As a follow up to this post about what the family lineage might be.
I definitely spoke about this before, when ch108 came out and for an old analysis I did of Frances’ character, but it’s been over two years since then and lately I was wondering once more…
…if what awoke within Ciel during the arc in Germany, allowing him to see the Shinigamis, was activated only from time to time or became permanent.
Thus here’s a reminder of the parallel between Frances and Ciel both staring at Seb’s face for no particular reason (Ciel more than Frances, since he literally said it was nothing when Frances called Seb names afterwards), when they both share the Phantomhive lineage.
I can’t be sure whether it was made on purpose or not (I do agree it sounds super random though), but I personally always took that part (above) from ch108 as a possible hint that the lineage thing somehow activated in ch103 and is now permanent, meaning that Ciel’s eyes can see things that he couldn’t before:
like shinigamis even when they’re supposedly hiding themselves from humans
and possibly even through Seb’s human disguise as well.
TL;DR what runs for generations in the Phantomhive family may be the ability to spot either just Shinigamis or supernatural beings in general, and:
No but seriously though, Bravat aside (no matter if he can really see through Seb’s disguise despite being a human), what if…
that’s more or less how Frances sees Seb, thanks to the Phantomhive lineage???
Hence why she’d not only criticize his hair (even if she doesn’t like bangs on everybody so it’s not really a hint) but also his face, when humans in general will describe him as good looking?
Maybe the lineage only allows Phantomhives to notice Shinigamis or maybe it allows more than that? Mayyyyybeeee?
((Imagine Frances’ reaction tho, if she had a way to know Seb was a demon from the first time she saw him: her brother’s family was thought to have been completely annihilated but it turned out that one of her nephews survived…..! Except that he came back with his soul chained to a demon. Poor Frances T_T))
Ahhhhhhhhh senseiiiiiii!! Okay so Bravat just confirmed that his “predictions” weren’t exactly his (most likely UT’s) but it seems he really does see through Seb’s human disguise to some extent!
So guess who else might be able to do the same thingggggg…!
rCiel: I’ve never fought with my brother before so I came back from the dead, stabbed his friend to death and left him there for him to find, carved ominous words into his wall, outed him for being a liar in front of our family, and sent him to jail. Just for the funsies. Just for the excitement.
Hey I wonder about if Yuri will ever search/find out about why Oku and Obaba used to be exorcists but quit at some point? Which led them to become homeless, I suppose?
With everything about Section 13 and Asylum, it would be interesting if Sensei were to show that a few exorcists couldn’t maybe handle a few secrets they found out about and chose to leave the Organization instead of being associated with it?
Especially since one could argue that the way they died was a little suspicious. I mean, there is no real argument or proof, because Yuri was 6, the scene was quick and they said it was a fire but was it really accidental? Who knows.
… Now that I think about it though, It’s kinda the same about Yuri’s biological family’s situation because…
what about this super shady family business that’s quickly mentioned?
I’d consider it random, just giving a reason to why she had no family in the first place, but her family name is also the name of the demon king of water at least in English. Maybe there is a difference in Japanese when it comes to how it’s written, I have no idea, but it would be interesting if it wasn’t a coincidence, leading to Yuri reasearching about her past and the people she used to live with.
So was Oku’s name really “Oku” and Yuri decided her sons would have a (made-up) related family name because he was like her surrogate father? Or maybe it was actually “Okumura” and it’s because she’ll research about him, find out about this and why he left the Organization, that she’ll give his name to her sons?
I don’t know but I feel ch100 and ch101 still have bits that are shady despite this trip in the past being supposed to be about giving Rin answers…
Do you ever just love Ishida more then tg and just get upset that no one sees him as a human being but just a machine for their entertainment
Ishida has given us such an incredible piece of work with Tokyo Ghoul.
But he’s also given us some amazing glimpses of the PERSON behind that. We’ve seen him being so incredibly humble, so incredibly sweet and kind, silly and funny, hard-working, geeky as any of us, and everything in between.
He’s a guy that decided to make a comic about a superhero with a penis for a head.
He’s awesome at word-play and silly puns.
He jokes at his own expense, and teases his assistants in comics.
He has great taste in music, and has introduced me to some really neat artists I didn’t know before he mentioned them or got them involved with his work.
His style has developed over the years, and it’s a joy to see him grow as an artist. His personal style of artwork that reminds me of watercolors is so incredibly unique and beautiful. He does these fantastic, realistic portraits of people as well as breathtaking, impressionist pieces.
He’s such an incredible person, and it’s an honor to have gotten to witness him sharing those pieces of himself with the world.
Of course I love his works. But he, the person making a silly post, also makes me smile.
Because Noda Sensei wrote about the use of fortune-telling/divination plenty of time in the story so far and, so as not to judge the customs of Ainu people or other minor ethnicities from Karafuto who strongly believe(d) in this, he made it generally accurate when it came to following plot twists.
Overall Inkarmat was more right than wrong (Kiroranke, Karafuto, Wilk didn’t kill those Ainu men even if he was Nopperabou),
her own prediction she got from Mifune Chizuko also turned out to be correct (Kiroranke, the man she was after, stabbed her),
Asirpa was indeed betrayed by one of the three men who used to follow her (by two, to be accurate, but you get the point)
Since most of what Inkarmat predicted is half divination/half investigation though, that’s why Sensei ended up introducing the additional idea that “fate can be changed”, meaning divination doesn’t have to be the only truth. However, where Sensei could have let Inkarmat be the fake she initially seemed to be (especially when Asirpa didn’t believe in this kind of things), she ended up being given a lot of credits.
And that means that this reindeer’s shoulder blade from ch166…
is supposedly a good indicator that someone within the group who (unknowingly) received this prediction will die.
The most expected/logical candidate initially is Shiraishi because it’s his decision to keep on following Asirpa that changed the prediction from “someone is following you” to “someone is going to die” but as it is, well that’s kinda too easy to think like that. xD
Sensei could go for a double bluff (making us think it can’t be Shiraishi because #too easy, only to kill him anyway) but… meh. Besides, Shiraishi hasn’t really done anything wrong, okay he’s the Escape King, but he never killed anyone which is quite the difference with most of the cast, so killing him would be unfair.
When it comes to Asirpa, she ain’t dying or I riot. Nah but for real, she’s got one hell of a plot armor, being (in theory) the only one who can work out the code her father hid amongst the 24 tattoos, which is why everyone wants her.
Besides if she dies, Sugimoto will most likely annihilate the whole world and this wouldn’t help his character development or the story, so double nah. Final point, but eventually she also has to go back to her village, to see her grandmother again, so that Tanigaki can be free from that self-imposed duty (and so that he can go back home too) => so, not Asirpa.
Which leaves Kiro and Ogata, the two traitors. :))
And Kiro is the most likely candidate to die between the two, at least for me.
Firstly, so far, Ogata was the one who was hinted to have a possible chance at redemption
between the two, mainly through the concept of “guilt” he pretended never to feel but that he must feel regardless, if just towards the memory of his brother.
We may not know why he wants the gold, but he left nothing behind when he went to Karafuto, so he could definitely change his mind about the gold and using Asirpa, which is a huge difference with Kiroranke.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Kiro sees Asirpa as only a mean to an end (he’s not Tsurumi), but he’s still ruthless. For example, Wilk was his old friend, they even assassinated the Russian Emperor together, but he still ordered his death.
Besides, I personally think it’s likely that Kiro is actually the one who assassinated those Ainu men which is something Wilk took the fall for…
just like he’s the one who stabbed Inkarmat. Hopefully Inkarmat will survive this, but Asirpa still believes her dad murdered some of her fellow Ainu people and she’s bound to find out it wasn’t the case once she sees Sugimoto again.
For Kiro to hide a truth like that is not an element vouching in his favor or his survival. In the first place, going back to Karafuto is a real step back for Kiro, because it’s like going back to the past and as we know now…
…that past holds a lot of complicated elements that we have to take in consideration for the future developments.
Going back to Karafuto ties directly into Kiro’s motivations obviously, because fighting for the independence of minor ethnicities is all that he’s always been after and, as Sugimoto said to Wilk, sure it’s a just and noble cause, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of everything else.
For example, just like Sugimoto was angry at Wilk for apparently trying to make Asirpa this Ainu “Joan of Arc” (because it’s selfish as @sentrakk explained here), Kiro shouldn’t have gone to Karafuto without a single look back at the family he left behind (how many months has it been since he saw his sons?).
Again, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Kiro doesn’t care about his family. On the contrary, having Ainu sons is giving him even more reasons to fight for the independence of Ainu people and other minor ethnicities, which is most likely why he’s even more ruthless now than he used to be and so why he even had Wilk killed.
But here’s the thing…
Kiro and Wilk were old friends, who fought and killed together, so for Kiro to have Wilk killed (just like maybe for him to frame Wilk for the murders), it must indeed have been because Wilk really changed when Kiro didn’t/couldn’t.
As for how/why Wilk changed…
…it’s thanks to Asirpa herself (just like it was the case for Sugimoto, Tanigaki, even Shiraishi and for Ogata next): Wilk’s plan and motivations regarding his daughter were definitely questionable, but at least it seems that he truly loved her and the Ainu people, to the point he wasn’t ready to keep going with the initial plan about the gold and that’s the major difference with Kiro.
He and Wilk used to have common goals, they used to be the same, but where becoming a father apparently changed Wilk, having sons didn’t make Kiro change his way of life/way of thinking: he just can’t leave the cause he’s been fighting for his whole life behind just to be with them.
And beyond the notion of this being “good or bad” (since the cause is indeed seen as just and noble), since Kiro couldn’t forgive/understand Wilk changing and had him (framed? and) killed for this reason, this difference between them is most likely what’s going to kill Kiro too at some point during this arc.
Personally right now I have no idea as to who might kill him or lead him to his death, hopefully not Sugimoto (who’s set up to confront Ogata) or Tanigaki (even if Kiro stabbed Inkarmat, because he should know revenge isn’t for him).
Maybe it’s going to be the Russians? Or maybe it will have to do with Shiraishi
one way or another, since it’s Shiraishi’s change of mind that led to this change of prediction in ch166.
TL;DR just my opinion, but I’ll be very surprised if Kiroranke were to make it back to Hokkaido somehow (unless he has a change of heart about everything, since “fate can be changed”, but it sure doesn’t look like it right now).
I hope you won’t mind if I’ll hijack your post but I really wanted to talk about all this and you gave me the perfect chance!
@goldenkamuyhunting I don’t mind, your inputs are always very interesting. :))
In regards to predictions, I agree and even mentioned that they’re not just divination and not 100% accurate (most of what Inkarmat was vouching for came from her own investigation indeed).
However, while Sensei could have gone full “it isn’t real” through several examples in the story, maybe out of respect for such beliefs (especially considering Ainu people and other minorities strongly believe or believed in this) he still wrote the related events as fitting relatively well overall.
One example: okay Inkarmat didn’t die and I hope she survives, but she was still stabbed and her life was in danger. She also said she and Wilk wouldn’t meet again (because she thought she was going to die) and technically she saw him from afar but he died before they could be reunited and talk.
It’s a little play on words and events by Sensei, but overall it works for whoever (in and out of the narrative) believes in this. If Asirpa doesn’t believe in it, then she doesn’t have to see it as a sign. However if Shiraishi (for example) is more receptive to it, his resulting actions could be influenced and so it is interesting to consider it. That’s all I meant to convey. 🙂
If anyone from the group dies anyway, it won’t be a consequence of the shoulder blade itself (especially since they don’t know about that “new” prediction), but rather of the events and people involved (“fate can be changed” indeed), which is why the rest of my post is built on theorizing that Kiro has a bigger death flag than everyone else. xD
Also just saying but, from the way the scene was written/drawn and since Sensei showed us readers only the shoulder blade’s prediction changing, I have a hard time thinking it isn’t meant to at least be taken in consideration for possible foreshadowing, whether you believe it might really happen or not.
Finally, personally I don’t think that this shoulder blade is saying anything besides “someone is going to die”, a change that was triggered (so to say) by Shiraishi’s sudden decision that watching after Asirpa was more important than saving his skin. I don’t buy the idea that there were two meanings in one but as with everything, it’s only my opinion and I can be wrong. :))
I cannot talk much for Goblin Slayer as I have not read/seen it yet, but I think I can talk for Berserk:
You only see those rape scenes on certain occasions. They usually appear as a motif of sexual perversion (Eclipse, heretic’s Cave at tower of conviction, Qliphot, that one kushan Daka factory using human pregnant women) in a doomsday kind of scenario. And it’s mostly done to give the story a push forward, scarring and traumatizing the characters and giving them a motivation or drive.
There surely are some personal reasons why Miura chose this way of story-telling and kept it through most of
the story (but I don’t want to dig into this and I hope he is all well if not I’ll spam him with lovely fan letters and good vibes)
It’s reason why Guts went on his 2 year apostle killing spree:
I also think the things that happened to Farnese while she was taken hostage by Guts, the things she witnessed at Tower of Conviction and Qliphot all together enabled Farnese to become a witch in the first place:
The “Daka Factory” made Silat question whether it is a good idea to follow a a king that lies beyond their understanding (one who resorts to using pregnant women to create hell spawn, I might add):
And later on Silat already makes this point very clear when asked to join the neo band of the hawk:
It’s a (prettyy fucked up) narrative tool, so to say. But also very effective because firstly, it is so shocking and secondly, the timing of these events fit into the overall narrative and development of each character.
Thank you for writing this.
I understand that people are upset with the rape scenes and find them questionable. But at the same time, as questionable as it is, Berserk wouldn’t be the same story without it (and I know this is going to be a controversial thing to say).
Yes, using rape to shock and upset the audience can be a bit of a cheap trick, but that’s kind of the point, to shock and upset both the audience and the characters. Femto/Griffith is considered as villanous as he is because he’s a rapist, as much as people complain that it objectifies Casca*, people wouldn’t hate him as much without it.
Honestly, reading through Berserk every single character who is a rapist has also been depicted as FUCKING EVIL (Wyald, Femto, the trolls, Ganishka, etc.) so it’s not like Miura is glorifying such actions. You could argue until the cows come home about wether or not rape should be depicted and even used as part of some character’s characterization, but IMO at the end of the day Berserk has been mature rated from the start, if you can’t handle sexual content then perhaps you shouldn’t read it.
(* – that’s not to say it isn’t a valid complaint)
Some other works literature, movies or games would only include explicit
scenes merely for shock value or PR (I’ve heard people saying that
Goblin Slayer does just that, but what can I say!)
Berserk has explicit and triggering content, but it makes it meaningful in the way the story is told. E.g. lets just point out how Guts was abused by Donovan and therefore WILL mercilessly beat up or kill anyone crossing his path who dares touching the weak (Though I also have to point out he is not actively pursuing that goal).
This experience of his is used as motivation that is showing throughout the manga in a very strong and effective way. It gives him a depth and also ambiguity – because he is not actively pursuing as goal – that not many protagonists have, at least those I’ve seen/read about.
I mean when the PROTAGONIST literally saves women from rape ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS (Casca/Adon, Casca/Farnese/Women from Enoch in Trollcave) it’s really really unlikely that the author endorses rape in any kind of way. (But I like that he also puts a reminder to not become the very thing you are fighting against *cough* winter journey *cough*)
While I understand people being upset about Berserk’s upsetting imagery (I was too when i first read the explicit parts), I think it’s art to write these things and give them a proper meaning and symbolism; it makes Berserk the masterpiece that it is.
This is so very important.
I’m sorry if what I’m about to say sounds kinda unrelated to this discussion @bscully, but Berserk has a real notoriety in the manga world and honestly, I thank Sensei for steadily going with the upsetting imagery in spite of this!
(under the cut, because possibly slightly out of topic)
Anyone who likes manga has at least heard of the series and generally of the Eclipse, since it’s the most shocking/horrible part (I have had dozens of discussions that turned out like this) and, because it’s shocking but also because Berserk was often referred to as a masterpiece, more than a few manga fans went to read the Eclipse without the context of the previous 12 volumes.
Well, guess what? Obviously these guys came out disappointed and full of the criticisms you were talking about above (”this is disgusting”, “glorifying rape”, “couldn’t he have drawn/done this with more taste?”, etc).
But that’s the thing, context matters in every series and even more in Berserk, which is why as you said so well, “Berserk has explicit and triggering content, but it makes it meaningful in the way the story is told“ and that shows through all the examples you mentioned.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but if I go read a love confession between two characters I barely know/haven’t followed the story of, the emotional affect is 100% lost on me compared to if I’ve been following their dynamic for a few or a lot of volumes.
Same for lovemaking/sex scenes being taken in or out of context, with or without knowing the characters and all that they went through before finally reaching that point with each other (for example, that’s how you can establish a real comparison between the Griffith/Charlotte and Guts/Casca sex scenes in the same volume => again, something Sensei made on purpose, without a doubt; whereas the two scenes just probably resonate similarly if you check them without knowing the context or the characters).
And so, if this is how it works for beautiful and emotional moments, why shouldn’t it also work for absolutely horrifying and shocking parts like the Eclipse (but also Guts’ chidhood, the lost children arc, Qliphoth, Wyald, Ganishka, etc)?
So yes, Miura-sensei goes with upsetting imagery often in Berserk, it’s been a thing since the beginning although (as Anon pointed out) it’s hardly ever the same tone several times in a row. That fact is why the series doesn’t have to be for everyone and there is no issue with saying one wouldn’t enjoy it. However, for the ones who go check the worst scenes regardless, without the whole context, and who obviously get the wrong idea, seriously what’s the point?
It took me two years to start Berserk between the first time it was recommended to me and when I actually gave it a try, because first thing I did was to go to google image to check and I immediately closed the browser because “what the hell?! too violent!” => that’s missing the context.
Now it’s one of the best series (amidst manga, comics, novels, books, everything) I have ever read and honestly I’m glad circumstances made me give it another chance.
Miura-sensei knows what he is doing: it doesn’t have to be for everyone, but honestly, criticism is only legitimate with context.
Gotta love the “I don’t tell lies” part of Seb’s aesthetic, because he’s forced to take this even more seriously by the contract, which results in…
having to admit that he can’t sit down in the extra chapter, partially because it’s not proper to be sitting with his master, sure, but also because he’d rather not take the risk to sit his ass with UT being around. xD
Because Noda Sensei wrote about the use of fortune-telling/divination plenty of time in the story so far and, so as not to judge the customs of Ainu people or other minor ethnicities from Karafuto who strongly believe(d) in this, he made it generally accurate when it came to following plot twists.
Overall Inkarmat was more right than wrong (Kiroranke, Karafuto, Wilk didn’t kill those Ainu men even if he was Nopperabou),
her own prediction she got from Mifune Chizuko also turned out to be correct (Kiroranke, the man she was after, stabbed her),
Asirpa was indeed betrayed by one of the three men who used to follow her (by two, to be accurate, but you get the point)
Since most of what Inkarmat predicted is half divination/half investigation though, that’s why Sensei ended up introducing the additional idea that “fate can be changed”, meaning divination doesn’t have to be the only truth. However, where Sensei could have let Inkarmat be the fake she initially seemed to be (especially when Asirpa didn’t believe in this kind of things), she ended up being given a lot of credits.
And that means that this reindeer’s shoulder blade from ch166…
is supposedly a good indicator that someone within the group who (unknowingly) received this prediction will die.
The most expected/logical candidate initially is Shiraishi because it’s his decision to keep on following Asirpa that changed the prediction from “someone is following you” to “someone is going to die” but as it is, well that’s kinda too easy to think like that. xD
Sensei could go for a double bluff (making us think it can’t be Shiraishi because #too easy, only to kill him anyway) but… meh. Besides, Shiraishi hasn’t really done anything wrong, okay he’s the Escape King, but he never killed anyone which is quite the difference with most of the cast, so killing him would be unfair.
When it comes to Asirpa, she ain’t dying or I riot. Nah but for real, she’s got one hell of a plot armor, being (in theory) the only one who can work out the code her father hid amongst the 24 tattoos, which is why everyone wants her.
Besides if she dies, Sugimoto will most likely annihilate the whole world and this wouldn’t help his character development or the story, so double nah. Final point, but eventually she also has to go back to her village, to see her grandmother again, so that Tanigaki can be free from that self-imposed duty (and so that he can go back home too) => so, not Asirpa.
Which leaves Kiro and Ogata, the two traitors. :))
And Kiro is the most likely candidate to die between the two, at least for me.
Firstly, so far, Ogata was the one who was hinted to have a possible chance at redemption
between the two, mainly through the concept of “guilt” he pretended never to feel but that he must feel regardless, if just towards the memory of his brother.
We may not know why he wants the gold, but he left nothing behind when he went to Karafuto, so he could definitely change his mind about the gold and using Asirpa, which is a huge difference with Kiroranke.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Kiro sees Asirpa as only a mean to an end (he’s not Tsurumi), but he’s still ruthless. For example, Wilk was his old friend, they even assassinated the Russian Emperor together, but he still ordered his death.
Besides, I personally think it’s likely that Kiro is actually the one who assassinated those Ainu men which is something Wilk took the fall for…
just like he’s the one who stabbed Inkarmat. Hopefully Inkarmat will survive this, but Asirpa still believes her dad murdered some of her fellow Ainu people and she’s bound to find out it wasn’t the case once she sees Sugimoto again.
For Kiro to hide a truth like that is not an element vouching in his favor or his survival. In the first place, going back to Karafuto is a real step back for Kiro, because it’s like going back to the past and as we know now…
…that past holds a lot of complicated elements that we have to take in consideration for the future developments.
Going back to Karafuto ties directly into Kiro’s motivations obviously, because fighting for the independence of minor ethnicities is all that he’s always been after and, as Sugimoto said to Wilk, sure it’s a just and noble cause, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of everything else.
For example, just like Sugimoto was angry at Wilk for apparently trying to make Asirpa this Ainu “Joan of Arc” (because it’s selfish as @sentrakk explained here), Kiro shouldn’t have gone to Karafuto without a single look back at the family he left behind (how many months has it been since he saw his sons?).
Again, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Kiro doesn’t care about his family. On the contrary, having Ainu sons is giving him even more reasons to fight for the independence of Ainu people and other minor ethnicities, which is most likely why he’s even more ruthless now than he used to be and so why he even had Wilk killed.
But here’s the thing…
Kiro and Wilk were old friends, who fought and killed together, so for Kiro to have Wilk killed (just like maybe for him to frame Wilk for the murders), it must indeed have been because Wilk really changed when Kiro didn’t/couldn’t.
As for how/why Wilk changed…
…it’s thanks to Asirpa herself (just like it was the case for Sugimoto, Tanigaki, even Shiraishi and for Ogata next): Wilk’s plan and motivations regarding his daughter were definitely questionable, but at least it seems that he truly loved her and the Ainu people, to the point he wasn’t ready to keep going with the initial plan about the gold and that’s the major difference with Kiro.
He and Wilk used to have common goals, they used to be the same, but where becoming a father apparently changed Wilk, having sons didn’t make Kiro change his way of life/way of thinking: he just can’t leave the cause he’s been fighting for his whole life behind just to be with them.
And beyond the notion of this being “good or bad” (since the cause is indeed seen as just and noble), since Kiro couldn’t forgive/understand Wilk changing and had him (framed? and) killed for this reason, this difference between them is most likely what’s going to kill Kiro too at some point during this arc.
Personally right now I have no idea as to who might kill him or lead him to his death, hopefully not Sugimoto (who’s set up to confront Ogata) or Tanigaki (even if Kiro stabbed Inkarmat, because he should know revenge isn’t for him).
Maybe it’s going to be the Russians? Or maybe it will have to do with Shiraishi
one way or another, since it’s Shiraishi’s change of mind that led to this change of prediction in ch166.
TL;DR just my opinion, but I’ll be very surprised if Kiroranke were to make it back to Hokkaido somehow (unless he has a change of heart about everything, since “fate can be changed”, but it sure doesn’t look like it right now).
I think that might have been possible had Vincent married anyone other than who he did. O!Ciel inherited his asthma and frail constitution from his mother, Rachel, who we saw in the “With Father” side-story as having been prone to illness. Madam Red also informed us that part of the reason she wanted to be a doctor was for Rachel, who was constantly sick or bedridden.
We have no indication that Vincent was ill or medically troubled as a child and we know Frances would simply not tolerate being ill (because let’s be honest, Frances Midford née Phantomhive is NOT dying from something so mundane as an ordinary infection) so whatever propensity O!Ciel has towards illness was given to him by Rachel.
So if R!Ciel took after Vincent and was a (presumably) normal, healthy kid while O!Ciel was more like his mother, it might actually lend credence to your theory that the “inhumanly strong” Phantomhive gene is maternal.
Because while R!Ciel was a healthy enough child, he was in no way exceptional like Frances or Elizabeth. It’s entirely possible they could’ve inherited this biological quirk from the OG Phantomhive countess, meaning Claudia – the most enigmatic figure in Kuro at the moment – might have also been a sword-wielding get-shit-done badass. (Hell, if we buy into the UT-was-in-love-with-Claudia theory then we at least know she could’ve kicked his ass if he tried pulling this let’s revive the dead shit during her tenure as Watchdog xD)
In summary, it’s possible that Claudia was the original Sword Queen but that this particular trait could only be passed down to the females of the Phantomhive line. Vincent did not inherit this genetically altered super-strength chromosome and was thus unable to pass it down to his sons, R!Ciel and O!Ciel. Erstwhile Frances did inherit it but was only able to pass it down to her daughter, Lizzy.
I mean, at this point it’s anyone’s guess but I’d just be happy to catch another glimpse of our Kuroshitsuji empress, Claudia xD
midnight-in-town 