Talk:Reinhard van Astrea/@comment-46841625-20200922120730

Disclaimer this is a theory with a fairly sizeable amount of research behind it, while it remains a theory it could potentially be a spoiler for the future of Re:zero, you have been warned

So I've done some thinking on this character, and while I very much dislike him due to him being so overwhelming strong because....well just cause, I got to thinking...what if hes not just some pretty boy who suddenly got super op just because....the author likes to throw mysteries at us, now onto the idea (this may be grasping at straws), there are an exceedingly high amount of plot holes with reinhard to begin with, such as the fact he was literally a national threat at the age of 8, hes the strongest swordsman at the age of 20 which is already a stretch what with other swordsman haveing far more experience on top of seemingly zero actual training...yes no matter what I look up, or where I look no one trained him, yet he became the most powerful character in the series at age 5, the age when toddlers transition to children, now hold on a sec, thats already kinda of screwed up...but more importantly is the fact this is when the mysterious divine protection of the sword saint transferred to him....now this most likely means said protection altered his skills....which is a little interesting but more importantly is the fact they mention that without his divine protections he would still be as good with the sword...while its possible he has gained some muscle memory over the years I seriously doubt someone who most likely barely trains would be able to retain such good muscle memory if said divine protection was disabled, now its made clear most divine protections are disabled when one is weak as (most likely because they rely on draining the users mana)....however back in the Oboreru side story reinhard was able to defeat both puck and halibel despite being gravely wounded....meaning that at the very least, divine protection of the sword saint was still active....however a certain line on this doesn't make sense " Even if he lost all of his Divine Protections, Reinhard would be about as skilled with a sword as he is now" yet its been made clear that reinhard is completely reliant on Divine Protection of the sword saint?

Divine Protection of the sword saint is kind of strange as it doesn't seem to follow the rules of most other divine protections, it just randomly changes its user.....or does it? It chose to leave Theresia during an attack orchestrated by pandora, it chose to leave her uncle before an attack (which would claim his life, not many details are known about it though) which might have possibly been orchestrated by pandora, now something very intersting is the blade the user manifests, as it shares the same name as reid the oldest known ancestor of reinhard, now it seems as though this strange Divine protection is harvesting the skill of the saints to empower itself, interestingly enough it seems to change users whenever it may inconivence pandora, now the author of Re:zero is no fool, he most likely has the entire story planned out, and has deliberately us a few important things, first of all " The author named Reinhard after Kaiser Reinhard from Legend of the Galactic Heroes" which may seem irrelevant however we also got "According to the author, any text written in Reinhard's POV is considered a major spoiler" these two things may have more relevance to each other then we realize, as Kaiser Reinhard died of an illness extremely young, perhaps the same may be happening for Reinhard atm but he keeps it to himself as to not start a kingdom wide panic (also perhaps something more is lingering with him, similar to how satella has attached herself to subaru, however i want to draw attention to a couple more things that have been said that might be more revealing then we realized

Firstly, "He's so powerful that even Subaru is unable to defeat him, despite having unlimlited tries and unlimlited ways of tackling the "Reinhard threat". " now I want to draw attention to something else " Despite him being the strongest, he still wouldn't be able to kill/defeat Satella, due to their powers. Reinhard wouldn't be able to bypass her immortality and Satella would not be able to land a finishing hit" now surely there would be a limit to how much mana was in the world to power reinhards divine protections where eventually reinhard would lose, however the author is rather clever I want to draw attention back to this line "Even if he lost all of his Divine Protections, Reinhard would be about as skilled with a sword as he is now" and also bring attention to this "The author has stated that Reinhard would be able to defeat Od Lagna in a battle" which with at what we know about it at this point is basically god in Re:zero... and as explained "These Divine Protections are granted to him by the Od Lagna" basically meaning if he were to fight said god it would be safe to assume he wouldn't be able to use his divine protections including Divine Protection of the sword saint meaning he would no longer have the skill....or would he? There is one final line I'm going to draw attention to "The author stated he'd be able to move through a rainstorm without getting a single drop of water on him" This may seem insignicant but it map just be a massive piece to this puzzle

All these quotes aren't just randomly throw out by the author but rather clues, and I'm going to bring attention to this quote one final time here "Even if he lost all of his Divine Protections, Reinhard would be about as skilled with a sword as he is now" we've established that he's reliant on Divine Protection of the Sword Saint for his unmatched skill....however I want to bring something to attention....from what I've seen, Divine protections generally get disabled when the user is heavily injured, HOWEVER AUTHORIES DO NOT, we've already seen this in action when  Petelgeuse chased down subaru and otto, with his Authority only finally failing after he was dead now what am I getting at do you ask? Divine Protection of the sword saint is not a Divine protection at all, in fact its the Authority of Vainglory, the family has been tricked into carrying this authority for generations, more then likely slowly empowering Pandora, starting with Reid himself...now your probably looking at me like I'm some kind of derranged idiot, but hear me out, "Even if he lost all of his Divine Protections, Reinhard would be about as skilled with a sword as he is now" This is because Sword saint is an authority not a protection, its been made clear he relies on it for his skill, but authorites continue to function under nearly all circumstances, additionally we know that the authorites will shape themselves based on the holders desire and vainglory is quite literally capable of rewriting reality...so perhaps all these divine protections reinhard is pulling out of his ass aren't actually protections at all, but rather Vainglory altering reality, hence why he can just make new ones whenever he needs/wants to while additionally copying actual protections, more importantly though, "The author stated he'd be able to move through a rainstorm without getting a single drop of water on him" This can easily be caused by Vainglory rewriting reality for him, now again you may think im just talking out of my ass, but stick with me here "According to the author, any text written in Reinhard's POV is considered a major spoiler" this is most likely because either A) He's realized what he truly has, B) he's growing ill because of the Authority being incompatible with him, C) He runs into situations similar to what Subaru does with RBD when he tries to tell someone about it, additionally "The author stated that Reinhard van Astrea is the strongest character in the series and no stronger characters are scheduled to appear in the story" No stronger character needs to appear, when Pandora can just freely force the authority to change hosts whenever it inconviences her (hence why it disappeared from Theresia the same fight pandora had orchestrated, for her uncle however, it probably just changed hosts because it had nothing else to gain from him, unless the demi human attack was also orchestrated by pandora....however I feel this is unlikely) I'm not 100% sure on this but I feel either vainglory is either being used to leech off its hosts or as a trojan horse of sorts, keep the people believing that they are safe, then attack and force it to change hosts. Then we have this comment "Despite him being the strongest, he still wouldn't be able to kill/defeat Satella, due to their powers. Reinhard wouldn't be able to bypass her immortality and Satella would not be able to land a finishing hit" the reason for this is because authorities dont use mana (at least from what we've seen) meaning there is no possibility for Reinhard to actually die in that fight, and then on one final note "The author has stated that Reinhard would be able to defeat Od Lagna in a battle" this is because Od Lagna has zero control over Authorites, where as it could very likely just strip you of all divine protections

Well that about wraps it up for my theory, tell me what you think, is Reinhard the greatest plot twist character to exist in Re:Zero or is he some poorly written pretty boy that was born insanely overpowered, for me i would actually love to see this (or something similar) be the case for Re:Zero