my random hellsing headcanon is that the hellsing family comes from sweden/finland because helsinki was called helsingfors in swedish which refers to the river in the town. it was called helsinge and after the family moved to england they anglicized it from helsinge to hellsing
i hc misty as a hsp as well so. that makes two of you!
she GETS it and it’s so relieving. you don’t have to overexplain, she notices the small details and she’s gotten amazing at telling all your subtle gestures
she notices immediately if you’re overwhelmed or uncomfortable. in fact she notices that you would feel this way before you even do! she just needed to spend a little time around you to understand your threshold
even before the loud clock strikes twelve or the ambulance gets too close to be deafening, she has one hand on your arm and another around your waist
if you’re at college or work, she’ll wait for you by the entrance and as soon as you’re done with your long day, she wraps you in an embrace, kisses you, takes your bag and makes conversation as you walk home hand in hand
you’re so grateful for that, and you eagerly and inevitably do the same for her. you try to gauge what sets her off, and what can make her feel better
she sees how much you care for her even if it’s unconventional and not that outwardly visible, misty can feel how much love you have for her and the gentlest sincerity with which you hold her heart. she gets choked up over it when she thinks about it too much
the first time she practiced her resurrection power in front of you was absolutely enthralling. you couldn’t hold your tears back. the same soft hands that ran through your hair and held you at night could breathe life into a living being? misty is a treasure to this world in every sense and every way.
when she did a particularly demanding resurrection and fainted afterwards you Freaked Out to say the least
now whenever she has a big resurrection or if she’s stressed doing it, you always have both of your hands on her shoulders before she even starts. initially you insisted on doing that to make sure you can immediately catch her and she doesn’t hurt herself. then it became protection to her on every level, not just physical. she goes into these resurrections knowing she has your unconditional support, love, and care, that you’re on her side no matter what, always keeping her safe. it gives her so much strength and courage, she really comes into her own as a witch because of this
you two would hold conversation so easily, you could talk for hours on end about things that wouldn’t make any sense to anyone that might’ve overheard
if you’re not into fleetwood mac PLEASE let her show you a few of her favorite songs and tell you what she finds in them. try to find it for yourself also, it would mean the world to her
she has such a soothing presence, your very own ray of sunshine. her house, her clothes, her general vibe always feel like home to you and grant you the warmest sense of safety. you can bet she feels the same way about you
sal fisher and jeff woods friendship headcanons. post-incident(s), pt 5
eventually sal starts to hang around the other residents of the mansion. usually he’s with jeff but he gets assignments from slender that require him to be out of the house for some time. so getting to know the other pastas isn’t only politeness on his end, it’s also a way to get involved. sal isn’t a fan of doing nothing for long periods of time
he finds that he gets along the best with toby and ben, but everyone likes him because he’s so accepting and kind
at some point slender decides that it’s time for sal to take up workforce tasks. from the get-go it’s decided that sal won’t be sent on missions where the objective is just to kill. not only would it be traumatic, but would also take away from the resourcefulness that sal had as an expert in the supernatural
since slender takes up offers from both the underworld and the human world, he delegates a lot of assignments that require deduction skills and ability to communicate with spirits to sal
he’s often teamed with ben and they become friends over time. besides work stuff, they play video games and philosophize about the meaning of existence. sometimes jeff joins them but more so he’s really happy that his two best friends are getting along
over time sal begins to mellow out because he’s constantly reminded in words and actions that he’s safe at the mansion, both physically and mentally. the concept of actually fitting in is so bizzare and refreshing to him because even in his friend groups he felt out of place because of the prosthetic. being surrounded by people who physically resemble him give him the confidence that he never believed would experience
even though the idea of being a wanted man, living in a house full of murderers, and essentially working for the mafia is quite morbid if taken out of context, sal is glad that things turned out the way he did. he’s really grateful to jeff for not forgetting him, and for giving him a chance to start over
sal fisher and jeff woods friendship headcanons. post-incident(s), pt 4
at one point sal agrees to participate in the mansion’s daily life, that is collective meetings and chores. he figures that if these people saved him from the death penalty then the least he could do is cook dinner and do the dishes every other wednesday
sal always sits next to jeff at the dinner table, even if they don’t really talk
one day jeff is playing the guitar in his room and it just draws sal in. he hasn’t been able to even think about playing ever since the events at addison apartments but jeff is just too good at it. plus it’s pantera, a band they’d occasionally cover together back in new orleans and that brings back really fond memories. sal didn’t think he’d ever experience the comfort of listening to songs from his school days again
jeff anticipated that the music would get sal to come around eventually, but when he finds sal standing next to the open door midway into “clash with reality” jeff is pretty surprised himself
“cowboys from hell was a good album” is the first thing that sal says to jeff in a one-on-one conversation since arriving to the mansion
“do you want to try? the medleys on there aren’t really my thing, but i still can’t get over how you play the sleep”
“i… don’t know. i might not remember how. ‘sides, it’s not that good”
“oh please. i’m pretty sure dimebag darrel sheds a proud tear every time you do that solo”
after this encounter, they start hanging out together more and the awkwardness slowly but surely fades away. at first their conversations are light, mainly about music and what shenanigans happened in the house that day, but they both realize how much they’ve changed since their early teens
sal notices how calm and composed jeff is. he’s still sarcastic and rebellious but now it’s less of a defiance of the outside world and more a developed personality trait. he doesn’t feel the need to prove himself constantly, and his inner strength gives him an admirable vibe
on the other hand, sal reminds jeff of himself as a teenager: bitter, closed off emotionally, and afraid, most of all. it’s obvious that the years from their separation hadn’t been the nicest experience for sal and the recent trauma wasn’t helping
it becomes a personal mission for jeff to help sal, just like the latter did for him many years before
(back in new orleans, sal was the only person who openly countered the abusive views that margaret projected onto her youngest son. few people bothered to even look past jeff’s edginess but it was sal who tried to reinforce self-acceptance and positivity in his friend’s mind “no you’re not a terrible person. no you’re not responsible for how other people react to words and actions that aren’t yours. yes you should do the thing that makes you happy, it’s not stupid or childish”)
sal fisher and jeff woods friendship headcanons. post-incident(s), pt 3
fast forward many years to the murders at addison apartments. amidst sal’s horrified train of thought, his mind flashes back to jeff and he thinks “is this what it felt like to you too?”
once he’s in prison and has time to calm down, he really Thinks a lot about jeff, about how similar they were to each other when they met, and now both of them have blood on their hands. even their deadly sins turned out identical
he speculates on whether jeff also had a deeper motive than the hatred he had for his mother. sal wonders how he managed to get away with several murders, and whether he plotted them alone. has an intuitive thought that he didn’t
meanwhile, once the “sally face killings” are known of at the slender mansion, jeff is like “wait a fucking sec that’s my best friend!!”
immediately goes to slender and has the most serious conversation he’s ever had. it took a while to convince his boss to break sal out of prison (like he’s done with the creeps a couple of times) but jeff is uncharacteristically level-headed and dead serious as he argues his point. he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer, and slender eventually agreed. he wanted the kid for his own workforce anyway
the reunion was….. complicated to say the least
when he was removed from the prison, sal freaked out at first, thinking that the cult got to him again and they would finish him for good this time. almost beat the shit out of slender’s proxies in a rush of adrenaline
sal recognizes jeff immediately. it’s been 12 years and jeff barely resembles what he looked like as a preteen, but sal remembers him too well
that doesn’t mean that sal is necessarily happy by the sudden reunion. he’s plagued by monstrous guilt, jeff being one of the major reasons for it
sal is confused as it is: he doesn’t know if the slender mansion can be traced back to the prison he escaped from since the government is definitely looking for him, doesn’t know if the people in the house are affiliated with the cult, doesn’t know whether jeff actually blames him for the incident with randy and is deciding to get his revenge like this. sal’s just extremely unnerved and confused and doesn’t come out of the mansion’s guest room at all at first
jeff is also confused because he feels like he made the situation even worse. despite the fact that he was able to successfully argue his point of view to slender, sal not even acknowledging him made him feel like he made a huge mistake and didn’t know how to fix it
this also made him feel surprisingly insecure about his lifestyle and appearance. jeff remembered how nonviolent sal always was, and even if he himself committed murder, it shouldn’t mean that he’s willing to accept himself as a killer
basically they both think that the other sees them as a monster and are too scared to talk about it
slender is the first one to actually do something because he didn’t go through all of that prison break trouble just to get two sulky kids who halt his work processes
since he has some spiritual connection to the both of them, he forcibly gets them into one room and acts as a mediator for their first conversation
the culmination of this is the two of them admitting that they mean no harm to each other. jeff doesn’t blame sal for what happened to him. sal never stopped considering jeff the closest person he has. the slender mansion can’t be traced by the police and its residents pose no threat to sal
once this basis is set, they’re slowly adjusting to each others’ presence again. after that conversation with slender their relationship isn’t angsty and tense, more that it’s just awkward
sal fisher and jeff woods friendship headcanons. post-incident(s), pt 2
(complicated background story time). the nockfell cult existed for centuries. their goal was to bring a demon to serve them, but they were only human and couldn’t accomplish something like that without supernatural help. being also an ancient deity, slenderman was among the beings to which the cult turned for assistance. for a price, of course
slender believed the cult to be a bunch of delusional fools, but didn’t say anything since they paid him well
during the cult’s nationwide murder spree, slender, although consulted the main cult members about it, rarely actually killed since the cult members wanted to do everything themselves.
something about proving themselves “worthy for the cause”
slender didn’t think much about it until he was somehow summoned by two louisiana teenagers
remember when jeff and sal tried to use an ouija board? yeah………
slender is too powerful of a being to be summoned by a simple ouija board (that’s why he was surprised himself when it happened), but since he and sal had a connection via the cult, they were automatically paired
after communicating with the boys and then watching them, slender decided that they’d make great additions to his own ranks. the cult already had their eyes on sal, so he chose to slowly but surely affect jeff with the slender sickness
when word got out that jeff killed his family, sal didn’t blame him. he knew that jeff’s actions were most likely self-defense because he remembered the seething disdain that margaret had for her youngest son. deep down, he expected something like that to happen sooner or later just because of how highly abusive and manipulative margaret was. jeff could only be pushed so far, after all
the murder thing wasn’t what phased sal the most. upon learning about randy and the fire, he blamed himself for not looking out for his best friend the way jeff always looked out for him. the fact that jeff was almost burned to death, left disfigured afterwards and lost his sanity made sal believe that he somehow instigated it. after his mother’s death, sal felt like he had a curse on himself that brought misfortune on anyone who got close to him
this idea was set in stone in his mind after larry’s death
sal never admitted this even to himself, but for the longest time he believed that he shouldn’t have let jeff get that close to him
he had a recurring though that randy was part of the cult, and was sent to kill jeff
he wasn’t, but it didn’t make sal feel any less guilty about the entire situation
it took him years to at least partially recover from that
Loved your take on Alois! I dislike the second season because of how it handled it's characters, but your study does it so much justice. Do you have any further thoughts on Hannah and why she behaves the way she does?
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the analysis
I haven't really thought into Hannah's character (not in the same depth as Alois at least), but I do think that fandom sometimes undermines her to this "abused maid who did nothing wrong" trope.
The demon realm seems genuinely boring if one is just sitting around and looking for souls to eat, over many centuries, so my take is that when she encountered Luka, Hannah was suddenly introduced to the concept of feelings, and I think that is what relieved her boredom (I think she even stated that in canon, I'm not sure though).
Alois made a contract with Claude only at first, and it's unknown why and how exactly Hannah and the triplets ended up there. Demons eat hundreds of souls over their lifetime but I doubt that the souls they consume can actually influence how they themselves behave, so the idea that Hannah acted the way she did simply because she consumed Luka's soul (that is implied in the show) isn't really logical. She had to consciously allow that to happen, and I think the main reason for this initially was because she enjoyed the world of intense emotions that she was suddenly introduced to. She found Luka intriguing because he was a pure child, and by allowing his soul more freedom within her own mind (do demons have a soul?) she felt his feelings, which were probably drug-like to someone who's never experienced them before. So she did what Luka's soul wanted her to do: found his brother and stayed close to him.
I've wondered a lot about this myself, actually. If there are several souls within one body, especially in the case of Luka, who probably had something of a special position, can they all see and feel what the physical form is experiencing? And, if yes, this is a whole new level of S2 analysis because what are Luka's thoughts on how his brother grew up, and how he treats the demon that his soul is in? What does he think about the fact that Alois also made a contract with a demon, what is Luka's opinion of Claude? A lot to think about.
It's interesting whether Hannah began masking herself as a maid when Alois became earl or when the old Trancy earl was still alive. The latter makes sense because that way she could keep Luka near his brother. (Did she maybe also keep an eye on him when he was surviving for several years on his own?) Her being physically present during the worst years of Alois's life also adds another very very heavy degree to the story, one that's unfortunately not explored in canon.
I don't think that Hannah felt a particular guilt about consuming Luka's soul and, essentially, becoming what ruined Alois's life. Not at the outset, at least. It was probably something like a game to her. She admitted in the OVA that she loves how unstable Alois's soul is, so despite the fact that she's not deliberately malicious towards Alois the way Claude is, she's still a demon who is still quite predatory in nature. She's physically incapable of feeling and generating genuine human emotions, since the first reaction of a human to Alois's mental condition would be to get him help ASAP. Even though she might have inherited Luka's sentiments on making his brother happy, her execution of that idea, in the long term, is objectively poor.
Demons aren't averse to death, since they're hard to kill and have lived for hundreds of years I think most of them have a fatalistic outlook on it (if they're not actively pursuing a goal like Sebastian, that is), and that's why I think Hannah accepted death so easily. The ending of her arc makes no sense though, she had an intense rivalry with Claude, why was she cuddling up to him in their final moments? Though she might have developed a fascination with the human world and its concepts, and may have modeled their household to a family dynamic in her mind, it's still kind of weird honestly.
In short, what we know about Hannah and her relationships with the other characters in canon is sadly crumbs of information which are difficult to analyze because there's so little to work with. Which is, again, very unfortunate because she seems like a potentially incredible character who could've been portrayed a lot better
An interesting point in Alois’s ascend to nobility is that while he retains memories of his entire life, he doesn’t synonymize himself with the identity of Jim Macken. There are a few plausible explanations for this. One being a popular headcanon within the fandom that Jim morally died after Alois’s first sexual interaction with the old earl. Again, a common effect that trauma survivors face is dividing their lives into “before” and “after” the traumatic event. The fact that Alois had to assume a new identity as the earl’s son contributed to the strength with which the aforementioned divide settled within his mind.
Another possible reason is that Alois wanted to do everything in his power to be seen as an actual noble. The most ample thing he did to achieve this was convince himself that he was, in fact, the earl’s son. In the maze scene when Claude and Sebastian have to answer questions about Alois, the latter states that Alois Trancy is, in fact, his actual name. This is a super interesting part of his character and I want to look at it through the prism of the Jungian-based perspective I mentioned earlier.
The extroverted sensing users I’ve encountered have a very peculiar perception of lying. They see it as “bending the facts”, and don’t do it out of ill intent. Usually they do this if the blatant facts can harm them in some way. Since to them the process is an augmentation of the truth and not its denial, they themselves can be almost entirely convinced in the facts’ validity. Key word: almost, since they are still aware of what the truth was initially.
When I first watched Black Butler as a 12 year old, I thought that Alois was just an eccentric earl. Weird, in a similar way Viscount Druitt was. But watching his behavior now, it’s noticeable he acts significantly different than other nobles. He doesn’t hold etiquette or aristocratic pride in high regard, all of his actions stem from what he wants, not society or tradition. It’s not just a matter of personality, although that does play a part, but upbringing as well.
He seems a lot more human and down to earth than the other nobles, even those like Lizzy who have a lighter personality. It’s not necessarily a bad thing: Alois acts like the child he is, but in the setting of the series he’s practically shamed for this both to his face and behind his back. He’s rarely taken seriously by the other main characters, and I can’t help but get a vibe of classism from those around him.
Claude is the main one guilty of this, surprisingly or unsurprisingly. This is pretty strange to me since he’s a demon and, in theory, shouldn’t care what the status of the person he’s serving is. It’s within his philosophy that humans are nothing but food and this can be accounted as the reason why he treated Alois condescendingly. Every time when his master is in a state of stress and looks to him for comfort, Claude doesn’t miss a chance to tell him that the only reason he’s even here is because he wants his soul. He often says, word for word, that he’ll make a hell of a feast out of Alois. One can argue that he’s a demon so he’s just telling the truth but, again, it’s not very reassuring to continue dehumanizing a trauma survivor, from a moralist point of view.
The thing that gets me about Claude is how for the first half of the season he presents himself as this super rational individual who stays true to his demonic nature and thus doesn’t allow his “food” to affect his mental state, but as soon as he tastes Ciel’s blood he does a 180 and puts getting Ciel’s soul above his honor, principles, and life. He suddenly starts going on tangents about how pure and noble Ciel is, how great he is “by right of birth”. The scene where Claude helps Ciel get ready for the day mirrors the one in the first episode when it was Alois he served. The parallel is being drawn very distinctly and Claude clearly paints his master as inferior compared to Ciel, simply for not being born an aristocrat and having the mannerisms and reasoning of a regular child from an English village. The purity which Claude describes Ciel with also sounds like he’s blaming Alois for the abuse he faced.
The traits which Claude demeans him for are the exact things I was referring to when I said that Alois is a lot more dynamic than other teenage nobles in the show. He is very much aware of what the real world is like because he experienced its cruelty firsthand. Despite his manic episodes around his demon servants, he gives off the impression of a genuinely nice person. He released all the boys who were captive with him, even though they served as witnesses who could’ve seriously damaged his reputation and social standing had they wanted to get famous from telling the truth about who Alois really was. He lets traveler Sebatian stay at his mansion and expresses concern about the man being comfortable. He didn’t have to do either of those things but he did, and it goes to show that despite the abuse he endured, he was still a kid with good intentions. If he didn’t go through all that tragic trauma, I’m sure that he would have grown up to be a kindhearted person.
As I said before, Alois aims to be considered an actual aristocrat, but he really overdoes it, with the mistreatment of his servants and behavior that can be considered obnoxious. This also goes back to his lack of formal education. Alois had been an orphan since he was 8 or so years old, and even before that he was born into a poor family who probably had bigger worries than giving their two kids an early education. He was never taught ethics or morals, his entire philosophy is based on surviving in whatever circumstances he finds himself in. Many of the acts which he commits are wrong on an ethical level, but there’s a high chance he himself doesn’t understand the moral aspect of his actions. In his worldview, nobles who have power misuse it, much like the old earl. After becoming an earl himself, Alois believes that he can harm those who serve him because that is the only behavioral pattern he witnessed.
He may not be able to tell what is considered right or wrong in society’s standards, but he seems to acutely understand his own feelings. Alois isn’t delusional, he knows Claude’s intentions and when in the maze he asks his butler why he killed him, and receives an honest answer, he despairingly questions “why couldn’t have you just lied?”. This scene is noteworthy because it, once again, refutes Claude’s presumed rationality. The logical thing would have been to lie, just as he did when he answered other questions. This, however, was a matter of deep principle. Claude would have rather failed to achieve his goal of claiming Ciel’s soul than tell Alois that he cared about him, despite both of them knowing that wasn’t the truth. This goes to show that Claude’s neglect of his master wasn’t just him being emotionally detached from the souls he was set to consume, it was a personal hostility towards Alois. He literally loathed that kid.
IMO, the most tragic moment in the entire season (possibly in the entire series) is the scene where Alois makes a contract with Hannah: “Tell me you love me. Hug me. Love… it feels so warm”. Emotional and physical acceptance are a basic human need, especially in childhood and the teenage years. The way Alois phrases his words means that never in his entire fourteen years of life was this basic human need satisfied. This child had to make a contract with a demon in order to feel genuine love. That’s beyond heartbreaking, I had to pause the episode for a while after that.
At the end of his arc, when he speaks to Ciel after making a contract with Hannah, you could see that he’s actually happy for once. He’s smiling, but it’s not sad or menacing or sultry like the expressions we see in earlier scenes. His voice is light and his general demeanor is a lot more calm and content. He doesn’t blow his fuse at Ciel’s remarks the way he did before forming his union with Hannah. In essence, the contract is simply Alois achieving his actual goal and deep desire – not revenge, but love. It shows a lot about how he would behave had he known genuine love earlier on.
To conclude, Alois isn’t some crazy villain who acts out of malicious desires, but a severely traumatized child whose pain was intensified at the hands of the only person he trusted. I know that a large part of the fandom has mixed or negative feelings about him. To each his own, of course, but I hope that my analysis provided an explanation for how a lot of Alois’s behavior doesn’t come from a place of inherent evil, but stems from the brutal trauma he had been subjected to for the duration of his short life.
II. Alois is a lot smarter than most people consider him to be
Part 1
I don’t see it often now (bc everyone forgot abt Kuro 2 lol) but back in the day, there were a lot of Alois haters and a repeating theme in their explanations was that he was “too stupid to be an earl”. Aside from the classism which I’ll detalize later, this statement is obviously not true. He’s extremely street smart at the very least. At a young age he learns how to survive himself and keep his brother alive, and he almost succeeds in that (the contract between Hannah and Luka wasn’t something he could control). We see him next at age 11-12 which means that he spent several years on the streets living alone. Judging from his demeanor when he just arrived at the Trancy mansion (apathetic, closed off, and cold), he lived all those years in physical survival mode. Fearing for your life constantly causes a person to disregard their existing emotional trauma but it still festers in the subconscious.
The “too stupid to be an earl” argument also loses its relevancy when considering how Alois managed to go from being a captive of the old earl that the latter despised from the start to getting deemed that man’s long lost son. Back in the 2010s some people in the fandom were calling Alois a whore because he apparently “smiled while being presented to the earl, meaning he enjoyed it”. Thankfully this isn’t a point of view I encountered often because besides the blatant pedophilia (keep in mind that he was 11-12 at the time), the time Alois spent as the old earl’s captive was an incredibly mentally deteriorating experience. He saw a chance to get out of poverty and escape potential death and took it, despite the taxing cost. It wasn’t like he went willingly, it was just the most logical (and honestly brave) thing to do given the circumstances.
Now, how this influenced him in his later years. Child survivors of sexual abuse may exhibit the following trauma reactions:
Angry outbursts
Anxiety
Depression
Not wanting to be left alone with a particular individual(s)
Sexual knowledge, language, and/or behaviors that are inappropriate for the child’s age
The first four are pretty self-explanatory but I want to analyze the last one in a bit more detail. Over the course of the entire second season we see Alois display behavior that can be considered as inappropriate, especially for a 14-year old earl in Victorian England. Everything – from his outfits to his behavior towards those around him is often seen as comic relief and yet another reason to slutshame this kid. I find it peculiar that Alois commences these actions whenever he’s actively pursuing a goal, like with getting Arnold Trancy to stop suspecting him, making Ciel leave the costume party unexpectedly, many occasions of this with Claude, etc. He's doing this mechanically: acting like that is how he escaped poverty, how he managed to persuade the old earl to give him a noble status, and I’m assuming it influences those around him because they’re so stunned by the unconventionality of it. I don’t think Alois was ever taught about how society standartly views sex and sexual behavior so his perception of it is formed solely by his trauma.
That brings me to another point which I’ll also elaborate in the classism chapter of this literal manifesto. For the duration of the season Alois was often referred to as “dirty” on several instances by those around him, from Sebatian and Ciel to random people. This point isn’t really an analysis thing in this chapter, we don’t see how this affects Alois on a deep level besides getting (rightfully) offended. I just thought it was kind of fucked up to insult a child who went through severe abuse, including sexual, and have that abuse define him in society. The old earl should be the brunt of society’s critique, not his traumatized victim.
Alois’s relationship with Claude, from a psychological standpoint, isn’t really that complicated. Here’s what an article by a therapy clinic says about how childhood abandonment trauma manifests in survivors later in life:
“Abandonment trauma leads to unhealthy relationships because the trauma survivor might become dependent on the other person for validation and love. As such, they will fear rejection or abandonment. The person suffering might not know why they are clinging to their partner, especially when the relationship is unhealthy or abusive.”
Claude saved him from the old earl and played a crucial role in creating Alois as a noble. His mind associates Claude with the freedom he received. The demon was the first being to approach Alois with no intention of harming him (not without a carrot before the stick, at least), and love-starved Alois saw him as salvation and a cure for all of his pain. If Claude made an effort to actually help his master psychologically, then maybe the entire story wouldn't be so grim, but Claude’s specific goal was the opposite. He deliberately destabilized Alois’s mental state so that “his soul would taste better”. Of course, Claude never hid what his intentions were, but from an ethical standpoint, it wasn’t a morally correct approach.
Alois knew all this, and I think he even accepted it, despite not wanting to. He gives off the impression of someone who’s aware of many things, but doesn’t show that outwardly. A compelling part of his character is that while he’s generally easygoing and sociable, and sometimes overshares to those around him, a lot of his deep feelings remain inside his head only, either because he isn’t aware of them consciously himself, or because he just doesn’t vocalize what he truly believes in (like the “they’re all just damn demons” sentiment he has about his servants on a few occasions, or the butterfly monologue in the OVA).
In terms of Jungian typology, he absolutely exhibits the traits of someone who uses extroverted sensing. You can read about the characteristic traits of it here, but I want to point out that individuals who use this cognitive function have a very “grounding” vibe in the sense that they live in the present and tend to tackle problems as soon as they arise, without mulling over them beforehand. This makes them very adaptive and easygoing people. IMO, the best example of this function in Alois is the beginning of his duel with Ciel. The latter puts all of his teenage noble pride into the entire duration of the duel. Ciel is giving it his all but with a stick-up-the-ass atmosphere to it. Alois, on the other hand, despite never having dueled before, just goes along with it casually, and manages to considerably hold his own before spiraling (remember the emotional hijacking thing? yeah…)
Alois seems like a very curious child. People who use extroverted sensing are often called “explorers” because they want to experience so much of the world. This definitely manifests in Alois: he expresses a wish to travel the world when talking with Sebastian disguised as a traveler, then shows interest when the man tells him about a mystery in the Trancy mansion. The duel with Ciel is also a good example of this, since Alois literally just improvised a challenging task that he was never taught how to do.
Another point of Alois’s intelligence is how he had to “make” himself into a noble within just a few years while those around him were brought up in that environment. We can see that he’s able to read and write, which is extremely impressive considering the fact that he was most likely illiterate until the age of 13. He has super nice handwriting too. Yes, Claude tutored him, but he wouldn’t have been able to grasp information, no matter how well explained, if he wasn’t smart himself. This also goes for learning aristocratic etiquette and other things he would’ve had to know as an earl. That brings me to my next point in his character analysis.
I. The root of Alois’s issues is PTSD of early childhood abandonment trauma
Right off the bat, I want to say that Alois’s character is probably one of the most tragic portrayals of child abuse surviviors in modern media. I remember back in the early 2010s when the season just came out people were deeming Alois as bipolar or having a psychopathic disorder. Later on, the common headcanon for his mental state changes to BPD but you have to look at the root of it, and there you’ll find the childhood trauma of severe abandonment.
It’s an objective fact that a child’s primary need is to feel secure, safe, and cared for. This applies to both infancy and later childhood. In Alois’s case, it’s unknown which circumstances he was born into as an infant, because we first see him as an 8-9 year old, already an orphan. Honestly, judging by his and his brother’s behavior during his flashbacks, I’d say that their parents probably treated them fine, or at least didn’t deliberately harm them. Alois/Jim recalls that “after our parents died, the villagers turned their back on us”, meaning that he noticed the cruelty of the world AFTER becoming orphaned.
In childhood, he’s shown to be a lot more mentally stable than as a teenager. He does everything in his power to keep his brother safe, and he’s as rational as a child under stress from losing both parents can be. He loses his cool only after he finds out that the other villagers were hurting Luka. This is another layer of trauma because no 9 year old should be made responsible for the wellbeing of another child. A lot of teenage Alois’s tendencies which can be considered immature probably stem not from just the fact of the parental abandonment itself, but from being forced to take on responsibility that he simply couldn’t handle because he was a literal child.
Even though he wasn’t mentally ready for it, Alois handled that immense responsibility pretty well. During the flashbacks we see that the brothers have a place to live (probably their late parents’ house but still, some other villagers could have stolen the property or something if the brothers couldn’t defend it), are capable of stealing in order to survive, and are, despite their grim circumstances, in fairly good spirits. Alois’s “I wish they’d all just die” phrase seemed like a random heat-of-the-moment thought that he’d vocalized, and if he had known what price he’d have to pay in order for the villagers to die, I’m absolutely sure he would’ve never agreed.
That level of stress was most likely enough to leave PTSD, and the symptomatics of it are resemblant enough to Alois's behavior in the series. Particularly, I’d like to cite this: “People with PTSD of abandonment can have heightened emotional responses to abandonment triggers that are often considered insignificant by others.” Alois is often called a brat in the fandom, and his actions really can come off as that, but you have to keep in mind the circumstances which formed him as a person.
Susan Anderson, LCSW, defines several symptoms of abandonment PTSD. Below I listed several of them which manifest in our darling object of analysis.
Pervasive feelings of insecurity which leads to self-sabotaging relationships and long term goals. We can technically say that Alois’s goal wasn’t achieved because he was focused on receiving love from his butler and not getting revenge on Sebastian. This definitely seems like Claude’s version of the story, and my headcanon is that Claude disliked Alois so much because he expected him to act differently. During the forming of the contract, Alois was hellbent on attaining his goal and was kind of Ciel-like in that sense. That’s what attracted Claude to him (and to Ciel later on). But within the framework of my analysis, I’d say that Alois made the contract in his “survival mode” when it was either give your soul to a demon or wither away at the hands of the old earl. When Alois realized that his life was no longer constantly threatened, the “survival mode” switched off and the dam which held back all of his trauma broke.
Abandoholism — being attracted to the unavailable. Self-explanatory, plus I think that might be one of the reasons why he shuns Hannah during most of the season. She doesn’t disregard Alois’s feelings nor sees him as evil despite his actions and his mind can’t comprehend it so he responds with anger.
Diminished self-esteem which intensifies their need to support their ego strength with defense mechanisms protecting the narcissistically injured self from further rejection, criticism, or abandonment. Further exploring Alois’s “bratty” behavior, a cause for it can be his self-esteem, destroyed by the old earl. Alois feels the need to prove himself by throwing lavish parties, acting eccentric, harming Hannah, etc. Also, these habituated defenses are often maladaptive to their purpose in that they can create emotional tension and jeopardize emotional connections.
Emotional hijacking, in which the emotional brain takes over, leaving its victims feeling a complete loss of control over their own lives, at least momentarily. I think the best example of this is the OVA scene when Claude goes to put out the ablaze room but Alois begs him to stay so that he doesn’t burn. Claude is a demon, it’s physically impossible for him to get harmed by fire, but at the moment Alois is going through a flashback which causes him so much stress he isn’t able to think logically. Some may argue that his actions and thoughts generally lacked rational reason but I think that’s far from the truth and I’ll explain why in the second part of this essay
i may or may not have rewatched black butler 2 for the first time in eight years and gotten so phased by alois’s character that i’m writing an actual fucking ten page essay analyzing him from a psychological standpoint
i’ve always wondered why people portray before the accident! jeff in white hoodies. isn’t him having a bunch of patterned clothes one of the only crumbs of information that his canon story has?
(these take place before they became killers. inspired by my most recent post)
- they met in the beginning of middle school
- after diane’s death, henry and sal moved around the country for a while before they settled in nockfell. one of the places where they lived was new orleans (yeah this doesn’t really fit into canon (or even my own fanon, for that matter) but bear with me for the sake of the au)
- they were starting sixth grade and entering middle school, which meant that it was a new environment for them both
- that was the summer when jeff discovered the emo subculture and decided to become an honorary member
- margaret was on his ass about it and constantly nagged him that he’d never find friends looking like that
- so jeff entered the middle school premises with the goal of befriending someone cool literally just to spite his mother
- people in his morning classes were okay, but still not what he was looking for
- when the time for lunch came, jeff looked for a place to sit in the crowded cafeteria and when his eyes landed on a blue haired kid in a mask and a metallica hoodie who was sitting alone, he was like
- bingo.
- he immediately sat down across from him, saying something along the lines of “awesome hoodie. i love metallica”
- sal looked at him with wide eyes for a second because he didn’t expect to be talked to during lunch, especially in a positive context. jeff was probably the first person sal had met who didn’t start their first conversation with a remark or question about the prosthetic
- they introduced themselves and talked about classic rock for a while. over the summer, jeff took the time to learn practically everything about the bands he listened to, so when sal could actually hold his ground on that topic jeff was ecstatic
- once they discovered that they both loved playing the guitar, they were like,, yeah dude we’re best friends now
- jeff didn’t ask anything about sal’s prosthetic until sal actually told him. having his own share of insecurities, jeff didn’t pry on whether it was a fashion statement or a necessary measure. besides, he didn’t care that much, since it looked cool anyway
- the two of them shared two afternoon classes and passed each other notes during them constantly bc middle school is boring you know
- they’d start hanging outside of school pretty quickly. most of the time they’d be at sal’s since margaret was always at home and insensitive as fuck, and jeff didn’t want sal to go through that
- henry is really happy that sal made a close friend. doesn’t even mind the loud ass music constantly blaring from sal’s room whenever he and jeff hang out
- they soon learn that they reeeeeally needed a friendship like one they formed. they balance each other out perfectly. sal guides jeff through his bitterness and angst with empathetic rationality. jeff encourages sal to stand up for himself and be more confident
- speaking of which, few people bothered sal in the new orleans school because jeff was always ready to throw hands. he has a lot of unprocessed anger from margaret’s narcissistic abuse and being bullied himself. he doesn’t always respond when the violence is directed at him, but when someone fucks with his best friend?? they better count their days
- one time some asshole tried removing sal’s prosthetic in the middle of a crowded hallway and jeff went literally batshit. he won, too, and even gloated about the detention he got afterwards
- sal doesn’t exactly enjoy the fact that jeff gets in fights because of him. he prefers to solve his people problems verbally, and if they get physical, oh well, he’s used to it. sal told this to jeff on multiple occasions. jeff doesn’t care.
- not only is fighting a way to let out his suppressed anger, but jeff also has a very strong moral compass, and, in his eyes, anyone who hurts someone as nice as sal definitely deserves to get their shit rocked. the fact that sal is used to being a target kind of makes jeff sick, he tries to not think about that
- jeff believes that deserves to be hated by the people around him (that’s an idea margaret put in his head isn’t it). he hates everyone anyway, and doesn’t try to hide his misanthropy. it’s not a big deal if people hate him back. sal though???? jeff thinks that sal is everything he himself isn’t. smart, empathetic, and incredibly strong. the fact that after everything he went through, sal still sees the best in everyone, even the people who bully him, is something jeff admires him for almost to a saint-like degree
- sal and liu get along really well too! liu also admires him for his strength and kindness. kind of adopts him as his second little brother
- since sal is from rural new jersey, moving to a city as big as new orleans was exciting. he wanted to explore the city, especially the historical center. this worked well because jeff takes pride in being a native to new orleans and knows his way around the city. the two of them would often just take walks around town and check out interesting places
- they share a love for the supernatural, and since it’s new orleans, they explore abandoned houses and visit voodoo sites. one time, when margaret and peter were out of town, jeff, sal, liu and some of liu’s friends got together at the woods residence and used a ouija board to try and summon an ancient deity. it didn’t go well, things got creepy pretty fast
- they’d have sleepovers often, and the topic of their conversations would turn existential and philosophical at night. they’d talk about their past, their dysfunctional families, about their nightmares of things beyond their understanding and their uncertainty of the future. this is when they really connected. their troubles were practically identical and the conversations they had about them were the most fulfilling discussions they’d ever had. they knew they could trust each other with the deepest parts of their introverted minds and not be judged or misunderstood. both of them would talk for hours until passing out with a thought like “i’m so glad you and i met”
not to be indulgent or anything but i was analyzing my comfort characters last night and like,,, imagine if sal fisher and jeff woods met each other?? before or after the whole murder thing, doesn’t really matter. they’re so similar and i feel like the dynamic would be fucking elite
like imagine them meeting in a high school setting before shit went down for the both of them. they’re both self-declared outcasts with mental problems who turn to rock music and a weird fascination with the unknown to cope. their backgrounds are similar but the way the respond to their past and present isn’t. jeff’s bitter teenage angst would go well with sal’s sweet personality and they’d find each other super cool. as they become closer friends and start talking to each other about what bothers them psychologically, they’d both have this “holy shit someone actually understands me” moment
