And so we come to the conclusion of Emilia’s first trial and the story of her past. It was sad as expected, seeing a young child losing everything in front of her eyes. Everything went the way they knew they would, with Emilia refusing to open the seal, Fortuna dying, and Geuse losing his mind. Ugh, but damn it, it still doesn’t make it less sad. And I was just thinking to myself last week that if the reason why Geuse would lose his mind is because of Fortuna my heart would explode. But I didn’t think she would die by his unseen hands accidentally! That’s so much worse! Damn it Re:zero, stop it with the tragic loves! T~T
It’s interesting that Pandora is the one that erased Emilia’s memories, but considering all that happened it’s actually not all too surprising. If the two were to ever meet again in the future, Pandora wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened last time. But then Puck comes into play and him leaving was the reason that Emilia’s memories came back, so that’s still a huge mysterious factor.
But my goodness is Pandora terrifying and just scum. Now that your mother is dead, you don’t have to fulfill your promise anymore since it doesn’t matter? And she says that with that same smile, it’s so cruel. Thanks to Echidna continuing to be jealous and petty, she doesn’t tell Emilia anything about Pandora the Witch of Vanity so we have nothing more of her. She continued to display her power by making herself come back to life after being killed, and because she can supposedly rewrite reality, was also able to create illusions. With her tricking Fortuna, I should have seen Geuse accidentally killing Fortuna coming by a mile. And again, I still feel weird feeling so much sympathy for Geuse after all the atrocities he committed in the first season but I can at least acknowledge that he used to be a kind individual who lost someone he loved by his own hands. It still doesn’t excuse the things he did later on, though.
Seeing everything come together such as the forest slowly freezing over was nice to see as we finally got answers, but also extremely depressing. We knew from the movie that Emilia has strong ice powers and sometimes couldn’t control it, but the emotions behind the frozen forest are different. Seeing a little girl mutter “die die die!” over and over as everything slowly encased in ice is hauntingly depressing, filled with the regret that she couldn’t be stronger to help those that she loved.
And yet in the end, Emilia took everything really well. She still held the regret that she couldn’t be stronger, but she didn’t regret keeping her promise to Mother Fortuna. With a huge smile on her face, she looks to a brighter future where her people can live in a better world. Emilia has gotten so much stronger these past few episodes and it makes me so proud. Of course she had her moment of weakness after the trial, but it’s honestly to be expected after having to relive such a traumatic moment of her past all over again. Mother Fortuna was a great person, and was a huge presence in Emilia’s life. I do wonder about Emilia’s actual parents but to be honest, Fortuna is the real mother here. I will always hope for the best for Emilia! Also, again, these episodes have just been wonderful. I’ve been wanting these episodes for a long time now, and it’s added so much more depth to Emilia’s character and I love seeing this determination and resolve from her. But honestly, this season has done so much for the characters and I’m just loving it.
We still don’t get why Emilia can summon a key to the seal and why only she can see it, and what exactly will happen when it’s opened and why Pandora wants it opened. I feel like that won’t be an answer we’ll be getting any time soon.
But for answers, it sounds like we’ll finally get to hear the reason why the Sanctuary was created in the first place next time. Also, Otto is an anomaly in this entire situation. He’s thrown Roswaal a curveball simply because he didn’t even know who he was. But with his fake Tome, he should have known about Otto and what would have happened in the future but if he really didn’t know him…that means Otto doesn’t show up in the book? What on earth could that mean?
Otto truly is the heroine!
Now that Pandora has also called Emilia “Witch’s daughter”, that lends more credence to Emilia being the descendant of a witch since it’s not just Echidna saying it, who could have been using it as an insult. Given that Subaru’s name is a major concept for Re:zero’s story with it referring to the Pleiades star cluster, which is also known as the Seven Sisters, I looked up it up, and there are actually 11 stars in the Pleiades star cluster. There are two historical sins, vainglory and acedia. Vainglory is hardly used in the modern way with vanity being used to refer to the same thing, so I guess that’s why Crunchyroll went with vanity. Given that Pandora is a witch based off of a historical sin, there’s probably also a Witch of Acedia. Assuming Tappei intended for there to be 11 Witches because there are 11 stars in the Pleiades star cluster, there might be 3 more Witches, one being the Witch of Acedia and two unknown Witches. 9 of the stars in the Pleiades star cluster have names, which would fit the seven deadly sins + 2 historical sins, but there are two that are unnamed, and maybe those 2 unknown witches, if they exist, will be crucial to the story.
Oh wow, that’s so fascinating, I didn’t know any of that! I didn’t think we would get more witches other than the 7 but with Pandora representing vainglory/vanity, it might be likely that we could meet more.
I read the book that these last few episodes covered a couple of months ago. If I remember correctly the witch factor was slowly driving Petelgeuse insane. However he was hanging onto his sanity through strength of will in main part because of his love for Fortuna. When he accidentally killed Fortuna that broke his will and the insanity began to take hold.
Pandora whispering in Petelgeuse’s ear ended up twisting things making him transfer his love for Fortuna to Satella. In the end when he left with Pandora he believed that Satella was the one he did everything for. That was probably easier than accepting that he’d killed the woman he really loved.
I don’t know if Petelgeuse had any prior history with Satella or if he loved her in some fashion beforehand but I’m pretty sure that Fortuna and Emilia were the ones he cared about the most.
Oh…oh, that just makes it even more painful. T_T
What a mess…