This blog contains unmarked spoilers for all released non-manga content (including the latest anime season(s)), but most manga content that hasn't yet been adapted/released in the anime will be hidden under a read more.
All theories, ruminations, and metas contained in this blog are exclusively based on the manga canon, unless otherwise specified. Material such as promotional art and chapter and volume covers are taken as symbolic representations and not evidence of literal events.
I understand that the art style limits the variety of facial features, but is this not just a slightly older Sebastian with a mustache?
He looks more like Sebastian than Sebastian did disguised as Jeremy. He's even got the long eyelashes and thin eyebrows. Here he is de-aged and freshly shaven:
On your “lip service” post, you missed sebastian telling lizzy that he does not tell lies because she called him a liar for leaving our Ciel’s side.
i think it’s interesting that even when he says that to soma, he was proven wrong in the end. Agni did love him.
lip service post
She wasn't in any of the other scenes where it's mentioned, so Sebastian either said it in front of her a separate time, or it's such a Thing that someone else in Ciel's circle (or even Ciel himself?) told her about it.
Also, I think Sebastian knew he was wrong about no one loving Soma (or couldn't be 100% certain) when he said it.
Agni told Sebastian that Soma saved him from execution and now Agni has basically devoted his life to him.
And then during the confrontation at West's house, Agni is clearly being forced to betray Soma.
Immediately before Soma's tantrum, Sebastian says this:
Then Soma breaks the tea set and Sebastian follows him to his room and tells him that he didn't "lose" anything because he never technically had anything because his parents gave him everything, including his servants, which Sebastian knows is not true because Agni told him how he started working for him, and it was Soma himself who caused it.
Then he says none of his servants ever loved him, which is impossible for him to know. Mina left him for reasons unknown at this point, but she could have been forced. Any of the other servants whose names Sebastian doesn't even know could have loved him. How can he confidently say that Agni, who is so devoted to Soma that he's gained access to supernatural powers and is clearly betraying him against his will, doesn't love him?
I don't understand how these don't count as lies. Is he not saying something he knows is false (or at least can't prove to be true) with the intent to deceive Soma (to manipulate him into behaving)?
Even after learning that it was actually poisonous gas, Sebastian thinks that Ciel's mental breakdown in the Green Witch Arc was an effect of the "curse," or at least a side-effect caused by the physical injuries.
But it seems to me that his episode was actually due to Sebastian's efforts to treat the damage caused by the gas, particularly the repitition of this traumatic event from his captivity:
(it probably didn't help that they were naked while this was happening)
Regardless of whether this part of the treatment was necessary, Sebastian's actions were objectively correct because he was doing the best he could for Ciel in that moment given his limited knowledge. Despite his good intentions, Sebastian unintentionally repeated the actions of Ciel's captors, triggering his PTSD. Unfortunately, this isn't even the first time Sebastian has triggered his master in this manner.
(Manga spoilers up to volume 27)
In chapter 62, during Sebastian's cinematic record of his and Ciel's first day together, Sebastian bathes and feeds his new master. Again, this was objectively the right thing to do; in fact, Sebastian would have been negligent if he hadn't done so. But, to Sebastian's confusion and irritation, the boy is ungrateful and uncooperative.
Ciel's hostility toward Sebastian in these scenes is understandable, given that he is a freshly traumatized child who has found himself in the care of a monster who's only helping him in exchange for his soul. But in light of chapter 135, which details the events after the twins were sold to the cultists up to the first time their souls were "defiled," Ciel's behavior seems inevitable.
Both the cult leader and Sebastian rescued Ciel from a cage for their own selfish reasons
forced him to take a bath
and then offered him a feast.
Even knowing that Sebastian was helping him and contractually prevented from betraying him, Sebastian's behavior, nearly identical to the cultists, would keep Ciel on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
(and he wasn't wrong, at least in the beginning)
Even years into the contract, Ciel is still waiting for Sebastian's betrayal,
always assuming the worst of his butler.
Sebastian, who views all relationships/interactions as mutually beneficial transactions,
probably just wants a civil relationship with his contractor and thinks Ciel is being a brat.
But Sebastian is extremely powerful and can leave any situation that doesn't benefit him. Ciel was/is a powerless child with limited control over the situations he ends up in. His experiences with the cult, and then Sebastian immediately after, have taught him to view relationships as zero-sum games. If he's not using someone, it means they're using him.
Ciel once mistook self-serving favors as kindness and ended up being "subjected to humiliations unfit for even a beast."
If he ultimately can't prevent Sebastian from betraying him, he at least won't let it catch him off gaurd this time.
In episode 133, I received a comment that Vincent seemed a little distant. In fact, it is common for children of British aristocrats to be raised by special servants (wet nurses and teachers). They often eat in different rooms and at different times, and even live on different floors. It's a pretty strange environment, isn't it! (laughs) So I portrayed him as being somewhat insensitive to the subtleties of children.
(Manga spoilers)
A child of Ciel's status would have been cared for by a nanny/nurse/head nursemaid. The nanny would have slept in the nursery with the children when they were younger and might have been assisted by nursemaids. Between 8 and 12 years old, boys might go off to a boarding school, but could be kept at home and taught by male tutors who came to the house, as in Ciel's case. While the tutors (or governesses in the case of girl-children) took care of their education, the nanny still took care of their daily needs.
Because of their deep involvement in their lives, the children they looked after often had a strong emotional attachment to them. Tanaka was the only surviving servant from the previous earl's household, so Ciel's nanny would have been killed with the others, but she is never mentioned.
Tanaka doesn't mention a nanny or any nursemaids when listing the previous servants:
The maid who Sebastian the dog protected Ciel from seeing dead, which might imply averted emotional impact, appears to be the lady's maid above, who would have looked after Rachel, not the children.
In the flashbacks, both Ciels are seen mostly in the company of their parents, aunts, or Tanaka, but o!Ciel is frequently alone. In two scenes, maids appear in the background while Tanaka is interacting with the twins, so these might be nursemaids.
But the only servant we see feeding and dressing the twins is Tanaka, and it's Tanaka who accompanies them to lessons and checks in on them when they're sick.
Toboso has implied that Tanaka was involved in Vincent's upbringing, so Ciel's parents might have decided to have him continue in this unofficial capacity for the twins, or the dynamic could have developed naturally. If the twins did have a nanny or nursemaids, they weren't nearly as attached to them as they were/are to Tanaka.
An analysis of Sebastian's role in Ciel's life and the occasions when he's been referred to as Ciel's parent, both in- and out-of-universe.
(Manga spoilers up to chapter 217)
The first and only time Ciel calls Sebastian his father is when he's lying to Druitt as part of his disguise on the Campania.
This was originally meant as a joke, but Toboso noticed that readers liked it:
In the Cruise Ship Arc, Ciel lies to Druitt and calls Sebas "Dad" which was just a little joke I thought up when writing the story (Sebas looks like he's in his late twenties, so I thought he was too old to be Ciel's brother), but for some reason it was a big hit with readers, and it was featured in Live Butler, and Sebas has completely become the pseudo-father.
In the story, Sebas is referred to as "father" and "uncle," but I personally think that in real life, around 30-year-old men are "older brothers"! (laughs) I guess Sebas is more like several long-lived grandfathers, skipping the uncle part.
This "joke" has reappeared after many years in the latest chapter, this time with a stranger assuming Sebastian is Ciel's father when they're out walking together.
Ciel doesn't correct her assumption, but Sebastian clears it up a moment later by referring to Ciel as his "master."
A similar joke is made by Doll in the circus arc:
Without the context of their master-servant relationship, the actions of a valet (or a butler acting as a valet in a household with limited staff), such as assisting the master with personal hygiene and dressing, especially when it's an adult helping a child, especially from the perspective of an outsider unfamiliar with the duties of servants to the upper class, are bound to come across as parental.
This explains Doll's joke about their dynamic, but why would a random upper-class lady assume them to be father and son? What did she see in the space of a few seconds (overfamiliarity, similarity of appearance or mannerisms, lack of apparent class-difference?) that would override the possibility of servant-master and make her jump straight to father-son?
In addition to the tweets and manga panels above, Sebastian has said that he "raised" (育てる) Ciel in the manga, and less ambiguously in some concept material from the anime's second season, in which Toboso refers to Sebastian as Ciel's "guardian." Toboso has also brought up the influence of foster parents vs biological parents (i.e. nature vs nurture) when discussing whether Ciel got his evilness from Vincent or Sebastian.
Outside of joking and serious references to parental or pseudo-parental titles, what exactly is Sebastian's role in Ciel's life? Ciel's uncle Alexis Midford (Aunt Francis's husband) is his legal guardian:
But Alexis and the rest of Ciel's adult relatives seem to have minimal involvement in his life. His aunts and uncle (and Undertaker?) may be involved from afar, but the duties of a parent, i.e. his physical needs and safety
emotional needs
education
and social upbringing
are all handled daily by his demon butler (regardless of his motives and whether he does it properly or if he terrorizes the child in between baking him cakes and straightening his clothes; being a parent doesn't mean you are a good parent or even love your child).
Some of this might actually be fan service. Most of the fan service in Black Butler is the straightforward sexual or shippy kind, but a lot of people enjoy seeing attractive men taking care of children, and Toboso is aware of and plays off of that.
But does this mean Sebastian is Ciel's parent? Outside of a biological or legal relationship, what exactly is a parent? If a parent is someone who fulfills the role of a parent i.e. raises a child, Sebastian is Ciel's parent (parents who raise children for selfish reasons or abuse or rape or kill their children are still parents).
But if being a parent requires the parent and child to recognize eachother and their relationship as such, things get more complicated. "Parental" is not an emotion; it is a label that can be assigned to emotions. An adult caregiver might feel invested in and protective and fond of a child, and label those feelings as parental, but those emotions can exist outside of a parent-child relationship and a parent-child relationship can exist without them.
Sebastian doesn't seem to have a problem fulfilling the role of Ciel's parent, and he might even enjoy it sometimes, but he reacts oddly to people explicitly labeling him as his father. The first time he was suprised/appalled. I don't even know what emotion he's meant to be showing in the second image.
It doesn't seem to me like he views Ciel as his child (do demons even have children?). Additionally, Sebastian might look like a human and act like (a nasty) one for the most part, but he isn't the same species as Ciel. His confusion could be comparable to a human's reaction to being asked if a caterpillar they're holding is their biological son.
I find Ciel more interesting in these scenes. During Kelvin's flashback, we see Ciel hiding from an unwanted social encounter behind his father.
On the Campania, Ciel hides from an unwanted social encounter behind Sebastian, and then calls Sebastian his father. In the latest chapter, someone calls Sebastian his father and then he hides from the unwanted social encounter behind him.
I don't think Ciel views Sebastian as his father, but I do think he's aware, at least subconsciously, of how parent-like Sebastian's role is in his life, and that if Sebastian were human or capable of human-like bonds, he might be his dad. Because of this awareness that any attachment on his part can't/won't be reciprocated, he tries to maintain emotional distance from Sebastian.
He's not his father, but he's Not His Father in a way no one else is.
Sebastian's thoughts/feelings in any given scene are difficult to figure out because his non-human emotions are being conveyed by a human face. Chapter 138 in particular is complicated by the fact that he has only just taken this form and has yet to adjust to his new life as an unobtrusive servant.
Our best insight into Sebastian's emotions is the series of facial expression exercises Toboso did, one of which I already made a post about.
The expressions most relevant to chapter 138 are the following:
Number 15, which was 営業スマイル, "business smile." This is basically his customer-service smile, meant to placate and disarm customers, guests, and masters.
Number 16 was 興奮, "excited." We see this or something like it whenever Sebastian gets to behave like a beast.
Number 20 was 無表情, "expressionless." Akumadeenglish, the Tumblr user who compiled and translated these now deleted posts, translated the caption for this image as "If he faces things he isn’t interested in, he becomes dispassionate." So when we see this blank expression, we know Sebastian is uninterested in whatever he's looking at.
In the contract-formation scene in Chapter 138, before Sebastian takes his human form, we only see parts of his demon face.
This expression doesn't have an exact match in Toboso's sketches because she only sketched Sebastian's expressions. Sebastian is the human butler; this is the face of the demon that will become Sebastian. This demon's expressions aren't limited by servile propriety and human facial anatomy. But if you compare the demon's expression to Toboso's sketches, you'll find that it's actually an exaggerated version of number 16 (excited). Wide-eyed and smiling hugely, the demon is excited to meet his new plaything.
After taking his human form, he doesn't immediately become the well-mannered butler Ciel trains him to be. Besides his nasty attitude, this can also be seen in his Cheshire-cat grin.
This expression doesn't show up outside of the contract negotiation scene. However, toned-down versions appear whenever Sebastian is being particularly nasty.
These don't seem to be any particular one of the sketched expressions, but might be combinations of his expressions for excited, pleasure, happy, and enjoyment.
When the negotiations begin, Sebastian hides this nasty face behind his customer-service smile. However, when Ciel brings up the possibility of bringing his brother back to life, this expression suddenly drops.
Without Toboso's expression exercises, we could only guess at what is behind the blank expression. But with the sketch, we know that this absence of emotion means Sebastian has lost interest. The excitement of a new contractor is immediately extinguished because Ciel has shown that he's the same boring type of master that's given Sebastian the demonic-equivalent of an eating disorder.
But then Ciel reveals that he was just testing Sebastian, and the excitement, pleasure, and interest are back.
More importantly, this is the first time, but definitely not the last, that Ciel will surprise Sebastian. During the next 3+ years, Sebastian will continually think he's got his master figured out, only to be astonished by his endless facets.
This is the pitiful little Sebastian in the corner of Toboso's concept art for season 2's demon Ciel. I was curious what it said and couldn't find a translation (please share a link if you have one), so I tried to translate it myself with help from google translate.
Thought bubble: ドSに育てるんじゃなかった… "I shouldn't have raised him to be such a sadist..."
Arrow pointing to Sebastian: これから永遠に保護者になるセバス。"Sebastian who will become his guardian forever from now on." (This isn't a generic word for protector. It's guardian as in the person who is legally in charge of the safety and care of a minor or other vulnerable person. This is the person who signs permission slips for school field trips and goes to parent-teacher meetings.)
Remaining text: 悪魔の先輩として狩りの方法とか教えるんだろうか…。気になりますね（笑）"I wonder if he'll teach him things like how to hunt as a senior demon... I'm curious (lol)"
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