So now that we know that Undertaker really is the one who brought R!Ciel back from the dead and has confirmed his (probably unhealthy) attachment to the Phantomhives, whatever reasoning that might be, it made me think of a real-life phenomenon that I heard about a few years ago. I have to wonder if Yana is also aware of it and drawing a bit of inspiration from it.
Basically, it officially started around the 1940′s but could have been happening earlier, but some doll makers called ‘reborners’ began to cater specifically to parents who had lost children due to tragedy and still do today. They replicate newborns and infants with very carefully crafted material to make them look as life-like as possible. Some people collect them as hobbies, but some people also have them commissioned for upwards of thousands of dollars as a sort of mememto mori of their own child. These can assist with coping with death, but some people also take things a bit too far and there have been cases of parents emotionally bonding so deeply with the doll that they continue to treat it as if it were their real child. Psychologists have actually begun to study it and caution against buying a ‘reborn doll’ in certain situations. It’s a very tragic and heart-breaking phenomenon.
But it also fits as a good parallel for Undertaker, I think, who is quite literally turning his dead loved ones into ‘dolls’ because he’s unable to cope with their loss. These are just my ‘shower thoughts’ of the day.
Oh yes, I didn’t mean to say they weren’t! I know someone who’s a doll hobbyist and has a few they got second hand. But yeah, it’s also been going on for quite a while.
midnight-in-town 