vanitas is a bad guy. he doesn’t mean to be. he thinks he’s doing whatever’s best for the bigger picture. he doesn’t care for the means as long as he achieves what he wants.
this makes him abusive.
moreau is bizarre and eccentric, running around doing what he wants without caring for how he fits in the social ladder. in the same way, vanitas is also unpredictable, doing whatever he sees fit that gains the best results, even at the expense of other peoples’ disdain. both operate without the validation of anyone else, though for moreau it’s out of arrogance and for vanitas, i’d say it’s a mix of habit and survival. being unpredictable gives him the advantage, the upper hand, and control over the situation. and part of this also derives from his relationship with moreau, from whom he took part of his personality.
vanitas inherited moreau’s disinterest in social cues and acceptance (he does whatever he pleases, saves whoever he wants, regardless of what they really desire), but he also inherited moreau’s abusive habits. he always tries to take control to a point of discomfort for the other party, he forces a kiss on jeanne, and he finds her upset to be amusing. he only ever grows angry when he can’t control what’s going on around him, which can be taken from his lack of control from childhood and subconscious desire to be in moreau’s position of power.
moreau’s treatment of vanitas recycles into vanitas’ treatment of jeanne; vanitas does not medically abuse her, but he makes her uncomfortable and relishes in her reactions, in the way moreau excites himself by experimenting on vanitas. in the way moreau treats vanitas as a dear object (hugging him, praising him, all while dehumanizing him), vanitas does to jeanne (kissing her, proclaiming his love for her, all while ignoring her demands for him to stop). and all this is assumed from the basis of his experience with dr. moreau. this doesn’t even get into what his relationship was with the original vanitas of the blue moon.
vanitas is an abuse victim, but he’s fallen into the cycle and is well on his way to becoming an abuser himself.
` i have half a mind to not give you that medicine,’ he snapped with a click of his tongue, gloved, clawed fingers digging through the boxes of neatly assorted herbs. he paused to read the label on a square tin can. his scowl deepened, and he tossed it over his shoulder. it rang hollowly against the marble floors, spilling its contents all over the ground. vanitas sneered.
` but it's your lucky day, since you're relevant to my interests or whatever.'
his frown crinkled his nose as he continued, abandoning the shelves for the drawers, picking things up and sniffing them before tossing it away, making a mess of the apothecary. flora certainly would've had a field day with him if she knew how he treated her domain. vanitas thought about how upset she would be. so he overturned a whole drawer of herbs and then stepped on them as he made his way to the next shelf.
---- crack, crack, crumble.
` always leave it to the royal families to ruin my plans.'
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you better fucking hope you dont see me on the streets. there will be no words. there will be no warning. the moment i lay my eyes on your terrible earthly form i will taze you asunder. i dont give a fuck. you’ll go down like a sack of onions and no one will save you from the fall. you will die by my hands, on the eve of the savior’s birth, and from your death will rise the messiah. never message me on tumblr dot com ever again, lest you intend to breathe your final fucking breath.
komaeda flicked his tail shyly, and stared at the snow-covered ground. “l-listen,” he stuttered. “theres something i’ve been meaning to say for a while.”
vanitas acts out, has a flair for the dramatic, and becomes petulant and cranky when he doesn’t get his way. ruthven describes him as inconsistent and noé calls him out as a finicky person. he intends on ‘saving’ vampires but does so without their consent, claims vengeance against the infamous vanitas who saved him, and gets upset with noé for protecting him despite that he specifically sought him out to use as a shield. he calls jeanne weak for having someone she cares about but struggles with himself for being unable to live up to misha’s wishes. he says she’s a downgrade of what he expected, but then claims to love her. he asks jeanne to marry him but then hates it when people who he chases after actually reciprocates with love.
so yeah, he’s inconsistent and dramatic and always goes for the most drastic options.
to start off, the reason for vanitas choosing the most drastic option isn’t actually a mystery. noé lectured vanitas for being too reckless in battle, saying that he should be more careful because he is a human and therefore, weaker than vampires. vanitas twice has used hostage situations and bluffs to worm his way out of dangerous situations, and tried to act as if he were still loyal to moreau, his abuser, in order to get information out of him. when he couldn’t keep up his act anymore, he tried physical torture. in all these scenarios, vanitas is dramatic because he is aware of exactly how weak he is, especially in comparison to vampires and even vanitas of the blue moon, with whom he lived with. being human and physically less capable meant that he had to rely on the element of surprise and scheme his way out of situations. attempting to do anything less could mean life or death to him. while he is dramatic for the fun and flair, it derives from a desperation to survive.
his inconsistency is only explainable through theory -- because the series isn’t even close to its end yet, i can only guess why he acts the way he does.
when vanitas gets upset with noé for protecting him, despite the fact that he forced noé to come along with him as a bodyguard of sorts, he does so because he can’t stand people getting hurt on his behalf. the two times he gets upset with noé for doing his ‘job’ is when vanitas himself is incapacitated or unable to join the fight -- he became mad with noé for jumping between him and ruthven as he was rendered immobile by veronica’s ice and another time when he was locked away by roland and noé didn’t listen to his warnings about the way chaussers fight. he is confident in his ability to protect his shield from any permanent harm, but without the insurance of his presence in the fight, vanitas immediately loses composure. this might derive from his history with misha / mikhael / no. 71, who often is seen in flashbacks berating vanitas for not keeping some sort promise, with the implication of violence or death involved in the breaking of that promise, even saying things like ‘you wouldn’t want someone to die because of you again, would you?’
leading to that, vanitas also condemns jeanne for having someone to protect, as he claims that it is what makes her weak. this may derive, again, from misha, who is implied to be a younger brother figure who looked up to vanitas and expected his protection. doctor moreau describes misha as someone who used to follow vanitas around everywhere, which may imply that vanitas felt protective towards him. given that moreau also expresses that vanitas never complained or cried when being medically abused and nearly killed as a result of it, it can be inferred that vanitas may have willingly gone along with moreau’s experiments to protect misha. and that effort may have been for naught, as flashbacks indicate that misha resents vanitas for not keeping his promise and ‘killing father’. so from what he understands, having someone to protect has always been burdensome, and being free of that is what he believes made him stronger -- having the hellfire witch be chained to a protective obligation is disappointing to him. depsite this, he tells jeanne that he’s intrigued by that weakness -- she of all people should understand how difficult it is to live, as jeanne is condemned by vampires and humans alike for hunting her own kin. still, she derives her will to live from wanting to protect luca, and because he can’t relate to her healthy love for him, he admits that she’s fascinating to him.
vanitas’s intrigue for jeanne is reworded as love, but it’s not anything nearly as intimate. i do think he genuinely likes her, he finds her charming and cute and easy to get along with, beyond his more curious interest in her as the hellfire witch. but his few experiences with love (moreau’s love for him as an experiment, misha’s love for him as an older brother) have been hugely negative. moreau treating him poorly out of intrigue for him as an experiment, but painting it as love may be why vanitas also jokes about love jeanne. more on moreau’s impact on vanitas’s personality later.
vanitas tells jeanne he loves her, but then shows disgust when she pretends to reciprocate it, and even tells noé that he has no real interest for someone who would fall for him. to him, love is a one - sided deal where the person ‘giving’ love is the one who holds control over the other person, and the person ‘receiving’ love has to bear with the burden of it (re: moreau and misha). reciprocating love throws his whole perception out of whack and he loses whatever hold he has on the other person. nothing good has come from him receiving love, so he will never want it, especially from someone he actually likes.
as for why he saves vampires against their will -- he says it’s an act of vengeance against vanitas of the blue moon, who is reputable for cursing vampires rather than saving them. beyond that, i genuinely have no clue, since going further into that would require knowing of his relationship with the original vanitas.
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