Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 3

Episode 64

This season of Re:Zero has been knocking it out of the park with these hyper-focused story episodes. This time, the focus is on the (highly dysfunctional) Van Astrea family. We got a taste of just how bad things are for them in the season three premiere.

It's all centered around Theresia's death to the White Whale. Normally, she would have been able to take down the witchbeast. However, at the pivotal moment, the Divine Protection of the Sword Saint moved to its next bearer—i.e., Reinhard—leaving her no match for what she faced. In the aftermath of her death, her loved ones (Wilhelm, Heinkel, and Reinhard) all needed someone to blame—someone to hate. And so all three of them blamed Reinhard—including Reinhard himself.

Each of the three dealt with her death in different ways. Wilhelm became driven to kill the white whale and get his revenge that way. Heinkel fell into a mixture of alcohol, child abuse, and self-loathing. Lastly, Reinhard became the model of a Sword Saint, using his grandmother's former power to its greatest extent. And with the defeat of the White Whale, it appeared that Wilhelm and Reinhard at least might be able to repair the rift between them but Heinkel made every effort to interfere—further punishing his son by denying him happiness whenever possible.

For such negative emotions to sublimate three whole generations, there had to be an equal and opposite positive emotion at the center—in this case, love. But being told Theresia was loved and seeing it are two totally different things—and this episode is all about doing the former.

This episode shows us what kind of person Theresia was—how she thought, acted, and why. Her life was, for all rights and purposes, a tragic one. She never wanted to be the Sword Saint and her kind personality was unsuited to the role. This led to the deaths of her entire family as they one-by-one died in her stead. Yet, with Wilhelm, she built a new family and a new life—one where the Sword Saint no longer needed to stand on the front lines of war. She had children and grandchildren—loved them all and was loved in return. In her mind, she led a blessed life.

The tragedy of the Van Astrea family is that even now, with Theresia's “second death,” nothing is truly resolved. Yes, Wilhelm gets to say the words he never said to her in life but the fact that he was unable to perform his self-imposed mission to defeat her and that Reinhard stepped in to do so leaves the old man once again hating his grandson.

However, that's not to say that nothing has changed in the relationship between the three men. After all, Wilhelm knows logically that Reinhard is right—that what Reinhard killed was an animated corpse and not his wife—but the feeling that Reinhard took his wife from him not once but twice isn't so easily ignored. Despite the hurt he feels, he can at least admit the objective truth—and shut Heinkel down when he tries to continue mentally abusing his son. And so Wilhelm is left with his grief, Reinhard with the bittersweet knowledge he did the right thing, and Heinkel with his impotent rage.

The Van Astrea family, as it stands now, is broken—likely permanently so. Yet, for Reinhard, there may be a happy ending. Whether he realizes it or not, he is in the process of building a new family—a found family. People like Felt, Subaru, and Emilia see him not as the legendary Sword Saint but as the person he is underneath the Divine Blessing. They are people who wouldn't doubt him for a second even if the world turned against him as Heinkel threatened. And if that isn't family, what is?

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Is it bad to say I laughed when Reinhard drew his “opponent must be worthy to draw” sword only to take Theresia out with zero effort?

• I feel that what we saw in those last moments wasn't Theresia (as her soul is long gone). Rather, it was likely an echo of who she was—an amalgamation of her strongest feelings that rose to the surface once the spell was broken.

• I know that there are some spin-off novels about Theresia and Wilhelm. I wonder how much of this episode is from those and how much is from the main series of novels.

• I might have to read those books because I'm puzzled as to how Wilhelm could have beaten Theresia as I thought that the Sword Saint literally couldn't be defeated. (And if you talk about this in the comments, remember your spoiler tags!)

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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