Re:ZERO Episode 38
The Sounds That Make You Want to Cry
Re:ZERO episode 38 gave us a decent amount of new information on the witches, most notably, Satella. But, before I get into that, allow me to update my witch tier list from last week. I think I’m going to move Minerva down a tier and Typhon and Sekhmet each up a tier.
I wasn’t all that impressed with what I saw of Minerva this week. But on the other hand, I did like what I saw from Typhon and Sekhmet. Sekhmet is still far from top-tier for me, though.
Anyway, carrying on with Sekhmet as the topic of discussion, it would seem that we now know what her authority is. In order to stop Minerva from reviving Subaru against his wishes, Sekhmet appears to have increased the gravity on her body. And with that, I think we know all of the witches’ authorities except for one.
Satella has the unseen hand. Daphne has the ability to erase people and memories. Minerva has the power to heal others. Typhon has the power to shatter people. Carmilla has the power to alter her appearance. And Sekhmet can increase gravity or something. The only authority we don’t actually know is Echidna’s.
Now, we have seen Regulus, the Archbishop Sin of Greed, use some sort of force-field ability to protect himself. It’s possible that this is the authority of greed, as Echidna is able to create a barrier to keep people out of the tomb within the Sanctuary.
The only thing about all of this that doesn’t really make sense, though, is why Betelgeuse had the unseen hand. We know that to be Satella’s authority, but he was the Archbishop sin of Sloth, not Envy.
Is Satella Good?
Moving on to what’s probably more important to a lot of people, it turns out Satella is actually good(?). I had previously stated that I thought all of the witches were either good or neutral with the exception of Satella. Based on the information we had back then, I figured that was a pretty safe prediction to make.
After all, none of the witches we had met at the time seemed evil. And, multiple sources (Betty and Echidna) said Satella killed the other witches. I could see why Echidna would lie to Subaru about that considering he’s connected to Satella, but why would Betty?
So, I actually have a theory about the whole “Satella killed the other witches” thing that I came up with after the previous episode. Even back then, we got to see how the other witches reacted to Satella arriving, and things didn’t add up. Echidna seemed worried, Sekhmet called her troublesome, and Typhon greeted her cheerfully.
What I took from this, and what seems to make more sense now that we actually know more about Satella’s personality, is that she didn’t kill them. If she had, the witches would have had far more negative reactions towards her. Instead, I think Satella did something that caused the deaths of the other witches.
She didn’t kill them directly, but perhaps she did something that inadvertently got them all killed. Maybe she got on the bad side of the wrong person, such as a former hero or king, and that caused the witches to be hunted down and slaughtered.
Perhaps she’s prone to causing “trouble.” She didn’t seem to care about Betelgeuse at all, leading me to suspect that the Witch’s Cult isn’t something she created. In fact, she may want Subaru to kill her so that it will be disbanded and her existence won’t cause any more trouble for anyone.
When Satella mentioned how much Subaru had done for her, that seemed to lend credibility to my theory that Satella and Emilia are one and the same. But, maybe Satella was referring to all the work Subaru has done to destroy the Witch’s Cult.
Roswaal’s Insanity
Was it last week that we discussed Roswaal’s inhumanity, or was that two weeks ago? I don’t even know at this point, but once again, there’s some crazy new information about him. The biggest reveal is that Roswaal is actually the one who hired Elsa and Maylie. I did not see that coming.
However, this may explain some things from the first season. When I questioned whether Roswaal also hired Elsa to steal Emilia’s insignia in episode 1, Envyus over on Discord pointed out that he may have done so in order to get Subaru involved with Emilia as foretold by his copy of the Tome.
However, I’m not sure how Maylie fits in here. I’d have to rewatch that whole saga with Maylie in season one to really make some predictions. But, based on what I remember, Roswaal ended up saving Subaru from Maylie’s mabeast. That leads me to think that he wasn’t involved with Maylie at that point in time.
Another potentially huge piece of information came when Roswaal stated that Subaru and Ram are the only two he trusts and that he views them as special. We don’t really know what’s up between Ram and Roswaal at this point, but it appears safe to assume that the copy of the Tome led him to her.
And the final thing I want to mention here is my take on how Subaru could solve this whole situation with Roswaal’s meddling. Roswaal is trying to force Subaru to either save the mansion or Sanctuary, but not both. However, Echidna did give Subaru a hint: Garfiel.
Subaru may be blocked from facing the third trial, but we already know that Garfiel is qualified. So, if Subaru can get Garfiel to overcome his past, he can leave the protection of the Sanctuary to him. And if Garfiel saves the sanctuary, Subaru (and probably Otto) can try to save the mansion again.
Oh, and Garfiel overcoming his past and completing the trials would be perfect for his character arc. We know he has some unfinished business or trauma in his past that has to do with Frederica. This would be the perfect path toward solving all of that.
Conclusion
What do you think of Re:ZERO episode 38? Have we seen all of the witches’ authorities? If so, which one is your favorite? Also, do you think that Satella is actually good? And how do you see Subaru overcoming the situation Roswaal placed him in? Let me know in the comments.
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My review of the next episode is available here.
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6 Replies to “Re:ZERO Episode 38”
Shouldn’t Sekhmet’s authority be the unseen hand? Beetleguise can use the unseen hand because he (or whatever the hell his name is now) has the sloth authority.
You would think so, but we already know that the unseen hand is Satella’s authority. It’s what’s used to grab Subaru’s heart when he tries to tell people of return by death. Also, Betelgeuse said that he received that ability from Satella — the witch that the cult is trying to unseal.
I think it’s kind of like Subaru’s situation in which he has the Sloth witch factor, he’s an apostle of Greed, and he’s also connected to the Witch of Envy. They aren’t exactly mutually exclusive.
DoubleSama, don’t you remember that Beatrice said that Satella devoured the other witches bearing the name of the deadly sins? I don’t think she is innocent here. It would not surprise me if Satella had all 7 Authorities given that she devoured the others. If she had all the Authorities, it would make sense how the Sin Archbishops all have Authorities even though the other witches are dead, and the reason would be that Satella gave all of them their Authorities. I think the reason we didn’t see any hands from Sekhmet was because Subaru was lying on the ground, not looking at Minerva, and Re:zero was showing the perspective of someone who couldn’t see the Unseen Hand.
Echidna has already stated that the Authority of Envy is what causes Return by Death. In episode 34, she said that the power Subaru has is the power of a witch. Then in episode 38, she said that Satella’s Authority of Envy would be the only thing that could confirm whether the timeline continuations that Subaru saw in the second trial actually happened, so there are now two instances of Echidna referring to the Authority of Envy as a power that affects time, not being the Unseen Hand as you say.
I didn’t remember Betty using the word “devoured.” If she did, then that would make a lot more sense. It would explain how Satella was able to grant other authorities to the Archbishop Sins. Also, it would mean that Satella is using Sekhmet’s authority to harm Subaru when he tries to tell other people about return by death.
But how would she have “devoured” the other witches? I could understand it if she had Daphne’s authority. But if that’s the case, how did she come to obtain Daphne’s authority? And like I said, the other witches don’t really seem that bothered by her showing up at the tea party. Echidna is the one most worried, and I think that’s mainly because she doesn’t want Satella interfering with her trying to get Subaru to make a contract.
I don’t know how Satella devoured them, but Betty’s words weren’t even the only instance of someone suggesting/outright saying that Satella consumed the other witches. Echidna said in episode 28 that the Witch of Envy used the other witches as sustenance, which heavily implies that she devoured the other witches.
I think in both of those cases we shouldn’t take the words “devoured” and “consumed” literally. As you previously pointed out, she could very well have taken their authorities for herself. But I’m still not certain that it implies she was the one who directly killed them. And I think it’s fairly safe to say she didn’t literally eat them.