Re:Zero Episode 41

Nobody Can Lift a Quain Stone Alone (クウェインの石は一人じゃ上がらない, Kuwein no ishi wa hitori ja agaranai) is the forty-first episode of the overall series and the sixteenth episode of Season 2 of the Re:Zero anime.

Plot
The episode opens with a flashback scene of Garfiel's. He is accompanied by Ryuzu, and he repeatedly hits his forehead against a column until he bleeds, forming the X-shaped scar between his eyes. He is in great emotional pain, and seeing a broken carriage, he yells at the heavens while Ryuzu watches him.

There is a return to the present, where Garfiel faces Subaru and Emilia from downstairs at the entrance of Echidna's Tomb, swearing he will destroy it in order for Sanctuary not to be connected to the outside world anymore. A newly composed Emilia (after the previous episode) confronts Garfiel with words, asking him what he is afraid to, as he seems as afraid as she used to be. Subaru then continues, bringing up Garfiel's mother, asking him whether he wants to destroy the connection of Sanctuary because he hates her mother for abandoning him and his sister Frederica Baumann when they were little. Garfiel is in shock hearing Subaru knowing about his mother, and starts telling his pain while crying.

Garfiel says that it's not that he hates his mother. What he wants is that she should've lived a happy life, but instead, she abandoned them and immediately after a rockslide destroyed her carriage, killing her. He believes she had abandoned them because he and Frederica were a burden. But the abandonment proved pointless, as she immediately died anyway. He couldn't protect her, but he has now decided to protect everyone in Sanctuary by destroying the chance of being able to go into the outside world.

Garfiel then proceeds to transform into his tiger form, and runs to attack Subaru, who casts Shamak which gives him an opening that allows him to insert Puck's stone into Garfiel's arm, which returned him back to his human form, as it drained him of his mana. Garfiel runs at Subaru anyway, who then manifests the Authority of Sloth and punches Garfiel upwards at his chin, sending him flying. Subaru marvels at Garfiel's stamina, as he is still able to stand and to try to attack Subaru, but as he runs, Patrasche shows up in the last second and hits Garfiel sending him once again flying into a wall, thus taking revenge for the day Garfiel and Patrasche first met. Subaru reminds him about numerical superiority, and Garfiel still complains of the wording. Subaru then suggested "the power of friendship". Garfiel then remembers an idiom: "A quain stone cannot be lifted by a single person", which Subaru commented on being able to understand it.

Subaru wakes up, with his head resting on Emilia's lap, commenting he seems to get this often as a reward for doing things. Otto Suwen says hi, and Subaru immediately gets up and gives him a headbutt, due to his crazy antics against Garfiel, to which Otto points out he was helped by Ram. Subaru admits he needed that time anyway, and thanks Otto. Meanwhile, Garfiel wakes up, with his head resting on Ram's lap, but Ram throws him off once he opens his eyes, saying her feet are going numb.

Ram complains to Garfiel that he is an idiot, and that next time he should fight without thinking, for Emilia and her. Garfiel is angry to hear this, as he does not think he is in the wrong, to which Ram replies that he should stop embarrassing himself in front of the woman he loves (that is, Ram herself). Ram then challenges Garfiel to prove he is not stuck, but is on the move, by taking the trial and succeeding. Garfiel enters, and faces his trial: reliving the day he was abandoned. While in the vision, he learns his mother in fact loved him and Frederica, and was only going to find his father, planning to be back to meet him and his sister again. This shocks him greatly, as it contradicts the story he had told himself all these years. He then talks to the vision figure of his very young sister, and ends up accepting the true event. He walks out, content that he was able to face it, and awkwardly thanks Subaru for the lesson, blushing heavily and calling him captain. Subaru is surprised by the title, and then learns Garfiel is merely a 14 year old much to his great surprise, which explains Garfiel's chūnibyō tendencies to say grandiose things (Subaru says he also used to say similar things at his age).

Subaru then has a pep talk with Emilia, encouraging her in this new attempt at the trials. Emilia is newly inspired to try. After she walks in, Garfiel makes some fun of Subaru for what he wrote on the walls during the previous night: cute graffiti full of love and encouragement for Emilia — Garfiel says he saw them while doing his own trial. Subaru is enormously ashamed by this, and is especially ashamed that Garfiel got to see the graffiti before Emilia did. Otto asks what the problem is with all that, considering Subaru constantly openly flirts with Emilia in public anyway, but Subaru keeps suffering from shame.

Emilia starts her trial, and meets Echidna, who speaks to Emilia rudely. Emilia speaks seriously and inspired to Echidna, saying she's ready.

Characters

 * Ryuzu Meyer (copy) (Flashback)
 * Garfiel Tinsel
 * Natsuki Subaru
 * Emilia
 * Reala Thompson (Flashback)
 * Frederica Baumann (Flashback)
 * Puck (Voice)
 * Natsuki Kenichi (Flashback)
 * Natsuki Naoko (Flashback)
 * Julius Juukulius (Flashback)
 * Rem (Flashback)
 * Beatrice (Flashback)
 * Minerva (Flashback)
 * Satella (Flashback)
 * Patrasche
 * Otto Suwen
 * Ram
 * Echidna

Anime Differences

 * Subaru and Garfiel's fight was greatly shortened.
 * Unlike in the Light Novel, the stone which held Puck inside fell out of Garfiel's shoulder after sucking up all his mana.

Trivia

 * kuwein, written クウェイン in Japanese, in katakana characters as typical of recent foreign borrowings, seems to be English "quain", an alternative uncommon spelling of quoin, a word for a large boulder at the corner of a building. The idiom "a quoin stone cannot be lifted by one person" would mean that a single person cannot lift such a heavy stone alone, but a group working together could. Or as the English saying goes, "teamwork makes the dream work".
 * However, the use of a very uncommon if not obsolete form of an already uncommon word makes this interpretation a little questionable, unless kuwein involves a mistake in the pronunciation of "quoin" by the author.
 * Realize was used as an insert song in this episode.