[Discussion] Subaru inadvertently gave Julius a comfort zone, which he is now relying on - and what will be needed to change that.
Of course, I don't mean to say that he shouldn't've been there at all or anything like that, I think that his presence is very much vital. This isn't about how Subaru could've done better, but rather about how things are how things could change going forward.
However, he still contributed to Julius relying on his own strength more than he should.
Firstly, he keeps the Anastasia/Echidna situation away from Julius, obviously. Even if we ignore the fact that Julius finds this out afterwards anyway and is in a worse mental state when he does than in ep 1, this was still a bad decision. Julius, as we can see, would handle the fact that Anastasia has been replaced by an imposter without him knowing somewhat well - better than many other things he ends up having to deal with.
More importantly, he lets Julius think of his strength as his only worth. I'd like to recount an excerpt from their s4e1 conversation:
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When we first listened to that conversation, we just interpreted it as Subaru consoling Julius and telling him that he is still remembered, and that Julius still has value in this world. Doubtless Subaru thought so, too.
However, Julius's takeaway from it was that he had to live up to Subaru's expectations, that he should ignore his internal turmoil, and rely on the only value he sees in himself.
(Hold on, that sounds kind of similar to a certain someone's character arc in season 2. Parallels are parallelling rn)
And while Subaru certainly helped him emotionally after the second fight against Reid, that clearly wasn't enough. Julius keeps his mindset in s4e7, and relies too much on Subaru viewing him as a strong knight like he did back in s4e1.
Even when Subaru realizes Julius's mental state still needs improving, what he ends up trying to do is attack his title as a knight, which he is obviously not going to take well.
As such, what I think is going to be needed is to reassure him of who he is outside of his strength as a combatant. That's why Subaru is going to do exactly that-
Oh no, he forgor, didn't he. Well, Subaru wouldn't have been the best person for the job anyway. After all, it's not like Subaru fully understood who Julius was in private (He admitted as much). If Subaru had done it, it would've been less so because Subaru actually saw him as a person (even though he does), and more so because that was the thing that happened to work after he brute-forced fixing Julius a few times.
Because of that, someone else is going to have to do it, and I think it'll be Anastasia/Echidna (either or both).
They had not tried to confront Julius properly before (purely strategic mistake lol)
They certainly (arguably) know and (arguably) care for Julius more than Subaru does.
yeah I think that makes sense to me