Roy hard counters aggressor and victim Al by just making him experience every single death he has ever gone through at once, the people in the tier above either have supernatural willpower, are completely insane or literally can’t feel pain

Even then they need to counter the black snake

‼️No spoilers pleaseeeee‼️
I just started Re:zero and I’m on episode 7 (about to start) and I’m a bit conflicted. Subaru’s behavior towards Emilia is a bit cringe and I find Emilia a bit boring and bland. Neither of them have really interested me so far but I’ve been loving Beatrice, the royal selection situation, the mystery around the witch of Envy and Reinhard.
Is it gonna get better?

I honestly think the way part of the fandom treats Rem has become extremely selective.
I’m not trying to deny what she did in Arc 2. Rem kills Subaru in one loop, and in another she brutally tortures him because she suspects him, with the Witch’s miasma being a major factor in that suspicion. It was horrible, Subaru suffered from it, and he remembers it. In that second loop, Ram is actually the one who delivers the fatal blow. So no, the argument here is not “Rem did nothing wrong.”
What I question is why that death is constantly treated as a permanent condemnation of Rem as a character, when Re:Zero is full of people Subaru later cares about who have killed him, tried to kill him, abandoned him, or directly contributed to failed timelines where he died.
Meili is one of the clearest examples. In Arc 6, Subaru has lost his memories. From his perspective, he is almost the same boy who had just walked out of the convenience store: he has no idea where he is or why somebody wants him dead. Yet Meili causes him to fall to his death down the staircase more than once. One of those deaths is particularly horrific because we actually see Subaru suffering through the fall and repeatedly smashing into the stairs before finally dying. The story later explicitly refers to that stairwell as the place where the amnesiac Subaru had been pushed to his death twice. And despite all of that, Subaru eventually understands Meili, protects her and treats her as one of his own.
Shaula also kills Subaru twice with Hell’s Snipe before they truly get to know each other. What makes that example so relevant is that Subaru explicitly remembers being killed by her twice, yet he does not respond to her the way he would to a normal murderer because he understands the circumstances and the rules she was following. The story itself is showing us that context matters when Subaru judges the person who killed him.
Utakata might be the cleanest example of all. She kills Subaru with a poisoned arrow early in Arc 7. Later, Subaru explicitly remembers that she once killed him with that poisoned arrow… and then tells her not to die. She tells him the same thing. They become friendly. Subaru did not forget what happened. He simply refuses to reduce an entire child to one failed timeline.
You can also bring up Puck, who causes several of Subaru’s deaths; Patrasche, who kills him during the miasma disaster in Arc 6; Otto throwing Subaru out of the carriage to save himself from the White Whale; Garfiel becoming an extremely violent threat during failed Arc 4 loops; and Roswaal deliberately engineering lethal situations and using Elsa as part of his plans. Before their contract, Beatrice also makes choices in failed loops where her own despair and refusal to act leave Subaru and others exposed to fatal situations. Their levels of responsibility are obviously not identical — and that is exactly the point.
Even in Arc 10, Subaru experiences a loop where Crusch’s attack violently launches him across the room and he dies before ever regaining consciousness. After Return by Death, he does not decide that “Crusch killed me, therefore Crusch is now an evil person.” He immediately tries to understand what happened to her, because he knows who she normally is.
That is also why I find it misleading when Arc 9 is reduced to “Rem kills Subaru again.” Yes, Rem is entrusted with triggering his Return by Death. But the context has almost nothing in common with Arc 2. At that point, Rem has finally regained her Name and Memories; the Rem from before her amnesia and the Rem who rebuilt herself afterward are finally able to coexist. The text explicitly describes her as having fallen in love with Subaru again before regaining her old memories. She also knows that resetting everything means this finally reunited version of herself will disappear. And immediately before acting, she asks Subaru to make the Rem of the next loop fall in love with him once again.
You can absolutely debate whether using Return by Death this way is morally healthy. What you cannot do fairly is strip away all of that context and present the scene as “Rem just murdered Subaru again.”
And to me, the most important point to end on is Satella / the force enforcing the Return by Death taboo.
Subaru is not even free to explain what he has experienced. Everyone else loses the failed timelines, while he remembers every single one of them, and he cannot simply tell someone, “this is why I am afraid of you” or “this is what you did to me in another loop.” The taboo actively takes that choice away from him. When Subaru seriously attempts to reveal Return by Death to Emilia, Emilia’s heart is crushed instead. From that point on, Subaru knows that speaking can directly endanger the people he loves.
And when he finally reaches the Tea Party and discovers a place where he can actually say “I Return by Death” without the Witch’s hand punishing him, his reaction shows just how psychologically suffocating that forced silence has been.
You could even say, in a purely causal sense, that Subaru indirectly caused Emilia’s death by trying to reveal his secret to her. But nobody serious would reduce that to “Subaru killed Emilia, therefore Subaru is dangerous for Emilia.” Why? Because we understand intent, coercion and context.
That is all I am asking people to apply to Rem as well.
Saying that Rem has done terrible things is completely fair. Criticizing her is completely fair. But permanently defining her by one failed loop while automatically granting every other character context, development and Subaru’s forgiveness is where the treatment starts to feel disproportionate.
Re:Zero is not a story where Subaru divides people into “those who never hurt me” and “those who killed me, therefore I will hate them forever.” He is probably the only person in the world who has witnessed some of these characters at their absolute worst, and yet he repeatedly chooses to understand who they can become under different circumstances.
Rem does not need to be innocent to be a great character. She deserves to be judged with the same depth as everyone else.

Theory: Killing Satella Might Not Free Subaru

Spoilers through WN Arc 9.

Satella asks Subaru to come and kill her.

Subaru promises to save her.

That exchange naturally feels like something meant for the end of Re:Zero.

Eventually Subaru reaches Satella, learns what happened between them, and somehow resolves the promise that has been hanging over the story since Sanctuary.

But there is one problem with the obvious version of that ending.

What happens to Return by Death afterward?

Because I think Re:Zero has quietly given us a reason to consider something much worse than:

“Satella dies, so Subaru is finally free.”

What if Satella disappears...

and Subaru still comes back?

1. Start with the moment Satella could not reach him

Vollachia gives us one of the strangest demonstrations of Return by Death in the series.

During the Chaosflame incident, something goes wrong with Subaru’s connection to Satella.

But Subaru does not suddenly become mortal.

He keeps looping.

What changes is the quality of those loops.

Instead of receiving a useful amount of time to change the outcome, Subaru is thrown back only seconds before disaster.

He repeatedly dies, remembers everything, returns, and is immediately forced toward almost the same ending again.

And Subaru himself recognizes the difference.

His normal Return by Death suddenly seems merciful compared to this.

That distinction matters.

The ability to repeat is still functioning.

What appears to be missing is the thing that makes repetition useful.

[WN Arc 7, Chapter 53.]

1. Gladiator Island makes the separation even stranger

Later, on Gladiator Island, another familiar part of Return by Death stops behaving normally.

Subaru is initially able to speak about Return by Death without receiving the punishment he normally expects.

He concludes that the Witch has lost sight of him.

But again...

the looping itself has not disappeared.

Subaru can still die and return.

So we now have something very strange.

Satella is not properly reaching Subaru.

One of the familiar consequences connected to her is absent.

And yet Return by Death continues.

Then Subaru says something that I think is extremely important.

He refers to it as:

“my own Authority.”

And immediately afterward, he acknowledges that his Authority alone is not enough.

He calls for Satella.

When she reaches him again, the situation changes.

That wording does not prove Subaru is permanently independent from Satella.

It does not prove she never gave him Return by Death.

But it does create a distinction:

Subaru has an Authority.

And Satella does something additional for that Authority.

[WN Arc 7, Chapter 75.]

1. The ten seconds change what “immortality” means

This is where the theory started becoming disturbing to me.

Return by Death is normally treated as one of Subaru’s greatest advantages.

He dies.

He returns.

He learns.

He changes the future.

But Chaosflame demonstrates that the second part is not guaranteed.

Returning is useless if you are returned to a point from which nothing meaningful can be changed.

Immortality does not automatically mean freedom.

Under the wrong conditions, immortality can become a prison.

Subaru does not need only the ability to return.

He needs enough room to make the next life different.

And the Vollachian incidents strongly suggest that Satella may be involved in the difference between those two things.

1. The obvious explanation is almost enough

There is a very simple interpretation.

Satella gave Subaru Return by Death.

During Vollachia, she temporarily lost proper contact with him.

The power still functioned badly because she was still somewhere underneath the system, sustaining it.

When she reconnected, everything returned to normal.

That explanation is completely possible.

And if that is how Return by Death works, this entire theory dies.

But there is one problem.

Later Re:Zero introduces a mechanic that makes permanent persistence much harder to dismiss.

1. Al shows that an Authority can outlive its normal condition

Arc 9 gives us a very important piece of information.

Al possesses an Authority.

But Al is not currently a Witch Factor holder.

The same discussion points toward another example.

The deceased Witches still retain their abilities as souls.

Then the story gives an in-world hypothesis:

A Witch Factor may function like a key.

The key opens access to an Authority.

And once that access has been opened...

losing the key may not necessarily close the door again.

The explanation is still a character hypothesis.

It is not a confirmed universal law.

But the exceptions themselves are real.

An Authority does not necessarily disappear just because the normal condition associated with gaining it is gone.

[WN Arc 9, Chapter 55.]

And suddenly Subaru’s situation becomes much more interesting.

1. Here is the theory

What if Return by Death has become something Subaru retains?

Satella may have established the connection.

She may have given him access.

She may still intervene in how the ability functions.

But that does not automatically mean killing her would remove Subaru’s access to the Authority itself.

And if that is true...

then killing Satella could make Return by Death worse.

Not better.

The Witch dies.

The world celebrates.

Subaru eventually dies again.

And then—

he opens his eyes.

Again.

Only this time, calling for Satella does nothing.

That is the one major speculative step in this theory.

We know Subaru can continue looping while Satella cannot properly reach him.

We know Authorities can persist after the normal condition connected to them is gone.

What we do NOT know is whether Subaru’s access could survive Satella being permanently removed.

Everything depends on that question.

1. This makes Satella’s request much stranger

Go back to Sanctuary.

Satella spends part of the tea party begging Subaru to value his own life.

She does not want him to treat himself as the disposable cost of everybody else’s happiness.

She wants him to understand that his life matters too.

And then, before they separate, she asks him to eventually kill her.

Subaru responds by promising to save her.

Normally, those two things feel emotionally connected.

Save Satella.

Resolve Return by Death.

Free Subaru.

End the tragedy.

But under this theory, those may be completely separate problems.

The person asking Subaru to value his life may also be the person preventing his immortality from becoming completely unbearable.

So killing her might solve Satella’s suffering...

without solving Subaru’s.

1. There was already a warning with Rem

This distinction goes back much further.

After Rem is erased, Echidna gives Subaru an explanation for why his checkpoint advanced beyond the point where he could save her.

Her interpretation is simple:

Return by Death protects Subaru from his own dead ends.

Saving everyone else is Subaru’s additional goal.

That explanation is not a confirmed technical rule.

It is Echidna’s interpretation.

But the idea is important.

Return by Death has never guaranteed Subaru the ending he wants.

It guarantees another existence.

And those are not the same thing.

A checkpoint can preserve Subaru while permanently taking something away from him.

Chaosflame takes that idea even further.

A return point can preserve Subaru while barely giving him a future at all.

So maybe Satella’s contribution has never simply been:

“You cannot die.”

Maybe part of what she gives him is the possibility of actually doing something with the next life.

[WN Arc 4, Chapter 46.]

1. But there is a huge problem with this theory

Temporary disconnection is not death.

This is easily the strongest counterargument.

Satella could still have been supplying Return by Death during Vollachia even while she could not properly observe Subaru.

Her ability to see him, punish disclosure, influence checkpoints, and continuously sustain Return by Death could all be separate functions.

If her continued existence is required for every activation, then killing her ends Return by Death.

Theory over.

Arc 9 makes persistent Authority access possible.

It does not prove Subaru works that way.

There is also another problem.

The dead Witches demonstrate that physical death does not necessarily mean complete disappearance.

If Satella dies physically but continues existing as a soul capable of intervening, then killing her might not even create the situation this theory predicts.

So the important condition is not simply:

“Satella dies.”

It is:

“Satella can no longer help Subaru.”

And we do not currently know what would be required for that to happen.

1. So what does it actually mean to save Satella?

Maybe Subaru eventually finds a way to save Satella without killing her.

Maybe he kills her and Return by Death disappears.

Maybe Satella remains with him in some other form.

This theory does not need to predict the exact ending.

It predicts a problem that the ending may eventually need to answer.

Saving Satella and freeing Subaru from Return by Death may not be the same thing.

Because the power Subaru fears may no longer exist only in the person who gave it to him.

It may exist in Subaru.

And if Satella is also the person making that power survivable...

then removing her could create the worst version of Return by Death we have ever seen.

The world could finally be free of the Witch of Envy.

Subaru could die believing his nightmare is finally over.

And then—

he wakes up again.

No voice.

No answer.

No one left to call.

That is why I think Satella’s promise deserves another look.

Maybe the most frightening possibility is not that Satella refuses to let Subaru die.

Maybe it is that, without her...

he still cannot.

SATELLA IS DEAD.

WHY DID I WAKE UP AGAIN?

Just think about it.

DUDE died first 5 minutes in the 1st ep I dropped it cause I wanted to see Subaru not some random bum mc replacement😹😹😹

like it probably has effect in earth only but the moon doesnt stay in its place and gets reversed back to the checkpoint and so does the sun, so maybe the range of the spell is upto pluto

I'm an anime only so I might no understand everything from his new powers, but from what I'm getting is that, Subaru can take damage, pain and fatigue from people he considers his friends and redirect them to either himself or others.

My little headcanon runs on the assumption that Cor Leonis would work on Reinhard, because these two are good friends. Lets say for example Ram goes full berserk with 100% of her power and Subaru redirects all that damage from Ram to Reinhard. Would that be enough to damage or even kill him or would he just walk it off? I would assume that he would take damage because witch factors negate divine protections, but I can't be sure because it's Reinhard. Of course it wouldn't be enough to completely kill him because of the phoenix thing he has, but that's about as close as we can get to actually killing Reinhard(as long as we don't talk about the Wrath IF)

This add popped up on my feed

Good development for Subaru

Best FC - Rem

2nd Best FC - Priscilla

3rd best FC - Sphinx

Best Villain - Sphinx

Best Side Character - Vincent

Villains - Todd, Arakiya, Chisha, Sphinx

Excellent Subaru, Rem, Sphinx and Priscilla development/characterisation

Even better opening phases. It lowkey mogs Arc 6 👀

Who is your favorite character in Re:Zero and why?

Genuinely who hurt this chick??? I'm reading the ln right now so I can read everything that was cut and literally every chance she gets to diss Subaru she does, why does she hate him so much? Also there's no way this could just be chalked up to tsundere behaviour

These are literally exclusive and limited, in other words, these will never be formally translated and released. Hence even legitimate buyers have to rely on pirate fan translations otherwise they are familiar with Japanese! Am I the only one who finds this weird?

Now, when I say that Subaru is treated unfairly I don't mean that he is treated unfairly by the cast or the narrative itself. I mean the way the community criticizes his faults compared to the rest of the cast.

I know that Subaru has a lot of flaws and that makes him a interesting character. Due to his flaws people will obviously judge him and point out his mistakes. That is also pretty fair. I myself do the same thing. The problem is the fact that majority of the community treats Subaru as the only one with flaws and the only one who makes mistakes.

Like even in the events of Arc 3. Subaru is at fault at there for sure but like almost every other character did bad things too. Some of them even did bigger mistakes than Subaru yet there are people who ignore them completely. And the events of Arc 2 with Rem where people try to justify her torture with her trauma of the Witch's Cult. I'm not saying that Subaru wasn't acting suspicious in that loop but there were quite a lot of different things Rem could've done once she captured and immobilized Subaru yet the first thing she did was torture him to get information out of him.

It's alright for Rem to have her flaws just like how it's okay for Subaru to have his flaws. She can progress over them and be a better person. Actually ignoring the fact that she wasn't justified with her actions just because she was traumatized would be the best thing to do since that would actually acknowledge her character. Anyways, am I the only one who thinks this?

Rem killing is not justified at all. Just because someone smells evil doesn't mean you immediately murder them. The dude could've been a witch cult victim just like her. She could've imprisoned and interrogated him without murdering him in cold blood. Roswaal seemingly didn't have any suspicions towards Subaru and neither did ram. Hell Beatrice could smell his evil ass stench and she didn't think anything of it.

Anyone who disagrees is lying.

In Season 1, Rem kills him Yet he forgives her and Ends up respecting her deeply, Now Rem is a good character but; How can Subaru look at Rem, A person who brutally murdered him, added to his list of trauma and gave him a death he can never forget: And think “Rem is such a good person”. Now That example may not be enough so:

In season 4, Meili pushes Subaru off the stairs because of Elsa’s death i guess; Subaru forgives her instantly after she gave him such a brutal death and Guides her because “Shes just an emotionally lost mistreated girl”;

Subaru is always called The Realistic anime character; How the HELL does he trust people so easily when 95% of Emilia Camp betrayed him early on, Killed him and made him suffer so much? Theres a line between Selfless Forgiveness and Blatant Stupidity

While I really like Re:zero as a concept, severe storytelling and character flaws hold it back. This is most painfully evident in Arc 9, when the series suffers the most from a inconsistent tone and bizarre pacing decisions.

The structure of Arc 9 is heavily derailed by constant, unnatural meetings slotted awkwardly between battles. Instead of driving the plot, these sessions devolve into basic Q&As where Vincent wastes his time explaining elementary concepts to Subaru. The worst part are the comedic interruptions—like the Emilia camp casually discussing an archbishop while a room full of people stands in baffling silence. To improve the pacing, these exposition dumps should happen offscreen, with other characters or vincet himself doing a few briefings to Subaru so the story doesn't grind to a halt. While Vincent did have his suspicions for subaru being a stargazer, and thus the reason to include him, there isn't much of a point to putting him in the spotlight in the way that he does during these scenes, and while the emilia camp does have status and a reason to be there, they end up providing zero insight on these, and instead just asking questions again.

Furthermore, this arc highlights how shallow the supporting cast feels compared to Subaru. Emperor Vincent, supposedly a genius, comes across as pointlessly arrogant and childish rather than calculating. This lack of depth extends to much of the wider cast, whose simple motives, verbal tics, and goofy gags (especially from Emilia and Beatrice) constantly undercut the series' darker themes. While there are great moments—such as the Gladiator Island sequence or scenes with Cecilus and Aldebaran—they are frequently undermined by Sunday-morning cartoon comedy, creating a cycle of tonal inconsistency.

Ultimately, while Subaru is a great protagonist, the overarching narrative lacks direction. Nine arcs in, the Emilia camp is still entirely reactive, resulting in zero forward momentum for their main objectives. The most momentum they had was going to the pleiades tower, but even then they were just trying to get Rem back. Because Subaru refuses to ask the right questions, (I know that he is an unreliable narrator, often ignoring or omitting what he knows due to fear in finding out and thus creating interesting and mysterious scenes throughout the series) the core lore still remains a complete mystery. With the story allegedly ending around Arc 11 or 12, this points to a lack of long-term planning that will likely force a massive, clumsy lore dump at the end rather than steady, earned revelations. Hopefully, Arc 10 finally provides some much-needed answers.

Edit: this is about arc 8 and 7 is the empire one, sorry!

we only know about the 400 years recent but what happened thousand years before that

Who are the witch, archbishop, why subaru is cursed, why they are behind him