Okay, so I watching Book of the Atlantic and noticed this during Undertaker's monologue about how he makes the bizarre dolls work by splicing cinematic records. His example record was originally a silhouette of a woman who we saw go through her life and die with a man at her bed side. Then, for the actual record clipping when he talked about his inspiration, we get this:
A blonde woman on a cliff side, who we can assumed jumped off of it. But that's not quite right, is it? A body would be hard to recover that way, if a body were found, it would be waterlogged, decaying, and scavenged, and we know suicide deaths go to the shiginami dispatch. This is Undertaker's *inspiration*, not just any example.
And who do we know is in everything Undertaker does? The Phantomhives. I think the woman in the clip is Claudia. She's blonde (or anime blonde, like Francis) and we know Undertaker had a connection to her due to his mourning locket.
He also states he "retired" "half a decade ago" while Othello states it had been 70 years. This is where the timeline gets a bit shakier; that 20 years makes a big difference on how old Claudia would have been which leads to my new theories:
Claudia was his daughter, and she is why he walked away from the shiginami dispatch. That's why he's obsessed with the Phantomhives, it's *his* bloodline and that is also why Ciel can see reapers.
They were lovers, as is the current prevailing theory, both which leads to....
she died young. We don't really know how she died, and if she is the woman in the example record, it was likely suicide. She knew about Undertaker and the reapers, probably knew their inner workings (and how they're made) and possibly wanted to join him for eternity. This however clearly didn't go to plan, either because
Reapers check the cinematic records of new hires and would have seen her relationship to Undertaker and intervened, separating them permantly and making Undertaker even more driven to ensure he never loses another Phantomhive again
They completely pave over who the person was in their past life. Sasha had talked about being miserable and now this second chance is a new drive, but something about the way the concept was explained leaves a gap. How do you get someone who cares about nothing to care about paperwork and souls and orderly balance? Maybe they hand select for personality, but I think they strip away parts of who someone was and reprogram for the job, to some extent. What if they did the same for Claudia, so she either has no memory of her former life or has no desire to reconnect with Undertaker?
Did he manage to salvage what he could and continue her record? If she were the first, I doubt it would have went well. The bizarre dolls on the ship (aside from Real!Ciel) were very primitive, lacking eyes and only acting on instinct. Riel was one of a kind, and we quickly saw how fast his skill excelled, but their lives were decades apart. Claudia's doll would not have been as advanved. In the outro, we see a doll being puppeted until it no longer can be and collapses with a grim reaper hanging in the background controlling it. If the example record *is* Claudia, it also lends to suggest what happened if Undertaker had continued her cinematic record.
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