I really liked some of your analysis on Black Butler, and was wondering, maybe you could share with me some thoughts?
So, it's about real Ciel and our boy. I was wondering, what are real Ciel's goals? What is he trying to accomplish right now, and what is he planning for the future? It's just, his and Undertaker's actions don't make sense to me, and at the same time, everything our boy is doing at the moment seems... like it will be useless. Like despite his efforts, Ciel's plans will still come in motion.
Another moment I was very curious about, was in the chapter where Ciel was trying out the earl's duties. He was really happy when he understood how our boy worked so hard and even managed to make his dream come true, but then, when Tanaka asked, what Ciel would lile to do with the toys from the company, Ciel told him to dispose of it. So... he doesn't actually like the factory? He wants to get rid of it, or stop production?
I hope you're still active in the fandom! I love our boy and hope to see the end of this story. I hope you wouldn't mind answering, sorry to bother you, and thank you.
Sure. Thank you for liking my analysis. I have more roaming around my head that I want to get to (One about the Holly and the Oak King, One about the Robin and the Wren regarding the twins. I think I might have found a real life Baroness who Cloudia/Claudia could be based on, an idea about Lizzie, Real Ciel, and Our Ciel, and a rather long connection to the Snow Queen. And probably something about the Tempest and the connections there since there is some, etc) but…I have to wait till the start of the Summer semester to work on them since I'm still teaching right now, and it can be hard to get everything down when grading for college courses at the end of the Spring Semester.
Happy to share some thoughts.
cracks knuckles Oh this will be interesting to dive into. Maybe I should dive deeper later, but for now…
Honestly, for his goals at present it's a few things. The first thing to understand about the situation with Real Ciel is that, I don't think that everyone, outside of maybe Tanaka and Vincent, realized that there was something going on with him that's a bit…darker, more complex, and Undetaker turning him into a B-Doll hasn't exactly helped the matter. Real Ciel seems to have what one might call a "Brother Complex", I'm putting it in air quotes because it hasn't been put into the text directly, but based on context clues in the story so far, it's the most logical answer to what's going on. This Brother complex, in this case, is based on a 1917 Psychoanalysis work by Yoshihide Kubo, who developed this idea of "Brocon" "Siscon" etc. due to analyzing the work of Hamlet, namely the siblings Ophelia and her brother Laertes and their relationship. In the case of "Psychological Analysis" by Kubo in 1932, he transferred some of his speculative analysis of parental complexes onto the idea of a brother and sister relationship, which is based on literary interpretation, and thus not really science based research on the subject matter, and their not seen as credible. However the idea behind them is used in a lot of tropes when it comes to creating drama for sibling dynamics and to show that a character may have "issues" since it's something that (while used by some writers with the intent of romantic or sexual aspects) doesn't have to be in the realm of romantic, but rather possessive in nature.
The whole idea of the brother complex in the case of a brother having one for another brother, builds on the idea of "exclusive desire to own." While in a lot of cases it's used heavily with sister and brother siblings, the aspects of the symptoms manifest in similar ways:
can become depressed or unstable when their brother has a lover or when they get married.
In the case of Real Ciel it shows up big time three times so far. First when Our Ciel suggested that he go out and play with Lizzie, and Real Ciel rebuffed that idea. Second when Vincent was cooking with Real Ciel and suggested that he (and possibly Our Ciel) end up attending Weston and Real Ciel declared he didn't want fake brothers, and lastly when he had a freak out over the idea of Our Ciel choosing to move to London and become a toy maker and leave him alone. There are other smaller ones too, but these are the three big ones, namely Real Ciel's tantrum about not wanting to be Earl and wanting to be a toy shop own too like Our Ciel.
may feel jealous of her brother's partner
In this case it's anyone who gets to close to Ciel, see Soma or Edward even, possibly Lizzie if he so deemed it, or Sullivan, etc. But I think it's less the girls in this case and more the issue of the boys (as I'm damn certain he wanted Soma dead…)
or may idealize her brother's partner as an entity that has acquired the love of her brother that she could not obtain
And in this case, if we look at Real Ciel the idealization comes less from a "partner" and more the idea of controlling and keeping, possibly idealizing, Our Ciel. That he wants to be the one that Our Ciel depends on, loves, and cares about. He wants to provide and control his younger sibling since he's the elder and feels it's part of being siblings. There's a whole lot to break down there regarding the dynamic of the two in regard to this since Our Ciel only sees a small part, idealized really, of his elder brother.
Which brings up another aspect of this to understand his goals before we dive into what they are, and that would be the idea of Twins. Now, I don't want to dive too far here as, again, this could be a post in and of itself, but Twins have a history in Japan, and in the West, where in their bond can be a bit different than normal siblings. What I mean by this is, as twins have put it, especially identical, that there's a connection that some will have (not all as they are people who have different views, ideas, and experiences) that makes them feel close to one another on some different level. In the west, you see it in literature a lot where the twins might feel lost without the other, or they might, in fantasy, show connected powers, etc. The idea of the evil twin, or killing the twin off, is used as a trope along with the long lost twin and in Japan that's doubled with some Shinto beliefs as well. (Thank you Fatal Frame 2 for pulling me down that rabbit hole.) The idea there is, in some aspects, the twins are one whole, and that they are connected to one another.
In the case of Real Ciel, he sees himself as always being with his twin and wanting to be able to be a part of his life. Which bleeds into the brother complex. He cares so much for him that he's blinded to the truth that he's actually far more controlling than he should be. Question being, is there more to his desire to control his brother because of his need to be with him at all times and basically possesses him, or if it's more to do with the other issue at hand, which is the ill brother aspect of Our Ciel.
So last thing to keep in mind, Our Ciel is the younger twin. He and Real Ciel were born looking identical, but according to Vincent, Our Ciel is more like Rachel. With that comes the added issue of Our Ciel being "Weaker" of the two in health. Due to this I think that Real Ciel started to manifest a "Savior" complex as well. He wants to be the person who takes care of his "weaker" younger brother to ensure that he lives a long life. Basically he feels he needs to be around him all the time and control what Our Ciel does in order to assure that he (Real Ciel) gets what he wants out of this and that is to feel wanted and adored and loved by Our Ciel. Because what is life without his younger brother? They're twins after all and should be doing things together. He needs to be by his side to ensure that Our Ciel doesn't get sick, and has someone make sure that the "gold cage" as it were stays clean and has all that Our Ciel needs. In a really screwed up way he's actually trying to care for Our Ciel, but he's going about it all wrong due to the other aspects as pointed out above.
Which brings us back to the Goals that Real Ciel has:
Firstly his main goal, to stop Our Ciel from being the Earl. If you believe in the Master Mind theory, or a version of it, where in Real Ciel helped in the murder of his parents, then you realize just how tricky and dangerous he can be. Real Ciel purposely designed this whole thing to force Our Ciel's hand and have him give up playing Real Ciel (since he's not really Ciel but the Spare Young Master), and back down into being the younger "Weaker" brother that he was when they were ten. When Our Ciel declared that he wanted to be a Toy Shop owner, Real Ciel insisted on him being a Vicar, a doctor, etc. Something he saw that a noble would do, but also a job that would keep him in town, and staying by Real Ciel's side. When Our Ciel pointed out that he didn't want that, Real Ciel freaked out at the prospect of having Our Ciel being out on his own, independent of him. Even when Our Ciel pointed out that Lizzie would be there, to Real Ciel it wasn't the same. Lizzie isn't his Twin. He can't care about Lizzie, and she's scary like Aunt Francis to him. He wants his brother by his side. Period. That is his main goal with this.
Another goal would be to get Sebastian away from him. I feel like he's trying to isolate Our Ciel in order to control him and make him be by his side. He more than likely doesn't really care about the Earl ship, being the Watchdog or anything like that. So long as it's connected to his brother and he's able to be with him, he'll be happy. He set the whole thing up to ensure that, while in Jail probably for a short time, he could be the rescuer, to save Our Ciel from bad influences, and ultimately for Our Ciel to rush back to him and say "I'm sorry, I want to stay by your side." We've seen in Our Ciel's dreams about how manipulative Real Ciel, or at least a dream version, of him could be in the Green Witch Arc, so it's hard to not think that he was a bit like that in real life too, but maybe not as harsh and given his B-Doll version and how they manifest the worst sometimes in the persons personality, I feel like he's show casing more of that darker side than what he normally would have alive. Undertaker, no doubt, informed him about what's been going on with Our Ciel, and likely placing the blame on Sebastian for Our Ciel's bad behavior (which is true, Sebastian does play a huge part in that), and because of that, and apparently eating Real Ciel's soul, or at least he claims to have, Real Ciel basically has a bone to pick with the demon butler. So getting rid of him is part of the goal as well.
Those would be two main things he wants to do at the moment. This, along with controlling the narrative of what happened to him, and retaking over the role of Earl, would be a number of present day goals that he has. Future goals, that's harder to guess. My only theory there would be that he would probably keep Lizzie around as a sort of "I have to have her hang out for events but honestly I don't care for her as deeply as I do my brother," so I'm not sure if the wedding would happen, or if it did, Lizzie would be in a cage herself designed by Real Ciel and make her more of an Aunt Anne than a Aunt Frances or a Rachel.
Undertaker and Real Ciel's plans seem to be very different, as Undertaker is slowly learning. Undertaker I think, wants to bring his family back, or at least revive and keep safe the ones he considers his family. Namely, if you again believe that Undertake is Cedric Ros, then he's Vincent and Frances Father, and thus wanting to bring back Claudia Phantomhive. He said he didn't want to lose another Phantomhive, that includes Our Ciel. On the other hand, Real Ciel doesn't honestly care about that. He's enjoying the fight between him and Our Ciel. His focus is on bringing Our Ciel back to his side and keeping him there. I don't think he's actually thinking about the Stars, or any of that aspect, it's just a means to an end, and he's going to reject them all once he's done with them. His whole goal, his desire, is being at his younger brother's side.
He's proud of Our Ciel, and this again falls into the issue of the complex, plus genuinely caring for his younger sibling, and having that weird "Care for the one I love" thing going on manifesting. The reason for the disposal of the toys comes down to ensuring that Our Ciel doesn't have things to tie him down to his own independent desires. Real Ciel mentioned if he was in Our Ciel's shoes he would have invested in more serious things, like trains, phones, and other inventions. Our Ciel is looking more towards the consumers and trying to make others happy. He's far more observant of the situations in the world than he wants others to know about. The "greed" that Sebastian mentions also covers paying for the upkeep of the Village to ensure the happiness of the people there that he looks after as a Landed gentry. Something that he mentioned when he was very young in the carriage ride.
He likes the idea that Our Ciel was brave enough to start his dream, but no he doesn't like the factory nor the shop, because it wrecks his idea of keeping Our Ciel in one place and having him be by Real Ciel's side. Both. I think he wants to eventually get rid of the shop, and stop production so he can put Our Ciel back in the play room, or at the very lease, allow Real Ciel to control what Our Ciel does and play the "Caretaker" role in Our Ciel's life again, being his "Only" Brother.
So short version long: Real Ciel has a number of complexes that seem to manifest more so now that he's a B-Doll who aims on putting Our Ciel back into the role of the "sick" younger brother so he can play the role of "Caretaker" and be the only one that Our Ciel relies upon. He doesn't want others to be part of Our Ciel's world, or let him be who he wants to be, because that means that he can't control things, and Our Ciel won't be by Real Ciel's side. He wants to take away the role of Earl from Our Ciel and remove others, like Soma and Sebastian and Lizzie, from the equation to ensure that the only one Our Ciel relies on is him, and eventually I feel like he's going to want to decide on Our Ciel's future to ensure that he's never too far from him due to the insecurities that Real Ciel has about himself.
Oh I very much am. I've just been not well, and busy. I still read the manga, I still have a lot of thoughts on it, I just haven't been able to respond and write up my long essays. XD
Hopefully this helps a bit. These are just my thoughts on this. ^_^
