[FairyKing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

- First off, I don't think I've ever really talked about Reika yet, and I should really fix that right now, because she's been a fantastic part of the show ever since the new year! A lot of it is in the incredibly strong performance Angela Mei lends to her, I think. Reika's words are often hard to take at face value, so it's her face that's really doing the talking. The way she can look devoid of all emotion while paradoxically seething with contempt for her disloyal subordinates is something else. The sort of Red Scare style of how she manipulates the swordsmen is fascinating to me, as is the way the show is building the mystery of her true motives and loyalties. You can tell a lot from just small touches in this episode like how different her tone towards Master Logos is, or how she hesitates to directly lie about her order to take Primitive Dragon back originating from him. You get all these hints waiting to be pieced together, and given the genuine payoff of details like Calibur constantly ignoring Kento really early on, I have some faith in Saber to make that wait worth it.

This in particular is really interesting to me, because this episode got me thinking about Reika and the revelation that she doesn't fully understand Master Logos's plan. We've all been assuming she was the traitor, and that seems even more obvious now that we know she lied about an order from Master Logos. But Master Logos is also acting reeeeally suspicious.

I mean, a book powered by the soul of a sorrowful child that drives swordsmen berserk and makes them destroy all in their path seems like something SOL should keep locked away, and they were... but Master Logos says it will bring them great glory, wants it left with Touma, and is heavily implied to have just handed it over to Storius. Even if he plans on Touma getting through the child's loneliness and unlocking Elemental Dragon as a force for good, this is still a very untrustworthy way to go about it. And I wouldn't be surprised if his true plan was to use Touma for some evil scheme to seize more power for himself.

It's still too early to really tell, but I have a theory that Reika isn't the traitor, she genuinely thinks she's doing the right thing but has given her loyalty to a treacherous leader. Basically, she's further along the path Rintaro is starting down. Or if she is the traitor, it could be because she knows SOL has become corrupt. In either case, when we look back at this, it might turn out that lying about the Master's order and trying to get Primitive Dragon away from Touma was the least treacherous thing she's done so far...