@into–the–abyss, I’m sorry, I had to conceal the previous reblogs because it was becoming extremely long, I hope you don’t mind.
First though, here’s a disclaimer to clarify something that you said: Undertaker is indeed one of my favorite characters because I find him complex and interesting. However, I do like Sebastian’s character very much as well and no, I don’t know about you or other bloggers, but I don’t “defend” characters I enjoy.
My only interest in all of this is to present my take on both their characters, based on how I interpret what I read about them and their dynamic in canon, and (not necessarily for this debate but) to possibly help people avoid mischaracterizing them when it’s really too blatant a contradiction with canon.
That’s why I was a bit mad a few days past that you’d consider that everyone who liked UT’s character was biased about him, because I really don’t think that we all are. Of course it’s subjective so I can understand you not believing me, but please know that I’m striving on being impartial whenever I discuss series. :)
Here’s what was precisely said:
but considering what I said in my previous post, I’m still thinking that it’s possible it might be meant as a luxury in the sense that they’re always hungry for souls, because it will only satiate their hunger for a short time whenever they eat (and deceiving humans before getting their soul is the reason they exist), but this hunger won’t lead them to get weak and die/stop existing.
And even then if you don’t agree on the idea, it’s completely fine, but I still stand by my opinion that our!Ciel’s contract was/is in no way an immediate necessity for Seb because he initially left the choice to Ciel and anyway, it was confirmed he ate the twin’s soul literally just before offering the contract (and it’s been 4 years since then).
In other words, I don’t think Seb deserves to win (again, to use your words) because I don’t think his survival is linked to him eating Ciel’s soul or not.
In fact, I feel it’s a bit too dichotomic to just pit the characters against each other and gauge who deserves to get their agenda validated.
It’s just more complex than that IMO and actually that’s why I like Ciel being at the center of Seb’s and UT’s different goals, because overall it’s him living or dying (something that he has a decisional power over, even if it doesn’t seem so clear to even him so far IMO) that will decide who between Seb and UT wins.
I won’t expand because it’s all on my blog and probably not something you wish to discuss in details, but ch108 is just hard to take at face value. Obviously it tells us that UT is involved in this arc, but how and to what point, it’s not so certain (at least to me) for different reasons so far.
I’ll leave it at that though because in itself it doesn’t change much about UT’s (or Seb’s) characterization for the reason I explained in my previous post (namely that if UT’s indeed the responsible party behind this arc, whether it is partially or entirely, then he most likely fucked up because he’s not above that).
Again, I’ll try not to ramble, because it’s one of these things that appear easy to catch on when you look at what Sensei implied about his character’s agenda up until now, but it’s just from my own opinion as always.
So to quote myself: “it is most likely the results of him having a fucked up existence overall, which led to desperation and to him acting terribly” and, maybe I should have precised from the get go, but I include his obvious enjoyment of (frankly) horrible events as a part of “him acting terribly”.
I do think that the mad scientist vibe was a façade too, just like the eccentric creepy mortician was at least partially an act, that is until ch105 when it was implied that he apparently had a real reason to have said the following:
because the Phantomhive family (and thus Ciel’s survival) appears to really (emotionally) matter to him (and even if the reason behind that is simple selfishness, it’s at least one motivation behind his agenda).
Human vs Demon for their origin on the aspect of Seb vs UT just dictates that UT’s past led him to become what he is now (it’s not to be seen as an excuse but as an explanation/ascertainment), while Seb is the way he is because it’s his nature, so as I said in my previous reblog, comparing them on this doesn’t really lead to anything relevant in my opinion.
It’s regarding their agenda however that a comparison can be made, because I agree with UT that the only thing that sets them apart is their goal towards Ciel.
Overall my point is: referring to UT as a chaotic character is not wrong per se, because he is really going by his own rules, however I think some of his motivations are defined and were hinted at before in the story (which isn’t always the case with chaotic characters).
Tragic or not however, I think we will have to decide once we know more about his past, because UT will probably remain a mysterious character until then.
As for him being desperate, this is again just my opinion but he deserted 50 years ago. Granted that we don’t know what he was up to all this time, I find it odd that he’d start going on several insane rampages after Vincent’s death, the contract and the Queen being up to shady plans (when we know he doesn’t really like her), for the timing to be a coincidence.
Maybe I should have just said that, since he probably has nothing left to lose besides Ciel’s soul to Seb, it’s possibly the reason he’s going all out now, especially if he’s after something in particular where the Queen is concerned.
I may be wrong but it’s just that I doubt he used to constantly go to such extreme for his goals, which is why I tend to qualify this as him possibly being desperate.
Look, I’m not saying that the fandom doesn’t have UT-apologists, because clearly some exist and I also agree that Yana-sensei’s writing has its issues in sometimes being vague, but so far I like the Seb => Ciel <= UT plot dynamic.
Finally about UT during the twins’ captivity: I really think you are being slightly unfair yes, haha, if just because there are so many things we still don’t know about that one month => we don’t know how Tanaka managed to escape the (possibly already burning) manor and reach the hospital while still alive, we don’t know what Frances did during that one month, so I think it’s natural that whatever UT was up to is still unknown for now.
Personally I don’t doubt that UT, Frances, Alexis and possibly Klaus and Diedrich really tried to locate the twins by any means possible since their bodies weren’t found in the burnt manor, but the culprits were probably clever enough not to leave any clue. :/
But we’ll see that for sure when it’s going to be addressed. Finally…
Rest assured, I do not think either that Seb “raised Ciel to be evil”, precisely because of ch14 that you mentioned and his little exchange with Frances. In fact I don’t think that Ciel is evil, but that’s another debate.
However, while Seb certainly taught Ciel important things in order for him to learn about the world he was evolving in and to fit in, I do think that he’s one to enjoy watching Ciel occasionally suffer, if just because that’s how he “cultivates” Ciel’s soul.
Seb sees humans as insects, I hope you don’t disagree on that, but that doesn’t stop him from being interested in how they think and how they act, thus it makes sense that he’d enjoy his “butler game” with Ciel too and that he’d support him/give him advice, while still enjoying whenever Ciel is damning his soul more and more.
There, I didn’t address everything, but I think it should cover most of what our initial disagreement seemed to have been based on. Obviously you don’t have to answer (publicly or privately), but I certainly did appreciate knowing the full depth over just your initial answer to that first Anon. :))
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