Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu Episode 17 Discussion

Raven_Wingz said:

Like people said though, it's hard to initially like Rem since she murders and tortures Sub in cold blood, but I just think of her as parallel Rem (not the same Rem) to get over it. Ya know, like Sliders and stuff. Then again, it could be like him playing a visual novel- getting the wrong choice and having to restart over to pick the correct choice heh.

I do like Rem, but seriously, too much work to get her on your side. You basically have to be insane and have a death wish (fortunately for Sub he has the luxury of relife) to get on her good side. Emilia is still best waifu IMO. Sub was doing fine with her till he broke his promise with her. Also, nothing can beat her soft warm lap pillow!

alimr313 said:
Another great episode! I think maybe the mist that the Whale produces not only kills people but also makes them drop out of this timeline or whatever you call it, because it seems like everything has evolved as if Rem was never even born. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the Whale, maybe Rem just ran out of lives or something.

I love the realism in this show, it shows how even the most decent of people (Otto) show their true colors when they are facing death. I don't blame Otto, in fact, I just wish that if I were ever in a similar situation, I don't follow my survival instincts like he.

Why do mabeasts seem to bear animosity with the Witch? They seem to not like the scent and therefore target it. Did the Witch create them and abandon them? Were they failed subordinates?

It seems like the Witch is nurturing Subaru, almost like a mother would, except that she is priming him to become insane like Betelgeuse. Him having a twisted sense of love would make sense then. The scene where she caressed his heart was creepy. Now if someone finds out about RBD, they will have to die. Maybe that's why Betelgeuse freaked out when Subaru could see his power.

Man, I really hope Puck doesn't kill him this time. I hope he can see how much Subaru was struggling and crying to save Emilia. Even Betelgeuse looked scared of Puck.

Hmm...more to Beatrice than meets the eye. She must have a tragic past. Does she know about Subaru's RBD? It looks like she can manipulate space, maybe time as well?

I love how sometimes the OST just stopped completely. Really made me realize what's going on in Subaru's head at that moment; nothing. It's like he draws a blank.

He doesn't have the courage to kill himself anymore, that's why he has to beg others. Pretty sad.

I wish he had explained that the Cultists were coming to Emilia, I believe that she would've believed him. Maybe he is traumatized after the first 3 candidates brushed him off. Sorry for the long post, don't have anyone to talk to about this anime!

VeritasEtLux said:

On_the_Lam said:

Why didn't Beatrice get rid of Emilia's body the other times the massacre occurred, to prevent Puck from going berserk? Unless the cult was planning on killing everyone in the village, and not just Emilia...

In this episode, Beatrice's actions and behavior makes it seem as if she was aware what was going to happen all along. She wasn't shocked at all seeing Emilia die.

Jakez123 said:
Reading some of these posts lel.


I see many people saying "Why don't you tell Emilia that the Witch's cult is coming?"

Like really? The second he says to Emilia that the witch's cult is coming, she's obviously going to say "How do you know that?" and from there, it's checkmate, Subaru can't say how he knows, and even if he made some bullshit reason "I can see the future", I doubt Emilia will believe him, especially after the crazed argument they had like 4 episodes ago. She'll most likely throw it off as ramblings and an excuse for Subaru to be with her, and then she'll be like "Why are you doing this for me?" and of course Subaru can't answer again, because he can't mention Arc 1 loop 1.

I mean when he tried it with Crusch, she didn't believe him, hell, even Rem didn't fully believe Subaru and she's obedient as fuck, and you believe Emilia, who just had an argument with Subaru a few days ago is going to drop everything for her royal candidacy to run away with Subaru until the ordeal is over? What world are we living in?

And this is all based on the assumption that him saying something like "I can see the future" won't trigger the black hands, it's pretty evident that it's aware of it's surroundings, considering it only comes when he specifically mentions his powers, and the way it stroked his heart. There's no saying that it won't just be like "Nope", and instagib Emilia.

Me and my friends discussed this before, we thought about why Subaru doesn't just go into an isolated area, and just write a letter/Record a voice message on his phone, then hand that to Emilia/Rem, tell them to read/listen to it in approx 10 minutes, whilst he walks away, and see what happens after 10 minutes or so.

Slightly unrelated, but that's one reason why I liked Code Geass, Lelouch properly tested his Geass to get all the information he could (Range of his Geass, length, how many questions he can ask, how many times he can use it, if it reflects off surfaces etc.). But then again, Subaru can't really do that, he may think he'll get perma-killed if he speaks, nor does he know how many times he can reset.

Long post, but eh.

salujas said:
HOW MANY MORE TIMES WILL I HAVE TO WATCH REM DIE MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE

silencely said:


I really like your post.

My reply for your post is: "Subaru isn't that smart, everyone should've known that very well". (Can't really compare him with Lelouch to begin with)

As far as the story goes, I kinda get the slight idea that this anime truly trust the watchers to comprehend what's actually going on around Subaru or maybe come up to our own version of conclusion, just leave it be. Moreover, we're also forced to bear ourselves and accept with Subaru's point of view of him coming to a decision of his actions. (Like, If I'm Subaru, I should've done this instead...)

This show really pleases the watchers.

Rehls said:
Yeah and then died to something else, rather than the whale itself. There's a theory that it has to devour the body. So if the knight had escaped, but died to injuries... But that guy is on Cynicism Mode. It affects his reasoning.

beast_regards said:
They would still forget about anyone else, but it was mentioned that there was some kind of military campaign which implies a lot of time and invested resources, was pretty much a disaster. But assuming Whale ate the army, but not the Knight, they would forget they sent an army, hence no record of campaign against the whale. Even Knight would forget he had any minions. With knight as lone survivor, it would hardly be a campaign

Raven_Wingz said:
Yeah I know, right? Just when you think you know what's going on in this anime, a freaking White Whale of Reality Wiping just throws a wrench in your analysis. Sub should just be like Groundhog Day and learn a bunch of skills. He was on the right track there for a while with Ram. I still wonder why the Whale let him live though. There's no way he legit got away!...

Buck_Wade said:

For the past few episodes, he's been trying all tracks, but it fails:
Long road: Nope, cult waiting.
Short road: Giant whale of death.
Get help from candidates: How the hell's he going to do that?

Baka-man said:
Maybe the whale doesn't normally erase people from existance. This whole thing seems like the witch trying to mess with subaru. Like otherwise why wouldn't the whale kill him too? IMO it seemed like the whale was just acting like a tool to mess with his mind. So it scarred him and left him alive.

Baka-man said:


All of these are in some way related to the witch. Seems like the witch is constantly screwing up his plans. There has got to be a larger reason to this.

Buck_Wade said:


Really, I think Subaru unfortunate circumstances are simply due to him getting involved with someone like Emilia.

NeXusjoshuam said:
Quick question: Does Beatrice remember each of the timelines like Subaru does? It seems like she knows much more than she lets on, so I'm wondering if she truly knows about his curse.

whimee said:
Wait until arc 3, you will all love rem ;)

Rehls said:
The Whale is the Witch's creation. She's power beyond it.

RainyRai said:

There has been nothing to indicate this so far. It's more likely that Beatrice refers to her past when she talks about seeing suffering.

KaiserNazrin said:


Who is Rem? I think you meant Ram.

sophia_jackson said:
I'm tired of seeing Subaru cry. His power is dieing. He can fix it if he thinks, but he keeps acting like a punk.

DarkReaperMarvin said:
Well i think Subaru is getting now stronger...i mean he saw the "invisible hands" from
Betelgeuse...and i'm still hoping that he is going in a ragemode and destroys everything...in my opinion :)

DarkReaperMarvin said:
Well i think Subaru is getting now stronger...i mean he saw the "invisible hands" from
Betelgeuse...and i'm still hoping that he is going in a ragemode and destroys everything...in my opinion :)

Baka-man said:
Or maybe that's an indication of him becoming darker or increased witch influence or something. Either way, hope they don't give him some bs deus ex machina powers

Rehls said:
Well it was in the madogs nature not to devour the body, but the mana. If they kill, then mana's lost. So they weaken instead. Think Rem got bloodied by the spells of the leader madog.

Killer96bee said:
Put yourself on his position! You are Now Subaru

-Stray said:
Jesus christ..... watching Emilia dropping dead like that.... my heart.....

Also why the hell is everyone forgetting who's who? is it a side effect from whoever the whale kills? anyways that last part tho.... Betelgeuse you mf! I thought he was gonna twist Emilia's body like what he did with Rem, at least Puck made an appearance and he is mad af.

NEP hype!

Finally an episode with Emilia in it, almost forgot she exists.

Got chills when Emilia died as well, dont know why others find it lackluster

mozgow said:
WTF is going on here?

Why no one knows who Rem was? And why Subaru still remembers?
What was Beatrice referring to? What was Subaru supposed to know? Why wasn't she surprised that Emilia died? Why does she have to protect the mansion and used her dimensional magic to move Subaru and Emilia's body out of the mansion?
Why Subaru can now see the "Unseen hand"?

Rehls said:
They'd not have been chosen by the Witch. And he's a realistic, undeveloped person. Remind again, that it's been about a month that it all began. And the story's long. It's stupid to ask him to become competent in such a short period of time. I'd be fine with half an year. But it'll likely take half that much..

Rehls said:


They'd not have been chosen by the Witch. And he's a realistic, undeveloped person. Remind again, that it's been about a month that it all began. And the story's long. It's stupid to ask him to become competent in such a short period of time. I'd be fine with half an year. But it'll likely take half that much.

TonyJ said:


I said this in episode's 16 forum, but I suppose not everybody reads everything. Meh, it's ok.

Going to the point, the White Whale has the ability to make someone's existence dissappear. That means that someone hasn't ever existed, so that's why no one remembers her. The real question from this episode, asit was in the 16th (and no one cared about it)is, can return by death bring back someone who's existence has been erased?

Subaru remembers her due his condition as "the chosen" by the witch, I suppose.
For Beatrice I don't know, but I heard (This can be considered an SPOILER) that she is inmune to Return by death, so she remembers everything.

Subaru is supposed to see the Unseen Hand because of the increase on his Witch Scent, as Rem noticed in episode 15, so that means that Subaru's "powers" were increased after ep 15.That's what I think seeing the hints from the series.

xosongbird said:
*sighs* so it appears this anime has actually dove off the cliff of disappointment to drown in the sea of "Really..? Nothing that's happening is making any sense"

So we have the White Whale, which erases people's existence, which Subaru was told about--yet he's confused as all hell when others have no recollection of Rem. Nice. Even if he was unaware at the time, Ram and Emilia forgetting Rem's entire existence should've set some red flags off in Subaru's mind, maybe, "Hey, this has something to do with the White Whale" but no. More melodramatic screaming and crying.

It appears this anime likes to turn everyday characters into homicidal maniacs just so they can show Subaru getting shafted. One minute the carriage driver was optimistic about their chances of escape, another he's throwing Subaru out of the cart because... Subaru said it was his fault the mythical creature was chasing them, so he instantly went with that explanation and went full-blown psycho.

-We have Subaru trying to convince Emilia to leave in the creepiest, most insane-"throw me in the loony bin because I'm coco for coco puffs!" way.

-Earlier he runs from the White Whale screaming "I don't wanna die!" "I don't wanna die!" at the top of his lungs, and immediately after Emilia's troll death Subaru wanted to die. Wow. Then he asks Beatrice to kill him. Of course she doesn't comply, that's an unsettling request, and plus Emilia just died so she's most likely upset about that, and doesn't obviously want to make it worse by killing Subaru.

-He could've just killed himself. He's confident he can use "REturn by death to--!" But doesn't kill himself to redo events so Rem doesn't die.

-It appears he isn't even in that deep of despair and wants to die, because the second he sees Betelgeuse, he acts like he wants to A. protect Emilia's corpse (Why does this matter, you said everything was hopeless and you wanted to die)
and B. kill the weird Sloth guy for what he did/actually didn't do because of REturn.

Subaru's motives and psyche change every five freaking minutes. The creators obviously have no clue on how they want the character to behave, or think like--so they just flip flop with random emotions, by using melodramatic events as a catalyst. So many freaking plot inconsistencies and holes.



I could actually go on and ask more questions, but honestly they're never going to get an actual answer. Just vague throwaway lines. After the trainwreck that was this and last week's episode--this is definitely a 6/10 for me. It's fine.. just the terrible world building, because they only focus on one character--yet there's a freaking political candidacy race going on, a cult of psychos, unexplained lore that is relevant to the first two things, and illogical character behavior.

It was honestly better when the issues weren't so grand in scope. Subaru gets in trouble, uses REturn, figures out a way to solve the issue. That's what it excelled at early on. But adding in all these details, but only focusing on them from the one character's perspective, is where things started to unravel. There's too much going on for only one thing to happen per episode.

What occurred last episode? Subaru talked to each candidate and tried to convince them to help him to no avail.

What happend this episode? He meets the Whale and goes on a melodramatic rant beore the 2 minute mark which just serves as an intro to the next episode's main focus.