[moridin84]

Originally Posted by Traece

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

Just because they decided to ignore it doesn't mean they've forgotten about it.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

The stuff he was talking about wasn't THAT vague. Certainly not enough to assume he was talking about the battle with the slasher woman.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

Regardless of how innocent it seemed at the time, him insisting on going to the village and then something happening at the village by the time he returned to the mansion...

Well, ultimately they aren't blaming him or are suspicious of him for that specifically. It's just all these little things keep pilling up.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

He explained why he went to the village? What did he tell them? I don't remember.

There was no mention of Betty telling everyone that he was cursed. If she did then there is another suspicious point. He went to Betty the moment he came back from the village and said "I'm pretty sure I've been cursed". How could he possibly know that?

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

He can certainly get along with anyone he meets but a track record for randomly running into people? From Emilia's perspective, the only person he randomly ran into was herself. Recall that Mr. Sword Saint appeared in the arc 1 battle because Felt ran into him.

Please don't then mix up our, the readers, perspective/knowledge of Subaru with Emilia's perspective/knowledge of Subaru.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

He insisted that everything he was doing was for her. It wasn't, only some of it. Which makes that statement a lie.

That fact that he's been helping her all this time, stranger, for no good reason, is suspicious in itself.

"Everyone" doesn't understand Subaru. At least not to the extent that he needs Emilia too. Most of the cast simply haven't interacted with Subaru that much to the point where understanding is an issue.

Puck is possible an exception but Puck is a spirit. I don't know what kind of values he has but he probably just trusts what he feels from Subaru. And just because he trusts him, doesn't mean he really understands him either. Also, the fact that Puck understands Subaru's interest in Emilia isn't the same thing as understanding him overall.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

How has Emilia been ordering Subaru around for half the series? This arc? Yeah I guess but all she's doing is trying to stop him from going to the meeting.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

From the perspective of the characters in the show, Subaru is the least predictable character.

He says and does nonsensical things all the time. He's constantly surprising people with his actions.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

There's plenty of reasons for Emilia to want him to exclude him from this particular meeting. It's not like she was planning to exclude him from everything ever. It's mostly a meeting to present the various candidates to the nobility anyway.

Originally Posted by Traece

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.

Trust and being able/willing to manipulate him aren't the same thing.

Wanting to separate him from Emilia and wanting him dead aren't the same thing either.