Dates/times originating from the anime will be included with ** in front of them, but I’d recommend not disregarding them until we have something from the manga that contradicts them directly. See also [my post] about season 1 being parallel to the manga, if you’re not sold on it having been based on the general direction/themes of the manga and therefore a valuable analysis resource.
When Undertaker deserted, why he did so, and what were the political circumstances he did so in
When Undertaker finally managed to make an advanced and life-like bizarre doll (Agares)
When the Blue Star group must have been founded, how long they’ve been operating for, and the extent of their influence and operations
When RCiel was brought back to life, and how
Who the too-calm figure in the crowd at the sacrifice was, who was seen only for a single panel
Timeline:
**1226~1261 Earliest known possible mentions of Robin Hood (as far as I know), who Undertaker was said to have reaped. – Season 1 Grim Reaper Library episode.
**1793 October 16 death of Marie Antoinette due to the French revolution, who Undertaker was said to have reaped. – Season 1 Grim Reaper Library episode.
Some time before deserting Undertaker comes up with the idea to extend cinematic records after their end, which as we know results in bizarre dolls. – Volume XIII Chapter 60, Campania Arc.
**1799 DecemberWilliam and Grelle’s graduation, i.e. the latest date possible that anime!Undertaker could still be an active reaper in London, as Grelle doesn’t recognise him at all. – Season 2 OVA The Tale of Will the Reaper.
1830 April 05 Cloudia Phantomhive is born. – Ducky’s post.
1837 June 20 Victoria becomes Queen, aged 18. – Ducky.
1837 December 10 death date of Molly G., the fifth locket from the left.
1839 Roughly the last time Undertaker was called a reaper. “It’s been at least half a century since I was last called that.” – Volume XIII Chapter 60, Campania Arc.
1839 Roughly the last time Othello was in the human world. – Volume XXIV Chapter 114, Blue Cult Arc.
1839 November 03 Start of the First Opium War (Britain vs China).
1840 November 13 death date of Oliver A., the second locket from the left.
1841 Hong Kong enters British Crown rule.
1842 August 29 end of the First Opium War.
1848 June 18 death date of Emile C., the first locket from the left.
1851 June 13 Vincent Phantomhive is born. – Ducky.
1851 October 07 death date of Harry E., seventh and final locket from the left.
1854 April 20 death date of Alex B., third locket from the left.
1856 October 08 Second Opium War begins (Britain, France, India, and the USA vs China).
1860 October 24 Second Opium War ends.
1861 December 14 Prince Albert dies, aged 42. – Ducky.
1862 March 01 death date of Gilbert D., sixth locket from the left.
1866 July 13 Cloudia Phantomhive dies, aged 36. – Ducky. She is the fourth (centre) locket.
1875 December 14 the Phantomhive twins are born. – Ducky.
1878 December 14 Princess Alice (Victoria’s 2nd daughter) dies at age 35. – Ducky.
1885 December 14 the Phantomhive manor is attacked. Rachel, Vincent (age 34), Sebastian, and most servants die. – Ducky.
1886 January OCiel makes the contract with Sebastian, RCiel is killed by the cultists. – Ducky.
1886 July(???) construction of the tower bridge begins some time around this year – Volume XVIII chapter 85.
1888 March 27 Original death date of one of the Blue Cult benefactors. – Volume XXV chapter 124. Blood transfusions for the benefactors must have been happening since before this point in order to have unnaturally extended their lifespans.
1888 Summer (June~August) Derrick Arden is last seen by his family. His letters home cease not long after this, as he and Agares have been killed and promptly reanimated using advanced bizarre doll methods. – Volume XIV chapter 67. Aurora Society started their experiments on the dead some time before this.
1889 March 12-14 Murder Arc, involving the death of Patrick Phelps, son of a distinguished shipbuilding magnate. That is, Blue Star Line Company. Undertaker called in to help the cleanup after.
1889 April 17 – 20 Campania Arc, the bizarre dolls are first revealed. – Ducky’s post. Note: Campania was a Blue Star Line Company ship.
1889 April – June 4 Weston Arc, culminating in the reveal of Undertaker’s advanced bizarre dolls at the midnight tea party. – Ducky. Undertaker states that Agares is his “crowning masterpiece… For now.” – Volume XVIII chapter 84.
1889 July(?) construction of the tower bridge has been going on for roughly three years. – Volume XVIII chapter 85.
1889 August(?) Undertaker heads to Germany to see Diedrich while he’s on his way to France for an unknown reason. “The Undertaker? He was just here” – Volume XXII chapter 105, Green Witch Arc.
1889 August 17 Hilde Dickhaut death, William asks the German reapers to report any information they may have on Undertaker to the English branch. – Volume XXII chapter 105, Green Witch Arc.
1889 November 15 the Blue Cult benefactors are killed by Blavat. Blavat seems aware he’s extended their lives – “I think you lot have lived quite long enough. Don’t you? You’d already be dead if we hadn’t helped you.” – Blavat, Volume XXV chapter 124. “You should be grateful you were able to benefit from the leftovers […] Everything… Is for the Blue Star.” – Blavat, Volume XXV chapter 123.
1889 November 15 RCiel kills Agni and returns to the Phantomhive manor. – Ducky.
1901 January 22Queen Victoria’s death date in real life.
Analysis/Notes:
1. When Undertaker deserted, why he did so, and what were the political circumstances he did so in
Undertaker having presumedly reaped both Robin Hood and Marie tells us three immediate things. First, that he most likely originated in England during the mediaeval period. Second, that he was considered such a good reaper that he was allowed to handle an extremely high-importance case for a branch in a different country. Third, that he deserted at some time after October 1793.
(Interestingly, these two figures also hold polar opposite images, Robin Hood having stolen from the rich to give to the poor, and Marie having been a part of the French aristocracy who were living the high life while the common people suffered high taxes and other miserable conditions).
As far as we know, in December 1799, William T. Spears and Grelle Sutcliff graduate from traineeship and are recognised as full-fledged grim reapers, entering the London branch within the next few months (With the character songs and early episodes having had hints to the reaper origins being suicide, and the anime having revealed UT was a powerful reaper long before the manga, I just can’t imagine that William’s OVA was set in an arbitrary year until we get something that contradicts it). If this is the case, it means Undertaker must not have been in the London branch by this time as Grelle has seen him multiple times in the manga and does not show any hint of recognition at any point. Either he deserted between 1793 and 1799, or he is still in France (or abroad somewhere else) in 1799 and does not return to London again until after his desertion.
So the latest he could have been an active reaper in London was 1799, but what about abroad? Let’s take a look at his mourning locket dates.
Molly G. 10 December 1837 (fifth locket from the left) Oliver A. 13 November 1840 (second) Emile C. 18 June 1848 (first) Harry E. 7 October 1851 (seventh) Alex B. 20 April 1854 (third) Gilbert D. 01 March 1862 (sixth) Cloudia P. 13 July 1866 (fourth)
The earliest death is Molly G., the same year Victoria ascended to the throne. Not one of them is close to the date he would have had to have last been in the London branch if the anime is anything to go by, and I believe he deserted before Molly’s death. If he stayed in service after 1799, then due to Grelle’s lack of recognition we know it must have been abroad.
He did go to France again for an unknown reason during the Green Witch arc, so he does have ties there. There was [another French revolution in 1830], followed by the reign of Louis Philippe I, which then ended in 1848, also the year of Emile’s death. Emile being a French name, that might be of note later in the series, and could further support his having French ties. Undertaker must have deserted at the very latest, by any account, fifty years ago in 1839 when the First Opium War started, Othello was last in the human world, and UT was last recognised as a grim reaper. It makes more sense to me for him to have deserted a bit before this point, as he must have been quite attached already to the dead-in-’37 Molly G., likely knew her personally, and would therefore have had to have been in England at or before the time of her death but not there with Dispatch.
“And then he left to make bizarre dolls and/or because he fell in love with humans and wanted to bring them back, wasn’t it? Or for the Phantomhives?” you may ask. Well, it probably wasn’t for the Phantomhives. Cloudia was born in 1830, just seven years before Molly died and nine years before he was last referred to as a reaper. It’s unlikely that a ~nine year old girl was the only reason he deserted, if she even figured into the decision. I do believe she was involved and present in the ‘39 affair, and both Undertaker and Othello met/saw her at the time, but that’s just a guess on my part.
As for bringing humans back and creating the dolls, Undertaker does say he came up with the idea for extending people’s records while he was still an active reaper. But, he never says that’s why he left. He also never says he intended to create bizarre dolls the first time he extended a record. In fact, he seems to imply the opposite; he had no clue what would happen if he took the end off a record and put something else there, he just wanted to find out. So did he desert to continue that research? I don’t think so. Undertaker has only recently achieved any level of success with the dolls, which means he either spent from fifty to a hundred years doing the exact same thing and hoping for a different result, or he didn’t start making them in earnest until very recently.
So if he didn’t leave Dispatch to create bizarre dolls, and he likely left before the first locket death date, it must have had something to do with where he was at mentally or physically at the time. He spent what we can only assume was hundreds of years as a reaper, unquestioning and with outstanding results. Why would that suddenly change? Why did he suddenly get the thought to remove the ends? Why did he lose his faith in redemption and start working outside of and against the system, against systems in which someone looks on from afar and makes ever-suffering others do all the work?
“Who doesn’t have a way we’ve seen to restore life and health through blood? Why, it’s Undertaker. Who cannot create a truly live being with a soul, be it the correct soul or a borrowed one? Undertaker. Who has only after the death of Arden and Agares been able to create a doll that acts so much like a living person via episodes? Undertaker.
Just as Othello said “That person didn’t know much about this sort of thing”, it’s highly unlikely Undertaker did this alone if he was ever involved in the revival itself at all. It’s seeming more and more likely that another supernatural being is involved here, be it reaper, demon, or angel, and that being has given the Blue Star group the information they needed to bring RCiel back to life.
[…]
If the ‘how’ of his resurrection isn’t ‘Undertaker did it’, then Undertaker is more likely there because the group has the living Phantomhive heir, and his bizarre doll creations would be what he is giving the group in return, out of devotion to RCiel and/or the Phantomhive line, or the opportunity to be involved in this kind of development, or because the Blue Star group seems to be working against Victoria/outside of her knowledge, and would therefore count as anti-monarchist. Or something like that. I don’t know.”
Kaneki mentioning how Touka showed her right eye, the eye that’s usually covered by her hair, when she let her true feelings show has me so emotional
When the first spark was lit in Touka’s heart
When she was determined to go save him no matter how dangerous
Her outburst on the bridge
When they looked into each others eyes before consummating their feelings
When she desperately dug through Dragon to find him
Whenever she has an emotional panel, we see both her eyes shining through and that Kaneki notices that when she’s truly letting her feelings show that she doesn’t hide behind that curtain of hair is so touching
ALSO ALSO!!!! i cant believe its confirmed that haise’s habit of touching the side of his face when he’s thinking was from hide, thats so sweet im tearing up
Hi Anon! Ah, well, yes, I too always thought that the flashback would end up in March (because it would have been logical for the last chapter of vol27) but it looks like it’s at least going for a few chapters more?
Honestly, I don’t know until when it will go like that because the pacing is rather off (biggest problem with Kuro). I still think a good ending point of the flashback (that’s dedicated to the twins and the formation of the contract) would be this moment…
as I explained here, but for all I know it might as well go on until we catch up with Seb’s own flashback from ch62 or 63 (it depends on if what Sensei wants to show is also Ciel’s motivations till the moment he officially became Earl Phantomhive).
At this point, I’d say we have at least still two more chapters, but it could go further than that. The flashback started this summer, so I doubt we will go further than a whole year of it but ehhh, what do I know really, the pacing is the one thing in Kuro that is completely unpredictable. xDD
Myself I’d love to go back to the current timeline, because there are so many things I want to know and characters I want to see again, but at least this month we got a long chapter. :33
I can understand people getting annoyed and I’m not blaming them at all, but hopefully it’s just the time of a few more months! … Actually, I’m busy as hell, but since I kept saying I would do it this month, I’ll try and publish a new theory about what I think is going on in the current arc (since the flashback changed my main idea a little) even if we didn’t get to see yet what happened to the twin’s body.
Also it will jog everyone’s memory of the current subplot a little and it might change from mostly discussing the flashback. 🙂
While talking to @shinigami-mistress about the current chapter we were wondering about how the negotiation over the contract between Ciel and Sebastian would have went if the twins’ roles would have been reversed – if our Ciel had died on the altar and real Ciel had survived.
While both twins are quite clever I’m not sure if the result would have been the same as with our Ciel.
When our Ciel asked Sebastian whether it’s possible for him to revive a dead person Sebastian offers this:
Our Ciel realizes that Sebastian can only make him believe that his twin is still alive and doesn’t want that.
But would real Ciel have rejected that, too? We know that real Ciel was quite clingy to our Ciel. Just think of his reaction when our Ciel told him about his wish to open a toy shop and therefore not planning to always stay at his twin’s side.
If the prospect of not being together all the time already made real Ciel so sad how bad would it have been if our Ciel had really died? So maybe if real Ciel had been the one to survive and had been offered by Sebastian to live a lie believing his dead brother to still be alive, he may have accepted that and taken that chance to still be with our Ciel, even if it’s only in his head.
The contract would have been quite different then and to Sebastian it may have just been another (boring) contract. Just look at his reaction to our Ciel asking him whether he’s able to bring someone back to life (left) in comparison to when our Ciel proves to have realized the truth (right). I think that’s when Sebastian’s interest in our Ciel is attracted.
Real!Ciel might have preferred just to live in a fantasy where he had his brother where our!Ciel recognized the truth.
What’s interesting to me, is I think that Sebastian initially lumped our!Ciel in with the cult members to a degree (I brought this up here), and he probably assumed they had similar wants. The cultists wanted things like wealth, power, health, etc. All boring wants for a demon…but our!Ciel was very different.
Then you have the moment that @thedarkestcrow pointed out. It was at that moment that Sebastian realized just how different our!Ciel truly was. He’s just gone through horrible trauma, yet he’s able to think and act rationally. Besides, our!Ciel isn’t interested in illusions or appearances.
This is actually just a small observation but I’ve wanted to address it anyway. I’ve wondered before it the contract seal actually holds some unique visible indication to the terms of the contract. In an earlier post (here) I’ve analyzed the sigils inside the pentagram which basically repeat the conditions of the contract between Ciel and Sebastian (don’t lie, helping in achieving the contractor’s purpose,…). So I was wondering if this contract seal is specially made only for this contract.
However, the current chapter shows that same contract mark when Ciel gets it before they negotiate over the exact terms of the contract:
All the sigils are already there and the seal doesn’t change after the conditions of the contract are formulated. So it seems like the sign isn’t unique for each contract and doesn’t reflect the terms (even though they fit quite well in this case). It’s probably rather Sebastian’s personal contract seal which he marks all this contractors with, regardless of their wishes.
This’s really cool! Perhaps the sigil has the writing because that’s Sebastian’s promises to himself (?) and it’s just a coincidence that OCiel also asked for them – he didn’t actually lie to OCiel just manipulated him if you look between the lines – it would also make Sebastian’s amusement at OCiel’s requests all the funnier.
It could also just be that Sebastian’s previous contractors were similar to OCiel in their requests and he decided to put those on the seal. Maybe because he is summoned by those who value/possess the traits that his demon form represents (whichever one he is/isn’t).
Or he somehow predicted OCiel’s requests like he can make/find modern tech in the boy band arc.
Nice ideas! The sigils could really represent Sebastian’s aesthetics or maybe even just some principles that usually all demons follow (or which are part of a contract in general). I mean, while the meaning of the sigils fit really well with Ciel’s contract most of them are not so unique. Here are the meanings again from my old post:
Abdia: I conjure thee in secret. (Ciel accidentally summons Sebastian; no one knows)
I guess that’s not unusual for a contract.
Ballaton: Come forth from thy abode and speak clearly in my speech. (Sebastian speaks English)
If a demon couldn’t speak the contractor’s language that would make things difficult and I guess all demons can speak multiple languages so this one could fit for all demons, too.
Bellony: Put forth thy might and discover unto me the knowledge and power in thy keep. (Ciel uses Sebastian’s power to achieve his goals)
That’s kinda the purpose of a contract, isn’t it? So again, this could fit more than just Ciel’s contract.
Halliy: Answer in the inward silence all of my questions without fail. (Ciel orders Sebastian that he shall never lie)
This is the one that seems most unique since I doubt that demons always tell the truth in general. But maybe this is just something Sebastian does
Halliza: Assume and show forth unto me thy form of divine perfection. (Sebastian appears in human form as the perfect butler)
That’s probably also one of Sebastian’s personal aesthetics since he’s such a perfectionist.
Soluzen: Open unto me thy secret door and fulfill me of my purpose. (Sebastian shall help Ciel to obtain his revenge)
This again is something all contracts may have in common since fulfilling the contractor’s wish is the purpose of a contract.
So maybe those sigils are really not that unique and could be interpreted so that it fits many (or all) contracts between a human and a demon (at least with Sebastian).
It’s also possible that Yana just wanted to use that seal in particular because it’s basically the same design as Solomon’s Pentagram and the story of Solomon is pretty similar to Ciel’s in regard to how the seal binds a demon.
Or something else I’ve been thinking about, maybe Sebastian even manipulated Ciel a little in his decision over the conditions of the contract. Ciel’s first wish (don’t lie!) was formulated after Sebastian kinda lied to him about whether he would be able to bring back his brother from the dead.
Ciel’s second wish was at least a bit altered after Sebastian showed him that obeying all his commands could lead to misunderstandings.
And his third wish about protection and no betrayal was also initiated by Sebastian talking about Ciel’s weak body.
So I do indeed wonder a little who had the upper hand in this negotiation. I’m impressed by how clever Ciel thought about how to control this demon, especially right after all the horrors he had to go through. Ciel clearly has very thoughtful wishes. But Sebastian also took part in this conversation and it kinda seems a bit as if he directed Ciel a little in a certain way. So going back to the sigils, maybe Sebastian “knew” what the conditions of the contract would be because he led Ciel to a certain decision in that regard.
midnight-in-town 