my commentary includes some web novel spoilers, so beware:
sorry Subaru and Julius, but this is the only W Al is ever gonna get lol
Witch of Melancholy my beloved. It was close between Petra and Echidna, though
no amount of praise will ever be high enough for Natsumi Schwartz, our finest lady
I feel bad putting Felix here, but I think anime Arc 3 glossing over a lot of his nuances and complexities really did a number on public perception of him, and the pervasiveness of that shallow fetishization content is pretty annoying. Nothing compared to Rem oversaturation of course, but that's a part of why she's the Guilty Favorite
I weirdly kinda relate to Sphinx: has trouble recognizing emotions, major vindictive streak, aspires to emulate her mother, takes forever to come up with grandiose plots only to fumble and fail and flop miserably anyway, cringe-ass when it comes to social interaction and relationships - waow, she's literally me fr fr
decided to take this test i saw from another post by @tranquil-tulips though, and I scored a startlingly high affinity with Emilia that I didn't expect. I am very fond of Emilia though, so that's nice
Beatrice is an adorable grumpy teddy bear android daughter made of sparkles who was built by the Devil. She starts the story as a doomscrolling iPad baby, and grows into the MVP of Subaru's life. Betty making Subaru "her number one" gives off similar vibes as "the daughter of an abusive mother becoming a better mother herself," and I really like that element of their relationship. As she describes herself: Betty really is built perfect. :)
Sloth IF was too tragic a fate for her. While I have assurances that characters like Reinhard and Heinkel will be explored further, the same can't be said for Reize. I want her to actually meet her only remaining oni brethren, and get revenge on Capella!
I love the Pleiades Watchtower. It's easily my favorite setting in all of Re:Zero.
The idea of combining concepts from the Tower of Babel and Borges' Library of Babel is seemingly so simple, but executed immaculately. There are so many layers of fascinating thematic depth added to the narrative through these influences, which only become more apparent as the story unfolds.
I love how the direction of the anime has placed so much emphasis on all the circular/looping/spiral imagery during its recent setup episodes. It goes above and beyond in capturing how I envisioned the Tower while reading the novels. Having the location which shares its name with Subaru also reflect his most iconic ability through its very structure is so cool.
Thinkin bout how "Satella" is just the coolest name I ever did hear.
Oh sure, it's got all this story relevance:
"Satella" is highly likely in reference to the word "satellite," as in the Moon which is the Earth's natural satellite
Satella is closely associated with moon imagery in the narrative, ever since Arc 1
the word "satellite" is itself derived from the word "satelles," which means attendant, follower, guard, bodyguard, or "one who escorts or follows after an important person"
this is what Satella does for Subaru, and what Subaru does for Emilia, and what so many characters do for each other across the whole dang series
I FUCKIN LOVE ETYMOLOGY AND HOW IT CAN ENRICH A NARRATIVE RAHHHH
But even putting all that to the side: Satella just sounds nice to say. Sometimes I'll look up at the moon in real life and just think "Satella," and it makes me happy. It's the kind of name I wanna give to a cat or something.
Damn, Elsa would've loved being here for this - RIP 😔
But no, holy shit that was genuinely horrific.
The surreal perversion of all these beloved characters having their minds warped so drastically was perfectly elevated by the visuals and audio. The direction, atmosphere, night vision filter, gore, all on point - but when I heard that scary-ass music kick in, was when I knew it was gonna be peak.
And my boy feels so awful over it too, falling back on people-pleasing behaviors, just trying to somehow make up for something that wasn't even his fault. Somebody give him a cuddle already, goddamn it :(
I do miss his almost incoherent honesty from the novels, immediately blurting out an explanation to Ram for why he grabbed onto her while they fell in response to her accusations from that last loop - but y'can't adapt everything
...fucking faceplanting in the sand, lmao
The subtextual commentary inherent to mabeasts is super interesting. Since mabeasts were artificially created and introduced into environments by the Witch of Gluttony, they are therefore extensions of what the sin of Gluttony entails thematically. All mabeasts are a form of invasive species, rendering ecosystems uninhabitable through rampant consumption, and spreading the equivalent of pollution via their miasma.
The unique ecological horror mabeasts embody is only heightened in this arc - from the courtesan bears incorporating invasive plant life into their designs, to the cave demonstrating miasma's contaminating effects cranked up to a hundred.
And then there are the centaurs.
...what the hell was Daphne on, exactly???
I said it to Melaquera back in Frozen Bond and I'll repeat it here: fuck off you stupid fiery horse fuck
I hate the centaur's noises - it's perfect
Ram :)
ED!!!
Strawberry-drizzled Sbubby
Goddamn that was intense. Thankfully there's a Break Time to wash it down with. Much better.
Batman: Creature of the Night by Kurt Busiek might be my favorite Batman story
The setting of Batman: Creature of the Night emulates our real world, in which Batman is a fictional character. A little boy, coincidentally having the similar name of "Bruce Wainwright," is a completely obsessed Batman fan, immersing himself in the mythos and the merchandise, and projecting his love for the character onto everything around him, no matter how tenuous or abstract the connection may be, as kids are bound to do.
On Halloween night, he and his parents come home to find burglars in the middle of a robbery. They proceed to shoot his parents to death in front of him… and shoot him, too. They just cap a little kid, right there; no exceptions. This has the byproduct of awakening a being with incredibly ambiguous origins, but is completely, unambiguously supernatural. This spirit takes on the likeness of Batman, and behaves as a proxy for Bruce to act through, with the single-minded goal to "keep Bruce safe."
Essentially: Batman is Bruce's Stand.
From here, the story follows Bruce over the years as he grows in ambition, and attempts to loosely follow in the footsteps of his favorite media property.
…only to be met with situations far more complex, and far more difficult to grapple with, than he ever anticipated.
Creature of the Night takes advantage of its metafictional premise to formulate a thorough, comprehensive deconstruction of Batman as a character, and the narratives so often taken for granted within Batman stories. And I do mean "deconstruction," and not "destruction." Creature of the Night doesn't settle for only paying lip service to the most prominent talking points seen in common Batman critiques.
This isn't a mockery or a parody of Batman, not a condemnation of the concept or how these stories have resonated with people - just the opposite. It engages with the hows and whys for these narratives' existences, their appeal, and how these aspirational goals can indeed tangibly impact and better the lives of real people.
But: it also doesn't pussyfoot around depicting the limitations of these simplistic narratives, and just how dour and harsh the consequences of treating them like gospel can be in a world full of uncertainty, ambiguity, and shades of grey. The narrative of Creature of the Night also uncompromisingly reveals the cost of trying to contrive these fictional narratives into reality. And the book does all this in a tight four issues, with a strong, human emotional core, and supported by relevant social commentary.
Take, for example, the events which occur in issue 2: Bruce attempting to live and work as an ethical businessman.
The Wainwrights in this book were not ultra-wealthy billionaires, but instead a middle-class family: still privileged, but closer to reason. In adulthood, Bruce joins Wainwright Investments, founded by his "Uncle Alfred," and holds a track record of successful business decisions, while rivals just so happen to suffer misfortune and scandal which leaves them unable to compete. It's thanks to this winning streak that Bruce is able to begin tackling systemic issues: starting a program to sponsor orphaned victims of crimes like himself, and pushing back against workplace discrimination.
It seems like things are working out… up until the issue's climax, and its revelation: Bruce's spectral Batman avatar has been framing and sabotaging Bruce's business rivals, without his knowledge.
Just how convenient is it, in Batman stories, that the funds used for Bruce Wayne's noble operations always manage to be accumulated "morally?" That every competitor is secretly a villain of the week, some unscrupulous mustache-twirling villain, while Bruce gets to be the mythical "one good billionaire," the only one making an effort?
This plot twist doesn't just rest on the laurels of "Bruce Wayne rich bad," but meaningfully elaborates on how and why this narrative is inadequate by pulling back the curtain on how fabricated it is, and what a betrayal it is for Bruce to realize it.
Bruce is obsessed with an extremely childish, binary sense of "fairness," despite his efforts to approach the world around him with more maturity, recognizing nuance and practicing compassion. But Batman? Batman's idea of "fairness" is even more reductive than that. Batman's idea of "fairness" is "keeping Bruce safe," which also means sheltering Bruce from certain realities - letting him believe his success was all his own luck and skill, when really it was because he had an unfair advantage, an unfair privilege, forcing reality to conform to his own naive expectations, at the expense of innocent people.
Bruce wanted to try to push back against corruption at its institutional sources - since he couldn't change the world, he wanted to change just a few people's worlds. But in order to do it, he wound up replacing that corruption with something just as bad.
The only consolation is that Batman still doesn't kill anybody - but that's just par for the course. He's still responsible for ruining lives. Despite all Bruce's efforts, he's ultimately running at a net loss, hurting far more people than he's helping.
This event, as devastatingly great as it is, isn't even the tipping point.
Issue 4 is the most vicious deconstruction of them all, the most heartbreakingly tragic, and also the most hopeful. It deals primarily with mental illness and addiction - all the while, mystic Batman acts as Bruce's echo chamber.
The use of how Bruce spirals into conspiratorial thinking is an exceptionally clever way to riff on the ideas that "Batman creates his own enemies" and "Batman beats up the mentally ill." Because, oh no, this Batman does not "beat up the mentally ill" - Batman bolsters Bruce's own mental illness, grants him the illusion of strength to act against all his fears and delusions - "the enemies he creates" in his own mind.
I love how this counterpart of Bruce Wayne is characterized. He has a sense of charisma reminiscent of early comics Tony Stark, alongside a set of commendable convictions… when he's doing well. And when he's not doing well: damn is his pathos captivating.
Bruce Wainwright also reminds me a lot of Harvey Dent, sharing a lot of what makes the character attractive to me; from his obsession with fairness, his childishly simplistic black-and-white binary modes of thinking, his complex relationship with his "twin." Bruce is somebody "missing his other half," and rather than stay connected with the people in his real life, he fills that void with Batman.
All my rambling doesn't even scratch the surface of all there is to dig into in this book. I love it so much.
Unfortunately, there's no power scaling discourse about how "Bat-Gos can beat anybody with prep time," so 0/10, trash book
The overlap between astronomy, literature, and spiritual narratives grants Re:Zero many many layers of narrative substance to read into.
I would very much like to find a way to more eloquently workshop these ideas into a proper post, but I'll settle for this messy vent sesh for now.
*
Original Sin:
The appa which designates Subaru's first checkpoint is some of the most immediately recognizable religious symbolism in the story. Besides the subtext of the imagery, the text of the novels explicitly compares it to the forbidden fruit of knowledge.
Subaru's situation in general calls to mind the fall of man from paradise, having been displaced from his sheltered, privileged life, and left to his own devices.
The parable of the good Samaritan:
The inciting incident of the whole story closely resembles the premise of the parable: a traveler is left for dead by bandits, neglected by the land's native inhabitants, and rescued by a Samaritan - a person treated as a social pariah by dominant culture - who exemplifies the virtues of neighborly values, transcending borders.
Initially, characters map onto the roles in the parable pretty conventionally. Subaru being isekaied is a pretty extreme example of "travel," but valid all the same; Ton-Chin-Kan are bandits; Felt leaves Subaru to his dire circumstances; Emilia is a Samaritan; all seems to check out. However, all these roles are shuffled and challenged throughout the rest of the Arc.
When it comes to setting, the loot house is akin to an inn, such as that the Samaritan took the traveler to in the parable - a place meant for travelers to receive hospitality and rest, which is turned upside down by Elsa.
In its original context, the parable of the good Samaritan is a narrative subversive to social conventions and norms, challenging who it is you view as your "neighbor." A lawyer is the one to prompt the good Samaritan parable being told in the first place, using the question of "who is my neighbor?" as a form of "gotcha" - an excuse to validate preexisting beliefs by appealing to tradition, rather than challenge and expand one's worldview.
On its face, Re:Zero plays all these parallels fairly straight. That is, up until it completely breaks away from the conventions of the parable by, uh, killing everybody at the end. By challenging the premises of the parable, Arc 1 encourages rethinking presuppositions about this very narrative itself, as it has since become so normalized.
There's one more prominent character I haven't brought up yet: the narrator. Good ol' Big J. When considering Re:Zero's religious influences, Subaru being a messianic figure is one of the most readily apparent. A martyr who sacrifices himself in place of others, taking on punishment for their sins and offering absolution, dying and coming back to life, regularly surrounded by religious iconography; this is pretty well-tread ground. Even as early as Arc 1, Subaru is cast in a role analogous to Jesus by determining how this spiritually similar story is told, and how it ends. Subaru is an actor, capable of fulfilling various roles - but he also has the power to revise the script entirely, until it suits his liking.
Prometheus:
The most apparent parallels between the stories of Prometheus and Arc 1 are in Subaru's deaths. The nature of each of Subaru's deaths involving the gouging of his innards resemble Prometheus' punishment of daily disembowelment, in retribution for transgressing against a higher power.
Prometheus is best known for being a trickster hero, who craftily deceived the gods in order to bring fire to humanity. Likewise, Subaru is closely associated with the archetype of The Fool, which can be characterized by the transgression of social norms, and using humor to speak truth to power.
The role of fire is often analogized as various other forms of transcendent cosmic knowledge in stories inspired and influenced by Prometheus. Subaru brings with him the technological innovation of his phone, his cultural knowledge of the modern world, and his self-aware, genre-savvy media literacy. But, most importantly: he seeks to rescue Emilia, refusing to accept the injustice of her fated death, as well as all the other people who he's received hospitality and altruism from throughout the Arc.
Subaru isn't the only one bearing Prometheus and fire allusions. Felt is also very notably a thief, whose trickery of Emilia is in service of granting herself and her beloved family, Old Man Rom, a better life. Spiritually similar to Prometheus' motivations, even if the roles are reversed.
Fire imagery is also evoked by the narration in respect to Felt's eyes and Reinhard's hair - and despite the irony of her use of ice magic, Emilia has an affinity with fire magic, correlating with this motif.
Roswaal's original name - Roswaal Altair Mathers - may be read as an allusion to the eagle tasked with carrying out Prometheus' punishment, as Roswaal is responsible for arranging and constructing the events of Arc 1, following orders from his Tome of Wisdom.
In the aftermath of the battle with Elsa, Rein briefly angsts over how much damage he accidentally caused as a result of his power - much like how fire can be benevolent when domesticated or destructive when left out of control. As Rein alludes to by mentioning his inability to travel, there are even dedicated "Reinhard laws" that prevent his presence or "use" internationally, akin to nuclear weapons - a subject which itself has been infamously compared to the story of Prometheus.
Like Reinhard, Emilia is similarly super powerful to a destructive degree if she doesn't rein herself in, which causes her to hold back a lot for the sake of others.
Reinhard and Emilia are two sides of the same archetypal coin, in the roles of "hero" and "heroine." Reinhard is preventative, intervening before harm can be caused, while Emilia is reparative, offering healing after harm has already been caused. I'm reminded of how the brothers Prometheus and Epimetheus represent forethought and afterthought, respectively. Emilia and Rein are both the Samaritan and Heracles. This can be seen in their first meetings with Subaru - both having rescued him from alleyway goons - and their later interactions with him when they both rescue him at the loot house in the end.
Frankenstein:
Sort of a subset of the Prometheus parallels, as the novel views overlap between Paradise Lost and Prometheus. Re:Zero loves engaging with romanticism and idealism, and as such riffs on quite a lot of material from the Romantic era of literature - such which in turn is heavily influenced by religious stories.
In terms of characterization, both Natsuki Subaru and Victor Frankenstein are hikkikomori who dropped out of school to retreat into childish, escapist fantasy narratives. Subaru does so more innocently with genre fiction, while Victor has grand ambitions of being an exceptional, privileged and renowned Great Man. Either way, both characters wind up transgressing against the laws of life and death, bringing about great and horrible revelations and revolutions. Victor does so with his infamous Creature, and Subaru does so with his power of Return By Death.
The novel engages with alternative interpretations of Prometheus as either a hero or devil - an ambiguity which calls into question Subaru's own status as a supposed messianic figure.
Frankenstein is a cautionary tale about the threat of ambition and transgression in the name of human progress. Felt is by far the most ambitious and prideful character in Arc 1, to the point that her efforts to haggle more money out of Elsa ends in the demise of both herself and Old Man Rom. By contrast, Subaru is called out for having zero ambition by everybody he meets, but begins to develop a proper sense of determination over the course of his loops.
Elsa also has general Frankenstein's Monster vibes; her backstory of being turned into a Curse Doll, turning to bloodshed after having grown up alone and abandoned, etc.
*
The strength of parables lies in their broad applicability, and capacity for advocacy. One way they commonly do so is through refraining from naming particular characters: they are "the priest," "the traveler," "the prodigal son," etc. These characters are their roles. This abstraction allows for the depositing of a wide range of people into these analogous roles. Anybody could be viewed as a traveler, a bystander, or a Samaritan; it's all in the eye of the beholder. Case in point: in the final loop, Kadomon helps out Subaru specifically because Subaru reminds him of Emilia, who had just helped his daughter Plum. Old Man Rom does the same for Subaru, because he reminds him of Felt. It is this common ground upon which solidarity, community, and relationships in general are based.
Over the course of Subaru's looping, the initial framework lent by the parable is remixed, further shuffling around or subverting familiar plot beats. For example: by the end of the arc, the roles various characters play within the structure of the good Samaritan parable have shifted and swapped. Subaru now serves as the analogous Samaritan to Emilia's traveler. Whereas Felt once abandoned Subaru when he was in dire circumstances, she is now placed in the very situation of needing to rely on help from others. Role reversal is used in this way to reinforce how that people are not confined to an exclusive and reductive role, within any one singular story or narrative.
At the beginning of his final loop, Subaru questions if Fate is set in stone: if there's perhaps no way to help Emilia or Felt or Rom at all, and reality will twist itself to ensure this tragedy occurs no matter what he does. While this fear is proven wrong in the obvious manner of everybody living at the end, this recasting of roles by the narrative subtly supports this conclusion throughout the entirety of the story. Despite the hazards presented by a character like Elsa, who actively goes against everything Subaru wants to believe in, the capacity for adaptability and change allows everybody to overcome the threat in the end. Learning Emilia's real name then serves as Arc 1's true high point of emotional catharsis, where the story Subaru is now a part of ceases to be so abstract. By taking away the mystique brought on by distance and separation, Subaru and Emilia are both able to replace it with the more substantial ability to relate to one another, form a rapport, and truly begin a relationship.
Arc 1 is essentially all about Subaru developing his foundational principles, and deciding what he'll choose to place his faith into. In the end, he decides to place that faith in Emilia, for exemplifying neighborly values and virtues. She is more than just a pretty girl, who's just his type: she is his role model.
*
(I must purge these thoughts from my brain, they take up so much space, my unhealthy rumination is driving me crazy, I'm not even religious ffs so why is so much of my headspace taken up by this shit)
izzy806
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
2087
vaporwave
annaxmalina
