So, as the recent chapter reveals, Ciel’s plan to ruin both Bravat and the Sphere Music Hall’s reputation and scupper the former’s plans was built on little more than a good guess that turned out to be on the mark.
The most logical thing to do to pile on the pressure and cause a slip up, therefore, was to deprive the Sphere Music Hall of just enough guests as to force Bravat to take more blood than usual from a decreased amount of people to make up the blood total, leading to a higher amount of deaths from blood loss.
All Sebastian and his photographer friend had to do then was catch the body disposers in the act and expose them.
What strikes me the most about this plan is how little was needed for the plan to work. All Ciel needed was a venue and a rival group to draw in customers, and will a little training he was set for victory. The F5 needed to be superior to the S4 by only a slight amount.
It didn’t matter that the F5 were far less unified in their motives than the S4, it didn’t matter that they didn’t offer the ‘radiance’ the S4 offered, and it didn’t matter that Funtom Music Hall only managed to garner 20% of Bravat’s audience
All it needed was enough people to put Bravat in the position where he had to take far more risks, causing a higher body count and more of a scoop for the photographer guy and a greater scandal when the news hits the papers.
Oh, and of course, the F5 had to be entirely ignorant of the terrible side-effect of their performances – the truth of their involvement. Makes me wonder whether the exposure of the Sphere Music Hall’s crimes will make them realise it.
For a plan that was based purely on a hunch, it worked out perfectly.
Now some questions remain:
How will Bravat react to the exposure of the bodies coming to his music hall? What will he do in response?
How will the S4 react? Will they even see the newspapers? This will perhaps answer to what extent the S4 stay inside the four walls of the Sphere Music Hall, how much time they actually spend outside, if they only venture outside when given leave by Bravat, etc. It could be that Bravat has ways of ensuring the S4 never sees the newspapers.
How will the F5 react? Whether they see the newspapers or not, will they figure out that their involvement, unbeknownst to them, resulted in the deaths? My money’s on Edward (at least) putting two and two together if he does find out.
What will become of the photographer Sebastian brought along with him. He wasn’t some random guy Sebastian picked off the street – he knew Ciel, and he knew his father Vincent well enough to say that they are similar in their wicked methods. This gives credence to the theory that he is one of the Evil Noblemen we’ve seen before, but then why is he simply a freelance reporter? If he is one of the EN, then it’s more than likely that, just as UT’s true nature was disguised by his trade as a mortician, the reporter’s job is merely a front for his true identity as an Evil Nobleman and ally of the Phantomhives.
Here’s a few of my guesses:
Bravat is good at what he does, although it seems he’s never encountered a situation like this before. He’ll have to try and spin the press in his favor in order to avoid losing any more of their audience. While I’m not sure how well he’ll be able to do that, he’ll probably have more success with the S4. They saw who the F5 were, and he might try to convince them that these are lies based on jealousy. Of course, as you pointed out before, it looks like Greenhill might be able to see through this.
The F5 are a bit trickier. They know they were to challenge the the S4, but I’m not sure they knew the extent of what was happening. This is is especially true of Edward. He wants to save Lizzie, but I’m not sure if he truly understood the danger. This might make him more focused, or it could rattle him.
This photographer is one of the first hints we’ve had of the Evil Nobleman. My question is how Sebastian knew him. I would guess he uses his ‘identity’ of a photographer to gain information, but that’s not his true identity.
I’m also wondering about what Ciel expects to happen next. Does he think that Lizzy will come to reason if she sees the newspaper and return? Because that most likely won’t happen. She probably knows what’s going on at the music hall (at least to some extent) and she still willingly stays there.
Also, the high ranking officials who are involved with the cult and probably funding it might already know what’s going on in there, too. Ciel himself said that making the truth public could cause problems and could let the true culprits get away.
So why go public now when he still doesn’t know more about the cult’s true purpose or who are the ones behind it? With the photo he now has proof that something bad is happening at the music hall and it won’t be easy for Bravat (and whoever manages the cult’s doings) to talk themselves out of it. So Ciel has forced the cult to counteract while most likely lowering their popularity. Scotland Yard and the supporters of the cult won’t be able to stand by and do nothing or even fund the cult anymore.
But I’m not sure if Ciel is aware of what that could mean. The true culprits could still get away. And since it’s obvious that the cult is in desperate need for blood, they might start to use different methods in order to get the blood or they could use the few remaining people still involved with the cult which could put the S4 and Lizzy in danger.
It’ll be interesting to see what will happen next and how everyone involved will react. But it seems like Ciel is still not getting what’s really happening at the cult and why Lizzy is staying there.
As per Bravat’s words about Lizzie, I’m pretty sure Ciel doesn’t have a single clue about what’s really going on, besides Bravat collecting blood for 4 dudes, especially when many readers already theorized that Bravat wasn’t even the mastermind behind the arc and Ciel isn’t even aware of that.
Also the simple fact he still thinks Lizzie is brainwashed by Bravat’s radiance and that the plan with the P5 will make her come back to her senses is proof enough that he’s going to be severely disappointed within the next chapters…
…because I’m 99.99% sure that Lizzie won’t go back home anytime soon.
As for the P5, well, I’m not even sure they will understand what Ciel’s plan was about, Edward aside maybe. I mean, this newspapers just showed that a murder took place (which is something Ed might have been aware of if Ciel told him why Scotland Yard was also investigating) but I don’t think Ciel intends to tell them he purposedly did all this to force the Sphere music hall to collect more blood, thus killing more people.
Ed might get the idea though, since he’s Ciel’s cousin and the only one who knows what being the Watchdog really means, but personally the ones I really want to see reacting are the S4, because I have no idea if they even knew what was going on within their own music hall, Violet aside maybe.
midnight-in-town 