Theresia Van Astrea and her battle with the White Whale is a defining point in the Astrea family dynamics. It is a moment that defined the fate of not just Theresia but everyone linked to her.
It is the incident that led Wilhelm down the path of revenge, and also plunged the enormous responsibility of being a sword saint on a young Reinhard. It also disrupted the family bonds between father, son and grandfather, which easily makes one of the most important plot points in the series.
Even now, there are questions raised about what happened to Theresia and how exactly the whole thing went down. A lot of people wrongly attribute the death of Theresia to the White Whale. However, that is not exactly what happened.
Keeping that in mind, let us try to break down the whole situation.
Who really killed Theresia Van Astrea?
While it is commonly believed that within the Re:Zero verse that the White Whale was responsible for Theresia’s death it is not true. According to the light novel (volume 20) it is revealed that it was Pandora, the Witch of Vainglory who actually killed Theresia Van Astrea.
Theresia’s fight with the White Whale was a hard one, but one which she and her team should have eventually won. However, she lost her Blessing of the Sword Saint, and thanks to that, the expeditionary forces she was leading was almost decimated.
Fleeing from the battle, Theresia found herself covered by the White Whale’s thick fog. And it is in this fog that Theresia met with Pandora.
The novel doesn’t explicitly state that the character is Pandora, but the description (from both the web novel and light novel) make it more than clear for us.
“—Oh, a woman all alone in a place like this? That’s quite brave.”
“—Ngh.”
Theresia shuddered and turned around when she heard an elegant, decidedly out-of-place voice.
A girl with platinum hair appeared from out of the thick fog. She had a gentle smile and a benevolent gaze that evoked a sense of unconditional friendship with an unknown person.
It was a love mismatched, twisted, and far too great. This did nothing but evoke fear.
Sensing that the person standing in front of her was dangerous, Theresia charges at her. Having lost her divine blessing, Theresia could no longer use the Dragon Sword. And so, she attacked with a normal longsword she found at her feet.
The rest, as we know is history.
Pandora’s weird powers need no special mention. We saw what the witch was capable of during the second season of Re:Zero (and also in arc 4 of the novels). Its easy to come to the conclusion that Pandora was the one who killed Theresia Van Astrea.
And after she was killed, it was Pandora herself who converted into a reanimated corpse! This also explains another important detail regarding Theresia.
Why Does Wilhelm Remember Theresia?
As I mentioned before, everyone had wrongfully assumed that Theresia was killed by the White Whale. For those unaware, this witchbeast emits two kinds of mist – the mist of Contamination and the mist of Annihilation.
While the first one, Contamination, makes the enemy lose their mind via mana contamination, the second one, the mist of Annihilation, makes the world forget the person who is devoured by this mist. This is very similar to how the authority of Gluttony works.
So, if Theresia was devoured by the White Whale, she technically should have been forgotten.
In the past, fans had theorized that Wilhelm was able to remember Theresia because she was not consumed by the Mist of Annihilation. Instead, the White Whale might have used the mist of Contamination order to break her mind and then kill her somehow.
But, in light of the information that was revealed in Arc 5, we can confidently say that the reason why Wilhelm was able to remember Theresia was because it was Pandora who actually killed her, and not the White Whale and its mist.
In the end, Theresia did really die. Even though we see her have a moment of consciousness towards the end, after Reinhard slashed her down in Arc 5 (Season 3) of Re:Zero, Pandora had already done the damage.
Theresia’s death truly has to be heartbreaking. She lost the battle with the White Whale due to reasons beyond her control. And then, she encountered one of the nastiest members of the Witch Cult leading to her demise.
If that was not enough, Pandora further desecrated her memory by converting her into a puppet. While it did help give Wilhelm some sort of conclusion, in the end, it was a sad end for the previous sword saint.
