Mother3 theory: Reapers and Magypsies, Undertaker and Dr. Andonuts
Warning: long post!
Now, I’ve already mentioned, in previous posts about Mother3 theory, several parallels between reapers and Magypsies, as well as several parallels between Undertaker and three characters: Dr. Andonuts, Nippolyte, and Fassad. (And I’ll first go into some stuff about those parallels, especially since the revelations of ch149!)
However, after discussions with @shinigami-mistress and @mrscreant I’ve been reminded of something else Undertaker (all the reapers, in this case) have in common with Dr. Andonuts. They are not (completely) hindered by time and space.
Magypsies are magical people (the name is a combination of “magical” and “gypsy”) who live on Nowhere Islands and apparently had lived there for a very long time, generation after generation. However, there were now only seven left, and they say they’ve lived upwards of a thousand years, just waiting for someone to come along and fulfill a prophecy and release them from this place (this plane of existence). The prophecy states that someone will come along with the power to pull up the seven needles (more like swords stuck in the ground) that they guard. Once this is accomplished, the Dark Dragon will reawaken and, following the heart of the person who woke it, obey its will. It had been subdued into slumber by those seven needles (like acupuncture) ages ago because it was considered too powerful, but it was believed that someday its power would be needed by mankind again. Mirror twin brothers, Claus and Lucas, compete to wake the Dark Dragon, and the only reason they compete against each other is because Claus had died and been turned into a heartless Fascinating Chimera. He’s being controlled by the self-proclaimed king, King Porky. When Claus is finally reminded of who he is/used to be, he sacrifices what’s left of himself, so that Lucas may prevail and have the Dark Dragon follow his good heart. The Magypsies say that if the person who wakes the dragon has a good heart, the dragon will do good deeds. Someone with a bad heart will have it do bad deeds. Someone who is heartless? They think the dragon might destroy the world; the world will cease to exist at all. (Also note that Lucas is helped the entire time by his loyal family dog, Boney, including the dog walking on its hind legs while dressed as/pretending to be a human.)
In Black Butler, the big parallel to this part is the fact that there are mirror twin boys, (real) Ciel and his younger twin, and the older one is sacrificed. As that occurs, the younger twin wakes the demon from his long sleep. That demon is given the name Sebastian (after the loyal but now dead family dog), but we also know him as the Black Butler. (Real) Ciel has been turned into a Bizarre Doll and has taken back his birthright of becoming the earl and the watchdog of Queen Victoria. The younger twin is using the immense power of this Black Butler to fulfill not a prophecy, per se, but a contract. We don’t know of any “prophecies” in the Kuroverse, but that could change, and it might have something to do with reapers.... I’ll discuss this further in a separate post! Anyway, instead of long-lived Magypsies guarding needles, we have long-punished reapers who must work as such (collect, and you could even say, guard souls) until they are forgiven and allowed to “move on”... to something.... cough cough
Now... Nippolyte is a local, rather eccentric gravedigger, friend of Lucas’ family, and open opponent to the king. He was even entrusted with the task of passing a “treasured” family heirloom from Flint (the twins’ father) to Lucas. Fassad is a Magypsy who was once called Locria, but he deserted the other Magypsies and decided to turn against them; he tried to help the Fascinating Chimera Claus win the competition, which would have likely destroyed the entire world.... cough cough Dr. Andonuts is the inventor of Fascinating Chimera and all sorts of other inventions.
Bringing this back to Black Butler, Undertaker assumes this identity and practiced that occupation of undertaker and gravedigger. He once called himself 136649, which was his reaper registration number, but he refused to go by his original name (theorized to be Cedric K. Ros—, but it hasn’t been made canon... yet). Just like Locria/Fassad (sounds like facade, a face or mask) turned against the other Magypsies, Undertaker has turned away from the reaper organization... and even half-destroyed their HQ roughly 70 years prior... His issue with Queen Victoria might actually be dwarfed by his issue with the “superiors” or “higher-ups” in the reaper organization... cough cough. He’s also the inventor of Bizarre Dolls, which are reanimated corpses; they lack souls (just like the Fascinating Chimera of Claus lacks a “heart”). Right now, even though he’s no fan of the queen, he’s helping Bizarre Doll (real) Ciel regain his birthright, etc... for whatever reason, but that’s not even his original reason for messing around with cinematic records (cough cough). Undertaker has been inventing things, too: that “useless” contraption for “controlling” Bizarre Dolls is probably something he made, though it doesn’t seem to do anything. He might have had help from someone (like Druitt, who has a medical license) to build the dialysis machines and blood work equipment. Sieglinde gets to be a second parallel to Dr. Andonuts because of her chemistry work and inventions, particularly because of the Spider Legs she made, which are almost identical to an early version of the same thing made by Dr. Andonuts.
Anyway! One of Dr. Andonuts’ inventions is a time-traveling machine. Pokey Minch steals a prototype that malfunctions: he can travel back and forth in time and space, but the process ages him to the point that he can no longer move; he lives but keeps aging. Dr. Andonuts later makes another one that doesn’t have that issue, so he can move through time and space without being aged by the process. On top of that, all Magypsies (Dr. Andonuts is not one, though) can fly or float away, and when their needles are pulled up, they disappear as if they are being zapped or faded out of existence. (Oddly enough, Ionia, the best parallel to Grelle, apparently needs to wear makeup in order to fly. Perhaps all of them do?)
There has been a lot of talk regarding how reapers get the future information they have, as well as all the anachronistic items. Partly, it could be that they work off of prophecies, but I was also reminded by @mrscreant what Grelle says about death scythes being able to slice through anything, including dimensions. This allows them the ability to kill even demons with their death scythes. It could have something to do with how they deal with the constraints of not only space but also time, since time is a dimension. That’s possible, though there is a difference between slicing dimensions and passing between them. But we know they can also become invisible and even apparate and disapparate. Grelle uses that method in order to kill another JtR victim while Madam Red is still at Druitt’s party. We’ve seen Sascha and Ludger/Rudgar do that from a tree limb after the younger twin/our earl sees them (they were supposed to be invisible at the time) ... as well as Grelle and Othello do that from Phantomhive Manor; they end up going to a pub.
So, with their own reaper abilities, plus the interesting properties of their death scythes, reapers might be able to get information (and possibly even objects) from the future. However, I still think there is someone working off of their own knowledge of the future... or at least prophecies... cough cough.... Another post. 😉
Something important to note: whatever they can do in the future aside, they apparently cannot do shit about the past.
Otherwise, what would stop them from going back in time to keep things from happening? What would keep Undertaker from going back in time to save Phantomhives from death? What would stop reapers from keeping their past selves from committing suicide? They cannot change what has already happened.