re zero arc 3 detailed summary

Since there is a lot of misinformation going around from various sources here is a proper/more detailed summary of arc 3 of Re:Zero. This is true for both the LN/WN, which are basically the same aside from a few details that do not affect plot/characterisation. The changes are mostly to improve pacing (I’m not going to get into details about specifics).

DO NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE CLAIMING THE WN IS MORE DETAILED/DARKER OR THAT TORTURE SCENES WERE TONED DOWN FOR THE LN VERSION – this is all bullshit. They are virtually identical up to the current release (vol8). If you have read conflicting spoilers from a second-hand source it is more likely that you are being trolled, rather than actual differences.

Also this does not contain every single detail, but I tried to cover all the major events.

THE BEGINNING:
I’ll skip through most of the beginning stuff since it’s been summarised elsewhere and some of it is already out in the manga. Basically Subaru/Emilia/Roswaal/Rem go to the capital for a meeting on the royal election. We meet the other royal candidates and their knights and hear their speeches and stuff. Subaru breaks a promise with Emilia about not getting involved and publically embarrasses her in court by saying he will be her knight, even though she disapproves of it.  Julius (another knight under Anastasia) gets annoyed at Subaru’s antics, thinking he isn’t worthy of being a knight and challenges him to a duel. He beats him to a bloody mess and knocks him unconscious. Even Subaru’s Shamac (blinding spell) doesn’t do anything since Julius is much more powerful than he is and only further damages his mana gate.

At the end of it all Subaru and Emilia get into an argument where Emilia gets annoyed at his actions since Subaru broke several promises to her (promises mean a lot to spirit contract users and breaking them is considered a huge betrayal of trust and all that crap). She can’t understand why Subaru is going through all of these lengths for her and she just wishes he would treat her like a normal person. Subaru has no answer to any of this. She leaves him behind in the capital to have his wounds treated while she returns to the mansion with Roswaal. Only Rem stays behind with him.

Subaru & Rem then move into Crusch’s mansion as part of their agreement to have Ferris heal Subaru. He gets visited by Reinhard who apologizes, saying that he wanted to stop the duel and that Julius is being punished for it, but Subaru doesn’t really care. After this Subaru spends sometime in the mansion and does various things: meets some people, has starts learning swordfighting from Wilhelm (another knight under Crusch), has dinner with Crusch while they talk about various things, gets a lap pillow from Rem (!) etc. He also goes to meet the appa guy one day and this becomes his new checkpoint.


LOOP ONE:
Subaru returns to the mansion to get treatment by Ferris, but it gets interrupted by Rem for some reason that I forget. The next day in the middle of his training, there are reports of strange activity on Roswaal’s land and Rem receives a SOS message from Ram (from the telepathic connection thing that Ram and Rem have). Subaru resolves to go help Emilia even if it means he will be breaking another promise and Crusch lends him a dragon carriage.

Subaru and Rem head back to the mansion but their progress is slowed down due to the appearance of the fog of the White Whale – which they will not survive if they go through. Because of this the journey takes multiple days and they end up having to spend the night in a small town. At the inn, Rem puts Subaru to sleep using water magic. She leaves behind a note telling him to ‘stay behind because it’s too dangerous’ (or something like that) and then leaves on her own.

The next day Subaru finds the note and immediately heads off. He gets the help from Otto (a merchant who is supportive of Emilia) to take him to the village. They get there a day later but Otto refuses to go any further so Subaru goes the rest of the way himself. On the way he encounters some members of the Witch Cult who don’t do anything to him and just bow to him. When he actually reaches the village he is horrified since all the villagers have been brutally killed. He panics and runs to the mansion where he finds Rem dead in the garden (in a way that suggested she died fighting) and Ram dead inside the mansion. Horrified, he tries to look for Emilia (her body is not seen) and finds a room full of frozen people. He is then frozen as well, which ultimately breaks apart his body and kills him.



LOOP TWO:
Subaru revives at the appa guy’s shop in complete shock of everything that has happened. In this loop Subaru is constantly spaced out, unable to think straight and basically acts lifeless and somewhat retarded. His condition is so bad that Ferris is not even able to heal him (he can’t heal emotional damage, and has no reason to help someone who has basically “given up on living”).

The next day the leave the same way for Roswaal’s mansion except this time Rem is unable to leave Subaru since he is spaced out and not really doing anything. During the trip she tells him about her feelings and contemplates forgetting about everything and running away with Subaru – but decides against it. On their trip they are attacked by Witch Cultists. Rem goes berserk and starts cutting them down in her oni form but they eventually overwhelm her and she and Subaru are separated.

Subaru gets taken to a cave where the Bishop of Sloth Betelgeuse is waiting.  Betelgeuse chains Subaru up and asks tells him that he can “smell the love of the witch” on him. He wants to know who he is and if he is “Pride”. Subaru of course has no idea what he's talking about and is still in his retarded state. There is no torture here but Betelgeuse is portrayed as an insane fucker and does lots of insane shit.

Eventually Rem catches up to them and starts killing of witch cult members. This triggers Betelgeuse who then rips her apart to a bloody mess in front of Subaru. The shock of this is enough to snap Subaru back to normal, and he swears to kill Betelgeuse and get revenge. After this Betelgeuse basically just leaves him to die alone and goes off to continue doing his thing. The weakened Rem crawls over to Subaru, frees him, and tells him she loves him before dying in his arms.

Subaru carries Rem’s body and makes his way back to the village which is in the same state as before, villagers dead, everything in ruins etc. He returns to the mansion just in time to see Puck in his true form (although he doesn’t realize it then) freeze everything and kill him.



LOOP THREE:
At the save point again Subaru is overwhelmed with happiness at seeing Rem alive again. In this loop he is pretending to be normal/happy on the surface but is filled with rage on the inside towards Betelgeuse.

Realizing he needs help, Subaru tries to enlist help from others to protect the villagers and kill the cult. He first tries with Crusch but she refuses, claiming that she cannot trust his information and that there is no benefit for her. Her refusal continues to make Subaru angrier and more insane – he even starts unconsciously moving toward her as if to stab her until Wilhelm and Rem snap him out of it. Crusch berates him, saying that he is being dishonest about his motives: he doesn’t want to protect Emilia but only to get revenge. She labels him a madman and he leaves.

He then tries to negotiate with Priscilla but she basically tells him to fuck off.  He then tries with Anastasia and fails again but he learns a few pieces of information and gets to borrow a dragon carriage. Subaru decides to be proactive here and hires Otto to help him evacuate the villagers earlier.

They set off rushing but because they are much earlier than other loops their carriage gets lost in the fog of the White Whale. Rem stays back to fight and buy time for them to escape, but she gets lost in the mist. Subaru gets mad and says that they have to go back for Rem, but Otto is just like “Who?” The White Whale, attracted to the scent of the witch from Subaru continues to chase them, and Otto basically blames him for everything and pushes him off the carriage, leaving him to die.

Somehow, Subaru manages to escape and make it back to the village. He falls unconscious and wakes up in the mansion where he was healed by Emilia. He tries to tell Ram about Rem’s death but Ram just denies it, saying that she doesn’t have a sister. Still confused, Subaru tries to tell Emilia that she needs to get out of the mansion but of course Emilia still doesn’t know what he’s doing or what’s going on. He tries to tell her about his Return by Death again and pushes through the pain of the shadow hands and manages to say it – but to his horror the shadow hand crushes Emilia’s heart instead.

Subaru despairs and walks around carrying Emilia’s dead body. She asks Beatrice to kill him and she refuses, instead teleporting him outside. He then runs into Betelgeuse and the cultists again and begs them to kill him. Betelgeuse obliges after first praising Subaru for killing Emilia (“doing his job for him”) and insulting her, but the insult prompts Subaru to keep fighting instead. They fight for a bit until Puck shows up in his true form and kills all the cultists.

Betelgeuse is shocked at Puck’s power, which Puck hints has something to do with Ekidna. After this Puck tells Subaru that he committed 3 sins (breaking promise, returning to the mansion, and killing Emilia). He then says his contract was to destroy everything if Emilia were to die. He then asks Subaru “how painful would it be for someone to die being frozen slowly” (or something along those lines) before freezing and killing him again.



LOOP FOUR + THE REST:
At this point Subaru has reached his lowest point. He despairs upon realizing that nobody wanted or expected anything from him and goes into self-loathing. He spills out all his feelings to Rem, wondering if they should just run away and start a new life, but Rem manages to get him back on his feet by telling him all the things she likes about him. He gets a renewed determination to help Emilia and restarts “from zero”.

He re-negotiates with Crusch and Anastasia and this time manages to secure an alliance to kill the White Whale by using information he gained from previous loops as leverage, as well as some stuff about a trade agreement for something. He offers to be bait for the White Whale by using the scent of the witch to lure it.

Rem backs him up on everything, saying that she trusts him even if he can’t tell her why he knows everything. She tells him that she’s okay with him loving Emilia first and that she’s fine being a second wife (kek) and Subaru says that after everything is over he’ll try his best to convince Emilia of it.

The entire group (Subaru, Rem, Crusch and her followers + Anastasia and her mercenaries) make their preparations and attack the White Whale in a huge battle. Although several random characters are swallowed by the mist, the group manages to kill the whale in just one loop with Wilheim landing the final blow. At this point Julius and his men link up with Subaru and they basically make peace about what happened earlier. Killing the whale also creates a new checkpoint.

Subaru then enlists the help of those who can still fight (Julius + Anastasia’s faction, Wilheim) to help defeat the witch cult that is going to attack Roswaal’s mansion. They accept. Crusch and Rem here separate from the group as Rem was injured in the fight with the White Whale and they believe Subaru has enough backup.

Using his previous experiences, Subaru and friends come up with plans to protect the village and mansion and the village by separating their forces. The group then fights against Betelgeuse and his goons. The battles take several loops to kill the cult and the bishop, with Subaru learning more about his powers and skills in each attempt. In one loop they manage to kill Betelgeuse and his minions, only to then learn he has a possession ability which he then uses to possess Subaru. Subaru has to request Julius & Wilheim to kill him, which they do after apologizing. In another loop a similar thing happens but Subaru turns it around by abusing his limitation to not talk about Return by Death to torment Betelgeuse with the shadow hand.

Eventually the group succeed in killing him (Subaru lands the final blow) and everything is seemingly all good. Or is it? Afterwards Subaru makes up with Emilia and gets her trust back. Everything seems fine until he brings up the polygamy thing with Rem, only for her to look confused at it. “Who is Rem?”

Subaru rushes to go see Rem only to find her in a coma. Her name/memories were devoured by the Bishop of Gluttony and nobody remembers who she is. (Crusch also had her memories eaten, meaning she forgot who she was, but others still remember her). Unable to deal with losing his only emotional pillar after all this suffering and hardship, and after developing feelings for Rem along the way, he suicides. But as he wakes up he realizes that his save point has moved beyond Rem’s death and it is now impossible to save her.

~~The End.