We are so close to the end of the story itself, that I suspect our earl and Sebastian to end up having their big battle against Queen Victoria and John Brown. According to Mother3 theory, that should happen before the final battle (whatever form that takes) against real Ciel. So far, the theory has held quite well, and I expect the basic framework to continue holding. Partly for convenience's sake, it might turn out that Modri's demon is not Sebastian but is also present at the hotel. Even more conveniently, it might be in the same room with our earl and Sebastian. We've been looking at John Brown for a long time, and not simply because of Ash Landers' role in s1 of the anime. Within manga canon, it has become clear that John Brown is not human; his horse might not be a horse, either, but that's harder to discern from what little we've seen of it.
I'm 46 and I don't know what net neutrality is exactly, is that a good or bad thing? I am more understanding about the Black Butler storyline. The Ciel with Sebastian has said that he wanted revenge against those who has ruined his life, but how would he know when he has gotten his revenge? And wouldn't he die soon after? (Sebastian)
Hi Anon! Well, Net Neutrality is an American law but it might affect parts of the world outside of the US if it’s repealed. You can find out more info about it here as it’d take far too long for me to write it all out on this blog.
On to your other questions!
“ The Ciel with Sebastian has said that he wanted revenge against those who has ruined his life, but how would he know when he has gotten his revenge?”
By ‘those who’ve ruined his life’, our Earl specifically means those who attacked the manor and kidnapped himself and Ciel. He can’t mean the cultists because they’ve already been killed by Sebastian on ‘that day’, the day he first made the contract.
Essentially, our earl is working off the assumption that if his father was killed because he was a Phantomhive and was the current Watchdog at the time, then those same people will come for him as well. That’s why he’s not actively looking for them because he has little to go on as far as their identities are concerned. He’s waiting for them to come to him, however long that might take.
“And wouldn’t he die soon after? (Sebastian)”
Yes, once the contract is fulfilled then Sebastian wins the right to eat our earl’s soul as payment. Nothing is freely given when you’re dealing with a demon, and our earl is very well aware of this (which is part of the reason why he treats Sebastian like garbage part of the time. It’s out of pettiness and wanting to make sure Sebastian has to work for his meal because he knows that eventually, his time will run out). I think that deep down our earl doesn’t want to die, but he’s already living off of borrowed time. His situation is very complicated and precarious, which imho makes it very interesting because the stakes are so high.
I hope that clears it up a little more for you! Thank you for your ask and have a good day. :)
Modri opens the front door of this local (possibly disused?) church...
...to find a horrific scene. The "adviser" is there, standing over the lifeless body (and holding up the hair) of Anna Kornich. Its eyes are glowing ominously from a face still in complete shadow. The groom-to be is lifeless at Anna's feet, and we see the lower halves of her family members a few feet off to the left.
The demon quotes the three wishes again -- the first worded by Anna herself, while the other two were phrased just-so by this demon. The demon then goes on to explain how it fulfilled each wish.
Ripening the wheat out of season is the one true miraculous deed here. The other two wishes were fulfilled only by the cruelest of technicalities. Matyas had no such returned affections for Anna, so the demon must have killed him and taken his body to the church. Similarly, Anna's family wouldn't have agreed to the wedding, so they were also killed and brought -- dragged, as it says -- to the nearby church. The absolute bare minimum was achieved with these second two. Though the wedding ceremony was never completed, her family was there... in body, if not in spirit... literally. The second wish is the hardest one to consider fulfilled, due to the fact that bride and groom couldn't exchange their vows. Perhaps the demon pronounces them husband and wife regardless, maybe even after both of them are dead. However, since the demon claims it "satisfied each of her desires", I suspect it tricked her into admitting satisfaction during pre-ceremony anticipation, earlier that day. Much like before, Anna was likely led by a question designed to trick her. I imagine something along the lines of, "So, Anna Kornich, have all your desires been satisfied?" To which she would probably have responded, "Oh, yes!" The poor girl, indeed.
This nasty piece of "work" starts to laugh, then its laughter grows and grows in intensity and volume... as its form takes on the inky black goopy appearance we've come to identify with demons, such as Sebastian.
Modri clutches his miniature St. Nicholas icon and prays for help, all while finally acknowledging to himself that the "miracles" were not sent by his god, as he had previously assumed. Modri's disillusion turns to rage and despair.
The demon, now wolf/dog-headed and sort of crouching down to be closer, makes an (empty) apology, says god won't save anyone, and offers to grant a wish for him.
Shaking, Modri tries to reply, but he seems at a loss for words. All he can think about is the family he vowed to serve, as his means for serving the god he believed in. Without a master, he thinks he must be without his god, too. Forsaken, perhaps. Maybe there wasn't one to begin with, just wishful thinking.
Either way, in this point of his tale, Modri goes from praying for salvation... to forming in his mind a wish he'd like to ask of the demon.
Modri's mind is rather mercurial to me. Sebastian seems to have taken note of it, too. It makes Modri adaptable to change but also completely unpredictable. I have to admit he definitely has that in common with Lord Polaris. I'm starting to consider the possibility he might be Polaris... and Undertaker just keeps manipulating his cinematic records to fit whatever role he needs the guy to fill now. This way, he can be passionately devoted to real Ciel one moment... and the next moment not even recognize real Ciel's mirror twin.
Right as Modri's about to make his wishes known, there's a loud noise as part of the demon's form seems to explode...
...splatting Modri with inky goop. (BTW, I think it's hilarious how there's one mouth and two eyes still intact, reacting to the wounded area. 😂)
Someone, claiming to be divine intervention, enters the church... as the demon screams in surprise and pain. Ya know, as I'm writing up this post I'm finally noticing the little screamin' demon in the background. 🤣
When the *chak* sound occurs, I'm not sure if we are to assume the guy let loose another arrow, and I'm still not sure whether the demon has actually returned to Hell or is still there, somewhere. I guess we will find out next month whether it has already been sent back or the confrontation isn't quite over.
This guy sure is a piece of work, though; I can already sense it. 😏 Shirt, belt, trousers, boots. Ok. Ecclesiastical stole (in dark colors) with the usual 6 tassels at the ends, but with a dark trench coat over it. And what appears to be a different (white or light colored) ecclesiastical stole on top of that! A censer hanging from a second belt -- that's another interesting choice; how can he walk with it placed there? At least one other belt, this time across his chest, probably holding a quiver of some sort (to carry extra arrows). Apparently tattoos on each arm.... I'll have to go into more detail about his outfit and accoutrements in a separate post. However, I'll go ahead and note here that the cross of his crossbow looks more like a ✞ than a +.
That's where the chapter ends, but I wanted to bring back one more page from ch117. In the previous post, I showed how: 1) Lizzie and Anna use the exact same words (at least in the English translation) to express their suffering ("I... and only I") and 2) how Sebastian warns our earl that "not even a devil or a god" can truly bind the heart of a human being (Lizzie was going to run back to real Ciel, because that was her heart-felt desire).
Now we can add: 3) Sebastian's warning that symbols (like crosses and icons) are not as important as firmly held beliefs, and that suppression can intensify into zealotry... oppression can lead to resurgence.
Modri's wheel spin aptly ends up on PASSION. His life is ruled by his passions, even if they change on a whim (or due to emotional distress). Now that this demon hunter (with an... American?...accent) has shown up, Modri's Christian faith will not just be restored but intensified. Idk if we will get all the details about him getting tattooed, etc., but we probably won't need that. I expect Modri to either join forces with this guy or to at least attempt to follow in his footsteps.
I've read a suggestion this guy is the same one now pretending to be Earl Warwick. I'm not sold on that idea, but I do not think this Earl Warwick is the real one, regardless of whomever he really is.
There's now a problem with our duo's cover stories.
Warwick isn't just the name of some party host our earl turned down, it's also part of the fake identities our earl and Sebastian were planning to use at the hotel. I'm not sure why they would still have intended to use those names, since Fairchild already called them by their usual (but still fake) names. In any case, now they are confused why they have now crossed paths with the real Earl of Warwick. I'm also curious why Lord Barrymore's third son has the last name Greville. 🤔
Anyway, their cover story is completely ruined now, if it was not completely ruined before. Warwick doesn't specify, but sounds like he was relieved of his fortune by a false friend, perhaps the man holding stacks of coins shown in the flashback image.
Perhaps his title was also somehow taken? What if the man who betrayed him also took off with his wife and kids... to Italy?!? This guy says he's in search of true friendship. I'm not entirely convinced he's whom he says he is, since his last name doesn't match the last name of his third son. Has he been prompted to spin a tale claiming to be the Earl of Warwick, specifically to mess with our earl and Sebastian's plans? 🧐 Too bad our earl (presumably) kept turning down the Earl of Warwick's invitations, otherwise he might have recognized him by sight, and Warwick would have likewise known our earl and Sebastian by sight. And, if this guy is lying about being Warwick, our earl and Sebastian would have known immediately it was a lie. Ugh 😩
Fairchild now uses the whole "entangled with your tale" line.
Modri tries to go next, but there's an interruption.
The door opens as someone talks about Brighton from decades ago.
Everyone is shocked. Even Fairchild is sweating bullets, along with our earl and Sebastian. Modri's sweating, too.
Wearing a charm bracelet with a memento mori for Prince Albert... why must she always interrupt things?!? And John... with that manipulative hand puppet.
She removes her reflective (riding) glasses, but I doubt John will, at least not yet.
Now she has sat down to join the game. Even Modri is unlikely to tell his story about him... and the demon he says is the same one we call Sebastian....
Years ago, I suggested that the queen and John Brown might show up at the hotel, and our earl and Sebastian might have to fight them there. Now that might be coming to fruition.
I finally got the chapter through Kobo, so here we go.
As the title "Fulfilling" would suggest, this chapter is about fulfilling the wishes of this demon's contractor. I'd say it's also about how rewarding it must be to the demon to collect a soul (or several) at the conclusion of a contract.
Modri is adamant this time about going next, but who would stop him anyway?
Fairchild probably never takes a turn at the wheel, and John Brown isn't likely to volunteer. Nor does Victoria seem interested in having him tell one; I wonder why. Perhaps John ends up with a turn anyway, but it's not necessary.
It lands on "Passion" after a particularly long spin.
Modri says it has two meanings (for him), that of passionate emotion and that of Christ's suffering. Then he introduces himself.
He starts his tale explaining that he was an orphan taken in by a kind man, who shared his food and wine.
We see in his memories that the man had a family, and his was not a particularly wealthy family, though they lived in a "manor", but they did well enough and shared what they had.
Then we cut to Modri as a young man, and he's dressed nicely, perhaps for a ball.
Then he's at what looks like a ball at a castle. Are we to believe the man asking the lady for a dance is the "snake" he's referring to? If so, is that brunette lady the same girl from his earlier memories, years later?
And since the scene changes again so quickly... are those bodies that same brunette girl and the blond boy from the same family? Without introducing any of them, and with the time skip, it's hard to think otherwise.
Some in the fandom will be quick to assume this is really Sebastian's true form, but I don't think so. I doubt Yana-san would finally give us that only for it to be through the POV of another person, not our earl. It would be easier for her to give another demon a similar look, when it appears in inky form.
Modri doesn't recognize Sebastian by appearance or name, only by what the un-shown people in his hotel suite claim... about his smell and so forth. But what if all demons smell similar, say to reapers, and that person just assumes it's him because he smells like a demon?
Also, if Sebastian follows his own aesthetics, he really won't have two contracts going at once, and he would have devoured the souls of his previous contractors. I don't think Modri's a bizarre doll, either, since his IV pole appears to have medicine or something, not blood for transfusions. So, he shouldn't be the walking corpse of a past contractor, which Sebastian should have remembered. Plus, Sebastian knew something was up with Agares when he touched him to help him stand back up, so now that things are getting tough for him, too, not just for his young master... Sebastian should have told him something was off about this guy as soon as he grabbed Sebastian (if Modri had no soul).
I believe Sebastian when he says he doesn't recognize Modri by face or name, and I believe Sebastian would remember him if they did have any contact (contract or otherwise) before.
So... this has got to be a different demon, and someone is giving Modri false information. Is that by accident or on purpose?
What if Modri's story ends up leading to John Brown's true identity reveal? (I kind of hope so.)
The cover art/title page sounds like a reference to the Island of Misfit Toys.... 🧸 (See the end of this post for more info on the title page's words and imagery.)
They start the Spring of Tales game, after getting some info on the basic house rules for it. The billiards table and surrounding interior looks too much like a similar game/smoking room at Phantomhive Manor too be coincidence. It's likely modeled after that one, just like real Ciel's bedroom modeled after their parents' bedroom at the manor.
Sebastian likely cannot wait for Modri to properly introduce himself and explain how they should know each other. What topic would Modri's tale best fall under, anyway? Many possible options for him to tell the same story.
However, Modri and Sebastian will both have to wait. The guy in the pinstripe suit insists on going first. (I have no idea what's up with the typesetting on these pages. I sure hope the official release isn't so messed up!)
He gets FRIEND.
Fairchild has everyone join in to formally announce the topic of the first tale. This reminds me again of The Phoenix... a bit.
Our earl and Sebastian figure it must be some house rule that wasn't mentioned before.
Then he cuts his cigar, lights it, and start with an introduction. Richard Barrymore, aka Earl of Warwick. That should be familiar to us... if we think back to the Ripper arc, when our earl lists off to Sebastian all the invitations he'd decided to reject (p35 of volume 2):
Then there is Baron Bath -- any chance he's the young blond man in the room? And could the black-haired lady end up being an "aka Countess Gartland", by any chance? Because....
Go check out part two, which should be ready soon.
Oh! But there's another Land of Toys... in The Adventures of Pinocchio.
