Re:Zero - Episode 17 Discussion / Poll

[felix]

Originally Posted by Dengar

You know, the reason we can easily deduce the whale's powers is because it's a fictional universe and therefore we know it's not real. From Subaru's perspective, everything that's happening is all too real. Not to mention he is not in a position where he can just take the time to think of anything other than how to not die.

From Subaru's perspective, as evident in episode 1, he sees it as a fantasy setting too, no matter how real. He just seems to have forgotten the game logic that permeates the entire universe along with (aparently) any sense of wanting to abuse his gaming knowledge to bend the rules of the world to his favor. Sure, he failed initially, and maybe it actually has no use, but he hasn't really tried hard enough at all to experiment with the boundaries; he only seems to know how to hit his head against them.

With regard to "time to think" argument...

This gets brought up a lot, but the excuse is wearing thin.

Sure in episode 1 where events flowed into one another continuously, with only moving around and running around as pauses you could say he has less time to think then we do. But since episode one he's had days of casual labor. I would think he has had more time to think then some of us just casually thinking about his problem for a bit every week when the episode airs.

There's also a big difference between "hasn't had time to think" and "not thinking at all." With what time Subaru has had, what exactly has he been thinking exactly? One of his weakest points as a character is how his characters "objective," once you go beyond the screeming and moaning, can be sumed up for the last 2 arcs (arc 1 was the exception aparently) as simply "I need to be next to Emilia / I need to drag Emilia around" with no followup at all.

[Applehell]

Oh please lets stop with the game logic nonsense. Half of the entire first episode was spent striping him of that very notion this was game rather than actual world with it's own rules. It's also a ridiculous idea that implies all fantasy are the same and rides on assumptions that Subaru has even played games that such a being with no real basis to support that line of thinking. Subaru clearly never imagine such a thing to exist here so being completely beliwered at is natural. Meta logic can only take you so far when your dealing with real monsters. It has nothing to do with not thinking about it or not.

And you need to stop exaggerating what happened in first 2 arcs. He did plenty reasoning then, but he had to go through the proper emotional channels first instead acting like a robot who wasn't effected by his expriences. Many people would dealt with his situation much worse than he did if at all.

Subaru will be a better state to think when his mind in better shape to do so. That's it.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Applehell

Oh please lets stop with the game logic nonsense. Half of the entire first episode was spent striping him of that very notion this was game rather than actual world with it's own rules. It's also ridioulous idea that implies all fantasy are the same and rides on assumptions that Subaru even read books with such a being or thinks what can do normal and expected with no real basis to support it.

And yet the world is very game-y in many aspects.

Dunno why you bring up the show not wanting him to use game logic to at least try to understand the world around him easier. I think the author would be pretty stupid if he picked an otaku for his character's persona and then not even half way though the first episode (volume?) decided "oh shit, uh, yeah never mind" by making everything about his character useless. Whats the point? You would just go and change Subaru's entire back story if that was the case.

Originally Posted by Applehell

And you need to stop exaggerating what happened in first 2 arcs. He did plenty reasoning, but he had to go through the proper emotional channels first instead acting like a robot who wasn't effected by his expriences. Many people would dealt with his situation much worse than he did if at all.

Subaru will be a better state to think when his mind in better shape to. That's it.

By that logic if I get a paper cut food should drop from the sky. If I get a broken leg I shouldn't have to work. And if I break my arm I should have my own personal maid.

Misfortune is not a free pass in life. Pity and aid are two very different things.

So, do we really need another character to come in and solve the problem for Subaru? Is that what you all want?

If you want to talk realism...

Anyone in this situation, no matter the torment, no matter the scars, if he doesn't man up and fix the problems he has himself NOBODY else will. Especially in cases such as that of the show. There's no public safety and the entire country couldn't give a shit about Subaru even if he got murdered in the street; you're all applying your Earth-democracy and human rights logic way too deeply to this show. But even if that wasn't the case, the universe doesn't just bend down to wipe your ass based how misfortune you are. You are an insignificant spec of dust with or with out your mental problems.

Realistically there's only 3 things that can happen...

1. you fix your problems, before it's too late to fix them; all the time wasted not fixing your problem is merely courting death
2. someone else has to fix your problems for you
3. pie drops from the sky and your problem magically goes away (what everyone wants and where I see this silly story going at the moment; frankly pie has already dropped a dozen times just in this arc)
4. you die (permanently), but hey you died "righteously" since you were suffering from some "problems," which obviously makes all the difference. So it's all "good," even if you were really the only hope for other people around you (who supported you when you were down), so long as you die for the right reasons nobody can blame you for all the things you could have done but didn't even try. /sarcasm

[DemonneoPT]

Yep, i think a lot of people are delusional about what they would be able to do in such situation and are still to attached to the usual OP MC tropes.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by felix

And yet the world is very game-y in many aspects.

Dunno why you bring up the show not wanting him to use game logic to at least try to understand the world around him easier. I think the author would be pretty stupid if he picked an otaku for his character's persona and then not even half way though the first episode (volume?) decided "oh shit, uh, yeah never mind" by making everything about his character useless. Whats the point? You would just go and change Subaru's entire back story if that was the case.

By that logic if I get a paper cut food should drop from the sky. If I get a broken leg I shouldn't have to work. And if I break my arm I should have my own personal maid.

Misfortune is not a free pass in life. Pity and aid are two very different things.

So, do we really need another character to come in and solve the problem for Subaru? Is that what you all want?

If you want to talk realism...

Anyone in this situation, no matter the torment, no matter the scars, if he doesn't man up and fix the problems he has himself NOBODY else will. Especially in cases such as that of the show. There's no public safety and the entire country couldn't give a shit about Subaru even if he got murdered in the street; you're all applying your Earth-democracy and human rights logic way too deeply to this show. But even if that wasn't the case, the universe doesn't just bend down to wipe your ass based how misfortune you are. You are an insignificant spec of dust with or with out your mental problems.

Realistically there's only 3 things that can happen...

1. you fix your problems, before it's too late to fix them; all the time wasted not fixing your problem is merely courting death
2. someone else has to fix your problems for you
3. pie drops from the sky and your problem magically goes away (what everyone wants and where I see this silly story going at the moment; frankly pie has already dropped a dozen times just in this arc)
4. you die (permanently), but hey you died "righteously" since you were suffering from some "problems," which obviously makes all the difference. So it's all "good," even if you were really the only hope for other people around you (who supported you when you were down), so long as you die for the right reasons nobody can blame you for all the things you could have done but didn't even try. /sarcasm

There's nothing remotely "game-y" about this world. It's a fantasy world, not a VRMMORPG come to life.

Big talk. In the end, it's easier said than done.

[felix]

Looks pretty game-y to me. Especially with the save point system it has.

Originally Posted by DemonneoPT

Yep, i think a lot of people are delusional about what they would be able to do in such situation and are still to attached to the usual OP MC tropes.

Originally Posted by bakato

Big talk. In the end, it's easier said than done.

This straw man argument of putting the words of "*I* would definitely make it" in my mouth which neither I or ANYBODY ELSE has ever said, because you all can't accept "trying" as a valid option is getting old.

You make it sound like being a defeatist magically solves everything.

If you're so resolute on defeat when tackling anything then you'll just achieve worse results then you could even imagine yourself, since instead of aiming high you're justifying the lowest of the low.

The show even explained this itself. In one of the few useful parts of Subaru's madness, just as our favorite evil priest explained, his madness is artificial. Which is not to say that Subaru hasn't suffered but that a lot of his suffering is something he has created to meet the expectations he has (and apparently all of you have) for how one has to "suffer" in the circumstances and not of natural origin. It's like how some people make cartoony noises when they get hurt and dance around as if meeting some expectations on how one needs to react when getting hurt. Subaru even proved his words to be correct shortly after.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by felix

Looks pretty game-y to me. Especially with the save point system it has.

This straw man argument of putting the words of "*I* would definitely make it" which neither I or ANYBODY ELSE has ever said, because you all can't accept "trying" as a valid option is getting old.

You make it sound like being a defeatist magically solves everything.

If you're so resolute on defeat when tackling anything then you'll just achieve worse results then you could even imagine yourself, since instead of aiming high you're justifying the lowest of the low.

The show even explained this itself. In one of the few useful parts of Subaru's madness, just as our favorite evil priest explained, his madness is artificial. Which is not to say that Subaru hasn't suffered but that a lot of his suffering is something he has created to meet the expectations he has (and apparently all of you have) for how one has to "suffer" in the circumstances and not of natural origin. It's like how some people make cartoony noises when they get hurt and dance around as if meeting some expectations on how one needs to react when getting hurt.

I repeat: There is NOTHING "game-y" about this world. Subaru's ability, which only applies to him, looks like a respawn system, but it's gonna take more than that to call the world "game-y" much less apply game logic.

Have you not been watching? Subaru HAS been trying. He's failed as a result of his mixed up priorities. Getting help from the other candidates was the right move, but he failed to negotiate as a result of his anger that narrowed his mind. Crusch also noted his mixed up priorities. Subaru's problem isn't not trying, it's getting his head straight.

The correct word is feigned. Subaru feigned madness as a result of his very understandable trauma in order to escape reality, which could also be interpreted as hoping someone else could fix his problems and therefore slothful. There was nothing unnatural about the origins of his madness.

You are saying Subaru needs to tackle his problems. As are we, but that's not going to happen unless he gets his mind straight and that's not going to happen out of nowhere without some sort of profound experience.

[felix]

You can call it non-game-y all you want (and I don't even have a problem with people not seeing it as game-y like me), the problem is not just the game like similarities it's the over simplification of most of the elements in the world. Very basic politics. Very simple magic system. Very simple social hierarchies (elfs, lizzard men, etc living together no problem). Some odd balls are thrown in but that doesn't change much, most of the characters are so single-dimension they're not much different from game NPCs. You can throw the entire setting in a game, change nothing and it would work.

Originally Posted by bakato

Have you not been watching? Subaru HAS been trying. He's failed as a result of his mixed up priorities.

I don't even count that since it was almost like the entire world forced him to try, but regardless, so what if he failed!? try again!

[DemonneoPT]

@Felix

But Subaru is actually trying. You just want him to succeed in the first tries without him even having the proper knowledge to do so. He can't just look at Crusch and instantly figure it out what her way of thinking and goals are. The anime uses the reset system so we can learn a little bit more about what's happening within each loop. The same thing is valid for Subaru. Even the characters deaths have meaning, like when Emilia died, it served the purpose of showing that Satella's dark hands currently cursing Subaru can actually kill people and that may be a game changing information. So he will have to die and suffer until enough information is gathered so he can come up with a viable plan and use his chess pieces (other characters that can actually do something) to turn the tables. And he has to do this with a limited ammount of time, without having any usefull skill since he is just an average joe and at the same time dealing with the stress and mental traumas that comes with death, torture and constantly seeing your loved ones dying and sacrificing for you over and over again. That is why i think the criticism Subaru gets is unfair. You are not taking into account the psychological approach the author is exploring in his story including Subaru's background as the typicall otaku/neet. His reset power may be godlike to say at least, but it comes with a great price! That's what the last episodes explored and you just considered it as an useless mess, which for me makes no sense at all.

Originally Posted by felix

You can call it non-game-y all you want (and I don't even have a problem with people not seeing it as game-y like me), the problem is not just the game like similarities it's the over simplification of most of the elements in the world. Very basic politics. Very simple magic system. Very simple social hierarchies (elfs, lizzard men, etc living together no problem). Some odd balls are thrown in but that doesn't change much, most of the characters are so single-dimension they're not much different from game NPCs. You can throw the entire setting in a game, change nothing and it would work.

Yep, that is your main problem because you want everything now instead of getting the information little by little like it's supposed to be. Mysteries and world building should take it's time to be fully developped unless you plan to finish the story in 25 episodes. I heard the anime will only cover like 15% of the total story? And you already want everything or a big part of it to be already fully explored...

[bakato]

Originally Posted by felix

You can call it non-game-y all you want (and I don't even have a problem with people not seeing it as game-y like me), the problem is not just the game like similarities it's the over simplification of most of the elements in the world. Very basic politics. Very simple magic system. Very simple social hierarchies (elfs, lizzard men, etc living together no problem). Some odd balls are thrown in but that doesn't change much, most of the characters are so single-dimension they're not much different from game NPCs. You can throw the entire setting in a game, change nothing and it would work.

I don't even count that since it was almost like the entire world forced him to try, but regardless, so what if he failed!? try again!

There was nothing complicated about that stuff to begin with. They haven't been oversimplified. They haven't been expanded on, but there is potential. A game setting quantifies things. There are stats, skills, iron-clad rules. This is NOT a game.

[felix]

Let's see, this has: stats, skills, iron-clad rules. But I guess you just don't see it as such.

Originally Posted by DemonneoPT

You just want him to succeed in the first tries without him even having the proper knowledge to do so.

No I don't. To be more exact, I don't care how many tries it takes him, be it 1 or 100.

Originally Posted by DemonneoPT

But Subaru is actually trying.

I really don't see it that way.

By all means list all the things he's trying.

Let's see if it really adds up to all the time he's spent on the problem.

Originally Posted by DemonneoPT

So he will have to die and suffer until enough information is gathered so he can actually come up with a viable plan and use his chess pieces (other characters that can actually do something) to turn the tables.

I understand this may work, however it's very much "let's just wait for it to be easy."

I don't know how to tell you this, but his current problem wouldn't be nearly as HARD if he didn't use this flawed logic to solve his problems. He indeed has gained something, but do none of you realize that he's already paid a stupidly high price (alienating allies, wasting precious time he could have spent looking for countermeasures) by applying this strategy? He was never guaranteed anything waiting around! He's been terrible at gathering information too, only concerned with things he can see with his own eyes, and only if they involve looking at Emillia.

True, if he actually tried harder rather then being a self-centered maniac he might have actually not gained the ability to see the hands. So what? He would have had plenty of other pieces to work with (or at least a chance for that being the case), and in the worst case he would have just eventually repeated the recent events and still ended up seeing the hands.

Originally Posted by DemonneoPT

And he has to do this with a limited ammount of time, without having any usefull skill since he is just an average joe and at the same time dealing with the stress and mental traumas that comes with death, torture and constantly seeing your loved ones dying and sacrificing for you over and over again. That is why i think the criticism Subaru gets is unfair. You are not taking into account the psychological approach the author is exploring in his story including Subaru's background as the typicall otaku/neet. His reset power may be godlike to say at least, but it comes with a great price! That's what the last episodes explored and you just considered it as an useless mess, which for me makes no sense at all.

If he was that concerned with his mental health and death then tell me... where does this jump in like an idiot to die by whale, assassins and whatnot come from? He's clearly just stupid.

A person who was fearful of death would have simply used proxy means to save Emilia, such as trying to trick the cult with misinformation.

A person who was afraid of the pain of death would have just used a drug to kill himself whenever the situation turned to "I'm gonna die in the next 5 minutes"

A person who was truly in torment would have been doing nothing. How convenient that the torment only kicks in when he needs to think.

Originally Posted by DemonneoPT

Mysteries and world building should take it's time to be fully developped.

I agree with your philosophy but disagree with your assessment, for this show the "building" part is extremely weak.

[DemonneoPT]

Originally Posted by felix

If he was that concerned with his mental health and death then tell me... where does this jump in like an idiot to die by whale, assassins and whatnot come from? He's clearly just stupid.

1. A person who was fearful of death would have simply used proxy means to save Emilia, such as trying to trick the cult with misinformation.

2. A person who was afraid of the pain of death would have just used a drug to kill himself whenever the situation turned to "I'm gonna die in the next 5 minutes"

3. A person who was truly in torment would have been doing nothing. How convenient that the torment only kicks in when he needs to think.

He is not concerned about his mental health. That is not something you can think of. That is the result of him trying to save people being it the girls or the kids. Is he an idiot because of that? Well, like i said before i would run da hell out of there as soon i realised i was getting killed by a psychotic assassin...lol. But the story would have ended after one or two episodes, so in order to keep the story going the MC has to take some stupid decisons like trying to be an hero and saving everyone by achieving the best timeline possible. That's why i always said Subaru is a far better person than i am even tho his socials skills and some personality traits are not the best.

1. Trick the cult? Good luck reasoning with crazy people like Betelgeuse or his robotic minions...lol. Who is the naive/idiot now?
2. How many situations were like that? Yes none. Or he died without even knowing what killed him or the timeline was already so fucked up he was actually able to go against nature and suicide or begged for people to kill him (like Beatrice). Even if he would ask Beako for a suicide pill, she would probably not have one with her at the moment.
3. No idea what you are talking about. The torment is always there and he already had full loops doing nothing because of it.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by felix

Let's see, this has: stats, skills, iron-clad rules. But I guess you just don't see it as such.

I really don't see it that way.

By all means list all the things he's trying.

Let's see if it really adds up to all the time he's spent on the problem.

I understand this may work, however it's very much "let's just wait for it to be easy."

I don't know how to tell you this, but his current problem wouldn't be nearly as HARD if he didn't use this flawed logic to solve his problems. He indeed has gained something, but do none of you realize that he's already paid a stupidly high price (alienating allies, wasting precious time he could have spent looking for countermeasures) by applying this strategy? He was never guaranteed anything waiting around! He's been terrible at gathering information too, only concerned with things he can see with his own eyes, and only if they involve looking at Emillia.

True, if he actually tried harder rather then being a self-centered maniac he might have actually not gained the ability to see the hands. So what? He would have had plenty of other pieces to work with (or at least a chance for that being the case), and in the worst case he would have just eventually repeated the recent events and still ended up seeing the hands.

If he was that concerned with his mental health and death then tell me... where does this jump in like an idiot to die by whale, assassins and whatnot come from? He's clearly just stupid.

Stats, skills, and rules? Where?

As we already stated, he tried getting help from other candidates. He tried to just evacuate the villagers by hiring merchants.

Excuse me? "Wait for it to be easy"? You equate fighting and dying to save his loved ones with waiting? You think suffering and dying is easy? What the hell is wrong with you?

That price may as well been nothing since he's looped. Gather information? How? And what sort of information could help him? Subaru's never been the sharpest tool in the shed. The first arc made that clear.

How was dying by the whale, Puck, and Witch Cult his fault?

A person who was fearful of death would have simply used proxy means to save Emilia, such as trying to trick the cult with misinformation.

A person who was afraid of the pain of death would have just used a drug to kill himself whenever the situation turned to "I'm gonna die in the next 5 minutes"

A person who was truly in torment would have been doing nothing. How convenient that the torment only kicks in when he needs to think.

Seriously? You call fighting and dying to save people waiting and taking it easy then you suggest he should just suicide midloop?

[Dengar]

This has nothing to do with the world being game-y or not. The human brain simply does not apply outrageous logic to things they see in reality. A flying whale that erases whoever it eats from history? That's not a thing that exists in Subaru's version of reality, therefore the thought of such a thing existing would not occur to him unless it is right in front of him. Sure, the "flying whale" part he can now accept, but the erasing people from history, that's not something that happens very obviously.

All the info he has is merely "People are acting like Rem never existed." He has no idea what could have caused such a thing, and connecting the dots in such a situation is just hard. Perhaps if he thinks about it for a while, he could attribute it to the white whale, maybe, but that would first require him to establish that "The ability to erase someone from history" exists, which is something he simply had not yet come around to at that point at time.

[jeroz]

The discussion in ep18 made me realise that there are still some people who haven't realised that that tirade was towards Subaru himself.

How many of you made that mistake?

[Dengar]

Only up to the point where it was spelled out by Emilia?