Lady Rosewood

you will always be in my mind, in my heart, and in your grave

[aquarianights]

Introduction

Hi lovely tumblr friends~

I'm not sure how to introduce myself but here goes :)

This blog is mainly for my no.1 manga of all time:

Black Butler

I've been lurking on Kuroshitsuji Tumblr for the longest time, since about 2017? Yeah that's when I realised there were so many incredible theories out here and a whole community of og manga fans? 🥹

I hope to have fun and maybe make some new friends <3

[aquarianights]

is it time i finally share my theory on how we'll get the undertaker flashback 👀

[aquarianights]

I JUST DIIEEDDD IN YOUR ARMSS TONIIGHTT

[borsukuje]

Longer hair~

[aquarianights]

i love this hairstyle on scholarly male characters so much you dont understand, unfortunately I'm born not only in the wrong era but also the wrong world

[aquarianights]

yana tobos is edging me now pleaaasee tell us what happened with Victoria albert Claudia and undertaker already

[devil-six]

I’m starting to worry that Yana isn’t going to reveal who Undertakers nail tech is

[cedric-k-rossignol]

[ireaalydontcare]

[Humans do change in such little time, don't they?]

[aquarianights]

i fell to my knees and sobbed

[elleldoe]

removing distractions isn't enough anymore, I need to be sent to the seaside like a sickly victorian woman in order to get some writing done

[cedric-k-rossignol]

[aquarianights]

My Roman Empire

This is the Undertaker I desperately need a flashback for.

The gorgeous hair tied up in a scholarly ponytail? The thin rectangular spectacles? The cunty black leather trenchcoat? sign me TF up

I bet his attitude must've been so serious and stoic here, I NEEEED to see an Undertaker – Cedric who was uptight and stuck to the rules, a cold and emotionless machine.

And then he went mad.

I wonder what could have happened that made this man turn into THIS

[aquarianights]

hi there! have just binge-read black butler for the very first time and am brainrotting over UT & Claudia 😵‍💫 and the only place i could find any substantial discussion about them was here, so i just wanted to hear what you think about this justification:

from a storytelling perspective, a tragic gothic love story seems like just the thing we're missing and need to cap off black butler's final arc(s). we've already seen a gamut of gothic-adjacent plotlines in the manga (circus troupe, locked-room murder mystery, elite dark academia mystery, a midsommar-esque ritualistic creepy village, cults, family tragedies, lots of child abuse and neglect, twin dichotomies) and we haven't yet seen a tragic romance in any of them aside from beast and joker, which was not central to their arc.

so we are missing a traditional love story - something staple to the gothic genre. and i would expect that to be an essential for black butler. sure, we've seen lots of different kinds of love in the manga (platonic, innocent, misled, parental, pedestalised devotion, etc). but we haven't seen a traditionally tragic one yet, which is leading me to believe that its narratively inevitable that we would eventually see it, and its most likely through UT's story.

UT and Claudia's tragedy would both mirror and act as foil to Ciel and Sebastian - UT/Claudia mired in love and devotion to the point of desperation, and Ciel and Sebastian lacking warmth and care, being purely transactional. But both relationships being tragic and doomed.

UT doesn't strike me as the type aiming for world domination or power through creating a corpse army - what would he achieve with that? he's already orchestrating events with more influence and power than any of our protagonists have. plus, we already have the queen for the power-hungry domination goals, and UT has already expressed opposition to her.

which would either leave us with the goal of resolving personal tragedy or satisfying scientific curiosity. sure, we could say he was personally fascinated by the family, maybe very close friends with vincent or claudia or some other phantomhive ancestor. but would that alone really drive him to do all that he has done so far, to try defying death, to intentionally throw away what we could call a stellar career in grim-reaping, to brand himself an outcast and a wanted man?

what i'm saying is: everything that he has done so far cannot just be a scientific experiment to satiate his scientific curiosity in what comes after death, or in how to defy death, or to interfere with the personal matters of a family he's close to, fascinated by, or worked with.

plot-wise, would that be tragic and obsessive enough to serve as the emotional anchor for a gothic story? i don't think so. the reasoning would be narratively weighty enough only if it’s rooted in a personal tragedy that he cannot let go of, in grief, in familial loss. this guy is obviously hiding a lot of pain. it's devastating enough to cause him to shed tears at the mere sight of a photo of vincent. there's very little else to explain this other than the fact that he's related to them.

additionally, since UT's been set up to be one of the key players and drivers behind major events in the series, it would not be too much of a stretch to say that we'll get a reasonably in-depth backstory for him, and honestly i can't think of anything more emotionally satisfying than him desperately trying to save his dead love and grandchildren through all the arcs. if he is to be one of the final antagonists in this story, that human-like motivation would make him a very good one.

omg im so sorry it took me so long to respond 🙏🏻 i was swamped with exams and personal life and then i totally forgot about this ask.

firstly, thank you for such a lovely ask, i am always down to discuss undertaker theories, so without further ado let's get into it.

1. Gothic Love Story

For starters, the only romance I can think of in this story was actually in the very beginning - Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive, and her sister Angeline who had a one-sided crush on Vincent.

Arguably that could be a kind of tragic gothic love story if you see it from Madame Red's perspective. As well as Rachel and Vincent dying in each other's arms, the epitome of romance I would say.

So these instances represent to me, the existence of romance in this story, and I firmly believe that Undertaker's story will have a tragic romance, whether or not it is with Claudia (it has to be or i wont know what to do lol)

2. Ciel/Sebastian Vs. Undertaker/Claudia

Now onto the parallels between these two relationships.

I honestly never considered they relationships to be parallels, but since you've pointed it out, I want to dissect and see if there might be something worth theorising here.

You have one human and one supernatural creature (demon and grim reaper), both humans are Phantomhives – direct relatives. So that's the obvious surface-level parallels.

If we dig deeper and look at the foundation of both relationships, like you said Ciel/Sebastian is rooted in desperation, a contract to be fulfilled, and of course the most important part in my opinion is the undying loyalty of Sebastian – even if he is bound by a contract he is still completely and utterly loyal.

In comparison, there is not much we know about Claudia and Undertaker to speculate on, but let's try work with the example at hand. Themes of loyalty and a sort of 'partnership' come to mind –actually I have a better idea as I am writing this, I am realising that perhaps the parallel of Sebastian isn't Undertaker but Claudia.

What if we think of the Ciel/Sebastian dynamic to be reversed with Undertaker/Claudia.

In the sense that Claudia was the watchdog of the queen, and perhaps Undertaker was the one who required her help? What if the whole thing with the Queen was because they had to team up against her and that ultimately caused Claudia to die? (there is a longer theory to be made about that as well)

Or perhaps they were just like Ciel/Sebastian, and Claudia made some sort of deal with Undertaker?

Or if we go back to theory of love – my favourite headcanon ofc, I believe Undertaker and Claudia were in love, however the circumstances in which they met and fell in love could be either of the aforementioned, or any situation really.

Back to the relationship dynamics though, maybe in contrast to the loyalty of Ciel/Sebastian perhaps there was some betrayal involved? but I highly doubt it since Undertaker doesn't seem like the kind to betray, nor would he be so obsessed and sad if it was Claudia who had betrayed him.

Finally, we know that the demon contract will be over once Ciel dies and Sebastian consumes him, but in the case of Claudia – her death might have not been the end of their relationship, but rather the start? As in that his obsession with reanimating corpses and defying death would have started after her death.

So, Undertaker's quest started after her death, and Sebastian's quest will end with Ciel's death. If that could be a mirror of sorts, I'm not sure.

There's also the fact that Undertaker was dead to begin with – since he met Claudia when he was already a grim reaper, so I suppose the singular over-arching theme here is in fact death.

3. Undertaker ultimate goal

Since I view Undertaker's story from a tragic romance lens, I have always imagined his ultimate goal to be to bring Claudia back to life – reanimate her corpse so to say.

The biggest evidence for me is actually this picture of him dancing with a skeleton on the cover of Chapter 54 –  the flowers could also be symbolic but I'm thinking of doing a separate post for that.

Anyhow, his scythe is also a literal skeleton.

Undertaker is. once again seen snuggling up to a skeleton, on the cover of Chapter 109:

It could be argued that it's just symbolism for his necromancy side-hustle, but I think it goes deeper, the kind of affectionate display has to mean something, and I think it is a reference to his lover – Claudia being dead.

But also on a deeper, he is literally clinging to her bones refusing to let her go.

Therefore, I think his ultimate goal and obsession with defying death is all because he wants to bring back Claudia.

In fact, if we follow his 'experiments' from the start, he has actually made progress, from grotesque bizarre dolls with zombie-like minds on the campania, we went to seemingly human-looking and normal behaving ones like Layla. His blood collecting scheme is also working wonders, through which he managed to bring the finest of his creations so far – R!Ciel.

However, if bringing back R!Ciel was his goal, why does he require such an extensive network? I think the R!Ciel was only a prototype before he performs his final miracle on Claudia.

4. Backstory for Undertaker

Finally, what we really want to understand is why Undertaker is doing all this.

Even before he met Claudia, we need to know how he died and became a grim reaper in the first place – as well as what caused him to defect and hate the other grim reapers so much.

I think the most important part of this will be the mourning lockets.

I think when Ciel finally returns them to Undertaker we will get a flashback that explains his ties to each of the seven names in the lockets, the final one being Claudia herself.

I imagine Undertaker's life was miserable which pushed him to the difficult choice of ending it himself, and as a grim reaper he might have witnessed the unfortunate deaths of people which deeply moved him – and those are the people in his lockets, which he collected over the years being a grim reaper? That could be a theory for sure.

Claudia's hair being twisted in the infinity shape definitely stands out, which is another clue for her relationship with Undertaker being a special one.

Therefore, I believe Undertaker's backstory will be either told as a long arc in itself covering his life from the start to present. Or it will be told through a set of flashbacks where other characters such as Othello or even Tanaka explain his involvement in their respective arcs.

I also have a theory of when we could possibly get his flashback, but that will have to be a separate post.

To conclude, sorry for the long ramble and typos, I was happy to yap about undertaker thanks to you anon :) I hope your curiosity was fed and I look forward to hearing more interesting perspectives

[bizarre-dollhouse]

I need Kuro to end so I can decide whether it's a good series with some bad parts or a bad series with some good parts

[aquarianights]

if the undertaker flashback is generational angst and yearning with the ship of the century (UT x claudia) then I think i can forgive all the flaws, yes i am delusional

[ranmaoshousewife]

Everything is a Black Butler reference if the hyperfixation is strong enough

[aquarianights]

me with dracula: a love tale

[sakasakiii]

elrond through the ages based on one glorious panel from chapter 95 of Black Butler (hopefully i got that right....). in the context of this sequence, i always thought it was sad to think abt how many people elrond has lost throughout his life alongside how remarkable he is to remain "as kind as summer" still by the time the hobbit rolls around 🥺

i redrew elrond's poses based on ciel's in the original panels BUT i forgot what page exactly the original panel sequence is... however!! if you scroll down to the middle half of this blog post you can find the original reference pic :D warning that it includes heavy spoilers for the black butler manga so u could just alternatively google 'ciel phantomhive running' and it'd probably be one of the first results that pop up haha

[aquarianights]

I am the target audience for this post, no one gets these two pieces of media the way i do fr what do yall know about yearning

[ena333333]

when i draw undertaker i suddenly realize he barely has any eyebrows 😂

[aquarianights]

so I watched dracula: a love tale last night, and im afraid my brain chemistry has been altered forever it just hit THE right spot of yearning angst dark gothic romance.

the film itself was brilliant in terms of direction and storytelling, but the actor?? he carried the entire movie actually i was ENTRANCED by this adaptation, yes it's very serious to me.

And of course, since this blog is about my beloved, how could I watch a movie about 400 years of yearning after your dead wife and not think about the man the myth the legend the cedric k. ros undertaker my love

now this is not a theory (yet) but i do wonder if yana had some inspiration from the coppola film when she was developing this character. An undead character desperately waiting ages for his love to come back (reincarnated or reanimated), the whole character arc of originating from nobility, who knows what Undertaker's real background is... 👀

Anyhow, this movie reawakened the deep vampire yearning within me and now i must lock back in to write theories (and maybe fanfiction) about every character that fits this archetype.