Considering Satella had gobbled up everyone in her shadow, it was safe to say that this time loop was as good as done. And while it was a very short one, we did get to see a couple interesting things. One, Satella definitely looks a lot like Emilia but we already knew that since everyone and their mother stayed away from Emilia because of it. Still, it’s a bit of a shocker to actually see her. Second, Garfiel using his crystal to command an army of the Ryuzu clones. This could play a huge part later if things go well in this time loop, and I do sure hope they go well.
This was a very exposition heavy episode like the last one and it was pretty straightforward, but we did get some cool revelations this time. After being engulfed in Satella’s darkness, Subaru was able to see snippets of memories of his victims and was able to find a ruin. Using his crystal as a key to open the door, he found another Ryuzu inside a large blue crystal alike to the one he has. We learn that Echidna was working on essentially making herself immortal by making these clones of Ryuzu, embedding souls into every one of them. She had planned to implant her own soul into one of the clones but the experiment failed or I’m guessing she wasn’t able to find the solution in time before her death. So now this cloning system seems to continue making more clones. One thing I wish they explained was why Ryuzu Meyer wasn’t sufficient enough to house Echidna’s soul. Was her body too small or too weak?
Another huge revelation from this conversation was that an Apostle of Greed is able to control the Ryuzu clones. We clearly saw Garfiel controlling them in the previous time loop with the crystal, so with that we know that: Garfiel also took part in the trial and met up with Echidna, and that Subaru is also able to control the Ryuzus.
Ryuzu Bilma explained that they are made from “cores of artificial od that has been produced by magic” and then wrapped in mana. Basically, they’re just walking beings of mana. That explains why the horde of rabbits were around the area, but that can also benefit them later. As horrible as it sounds, and it may anger Echidna a great deal, Subaru’s basically found his answer to defeat the rabbits. Daphne mentioned that they could use a powerful magic user as bait to draw them out, but instead of one user it can be many. To draw out the rabbits, Subaru would just need to command the Ryuzu clone army into a specific spot to create a mana super spot, and destroy them somehow. Of course Garfiel would have to be in on that plan because he can control them too.
And Garfiel just doesn’t trust him but we all knew that. I’m still not quite sure Subaru meant in the end and what their conversation was about. Garfiel is protective of the Sanctuary and is on high alert because of the witch’s scent on him. Subaru seems he can read him pretty well but he knows that Garfiel is hiding something, and I wonder what that could be.
Subaru heads over to the mansion to tell Frederica and Petra to head out with Rem to the village and he’ll return with Beatrice. I do think it’s kind of weird that Frederica didn’t raise any questions about this sudden news, going along with it just like that. She wasn’t expecting Subaru to just come back so quickly and to just go along with this like nothing is kind of weird, but maybe I’m reading too much into this?
Well, Beatrice certainly did expect him to arrive and we know why. Whatever this contract was is coming to an end and we’ll on to the next step that Subaru’s planned. We’ve got three episodes left and I can only wonder what will happen in these last few.
Yeah, I would also have liked to know why Ryuzu Meyer’s body wasn’t sufficient to hold Echidna’s soul.
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, 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 too wonder why Frederica didn’t raise any questions about going to the village, but maybe Subaru said off screen that Roswaal ordered it or something since Subaru can lie about that, and nobody be able to verify it. I suspect that we’ll get to see how strong Beatrice is considering Subaru looks like she is very much willing to ally with Subaru this time. I wonder how Beatrice would fare against Elsa.
Berry, I think the conversation Subaru had with Garfiel was basically Subaru seeing what Garfiel would have a strong negative reaction to, and Subaru thinks he’s starting to get a feel for how to deal with Garfiel with him saying Garfiel is so easy to read.
I finished reading the book that covered the events of this episode the other day and felt like it would be pretty hard to adapt and get some of the concepts across well on visuals alone.
For example when Subaru is being swallowed up in the Witchs’ darkness there are passages describing how he feels like his consciousness is being dissolved and absorbed. He feels himself being mixed up with the other people who have already been absorbed and gradually losing his sense of self. It’s why later he is able to find Ryuzu Meyer because he has fragments of other people’s memories. Not enough to have a full picture of what is going on but enough to begin to investigate.
In the book Subaru initially assumes that Ryuzu Meyer was someone important to Echidna that Echidna was trying to resurrect.
Ryuzu Bilma corrects his thinking and says that Meyer was no-one special just an ordinary village girl whose corpse Echidna found convenient to experiment on. It’s then that Subaru figures out the whole experiment was about immmortality.
Click to Read Spoiler: Replica
Also as an aside he deduces that the bodies of the Ryuzu replicas are similar to the bodies of spirits like Puck that are artificially created using mana.
Subaru in his inner thoughts uses a lot of sci-fi and computer terminology to wrap his head around Echidna’s experiment. The problem with the Ryuzu replicas was that they didn’t have enough storage capacity for Echidna’s soul. It’s here that Subaru thinks of it like a computer hard drive. Echidna found a way around this for which Subaru comes up with the analogy of data compression. However before Echidna could enact her plan she was killed by the Jealous Witch.
Also there seems to be a lot of people misunderstanding something that was made far more explicit in the book. It was written as a deduction from Subaru’s point of view and he’s not always right so he could later be proven to have been wrong.
All that said I just thought I would give fair warning before saying something that might be considered a spoiler by some. So here’s the thing, in the book when Subaru unveiled the Witch he saw Emilia’s face and came to the conclusion that she had been possessed by the Witch of Jealousy. The point being that we still haven’t seen the Witchs’ face. The face we saw was Emilias’. At least that’s what Subaru thought. There’s also some cut dialogue between Garfiel and Subaru that lends more weight to that theory but isn’t explicit enough to be definitive.
[Admin Note: Spoiler Tag Added]
Ah, so it really was because Ryuzu’s body was too small. I had guessed that Echidna was killed before she could finish her experiment since she seemed knowledgeable to figure it out eventually.
Emilia being possessed by Satella was definitely a possibility I thought about, and they did look alike but all the characters in the show have been saying that since the beginning so it isn’t any concrete evidence yet. The hair pin they wear is similar but slightly different but I don’t know if that’s a big deal. Her crying face seemed significant and Subaru reaching out to wipe off her tears and saying “I swear I’ll save you”, which is something he’s always said about Emilia, might also add to that theory.
Thanks for the insight. 🙂
Well it’s all a bit of fantasy pseudo-science but I’d say it was less the physical size of Ryuzus’ body and a little more metaphysical in the sense that there wasn’t enough spiritual space for Echidna’s soul to fit.
There’s actually an offhanded mention in this episode and the book of Echidna’s first attempt to copy her soul into a Ryuzu replica which failed. The description in the book was like pouring a jug of water into a glass and the glass overflowing. Parts of Echidna ended up in the Ryuzu replica but she had no control over which parts and the replica ended up turning out quite twisted. I’m actually reading a spin-off book at the moment set in the past where this failed replica shows up as an antagonist.
In the book the Ryuzu who talks to Subaru in this episode – Bilma – tells him that Echidna found a way to compress her soul so it could fit into one of the Ryuzu replicas. Only before Echidna had a chance to perform the procedure she was killed by Satella – the Witch of Envy.
The whole Sanctuary is like an automated laboratory with robot servants that kept following their programming after their owner died. All the Ryuzu replicas except for the original 4 are pretty much empty shells with no real minds or personality. The original 4 have more individuality but even they are bound by their “programming” and so continue to carry out the orders they were given before Echidna died. Also because of their “programming” they also have to follow the orders of anyone they recognize as an Apostle of Greed such as Garfiel and Subaru.
On the topic of whether or not Satella was possessing Emilia someone else posted this excerpt from the book on another forum – https://ibb.co/h9vjBXc
The excerpt is set just after Subaru Returns from Death and is frightened to touch Emilia after his experience with the Witch of Envy. It details a bit of his thought process and why he thinks it was Emilia being possessed by the Witch. In some ways being swallowed up by Satella’s shadow was more traumatising to him than being eaten by rabbits. There was no physical pain but he felt his whole sense of self being smothered and torn apart. In the rabbit scenario it was his body being dismembered but with the Witch is was his entire existence being consumed.
I still doubt that Emilia was possessed by Satella. Subaru thinking that Satella was Emilia after he pulled off the veil and saw her face shows that he was only paying attention to the face and nothing else. Remember in Season 1 that Subaru also came to the conclusion that Emilia did not want to participate in the Royal Selection even though it was blatantly incorrect, so his take on things isn’t always accurate.Things Satella and Emilia wore differently was the veil on Satella’s head, the thing Satella wore on her neck that Emilia doesn’t wear, and the 8-petal hairpin Satella wore on the right side of her head compared to Emilia’s 4-petal hairpin that she wears on the left side of her head.
Subaru is the type to miss small details, just like when Wilhelm mentioned his wife in the past tense, meaning that Theresia was dead, and when Ryuzu in episode 7 identified as Ryuzu Shima, and Subaru appeared to not notice this difference at all.
Berry, I’ve given a lot of thought to why Garfiel let Subaru go, and I think I have a good explanation for what happened now.
As for the Garfiel scene in episode 35, what I think is happening is that he gets suspicious of Subaru whenever Subaru does something suspicious such as volunteering to take the trial in Emilia’s place because Garfiel can smell the scent of the Witch on him. Garfiel said this episode that he wasn’t sure what was going to happen for a minute, and that is probably because Subaru had just died and come back to life, leading to Subaru smelling very very strongly of the Witch in the tomb, which is what Garfiel mentioned during the third loop at the Sanctuary as being the reason he was convinced that Subaru was a Witch cultist. This time, it was likely just implied that Garfiel had picked up on the scent again, but since Subaru didn’t do anything actually suspicious, Garfiel let it slide. However, trying to leave the Sanctuary with no explanation whatsoever is something Garfiel views as very suspicious. As for why Garfiel let Subaru go, I can’t say with complete confidence that my interpretation is right, but I’ll elaborate on what I believe to be the case.
Remember when Wilhelm said to Felix in episode 12 of Season 1 that Subaru has the eyes of a man who has seen death many times? I reckon that Garfiel might have seen the same thing in Subaru’s eyes when Subaru says he knows hell, and nobody else needs to know it besides himself. That coupled with Subaru recklessly testing Garfiel’s reaction to Subaru needling him for information probably made Garfiel realize that Subaru is someone who is not afraid of death even though Subaru appears to be weak, which along with Subaru’s repeated assurances that he will not do harm to the Sanctuary, may have made Garfiel relax a bit on the possibility of Subaru being a Witch cultist because a hardcore follower of the Witch Cult would probably want to serve Satella as best as possible and as long as possible instead of having a death wish like Subaru appears to have. Subaru is not even attempting to solve all the problems in his way in this current loop but is using it as a test run to learn more about the problems at the mansion, saying he will go through as many tests as possible to solve everything.