Re:Zero (Starting Life in Another World): Season 1/ Episode 15 “The Outside of Madness” – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

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Overview

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the newest villain, the leader of the Sloth sect of the Witch Cultist, Betelgeuse.

Trigger Warning(s):
Dead Bodies & Torture

Major Characters

Rem & Subaru

Main Plot (with Commentary)

Topic 1: Journey into the Unknown (Subaru)

Dead bodies everywhere. The bodies of children, the dead body and Rem here, Ram in the mansion, yet no sign of Emilia, Roswaal, or Beatrice. Though, perhaps, they are safe! Somewhere behind a door, where the outside freezes all to death, they just might be alive. However, being that Subaru isn’t immune to cold, and he makes no attempts to call out to them, like the many fingers, those who are part of the witch’s cult, he dies.

Topic 2: Introducing – Betelgeuse (Rem & Subaru)

Many times Subaru has found himself in a loop. However, when it came to the first one, even the second, the loop was him trying to save people he just met. People he didn’t necessarily know all that well but, at the same time, were the only people he knew. Now though, the stakes are high. He has become close to Rem, the children of the village adore him as he does them, and even with him and Emilia having a row, he nonetheless cares for her. So imagine seeing most of the people you love, the only people you know in this new world, dead. Not even dead as in they naturally passed on. I’m talking brutalized.

But why? Why kill women, children, demon, and human like cattle? Well, the Day of the Ordeal. Which is what? Well, the newest villain, the leader of the Sloth sect of the Witch Cultist, Betelgeuse, doesn’t say. However, what is known though is that while he has no problem instructing the fingers to kill damn near everybody and everything, Subaru is special. The witch’s miasma makes him too interesting, too peculiar, too special to kill. Yet, Rem can’t be spared.

So, after Subaru is kidnapped and Rem fights her way to him, we watch as she is allowed to kill some fingers, but ultimately has her body twisted and broken. Not to the point of death, we later learn, but damn near close. So close that as she crawls to Subaru to break his chains, break him from this spell that seeing so much death has on a person, and hear her say she loves him, it is hard not to get teary eyed.

Say what you will about the cuteness which was Emilia and Subaru, I certainly did when he cried on her lap, but there is something sad, yet beautiful, about the unrequited love Rem has for Subaru. If only because, there seems to be something less shallow about it. Granted, when it comes to both Emilia and Rem, Subaru saved both of their lives through one means or another, but with Emilia having to train to be a ruler, we didn’t get to see her and Subaru have much quality time. Something we have gotten to see with Rem and with her having a silent crush, one in which she keeps to herself due to position and because she feels the feelings would be unrequited, it is almost heartbreaking. Yet, you can’t help but hope that maybe Subaru, despite his constant deaths partly caused by his loyalty to Emilia, may one day see her as she sees him.

Topic 3: Sleep With My Daughter (Subaru)

That doesn’t happen in this episode though. For even after Rem saves Subaru and he walks her to the mansion, this being, this gigantic being, appears and says “Sleep with my daughter.” Now, as for whether she means Rem/ Ram or Emilia? Well it is hard to say. However, Emilia’s parents are a bit of a mystery, all we know is she is half elf. So who is to say she isn’t the daughter of Satella? Who is to say this whole “Day of the Ordeal” isn’t about using Emilia to revive the witch or something similar? Only future episodes can confirm, but let me just say that despite every now and then growing tired of this show, it is episodes like this which renew my faith in it.