We immediately pick up where we left off, and while the barrier around the Sanctuary is gone thanks to Shima and Emilia completing the trials, there’s still the problem with the snowstorm, the great rabbit, and saving Beako back at the mansion. Compared to last week’s quicker paced episode, this went felt a little slower. And while I was happy with the Beatrice development, I did feel like it was drawn out and repetitive.
I really do feel for Beatrice. She’s been alone in that library for 400 years with minimal visitors, and the worst part is that she was seeking “that person”. But in the end, “that person” isn’t a specific person. In the end, “that person” is a person that Beatrice herself deems worthy, but she never really thought about it like that. She was waiting for a sign and remained stubborn about it, and ended up in a spiral of loneliness. Subaru may not be “that person” to take over the library, but he is the person to finally free Beatrice from her solitude.
It’s nice, but I do think the whole thing was drawn out for too long and the dialogue being repetitive too. I think it could have been condensed into a shorter time frame, and in place of that time it would have been great if they spent more time on Beatrice’s flashback and memories. It was more or less things we already knew like Echidna giving Beatrice her task and whatnot (we still don’t get to see her face), and Beatrice waiting for the special person.
The biggest thing of interest from these memories was the reveal about Roswaal. I had been wondering what the deal with him was, whether he was human or not. With the knowledge in the library, it seems that Roswaal was able to replicate his soul and save it into a vessel, which would end up being his descendants. The biggest question is why all of Roswaal’s descendants look and sound just like him. If Echidna had the knowledge to replicate a soul, replicating a vessel should be as easy as well. And we’ve already seen that with Ryuzu herself, someone that the original Roswaal had a connection with.
We still don’t quite have an answer to why Roswaal is sort of similar to Hector. There’s a bunch of theories you can come up with, one being that he could have inherited the equivalent of Hector’s factor. But from what Puck said, and especially with what we know, he’s just a plain normal human and nothing more. And he can’t be like Hector no matter how hard he tries. Which is pretty sad considering Hector and Echidna had some sort of connection with each other (romantic? platonic?). Roswaal wanting to change himself to be as close to Hector to, in a way, be closer with Echidna is just…REALLY sad. It may not be completely an act, as he does have a yellow pupil and I did think it was telling that his yellow eye twitched before he broke down into his pleas. There may be something going on. Seeing where Roswaal will go from here will be interesting. He’s lived his life completely attached to his tome, following its every whim without a second thought. Thinking about it, I don’t think he ever had a mind of his own. He didn’t question whatever was in the book, and now that it’s gone, he’s at a complete loss. It’s really pitiful, all in all. And Emilia swoops in, trying to smack some sense into him. Bless her~ <3
And hey Ram is alive and that’s all that matters! Phew.
Shima got rid of the barrier surrounding the Sanctuary. There was a very short moment where Echidna’s voice came out of Shima, so Echidna still seems to be around and watching over. I’m not exactly sure the significance of this, if there even is but I felt it was worth pointing out.
Next week will be the big finale. With Subaru and Beatrice coming back to Emilia’s side to take on all the rabbits and protect everyone else, how will the finale go? I expect a big fight of course, but I’m excited to see how it’ll end after the battle. Hopefully not too painful of a cliffhanger.
I don’t know what was up with Roswaal’s yellow eye twitching, but I don’t think it had anything to do with Hector given that Hector has red eyes. I do think it was interesting that Roswaal appeared to be possessing his descendants given he injected his soul into them, using their bodies as vessel. Petelgeuse did that with his Fingers and anybody who smelled like the Witch, and Roswaal appears to be able to do that to any of his descendants, and I guess that’s how he has “lived” for over 400 years. Maybe the yellow eye is a side effect of Roswaal taking control, and the yellow eye is the point at which Roswaal injected his soul.
I think this episode low-key introduced us to Ryuzu Delma. Her voice sounded noticeably different and more feminine than the other Ryuzu clones that have actual authority, so it may very well have been her even though her name wasn’t mentioned.
So I checked back to see it again, because red is definitely not the color I remembered for Hector’s eyes. They seem to vary a bit in color depending on how zoomed in the image is, the lighting, and the blueish mist around him, but overall, whenever we have a clear view, they appear rather yellowish, if maybe a tad darker than Roswaal’s; brown maybe, but not red. That said, Roswaal’s eye has also appeared darker on occasion in different episodes depending on lighting etc. so it is not super consistent (in the same exact episode there are plenty of close-ups of Roswaal’s face near the end for instance). And the purplish blue mist around Hector would definitely be affecting the apparent color too, so I would say that the eye colors are close enough to be considered a match if one wants to do so.
Okay, Hector’s eye colour does look brown, and I guess yellow with a purple aura could look brown, but Roswaal dropping his Hector imitation this episode to speak normally like his normal self did 400 years ago shows that he was indeed imitating Hector. As far as I’m concerned, Beatrice, who revealed she can heal near fatal wounds in Season 1 and who also revealed her intention to save Roswaal with her saying she has to save Roswaal before he actually dies shows that she healed him after the Sanctuary barrier was activated, which was revealed in Episode 27 to disorient outsiders such as Hector to prevent them from getting close to the Sanctuary. That the original Roswaal’s body was permanently crippled as you say does not change my interpretation of the events.
Be that as it may, the question remains as to what happened to Hector (seeing as next to no one remembers his existence) and in particular to the Melancholy witch factor. It is apparent from the scene in this episode that Hector was not permanently defeated in the last encounter (which would make sense if the barrier simply made him lose his way), and Echidna was clearly expecting him to attack again eventually anyway. (The scene has to take place after what we’ve seen in episode 20 since back then Beatrice knew nothing about the library, nor would Echidna state as matter-of-factly that Roswaal couldn’t handle Hector.)
I have no better theory than the witch factor ending up bound to Roswaal himself the next time, or possibly upon his first soul transfer. The original version of Roswaal, when we see him visiting the library, does not yet have the heterochromatic eyes, only his original blue ones, but all the other Roswaals do. Interestingly, he does have the eye paint though, which is something Hector never had, but not the other parts of the clown costume for quite a few generations. This seems to suggest him gradually adopting the likeness of Hector over time, but still, the color of one eye would be a weird place to start at; and if you look at his attire for the first few generations, the eye is the only additional resemblance to Hector for a long while. I’m not sure how much to read into the particulars here though. In any case, the yellow eye seems to either be a consequence of his soul transfer or originate from Hector; and in the first case, there would be no reason for it to match Hector’s eye color.
One additional relevant paragraph FROM THIS PART OF THE LIGHT NOVEL (nothing definitive, just intriguing): “His heart beat faster, yelling at him that this could not, must not continue. His left eye throbbed. It throbbed so much that he was tempted to gouge it out of its socket. Stop. Don’t throb. I will stop being me.”
Another telling feature is the fact that he speaks in the same way as Hector, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that he inherited Hector’s factor (if he was ever defeated). But that last paragraph is very telling.
Well, the conversation with Beatrice being a bit repetitive was kind of the point. As far as convincing someone who has had the same mindset ingrained in them for 400 years — the abandonment issues, the loneliness, the despair, the reliance on her contract and isolating herself emotionally as a way to cope — and talking them out of effective suicide goes, it is as short as it can be while staying sort of realistic. And there was definitely a lot of work done to spice it up and make it as interesting as possible. The impending destruction of the mansion and the library and its visual representation — the smoke, the fire, the cracks forming — add a kind of timer and a sense of increasing urgency while Subaru tries to snap Beatrice out of her clinging to her promise, her contract, her memory of Echidna and times past, her abandonment issues. There were even these neat little touches sprinkled all over, like the door handle that froze Subaru’s hand in season 1 (with him retreating in shock and pain) now burning it but being grabbed by him on purpose nonetheless. Or the same central tower of the mansion which was destroyed by Puck in the snowstorm in the first season now collapsing in the fire.
The flashbacks contain roughly all that was shared at that point in the source material too on that topic (with the conversations being somewhat more extensive there), aside from a mention that the “original Roswaal” was left permanently crippled (and his gate almost completely destroyed) by his encounter with Hector, “dying” at a young age afterward; but even that is implied by his stature and voice.
One piece of new knowledge in here that you have not commented on is Echidna finally mentioning her having the true Book of Wisdom, the imperfect copies of which were handed to Roswaal and Beatrice (and some more defective versions eventually found their way into the Witch Cult’s hands). At the very least, I don’t recall this having come up before in the anime.
Aside from that, you seem to have noticed and commented on most things of importance in this episode, so good job, always enjoyable to read these reviews. 🙂 Onward to the final episode!
Haha thank you! I always get a little nervous reviewing Re:zero because there’s always so much going on each episode that might connect with something recent, or even something from awhile ago, I’m afraid that I’ll miss out on something (and sometimes I do). I’m glad you enjoy reading my reviews. <3
I do understand it, it really is difficult to make Beatrice budge from her 400 year mindset after all this time as we saw in different time loops. I do appreciate the suspenseful touches like you mentioned, so they certainly did the best they could to make it interesting.
And yeah, I don’t think they ever mentioned Echidna having the true Tome before, but considering she’s the one greedy for knowledge and she gave the defective ones to Roswaal and Beatrice, it makes sense.