First of all, I am very happy you seem to be enjoying my blog! And thank you for the interesting ask.
I think the best way to find out what ‘Elisabeth’ is is to read up on it, or watch it yourself; it is impossible to explain everything in a post. After having learned what the musical is about, and you’re interested in how TOHO staged it in 2019, I recommend reading my full art reports:【ACT 1】 and 【ACT 2】. These two reports also show my general thoughts on Sissi (^ω^)
Now instead, I shall dedicate this post to making a comparison between Furutod and Sebastyun.
When Furukawa’s role as Der Tod was initially announced, most people believed he would be very similar to Sebastian. It is an easy trap: both characters are non-human, have very little scruples, are fiercely attractive, and the theme of obsession is omnipresent.
But honestly, that’s it. That’s all the similarities these two share.
The biggest difference between Furutod and Sebastyun is their status. Furutod is the Lord of the Underworld (黄泉の帝王), and absolute authority over life and death of all that is alive. Sebastian meanwhile, is bound to servitude who cannot even wield full autonomy of his own. Needless to say, their difference in power status decides everything in their respective behaviours.
Let us look at Sebastyun first. All three Kuromyus from the Furukawa era show very clearly that Sebastian is very limited in many fields, but the difference between the ‘mask of the butler’ vs ‘the raving demon’ is clearest in ‘Tango on the Campania’.
In the scene with Edward, we see the boy pulling rank on ‘a mere butler’. Edward was basically threatening O!Ciel using Sebastian, while hiding behind the face of ‘a loving brother’. There was nothing Sebastian could do as a mere servant, so he very explicitly checks first whether Edward had left, before he could show his true reaction: “whatever.”
In the cinematic record too, Sebastyun clearly disagreed with what his master demanded of him, and he only showed his BIG ATTITUDE after the boy had left.
Likewise, as explained in this post, because Sebastian is always bound to servitude, his autonomy (or whatever little he has) is something he treasures a lot. His only outlet of freedom is being pedantic and obtuse. Sebastyun takes it a step further by being passive-aggressive on top, a trait Furukawa has made his Sebastian famous for.
Obviously Sebastyun sees fun in doing so, but this is undeniably the result of a long history of getting his autonomy denied. He is the servant in the shadows who needs to wield power within other people’s boundaries.
As I mentioned above, Der Tod is the Lord of the Underworld, and as Furukawa himself interprets, represents the authority over both life and death. He never has to ask for a ‘yes’, other people’s consent or opinions are non-consequential to him. He takes lives because he can, and nobody can punish him for it.
Being an existence who never needs to learn accepting a ‘no’, he does not need to put up a face, because he never needs to make compromises. Der Tod is SO used to getting his way, that teasing the possibility of ‘not getting his way’ is even a game to him.
Sure, Sebastian also teases and pushes his limits sometimes, but unlike Der Tod, Sebastian does have to consider having to reap what he sows. If Sebastian fails and breaks his contract, surely something terrible awaits him. But Der Tod? Nah… his Death Angels will clean up his mess.
Der Tod can afford to make mistakes in playing with his prey, unlike Sebastian. In The Last Dance↑, we see Furutod make the biggest miscalculation; scaring Elisabeth. Had he not scared her, then Elisabeth might have been quicker in agreeing to die for him.
Unlike Der Tod who has minions to clean up his mess, Sebastyun does need to make careful calculations.
2. Understanding and Interest
Another major difference between Der Tod and Sebastian is their understanding of and interest in human beings.
The thing Sebastian keeps saying is how interesting humans are; Sebastyun is the scientist always hungry for more knowledge, and humans fascinate him to no end. In ‘Tango on the Campania’ even with debilitating pain, he was smiling with the excitement at human behaviour.
He also makes use of whatever knowledge he has acquired throughout his centuries on earth to get what he wants or needs. Like I said above, at some point in history Sebastyun learned that fear would cause a human to shut down, so he was careful in not scaring Beast, lest she might not open up to him.
Had Sebas been a bit of a dumb-dumb and scared Beast the way he did in the manga, or the way Der Tod scared Elisabeth, then he would have failed his mission logically speaking.
Der Tod in contrast, always gets his way, so he does not need to understand humans to achieve anything. But more importantly, he is superbly uninterested in understanding humans. The only reason he shows interest in humans is for himself; he wants to bend humans to flatter his own ego. “If Elisabeth finally begs to die, then I AM the victor. If Rudolf commits suicide, then I manipulated him.” Der Tod’s satisfaction is the goal of his actions.
As such, when Rudolf ‘HAD THE AUDACITY to bore LORD DEATH’, he bitchslapped him before taking his life. When in the end Furutod did get Elisabeth, but not in a satisfactory way that assured his baby ego that he’s the winner, he was disappointed and lost all vitality.
To Sebastyun however, the satisfaction is a bonus: it’s nice to have, but it’s more important to get a job done.
Another point of difference is their mannerisms. Sebastian is a mere servant, and therefore needs to keep to the shadows. He usually tries (though fails) to adhere to the Victorian code of ‘servants should be like furniture, speak only when spoken to’. (In truth, Sebastian talks way too much for a proper Victorian servant, but he tries! He tries. Give the butler some cookies for trying.)
Der Tod meanwhile, is the supreme overlord of all and everything, so he does not need to care about anything. Plus, he can turn invisible as he likes. Unlike Sebastyun who needs to suppress his laughter or any other commentaries, Furutod can get away with laughing like a f*cking hyena on crack during an Imperial wedding.
Lastly, another stark difference between Sebastian and Der Tod is their ego and their presentation of themselves.
In this post I explained how Sebastian is very willing to humble himself, to come in second place, or take whatever disadvantage voluntarily for the sake of achieving something he wants or needs to.
This is because Sebastian is very secure about himself, and the recognition of humans (cattle) means nothing to him. He does not need anybody to know how powerful he is, instead he takes greater pleasure in silently manipulating others, using humans’ own actions against themselves.
Yes, Sebastian does love to flex, but he does not do any of those things to increase his reputation. We can tell from Sebastian never lingering to check people’s oohs and aahs. It’s like how when we impress a toddler with something easy, we usually won’t indulge in the kid’s praise because we don’t feel an increase of social regard. Instead, the fact that the toddler is impressed with something so easy is more interesting to us.
Sebastian’s flexing seems more like an outlet because O!Ciel forbade him from showing his true potential, and it is frustrating to him. It is just like how we as (young) adults we are capable of understanding deep analyses, but get constantly told to read picture books, on top of also having be content with hearing: “how amazing, you can read a picture book! You are astonishing!!😱”
If Der Tod was not explicitly ‘death’ personified, I would say that Furutod is ‘huge ego and diva complex’ personified.
Despite being a more elevated being than Sebastian (the scavenger demon) is as Lord of the Underworld, Furutod does like being praised. Der Tod is and will always be above human beings, and that is as boring a fact as water being wet. As I explained in Art report act 1, Furutod suffers from ‘lethal apathy’, and in this sense he needs more than to know ‘that mortals are beneath him, that water is wet’. Furutod wants to know that the mortals fear him, and gets a kink out of mortals being on their knees for him. Der Tod is not just ‘death’, he is the personification of ‘human regard of death’; and the fear of death, is what unifies human kind, after all.
Another point in stark contrast with Sebastian is that Furutod does have kin near him: the Death Angels. The regard of mortals is nice, but he also likes keeping his minions impressed, because his kin’s reverence also means something to him. It is almost like Furutod wants to justify why he should be superiour to the Death Angels (even though his position is never challenged). He just gets a REALLY big kink out of praise, okay? ( ´艸｀)
Furutod’s enormous ego also shows itself in his diva-ness. When he is courting Elisabeth for example, he is basically behaving like a peacock. He takes Elisabeth’s hand and runs it through his silver hair, his ivory silken skin. “Look at me, feel me, human, I am SO drop dead gorgeous.”
Furutod also can’t handle being lower than anyone; whenever he has the chance he will literally place himself on higher footing.
Contrast this to Sebastyun who is always very willing to put himself lower than others. This ⇊ would be UNTHINKABLE for Furutod.
In conclusion, besides the ‘non-human character in a dark theme’ aspect, Sebastyun and Furutod really don‘t have anything in common.
The fact that Sebastyun is always bound to servitude whenever he is on Earth, and his lack of autonomy, shape his behaviour. His reputation on Earth has no meaning to him; Sebastyun is confident about what kind of Demon he is, and the opinions of ‘cattle’ are therefore insignificant to him. The only thing one must not challenge is whatever little autonomy he has left, and he will test and find the upper limit to wield it.
Furutod in contrast, only knows what it is like to be the most superiour being and never getting his authority challenged. He never had to learn to make compromises, nor does he ever have to deal with consequences. As such he is really a foot-stamping-toddler (Foot-stamping Der Toddler? Sorry.) with a toxic superiority complex and too much power.
Furutod’s supremacy is mind-numbingly boring to him, but there is no way to achieve something grander than what is already grandest. He is trapped in his own mind of toxic superiority and boredom, and will live the rest of eternity searching for entertainment. (It is kind of sad if you think about it……wait, I’m feeling bad for Der Tod? Hmm Furukawa, you really did add a whole new page to the history of ‘Elisabeth - das Musical’)
In short: where Furutod is eternally bored and has no prospect of getting sustainable entertainment, Sebastyun will always have something interesting he might run into.
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