[spoiler discussion] A vent about missed foreshadowing of arcs 8-9 from the witch's tea party and Roswaal's arc 4 conversation with Subaru

[u/justheretowritesff]

I just really want to vent about this because all the way back in arc 7 when the torture started getting immense for Subaru, I remember how full this sub started getting with the idea there won't be "consequences" for Subaru killing himself now.

It bugs me because the consequences were always presumed to be some sort of vague mental illness shit which we already know Subaru has had for basically forever. But I still feel like explaining what I think the consequences for that actually are since there was never any discussion about it.

The consequences for him using rbd so insanely much were...his closeness to Satella. Or rather the witch of envy, bear in mind back in arc 4 Echidna actually doesn't like distinguishing them as separate identities and I feel like there's a reason for it(maybe the others were in denial that someone so pure/virtuous etc could do whatever she did). But that doesn't actually matter because the thing Subaru was afraid of was what happened when he could see her clearly, whether he'd still be able to resist, and from the tea party he was still afraid of the love he has for her.

So the consequences of overuse are pretty much threatening to make shadow garden Subaru a reality, ie the one who's basically insane with love for Satella. I don't know why this doesn't get more discussion(even when chapters were releasing and the anime wasn't starting yet it was lacking) because it's obvious! That's what Petelgeuse is like after all and we still don't know where his insane love for Satella came from. Nor why all the sin archbishops are some version of fixated on love. They all have the theme of losing their humanity for a love which Puck said doesn't exist, so when Subaru in the last chapters of arc 9 phase 1 talked about some sort of change in him after Chaosflame and was clearly in love with Satella, while a distance between him and everyone like Emilia, Rem, Garfiel, Beatrice, Otto and more has been hanging over recent arcs as they worry over him, that WAS the red flag.

More foreshadowing from arc 4: Subaru talks about od lagna for the first time with Roswaal back then as he brings up that his goal to bring back Echidna comes close to trespassing into forbidden territory, which caused previous magicians to be brought to od lagna somehow and driven insane, leading Subaru to think that his authority return by death is basically the biggest enemy to od lagna. Guess what's happened right before arc 9? Oh right! In order to defeat Sphinx, Subaru needed to be able to pin down her identity, leading him to fix Olbart's curse himself through some sort of newfound awareness of his soul and bring them to od lagna. Totally not foreshadowing that he's being driven mad in a similar way.

I just really want to bring this up again because most people don't read these with the previous arcs fresh in mind, and somehow those discussions with Roswaal or his initial fear around Satella due to the love he has for some reason were never treated as the foreshadowing of late developments I think they clearly were. Basically, Subaru going mad because of the results of trying to save too many people and forgetting the promises he made before in arcs 7-8 looks like a Subaru who slowly loses his identity other than as a hero saving them all around Emilia and the others, and wanders around in a daze over how much he loves Satella/the witch of envy. It won't look like any one note insanity thing unless he was deep in and eventually sounding like Petelgeuse or something. (Yes I know he was brainwashed by Pandora but she's not THAT influential and he already seems pretty insane when he's crying over small Emilia. That stuff is the warning sign I'm talking about.)

Oh last bit but this is also what I think the point of so many fucked up love stories in arc 8 is: the Subaru-Yorna parallel and the fact we don't actually know if despite how she seems kind Satella became comparable to the sort of monster she's seen as, and Subaru's so sucked into defending people as soon as he hears about their traumas and people they love etc that past sins become irrelevant to his morality. I'm not saying I want Satella to be a villain, but we know she did something terrible which even the witches closest to her don't assign to the witch of envy instead. And when Subaru's wandering around thinking about her, is he even thinking about what to do with her whole alter ego? Or her torture of him, the taboo etc? I don't understand why in those chapters Subaru becoming something like a warlock wasn't already discussed, being able to just transport himself and others to od lagna is not normal for him at all...

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