similarites]] to one of Asakawa's famous roles [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Rider]].
106	* Jossed, she's voiced by Creator/MaiNakahara.
107
108	[[WMG: To an extent, the WhatIf stories are canon.]]
109	[[BecauseItAmusedMe For entertainment]], Echidna likes to view other timelines. WildMassGuessing aside she's probably seen the WhatIf AU's anyways.
110
111	[[WMG: Subaru's original world was never "real".]]
112	In reality it was a highly-complex illusionary world designed to suppress his memories of Lugnica. To help him grow, he was placed in a semi-simulated reality. In the first episode, he was never truly "sent" anywhere. The wobbly and bright light effect was an indicator of the illusionary world being broken down.
113
114	Evidence for this lies in the type of magic that Beatrice uses. The same magic effect that she uses on the library. Plus, in similar situations this same effect plays other times as well. When Subaru left his original world, the same effect was used, complete with the whale sound effect. This implies that it was either the same or a similar type of spell that was used to break, thus, Subaru's world was being broken down.
115
116	The only known type of dimensional magic comes in the form of broken rifts between space and time. If Subaru truly were transported using magic, then we would've seen a rift.
117
118	[[WMG: The Authority of Envy is the ability force people into making contracts with the user.]]
119
120	[[WMG: Crack Hypothesis]]
121	Satella and Aldebaran come from an Alternate Universe where the technological & social advances of Subaru’s world happened alongside the developments of magic and biology in Emilia’s world. Witch Cult shows up, and everything happens just like it did in the main universe, except it ends with everyone except Satella, now the Witch of Envy, and Al, now heavily scarred, dead. The Witch of Envy then resolves to create a perfect world where she and Aldebaran get to live happily together without anyone coming between them, by making copies of everyone’s Books of the Dead, granting copies of Al & Subaru the Authority of Acedia to protect them (with the unpleasant personality alterations suppressed) while also wiping Al’s memories, and performing experiments in other worlds to achieve the desired outcome. Because of this, ALL RE:IF stories, except 2, are canon, as experiments where Satella hit dead ends manipulating everyone, which means that the main timeline has three outcomes:
122	* 1. RE:ZERO. Subaru saves Emilia and Satella, Al gets his memories restored, and the Natsuki family is reunited (True Ending)
123	* 2. Envy IF. Satella’s machinations come to fruition, Emilia becomes the Archbishop of Envy, both marry Al and Subaru, respectively, and no-one can oppose them. (Bad End)

Context WMG / ReZero