A tragic parallel between the F.O.L orphanage and Baron Kelvinâs workhouse
I wanted to point out that itâs interesting âthe oldest siblingsâ of each group actually arenât the ones getting their âfledging dayâ first.Â
In fact, as we could see with this chapter, little Ginny who was scared of horses, something unbefitting of her aptitude as a Corgi, is the one who got a sudden âfledging dayâ.Â
Thanks to this chapter, itâs also pretty obvious that âthe oldest siblingsâ know where the other kids are sent, as indicated by Oliverâs and Artieâs scared reactions in this chapter.
The âoldest siblingsâ being aware of whatâs going on also explains why Oliver sort of âprotectedâ Daniel, when he conveyed to the adults that he didnât fit in the Collie group.Â
In other words, when the operation needs a kid (for blood or some other reason), itâs those who donât fit in who get taken first so, Ginny aside, we should also definitely worry about Daniel but also Nick from the Pomeranian group.
Focusing a little bit on Artie, a Mastiff, who brought Daniel, a Collie, to his class and Oliver who interrupted Daniel talking about âfledging dayâ, it seems the âoldest siblingsâ are trying as hard as they can to protect the other kids from meeting a terrible fate. This also explains Theoâs helpful attitude with Ginny in the last chapter:Â
However, despite Theoâs best efforts, the adults noticed that Ginny was not living up to her aptitudes as a Corgi and sheâs now about to reach âfledging dayâ. ://
The âoldest siblingsâ also definitely know that Doll is probably the one whoâs watching over the whole orphanage operation, as indicated by their reactions when Snake introduced himself as Dollâs acquaintanceâŠ
âŠAnd itâs very interesting, because I think it creates a parallel with Dollâs own situation, back when she was alive.Â
After all, as a kid from Kelvinâs workhouse, when she joined Noahâs Ark, Doll began abducting kids with Joker and co to satisfy Kelvinâs madness but also to protect their younger siblings back at the orphanage. However, this was all for naught, as Kelvin had already killed those kids for his mad project, something our!Ciel discovered at the end of the arc.
At F.O.L orphanage, the âoldest siblingsâ act similarly: they were probably told the sad truth behind this orphanage and they have no other way but to go along with it in order to survive, which makes them accomplices, while still trying as hard as they can to protect many of their fellow âsiblingsâ so that they wonât get to their âfledging dayâ too quickly.Â
Itâs tragic really and, since they think Snake and Finny are Dollâs friends, they probably wonât trust them to help. :/Â
The single silver ray of hope I have is that Theo reminds Finny of someone: could be either twins or it could be a kid from Finnyâs own tragic past from that scientific lab in Germany and, in that case, if Theo can eventually trust Finny, then maybe Finny and Snake will learn the truth and help save all these kids.
It would also make a beautiful parallel with Theo reading Fenian cycleâŠÂ
âŠsince our Finny is indeed stronger than many others and could definitely help saving them.Â
TL;DR Doll probably pushed the âoldest siblingsâ into the same situation that she experienced when she was alive: become accomplices in order to survive but also to protect innocent children, which is exactly how she lost herself and died. Hereâs to hoping that Snake (who wasnât a part of Noahâs Ark abduction ring) and Finny (whoâs very strong) will be able to realize the truth in time, in order to help these children.Â
Totally agree, though Iâd like to add something more sinister about the top student in each class.
I think the only reason they havenât been fledged already (and bled-out or something) is because their souls are being molded to fit the bodies of their respective star lords.
If the top students get fledged out, it might be for both their blood and their souls. Everyone sorted into a class has the âopportunityâ to end up being the best fit, based on the âshape of their soulsâ, but only one or two would probably be used in attempts for it. The rest just end up being used for their blood.
Iâm half expecting Undertaker to later explain he got the idea of using children for this from seeing how Sebastian manipulates our earlâs soul to âseasonâ him for a meal. It would be easier to mold the souls of children than to change the souls of adults, after allâŠ.
Taking the discussion in the notes one step further, Iâm beginning to wonder if the class headsâ attempts to save the younger children from fledging is an intentional part of the âsoul-shapingâ process:
Iâd been puzzled over FOLâs curriculum since chapter 194, since while I agreed that the parallels with the Lords of the Stars was intentional and that both blood and souls were its likely âproductsâ, the results seemed oddly superficial to me. Like, a soul in this series isnât just accumulated knowledge or skills, right? Learning how to be a butler wonât make you violently protective like Polaris, and being a well-read boy whoâs good at board games does not a Ciel Phantomhive make, etc. It seemed to me at first that FOL was being managed by someone who had an âincorrectâ understanding of souls, a fool like Baron Heathfield.
But now I realize I was being too premature- I shouldâve given Yana the benefit of the doubt.
Different though all the Lords of the Stars may be from each other, they all share some kind of âprotectiveâ fixation: R!Ciel is obsessed with his brother, Polaris is fanatically devoted to Lord Sirius, Al exists to âtake Laylaâs pain awayâ and Layla in turn depends on Al, and Doll would do anything- even things she finds morally reprehensible- for her siblings. And this is a trait we also see in the FOL class heads: while we havenât yet met the head Corgi, Theo, Artie, and Oliver are all doing everything they can to subtly guide their younger siblings away from being fledged.
Whether theyâve been explicitly told what fledging really is or have figured it out on their own, Iâm beginning to think that the four class heads arenât actually fighting the system by trying to prevent it from happening to their siblings- theyâre unwittingly achieving exactly what FOL was designed to do. If Undertaker wanted to (1) secure a consistent source of blood, (2) find out more about how souls develop as part of his ongoing rebellion against death, and (3) make viable soul substitutes for R!Ciel and the other Lords, then the exact sequence of events weâre seeing play out behind the scenes at FOL would allow him to do just that.
This would also mean that the curriculum at FOL isnât actually the thing that shapes any of these kidsâ souls at all, and being the epitome of one of the four classesâ aptitudes doesnât automatically make a given child a potential soul donor. Instead, what actually causes the âcream to rise to the topâ wrt the class heads is setting up a situation that inculcates their strong desire (could one even say something like âtheir strong episodesâ??) to protect the other children.Â
(As an aside, this whole arrangement would also fit neatly into how I think this manga defines souls as a concept, which Iâve written about here. It would make this sub-arc not just a much-needed pendant piece with the circus arc but an excellent encapsulation of some of the longest-running themes of the entire series.)
TL;DR: Itâs not that FOL is making soul substitutes and the class heads are going against it by trying to stop the younger kids from fledging; FOL is making soul substitutes and the class heads are causing it to happen by trying to stop the younger kids from fledging.
What are yâallâs thoughts on this possibility?
Iâm @-ing @abybweisse on this since weâve spoken on this topic before:
Latest chapter makes it really apparent that FOL isnât just selecting advanced class students who are âlikeâ O!C, theyâre putting them through a replica of his life. Heâs an orphan, theyâre orphans. He desperately wanted to go outside to play, now so do they. He suddenly found himself alone at age 10, so do they, etc. (Which also puts R!C wondering if heâs feeling what his brother felt in ch149 in an entirely different light- is he trying to condition himself to be more like O!C for some reason??)
This whole time weâve been approaching this from the angle that this is for R!C, to make him more stable. But Iâm now thinking these boysâ souls arenât being shaped like O!Câs to shove in R!Câs bodyâŠ.but instead to shove down Sebastianâs throat.
The demonâs said that heâs invested too much into cultivating his prey to give up on devouring his delicious soul. UT has on more than one occasion said that Sebastianâs gotta go, as has R!C. If the demon wonât go down without a fight, why not offer him a deal: Leave O!Câs one tasty soul alone, and in exchange get dozens of souls pre-seasoned to taste just like it. I donât necessarily think that plan would work, because if Nick is any indication the Poms arenât really all that much like O!C as a person*, but I can see it being a plausible failsafe if UT canât kill Sebastian outright. (also since these conditioning similarities seem pretty surface-level, petition for us all to refer to this class as âthe SuperfiCielsâ)
As for the ones who âfoster out,â maybe their souls just donât taste right so theyâre bled out. (Since the other classes appear to only (ââ) be going through intensive skill training, Iâm wondering if their primary purpose is being indoctrinated to be perfectly loyal covert âprivate soldiersâ like the Phantomhive servants, perhaps for their Aurora funders? And UT may or may not also be trying to soul-match them to the other star lords for testing purposes)
What are your thoughts?
Edited to add: It might also be both options: The most O!C-like soul of them all goes to R!C, maybe???, and the rest are offered to Sebastian.
*With how this assignment is already shaping up, I really, Really need to actually make that long-overdue post on what I think a soul might be in this series. It even ties in to the Mother 3 theory!
Reblogging my own post to add that I just made a big long post about what souls could be in this series, which includes a totally different reading on what might be going on at the orphanage (although that post is over 2k words long and kinda-sorta rambling, so be forewarned).
So, frustratingly enough for a series about selling your soul for revenge, we still havenât gotten any clear definition of what a soul actually is in this series. Â All we really know for sure is that:
Having a soul makes you alive, not having one makes you dead
They can be âcultivatedâ/seasoned/shaped (this part is really important), but this isnât an objective measurement, and Yana once compared the taste of a soul to the subjectivity of how food tastes
Per UT, you canât make another personâs soul your own (as of the Campania arc, at least)
Grim reapers canât directly perceive or detect them as a demon can, but they can apparently handle them during collection
Basic BDs are drawn to them somehow (unknown at present if advanced BDs like R!C and Layla/Al are as well, but if Layla thought Bard was dead after being stabbed when he actually wasnât, Iâm gonna err on the side of ânoâ)
Demons eat them and can sense them, but thatâs harder to do when the target is unconscious
For a while it also seemed like the Reapersâ superiors were in charge of souls, but the most recent interplay with Ronald and William (as of the end of the Athena sub-arc) would instead seem to indicate that while the âbrassâ are observing and collecting souls for some reason, they may not be the ones making them.
Critically, we also know that, in the absence of a soul, advanced BDs are able to approximate life (thinking and moving on their own) because of their episodes, i.e. their yearnings and desires for the future. This would indicate that a concatenation of âwantsâ is a good enough approximation of a soul, but not quite the same thing as one. So, whatâs something that can be molded and that impacts your life, and thatâs similar to a bunch of individual desires?
I think the only viable answer is âWillpowerâ or âResolveâ.
(Warning that this is a Long post of fwippy doing what fwippy does best: argue a really, really fine-and-probably-inconsequential point for several thousand words)
âWillpower is what Powers a living person,â really? Is that some kind of crappy pun??
Hear me out here. Itâs not just that the âpowerâ in willpower is like the âforceâ in life-force or some other English-language wordplay that doesnât make sense in a Japanese series; I do think thereâs observable evidence in the manga that supports this reading. Before getting any further, let me reiterate that Iâm only using the manga here- the anime and musicals are totally separate texts, and Iâm not going to deal with souls being stored in rings or anything like that.
We know Sebastian abhors nothing more than a quitter- we see it in the Emerald Witch arc, we even see it in his disdainful glances at the people using opium at Lauâs den (ftr Iâm Really not a fan of Yana demonizing substance use, but thatâs totally outside the scope of this post). He isnât interested in poor-quality souls, like those that would try to find an easy way out of a bad situation. In fact, whenever he seems most pleasantly surprised with his masterâs development, itâs in moments like Chapter 36, Chapter 63, or Chapter 147 where O!C declares his intent to keep pushing forward with his stated goals, regardless of any temptation to give up and settle down, regardless of despair or setbacks. Indeed, at the end of the Circus arc, Sebastian muses to himself that what fascinates him about humans if that, even though we drag each other down, we still keep trying to find some way to âget over the horizonâ, e.g. to keep moving on despite all the self-inflicted despair around us. I think this indicates that, to this demon, a strong will makes for a tasty soul. And as Yana described in her aforementioned post on how souls taste, Sebastian is free to pursue different ways of seasoning a soul, i.e. various ways of shaping his masterâs will.Â
I first want to go back to the Emerald Witch arc a little bit, because I think it provides the strongest support against conflating the soul with the personality or emotions or anything like that. First, letâs remember Sebastianâs thoughts at the end of Chapter 63- that O!Câs despair-soaked vengeance will make his soul delicious. Itâs tempting to think that this means Sebastian simply wants O!C to be as sad as possible (and there are certainly a lot of funny shitposts to that extent), or for his personality to be gloomy and dour, or even for his emotions to sway towards misery. After all, UT does say that Sebastian âonly brings misery to the Earl.â But if that were the case, wouldnât you think the demon would be overjoyed at O!Câs mental breakdown in the Emerald Castle, since thatâs the zenith of his masterâs despair and misery? Instead, heâs furious.Â
We know that O!Câs hysterics in that arc arenât the result of a change in his personality or emotions, as later flashbacks reveal that this has always been how heâs felt, that heâs always believed himself to not be worth protecting compared with his brother- itâs just that normally he doesnât let those feelings get in the way of his goals. Instead, O!C has broken his contractual terms by abandoning his desire for revenge, which is ruining the quality of his soul. O!Câs iron will was temporarily broken due to exposure to the miasma, and thatâs what made Sebastian about ready to give up on him. And in turn, itâs O!Câs declaration that heâs pursuing revenge for his own sake that stills the demonâs hand.Â
Iâd also argue that strength of will can be a double-edged sword. UT likes reminding O!C that he only has one soul, and that he needs to take good care of it. Sure, O!Câs laser focus on avenging himself has kept him going up until this point, but the more he lets Sebastian shape his soul for him (and lbr, Sebastian has absolutely had an indelible influence here), the more heâs eschewed opportunities to broaden his horizons by connecting with other people. No wonder UT seems pleased whenever he sees O!C pursuing non-vengeance-based actions like saving Harcourt during the Weston arc, since itâs likely that Vincent and Claudiaâs resolves were also forcibly narrowed or put into turmoil by the burden of being the Watchdog. Is it a really fine distinction? Yeah. But Iâd argue itâs an important one for the themes of the series, which Yana has referred to as âa paean to humansâ. Iâd almost say that UT isnât just talking about O!C, in a way heâs speaking to humanity as a whole- a kind of âif youâre too stubborn and close-minded youâll ruin your lifeâ message.
Other evidence from the BD side of things
If soul =will =life, then by the same logic, Episodes =a critical mass of desires-or-yearnings âapproximating being alive. I think it makes sense that a bunch of discrete yearnings, or desires, or âwantsâ are of a similar-but-lesser nature to the essential form of a personâs expressed will.
Going off on that, does an interruption of a BDâs yearnings lead to an interruption of their ability to be life-like? I would argue that it does. As I see it, every time we see an advanced BD start failing, itâs because thereâs something impacting their desires. When R!C collapses at the end of Chapter 149, he mentions his frustration at his body not moving the way he wants it to, alongside wanting to run right to where his brother is- which would seem to contradict his desire to fight him. Could this be a case where conflicting desires cancel each other out, causing his body to start reverting to a corpse-like state? Then thereâs Polaris, who becomes visibly weakened in Chapter 169 while in the middle of a fit about potentially loosing his master- which as I see it, is an example of severe doubts about being able to achieve his desires stopping him from functioning. As for Layla, sheâs able to keep fighting and running around even after being shot from the heart, but only collapses when she despairs over Al abandoning her. Itâs likely that Layla wants Al to be there to protect her from pain, and if thatâs no longer the case, thatâs what stops her dead in her tracks (pun intended).* All of these cases happen with totally different levels of blood, which makes me think blood transfusions are a stopgap measure to force the body to keep going, but that they canât fix the fundamental issue of a shaken resolve. (I think if it as aspirin- itâll fix the symptoms of a headache, but not the cause.)
(Iâd also argue that the blue cult employs a lot of double-speak wrt âradiance.â Like, most signs point to it just meaning blood, but then Blavat tells O!C he has a radiance thatâs being endangered by Sebastian, and we know the demon doesnât care about O!Câs blood beyond it, yâknow, keeping him alive. So Iâd say that the âshape of the soulâ could also be referred to as âthe radiance of the soulâ as well. e.g. the more the demon impacts what O!C wills himself to do, the further heâs driven to depravity, the more his radiance is diminished.)
This may have major implications for this new arc with the orphanage. It seems clear that FOLâs Pomeranian class is being modeled after O!C. I know I just wrote a post yesterday that this could be to create a bunch of substitute meals for Sebastian, but now as Iâve been writing this post a different possibility springs to mind. It could very well be the case that these boysâ souls arenât going anywhere, and that this whole operation is an experiment on UTâs part to see How a personâs will, or a set of desires, can be shaped by external circumstances, which in turn are recorded in the cinematic record. If he can figure that out, the it might give him the last piece of the puzzle he needs to fix the flaws in his BDs and make them truly equivalent to living people with souls. This might also explain why the Pom curriculum seems like only a surface-level approximation of O!Câs life- if you want to figure out what factors shape a personâs will, you have to first weed out those that donât. If simply going through a simulacrum of O!Câs circumstances doesnât make the Pomâs souls shaped like his, then that could help UT narrow down the factors that do impact wills/desires.
It would also lend credence to him having tampered with Dollâs cinematic records to see if that influences her desires, as her recounting of the night the troupe died is so factually off from what actually happened that sheâs either lying or cannot actually remember anything about O!C betraying them, or even being their target in the first place. Itâs like heâs trying to figure out how best to stabilize a mass of desires- do you mess with someoneâs memories, do you carefully restrict their experiences, or is it something else?
(Update post-Chapter 197: nevermind that stuff about Doll; my assessment of the FOL situation has evolved, see here)
What makes you so sure a soul isnât your personality, or your emotions, or your morals?
I know thereâs been much discussion on this and other platforms about the soul being your personality, or your ability to differentiate between right and wrong, and while this is certainly the case for countless other series, I think itâs off-base here. I do, however, think that personality, morals, as well as life experiences/memories (i.e. the cinematic record) and even the condition of oneâs body all definitely color (or perhaps, âshapeâ or âseasonâ) the soul, but they arenât the same thing as a soul. Think of it like individual ingredients in a meal- you need flour and eggs to make pancakes, but neither of those on their own is a pancake.
Plus, Sebastian hates O!Câs personality! It annoys him, he frequently grumbles to himself about his master being a shitty brat, etc. But that doesnât stop him from thinking his soul is going to taste great. And then thereâs Janeâs mention of âthe shape of the soulâ when mentioning other factors such as appearance, personality, or voice that would make someone similar to the Baroness Heathfield. So whoever it was who told Chris Heathfield about souls, they made a distinction between it and a personality.
Going back to the soulless BDs, from what weâve seen of Doll thus far, her personality doesnât seem different from when she was alive. Iâd also strongly argue that the same holds true for R!C, since he appears to have always been....yâknow, Like Thatâą ...even when he was very young. So I donât think the condition of being a soulless BD is a âcame back wrongâ situation where your personality is inherently warped. That would also, I feel, be kind of a cop-out with the themes of the series, which so frequently focus on the ways in which we as people foolishly screw ourselves over. If BDs not having a soul means they donât have full control of themselves, then they canât be as responsible for their actions as a living person would be, which would entirely undercut the tension of the Blue Revenge arc (plus itâs also a really,,, eugenics-y argument imo, but thatâs all Iâll say on that here).
The emotion argument is the easiest to refute, imo, as weâve seen R!C, Polaris, Layla/Al, and Doll display a wide range of emotions as BDs- even emotions like despair and frustration that it wouldnât actually benefit them to have. If their emotional responses come across as too magnified, or too subdued or otherwise off-kilter, Iâd argue that this is more of a general trauma response to (a) being in pretty stressful circumstances and (b) suddenly finding yourself to be a rotting, quasi-vampiric ghoul with no serious prospects of getting better. After all, itâs not like Soma or Lizzie are their normal selves at the moment either, given what theyâre going through.
As for morals, given that this series is full of people (both on our protagonistâs side and his opponents) with utterly warped moralities who are still very much alive, Iâd say the soul canât really be a contributing factor to morality. If anything, itâs the other way around, where your sense of right and wrong affect your soul, but isnât itself the soul. I also just....I donât think admitted villain-lover Yana Toboso is concerned with characters ânot doing the right thing,â yâknow? Thereâs even another blog post where she mediates on the difficulties of having an objective set of morals, so itâd be a really odd turn for her to suddenly take a black-and-white âpeople who do bad things are Badâ stance.
And finally, letâs not forget that, when Lizzie runs back to Sphere, Sebastian uses different language and imagery from how souls are visually portrayed in the manga when talking about the human heart being something even a demon canât shackle. So I think we can cross out âfeelingsâ from the list of what a soul could be as well.
So in conclusion...
I think thereâs ample evidence in the manga to indicate that a soul is equivalent to a personâs will (or resolve, but I view those as the same thing in this case). I do not think a soul is your personality, or your feelings or anything else like that, and in turn I think the fundamental flaw in the advanced BDs that needs to be fixed is an issue of their resolves, with blood transfusions being only a temporary solution to keep them up and running. Iâm hoping that this current assignment at the orphanage offers more information on this topic, although Iâm also fully prepared for it to entirely prove me wrong.
*Itâs also really interesting to me that, as a system, Layla and Al had (I would presume) one soul but two entirely different-yet-matching sets of desires when they were alive: Al wants to protect Layla, Layla wants to be protected by Al. They still have two distinct selves without a soul, which to me would lend further credence to a soul not being a personality.
Bonus Mother 3 Theory content!!
This oneâs for @abybweisseâ: So, we know the Dark Dragon in Mother 3 has to follow the will or the intentions of the person whose heart it eats, which to me reads as being Very similar to a soul being a will in this series. I think there is some credence to that relationship in the game influencing Yana when she was coming up with how souls work in her manga- that sheâs iterating on that idea and putting her own spin on it throughout the series.
I'm @-ing @abybweisse on this since we've spoken on this topic before:
Latest chapter makes it really apparent that FOL isn't just selecting advanced class students who are "like" O!C, they're putting them through a replica of his life. He's an orphan, they're orphans. He desperately wanted to go outside to play, now so do they. He suddenly found himself alone at age 10, so do they, etc. (Which also puts R!C wondering if he's feeling what his brother felt in ch149 in an entirely different light- is he trying to condition himself to be more like O!C for some reason??)
This whole time we've been approaching this from the angle that this is for R!C, to make him more stable. But I'm now thinking these boys' souls aren't being shaped like O!C's to shove in R!C's body....but instead to shove down Sebastian's throat.
The demon's said that he's invested too much into cultivating his prey to give up on devouring his delicious soul. UT has on more than one occasion said that Sebastian's gotta go, as has R!C. If the demon won't go down without a fight, why not offer him a deal: Leave O!Câs one tasty soul alone, and in exchange get dozens of souls pre-seasoned to taste just like it. I don't necessarily think that plan would work, because if Nick is any indication the Poms arenât really all that much like O!C as a person*, but I can see it being a plausible failsafe if UT can't kill Sebastian outright. (also since these conditioning similarities seem pretty surface-level, petition for us all to refer to this class as âthe SuperfiCielsâ)
As for the ones who "foster out," maybe their souls just don't taste right so they're bled out. (Since the other classes appear to only (ââ) be going through intensive skill training, Iâm wondering if their primary purpose is being indoctrinated to be perfectly loyal covert "private soldiers" like the Phantomhive servants, perhaps for their Aurora funders? And UT may or may not also be trying to soul-match them to the other star lords for testing purposes)
What are your thoughts?
Edited to add: It might also be both options: The most O!C-like soul of them all goes to R!C, maybe???, and the rest are offered to Sebastian.
*With how this assignment is already shaping up, I really, Really need to actually make that long-overdue post on what I think a soul might be in this series. It even ties in to the Mother 3 theory!
This is going to sound weird, but Iâve gotten a sudden influx of new followers over the last few days & Iâm not sure why. Iâll preface this by saying that I am fully aware that this is a Really Odd Stance & not actually how this website is supposed to function, but I am Very old-fashioned and would prefer to only be followed by people I know irl (which are like 3 ppl on here). (Iâm the same way on other social media platforms ftr, this isnât just a tumblr thing. I donât even really follow people on here- I just manually visit their pages each day! Thatâs weird, right?? Itâs not how this website is supposed to work either! Yet here I am đ)
I wouldnât be so mean as to block anyone, bc itâs not as though Iâve ever communicated this weird position anywhere, but please be under advisement to unfollow, if you would be so kind.
(Also Iâm mostly on here to be able to converse w/ ppl in the notes of their posts; I make my own posts here so rarely that you wouldnât really be missing out on any content anyway.)
in the twins' confirmation scene, when RCiel tells Sebastian to be quiet, there is a panel of servants' shocked faces, but Why do they put on those looks? Aren't they used to seeing Sebastian getting belittled? I mean, they've seen his humiliation before, right? Even being in public can't stop Frances from pulling his hair and yelling at him. RCiel did nothing compared to that. Or did he? (ă»_ă»ăŸ
Hey! Nah, the scene you mention...
...mostly serves to prove that real!Ciel is overall less tolerant and kind than our!Ciel, which explains why Tanaka has a rather sad look on his face.Â
Our!Ciel sometimes mocks Seb for sure (because of the contract) and he insists that his orders are followed if the servants question them, but he never talked down servants simply for being servants, like real!Ciel is doing here.Â
In other words, if Finny, Mey, Bard or Snake had opened their mouths instead of Seb in that scene, they would have most likely received the exact same demeaning comment. Thatâs why theyâre a bit shocked.Â
BTW, since you mentioned Frances, she also never talked down a servant for being a servant. She harps about Sebâs haircut (which is horrendous, letâs be clear) and messes him around with him because sheâs suspicious of him, but never talks him down by reminding him of his condition, so thatâs a big difference with real!Cielâs attitude here.
TL;DR real!Ciel is way harsher and less tolerant than his younger brother, but we been knew. ¯\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
I normally reply instead of reblogging (and it certainly isnât my intent to be confrontational here), but this is going to be way too long for replies, and the reading many people have that âthe scene where R!Ciel scolds Sebastian is meant to indicate to us that he holds servants in disregardâ has always really bothered me, since I really donât think this interpretation is consistent with what we see from him in the text. Heâs absolutely a shitty little asshole, make no mistake, but I do think anon may be onto something here as to why this scene with Sebastian is significant:
First off, we donât need to speculate as to how R!Ciel might respond if one of the other servants spoke out of turn to him, because itâs happened in the manga already. Remember, in chapter 129 Finny (a back-of-house servant who, based on etiquette of the time, shouldnât be speaking directly to a member of the nobility at all) calls R!Ciel an impostor directly to his face, but Finny isnât chastised for his impertinence. Instead, R!Ciel merely uses that as an opportunity to smugly reveal himself as âthe real Ciel Phantomhive.â (Plus he also just stands there and lets Tanaka waltz onto the scene and rattle off the history of the Phantomhive twins unbidden, so thereâs that too.) This is his debut chapter, so if Yana wanted to send a clear message to us readers how differently R!Ciel treats servants compared with his brother, she passed up a great opportunity to do so.
Additionally, even in situations where being harsh to a servant would be warranted, Yana hasnât written him to be as stupid as to let his personal distaste bleed into his behavior. In chapter 169 Polaris is shrieking at R!Ciel that he has no right to be OK with the destruction of the Heathfield facility, all while violently ripping apart his bedroom and causing a scene. Yet instead of barking at Polaris to stop acting like a lunatic or scolding him for destroying his masterâs property (and lbr, he wouldnât be entirely out of line for doing so), R!Ciel calmly deescalates the situation. This doesnât mean that R!Ciel is secretly âa nice personâ or that he likes Polaris (he isnât; he doesnât), but rather this demonstrates how heâs extremely manipulative and quite good at steering the topic of a conversation to his advantage. (And Yana has him do this consistently: remember in chapter 151 when Francis is probing him as to what O!Cielâs motives could have been- i.e. getting too close to exposing the truth about the demonic sacrifice- he expertly redirects that line of inquiry to instead focus on him becoming the Watchdog.)
Finally, there are the larger circumstances of the exchange with Sebastian. The demon is specifically asking about why UT is so obsessed with the Phantomhive family, getting towards the likely truth of UT=Cedric. From how R!Ciel treats UT, I donât even think he knows the answer to that question, so itâs somewhat understandable that heâd be irritated with this interloping demon asking after sensitive private matters. Thereâs also the issue that R!Cielâs characterization of Sebastian isâŠnot entirely incorrect. In a case of âworst person you know just made a good point, â it is true that throughout the series, Sebastian consistently oversteps his bounds as a butler, whether it be disobeying orders to coerce information out of Beast or accusing his master of letting his aunt get killed. And Tanaka, as a supervisory steward who likely realizes that Sebastian isnât all that he seems, does bear some responsibility for allowing this improper behavior to persist. Sure, O!Ciel insults Sebastian from time to time, but itâs always an ineffectual âIâll kill youâ in private, or a childish âdrink this spiked lemonade;â he never actually hits the demon where it hurts- in his pride as a butler. I think it is intentional on Yanaâs part that no one has ever spoken to Sebastian like this in front of his coworkers- but UT has said similar things to him in their prior confrontations.Â
Does any of this mean that R!Ciel is actually a good person? No, absolutely not! Let me be clear that heâs written to be a piece of shit whoâs laser-focused on his brother to the detriment of everything and everyone else, thatâs for certain. Ultimately, as I see it, Yana is trying to tell us that this really is A Sebastian Thing, rather than putting focus on R!Cielâs thoughts towards servants as a whole. After all, he also says to Sebastian during the skirmish with UT and Grelle in chapter 142 that the demon âisnât actually been a part of the Phantomhive household,â and âwill be made to leave soonâ- which echoes Blavatâs offer to help remove the demon from O!Cielâs side at the beginning of the Blue Cult arc. I think Yanaâs making it as obvious as she can whatâs really going on here, and how formidable an opponent R!Ciel is to his brother, while also clearly demonstrating how heâs an indefensible dirtbag who is doing Quite Literally Everything Wrong.
isn't ronald a bit too apprehensive in this ch? collecting souls is their job, i get it, but it seems too much even for ron. what i'm trying to say is i believe there's more to it, like ron must complete a task by collecting the soul(s), maybe its something relevant to the investigation
Investigation at Athena Sanatorium
Well, I was saying earlier in posts (as well as in comments) that Ronald might not be there simply to collect souls. Weâve seen this before: a reaper sent ahead to investigate before a large number of people are killed. Examples:
William is sent to Noahâs Arc Circus before many of the performers are killed at Baron Kelvinâs manor and Phantomhive Manor. They are not killed on circus grounds, nor are the kidnapped children killed there, though many children also die at Kelvinâs manor. We donât know why he was sent to investigate, but it could be due to the fact many of the deaths are caused by Sebastian, a demon. And William is the one who follows to Kelvinâs manor, so thatâs the important part, not the deaths at Phantomhive Manor, where Grelle ends up going. These impending deaths are investigated because most of them are caused by a demon.
Ronald is sent ahead to board Campania, in preparation for ~1500 expected to die there. Itâs not because of Sebastian this time but because of Undertaker. The ship is destined to hit an iceberg anyway, but Undertaker brings all those bizarre dolls, and they kill people even before the ship hits the iceberg. Specifically, Ronald says he was sent to investigate all the reanimated corpses, because the reaper organization doesnât understand why they are walking around. Ronald has to prove that their souls had already been collected; they really are walking corpses, not paperwork goof-ups or reapers failing to do their job. These deaths have to be investigated because extra deaths are being caused by soulless bodies and a rogue reaper.
The mystery person shown in ch137 is likely a reaper sent to investigate the impending deaths at the cultâs sacrificial ritual. We know itâs not Grelle or Ronald, because they are clueless about it. It could be William⊠or someone we havenât yet met. Not all of the deaths would be under investigation; the children previously killed by the cult didnât work to summon any demons, so thereâs nothing âunusualâ about their deaths (they were killed by humans). This event is investigated because the majority of the deaths that day are caused by a demon answering a summons and making a contract.
Madam Red is being investigated by Grelle⊠until Grelle decides to help with the murders. Iâm not sure why Madam Red was actually being investigated; sheâs just a human⊠on a killing spree. Perhaps reapers investigate serial killers, even if they are mere humans? đ€·ââïž
So, whatâs interesting enough about this situation, at Athena Sanatorium, to get the reaper organization to send someone ahead to investigate, days or even weeks before the impending deaths? Baldo works for someone who has a demon contract, but Baldo himself is human. Lau is probably just a human, too. So is Ada, and even Layla is probably a regular (though sadistic) human being. And the patients are very human.
But ch185 tells us that there will be a blood pickup the very next day, and we know (from Mey-Rinâs and Ran-Maoâs assignment) that Lord Polaris and other cloaked figures will arrive to help orchestrate that pickup, even if itâs just regular people who load up the carriages. And we know that Lord Polaris reports back to Undertaker and real Ciel after the operation at Heathfield Manor is destroyed. If Lord Polaris or another âlord of the starsâ shows up the next day at the sanatorium, they could kill people when they find out the blood isnât ready for pickup. These âlordsâ are advanced bizarre dolls, after all, so that would be deaths caused in unusual circumstances⊠and Lord Polaris is already on edge, angry at people for failing at their jobs. Considering what he says and does when he makes his previous report, he could easily âgo offâ and lash out against Ada or anyone else who refuses to let him take the collected blood⊠or when Ada tells him they stopped collecting.
But still. Why is Ronald snooping around and listening to Baldo and Ada talk? Itâs possible that Ada was on the list to die right then, but Baldo listens to her, gives her an ultimatum, and she complies. So, Baldo doesnât kill her. But that doesnât necessarily mean she was on the list for death just yet. Could be that Baldo was never going to shoot her; I mean the reapers might have already known she wasnât going to die right then. But âtomorrowâ, when the others come to pick up the blood? If they try to kill her, Ronald will be stuck with a decision to make: should he collect her soul⊠or should he give her a shinigami pass?
It would be very interesting if thatâs why we are privy to this particular investigation. We have yet to see a reaper choose not to collect. And he might decide that Ada living would make a large enough impact on humanity that it would be worth letting her live. Thatâs something Iâd like to see.
You raise a really good point about how unusual it is that Ronald has been at the Athena for a not-insignificant amount of time before whateverâs supposed to happen actually happens, and in particular one thing strikes me as odd about all these Reaper investigations: Why are they conducted as undercover operations in the first place? All the cases you point out certainly would warrant Reaper presence, but why would they be ordered (presumably by the Superiors) to masquerade as living people as part of these jobs? At least to me, it seems like many of these investigations would be far more efficient if the Reapers could stay incorporeal and follow anyone they need to while remaining undetected, and without having to go to the lengths of building up trust with their targets. I get that thereâs a narrative reason for the other characters to be aware of them, but even then it almost seems to go against the Dispatchâs injunctions to âimpartially collect without getting involved with the living or dead.â It seems particularly cruel to me, for these Reapers to be given a tantalizing opportunity to pretend that theyâre alive again, to be able to take in the organic smells of the living world and perhaps even make friends with a living person as part of their investigation, while understanding at the same time that itâs all a short-lived farce.
What Iâm wondering is if the cruel pointlessness is the point here. That is to say, if this just a more extreme version of how Sascha describes the Reapersâ punishment: to be exposed constantly to human suffering and death until such a time as theyâre supposed to be forgiven? Iâm thinking back to the Campania arc and how UT mentions âbeing seduced by the living worldâ- could it have been that one of these kinds of extended assignments was a contributing factor in his decision to break violently from headquarters?
I also canât help but notice that thereâs a kind of parallel between these assignments and what Bardâs doing- and what the Watchdogs have to do as part of their duties. In both cases, the person in question is expected to infiltrate and rub shoulders with people they know will typically die as part of their duties, and as we see with Bard (and indeed with O!C at the circus and at Weston), itâs hard not to develop some small attachment that would cause stress when the targets invariably are killed. In addition to what likely happened to Claudia, your post above has me wondering if another reason why UT hates the Queen is because she puts the Watchdogs through the same kind of hell the Superiors inflict on the Reapers.
For one reason or another I recently found myself browsing Alan Maysâ collection (linked here) of 1870s-80s acquaintance cards- essentially calling cards for flirting. While these cards are described as an American phenomenon, the layout of the first few cards in the collection is strikingly similar to Baron Heathfieldâs slip in Chapter 154- even down to the position of the âYesâ and âNoâ responses. This suggests to me that Yana (and/or her history consultant, Dr. Riko Murakami) was also aware of this collection (which, ftr, predates CH154 by many years). I had no idea!
Iâm tagging @abybweisse in this post, since I know you like to keep track of real-world versions of items used in the series, and thought you might get a kick out of this too.
So while I fully admit that trying to discern plot points in any given series by looking at merchandise is A Very Bad Idea...
These cartes de visite-style can badges (top left image, lower left set of 8) that Yana tweeted about today have caught my interest in a major way, to the point where Iâm breaking my normal radio silence and *gasp* making my own post on tumblr dot com.
Obligatory title character Sebastian aside, everyone featured is part of the Phantomhive family by blood or marriage...and then thereâs Undertaker. And while you could certainly argue that heâs just there as a parallel to Sebastian alongside the twins, Iâm not sure thatâs all there is to it?? Like, much as I love Frances and Alexis, theyâre a pretty deep cut for merch, yâknow? Unless of course, thereâs an intentional reason to include this roster of characters to the exclusion of more popular picks like Grelle or Charles Grey who are all over the rest of the anniversary goods...
What Iâm trying to say is...Iâm tagging @abybweisse here in case this makes you đđđ over the UT=CKR implications as much as I did. (I apologize terribly if this is bothersome ^^)
@fwippysays and @plague-of-insomnia have been making me think harder. đ (See this post and its comment notes.)
Instead of Sebastian finding Bardâs family and providing them with funds, saying itâs thanks to Bardâs new employment (or whatever), it could be that Sebastian is tasked to look for them and report back his findings⊠without necessarily making any contact with them.
Sebastian could return with the news that Bardâs been reported dead (KIA), his wife has already remarried (might have left a while ago, found another man, and was just waiting for that sort of news), and his son now calls someone else âdadâ.
Then it would be a matter of Sebastian giving Bard/Baldo the harsh reality check that his family has moved on without him and is better off without him, so he has no reason to return to the States. If Bard demands proof, Iâm sure Sebastian could supply some. Or at least âproof enoughâ for Bard to accept it.
This would be a bit like Sebastian telling Soma how heâs just a spoiled brat⊠or how âRinâ would have to run for the rest of her life, if she refused employment at Phantomhive Manor, simply because QÄ«ng BÄng wouldnât let her simply leave.
Instead of getting Bardâs loyalty from an assignment like this, Sebastian might just break Bardâs spirit. As far as our earl and Sebastian are concerned, thatâs probably a good start. Without a family to call his own anymore, Bard would be more open to accepting a new one.
See, now this discussion is making ME think that if this happens it paradoxically will secure Bardâs loyalty and respect for Sebastian. The demon seems to like when humans surprise him, whether it be through physical ability like Mey Rinâs eyes, or through resilience that goes against his meager-but-frequently-correct expectations of human behavior. Perhaps if this event does happen, Bard will finally come around to being part of the Phantomhive staff not by having his spirit broken by the news, but by accepting that the past is the past...
(Sorry in advance for more an*me talk) You had mentioned a little while ago that Yana may have gotten a small dig in against the s2 anime writers when Sebastian was differentiating himself from baser demons who betray their contractees. Do you think Undertaker's line in the Campania arc about how one person can never make another's soul their own was also a subtle jab at how, er, totally nutso s2 got with regard to souls-being-put-in-inanimate-objects-and-shoved-into-other-people's-bodies?
Dear Anon,
Ahhh, I do remember referring to this brilliant post by @pudeprinsesse in a relatively recent post of myself, but I just can't find/remember which it was, hahaha. But, regardless!!
Do you mean this line? (I translated this one myself because the English scanlation I found said nonsense.)
Yana is a master at diplomatic roasting, so yeah, I indeed donât put this line being a roast past her (;;âœâœâŒ;;) A series created in association with her name which SO blatantly disrespects her work deserves to be roasted.
I mean... for example, the series exists only because of the contract, and Yana made clear it is a strong, draconian, magical bond in her world. The S2 creators heard âdraconian bondâ and thought: âThatâs the same as a pinky swear between toddlers right?â
Related posts:
Characters of Season IIâŠ. what?!?!
More angry rants about the anime seasons I and II
My ratings for the Kuroshitsuji animes
Would I support a new faithful adaptation of Kuroshitsuji?
Yanaâs opinion on the anime
SebaCiel and the animeâs populism
Would I have preferred S2 if it focused on the new characters?
OMG, I almost forgot! Thank you....I guess??? for reminding me XD It was the most ridiculous thing I had seen in a long while at the time. Your words âancient and inscrutable demonic art of swordfightingâ are a GEM, I genuinely laughed out loud when I first read that. THANK you đ
Also, the thing with that sword was that it had to be pulled from Hannahâs guts, right? And that was Claudeâs strongest weapon considering how he chose it to fight a fellow demon with? It should be quite worrisome that access to your best weapon is dependent on the presence of someone else...
But I guess Claude doesnât have to worry to much, because the second best thing he has is TABLE KNIVES!!!
đżđŽđ„đŽđż
I honestly canât believe the writers wrote a fight between two demons who are both physically so strong they could effortlessly break stone walls with bare hands... and they let them fight each other crossing cutlery in their respective human forms.
I......... I........at this point I just want to know where I can get cutlery that sturdy. Good shit, A+ quality shit.
In your kuromyu21 review, you mention kuromyus adding depth to the manga story. I would like to ask you about those additions. Actually, about all story additions, aberhanks included. Could you rate them? Like maybe when stage adaptation hurts story in same way, dasnât give it justice, or when it fleshes out or portray same aspects of it better?
ăResponse to: Full review Kuromyu 2021ă
Dear Anon,
I would be very happy to answer you, but if I really were to do so for all story additions of all (Furukawa Era) Kuromyus, the post might end up becoming a book-worth of text.
May I perhaps ask you to give me one particular musical you are most interested in for me to write about? Or perhaps we could do a democratic voting?
Anon, this is your ask so if you prefer to have the ultimate say thatâs entirely fine too! Let me know what you prefer! (Nobody will accuse you of autocracy XD)
Now letâs vote, for what musical would you all like to see how the musical has added and subtracted from the original source material? Let me know by ask, reblog, or in the comments!
Reasons why I think o!cielâs real name is Sirius:
Sirius is the name of the brightest star in the night sky, which also goes by the title âDog Starâ. Itâs often tied to dogs in general. Itâs a beautiful way to parallel the job of being the Queenâs Watchdog
r!ciel went by the name of âLord Siriusâ during the boy band arc. it would be just the right type of petty for r!ciel to parade around with o!cielâs real name after his brother went years stealing his identity.
lmao adding to that is this fuckin line from chapter 169:
Sirius was thought of to be one star before astrologists developed strong enough telescopes and it was discovered in 1862 to actually be two stars. the parallel of this to the story is uncanny
a stretch, but Yana may have placed hints of his name as early as the Campania arc; the ship was sailing on the âBlue Star Lineâ; the larger star, Sirius A, is a blue-white star.
Iâll add more to this if I come up on anything else this reread
Thanks to @trust-the-tide for tagging me for my thoughts on this topic.
There are other mentions of this binary star system, including in the anime version of the Jack the Ripper arc, as was pointed out by @guarddogclaudia about⊠maybe two years ago:
However, itâs much better to use licensed translations of panels when discussing theories, since the licensed translations are more likely to keep the nuances of the original Japanese. Not to say the licensed translations are always perfect (I have found errors, and so have others, like Ducky), but they are more dependable by far than the various fan translations out there. Hereâs the licensed version:
Based on this (and everything else we know about real Cielâs plan of âattackâ against his twin), âLord Siriusâ is simply the title that real Ciel went by before he could reclaim his title as Lord Ciel, which Polaris calls him in the very next panel. Now âLord Siriusâ is meant to refer to his younger twin, simply because real Ciel and his peeps are now framing his younger twin as the leading perpetrator in the Sphere Music Hall killings. Polaris and everyone else now have to call our earl âLord Siriusâ in order to keep their cover-up story going. If Polaris were to accidentally call real Ciel âLord Siriusâ in front of Abberline or anyone else associated with the Yard or the London Police⊠or even the Midfords⊠then it would blow their cover.
As I mentioned in the linked post above, there are two particularly interesting things to note about the binary Sirius system:
The white dwarf Sirius B we see today used to be even bigger and brighter than the blue-white Sirius A. I used to say the white dwarf was our earl, but now I think it better represents real Ciel, since this bizarre doll version of him has âlost his radianceâ.
The two stars are getting closer to each other, thanks to their balance being thrown off (or perhaps this is how they ended up being a binary system to begin with), and someday they will collide. This is good evidence (imho) that Undertaker will try to combine our earlâs soul with real Cielâs body. It could also be seen as foreshadowing that their souls will eventually unite inside Sebastian, once the demon consumes our earlâs soul.
It might be best to say âLord Siriusâ covers both twins, since itâs been used to refer to each of them, plus itâs fundamentally two entities that are intrinsically connected⊠and I see no reason for Rachel to have chosen it as a given name for the younger twin.
Somewhere, in the Mother3 theory-addled recesses of my brain, Iâm still holding a glimmer of hope for an anagram of Ciel⊠like Elic, which is a variant of names like Alex, Alec, and Alexis⊠which all basically mean âprotectionâ.
While Iâm totally with you @abybweisse that âLord Siriusâ covers both twins for all the reasons you and OP describe above, Iâm going to have to majorly disagree about the point of R!Câs exchange with Polaris- I think itâs a far more important and plot-critical conversation than just âkeep mum for the cops.â (this is going to be Long and I apologize in advance for my inability to be brief)
While R!C did float Polaris as a potential butler candidate, given that he also asked if UT would do it, I think we can safely assume that R!Câs main butler criteria at the moment is strength and fighting ability rather than actual...butler stuff. Â Polaris does have strength in spades, but as heâs also an unstable fanatic I donât see him as the kind of guy R!C would want the Yard to even know exists, let alone testify in front of them or converse with the Midfords.*
More importantly, the conversation between R!C and Polaris in Chapter 169 doesnât really make much sense if we view it as being about maintaining the subterfuge about O!C and Sphere Music Hall. Â But if we view it from the perspective that O!C really is Lord Sirius as far as the cultâs concerned, then not only is it comprehensible, but it also lets us, the readers, in on what R!C and UTâs goals are.
Basically, I think that R!C is pointing out that Polaris has lost the script, so to speak, and that his worries about âRadiance for Lord Siriusâ are misplaced.
Letâs first look at the gist of the conversation at face value (Iâm using text in [brackets] to indicate my understanding of what the characters are actually talking about):
(1)Polaris: The Yorkshire blood facility has been destroyed ;_;
(2)R!C: Thatâs good because my brother is fighting XD
(3)Polaris: Graaahh nooo! It is Bad because we need to get the radiance for Lord Sirius! [It is Bad because we need to give blood to Lord Sirius. Â Radiance for Lord Sirius means Blood for Real Ciel] I will kill them all!!
(4)R!C: Polaris, remember that Iâm not Lord Sirius, thatâs my brother now. Youââre not looking well and should rest now, since youâre unstable even with a readily-available blood supply.
(5)Polaris: Iâm sorry Lord Ciel, but I couldnât stand to lose my master again, for I am a butler even in death.
If we take line (4) to be âRemember Polaris, we need to keep our story straight for the Yard, also you should rest etcâ then Polarisâ response in line (5) is a complete non-sequitur. Â However, if we focus on what âRadianceâ means, then a far different picture emerges.
In the beginning of the Blue Cult arc, Blavat talks about how Lord Sirius is a brilliant star with unparalleled radiance. Â He also mentions to O!C in disguise that he has an incredible radiance thatâs in danger of being extinguished by Sebastian. Â Since Blavat knew what was really going on with O!C and Sebastian the whole time, we can safely assume that the âradianceâ he was talking about wasnât O!Câs rare blood type, but rather his soul- the same soul thatâs visually depicted as a star in the âblack hole Sebastianâ panel, as well as in many of O!Câs birthday illustrations (where, conspicuously, itâs a blue star). Â Itâs an absolutely brilliant bit of doublespeak- just as âLord Siriusâ covers both twins, âradianceâ covers both the blood R!C needs to live and the soul O!C needs to live. Â Because O!C doesnât realize this, heâll keep investigating Sphere and walk right into being framed, thereby playing directly into R!Câs hands.
Iâll say right now that I put 0 stock into the RCMT, and I full believe R!C and UTâs goals align: that is to say, Sebastian has to be eliminated so O!Câs soul wonât be devoured and he wonât die.** Â UT has stated this clearly in the text on more than one occasion, and R!C says to Sebastian that heâll âbe leaving soonâ when heâs fighting UT and Grelle on the stairs right before the Yard bursts into the manor, so I think we can still safely assume that they want to get rid of Sebastian. Â
If we look back at the arc words âAll is for the blue starâ to mean âEverything is for the sake of O!Câs soul,â then we can re-diagram the end of the conversation in Chapter 169 as follows:
(1)Polaris: The Yorkshire blood facility has been destroyed ;_;
(2)R!C: Thatâs good because my brother is fighting XD
(3)Polaris: Graaahh nooo! It is Bad because we need to get the radiance for Lord Sirius! [It is Bad because we need to give blood to Lord Sirius. Â Radiance for Lord Sirius means Blood for Real Ciel] I will kill them all!!
(4)R!C: Polaris, remember that Iâm not Lord Sirius, thatâs my brother now [I am not the goal here, thatâs my brother. Â Lord Sirius is my brother, and Radiance for Lord Sirius means his soul will not be devoured. Â I need blood in order to function as a means to an end so that we can save Lord Sirius, my brother, and protect his soul. Â This is the intended outcome and I am happy]. Youââre not looking well and should rest now, since youâre unstable even with a readily-available blood supply.
(5)Polaris: Iâm sorry Lord Ciel, but I couldnât stand to lose my master again for I am a butler even in death. [Even if your brotherâs salvation is our ultimate goal, without blood you will still die again and I cannot stand to lose you, that is why I am crying right now]***
To me, at least, this makes much more sense. Â Now, as to whether any of this indicates that O!Câs name actually is Sirius? Â I have no idea.
*This is getting a bit besides my point here, but thereâs also the issue of what the purpose of Polaris and the other two (and a half?) star lords even is. Â Thereâs been a lot of discussion here on Tumblr about the other lords being people important to O!C, but what would bringing Joker, Doll, or Madam Red back add to the narrative at this point when O!C has already steeled his resolve to fight back against his brother? Â We do know Polaris and Vega are functioning as blood jockeys for R!C at the moment- this is stated plainly in Chapter 151- and if thereâs anything in the text to suggest that theyâre meant to be anything more than that (besides mayyybe new advanced BD prototypes, but thatâs still conjecture for now), Iâm not seeing it.
**I have a long, Loooong (over 5k words!!) post going into more detail about how Iâm reading R!Câs motivations on my blog, so I donât want to go too much into that here, but suffice it to say: No, I donât think heâs fighting with his brother with the intent of ruining his life, but rather with the intent of saving him (and heâs wrong and is a colossal dumbass for doing so, but this is what makes him compelling as a character)
***Why is R!C so chill about potentially shriveling up and dying again when he also seems to be serious about intending to live on as the Watchdog? Idk! Â Perhaps heâs banking on UT finding some solution to his little blood problem before that happens? Â Perhaps weâll even get more on that front next time we see them (Is his lack of progress on that front why UTâs been so fidgety and tired-looking lately? Who knows??)
I donât know if I can contain my âThe Muppet Christmas Carol has better costume design than most Oscar-nominated period dramasâ rant until after Thanksgiving you guys, I haveâŠso many Thoughts
Basically they did not have to go as hard as they did here. A Christmas Carol covers 60 years of fashion through flashbacks and they still manage to do nearly everything right.Â
Iâm mainly going to be talking about the human actors here because itâs harder to judge Muppet costumes proportionally, but those costumes are still on point 90% of the time.
First off, A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, and anyone who knows me knows I love the absolute train wreck that was mid-19th century menâs fashion. Do you like plaid? GOOD, BECAUSE ITâS ALL PLAID. Mixed with whatever else your little Victorian heart desires, color schemes be damned. Go wild.
This of course means I absolutely love Fred.
This outfit is hideous and it is also 1000% on point.
We also get to see him in a different outfit the next day, along with his wife and some friends.
First off, MORE PLAID, good for you. Second, I can literally find near-identical images of both these ladiesâ dresses just by googling â1843 fashion plateâ, I shit you not. To the damned year.
A good part of the story involves travelling through Scroogeâs life, so we get to see the costumes varying wildly over the course of several scenes. This was a time when styles were changing rapidly, and you had to keep up if you wanted to be fashionable and keep up appearances. Fashion changed so fast that you can often pinpoint an outfit to within a year or two like the ones above.Â
First, we go to Scroogeâs childhood school. Given the timeline thatâs normally put forward Michael Caine is definitely not old enough to play Scrooge, but ignore that for now. Letâs say if Scrooge is 75ish in 1843, itâs about 1783 when we see him leaving school and going off to be an apprentice. We actually see a few years of Little Scrooge fashion, but itâs fairly standard stuff. Scrooge doesnât have a super childhood and his clothing is pretty plain, but itâs totally on par for the time. Why this haircut though? It makes me sad.
Then we jump ahead a few years and itâs about 1789. The whole group is attending the Fozziwig Christmas party and have gotten tarted up like theyâre about the storm the Bastille, including Gonzo and Rizzo.
Again, they look absolutely ridiculous and it is absolutely accurate.Â
Now, this is super ostentatious and a lot of people would have considered it way too French for their taste in this time period. But it definitely did happen (Iâve seen stripey bubblegum pink menswear in person) and like. Itâs the Muppets. So, Rule of Funny.
Scrooge and Belle are dressed way closer to average Londoners of the time, and itâs worth noting that both are supposed to be somewhat poor. Fozzy pays everyone well but Lilâ Scrooge is still a skinflint and Belle is just getting by. Theyâre both looking darn good but their clothes are much more understated than everyone elseâs and maybe even on the verge of out of style.Â
Even their hair is pretty good. Including his. Also, holy shit does this guy look like he could be a young Michael Caine. Like, he doesnât actually look how Michael Caine looked when he was that age, but if I didnât know that I would totally buy it. Wow.
Then we jump ahead another ten to twelve years or so. This is the period I know the least about, especially when it comes to outerwear, so Jane Austen stans please comment. I donât think it looks too bad though.
Hereâs a couple of fashion plates from 1801 and 1803 for comparison.
Iâd also like to point out that there is a wide variety of costumes based on social class that we get to see in the 1843 âpresentâ that you wouldnât really notice. So while the Scrooge family thatâs doing alright for itself is wearing the latest looks, the rest of the town is not. A few of the women in the crowd dancing around Scrooge during âIt Feels Like Christmasâ are wearing dresses a couple of years out of date. Not too far, but you can see some looks from the tail end of the 1830s before women started shrink-wrapping their sleeves onto their arms.
You can see something similar to these outfits from 1839 in the crowd.
Contrast this with Mrs. Cratchit, who is living in poverty and has put on her absolute best dress for Christmas; itâs silk but itâs ten years out of style.Â
This would have been the height of fashion in the early-mid 1830s.
And thatâs important for making a world look real. Fashion was super important back then, but even so average people werenât necessarily chucking their clothing out every year to keep up with the latest fashions unless they could really afford to. You would get there eventually, but you donât want everyone in your universe, rich and poor, to look like they just stepped out of the latest fashion magazine.Â
Itâs absolutely astonishing to me that they put so much effort into this. I donât tend to go down the rabbit hole of nitpicking historical costumes in movies as much as some, but when a movie that you never expected does it very right it just throws me for a loop.Â
Was everything perfect? No, I donât think any movie is. But this is the damn Muppets. They were under no obligation to do this. Add to that the fact that itâs one of the more accurate renditions of the story, to the point of including a ton of the original dialogue, both through the characters and through the narration, and they just created a masterpiece.Â
Iâm tagging @abybweisse in this because of the first picture- donât the pants on the model in the center look exactly like what UTâs wearing in the current Funtom Hotel Black Label promotion (like so)? This is apparently from around 1850, which would be around the time UT had established himself back in the living world, and when Claudia gave birth to Vincent- is Yana trying to tell us something here?
Hello and thank you for all your contribution to the Black Butler fandom!
Regarding chapter 137, when Sebastian enters the human world, I wanted to ask what you thought about the demonâs exaplantion for his summoning, more specifically, about when he told the remaining twin that he had sacrificed his brother for him to cross over. I am curious whether you believe that to be a lie or a misunderstanding on the demonâs part or something else? The way I see it, Sebastian wasnât lying, but I would like to know what you or maybe part of the fandom, if you know, thought about those moments.
Dear Anon,
Aww thanks for the kind words ^^
Surely a very interesting question! I think the official English translators left some space for interpretation, and I find it no surprise people would wonder about that. In the Original Japanese however, I really would say Sebas was in fact lying. Or actually better said, âpresenting an eventâ in a twisted way to manipulate the poor boy.
My apologies for people who have been following me for a while now, but for first-timers, Japanese is a null-subject language, meaning that a subject is not necessary to form a complete sentence. If you do add an subject, you draw special emphasis to it.
Anata ga watashi wo shoukan suru tame ni shiharatta daishou wa
The price YOU paid to summon me is
Because here Sebas did add a subject, the subject [you] is emphasised.
Secondly, there is the verb âshiharattaâ, meaning âpaidâ. In this sentence, âpaidâ is not the passive term, but active. Meaning that Sebas here actively means O!Ciel went through the motion of paying a price. In combination with the emphasised subject and the active verb, Sebas here specifically stresses âyou actively paid for summoning meâ, implying responsibility to lie with the boy.
Then as though the injury is not bad enough, Trash Demonâą adds insult to it.
Nikushin wo ikenie ni suru to wa zuibun to omoikitta koto wo
To turn your own blood relative into a live sacrifice, you sure made a drastic move
The first part âwo ikenie ni suruâ is a very active verb, meaning that somebody actively turned somebody into a live sacrifice; that is to say that this sacrifice did not passively happen to them. Then to finish the sentence, Sebas adds another âwoâ, which is an active verb particle. By adding this particle, Sebas lays double emphasis on O!Ciel having actively made a drastic move himself, again laying the responsibility into the boyâs hands.
uâŠuso da, boâŠboku ga Ciel wo ikenie ni shita nanteâŠ
O!Ciel protests, saying âiâŠitâs a lie, that I turned Ciel into a live sacrificeâŠâ also repeating the active verbs Sebas used. And Sebas mercilessly responded: âäșćźă§ăâ, it is true.
Japanese is a very context-heavy and subtle language wherein nuances and emphases are added because they should mean something. For Sebas (or Yana) who is so incredibly eloquent and precise with vocabulary, him actively choosing these words can only mean that he deliberately wished to put the responsibility for R!Cielâs death into O!Cielâs hands, making him be overcome with guilt.
Obviously O!Ciel never made any choice for all this to happen, and everything happened because the cult members decided so. Hence, by saying otherwise, Sebas lied.
I hope this helped ^^ Sorry I kinda destroyed any interpretive liberty for this partâŠbecause that really would have been interesting too!
Boku wo gisei ni te ni ireta chikara de
Omae ga anna sentaku wo shita sei de
Using the power you bought by (actively) with me as a sacrifice
It is the fault of you having (actively) made a choice like that.
As you can see, here R!Ciel makes no single attempt to soften any implication of his twinâs responsibility in his death. âIretaâ (ć „ăă) from âte ni iretaâ (æă«ć „ăă) is the verb for actively putting something in somewhere, and âteâ (æ) means âhandâ, meaning: âactively putting something in the handâ. As in this sentence it is combined with âwith me as sacrificeâ, the full sentence carries to meaning of âbuying power by paying with a sacrifice.â
The second part of the sentence is also very explicit. As mentioned in the original post above, O!Ciel did not choose for any of the tragedy to happen; he even actively hoped deep down at the time they had grabbed him instead of his âbetterâ counterpart. In this bubble of the panel, R!Ciel however explicitly uses the word âchoiceâ (sentakuă»éžæ), actively accusing O!Ciel of âmaking the decision of killing himâ.
Why did Sebas lie?
There is room for interpretation of course, but very personally think it might be the opposite.
In this post and this post I discussed that it seems Sebas has no say in whether he gets summoned or not, and that he certainly had no say in unsummoning himself. And in this post I reasoned Sebas is probably usually not too enthusiastic about being summoned, in part because he assumed time needed to be killed, suggesting he is used to boredom in contracts to lead to this assumption.
Another factor that makes me think so is the way he is always fighting for autonomy, meaning he has a long history of lack of autonomy as explained in this post. If your experience of being summoned is a state of boredom while your autonomy gets disrespected, I wouldnât be too pumped either at the idea of being summoned!
As such, I think Sebas actively lied to O!Ciel to drown him in guilt so that he would think himself too awful to deserve asking for anything. Sebas has seen all human weaknesses I presume, and that O!Ciel had an inferiority complex must have been too easy to read (even for us). People who have such an awful inferiority complex TEND to not dare ask for anything. Had Sebas succeeded in making O!Ciel be overcome with guilt and simply give up on asking, he would have been able to go home and just be left to his peace.
I am not saying I think Sebas finds being summoned the worst that can happen though! I am merely saying that he probably has an attitude of ââŠ.if I must I will I guess⊠will make the best of it, but itâs not my hobby.â
Obviously Sebas did not manage to dissuade O!Ciel from forming a contract, and interestingly, the very first thing Sebas says when the boy had made his decision is paraphrased: âyou have chosen to do something so stupid and chosen literal HellâŠ?â It is a phrase as though to give O!Ciel one single last chance to rethink his decision.
Something I must point out is that the official English translation has a glaring mistake; a deliberate one, if I may be so bold to say.
In English it is implied that Sebas was actually happy about the boyâs decision to form a contract with him no matter how stupid it was. In the original Japanese though, Sebas simply says: âfineâ (ii deshouă»èŻăă§ăăă). And we all know what it means when you respond with âfineâ to a task you are givenâŠ
Donât get me wrong, Sebas did not seem disappointed to me or anything. Perhaps so because being summoned by a âweak, guilt-crippled, powerless childâ really is very refreshing. And if thereâs anything Sebas loves, itâs being refreshed.
So in short, I think Sebas lied because 1. heâs Trashâą and wants the boy who just lost everything to feel even worse, and 2. because he hoped to go home and be left at peace.
So Our-Ciel knew?
Ah, a small misunderstanding which I caused that I should clear up! My apologies! I forgot that if you say in English âitâs a lieâ, it actually does mean: âyou speak an untruthâ. (^çœ^ ââ)ă„ My bad.
In Japanese we say âitâs a lieâ not necessarily because we accuse somebody of lying, but because we canât believe something ourselves. The best translation would actually be: âno wayâ. When somebody for example says: âIâm pregnantâ and the recipient is surprised, they can also say: âitâs a lieâ in Japanese. Obviously no accusation of lying is happening; itâs just an expression of disbelief/surprise.
So, O!Ciel didnât call Sebas out on a lie yet; he was simply rejecting the information Sebas gave him. I might be too nit-picky⊠but I am also wondering why this translator likes adding stuff thatâs not there in the original so much.
In the English version there is an extra exclamation mark, and O!Ciel yells ây-your lying!â In the Japanese however, he simply says ân-no wayâ.
Itâs JUST one exclamation mark, yes, but in this one bubble it matters quite a bit. By adding an exclamation mark it seems to me O!Ciel had SOME semblance of confidence (faked or not) in accusing Sebas of lying. In the original, the text is small and there is not a single punctuation mark to be seen, meaning the boy spoke a lot softer. The tone would be quite different, adding emphasis to how little confidence O!Ciel had in his words. In Japanese I get a much stronger sense that O!Ciel is eating himself.
So yes⊠O!Ciel would be eaten anyway, whether by himself or his demonâŠ
I hope this has been interesting and helped (*ÂŽâœïœ*)ăâŸâŸâŸ
What is Evil in Kuroshitsuji? - Kuroshitsujiâs philosophy
Sebastianâs Need vs Want
What kind of ending of Kuroshitsuji do I want to see?
Character analysis Sebastian - Autonomy and Curiousity
Thank you so much for your excellent-as-always analysis @chibimyumi!
That said, I need to apologize for the lack of clarity in my second reply in your post. I could just blame tumblrâs character limit, but the fact of the matter was that in my carelessness I ended up making a ânull objectâ statement, so to speak m (-__-) m
Youâve already pointed out exactly how Sebastian was lying to O!C about him being an active participant in his brotherâs sacrifice, and how his predisposition for self-loathing prevented him from questioning the obvious inconsistencies between the demonâs statement and the reality of the cultistsâ involvement, even though he didnât actually go as far as accusing Sebastian of lying to him in that instance. The part about ânot believing a lie when itâs too good to be trueâ that I offhandedly mentioned was in reference to Sebastianâs subsequent offer to bring R!C back from the dead, which O!C of course immediately challenges him on. From now on, Iâll definitely have to be more mindful of my wording!
You do bring up a really important point about the introduced inconsistencies in the English version, though- to the extent where Iâm wondering where else this kind of misrepresentation of intent has occurred. At this point it should be no surprise that Iâm always interested in cracking open R!Câs psyche like a walnut, so in particular Iâm wondering about his line early on in chapter 141- off the top of my head I recall it being translated as something along the lines of âWhile itâs true that I abandoned you by dying [emphasis mine], Iâm so happy to see you now.â I had been interpreting that line as having, to some degree, a parallel sense of unfounded active culpability on R!Câs part for what happened to his brother, but thinking about it now it may very well be the case that this was a far more neutral statement in the original Japanese, and Iâve just been reading too much into it due to my own biases (and because I think it would be super-fantastically tragic if both these kids hate being powerless so much that theyâd rather ascribe actively malicious agency to themselves than admit that thereâs no easy target to blame for the horrors that befell them).
...Although at this point I feel Iâm just piling an infinite amount of gratis analysis on you, so please feel free to ignore
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