[Traece]

Originally Posted by moridin84

In arc 1, he appeared from out of the nowhere and helped her. She's grateful to him so she didn't question his origins but... it's really suspicious right?

Yes, they were initially suspicious of him because of this.

- Spends all the time trying to fake being happy-go-lucky, fooling no one
- Breaks down into tears, talking about all sorts of problems that she doesn't know anything about.

They assumed it was trauma from nearly being murdered by a crazy person. They were only half wrong. Plus, his crying and slobbering was pretty vague because Emilia was leading him with the assumption that he was traumatized by that particular event.

- He asks the maids to go to the village, insists in fact. Shortly after he comes back from the village, he insists on returning but doesn't explain why. When they arrive they learn that the barrier around the village has been broken and the villagers have been kidnapped. Both him, Rem and Ram almost get killed until Roswaal saves them at the last minute.
- He never explains anything

The majority of this is so far from the truth I don't even know where to start. First of all, your characterization of his request to visit the village is a bit extreme. Ram caved pretty quickly, so his meager insistence was pretty much unnecessary. The nature of the visit was so thoroughly harmless that it would be strange if they thought it was suspicious at all. He spent the whole time socializing with the villagers, getting them to call Ram and Rem by strange nicknames, and playing with children.

As far as going back, your claim that he didn't explain the reason why is completely and totally false. He explains in very specific detail exactly why he wants to go back to the village, and he explains his motivations for wanting to do so. Again, Ram caved to the request pretty quickly because, well, she's not going to argue with Beatrice saying he's cursed, and with saving Roswaal's villagers. It was then at this point that they did, as you say, discover that the children had been kidnapped and that the barrier had been broken. As I stated though this didn't happen until after they all went shopping in the village, and after it was made known that the dog in the village had cursed him.

In arc 3.

- Subaru promised to stay in the house. He immediately breaks that promise, for no good reason, and makes a big fuss at the meeting
- The one time she took Subaru out of the city, she leaves Subaru alone for about 10 minutes and finds him in the presence of Priscilla, another candidate for the throne. Later on, he somehow gets Priscilla to bring him with her into the meeting. He never explains this
- Subaru kept insisting that he did everything for her. However, he's doing it, at least partially, for his own satisfaction.
- He keeps saying that she should understand, that she should be willing to accept him no matter what. Because she's "Emilia".
- He never explains anything

About half of this is true, and about half of this is things being listed with nothing to back it up. You have a point regarding Priscilla, but at the same time Subaru has a proven track record of being able to meet and socialize with anything that has a pulse and is earshot of him, so him randomly running into Priscilla is anything but suspicious. I'm pretty sure he could've randomly stumbled upon the missing king or whoever within the five minutes she left him alone and nobody would have batted an eye at this point. His claim that he was doing things for her wasn't wrong, it just wasn't the whole truth; he was doing this as much for her benefit as it was for him, she just never asked him to do so. Though, since he'd been doing it since the first episode I'm not sure what to say to this. This goes back to the idea that maybe waiting thirteen episodes to have a sit down about their relationship was a bad move. His claim that Emilia should understand, on the other hand? Again, everyone else understands. Puck understands more than anybody. I'm not sure how she managed to miss out on the Understanding Subaru Express.

I don't disagree out of hand. There are legitimate reasons for Emilia to not fully trust Subaru in the sense that she can't trust him to follow her orders. Along those same lines though, why is Emilia treating him the way she does and why has she been practically ordering him around for half this series now? As is often the case, there's not really a right or wrong answer to this. They're both idiots, and given their individual histories (in the case of Subaru, what we assume his history is) their inability to foster a respectful relationship with one another isn't terribly surprising.

I don't think it would be as much as a problem if trusting Subaru didn't require so much trust. If Subaru acted more sensibly then she wouldn't need to invest as much trust.

Subaru is easily the most predictable character of the main cast. Again, this comes down to the issue of Emilia being alone in the way she treats and perceives Subaru. He doesn't even telegraph his desires and intentions; he flat out yells what they are constantly.

It's truth that being dismissive like that was kind of rude, I didn't consider that. However, the fact is that Subaru is kind of acting like a child. He kept insisting that he should come despite not having any real reason for coming. He completely refused to listen to her, ignoring her perfectly valid reasons for him not coming.

She didn't really have very valid reasons for him not coming, which I think is part of the problem with her request. She didn't want him to participate because he's an outsider. The problem is that he's already participated in this process in some capacity, twice, and almost died because of it, twice. In the future he'll be involved in it again and die repeatedly, and probably almost die and survive to the next arc a couple more times. This was my initial reaction to her keeping him out of it in the first place. "It's a bit late for that." In a certain respect I can see where she's coming from, and in normal circumstances I'm sure many people would agree that, being that he's an outsider, he should play no part in these politics. Again though, it's a bit late for that, and frankly their politics seem to concern an awful lot more than just their particular kingdom.

We didn't see any interaction between Ram and Subaru after he woke up. I suppose it's not unreasonable to say that she trusts him, though. I wonder exactly how much though.

He saved Ram and Rem both, as well as an entire village and its children, and Rem thinks he's the greatest thing to grace Fantasylandia since life itself. It's highly, highly unlikely that Ram doesn't trust Subaru given everything that has happened. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I don't view it likely enough to believe it worth considering either.

Where have you gotten the idea that Roswaal trusts him? Roswaal himself is entirely untrustworthy. Didn't you see that evil smile when Subaru started making a fuss? He wanted him to do that and force Emilia to take her distance from him.

It may be a slight stretch to assume that Roswaal trusts him in the typical sense, but considering the way he reads Subaru like a fiddle tells us that regardless of whether or not he 'trusts' him, he knows what he'll do. As you say, Roswaal is perhaps the most suspicious character of all. He seems to be making a habit of regularly manipulating Subaru and his feelings toward Emilia. He did this in the previous arc, and he's doing it again here. Roswaal certainly trusts Subaru in the respect that he trusts Subaru will fall into his lap every time by trying to protect Emilia, and so he'll continue to tell him to try and protect Emilia in the interest of doing so.

As for whether or not Roswaal is trying to distance Subaru from Emilia, that's purely conjecture, and from where I'm sitting there's more evidence to the contrary than there is supporting this idea. If Roswaal wanted Subaru gone, he doesn't need to play the long game and self-destruct their relationship with some clever manipulation. Heck, assuming Roswaal isn't aware of his ability, he could've just straight-up let Subaru die to the mabeasts by delaying for a couple of extra seconds. Nobody would've known a thing.