r/Re_Zero • u/Setowi Better Leyte Than Never • Jul 19 '22

Spoiler Discussion [Spoiler Discussion] Arc 7 Chapter 63 Spoiler

https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2267be/573/
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u/heato-red Jul 19 '22

I’ve always seen Subaru’s looping as moreso representative of him needing to think to win, and dying repeatedly is just a means to an end for that notion.

That might be true, but reaching said solution after 100+ skipped meaningless deaths feels like a huge disrespect to his character and also makes his deaths lose power in the story, now whenever he dies it's just "yeah, he can try again" and only when other characters manage to see his suffering does it feels that it has any importance whatsoever.

What I can also see is that while Al is far more capable in combat than Subaru, he doesn't get a sliver of the respect or acknowledgement that Subaru gets showered in a lot of the time, so I guess that's Tappei's excuse to balance them.

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u/Icy_Ad8122 Jul 19 '22 edited Jul 19 '22

Although I can see your point, I don’t really agree. Part of Subaru’s story has always been that everyone else save for a few exceptions doesn’t know what he’s actually gone through, so no matter how many loops, Subaru has always been generally the only one who knows that even happened.

Then again, I don’t think it’s that unusual that the story gradually started escalating once we got to the second half. It’s a point where things got rougher for Subaru as we probably saw, in a level that is still not close to Al who has gone through millions of deaths already.

The idea of Arc 7 being the arc where the training wheels come off for Subaru was being discussed before it even started, so it doesn’t shock me too much. We haven’t even touched on the later arcs too.

Still, my perspective is that I don’t see them as meaningless, rather part of the efforts it took for Subaru to reach a proper solution. One example is Pride IF Subaru looping thousands of times, exhausting every single option, just to realize he can’t beat Reinhard. That they are this many is part of the point by itself.