sebastian's memories, his form and the perceived "lie of omission" in chapter 215
many people have been picking up on how he purposely avoided giving a straight answer and how he may be hiding information from o!ciel but i would like to propose an alternative reading...
i (personally) don't think he would hide information from ciel anymore; not even because i think he 'cares' but because i think he's scared of UT and is taking everything more seriously now. more importantly, the first time he 'lies' (hides info) in the manga, we find out he can't 'lie' when he's directly asked a question and that's what ciel does:
in the new chapter (215), we found that sebastian only created this form for ciel which leaves us with four to five possibilities on what's going on and how modri must've recognised him:
1) modri recognised him from something other than his physical form (which people have mentioned) and sebs genuinely just forgot him because it was a long time ago/only a night long.
2) this is a crack theory but sebastian has facial blindness and doesn't realise how all his forms have the same face (likely considering all the costumes he put on for ciel during the negotiation looked the same) but at the same time, is sebastian really that stupid? (i mean kinda)
3) sebastian and modri met during this contract's time (which is possible since we do not see the better half of 1888, nor do we see much of 1887 or 1886, the year the contract was made).
4) genuinely mistook him for someone else (again possible) or UT made modri think sebastian is the demon/person who wronged him.
5) sebastian does not remember what all of his past forms looked like so cannot accurately tell whether he's ever made a form like this before or not. this will also explain why he did not answer about his previous contractors being devoured or not—he can't answer accurately if he does not know. this would also tie in with possibility 1. modri remembers sebastian but sebastian does not remember him. this would also explain strange things like sebastian remembering how to waltz but not being able to brew tea (as we see in his memories in the luxury liner arc), he can speak languages but did not remember ever having a single friend (which a lot of people found odd... personally i don't find it that strange but again, it's a good point, nobody ever wanted to befriend him?) all this to say one thing...
i think each of sebastian's bodies houses different memories and/or skills.
to visually represent this, i made an example chart:
say he wanted to contract a noblewoman living in a sultanate in the middle east then surely he'd go for spare body 2, or if he wanted to contract a travelling merchant in eastern europe then surely he'd go for spare body 1.
these are just possible body memories, obviously we don't know what sebastian's other bodies are like. but we do know one thing:
sebastian has to use a mask to become jeremy in the murder arc and he never changes his face when he's disguised. like these are all the same body in different costumes:
and they probably all remember schönbrunn palace and how to waltz.
to put it simply, he only has fragments of disjointed memory in each of these bodies because he readily swaps them out. he said he only took this form for ciel and it might technically be true, he might've taken on this body with this hairstyle and this clothing for o!ciel but he might've had this same body in a contract many many years ago... he might just not remember the contract in detail or he doesn't consider the body a unique 'form' but rather the body, hairstyle, clothing and role altogether make his 'form' (remember he spawns in with clothes/hair). is it truly impossible for one to escape from a demon's contract in kuro? for example, say your contractor kills themself, would sebastian be allowed to eat them or would they become a reaper? perhaps he genuinely doesn't remember. look at sebastian's cinematic record in the luxury liner arc (which UT reallyyy wanted to see):
there's no way UT decided to see the record from the moment they met, this body might just house memories from this point, and nothing before that. again let's visualise it into how each one of sebastian's humanoid 'bodies' could work, cinematic record-wise:
each time a contract ends, the memories of it end too, obviously there can be fragments/'episodes' remaining (which is why he can remember places he's been like a palace or a sabbath or concepts like witches, reapers, etc...) but it's also important to remember that things like language, dance, musical skills (like playing violin or piano) aren't stored in the same place our normal memories are stored (which is why amnesiacs will often forget everything but will still be able to speak, have muscle memory in dancing or playing piano or other instruments, even video games!) and this is because of how memory works, in branches.
what we see in black butler's 'cinematic records' are people's episodic memories. they contain one's first hand experiences.
sebastian's memories such as language fall under his semantic ability for example 'cat in french is chat' while his procedural memory is viennese waltz steps. this is also why the simple bizarre dolls that took over the liner had the memory to walk, jump and swim (sebastian even pointed out how they use each other to climb). this isn't to say sebastian is a bizarre doll, but he has a cinematic record just like humans and bizarre dolls do. as we know, the more complex doll of derrick arden had the ability to say a phrase about tea, he was drawing on his semantic memory 'this object is a cup of tea' and 'this smell is pleasant' in order to speak. on the other hand, vice principal agares had many 'episodes' meaning his episodic memory had started working and he remembered who he was (a teacher at weston college), that's why he could form opinions, teach, etc... though it limited his procedural memory (likely due to the brain damage of how he was killed) which is why he kept falling over. while the most complex of the dolls, r!ciel and doll, have full retention of past memories and are able to form new ones adding onto their records.
so let's run over what my theory is:
1. sebastian has multiple bodies he uses for contracts, unclear how many or how they look (can he produce infinite bodies or does he just rotate/reuse a few? if so, does he remember when he does reuse them?) but they are used for different contractors and he believes this form* is exclusive for o!ciel.
*though we don't know if he considers this body the form or the body AND his clothes/hair/role.
2. each of these bodies have separate memory systems e.g. one body's procedural memory could contain 'how to brew tea' while another could contain 'how to do the polka', another body can speak 'xyz dialect of french' while one can speak 'xyz slavic language'.
3. every one of sebastian's 'bodies' has its own cinematic record and they fade every time he 'ends' a contract/his record (explains why his record starts w/ meeting o!ciel). the memories remain if they are procedural/semantic and he has vague episodic memory (like the bizarre dolls' "episodes") which is why can remember places he's gone to but can't remember who he's met there (evidenced by the fact he doesn't know how many people could bear a grudge against him; the people he was counting were probably from the last 3 years he'd spent with o!ciel, not even previous contracts LMAO)
with all this said, there are 3 possibilities remaining for how modri knows him:
1. sebastian is telling the truth, this is the first time he's using this body (and my theory about the bodies is either completely wrong or sebastian uses the same organic matter to make each body which is how the procedural/semantic memories remain while his episodic record gets mostly wiped out everytime he starts a new contract) and modri is seeing something we don't see and that's how he's recognising sebastian.
2. sebastian does not remember using this body before but he has (which is why the body has semantic and procedural memory of how to speak and dance but no episodic memory of friendships despite certain semantic/episodic/declarative memories like 'i have been to schönbrunn palace' remain) and he's met modri before however his episodic record has faded away so he can't remember him, this possibility means that modri is recognising sebastian based on his appearance.
3. (most likely) sebastian does not consider each body a different form but rather each body with independent styling is a different form to him (most likely) and he doesn't remember his past contracts/people he met in this body because of his cinematic record being restarted with every new contract.
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