Red Thoughts
Aka a blob of my biggest thoughts on Madam Red and Grelle because there were and always will be the best ship in Black Butler. This is dedicated to @pop-roxs both as an apology and because I was supposed to do a redcliffe analysis anyways and then things happened so yeah. This is for you Water, you absolute cool legend
Enjoy everyone!
Grelle Sutcliff and Angelina Dalles were never meant to love each other. In every lifetime, in every iteration, in every timeline- these two were never meant to be. Controversial, I know, but let me explain.
When we're introduced to Madam Red and Grelle in the red butler arc, they're the eccentric aunt and useless butler, nothing more, nothing less. As time goes on, we learn more about Ann and her life that she believes was taken away from her. We learn about her affection for Ciel and how, as much as she wants to love him for being the family she has and the last part of her sister that's left, all that she can feel is resentment as he also represents the life that she never got due to her sister marrying the love of her life. The main takeaways from Grelle before her transforming into the reaper we now know and love is that she's just a useless butler. She's meant to take the most unassuming role she can in order for her and Ann's murder time to go off without a hitch. That's literally it.
Then they get found out by Ciel and Sebastian and all of the backstory starts to fall into place.
Ann is grieving; she never stopped, even three years after the back to back death of her baby, her husband, and her sister and her family. When her baby and husband died, she didn't allow herself to grieve as she should have. And just when she might have gotten to a place where she could physically start to pick herself back up, the world that didn't seem like it could get any bleaker went pitch black with the fire at the Phantomhive manor. Overnight, Ann lost her sister, the love of her life, and her nephews to boot. She could barely stand to lose her baby and husband, how was she supposed to recover from this?
Her resent grew and grew until, as we know, Ann started killing. She was Madam Red, doctor and social figure, during the day and a murderer, one who wanted to take from others what the world had taken from her, by night. It's only natural that someone who wouldn't- practically couldn't- allow herself to properly feel be able to be manipulated so easily. There were sharks in the water, and her blood was the easiest to detect.
In comes the shark, Grelle Sutcliff: grim reaper obviously not happy with the person they are and has no idea how to compensate for that without making it their whole personality. Grelle says that she felt for Ann, missing the piece that would make her a true woman in the eyes of the world just as she was. Grelle claimed she saw a piece of herself in Madam Red and wanted to help her, intrigue taking over and ending with her abandoning the dispatch for years and breaking the rules of her organization. I'm not saying that she lied, but that's exactly what I'm saying.
Grelle was already unstable, Ann's similar state of unstableness just made it all the more useful when it came to using her. Grelle probably felt alive with Ann, in either a platonic or romantic sense. With this mortal, she didn't have to worry about the weight of a life. The only list was those who threw away the link between the Rippers, not one full of boring collections bound by rules and regulations. Sure, she had to trade her blood red hair in for a more human look, but Ann wouldn't leave her; she needed Grelle just as much as Grelle needed her.
All of this to get to the point that they used each other. That's all that it was meant to be. The universe never meant for them to fall in love, it meant for them to slowly kill each other until someone fell; the ironic part is that they did fall, just in a different way. Grelle fell first, and Madam Red fell harder. Them falling in love wasn't meant to happen, but they did, and what would be a more ultimate punishment than forcing you to kill your loved one?
It was a game that the two played- who would kill the other first. It was inevitable that Grelle kill Ann because (besides the obvious immortality reason) Grelle threw Ann off the deep end. They enabled each other's rage and, while Grelle would be able to rehabilitate to some degree, Ann would never be able to. Ann's fire never burned out, rather, it raged on, and continues to rage on in Ciel and Grelle. Ciel still remembers the hesitation of his aunt and as much as the brat may want to say that he didn't care about her, he very much did so. He regrets her death, even if he knows it was always going to happen. Ciel carries the weight of Ann's life in his heart, and will continue to do so until he either frees himself of his revenge or dies (this is part of the reason why I want Madam Red to come back as a bizarre doll, I want to see this child suffer), but I digress. Grelle carries Ann with her, physically, with her coat and, emotionally, by doing the one thing Ann never could: moving on.
They lived and worked with each other for three years. Ann and Grelle enabled each other's rage for three years. Ann died filled with that rage. Grelle killed her as an impulse through that rage. Grelle thought about that rage while she was locked up and let it pass through. Grelle moved on from the rage that Ann passed away holding on to. She keeps the coat as a reminder to not succumb to the rage again, lest she lose another person who understood her.
Is this a mess and this last part probably doesn't make sense? Yes. Regardless, my point is that Ann and Grelle enabled each other and it's because of this that they never were meant to fall in love to begin with. The universe played a cruel trick on them and, in the end, Grelle was able to feel the weight of a life, choosing to continue to carry that weight with her as a reminder of what it feels like. This relationship is vast and complex and one day I will conquer it and reach the peak of the mountain. Unfortunately, it is 10 PM and I have work tomorrow, so today is not that day. Until next time, my friends, this has been another one of Em's analyses.