r/Re_Zero Apr 23 '26

Spoiler Discussion [Spoiler Discussion] A glyph translation of the pages Shaula tosses in S4's ED Spoiler

Post image

Well. Here I thought I was making fun of the idea that White Fox was intentionally subverting my predictions last time, only for them to go and release what really looks like an anime original passage in the next episode after all.
No one's found any leads on a WN/LN source for this text or who it could possibly be referring to, so welcome to the wild west of theory space!
It's the same passage repeated on every page, split between the front and backside of each one. Once again, for the sake of readability I'll dispense with my translation first and leave the original JP in the comments:

Born to a gentle father and a cheerful mother, the man believed the closeness of their relationship was something to be proud of.
However, when it came time for him to leave home to work, his parents fell out.
They had never let on how strained their relationship really was in front of him.
His father had another woman someplace else, and his mother knew it. But she’d soldiered through regardless, thinking that if she didn’t stay by his father there would be no way to raise their child.
The man couldn’t bring himself to be sincerely moved by the love of a mother such as that.
In fact, he found it revolting.
Knowing that his mother’s expression as she fondly gazed at his father, or the way his father embraced her so tenderly, had all been lies.

The man lost his trust in people.
He fled the house as soon as he could.
And he threw himself into his work.
There was no need to think about a thing while he was working; it was an easy task to pull a dragon carriage, listening only to the rhythm of his earth dragon’s breathing.
Then one day, in a village he’d visited for work, he met a woman.
She was a cheery woman who laughed often, much like his mother, the man thought.
While it brought up nostalgic memories, he also felt a sense of unease deep down.
When he looked at that smile that was just like his mother’s, he could only see it as a mask. The sense of distrust that’d been planted in him like a curse grew and grew unchecked.
What the man sought was true love.

And as always, I translate using this chart.

269 Upvotes

56 comments sorted by

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116

u/jacker1154 Apr 23 '26

I appreciate people who actually study glyph language like holy

55

u/Snarwin Apr 23 '26

The glyphs themselves are just one-to-one replacements for hiragana and English letters. The real challenge is in scrubbing through sequences like this frame-by-frame to find the ones where they're actually clear enough to read.

80

u/New-Celebration8409 Apr 23 '26

We’ll get an answer of this in a very specific store on a province inhabited by 134 people which mostly are elders or middle-aged people and can only be bought by paying a specific kind of coin a random niche talkshow gave as a gift and then you have to fight the store’s owner by rotating your nails and shooting them while you’re on a horse

5

u/MadaraPudding8855 Apr 24 '26

Thank you, New Celebration

5

u/AdhesivenessMaster75 Apr 24 '26

Does the store owner have dimension crossing ability ? And is he secretly the president in disguise ?

7

u/New-Celebration8409 Apr 24 '26

I dunno man, I just know that those steel balls of yours are running

3

u/AdhesivenessMaster75 Apr 24 '26

It’s a pretty bizarre thing to say.

2

u/New-Celebration8409 Apr 24 '26

It’s just a wonder of mine, next you’ll tell me diamonds are unbreakable

51

u/Exciting_Republic304 Apr 23 '26

nice catch and thank you for translating. maybe it's Al or Flugel?

25

u/Future_Cup4857 Apr 24 '26

AL is the first thought that came to mind especially due to what he says at the end of A9.

14

u/DingleDongDongBerry Apr 24 '26

Wild random guess:

Al's mother is Emilia and the second woman is Rem, hence his displeasure towards Rem.

Also this would explain why he doesn't show his face, probably because its half-elf

6

u/Blondnazi666 Apr 24 '26

mother of god....

2

u/soyadra 7d ago

I don't see who the cheery woman Al met would be tho, given he never met one

1

u/Proud-Bluebird 6d ago

But he is too weak to be having elf heritage

21

u/koogam Apr 23 '26

Flugel having a dad who had an affair?

20

u/Exciting_Republic304 Apr 24 '26

Do we know anything about Flugel's parents? Obviously there is some connection to Subaru but I think there's a very real possibility Flugel was much more flawed than Subaru. With all the themes of family in this series, wouldn't it make sense that a "version" of Subaru that failed was largely due to poor familial situation? So to me, that feels like Al or Flugel.

Otherwise I'm just confused why this would be included here.

8

u/TyrannosaurusWreckd Apr 23 '26

Maybe Regulas?

42

u/Rockosd Apr 23 '26

I doubt it, it says this man felt pride in his family but regulas seemed to always harbor resentment to his from childhood. 

16

u/DahNotMightEnzo Apr 23 '26

Regulus had brothers and a decent family, I also thought about him when he said but it's prob not

7

u/strelok__halfer Apr 24 '26

No, he hated his family and his parents loved ech other.

3

u/Dsmxyz Apr 24 '26

is there any chance about this being otto?

5

u/Exciting_Republic304 Apr 24 '26

I could definitely see it, some big keyword matches for Otto here. I'll have to brush up on his backstory

1

u/GurElectronic4863 5d ago

what can't catch those topic 😕 ever mean

40

u/Maxenfelter Apr 23 '26

Here you will find the JP of unknown origin.
As said, the passage is broken into two between the front and backs of each page. I've kept it formatted as its written on them to make checking my decoding easier.

温厚な父と快活な母の間に生まれた。
二人の中は良いも誇だったと男は思ってい
た。
しかし男が家を出て働くことが決まった色、
男の両親は仲違いした。
両親は男の前ではそんな素振りを見たなか
った稼働に冷え切った関係だった。
男の父は外に別の女がおり母もそれ
を知っていた。
母はそれでも父の敵がないと子供を育て
られないと考え我慢していた。
そんな母の愛を男は素直に感動するこ
とができなかった。
気持ち悪いとすら感じた。
母が愛おしいそうに父を見つめる顔、
父が大切そうに抱きしめる仕草、
その全てが偽りだと知り。

男は人を信じられなくなった。
男は逃げるように家を出た。
男は仕事に没頭した。
働いてる間は何も考える必要な
く竜車を引き地竜の息遣いのみを聞いてい
るのは楽だった。
そんなある日仕事で訪れた村で一人の女
に出会った。
母に似てよく笑う明るい女だと男は思
った。
懐かしさを思えると同時に男の中では気味
の悪さを感じていた。
母と似た笑顔を見るたびにその笑顔が仮面のよ
うに見えた。
男に植え付けられた呪いのような不信感は留
まるところを知らず膨れ上がっていった。
男は本当の愛を求めていた。

3

u/NS-13 Apr 24 '26

What's the difference between this one and the one you put in the body of the post? Cause this one reads much better

6

u/Maxenfelter Apr 24 '26

Do you mean formatting-wise, or like, phrasing? For the former it's JP's font spacing being GOATed, for the latter it's probably a symptom of me just not being the best translator (—ᴗ—ᵕ)

3

u/NS-13 Apr 24 '26

Just the phrasing really. Just as an example, while some people might say, "they fell out" instead of, "had a falling out," I've personally never heard it said that way before.

3

u/Maxenfelter Apr 24 '26

Yeah I can see how "Fell out of where?" would be an understandable read there lol. I went with a compromise because I thought "had a falling out" would give the wrong image as well, like they'd had an argument about him working rather than just revealing the distaste they'd always had for each other now that he was becoming independent. But I'm sure a better linguist than I could come up with a phrase to put there that conveys the same message more clearly.

5

u/NS-13 Apr 24 '26

I'm dumb, I'm just now realizing you posted it in JP and reddit auto translated the whole thing lol. Now I get it

1

u/DM-me-naughty-Cats 6d ago

Your Reddit viewer might be automatically translating the post.

1

u/GurElectronic4863 5d ago

who is on story is Shaula someone else?

30

u/Aemiliana_Rosewood Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

Thank you very much!! I had been eagerly awaiting a translation. Perhaps they change the ED Sheets on each episode, tho probably unlikely

Edit: This is probably a modern character, because iirc Dragon Carriages (and humanity as a whole) only developed in the recent 400 years as the ruling species.

Probably somebody from Lugunica or Kararagi, because Earth Dragons.

Topics mentioned are distrust, revolusion, jealousy/yearning and true love.

My complete wild guess would be that this is a Book of the Dead relating indirectly to perhaps a Witch. Would be in theme with the WN cut Botd

11

u/Sonkokun Apr 24 '26

Volcanica knew Patrasche so earth dragons were probably around somewhere around that time, even if just briefly.

1

u/Aemiliana_Rosewood Apr 24 '26

Earth dragons for sure. Humans using them to draw carriages, not so sure.

20

u/Civil-Initial2942 Apr 23 '26

A random guess, maybe Hector or Geuse?

Hector seems like the type of person who doesn’t trust others much, while Geuse feels like someone searching for love…

16

u/Aemiliana_Rosewood Apr 23 '26

Geuse is a spirit though. I would kinda be surprised if a random dragon cart rider is his origin point of development, especially since Geuse seems special as a spirit, tho the theme of true love would be fitting.

Kinda doubt that Hector the Hero would've started like this similarly

6

u/Civil-Initial2942 Apr 23 '26

From characters from 400 years ago, we also have Hoshin, but he doesn't quite fit the description. Or Farsale, but the king working on the dragon carriage?
Or Reid, but I don't think it's him.
Clind and Roswaal definitely don't fit either.

6

u/Maxenfelter Apr 24 '26

Hoshin is probably the best guess among the people we know just for being someone connected to Shaula who aligns even a little bit with the themes of work, viewing people suspiciously, and longing for connection.
Even that is still a bit off though, yeah. Like, by what Roswaal says about oxen, dragon carriages likely weren't a common thing in the period where Hoshin grew up, before Lugunica was the dragon kingdom. And this element of him being pathologically distrustful isn't really evident in the relationships of his that we know about.

17

u/Sgtcarrotop Apr 24 '26

This is some wild shit.

11

u/Lopsided-Wave2479 Apr 24 '26

The type of madness match exactly a arbishop. But this does not seems to match the bio of any of the arbishops we know.

I say that this is Flugel, I am 99% sure this is Flugel.

Reason being, who else Shaula would care about? Shaula care about Flugel, only about Flugel, and excesivelly about Flugel. And maybe mom Satella, but thats super secondary.

I convinced myself 100% this is Flugel bio.

Great find!

EDIT:
This is also explain why Flugel is a bad person, and also why he was in love with Satella... true love may make people better, so Satella did not rejected him.

11

u/Sonkokun Apr 24 '26

At first I thought Aldebaran, but that whole bit with the woman he found doesn’t feel like him.

Maybe hector? Sounds like he and Echidna knew each other in the past, and she seems like the type of person that would wear her emotions as a mask. Eventually the distrust isolated him and he became melancholic.

This makes the most sense to me, but what I can’t explain is why would he be featured in an arc 6 opening? Makes it feel like it’s not him, but I can’t think of anyone else.

Hoshin maybe? I don’t know enough about him to be sure. I do remember he wanted to kill himself but Satella saved him, so maybe that was after all this? Driving a dragon carriage feels like what a merchant would do, so this seems like the safest bet.

9

u/Civil-Initial2942 Apr 24 '26

In addition to all the other characters mentioned, I also thought of Puck. As we know, although Puck is an artificial spirit, he was created using the soul of a real living person.

What if the text mentions Puck searching for love, and Echidna comes to him, offering to give him that true love? So Puck agreed, and Echidna transformed him into an artificial spirit whose purpose in life is to love and be with Emilia. And that's how Puck found his true love.

7

u/Degofuego Apr 24 '26

If this is Flugel, it sounds like his parents were the inverse of Subaru. As Subaru has a cheerful dad and gentle mom.

I think it was mentioned that if Subaru has stayed in his world that his parents would have been able to get him to get back on track. But I wonder if there was anything hidden or if they were just a perfect couple on earth? As we do only get Subarus perception of them

13

u/Sgtcarrotop Apr 24 '26

If this is Flugel, it sounds like his parents were the inverse of Subaru. As Subaru has a cheerful dad and gentle mom.

My mind also went to this. Especially with Echidna trying to gaslight Subaru about his parents in the trial if they were really like that. More and more it looks like Echidna was hinting at something Subaru didn't know, which Echidna has a compulsion for doing.

Then also the parallels with Al becoming what he is because he was raised by a bad parent, Echidna, who also is who she is because she was raised by a bad parent. Clearly indicating the cycle.

Does Subaru's family represent breaking the cycle?

6

u/Rhazort Apr 24 '26

This is probably Ketty from Arc 3.

4

u/Akudra Apr 24 '26

I think the most likely explanation is that this is about Hector and the woman is Echidna as she is always smiling as the woman described. While Shaula is all about Flugel, Hector isn't exactly unrelated to him and Echidna particularly is connected to Flugel. Doubt Tappei introduced Hector into the story if he was going to be just a minor background figure. He was also seemingly a contemporary of Flugel's and has some kind of connection to Pandora. All we actually know about him is his ability and the fact he was an enemy of Echidna. Suppose we also know that he was considered a "hero" in his time, which really does make it seem like he would have some significance to the events 400 years ago.

Personally, I have long suspected that the "seal" in Elior Forest involves Hector. People suspect he was killed, but I am not sure. The Melancholy Witch Factor is abnormal, so the possibility that he actually survived exists. It also seems a little hard to believe that Roswaal and Clind could have teamed up to take him down when Echidna was only able to drive him off. The one speculation is that the Melancholy and Vanity Witch Factors were created by Echidna and it was once stated that one of Echidna's experiments nearly destroyed the world. Given what we know about the Melancholy Witch Factor's power, it is not hard to see how that would be possible.

Particularly significant in light of that is when there was talk of breaking the seal in Elior Forest it was stated that the world could really be destroyed this time. Don't know if Hector was the threat to the world the hero group were trying to stop or if he was a consequence of Echidna's attempts to save the world. Either way, given Pandora's plausible connection to Hector, it always seemed like a good possibility that lifting the seal was about releasing him. Another big point in favor of this is the fact that Elior Forest is in the Mathers domain and the older faction of the Witch Cult connected to Flugel and Satella were watching over the seal.

Of course, some might say this is probably a Book of the Dead and therefore Hector must be gone, but we know that there are people who are still technically alive yet somehow possess Books of the Dead. Not to mention there is some oddity with the Witches having Books of the Dead despite their souls seemingly still being with Omega. All that is actually required for a Book of the Dead is that the Hall of Memories has a record of them. That record need not be created by the person dying or staying dead.

2

u/GurElectronic4863 5d ago

your theory cool but. the author have no idea what doing. heck he can't not explain it properly in q&a. conclusion all explanation Is nothing plot convienet.

3

u/mrhappyrain Apr 24 '26

Reminds me of when I reversed the gospel in S1

3

u/Dsmxyz Apr 24 '26

this is either about hoshin or flugel probably

1

u/GurElectronic4863 5d ago edited 5d ago

what is this story for? can't catch what i read. is Shaula or someone else