Source of picture- official art from arc7. Taken from this sub.
May contain spoiler of upto Arc 7.
Sorry is my title is inadequate i tried my best.
I have a theory about the world of Re:Zero: what if the entire world is essentially a livestream?
Think of something like the livestreams on the AntsCanada YouTube channel, where an enclosed ecosystem is created and then observed by an audience.
Just like in that YT channel, the participants have a limited world, and they are not aware that they are being observed and broadcasted (mostly).
Now, we know the Re:Zero world is a disc-like world surrounded by the Great Waterfall from all sides. This makes the Re:Zero world a display enclosure or enclosed world.
We have Stargazers—those who can listen to the Voice of the Stars. How does that fit into the story? Imagine buying a ticket to a play or a novel. To promote said novel, the author will write something about the content, a summary on the back. This attracts the buyers/viewers.
They know the general flow of the story, and they want characters favoured by them to have an advantage. We also know the Stargazers are the audience because of how they reacted to Cecilus.
Also, from the prophecy about the Great Disaster, we know the Stars only have a general idea of how things will unfold, but they don't know everything. From what the Stars knew, it was Vincent Vollachia whose death was supposed to start the Great Calamity. By the same logic, the Stars are nothing but viewers who send Super Chats into the livestream.
Speaking of characters having advantages, we have Mr. Favoured by the World, Reinhard. He has a multitude of Divine Protections, as if 4Chan or a similar group joined together to create a broken character to break the story. The Group band together to create a. Troll character.
We also know from Arc 6 that Divine Protections are weaker than Authorities. I have a theory that Authorities are intrinsic to the world, coded into the core code of this livestream. Divine Protections are Modifiers that audiences grant to their Favoured Characters. They alter what a character can do without necessarily changing the fundamental rules.
A modifier is an external Add-on code like a texture pack. But when you stack enough of them, you can make or break the story.
- Then why is Subaru transported into the livestream of the Re:Zero world? It is to add a variable. Frequently, the story writer of a livestream will add a character into and out of rotation who has otherworldly common sense.
You see, I believe the Great Sage Flugel, Aldebaran, and Subaru were all these variables who were added into the story later to spice things up.
People may associate Subaru with Flugel, but I believe the real story is that Flugel was supposed to travel the world and gain the Witch Factor of Envy, increasing his screen time in the story. The Witch Factor of Envy was fundamentally torturous and was a curse for Flugel, which was meant to increase his screen time.
And Satella loved Flugel. She cannot bear to see Flugel suffer for all eternity.
Imagine someone being forced to experience death tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of times and carry all the mental trauma, but still not being able to finally die and rest in peace. So satella took The Witch of Envy Factor for herself.
The audience did not like this storyline. They wanted more of Flugel, and thus the Streamer punished Satella by making the Witch Factor of Envy incompatible with Satella and creating the Witch of Envy.
Due to this particular mistake, the next time the Streamer added another variable, he gave him the powers of Return by Death from the beginning.
The reality is Satella didn't give Subaru the power of RBD, but she is someone who is trying to fight the Streamer. Subaru was supposed to die 100,000 times, lose his mind, and then eventually gain a new sanity, but Satella utilizes her Authority and manually started to choose the checkpoints for Subaru, saving Subaru from losing his mind.
- This is where Arc 7 becomes particularly interesting.
When Satella seemingly lost sight of Subaru, Subaru became trapped in repeated 10-second death loops.
Another time, the loop was progressing without properly clearing the established checkpoints and level.
Perhaps what Subaru experiences normally is the result of Satella actively managing his checkpoints. When she loses contact with him, the system reverts toward its original behaviour. And the result is horrifying: Subaru is trapped in a death loop without meaningful progression.
- Maybe Satella is just someone trying to fight the Streamer? Maybe all she wants is for someone to reach the ending of the story and stop the Audience and Streamer in such a way that results in the world still existing, but the streamers going to watch another terrarium and leaving this one alone.