Understanding Sirius Romanee Conti's Authority Of Wrath & Other Powers
Re:Zero Season 3’s extended premiere ended on an ominous note. Not only did Subaru encounter the Witch Cult, but, what played out in front of him was a horrific and haunting scene.
And the main perpetrator behind this was none other than the Witch Cult’s Sin Archbishop of Wrath Sirius Romanee Conti.
The mass hysteria and hypnotic inducing scenes we saw towards the end of episode 1 was due to Sirius’s power – or rather her Authority of Wrath.
While watching that scene gave us some hints as to what Sirius could do, we figure out more things about her powers as Subaru goes through through a couple of more loops and meets equally harrowing ends.
Keeping that in mind, let’s try to understand how exactly Sirius’ powers and her Authority of Wrath work.
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To answer in short, Sirius’s authority of Wrath caused emotions between people to resonate and amplify. And those within the range of her power will be affected by it.
To be honest, it is too hard to simply just explain it like that. So let’s go with a more detailed version here.
After Subaru’s first couple of encounters with Sirius, he came to the conclusion that her powers involved the resonance between senses and emotions.
Meaning, people are caught up in a wave of emotions, and they lose any reasoning or sense of self. The emotion of fear, ecstasy or happiness, that is felt by one person, is resonated and amplified among others to a dangerous level, making the victims of Sirius’ attack turn into a fervent mindless mob.
This essentially made the affected people stop thinking dangerous things are dangerous anymore, and they even begin to act in a very unnatural way.
For instance, when Subaru first experienced the effects of Wrath’s Authority, he just clapped along with the rest of the crowd cheering, and calling for Sirius to kill an innocent boy.
This was probably because Sirius’ ecstasy was transferred to the crowd and amplified.
But it doesn’t end there, the important and an equally dangerous part was the resonating sense. This aspect of the Authority made sure that any damage or injury that was felt by one person in the range of Sirius’ power will be transferred to the others.
That is why Subaru and everyone’s head exploded in the same manner as Lusbel’s did, and that is the reason Subaru suffered the same injuries as Sirius in multiple loops.
So, once a person came under Sirius’ influence, killing her, or anyone else affected by her power would be a suicidal move.
“If the other person feels pain, you feel it, too. Cut off the Archbishop’s head, and everyone watching will lose their heads, too… Insane, right?”
Subaru explains Sirius’ powers to Beatrice in Volume 16 of Re:Zero
Taking down Sirius would involve not letting her activate her powers at all.
From the information he had gained through his encounters with Sirius, Subaru had assumed that one could only fall under the Authority of Wrath’s influence if they heard or saw Sirius speak.
But that was not true. Subaru would only understand the complete extent and the danger of what he was facing much later.
Sirius’ Authority of Wrath works by amplifying and sharing emotions among individuals within a certain area of effect. The limit of area is not specified, and people did not have to see Sirius for the Authority to start taking effect.
This was gleaned by Subaru, when he saw the people in the settlement going haywire due to rising anxiety and fear.
Since Sirius’ authority was active, their emotions kept amplifying even though the Sin Archbishop was nowhere close to them.
The more people present, the stronger the amplification becomes.
Individuals within the range act as emotional mirrors, reflecting and intensifying feelings between each other and back to Sirius, creating a vicious cycle of escalating emotions.
She had the power to create pandemonium and cause an entire city to revolt – which in this case was Priestella. She just needed to start at one point, gradually the effect of her Authority will gobble up the entire place, provided it was within her range.
While Sirius cynically claimed that her power was meant to foster mutual understanding, it’s the opposite.
The intense emotions sow distrust and negative emotions, which makes the only solution being for those affected to stay alone in a state of fear and unease.
Now, Sirius could exclude the people she wanted from the effects of her authority. However, there were some who showed resistance to her powers too.
The most important one being Priscilla, which was largely thanks to her own personality. She was so confident, and egoistic, that Sirius’ flurry of emotions had little effect on her. Atleast that’s what Subaru thought.
Well, a certain Sun Disk, which was present in the Web Novels were omitted from the Light Novels, so we don’t know if that is canon anymore. This Disk had played an important role in Priscilla not being affected by Wrath.
Even Reinhard seemed to have a certain amount of resistance to Authority of Wrath, though it is not known if it was because of his Divine Blessings.
However, he did claim that he would have been affected by it eventually, if had stayed in her area of influence for much longer.
While I did call Priscilla the most important, we can’t chalk out Liliana and the power her singing had, because it acted as a debuff, reducing the effect of Sirius’ powers.
Other than the Authority, Sirius also had other magic powers.
Other abilities which Sirius possessed included being able to use Fire Attacks – or to be more precise, she had affinity for the element of Fire.
As I have mentioned in the past, both Fire and Ice fall under the same magic type in Re:Zero, meaning instead of removing temperature and using Ice, she chooses to go for high temperature induced attacks, creating fire.
This magic affinity is one the hints which supports the popular theory of Sirius actually being Fortuna revived. You can read more about that in the article linked below!
Now, we have seen other characters using fire magic in Re:Zero, Roswaal being a prominent one. However, Sirius’ is seen using the Fire Attacks in a unique way, often enveloping herself, primarily her arms in fire to attack her opponents.
She also created fire infernos to trap her opponents and burn them to a cinder.
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Other than the magic type, Sirius also possessed superhuman strength, and had a strong physique, helping her tackle strong attacks both magic and physical type.
But that’s not all is there, we also have to talk about the Chains that she uses.
Sirius Romanee-Conti wields long, golden chains with razor-sharp hooks at their ends, which she often wraps around her body or stores in her coat’s sleeves.
These chains have an extraordinary length and can be summoned from thin air. She even can hide the Chains along with the target it has captured I guess.
Because, I don’t see any other way she pulled out that little girl in the middle of a confrontation!
Sirius can telepathically manipulate their flight path, making them move in unnatural and unpredictable ways mid-air.
And just like with her hands, Sirius can also envelop the chains in scorching flames, making them potent enough to break through even Emilia’s strongest ice spells.
We aren’t exactly given an explanation on how or why her chains work the way we see, but, I believe it is something intrinsic and not connected to her Authority of Wrath.
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