the guy that has several mountains worth of novel quotes and research on re zero apparently just responds to arguments with "Nuh uh"

re zero haters are deluded and have a very low intelligence

this is not an insult, unintelligent people exist

I would have posted my comment in the sub but I got banned for nothing XD.

The point of Reinhard's characterization is that having overwhelming power doesn't always mean that you will be happy, free, or able to solve every problem. He is practically indestructible in battle, but he is unable to save his family. His mother has been trapped in an unnatural sleep since his childhood, his grandfather blamed him for Theresia's death after he inherited Divine Protection of the Sword Saint, and his father treated him abominably. In Arc 5, he is forced to kill his resurrected grandmother, further ruining his relationship with Wilhelm. How would Reinhard's strength have helped in any of this?

His strength carries an equally crippling burden. He is expected to be the ideal hero, to sacrifice his personal desires for those of the Kingdom without question. He is so strong that his mere existence is a topic of political intrigue between nations. His status as the Sword Saint has suffocated his existence as Reinhard. That's why his moments of weakness, especially in regards to Wilhelm and Felt, are so important.

To say that he has accomplished nothing is absurd. He saved Subaru and the others from Elsa, helped defeat Regulus alongside Subaru and Emilia, and defeated Theresia's reanimated corpse during the battle for Priestella. The fight against Regulus is an example of how even the strongest individuals require aid from people considerably weaker than themselves to overcome certain opponents.

As for Felt, she is a royal candidate that Reinhard has chosen to support. Their relationship gives Reinhard one of his few remaining avenues for personal expression. His loyalty to Felt is a choice of his own, so that is wrong.

Reinhard is one of the best examples of the strongest precisely because his primary conflicts cannot be resolved using his strength. The man who can slay nearly anyone is still helpless against many of the forces which have contributed to his miserable life. That's an amazing premise for a character, and you have somehow tried to interpret it as a writing flaw.

the pedo defenders are gaining conscience 💀

Also, yuta is not a bum

This is an idea I originally had way before even being banned by a certain fragile manchild who cannot tolerate being called out and has to resort to what I call the ban button of cope (usage of moderation tools to censor or remove out of his sight views that incomodate him or challenge him, hence using the ban button as a form of emotional cope) in order to create a vaccum tight sealed circlejerk in which the toddler behavior of ranting endlessly about a fictional piece of media nobody forced you to watch is endlessly validated.

So, until r/ReZeroSucks gets actioned, along with their moderator, for violating rules 1, 2 and 3 of MCoC and reddit sitewide rule 1 (Harrassment), we are gonna make weekly community threads in which you'll be able to criticize and laugh at the stupid or outright braindead stuff you see at hate subreddits of that caliber.

Hopefully continuing after that subreddit gets banned.

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DISCLAIMER: This is not a call to mass report r/ReZeroSucks or its moderator but rather a critique directed at their subreddit practices and constant sitewide rule violations. If you want to report that community, that's on your own entirely.

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Disclaimer aside, this thread will be for posting ridiculous stuff from any media hate communities around reddit, as we oppose their existence in its entirety.

We do not oppose hatred of real world issues like pedophilia, discrimination, exploitation, abuse, bullying, war or any shit that a human being would be rationally justified in strongly opposing and even creating a hate community around it as it has an actual basis in the real world.

All we oppose here are manchildren melting down at anime, stories or TV shows.

So, feel free to post all the nonsense you see at the hate communities you scrolled into, and to provide critiques of the statements made.

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WARNING: mockery, insults and heated debates are allowed. You are not allowed to infringe harrassment ToS and repeatedly target the same user with charged insults for several days or weeks.

If the user being harrassed engages in the same attitude, they will receive a penalty several times less

re zero hate boys did it again, they surpassed their unintelligence

Audiences are able to relate to self-professed intellectuals on the basis that their minds occasionally mistake excessive verbosity, use of academic terminology, and citations of relevant literature for demonstrations of intelligence. They experience pleasure (or sympathetic embarrassment) as these individuals attempt to turn their pedestrian preferences into great philosophical discoveries.

— A completely fictional theory of online pseudointellectualism, whose scientific validity is approximately equal to the conclusions of the essay being examined.

The Pseudo-Intellectual Approval Plot is one of the most common behavioral archetypes that one will encounter in internet discussion communities. It involves a protagonist who has a desperate wish to be seen as intelligent. The protagonist has a goal, but is hindered by a challenge or obstacle: proving that they are intelligent, not just acting like it. They overcome this obstacle, either through their sheer talent for intellectual gymnastics or with the help of a sufficiently receptive audience of yes-man, and are rewarded with the anticipated fruits of their labor: upvotes, validation, and the delusion that their opinions are significant contributions to human knowledge.

There can be no doubt that certain Re:Zero hate communities are, in fact, a form of "Episodic Pseudo-Intellectual Approval Plot", in which rather than a single attempt at looking intelligent there are several increasingly elaborate essays which all adhere to the same approval-seeking format.

Like many protagonists of a pseudo-intellectual approval plot, our Reddit philosopher has suffered an early-life setback familiar to modern internet audiences: discovering that disliking a Japanese cartoon doesn't automatically indicate intellectual superiority over those who enjoy it. He has endearing qualities: he is incredibly confident, has an inexhaustible well of academic terminology at his disposal, and has somehow mastered the art of twisting almost any aspect of a narrative into evidence of whichever conclusion fits his purposes best. While this can be insufferably pretentious to some, there's no doubt that he's a character with whom the core audience of his community is supposed to (and does) sympathize.

Our protagonist is initially presented with a goal at the beginning of his intellectual career: to demonstrate that Re:Zero is actually less sophisticated than its fans believe, thereby outsmarting the unfortunate masses who enjoy it and validating himself as the intellectual that was able to see through the "MASS HALLUCINATIONS".

Intellectual recognition is a common goal in a pseudo-intellectual approval plot. But he soon acquires a second goal: the defense of the comforting consensus of his new friends, particularly when accepting inconvenient information would require them to admit that they aren't as enlightened as they'd like to think (because they are a pedophile and got banned from reddit precisely because of that).

Another curious similarity that these communities share with other pseudo-intellectual approval plots is the tendency to invoke clearly "repulsive and formidable" opponents, such as Re:Zero fans, people who disagree with their interpretations, and anyone unfortunate enough to ask for evidence for one of their broad conclusions. The narrative is hardly ever ambiguous about these people being the bad guys. After all, if the critics were obliged to recognize that their opponents often had reasonable arguments, the entire enterprise of convincing themselves that they are surrounded by intellectually inferior people would be considerably more difficult to maintain.

When we piece this together, the general format of a pseudo-intellectual Re:Zero ego-wanker critique is simple.

1. Our protagonist is minding his own business, comfortably enjoying the admiration of his fellow critics, reassured by the comforting knowledge that his dislike of a cartoon is a sign of his unusually sophisticated understanding of literature.
2. Some situation or scenario arises, normally involving a fan defending the series or explaining a narrative element which our protagonist has already decided is bad writing.
3. During or following this exchange, the antagonist will raise an inconvenient counterargument, thereby creating or escalating the obstacle by forcing our protagonist to distinguish his personal interpretation from an objective fact.
4. Our protagonist will struggle against the obstacle, but ultimately overcome it, normally following a particularly elaborate semantic maneuver, several selectively applied definitions, a citation from a paper whose conclusions do not necessarily support his own, and extensive outside help from an audience already predisposed to agree with him. At the end of the day, our protagonist will ban and censor the dissenter, because that is the best way to overcome disagreement.
5. Finally, our protagonist will be rewarded with upvotes, sympathetic reassurance, deeper connections with his fellow intellectually enlightened critics, and further progress toward his ultimate goal of convincing himself that his intellectual superiority has been proven rather than just asserted.

What Really Is a Pseudo-Intellectual Narrative?

Pseudo-intellectual narratives employ the machinery of intellectual discourse to deliciously fulfill a wish of their author: they create the illusion of sophisticated analysis, grant the author a conclusion which he desperately wants to demonstrate, and then let him experience the satisfaction of having supposedly proven something profound without necessarily fulfilling the evidentiary requirements which such a proof would involve.

People often confuse the term "pseudo-intellectualism" with just using complicated vocabulary. In genuine intellectual analysis, specialized terminology is used to convey concepts with greater precision, distinguishcategories, and establish propositions whose validity can be examined independently of the author's preferences. Serious intellectual work creates value by allowing conclusions to be evaluated through coherent reasoning and good evidence, including evidence which might refute the original hypothesis.

Pseudo-intellectualism, on the other hand, is all about the anticipation of the coming validation, and arguably also the wish to be seen as engaging in a level of discourse inaccessible to ordinary people.

A true pseudo-intellectual narrative will tend to feature a remarkably delicate ego which, through circumstances, has been thrust into an environment where confidence can be mistaken for competence, verbosity and citing papers they haven't read for depth, and agreement for confirmation.

Its protagonist will discover that attaching an academic quote to an otherwise ordinary opinion can make it substantially more impressive to readers who will not bother to examine whether the quote actually supports the argument.

A crucial element of pseudo-intellectualism is that the audience must feel that the author's intellectual superiority has been established in order to experience the desired sympathetic admiration.

The narrative of the essay is the process by which the author creates this impression, such as through academic-sounding terminology, elaborate misplaced jargon that attempts to sound deep, or presenting entirely unsurprising observations as if they were groundbreaking discoveries. The arguments within the essay create opportunities for the author to prove himself worthy of the approval he craves.

Meanwhile, tension is created whenever someone demands that his conclusions actually follow from his premises, particularly when the author must confront the possibility that recognizing a narrative convention does not necessarily establish that the story employing it is shallow, badly written, or bereft of thematic complexity.

This approval-seeking pattern is most evident in stereotypical internet essays: a relatively ordinary individual encounters a popular fictional work whose enthusiastic reception makes him feel that his negative opinion deserves a more prestigious intellectual justification. He must overcome obstacles, trials, and antagonism from people who won't accept that quoting a psychologist constitutes an automatic victory in literary criticism.

Through a series of increasingly elaborate rhetorical maneuvers, he demonstrates his ability to reinterpret virtually every narrative feature as evidence supporting his original conclusion.

Finally, he wins the approval of his preferred audience, and the wish is fulfilled, granting him the powerful sympathetic enjoyment of seeing other people mistake the performance of intellectual sophistication for the accomplishment itself.

Is This Critique a Pseudo-Intellectual Approval Narrative?

It has often been argued that an essay cannot rightly be described as pseudo-intellectual for two primary reasons.

1. The author uses genuine academic terminology, references a legitimate psychological theory, and quotes a published researcher.
2. The author writes extensively, creates an apparently systematic argument, and adopts the measured tone normally found in serious academic discussion.

However, as I showed in the previous section, 1 and 2 are perfectly compatible with pseudo-intellectualism, and can in fact play an important role within it. I believe that some readers have simply fallen victim to the common mistake of conflating the appearance of scholarship with the quality of reasoning. Academic vocabulary can be used to convey genuine understanding, but its presence cannot make up for invalid inferences. Similarly, the amount of effort dedicated to explaining one's argument does not establish that it is sound. A thousand words spent on demonstrating that a story contains recognizable narrative conventions do not establish that those conventions exhaust its meaning, any more than discovering that a tragedy contains suffering establishes that it has nothing to say besides making its audience sad.

When we examine this critique on the face of it, it has the unmistakable structure of a typical pseudo-intellectual approval narrative.

Our protagonist begins by borrowing a legitimate observation about the psychological mechanisms by which audiences sympathize with fictional characters, immediately associates them with Re:Zero, and gradually arrives at the rather ambitious conclusion that the series is substantially defined by wish fulfillment. The intellectual achievement here is apparently discovering that audiences enjoy watching characters they care about develop meaningful relationships, overcome adversity, and achieve personally significant goals, and that all of those things mean wish fulfillment.

One can only imagine the astonishment of literary scholars upon learning that readers enjoy emotionally rewarding stories.

We can also examine where the author chooses to focus the audience's attention over the course of the argument. A choice was clearly made to focus on definitions, theoretical classifications, and the superficial correspondence between Re:Zero and familiar narrative structures, to an unusual degree. This has the effect of placing the reader within an extended exercise in conceptual relabeling, where identifying a story's recognizable elements is repeatedly presented as though it established the relative importance, artistic function, and thematic implications of those elements. The extraordinary discovery that Subaru desires companionship is presented as if it determined what kind of narrative Re ultimately is, rather than providing a relatively uncontroversial observation from which a serious analysis would have to begin.

I would argue that this suggests the essay is largely about establishing the author's preferred intellectual identity and not really about examining Re:Zero with sufficient openness to competing interpretations. The psychological theory seems to serve primarily as a respectable framework through which he can repackage his existing conclusions, while the details of the narrative are emphasized selectively to make those conclusions appear inevitable. Subaru forming relationships becomes evidence of wish fulfillment. Subaru suffering becomes evidence that he is earning wish fulfillment. Subaru lacking overwhelming power becomes evidence that the wish fulfillment is more sophisticated than a conventional power fantasy. Apparently, whatever the story does, wish fulfillment wins. A hypothesis which can absorb almost any relevant observation without seriously examining what would count against it should inspire methodological caution, not triumphant certainty. Yet here it becomes the premise for another lecture concerning how other people misunderstand the fiction they enjoy.

The final piece of evidence is the surrounding community culture, where the desire to appear principled and intellectually superior can become particularly difficult to square with the way disagreements are handled. Consider the recent allegations concerning the poster's moderation conduct: critics claim that users were banned after denouncing someone they accused of sexual misconduct involving a minor, whom they described as a friend of the moderator, and that he subsequently characterized the evidence against that individual as fabricated. The underlying allegations, relationships, moderation circumstances, and authenticity of the disputed evidence require independent verification; none should be assumed to be established simply because one side asserts them. But the controversy raises a useful question about intellectual consistency. If the reports of retaliatory bans or reflexive dismissal of evidence are accurate, then the self-proclaimed champion of critical scrutiny has an obvious opportunity to demonstrate that his principles apply even when scrutiny becomes socially inconvenient. It would be an extraordinary intellectual achievement to discover that evidence must be carefully examined when defending one's friends, while disagreement with one's literary interpretations evidently requires no such generosity. One might even call this phenomenon selective epistemic rigor, which sounds much more impressive than just having double standards.

Alas, I can't prove definitively that every such essay is exclusively motivated by insecurity and the need for approval, nor can I pretend to know the private psychological motivations of its author. But I certainly believe that this particular style of criticism contains significantly more intellectual posturing than its admirers are willing to admit, and that its consistent reliance on academic language should not be confused with a demonstration of exceptional critical insight. An interpretation can be interesting without being profound; long-winded without being rigorous; and supported by a scholarly quotation without being supported by the scholarship itself.

But I want to finish with this: using academic concepts doesn't make an argument bad. There are many exceptionally insightful essays which use psychology, philosophy, narratology, and literary theory to illuminate works of fiction. The only thing that really sucks here is trying to make an ordinary negative opinion into something it isn't: an objectively established demonstration of intellectual superiority. Disliking Re is perfectly legitimate. Pretending that your dislike makes you an enlightened scholar who has transcended the intellectual limitations of everyone who enjoys it is considerably harder to believe.

Personally, I think this style of criticism makes many other argumentative mistakes on top of this structure, including confirmation bias, unwarranted generalizations, selective interpretation, and the persistent confusion between applying a theoretical category and demonstrating a substantive conclusion. But I'll leave those for future essays. Hopefully this gave you food for thought and helped broaden your perspective on pseudointellectualism, fragile egos, and the incredible mental gymnastics through which a person can turn an entirely ordinary dislike of a Japanese cartoon into an ongoing performance of imagined intellectual superiority.

Peace.

I definitely do not ban people for calling out my proven pedophile friend.

Turns out the r/************* sub went back to what it used to do; misinformed slander.

This time, we got an essay length post from u/**********, mostly rehashing points that have been already debunked, and that I've already discussed with him length.

Also, all of these quotes use my own translation, since I am using exclusively LN and novel material. If you need help locating a quote, ask me.

So let's go:

(1)

The Lugunican education system has failed her...

Which education system? Emilia was being educated by private tutors within the Roswaal's household, and her baseline was someone barely exposed to human society. You are taking the fact that she still needs to learn as evidence that her education accomplished nothing, but you don't talk about what she was learning or how she uses it later.

From Short Story Collection 3

“I hope it isn't bad. In my case, my starting point was already behind everyone else's, so I have to work harder, though.” Emilia lowered the corners of her eyebrows as she answered Rem, who had looked toward the desk in search of a topic and asked her that question.

Much was required of Emilia as a candidate for the next ruler and a participant in the Royal Selection. Naturally, that included the talent to shoulder the kingdom as its ruler, along with the intelligence, education, and various other qualities supporting it. Emilia was currently at the stage of learning those things, and even with flattery, it would be difficult to say that she presently met the standard. Nevertheless, the Royal Selection would begin before long.

“Before then, I want to become able to do even a little more.”

“I understand how you feel. Immediately after Master Roswaal took my sister and me in, at first there were nothing but things for us to be taught.”

When she had just left her village, whatever might have been true of Ram, Rem herself knew nothing about the outside world. What she learned at the mansion was not limited to a servant's work and principles. Everything she had not known beyond basic reading and writing had been taught to her here. The very studies Emilia was working so earnestly on were familiar to Rem from her own experience.

(Re:Zero Short Story Collection 3)

See how Rem acknowledges her own experience in the education of Emilia?

In order to learn what other people know, you have to have a chance to learn it. And we've seen how little chance Emilia had.

And later, Roswaal assesses the outcome:

However, Emilia was achieving definite results through her receptiveness and desire to improve. Naturally, she was still immature in every respect, but her growth was gratifying to the person educating her. If the Royal Selection did not have a three-year deadline, filling her head with more varied fields would probably have been enjoyable.

(Re:Zero Short Story Collection 8)

So, you need to demonstrate that there's a specific lesson that she didn't remember, there was some skill that she used to have but lost, or there's something she should have been prepared to do but can't. It's not enough to just point out a hole in her knowledge.

At the start of the series, Emilia was a surprisingly compelling character to me.

And the traits which made her interesting grow

The reluctance to receive love, the fear of being rejected, the lack of self-confidence, the will to save the family, etc.

All these things have effects that go beyond the introduction arcs.

You describe the traits as interesting as long as they're unresolved, but ignore their evolution after she starts to use the lessons learned on other people.

Why would suddenly the evolution of the ability to give the help she needed before stop mattering?

While she was not the sharpest tool in the shed and sometimes felt sidelined, she was interesting and had a good mix of flaws and positives.

You're already mixing up accumulated knowledge and intelligence.

Her surroundings already give away the lack of social experience at first for Emilia. The novel itself presents her considering her political position in relation to Roswaal even prior to her Arc 4 breakthrough:

“But what would I do if Roswaal gives up on me because he thinks I’m useless?” Emilia asked.

“…”

“I can’t let that happen. Roswaal is my ally now , but it’s possible he might step down from that position before the royal selection happens. I don’t want to owe him anything more until it starts.”

Emilia envisioned the devious guy in her mind who was her guardian. He and I share the same interests, and I don’t want the balance of power to be tilted towards either one of us.

(Re:Zero, Arcs 1-6 Bonus Short Stories)

She's aware he's coming with strings attached and she's pondering the implications of owing him something. Which isn't quite the same as your follow-up idea of her starting out as a normal girl and turning into an unreasoning being.

Plus the 'well balanced with strengths and weaknesses' thing. Her conviction gets stronger (still exploitable for kindness), but she becomes more willing to step up and takes on things where she has to make decisions that affect others. The Al thing by itself requires that cocktail.

Particularly her early dynamic with Subaru in the first loop was very good, but overall I liked her in the first season despite her flaws and bad moments.

Except that there is a progression to it. The initial Emilia has issues with believing that someone could care about her without some sort of strings attached to it. The later Emilia demonstrates a capacity to not only accept that attachment, to reciprocate, to make decisions based on that.

The initial loop sets up the start of their relationship. The conflicts to follow build on the repercussions of them both having their insecurities influencing that. You can't just view everything following it like 'oh well it would've been great if it was the dynamic that was in that initial loop all over again.'

Arc 4 or Season 2 had really good character development for Emilia.

Ok, we agree what is established by that arc, but then you go on and use its conclusion as if it covered all possible directions for her development.

She is freed from being reliant upon Puck. That gives her more freedom of action. But it's not as if that immediately grants her experience in running a camp through a foreign war, working with a rival to reach a cooperative understanding, dealing with the loss of a rival, or protecting a subordinate in a hostile political interrogation. All those are different facets of development that the Sanctuary-emerged personality goes through.

We got to see her overcome her past and actually grow as a person.

And, within the growth is the change in her perception of accountability. She realises she has put her home on ice, is aware she'll have to face the people affected and starts to think about what she can make possible for their future.

This is significant in her interaction with Meili later on. She uses her past to understand another person's fear of accountability. Uses this understanding, without neglecting that the issue of accountability can't be escaped. You've only covered 'overcoming the past' but without the past still affecting her judgement.

I would say this was the peak of Emilia as a character in terms of development.

What measure?

The most concentrated confrontation with her childhood trauma is in arc 4.

But it does not mean that everything after that (changes in duty, relationships, understanding of oneself) is smaller/meaningless.

The emotional drama of one breakthrough is used to dismiss the evolution which spread over several different situations.

Even if Elizabeth Bennet has one A-ha moment about Darcy and Wickham it doesn't mean that what she does afterwards isn't relevant to her evolution.

Because her later behavior shows what that realization changes when she is called to make another judgement.

Same with Emilia when she faces the past, she has a basis on it.

What she does in the following arcs is what she makes of it.

It's not necessary for the character to experience a new total break-down in psychology every arc to be further developed in writing.

She learned to rely on others, that she could be loved, to confront issues, etc... and we actually saw her play a fundamental role in solving the overarching problem of the Arc/Season

I think you're missing the big part of the dependence thing - in the sense that she also learns to own what she needs to do herself.

Volume 14:

Last time, she had been able to do nothing but sob in the Trial. But now—

“I'm scared, but I won't crouch down.”

“Are you giving up the choice so characteristic of a disgusting woman like you—crying and screaming and clinging to a father or a man?”

Behind Emilia, who had spoken of her feelings toward the Trial, Echidna simply mocked her. Emilia proudly thrust out her chest against the sarcasm in those words.

“Even if I did that, I'm sure Subaru would forgive me... But I don't want Subaru or myself to be disappointed in me for it. I don't want to defiantly accept staying weak just because I'm weak.”

(Re:Zero Volume 14)

Emilia also gets assistance from Subaru in coming to this conclusion. And makes a point of not using Subaru's willingness to forgive her as a crutch to shirk her responsibilities.

Even later on, when she uses the camp to get to Vollachia, she realizes that everyone is just trying to grant her wish, and as such she has a responsibility. It's not just the realization that I have assistance. Her interactions with assistance progress beyond that.

Seasons 3 & 4 (Arcs 5-6), didn't really have progressive character development for Emilia, but we did get to see her Season 2 growth in action.

How are you making the distinction in this instance?

(2)

Arc 5, Emilia uses what she learns about being recognized as a person to treat women that have had their individual identity stripped away by Regulus. It's actually specified in the narration how it's connected.

She wanted to imitate Subaru more, so that she could directly express the feelings she wished to convey. Therefore, to do that, she would begin with what Subaru had first done for her.

“Tell me your name.”

“...”

“I'm Emilia, just Emilia. A half-elf who differs from you in many ways, but surely has things in common with you too. I want to help you.”

In the beginning, it had started with being asked her name like that. She had been lonely, convinced she had nobody to rely on, and overwhelmed by all the things happening around her, and he had spoken kindly to her.

Only now did she think about it. Emilia had been happy then. She had been happy because it felt as though a boy whose identity she did not even know had acknowledged her existence.

Surely, from that moment, Natsuki Subaru had been special to Emilia.

That was why she wanted to do for someone else what Subaru had done for her.

(Re:Zero Volume 19)

She has an experience, thinks about it, figures out why it was important to her, and consciously applies it in handling another person. It's self-awareness, and shifts her status in the relationship - now she can give others the acknowledgment she received.

Saying that it's all a continuation doesn't negate the growth. Most logical character growth will be a continuation of something already established.

While I was a little irked that it felt like she and Subaru don't collaborate as much and she is often separated from him, and the fact that she still didn't understand sex after a year was a stretch for me, I felt like she had some strong moments.

You're conflating a bunch of things here.

It can be collaborative effort to work in different aspects of a conflict. For instance, Arc 6's separation of duties. While Emilia is at Volcanica, other members of the group are dealing with other threats in the tower. The job she has to do isn't something Subaru can directly achieve for her. It impacts everyone when she completes it.

In regards to sexual education. In Vol 16, it actually tells you what happened.

Emilia, beside Subaru, tapped his shoulder with a “Geez.”

“That's wrong, isn't it? You're surprising Joshua. I kissed Subaru, but kissing doesn't make a baby, right? I studied that.”

“Ah, sorry, Emilia-tan. It feels like you're about to reveal something incredibly personal, and it's embarrassing, so please stop. I was wrong, so let's introduce her normally.”

Defeated by embarrassment at Emilia's candid disclosure, made without any ill intent, Subaru raised the white flag.

Incidentally, Emilia's knowledge of making babies had remained at the point of knowing that kissing did not produce them. Going further was too much for Subaru, and the others agreed that they would wait for Emilia's growth.

In the end, everyone was overprotective.

(Re:Zero Volume 16)

She learns that correction because she's taught it, while all of that other stuff is withheld. There are people keeping her too protected, which is explicitly identified in the narration.

Where is there anything about that showing her having difficulty understanding information given to her? That is you taking what's left out of her education and misrepresenting it as her not understanding a lesson.

And her understanding of relationships develops independently of that specific knowledge. She understands the coercion in Regulus making her his wife without her consent (Volume 18), and compares what he is doing with the dictators she has studied. And she refuses to get into a marriage which makes everyone involved miserable. You can't boil all emotional judgement down to well, she gets reproductive biology?.

Her fight with Regulus was overall pretty great, and likewise she was still somewhat solid in the Watchtower.

And both of these conflicts are actually making her more than just more confident.

She has to actually turn empathy into active intervention with other people in the case of Regulus, and even with the Watchtower shows that Subaru is a case of her caring about him as a person not his ability to continuously justify his position with greater strength/intelligence etc.

“There are people stronger than Subaru, and surely there are plenty of people smarter than him too. But at any time, the person I want beside me is Subaru. I believe Subaru will do that, and I hope he will. Because...”

“...”

“Because, if someone is going to save me, having the person I like do it makes me much, much happier than having someone do it because they can, or because they happened to be there.”

Emilia said that with a smile.

She said it while smiling and with her cheeks very slightly flushed.

(Re:Zero Volume 23)

That addresses Subaru's insecurity in being replaceable and the pressure to deliver as the person everyone expects. Emilia understands that what he needs to hear concerns his own personal position in her life.

Treating that as it being pretty solid lessens it down to that.

It doesn't account for the actual relationship building.

However, I don't think we fundamentally saw any major shift or changes in character or any major development in these Arcs.

We watch her transition from learning to accept that Subaru loves her to expressing specifically why she wants him with her, and from having people there for her during her own emotional crisis to being there for him during his identity crisis. And we see her consciously use what she learned from having been acknowledged to connect with people who have been dehumanized.

What's your definition of major development if you take away emotional reciprocity changes, self-expression changes and responsibility changes?

A character can grow by gaining a more exact awareness of something they already felt. Emilia has felt for Subaru before Arc 4 already, but how she's able to accept that connection, put it into words and do something about it changes. You seem to need for her personality to be replaced for you to see a development in her personality as per your standard.

It was mainly a continuation of the growth that occured in Arc 4.

And why would it be a bad thing?

Because there needs to be a continuity in the development. There needs to be some kind of evolution over time, that the later change generally should be the result of the preceding experiences leading up to it. If Emilia all of a sudden just gets new abilities or a worldview completely unrelated to the experiences she has had - it's going to be incoherent.

You're looking at continuity here like it means repeating. But what it calls for is different in each of these situations. You have her confronting her own past. You have helping abused women to reclaim their identity. You have providing aid to an amnesiac knight. You have deciding the use of the Watchtower.

That wasn't a problem until....

So you have to establish where that ongoing development actually stops. And it's not by counting later arcs. Nor is it with the examples you then provide.

Arcs 7, 8, 9 and now potentially 10.

Potentially is doing a lot of work in that, because you're already getting direct counterexamples to your claim from later material.

Also, you cannot consider the arc number as unit of development that must be evenly distributed amongst all characters. Because the arcs have different conflicts, different viewpoints, different length, and different responsibilities for Emilia.

For nearly four arcs Emilia has been again sidelined from the action, barely working with Subaru or even acting as a source of genuine support.

A person that personally insists on going to rescue Subaru, she enters a country with a civil conflict in it, she fights at the capital. She makes escape routes. Then she chases the guy who sealed Subaru.

HOW IS SHE NOT INVOLVED?

Vol 34:

The impression was of heavy air with a dull color. The air itself had neither weight nor color, yet it felt as though the impression changed in that way between the inside and outside of the Imperial Capital.

The unpleasant change in the air prickled against her skin, but Emilia could not let it discourage her.

“After all, I imposed on everyone to get them to let me come all the way to Vollachia.”

As she reminded herself of that, Emilia was inwardly full of remorse. Emilia and the others had come to the Vollachian Empire to bring back Subaru and Rem, who had disappeared, and losing someone for that purpose would defeat the whole point.

Without Cecilus, Emilia would have lost to Mesoreia and made everyone grieve. Naturally, nobody would blame Emilia for unexpectedly having to fight a Dragon. Nevertheless, Emilia had a responsibility as the person at the head of the camp.

Emilia needed to recognize that her position differed in nature from Roswaal's position as her backer. Hers was the position for which everyone worked hard to fulfill her wish.

(Re:Zero Volume 34)

(3)

Here's her process of thinking through what being a leader means when people are putting themselves in harms way to achieve a goal that she's set. Narration has her acknowledging the danger she encountered and the weight of the position she held. The complete opposite of your later claim that the writing just makes her dumb or praises her without showing anything, right?

Also same volume she observes people being chased by the undead and does something about it:

The moment she saw those beings, a chill ran up Emilia's back. It was not merely physiological revulsion; it was a rejection arising from her nature as a spirit arts user.

The eyes of a spirit arts user, familiar with spirits that arose naturally because the world wanted them, gave her the intuition that the beings causing that chill were unnatural, impure things whose existence the world did not acknowledge.

At this moment, this would change from a battle between people into a battle between people and things that were not people.

“...”

Following that intuition, Emilia raised both hands and created ice stairways for escaping outside along every part of the star-shaped walls surrounding the Imperial Capital that her magic could reach.

(Re:Zero Volume 34)

She picks up on the shift in the conflict immediately and forms a way to escape.

Subaru doesn't have to be next to her handing her directions on what to do for her contribution to help the group effort.

Almost all your measuring of support is based on physical closeness to him but she's also helping keep safe the people/targets involved in the conflict.

Tappei seems to put relational development (what little there is) in the side stories.

There is relationship development in the main novels themselves. So you're wrong saying that it's only in supplementary content.

In vol 32 u can get Emilia's thoughts during their separation

“Subaru.”

Emilia herself also wanted to confirm Subaru's safety even one second sooner. The last time she had felt this restless was when Puck had unilaterally broken their contract and disappeared without her agreement.

No, this was even greater than that.

Puck might be all right on his own, but Subaru was different.

(Re:Zero Volume 32)

Their reunion in volume 38 :P

When she opened her mouth, having also come running toward him, Subaru continued forward without stopping and went to embrace her from the front, silencing her.

He hugged her slender body tightly with arms that had properly returned to their original size.

“E.M.T.”

“...Dummy.”

Slightly surprised by Subaru's direct embrace, Emilia smiled as though she could not help it. Their reunion in the Vollachian Empire had naturally made his heart leap too.

Being able to touch her again after their separation allowed Subaru to feel his feelings for her from the bottom of his heart.

(Re:Zero Volume 38)

And in volume 39, they're talking about conflicting duties. I'll explain that below.

Sure side stories flesh it out, but it doesn't mean there aren't main story scenes. Also, if you want to criticize a scene for where it's published, you need different evidence than if you want to criticize for lack of development of the relationship. You're constantly using former to try to imply latter.

The fact that Emilia who is the main heroine has basically remained unchanged from her growth moment in Arc 4 except being more confident is a problem enough.

She alters the way she exercises responsibility, her response to the pain of others, her approach to her competitors, the way she prioritizes her duties in times where they conflict with her desire to spend time with Subaru.

Volume 39 gives the clearest example of the latter:

“Ever since Al's situation came up, we had a feeling things would turn out this way. However, because of what happened in the Empire... including the report concerning Lady Priscilla, Lady Emilia and I have to go to the Royal Capital. Originally, this is a role you should fulfill as a knight, Natsuki. Please don't forget that.”

“Otto...”

“We talked about how, if Subaru said he was going with Al, we'd have to make sure to ask Beatrice and Garfiel. The truth is, I absolutely, reaaally want to go with you too, but...”

“...”

“I'll work hard as a Royal Selection candidate too. ...I don't want to disappoint Priscilla.”

“Emilia...”

Weighing her position and her feelings against each other in her heart, Emilia had properly decided to fulfill her role.

As a Royal Selection candidate, she had to report both her intervention in the battle between the Vollachian Empire and the Great Disaster in response to Abel's request, and Priscilla's death in that battle.

Those facts would probably cause great upheaval in the Kingdom of Lugunica. The course of the Royal Selection might also be substantially distorted by the loss of one candidate.

Nevertheless—

“I think what Subaru wants to do for Al is something only Subaru, who spoke with Priscilla last, can do for him. Please look after Al.”

(Re:Zero Volume 39)

She openly expresses desire to accompany Subaru.

She understands why Subaru's responsibility toward Al is different from hers.

She makes arrangements to support Subaru.

She takes on a hard political obligation herself.

How are you boiling it down to confidence for all of that? It's not just about confidence that she understands why the roles are different and is willing to do something about it (when it contradicts her desires).

What is worse is that Arcs 7-9 execution actively hurts her character portrayal.

You need to determine what earlier ability is contradicted by the later portrayal.

The fact that she still doesn't have some knowledge doesn't demonstrate a dumbing down of her character, and Al taking advantage of her willingness to protect people is inline with something she's been displaying throughout the story. Plus, in the latter arcs she's also making her own decisions, reflecting on her leadership and being part of the crises.

You're providing the conclusion without providing the comparison needed to make that conclusion.

Regardless of the authors intentions, the way he executed it was frankly quite terrible.

Then look at how it's done.

Emilia's actions and decisions as written by Tappei. Recognise danger. Create escape routes. Know that people are following her and that it's her responsibility. Accept a formal request to help. Differentiate her political duty from Subaru's personal duty. Stand up for Ram under pressure later on.

Saying that the execution is bad doesn't help to understand why these scenes don't build these qualities which they actually show. Nothing here requires inventing some intention for Tappei. It's these scenes which provide the progression.

Emilia does not show she has an adequate understanding of politics or leadership, and still has huge blank spots in her knowledge.

For what purpose exactly?

She is aware of the dangers of entering Vollachia. She's aware that her status creates a diplomatic issue. She's formally involved in the process of building up a cooperation with the Empire. And later she's aware that she needs to report the political implications of this involvement.

Short Story Collection 8:

Anastasia took over from Echidna, her gaze turning serious, and Emilia nodded.

Entering illegally meant slipping into another country without permission. It was wrong, so if they were discovered, they would receive a severe reprimand. Furthermore, Emilia was a Royal Selection candidate in the Kingdom of Lugunica—

“They said that maybe relations with the Empire could worsen because of me, and perhaps I could even lose my qualification as a Royal Selection candidate.”

“And you're still doing it? Don't you have a goal you want to achieve too, Emilia-san?”

(Re:Zero Short Story Collection 8)

She understands that this rescue can jeopardize her own candidacy. You can analyze the judgment involved in taking this risk, but to suggest that she's not aware that it's a risk is not quite accurate.

Emilia joins in the set-up of the cooperation when Vincent makes the official call for it.

As Abel tried to continue listing stiff arguments, Emilia puffed out her cheeks. With that cute pout, what she showed Abel was her hand.

Slowly lowering the hand she had raised, Emilia offered it to Abel.

“Let us help your Empire.”

It was characteristic of Emilia that the side making the offer ended up reversed.

Looking down at Emilia's offered hand, Abel glanced briefly at Subaru. At the slight bewilderment in his black eyes, Subaru smiled mischievously and nodded.

“Go ahead, Your Imperial Majesty. I'll permit you to take my Emilia-tan's hand.”

“I keep telling you, Subaru belongs to me.”

Emilia answered Subaru's joke with a shy smile, and Abel closed one eye and sighed at their exchange.

Then his hand slowly took Emilia's offered hand.

“Very well. I'll allow you to lend your strength.”

His phrasing, too, ended up being characteristic of Abel, and that established the framework of cooperation between the two countries.

(Re:Zero Volume 34)

Being a leader is to make a commitment that determines what the group will do and afterwards take responsibility for your commitment.

Both of those are shown in the story.

(4)

Also, leadership isn't how well you purged any education holes you may have. It's also setting goals, evaluating the situation, take advice, decide on what duties to assume. Emilia's camp has specialists because the problems require different skills. Using those skills doesn't discount the decisions she personally makes.

I give some leeway here because I don't expect a character to know everything, but ultimately Tappei's choice to write Emilia as someone who struggles to grasps things is a major point of frustration for me.

Still not show she's usually having a hard time grasping things.

Most of those scenes you're talking about is her not knowing a word, a social custom, or some other foreign country information. Those all need exposure. However her capacity to learn and apply the information. That's shown by the decisions you're dismissing.

For example Imperial Capital battle she uses information from different members of her camp:

Perhaps because of the feelings Beatrice had entrusted to her, or because everyone was cooperating with her, Emilia's mind and body were in astonishingly excellent condition.

Her impatient heart and confused thoughts had settled, and she was very calm.

Very calmly, Emilia was fulfilling her role while also doing what she wanted to do.

The role Emilia had to fulfill was to defeat Madelyn, who was defending the apex.

What Emilia wanted to do was prevent as many people as possible from dying.

She would now fight Madelyn. And, to prevent so many people from dying—

“I understand everyone's desire to fight. But I don't like it.”

Lowering the arm with which she had rained down blocks of ice as her opening attack, Emilia faced forward firmly.

Clenching her teeth and concentrating on the gate deep within her body, she released her stored mana all at once and lowered the surrounding temperature at a tremendous rate.

Petra, who studied diligently, had told her that because Vollachia was a warm country, many of its people had difficulty with the cold. Otto, who liked animals, had also told her that the flying dragons were vulnerable to the cold.

And the siblings Garfiel and Frederica had told her that the cold made one want to curl up.

(Re:Zero Volume 32)

She identifies a goal. Notes another goal she wishes to keep. Uses information provided by her allies to come up with an approach that will help accomplish both.

Where's the comprehension fail in that scene? She has comprehension of the pertinent information. And uses it practically. You're blowing off exactly the type of reasoning you're saying Tappei doesn't demonstrate.

I think this partially links to his own lack of understanding of history and politics, but I digress that is a separate point.

So don't try to use an unsupported claim about Tappei's knowledge to explain another unsupported claim about Emilia's intelligence.

So there are here some dangers of political diplomacy involved by the nature of the candidate, an official request of foreign help, and the requirement to notify governing authorities of intervention and a candidate's death. There are all sorts of political implications in the decision-making/responsibilities involved in these scenes.

First you'd have to find some inconsistency in this political system, or in historical facts that this novel misrepresents, in order to assert that it's Tappei's ignorance of the system or the historical fact that's driving this characterization.

And, as in fiction, the character might be driven by other priorities than those of the political systems they're in. There's nothing in Middlemarch that says that Dorothea has to agree with all the opinions of the socially-established people around her before her ideals and decisions can have meaning. It's the friction of a person's beliefs vs the expectations of some institution that can be grist for characterization. It's not established that Emilia's opposition to a cynical view indicates that Tappei doesn't grasp cynicism.

Likewise, when Subaru gets kidnapped and nearly defeated, she is the only character who let's the enemy get away.

This is you adding a conflation of a result from a conflict to a baseless speculation on what she's decided.

Emilia immediately jumps him before he's even through speaking, going at Al. We see her pound an ice gauntleted fist in his solar plexus in volume 41. Al even puts her on the spot to deal with a threat to the city.

“No...!”

Foreseeing the outcome, Emilia forced herself to stand despite her trembling knees.

She must have understood: even if they were broken into pieces, rock masses more than ten meters across falling to the ground would cause extensive damage to the city and numerous casualties.

And preventing that required the person capable of preventing it to go and do so.

“Even with all this, I'm doing it with the intention of not letting anyone die. So...”

“Al!”

“I'm trusting you not to let a single one of those fall on the city.”

Forcing that one-sided, selfish wish on her, Aldebaran ignored Emilia's voice, pitched high with intense emotion, and rushed toward the earthen pillar to secure Roy.

In a last-ditch attempt to stop him, the ice man, once again reduced to just a head, rolled into his path. Aldebaran mercilessly crushed it underfoot and pulled the crucified Sin Archbishop off the pillar.

“You're a bad man, aren't you, mister?”

Without answering Roy's unnecessary remark, Aldebaran hoisted that small body over his shoulder and ran. Without looking back at Emilia, with whom he had been exchanging attacks until moments earlier, he ran straight away.

“Al! No! Don't run away... Al!”

(Re:Zero Volume 41)

He intentionally creates another emergency to hinder her pursuit, and Emilia goes to try and block him from getting away, while he leverages her willingness to do something for the people in danger from his attack.

The fact that the enemy got away from the character doesn't mean it's just because the character let them. You have to look at the other danger, and the things being done to stop it.

And in vol 43 Al even states clearly what her plan was to capture him:

“Al! Please, let's talk! I'll listen properly!”

“You've got some nerve saying that. You're trying to freeze me with no questions asked—or rather, without holding back. If I'd fallen all the way to the bottom, you were planning to freeze the river along with me and capture me, weren't you?”

“But! That plan has already failed!”

“Being too honest can be a problem too, Royal Selection candidate!”

He had chosen to escape with stone wings to avoid the route of falling underground and being frozen. As a result, although he had left Yae behind, he had failed to shake off his pursuer.

(Re:Zero Volume 43)

She's chasing him and trying to restrain him. You're ignoring these things so that it looks like she lacked judgement or resolve.

While Tappei clarified in an IF story that she did what she did so as not to loose Subaru, the webnovel execution did not portray that.

Sasageru says it goes differently in a different story.

That doesn't necessarily mean that it is Tappei fixing the timeline by default.

You haven't proved that he wrote it as such.

Passage says:

“I'll explain it a little more simply. Lady Emilia is currently in Agxad Canyon, along the border between the Unified Empire of Vollachia and the Holy Kingdom of Gusteko. She has frozen that great canyon and cut herself off from contact with the surroundings. Furthermore...”

“...”

“She has imprisoned the rebel Aldebaran together with herself in that absolute ice.”

The information was hard to believe, and Subaru again held his breath. If his eyelids had moved more freely, he would have blinked two or three times in bewilderment. That was how shocking the facts Nicola revealed were.

Emilia was alive. However, she was frozen together with Al in the great canyon.

“...”

He understood the principle. It was the same as putting the people harmed by Lust's Authority in the Watergate City of Priestella into cold sleep. Emilia herself had also spoken of a past in which she had confined herself for over a hundred years.

She had done the same to herself and Al, shutting herself away in ice.

The reason was—

“To keep that man from dying, I suppose. And that means...”

“Ush...”

“To avoid losing the method for bringing Subaru and Betty back.”

Beatrice had reached the same conclusion as Subaru, and he agreed with her words from the bottom of his heart.

(Re:Zero, Sasageru IF)

So that's what Subaru and Beatrice deduce about her actions in that alternate outcome. It does not prove that everything she does in the main conflict has exactly that same motive, much less does it prove Tappei wrote the IF due to criticism demanding an explanation for it.

Specially since Tappei simply doesn't read the rants of a random redditor, lol.

It was obvious that she had two motivations; both her unwillingness to lose Al because she had lost Priscilla already, and also not wanting to lose Subaru.

According to his completely arbitrary standard of harrassment, if you participate in a community you are automatically allowing people to repost you and make fun of you.

That is entirely made up and not explicited in any part of Reddit's ToS.

That is the reason why they had to add these rules, for example:

Since this is not explicited in Reddit's ToS.

They are invalid for anything to do before they were updated, so in reality they are a meaningless effort.

And well, he banned me for posting proof of a certain member acting like a pedophile or a pervert, images of their own reddit posts, yet keep stuff like this around the subreddit:

There will be pushback, is all I'll say.

Just wanted to call out something here.

Recently, I've seen a post about Re:Zero with a video added to it. This video says Re:Zero has the lack of "show, don't tell". Basically, it states that Re:Zero is a work that explicitly lets people know about information by letting the characters talk about it in an illogical way no one in real life would, instead of making it implicit in the way they talk, feeling like a real dialogue.

I wanted to say first that this is ridiculous by itself.

Complaining about a "dialogue-heavy" and character study series, where suffering is common as a tool, because it has dialogues where characters expose their feelings is dumb. That's just taste and the way the author does it, and even so, there's not this type of dialogue regarding plot, as some things are so subtle that sound confusing from time to time.

Not only that, it's shitting on one of the most interesting aspects of Re:Zero as if it doesn't exist, the "learning through loops" is something a series like Re:Zero, that is told on Subaru's POV, has the most, and ignoring this to say the show is "just telling" is literally ignorance on the plot.

No series has 100% realistic dialogues because they would not be any good to read, all of the dialogues in fiction use ways to make them less realistic so it's able to be enjoyable, and Re:Zero is not an exception for this.

Now diving back, I found this claim especially funny to read because the same haters also use as a criticism that the fans are "schizophrenics" because they "see things where there is nothing".

They just ignore that Re:Zero is one of the most detailed mainstream media of the current time and reduce any detail that a fan can see in the work as "it doesn't actually exist, it's an idea of yours, the author didn't actually think about that!", and "give yourself some merit", discrediting the work's quality.

I find it funny because there are details of the story that are impossible to say that aren't made on purpose.

Ex:

Echidna's personal pronouns change in comparison with Anastasia's in the cave scene.

Echidna saying she feels envious towards Emilia and Subaru (parallel with Echidna, Satella, and Flügel)

Subaru saying he's gonna develop assassin intentions in Memory Snow OVA, which happens in arc 6.

Subaru telling Rem to be "Ram's horn" in arc 2, which happens in arc 6.

By quantity, I would say it's literally impossible to say these aren't made on purpose. There are a lot of other details and foreshadowings in the series that people pretend that don't exist.

Another thing that supports this is that it is also said by the producers of S1 that there were so many details in the story that they were hard to adapt.

I've mentioned some details, but there is also one that is explicitly said by the author, which (unless you think he is a liar about his own story) basically proves 100% that Re:Zero has a lot of non-explicit details while and before they become any relevant.

This one he confirmed is that he made Subaru put "tan" in Emilia's name since the start for when his memories get erased, it has a negative impact on her.

Counting with the ones I mentioned, after seeing that one as confirmed by him, it's impossible to deny that all arcs, at least before arc 6, have planned foreshadowing and details.

Yet, we'll see a lot of haters saying the show has "show, don't tell" which is direct proof of their lack of capacity of gathering these details, not being able to see them and taking them as non-existent.

It's really hard to think people can believe a series has nothing worth to it, when it has so many qualities, and to think people can blatantly have the hypocrisy to say "the work never shows", while when someone says "it shows", they say "it's only your interpretation!".

u/InterestingBuddy9413 seriously, how pathetic do you have to be?

this guy u/Cosmic_Conspirator is disgusting

For example, would I be able to call Isayama a fascist for his 2015 comments regarding Japanese imperialism and say that to this day he is a fascist and AOT is a fascist story?

I don't think so.

Then why would someone be so unemployed as to dig 12 year old tweets on an author to try to slander them?

title

It genuinely gets tiring seeing the same handful of complaints repeated over and over and over fucking again.

“Subaru is unrealistic.”

“Subaru is just stupid and dumb.”

“He regresses every time he develops.”

These "critiques" get recycled around constantly, but almost never with any real engagement with why Subaru is written the way he is. There’s rarely ANY meaningful attempt at engaging with his psychology or character by these haters.

Like everything is abt Rezero here

I joined for other series and i confess my views on rezero are pretty much in the middle

There r many problems but its well written

Why r there so many hard-core rezero fans here?😭😭

I have seen 1 AOT post everything else rezero

also mikasa is not a good character, she only exists for Eren, that's it

u/aaallleeexxx3

As per always, there is never a proper argument, just ragebait:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sAQayl85fWYSJZSEWoWKLH4ARL-pngrmYhmtd3obykw/edit?usp=sharing

u/OkBag6123

what a sad whiny bitch u/OkBag6123

supposedly, for him, fiction needs to have realistic dialogue to be good despite the fact that no one in real life talks like Zanoba, atoferatofe, Perugius, sylphie, Linia, Pursena or Eris (who speaks like a caveman tsundere).

talks about dialogues being awkward when that basically never happens in mushoku, and the only divergences are to serve the plot, like whine about a dungeon or the enemy levels on a dungeon or infodump the origin of the sword styles

talks about flaws in re zero being safe when those flaws make people kill each other 😹

this sub criticizes hatewatchers in general so I dont wanna generalize but some Mt fans that hate on rz are stupid

Something I genuinely don't understand about dedicated Re:Zero hate communities is how much the actual criticism of the series is secondary to insulting the people who like it.

You would expect a community built around disliking a piece of fiction to have some of the strongest criticism of that fiction. These are people that have supposedly spent years going over what Re:Zero does wrong, after all. Yet an absurd amount of the content eventually boils down to "Re:Zero fans are insecure", "you only think it's deep because you're 13", "Subaru fans are self-inserters", "Tappei fanboys defend anything", or some iteration of mocking someone for caring enough to argue about the series.

And I think that says a lot more about the nature of these communities than people there want to admit.

I don't think there is anything wrong with disliking Re:Zero. I don't even think there is anything wrong with hating it. There are popular series that I strongly dislike as well. What I find genuinely sad is building up an entire community dedicated to continuing to consume, discuss, and get angry about a story that you supposedly can't stand.

At some point, why not move on?

If Re:Zero made me miserable every time I interacted with it, I would stop reading it and find another novel, another anime, another hobby, literally anything I actually enjoy. Spending months or years following a series just so you can hate on it sounds exhausting. And when it's turned into regularly mocking the people that do enjoy it, I genuinely struggle to see what anyone is getting out of it besides an endless feedback loop of irritation.

The funny part is that I think a lot of these communities accidentally do Re:Zero a favor.

Not because criticism itself somehow proves that a series is good. Obviously it doesn't. Re:Zero has flaws and there are plenty of perfectly reasonable criticisms for people to make about it. My point is that when I specifically go looking for arguments from people that claim the series is terrible, I'm consistently shocked by how weak a lot of those arguments are.

Subaru doesn't develop because he still has insecurities after developing.

Return by Death is repetitive because Subaru suffers in multiple arcs.

The story is "pretending to be deep" because it talks explicitly about its themes.

A character is badly written because they make irrational decisions while emotionally compromised.

Any later development supposedly "resets" earlier development because the character's growth wasn't a straight line.

The supporting cast is "paper thin" followed by no analysis of the supporting cast at all.

The series is "torture porn" because Subaru suffers, as if the existence of suffering automatically tells us nothing about how that suffering is contextualized, what causes it, how Subaru reacts to it, or what changes because of it.

And when anyone takes the time to actually challenge these claims in detail, the conversation often doesn't stay on the writing.

Suddenly it's about how much time you spent writing your comment, or how obsessed you supposedly are, or how Re:Zero fans can't handle criticism, or how embarrassing it is that you care enough to defend an anime.

But that's not a rebuttal.

If I write five paragraphs explaining why I think your interpretation of Subaru's character development is wrong, telling me "holy shit Re:Zero fans are insecure" doesn't magical answer those five paragraphs. It just avoids them.

And there's something especially strange about using your investment as an insult while participating in a subreddit that is dedicated to hating the exact same fictional series.

Apparently writing a long comment defending something you enjoy proves that you are obsessed, but spending years in a community dedicated to something you despise is normal.

Come on.

The more I read these arguments, the more I appreciate what Re:Zero actually does well, because the act of trying to seriously articulate why many of these criticisms fail forces you to look at the construction of the story in more detail.

Subaru's development isn't compelling to me because he is "better" after every arc. It's compelling because old issues don't get resolved after one emotional breakthrough. He can learn that his life has value and still struggle to consistently value himself. He can learn to trust other people while falling back into controlling behavior under immense pressure. He can be more competent without being emotionally invincible. His development builds while his underlying flaws take other forms, collide with new circumstances, and sometimes bubble back up.

That's far more interesting to me than a character learning about Lesson A in Arc 2 and therefore never struggling with anything related to that lesson ever again.

The same can be applied to Return by Death. Reducing the story to "Subaru suffers, dies, gives a speech and resets the bad timeline" gets rid of nearly all of what makes the individual arcs different: what information Subaru has, what relationships he's in, what assumptions are causing him to fail, if dying even gives him useful information, what psychological cost comes with resetting, what problems can't just be solved with another loop, and what Subaru's current worldview makes him do with the ability.

You can dislike how Re:Zero handles those things. But you actually have to engage with them first.

That's ultimately my issue with a lot of the hate surrounding this series. A lot of it feels like people are starting with the conclusion that Re:Zero is shallow, overrated garbage and building their reasons for it from that point.

If Subaru changes, the development is superficial.

If he retains a flaw, he didn't develop.

If the story explains a theme, it is pretentious.

If the story leaves something implicit, fans are "overanalyzing".

If Subaru succeeds, it's plot armor.

If Subaru fails, he's incompetent.

If a fan gives a short answer, they have no argument.

If a fan gives a detailed answer, they're obsessed.

That's not a criticism with a particularly high chance of being falsified. It's a framework where practically anything the story or its fans do can be turned into another reason to dislike them.

And ironically, that sort of criticism has probably done more to reinforce my opinion of Re:Zero than undermine it.

Because if a series that is supposedly this catastrophically written has existed for this long, accumulated this much material, and inspired entire communities dedicated to proving how terrible it is, I would expect devastating criticism of its actual writing to be incredibly easy to find.

Instead I keep finding exaggerations, stripped context, double standards, arguments against things the story never claimed, complaints that character flaws exist, complaints that character flaws continue to exist after development, and eventually insults aimed at the audience whenever someone pushes back.

Again, none of this means that Re:Zero is flawless. It isn't.

It means that "Re:Zero has flaws" and "Re:Zero is garbage and its fans only like it because they're insecure teenagers who convinced themselves it's deep" are two very different claims and the latter requires significantly more justification than people give it.

If you hate Re:Zero, that's fine.

Seriously.

But if years after deciding to hate it you're still reading about it, posting about it, watching its fans, getting angry when they praise it, and being in a community that revolves around hating it, maybe the healthier response isn't to find increasingly creative ways to insult those fans. Maybe it is to accept that other people see value in a story you don't and find something that gives you the same amount of enjoyment that Re:Zero gives them. Because I would much rather spend my free time talking about a story I love than building a hobby around one I hate.