Ohhh man, no no no. You can’t just do this to Ram. Anything but that, please! I’ve finally been at peace more or less with this season, but I don’t need the heartbreak with Ram!
But phew, there’s a lot going on here. Most of it was spectacle, and a great spectacle at that, but we got some info I didn’t expect in more ways that one. This episode sort of had the same issue as last episode with things jumping from one place to another, but this time I felt it was better. The transitions didn’t feel so abrupt, and while the scene in the beginning with Subaru felt a little out of place, it didn’t take away from the episode too much.
Starting off, the Elsa and Garf fight was pretty good. I was worried because last episode the fight was pretty underwhelming and I didn’t think we were going to get more. Well, I was wrong and the animation was better than usual. I did think the “sister” thing came out of nowhere and the story felt like it needed to force a sibling parallel for Garf and Fred. Elsa calling Meili her sister didn’t really add anything and I just thought it was a weird addition. Elsa’s entire being and backstory was also surprising. I knew she wasn’t normal (obviously) but I didn’t think that she was a vampire. Other than the regeneration, there wasn’t really anything else that pointed to Elsa being a vampire so I thought the fact was sort of shoehorned in there too, along with the backstory. Was she born as a vampire or did someone turn her into one? And does her biting Garf mean anything and will he be okay? Also it looks like Elsa really is dead. Whenever we get a backstory during a fight, that usually means a character is going to die. I expected her to stick around for a little longer, but we got the hint of her impending death when we saw that she couldn’t regenerate after Garf’s bite. Interesting that it seemed like she had a limited number of deaths, which is what Garf figured out on his own. It’s a little weird to see Elsa gone when she made such a huge entrance in the first season. Though not going to lie…I won’t miss her too much. She kind of freaked me out. :T
Emilia completed her third trial, which also was a pretty easy one. She was presented with a possible future with a horrible end, and it’ll be a good idea to go back to that scene and pick out the voices and see if it’ll matter later on. It’s a scary thought, but Emilia seems confident enough to fight a future like that. That’s fine and all, but the part that stood out from this whole scene was whatever the hell is going on with Minerva???
Either Minerva knows who Emilia’s mother is, or Minerva is Emilia’s mother. And honestly I think it’s the latter! Minerva being the one to greet Emilia at the tea party is too significant to ignore, and she is a witch, and Echidna repeatedly called her the daughter of a witch. And why else would Minerva hug her and refuse to let her look back at her? Why would she cry after Emilia says that Fortuna is her mother? And why hug her when she supposedly has never met her? There’s way too much happening here for it to just be a random encounter thrown in. And they sort of wear the same type of clothes? Or maybe I’m reaching there. Still, this is an interesting turn of events.
Emilia completes her trials and things get even weirder when she comes upon Echidna’s grave and says “Who is this?” The anime purposely doesn’t show us her face, and it makes me think that the Echidna we’ve seen in the witch’s world is not how she actually looks. In her grave, she had the same hair and the same clothes but Emilia still couldn’t recognize her. Is the Echidna we know even the real one? It’s also really telling that in Roswaal’s flashback, the anime also didn’t show Echidna’s face. It’s sort of pointing out that Echidna’s appearance changed at a certain moment, and the Echidna that we see now is most likely how she looked before whatever happened that changed her appearance. Hector did say she looked more adorable back then the last time he saw her. What’s going on here?
And to make matters worse and more weird, Emilia finds herself in a snowy world and not back in the Sanctuary where she should be. What else will she have to endure?!
And lastly, there’s Rem and Roswaal. Before getting to that, we find out that Roswaal is the reason why Puck was unable to leave his gem. And interestingly, Puck also knows about Hector. There’s so many characters tied into what happened 400 years ago that we really need to unravel what happened back then.
Now…I still don’t quite understand Ram’s love for Roswaal. I’m trying to rationalize it, but honestly I just don’t like it. This is the man that took part in destroying her village and killing her people. And now she loves him? Even he doesn’t understand and neither do I. This is pretty much a Stockholm Syndrome type of thing going on and I just don’t like it, I never liked it. Is it because she took pity on him? She looks up to him? He supplies her with mana and she’s grateful? Seriously, what the hell is going on here? I just don’t like it, so it’s sad that Ram is doing so much for a man that would happily dispose of her (as we’ve seen in a past timeloop). Like…Garfiel is right there! Stop wasting your time on this creepy clown. And I love Ram, seeing her get blasted like that hurt my heart. Please be okay! Please Puck tell me you saved her! T~T
Also Ram destroying Roswaal’s tome is HUGE. First, I think an important magical book being able to just burn to ashes like a normal book is kind of funny and underwhelming. Second, this poses a huge problem for Roswaal and whatever plans he’s had. He can’t tell what’ll happen in the future anymore so he’s at a huge disadvantage. Also Ram singlehandedly took away the one thing that tied Roswaal to his past, and to Echidna. She did what she wanted to do, and unfortunately she might have paid it with her life. And I certainly hope not! But I’m mostly interested to see how Roswaal will do from here on out now that his precious tome is gone.
So much happened this time. It was a much better episode this time around with a hell of a cliffhanger. I’ll continue to deny Ram’s possible death as I patiently wait for the next episode. 😡
I now see how this ties into The Frozen Bond as the voice, who was revealed to be Echidna, said that if Puck got too close to Emilia that he would cease to be himself, and this episode reveals that Puck’s memories were also sealed when he entered into a contract with Emilia, meaning it wasn’t just Emilia whose memories were sealed. He has now regained his memories about Hector. Roswaal also indicated he was backward-facing, which leads more credence to him imitating Hector to constantly remind himself of the beatdown Hector delivered to him over 400 years ago.
I don’t think Minerva is Emilia’s mother. She and Echidna probably both knew who Emilia’s mother was though. Echidna probably hated Emilia’s mother, and that hate transferred over to Emilia. I still think there are 11 witches/warlocks based on the Pleiades star cluster having 11 stars with 9 of them being named fitting there being nine Witches/Warlocks of Sin. I believe Emilia’s mother could be one of two witches based on something other than sins. I think the reason Minerva was crying was because Echidna’s first trial allowed Emilia to regain precious memories with Mother Fortuna, and Minerva just teared up because of that, saying there is some good from Echidna’s evil plots after all.
And there is definitely something up with Echidna’s face given that Emilia didn’t recognize her. It seems there was a purpose to the flashbacks hiding Echidna’s face other than showing that Echidna is a sketchy character after all.
Hmm, I’m not sure. I still think that Minerva showing up is way too significant and is more than just her getting sentimental over Emilia’s trials. It seemed so personal. There just has to be something more there.
Also when it comes to Pandora, it would be pretty interesting if she were a vampire as well. I’m not sure it matters if a witch can also be a vampire as well, but her ability could also just be her own special ability. There’s so many types of powers in Re:zero, and we still don’t know anything about vampires to really say Pandora is one. Though there is a slight similarity with her possible “regeneration” ability (unless it’s just her rewriting reality).
It depends on the timeline of when things happened. If Emilia’s flasback took place 400 years ago, then it’s possible that Minerva could be her number, but the main Witches of Sin, aside from Satella who was sealed, died 400 years ago. I’m under the impression that Emilia’s flashback did not take place 400 years ago though and took place sometime after that given that Petelgeuse asked Flugel for forgiveness in the flashback, and Flugel lived centuries ago according to Rem in Episode 16, being the one who planted the tree that the strike force brought down to trap the White Whale. As such, I think it’s very possible that this Flugel also lived 400 years ago, and Petelgeuse was apologizing to Flugel because he was either his mentor or master from centuries ago who told him not to take in the Sloth Witch Factor.
Another reason I don’t think Pandora is undoing her death is because if what she was experiencing was actual death, her Witch Factor would go to the person who killed her. This shows she is not actually dying, and that something else is going on.
I also think Pandora is a vampire.
After Garfiel astutely determined that Elsa was a vampire and Elsa herself revealed that to be true with her having fast regeneration, I began to have doubts about Pandora undoing her own deaths, believing something was amiss. As such, I rewatched Episode 44 and saw some interesting things, and assuming that White Fox did not mess up in animating that battle, I have arrived at a different conclusion than most of the fandom.
The ice formations from Emilia’s attacks remained where they were when they hit Pandora. They were not undone when Pandora was shown to be living after supposedly being killed. With this information in mind, since Pandora’s Authority of Vanity/Vainglory selectively rewrites reality based on cause and effect with her undoing something removing the direct evidence of something happening, I believe that Pandora is a vampire with lightning fast regeneration and that she can be killed if she takes enough damage. In my opinion, it’s just a matter of her facing someone strong enough to deal enough damage to her until the limits of her regeneration have been reached. Maybe she is an original vampire or something, which could mean that her regeneration abilities have an incredibly high amount of uses, making her harder to kill than most other vampires.
Not sure if you picked up on it, but the “sister” thing is wholly implied to be in spirit rather than in blood, and is a reply to Garfiel calling them that, as in “Sisters? Yeah, you could say that.” It wouldn’t make sense after all, in light of Elsa’s backstory, for her to know her blood sister anyway.
Now then, if you wish to know absolutely nothing about the source material in regards to these scenes, DO NOT READ FURTHER THAN THIS PARAGRAPH, as I will be commenting on some minor additional details there. I will not, however, even allude to anything beyond this point in the story.
I think it’s a bit sad they didn’t include a line Elsa says after Garfiel calls her a vampire, something along the lines of “I do not drink blood though”. As without it (and especially together with the following biting scene) we lose the implication that a Re:Zero “vampire” is not quite like one would traditionally understand as such, even as a similar image is associated with the term among the world’s people.
And as for Ram and Roswaal, the line Roswaal says about his role in the destruction of the oni village is less direct originally than it sounds like in the subtitles of the anime, and it is easier to conclude that Roswaal probably just let the Witch Cult destroy the village, at most leading them there, swooping in afterward to save/take Ram and Rem as was written in his Tome of Wisdom. Which would legitimately make the book to be at fault in Ram’s mind, instead of Roswaal being bound to the book as he was, in the pursuit of his (as-yet-undisclosed) goal.
Yeah I knew she meant it more as a bond type of way and not blood-related, but it still felt like a bit of a forced parallel with Garf and Fred since we’ve never even seen Elsa and Meili be close or anything. It’s not a big deal but I just thought it could have been left out.
Mm, very interesting! I did get the notion that vampires in this world aren’t the same as we know them since we have been Elsa out in daylight several times. I’d love to learn more how vampires in this world are. Thankfully that should mean Garf should be fine~
Hmm, then Ram destroying the book would serve both purposes though. The tome for leading Roswaal to her home’s destruction (sort of getting her revenge in a way), and Roswaal being forced to let go of the past.
Incidentally, the particular reason why Roswaal fights Ram at all is also left a bit more unclear than ideal due in part to the cutting of some dialogue, and translation weirdness. After all, as Roswaal states, he has promised his life to her if he ever lost his will to live due to the world diverging from his Tome and him losing the clear path toward his goal.
Ram sees that Emilia has completed the Trial instead of staying broken, and Garfiel has chosen to join Subaru after facing his own past, as opposed to what Roswaal claims is written in his book. She therefore interprets Roswaal’s drive to still uphold particular aspects of his stated future (like making it snow) as “clinging to words written purely for aesthetics”. And she identifies the situation as one where Roswaal should allow her to do as she wishes according to their contract.
Roswaal, on the other hand, aware of Subaru’s ability, only sees this straying from the path as a temporary thing, as preparation for the true timeline, and therefore he deems the contract’s conditions as not having been satisfied: Ram confronting him now as “premature”. He doesn’t disclose Subaru’s ability, of course, but makes his stance clear in that he doesn’t believe the world has reached a point where he ought to freely allow Ram to kill him. And as such, he opts to fight Ram with the aim of making it snow afterward.