Would a redeemed Claudia feel comfortable going back to a person who let her freely get away with so much? Would a Terry who's now had time to see all the cracks (and there were many) well before the dam burst really feel like he could trust her on that level again?

The show compares him to Lissa for a reason. It wasn't a reason I was sure would be enough to alter the course of Terry's overall screentime (ie. I was pretty sure immediately post season they would get back together, even if I increasingly disliked the idea as the months went on) but like. Yeah

Brand new character: on the one hand Terry having a male love interest would be a great opportunity for a canon bi character + more visible queer rep. on the other hand introducing another female character to balance things out a bit could also be a good move. not expecting the love interest to be developed separately (nor do they need to be, especially because we have so much other stuff to get through) but it could work. 6/10

Corvus: honestly my top pick from a personal preference standpoint cause I've shipped CorTerry for years now and I think they gel well personality wise (calm, centred, steady) and could be a great eye of the storm amid the increasing chaos of their lives. Also trees. The subversion of Soren/Corvus would make me feel bad for the shippers but it'd also be slightly funny, and we'd be trading one gay ship for another, so why not. 9/10

Soren: from a "what is most interesting in changing the story" this is probably the one simply because of the growth it would demand from both of them, how well they do canonically get along, and the reaction/ghost of Claudia looming over it all that they also have to inevitably get past to even pursue this. Also has the fun S0rvus subversion. 10/10

Opeli: one of the few actual options since it'd be very unlikely for the show to throw their (admittedly atp decently minimal but there) S0rvus set up, especially if they don't want to be introducing a new character. While I do think Terry and Opeli would get along fabulously as bros/friends, I don't think a romantic partnership between them would work that well (Opeli has a lot of similarities to Claudia in her demeanour/ideologies) and since Opeli is not going to end up with Soren canonically, I'd rather keep my aroace headcanons for her. 6/10 but I could live with it / it could be passably cute

Barius: we love an age gap (granted, Terry would likely be between 26-28 in Arc 3) and Barius would also fit the role of being a pre-established character who can provide a listening ear and not detracting screentime. Barius being gay is also a longtime headcanon of mine. Funniest option, personally. 8/10

Kazi or Astrid: I think they'd be really cute and a canon t4t relationship like almost never happens in western animation/kids media? The only thing would be that Kazi or Astrid will presumably be living away from Terry is and portraying a long distance relationship takes more work than easy proximity, so idk how easily it'd slot in. 7/10

Gren: same long distance issue as Astrid or Kazi, but they're also so similar while it wouldn't be super interesting I think it'd be very cute and endearing, even if I do love aroace Gren. 7/10

Miyana: Terry and his birds prepping him for being stepdad to her kids. Long distance but could work if they live in Evrkynd together. Very opposites attract but weirdly I think they'd balance each other out even if I don't think they'd be the happiest people day in and day out together in terms of like, cheer and joking, but I think they'd be very steady and content and solid. I'd also kill a man for another scene of Miyana getting to talk about her feelings with someone. 8/10

Grark: 10/10 let's gooo (even if it would likely mean Grark is a good guy > a more antagonistic force, which is too bad in some ways)

Nyx: welcome back Gren/Nyx from hiatus shipping, I missed you. 7.8/10

Mix of multiple messy threads I wrote combined together.

The Anime's Inversion

I think, fundamentally, the anime flipped over what I think is the real interpretation of arc 3 in the light novel, along with its implications for the final three arcs, especially Emilia and Subaru's second parting, which I think might happen this arc.

Tappei will convey certain views about the arc in his Q&As, but I don't think they should be taken at face value.

The tl;dr is the image Emilia develops of Subaru after arc 3, the things she's kept out of the loop on, and her general apathy, or lack of full cognizance, regarding the cost Subaru bore at the start of the arc.

We get a small taste that she knows it, at least deep in her subconscious, as her Taste of Death dialogue in the LN reveals, though the anime cuts some lines. I think this will be connected to her third trial line, where she says, "I've thought it several times, but the nightmare has truly come. So I will say it."

And she's very likely saying this to Subaru, in an effort to push him away for his sake, like she did in arc 3. In arc 3, however, she did it out of insecurity and, in part, for her own selfish reasons, as LN 9 reveals. By contrast, in arc 10 she'll likely do it out of conviction after realizing her feelings. The arc 9 line where she feels love for him but can't place it can't be coincidental, considering how many other things arc 10 is paralleling with arc 9. Plus, consider the stuff she says to Felt near the start of arc 10.

Emilia's Flippancy

She's shown to be flippant about things she shouldn't be so flippant about, and not nearly angry enough at things she ought to have been angry about. Repeatedly, multiple characters have pointed out how Emilia's nature makes things hard for Subaru. Felt thinks this at the start of arc 10 as well: her blatant faith in him, how she thinks he can't die, and so on. In contrast to Subaru thinking about how horrific he felt at the start of arc 3, Emilia comes off as rather flippant, in large part due to Gluttony messing with memories.

Subaru in arc 10 is suspiciously bordering on his old self at times, taking everything on himself, and the first one to call it out is Rem, in contrast to From Zero Rem, who was the cause of his hero complex. Even in arc 10, he bashes his old self, as if what he did in arc 3 was the height of sin compared to what other people were doing and getting away with. It definitely says something that it seems like he still seeks sympathy for it deep down, because Subaru bearing heroic reveries is bad for him, since it implies him dying all the time and suffering.

That is to say, the "problem" with arc 3 isn't really a problem if Tappei has been intentional about the things left unaddressed regarding Subaru's trauma in that arc, the long-lasting consequences, Emilia's mindset about promises, and the image she has of Subaru, if all of it is for the sake of eventually breaking it all down for her.

So I think Emilia's "turning point" is really going to be more like slowly breaking her down, like what happened to Subaru near the beginning of the story, but likely with far less suffering porn, considering she's Emilia and everything.

The Seal and Promises

Another theory about her attitude regarding promises: the plot twist might be that Emilia should have opened the seal.

Every promise or contract gets broken in arc 4 and is what leads to progress, and the promise that doesn't get made (Echidna's) is also painted in a bad light. Only Emilia is all "I have no regrets" when it came to her promise with Fortuna that Pandora asked her to break. But there's no reason for her to have regrets about it, because Fortuna was already dead and Pandora, as the arc's villain, implied that opening the seal would be far worse than Emilia freezing everything (and the Black Serpent already killed a bunch of elves). When you've lost everything and the promise to your dead mom is the only thing you have left, why wouldn't you keep it?

Grappling with regret only makes sense when there's an alternative path presented to you that wasn't so bad and you didn't take it. There need to be real tradeoffs. Unlike Subaru, she doesn't really face such tradeoffs. My belief is that Fortuna might not have been that good of a person and might have had selfish reasons for not opening the seal. Combined with the RbD reveal and the Puck contract details, the other thing that might potentially bring about disillusionment for her regarding her belief in promises might be the promise she made to her mother.

Pandora parallels Subaru in the Hope symbolism, and they both share dialogue in the same arc: "There is a time and place for keeping promises."

The issue, however, is that Pandora is a Witch and the way she went about trying to get Emilia to open the seal. Re:ZERO isn't very consequentialist or utilitarian in its morality, so it's "Pandora bad because the way she went about things bad," meaning Emilia is allowed to set aside a whole bunch of practical shit (like in arc 3) so Tappei can prop up her value system, and the one time he doesn't do that is also the only time she gets character development.

If the seal is akin to Pandora's Jar in Greek mythology, the seal is supposed to unleash all evils and vices out into the world, but what remains is Hope (i.e., Elpis). This would contradict the points above, but it's interesting to think about what it might mean.

Pandora's Role

Pandora is aroused by seeing people struggle against the odds. That's what the description of her reaction strongly implies when she sees Fortuna and Geuse go up against Regulus, and if she was the one to make the Whale disappear in arc 3 in the Greed of a Pig loop (his most difficult and mentally damaging loop in that arc), it's probably her role to shape events to make Subaru suffer as much as possible, and not really Echidna's.

The Knightly Oath

There's also Subaru's knightly oath to Emilia. Frankly, I think it's just plain bad for him and not something that should be put on a pedestal. It socially obligates Subaru to die for Emilia, and it's also bad that she has this unrealistic image of him, which is again set up for the RbD reveal, where she becomes more cynical about promises or the like.

Healthy Selfishness

Subaru should learn to put his foot down. Emilia, at the very least, should think back to how she hurt him back then, how she had taken his kindness for granted once and been punished for her naivety. Emilia never self-reflects object-level stuff, it's always vague thematic garbage. She doesn't behave like a real person so to speak. That will be her next development, probably paralleling Subaru himself becoming more human.

Living Over the Dead

In arc 10-19, Subaru thinks about "living over the dead" when thinking about Ferris breaking the promise to Crusch, because he prioritized Crusch over the dead Fourier, which was something Fourier himself would have wanted. This is something Subaru does all the time: break promises for the sake of the living, something Emilia and Beatrice struggle to accept (because they're a little stupid). This cannot be unrelated to the promise she made to Fortuna and RbD reveal.

More Predictions

At that time, Crusch had been preparing for the behemoth undertaking of subjugating the White Whale. Yet, she continued to patiently face the ignorant, vapid, insolent Subaru. In the end, she lent her ears to Subaru's words, and aided him with her power to help realize his ambitions.

I seriously don't get why arc 3 Subaru keeps getting bashed over and over like this. I mean, it's his POV, but he seriously lacks the big picture regarding the Kingdom. Rather than call himself names, he should be blaming others (like Roswaal or Puck) for not having prepared even a bit against the Cult. I think in general he just keeps making up for others' failures, and the aura monster arc 6 loop was definitely foreshadowing something.

The Emilia pose with her finger pointed to the heavens is also kinda red-flag prose ("heaven" = bad) for what may transpire soon, that plus her just listing all of Subaru's achievements but never having questioned it properly. This was my biggest issue with her in arcs 3 and 4, and now her saying they're not gonna lose. I'm somewhat confident the Emilia camp will break apart this arc, and while on the surface she's showing resolve against Bordeux's ruse, she'll very likely lose it by the end of the arc seeing what's befallen Subaru.

Very likely a similar ending to arc 9. In arc 9, she and Subaru aren't facing each other when Rem kills him: Al is looking at Subaru, saying he hates him, Rem is killing Subaru, Subaru's face averted from Emilia. Emilia also feels an emotion stronger than rage at Regulus or Al toward Subaru (love) but couldn't place it.

This arc's tragedy (tragic heroism much? It could be Subaru and Reinhard's, since they're the narrative heroes, but maybe even Emilia's) will be her and Subaru facing each other (instead of Subaru's face averted), Emilia having placed her feelings (instead of "She did not understand it whatsoever") but forced to push him away (paralleling arc 3, where they first parted).

Christ and Self-Erasure