For me, these two questions are connected since I guess the answer to the first question depends on the second one. So I’ll first answer the second one.
I think the person who now came back as real Ciel isn’t the same person he was before and neither do I think that there’s a chance for him to ever be truly himself again. The reason for why I think so is that I’m pretty sure real Ciel died that day in the cult when he was stabbed.
Sebastian also seems to have confirmed that (since that was probably what our Ciel was referring to in this scene):
And it’s also likely that Sebastian has even eaten real Ciel’s soul when he first appeared.
So real Ciel is dead and his soul is gone. And I think one of the themes in Kuro is that death can’t be fully reversed even if Undertaker and now the Blue Sect are trying to do it with Bizarre Dolls or whatever method the sect is using. They were partly successful in making the bodies move again and even in making them follow some purpose. However, they were still just shells with memories or yearnings which controlled their actions. What made their personality, what gave them real emotions and probably also a will of their own – their soul – is still lost for good.
And in this regard, death is final and irreversible.
So this applies to real Ciel, as well. While he’s certainly a very successful result of such a resurrection attempt he’s probably still just a shell of his former self – maybe driven by his wish to be with his brother forever which the Blue Sect may have manipulated to become an obsession (take a look at this post). There are surely still traces of his former personality (I assume his Cinematic Record was used, as well, since he seems to has real Ciel’s memories). But he’s not the same person he once was, nor will he ever be because he’s actually dead and his soul is gone. At least that’s what I think.
And that leads me to your first question. Because I think that real Ciel is more dead than alive (in the sense that the person we see now is just some weird experiment which may have the body and memories of real Ciel but will never be who he once was) I think he will die again at some point in the story. Maybe not by the end of this arc. Depending on how this will continue there may not be a definite solution to this arc but it will continue in another arc (similar to how Undertaker appears in several arcs while we still don’t quite know his goals). But I assume that before the end of this manga real Ciel will be dead again. Because basically he already died. And after what he has done (Agni’s death, for example) and because of his clearly bad intents he’s surely an antagonist who I can’t see living alongside our Ciel for long. But it might still take a while for this tragedy to be solved because there are many emotions and things won’t be easy for everyone involved.
So I guess there’s not really a chance for a happy ending to this arc because whether the twin lives or dies, both options are not really ‘good endings’. Alive, the twin is a threat but if he dies again someone must kill him and that won’t be easy, either…
One mystery that hasn’t been revealed in the flashbacks is who burned the manor and why it was done.
I had never really questioned this before. My assumption was that the attacker(s) burned the manor to hide the fact the twins had been kidnapped. That is what happened, after all. When the twins’ bodies weren’t found, it was simply assumed they had been lost among the ashes. No one went searching for them. Instead, the boys were mourned.
But was that the attacker’s intent – or their only intent.
One thing that many have discussed is that the men that sold the twins were most definitely not the killer(s).
They seemed to have to struggle to hold our!Ciel enough to tag his ear, so they couldn’t have effortlessly killed a manor full of people.
A good point was raised by @rationalkuroshitsuji in this post that the language used by the kidnappers makes it seems as if this wasn’t a planned kidnapping.
They simply decided to take our!Ciel with them to sale him, nor did they really know who might buy him.
So, if the killer(s) were trying to hide the fact that the twins had survived, their leaving a lot of things to chance. Even if they assumed the kidnappers would take the boys, they was no way to know for certain who would buy them. What if someone else had found the twins first or what if someone else had bought them? They could have been discovered much sooner. This leads to one question.
What if the killer(s) didn’t start the fire just to hide the fact the twins are missing? Could it have been a message? Was the point to strip the boys of everything including their home?
As I discussed this with @thedarkestcrow, another question came up.
Are we wrong to assume that the killer(s) was the only one who could have started the fire?
We don’t know when the fire started. We know that the manor wasn’t burning when our!Ciel was kidnapped. Plus, there’s always been the question as to how Tanaka survived. In fact, @thedarkestcrow even made a list of possibilities to the fire’s origin:
1. it was an accident (by someone interfering in the attack or something like that)
2. the attacker wanted to hide something (that the twins weren’t there probably)
3. it was some sort of message
4. someone else caused the fire after the attackers left
5. the fire started by itself (a stove, lamp, etc.)
There’s still a lot of mystery left in this story. This fire is only one part of it.
Thoughts?
I want to elaborate a little on the list of possibilities about what could have started the fire. (As a side note, I don’t think all these possibilities are equally likely, this is just a list I’ve come up with @shinigami-mistress to sort our thoughts.)
1. Accident/Interference
This is assuming that something in the attacker’s plan failed on that evening. On the one hand, the attack seemed very well planned and highly professional. But on the other hand, while everyone else was killed quickly without much noise, Tanaka survived and the twins weren’t killed like the others but fell into the hands of the abductors. We’re still missing an explanation for that. In case of the twins, they may have been left alive on purpose (to make them suffer even more?) but then why go through the trouble and risk of involving the kidnappers as intermediary?
So what if there was indeed another plan but then someone interfered. If someone (Undertaker?) fought the attackers they may have been distracted. And in that time when the unconscious twins were left unsupervised the kidnappers may have found them and taken them. It also might explain how Tanaka could survive and the fire may have been started because of a fight between the attackers and whoever interfered. If the fire destroyed the manor during their fight, both parties may have thought that the twins had died within the fire.
2. On purpose in order to hide something
I guess this is the possibility I feel is most likely at this point. Because the attack was so professional and the twins weren’t killed immediately it’s probably pretty safe to say that the twins were left alive on purpose. And in this case they were probably given to the kidnappers (or left for them to find) on purpose, as well. I’m still unsure why they would use the kidnappers and not give the twins to the cultists directly since that seems like a great risk to me. But there’s a high chance that at least one of the attackers was supernatural so maybe (if it was a shinigami for example) they already had some sort of knowledge about what would happen.
Then the attackers set the manor on fire to destroy all evidence and to hide the fact that the twins weren’t among the dead so that no one would assume they were still alive and search for them.
3. Message
This also assumes that the attackers set the manor on fire on purpose. The attack was so brutal that it seems that the attackers had a great hatred towards the Phantomhives. This also ties in well with the 2nd possibility. If they hated the Phantomhives so much that they even wanted the twins to suffer by giving them to the kidnappers/cult they may have also wanted to destroy everything representing the Phantomhives. So destroying the manor and its inhabitants by setting it ablaze could have been the attacker’s final move in order to eradicate the Phantomhives once and for all.
4. Someone else caused the fire
I don’t really think this is the case but I guess it’s not impossible so I wanted to add it, too. If the attackers didn’t set the manor on fire there’s a possibility that someone else came across the manor and did it after the attackers had left. The Phantomhives had many enemies, after all. So maybe someone else just took the chance. However, this seems pretty random and I think the fire is most likely connected to the attack.
5. Fire started by itself
This would also be after the attackers had left. Everyone in the manor was dead so no one would have noticed a fire. The attack left the manor in quite a chaos and somewhere a fire in a fireplace, a lamp or a stove in the kitchen may have gotten out of control, causing the manor to be set on fire while no one was left alive to do anything against it. But again, I rather think the fire is connected to the attack.
Hi Anon! You have my entire shipping list for all (or almost all) the series I ever reblogged here. 🙂
I’m not sure I understand the question though: do you want me to say which ships I like the most out of them all? Or generally why I ship what I ship?
By the way, it’s true I don’t particularly address novels and books I read on this blog, probably because the tags for these books are generally a bit dead on tumblr and because I have had less time to read books in general these last years, but anyway, I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer? :))
It’s a little hard to explain, but I tend to compartmentalize a lot in general, so it’s really hard for me to overlap different categories and give you an answer to a general question like that.
For example, I can totally tell you which ships or characters I like more in TG or Kuro respectively, however if you were to ask me to rank my favorite characters or ships between TG and Kuro (or other series), I would just answer “???”. xD
It’s for this reason that I’m not good at comparing two series together, because I compartmentalize the series by their respective aspects and I just can’t manage to find any element of comparison. Same if you ask me to take a character and to say what he would be like in another series’ settings, or to take two villains and say which one is “worst”. I just am no good at that…
So I’m sorry Anon I just can’t really answer this, but at least my lil shipping list should give you a part of the answer? In general, I like canon anyway, haha.
Hello Anon 🙂 Actually, from what Mutsuki explained, I understood it a little differently:
Mutsuki thinks both they and Haise are liars so they’re indeed similar, you’re right on that. However, Mutsuki thinks that they’re fit for Haise, them only and not Touka for example, because Haise’s lies are “to protect others from being hurt” while Mutsuki’s lies are “to protect Mutsuki”.
In other words, both are liars, but Haise is a liar who has the interest of others at heart (like, pretending not to notice Mutsuki’s body when it’s something that makes them uncomfortable), while Mutsuki is a liar with only their own interest in mind, that’s why they’re “fit to be together” from Mutsuki’s point of view.
The other reason, in my opinion, that Mutsuki had this obsession over Haise is because…
Haise never stared:
So even if “men’s eyes are disgusting”, the fact is that Haise stood out from other men to Mutsuki because they pretended not to notice Mutsuki’s feminine body, so Mutsuki never felt uncomfortable around him and that must have been refreshing considering their trauma.
That’s the two main reasons in my opinion to explain Mutsuki’s love for Haise.
I hope I answered your question, have a nice day Anon! :3
Hi! Okay, so, you’re addressing a lot of things at the same time, I’ll try to answer everything. 🙂
First of all, I haven’t seen Akame ga Kill, so I can’t speak for this series but as for the rest…
Kuroshitsuji
Yes, you read right, this is exactly what happened. As I said before, the act in itself was foreshadowed once but not in its… settings and the sea of adults that were waiting for them, so this was an additional detail that made everything worse in my case.
Sensei was not particularly graphic, but enough so that it’s not hard to decipher exactly how the twins were… used.
I think it’s great you managed to avoid the spoilers even if the chapter in itself must have been hard to swallow afterwards. Personally, I needed a few days to feel better after reading ch135.
Fair warning in advance, but ch136 will probably contain other triggering scenes about child abuse. I listed all of the moments from older flashbacks that we have yet to see here, I hope it will be useful to help prepare yourself for January’s chapter. :3
Berserk
I understand that you watched the anime of 1997? If so, then yes, they really toned it down compared to the manga.
I’ll be honest here, Berserk is one of the most amazing manga series I had the chance to read, but it is very explicit and violent, especially in its first half:
people get violently butchered and tortured
there are different kinds of rape scenes
just like there are rather explicit sex scenes
a lot of child abuse
pedophilia and incest are less recurring but they’re addressed at least once
To answer your other questions, forgive me if I spoil something for you but yes, Guts gets raped as a child, only once though, because his adoptive father literally sold his ass to one of his comrades. Guts actually gets through a lot of abuse as a child in general and his name is the first clue you get, since it’s a sick joke about the circumstances of his birth.
As for Casca, poor girl, many men attempt to rape her throughout the story, unfortunately for her, because women in Berserk generally aren’t fighters, which makes her a big exception and the only woman constantly surrounded by angry and violent men so… yeah. Even Guts, who can’t stand rape ever since what happened to him, half-crossed the line.
Still, it happens only once for her too, but it’s with the most traumatizing circumstances possible: they’re literally in Hell when it happens, her comrades were just butchered in front of her, she’s held down by several Apostles (demons) while her “friend” decides to do his business right in the middle of the massacre, as a punishment for both Guts (being forced to watch) and her.
So yeah, it’s definitely not a moment I go and reread often because Miura-sensei made sure to make it hard to stomach from beginnning to end. I really dislike the anime, but the third movie shows this part of the story and… I think it was “well done”, because it takes everything in consideration and more importantly, you can hear how angry and desperate Guts is.
Finally you asked whether you should read it or not, but I really can’t answer that. It has a lot of triggering content, so from the very first chapter onward, you can see what you signed up for but this doesn’t mean you will get used to it. My best advice would be try and see. :)) With what I described you should know enough to be prepared and besides, you’re allowed to take long breaks while reading, just like you’re allowed to just stop if you can’t handle it.
I won’t lie, Casca’s rape and Kuro ch135 were hard for me to stomach the first time I read through these scenes, but after a few days it gets better and you don’t need to go back to these moments again anyway. So it’s up to you: Berserk is amazing enough to deserve a try but I also know that not everyone can handle how violently graphic it is, so no pressure whatever you decide. :3
I hope it answers your question, have a nice day Anon!
This is a post relevant to the whole manga so far, but even more particularly to the current arc, seeing as it is one of the major reasons it’s very hard to be sure of anything when it comes to future developments.
Anyway, I love Lizzie but she’s hella complex and in my opinion, Yana is totally playing on that, which is obviously not helpful. xD An example, before I explain:
Before the Campania arc, we didn’t know “the real Lizzie” because we had no hint that Lizzie even had the slightest idea what the Watchdog duty was. We didn’t have the slightest idea either that she was as badass as she is. Literally the first hint we got that something was up with her was when she reacted midly surprised to Ciel holding a gun to her face, more shocked that he’d point it at her than of the fact he was holding a gun in the first place.
This is what I mean by Lizzie’s ambivalence: her character can always be read in two completely opposite ways
and the reason for that is
because she was presented as having two radically different sides rather “late” in the story, compared to when she was first introduced.
The contrast between her naturally extremely cheerful personality (her love of cute things)…
and what she was taught by her mother (her badass side) was never foreshadowed until the Campania arc, but retrospectively, now that we know about it, it changes things. For example:
you can wonder if the attack on the manor during the circus arc really had Lizzie being clueless about the situation and not even wondering why a part of the manor had exploded during the night.
you could even use this contrast to explain why her parents let her go alone to any party, especially to one held by Druitt, a rather popular womanizer (and also human trafficker, not that her parents had to know).
This leads to one of the major differences between Ciel and Lizzie, narratively speaking: Ciel initially hardly knew anything about the Watchdog duty because Vincent died before he could teach him anything…
so he had to learn on his own, which is probably why everyone always notices when he fails to be a completely obedient doggy (even if what UT said about him being relatively different from his predecessors is probably another big reason).
Meanwhile Lizzie had her mom by her side from the beginning, her mom who trained her to be as strong as the Watchdog’s wife needed to be in order to survive. And Frances factors heavily in this difference with Ciel because she herself used to be a Phantomhive. In other words…
these are what makes Lizzie the badass girl she is and, more precisely, her mother’s lessons are creating the ambivalence of her character, because without Frances’ teachings, the Lizzie we know would simply be the girl we saw until the Campania arc.
So the fact there was another side of her from the beginning and that Yana kept it completely hidden for a while (no foreshadowing at all when we know Sensei loves foreshadowing) could be a narrative choice made to be completely relevant to Lizzie’s role in the story.
To get back on the initial subject and to explain what I meant regarding the current arc, when you see Frances (who’s the one who taught Lizzie everything), do you think she’d even buy Bravat’s fortune-telling?
Personally I don’t think she would.
Now, when it comes to Lizzie, what do you think? Because there is a difference between enjoying a little vibe of mystery (who doesn’t like a deviner trying to guess stuff) and completely buying the words of a total stranger, especially when they seem to know about your fiancé who coincidentally happens to be the Queen’s Watchdog and an important target of the Underworld.
And this is but one example of why the ambivalence of Lizzie’s character is such. a. pain. when it comes to the current arc, because you could argue that Lizzie’s reaction to Bravat’s “prediction” was genuine…
we know she’s been worrying about Ciel hiding something big ever since the Easter chapter, which was in April and Liz met with Bravat in August
she’s young and that’s the main difference with her mother who’s a grown adult and who experienced much more than her
…just like you could argue that Bravat’s words possibly frightened her because they were too accurate and, while Ed was yelling, she was busy wondering if Bravat was a possibly dangerous enemy (and in that case, the reason she went back to see him is because she wanted to evaluate just how much he knew about Ciel until, well, Bravat revealed something much more unexpected).
Another example would be:
Lizzie’s words to a sleeping real!Ciel in ch113. It’s something I remembered last week and that I shared with @thedarkestcrow because to this day we still can’t explain her words: What did she mean by “I can’t save you”? Why does she think that?? And save real!Ciel from whom or what???
There again, Yana making her character ambivalent is leading me to imagine two radically different possibilities:
she feels guilty about not being able to give him her blood to save his “radiance” => I’ve personally always found that idea so very stupid (and thus not like Lizzie) considering that she was born with her blood type and that it can’t be helped, buuut I guess the situation could be confusing and painful enough for her to be manipulated into thinking that she’s useless.
she’s actually implying that she wanted to save real!Ciel from the sect, but it’s proving to be much harder than she expected (hence why she cries) and so she stays by his side, watching the sect killing people while she can only imagine why they brought back the twin and what they intend to make him do once he’ll be “ready”. In that case, it’s also no wonder Paula said she’s been constantly crying.
See what I mean? Lizzie’s ambivalent character is proving to be a major pain for the current arc, because we know she was raised by a woman who wouldn’t have taken two shits coming from the blue sect, but Lizzie is not her mother as she’s younger and more inexperienced than Frances.
So what we saw of Lizzie’s actions so far in the arc gives us two big interpretations as to what her role is supposed to be:
was she manipulated by the blue sect to be an hostage to use against our!Ciel?
it is the most popular take on her role for this arc: the sect baited her with the twin and she’s choosing his side over our!Ciel’s for the moment because she’s confused and pained by the truth facing her.
hence Bravat’s words in ch123, taunting Ciel with Lizzie’s choosing the twin over him.
or was she trying to double-cross them from the beginning (both for real!Ciel’s and our!Ciel’s sakes)?
this part actually belongs to a bigger crack theory I discussed with @thedarkestcrow (with at least UT and Tanaka being involved in the same plan) but I’ll spare you otherwise this post will never end. xD
simply it would imply that, from the moment she learnt about the twin, no matter how confused and pained she was, she didn’t choose him over our!Ciel, it’s just that she wants to save him from the sect and has to pretend to be on their side in order to do so.
TL;DR ¯_(ツ)_/¯ we can thank Yana for creating such an ambivalent character because she’s extremely interesting that way and also it’s making things extra hard for us when trying to understand what’s going on in the current arc. xDD
I know this subject can lead to controversy because some readers might want to argue that I’m reading too much into things (which is definitely a possibility) or that Yana is not good enough to imply so much through only Liz’s character though, so I’m ready to discuss the subject if anyone wants to share their thoughts. :))
omg.. You put into words something that has been bothering me as well. Elizabeth seems to be perceptive and insightful enough to at least sense the gazillion fishy things such as Ciel’s return after the cult incident, or the textbook sketchiness of Bravat.
But why does it seem like she’s a powerless hostage now?
I am in favor of your double-cross theory tbh ahjdkfdkd That this is all part of a very calculated move. That she is as ‘politically’ savvy as she is a genius with swords. hahahah but a lot of this is wishful thinking from my side asdjfsj save me
@rheaaasss I MEAN, I’M SO GLAD SOMEONE ELSE AGREES WITH THE POINT I’M TRYING TO MAKE! 😀 Thank you so much for reading ❤
You know, the other thing I noticed when you look at the arc overall is that it has been about nothing but deception until now:
initially, many readers thought the boy in ch108 and ch113 was our!Ciel but nope, turns out it was zombie!real!Ciel
then many readers and Ciel & Seb thought that the blue sect was all about researching about blood transfusion but nope, from what we saw and what Sieglinde said, they’re already way past that stage
everyone thought that UT was the mastermind for a long time because the dead is being brought back + he was shown in ch108 and ch120, while in fact there are several hints that might indicate that it’s not him this time.
everyone think that Liz’s role is apparently to be a confused damsel in distress but, well, that’s what my post above is about xD
Finally, Tanaka not being particularly surprised by real!Ciel’s return raised an alarm in most readers’ mind.
The common point between UT, Lizzie and Tanaka? They would never choose between the twins as long as they can avoid it, because both twins matter to them.
Back to Lizzie herself, as you said, she’s indeed very perceptive and she was skilled enough to hide ahugepart of her true self from both Ciel and Seb for years (Ciel being clueless is one thing, but Seb is a demon and he too was completely surprised)…
so her double-crossing the blue sect would be something she could pull off.
Last point for now but, since Frances taught Lizzie so much, I have to admit her attitude about her daughter’s disappearance in the current arc is bothering me because it feels off. I know that many readers (me included) decided to say it was plot’s convenience, but a part of me still isn’t ready to accept it.
The reason for that is simple: when you look at Frances during the Campania arc, as she was fighting against undead corpses while the ship was thinking, all she did was confirmed with Seb that he knew where Lizzie was and afterwards she just said…
which meant, to quote @akumadeenglish‘s explanation, that Frances was not worried in the slightest but rather extremely proud, because she knew Lizzie would protect Ciel at all costs.
So I have some troubles acknowledging if Frances really is clueless about her daughter’s whereabouts in the current arc, because Frances showed before that she completely trusted in her girl’s abilities and judgement. In other words, in the event that Lizzie is involved in what is “a very calculated move” (with Tanaka and UT?), to use your expression, then…
either Frances is aware of the whole thing because Lizzie consulted with her mother before “running away” (since her mom is the one who taught her everything and Lizzie’s ultimate model in life)
or Lizzie decided not to involve her family, but Frances knows her daughter enough to realize that she must have a good reason to be on her own like that.
Anyway, sorry for rambling, it’s just that a lot seems to rests on the ambivalence of Lizzie. On the one hand, what we saw of her character so far wouldn’t make the idea of Lizzie double-crossing the blue sect so hard to believe, especially if she’s not the only one who’s trying to do so (UT, possibly). On the other hand though, the fact that she’s young and that the situation with the twin is really confusing and painful vouch for the opposite idea that she could really be completely helpless for now.
I guess we need to go back to present time before we can get any additional hint for either idea, but nonetheless, it’s been bothering me so I’m using this opportunity to let it all out. xD
Thanks again for reading and leaving your thoughts, I’m glad I’m not the only one who considered this possibility. :))
Oh, I really like this theory, and it wasn’t something I had really thought about. I was worried a bit about Frances’s (non)reaction, but this makes sense. It really does change the reading of this arc. While Lizzie is still this really sweet character, she has more awareness then we think about at times.
@shinigami-mistress Thank you for reading. 😀 I remember, we did talk about Frances’ absence of reaction but to be honest, even if it’s never going to be implied in the text, the Campania arc proved for me that Frances has no doubt about the girl she raised and couldn’t be a prouder mother.
It doesn’t mean that Lizzie is not above making the wrong decision but that she’s not frail or weak enough to be unable to take care of herself, otherwise Frances wouldn’t think so highly of her.
Finally, Lizzie is a very sweet girl, I cannot agree more, but this is precisely the trick Yana might be using to make us forget just how intelligent she also is, in addition to her strength, which in the end can make her a dangerous person. I mean, if Frances trusts her girl, it’s not just because Lizzie can hammer people with her swords. It takes a brain to be able to survive as the Watchdog’s associate and maybe that’s what this arc will show us if she’s somehow involved in a plan with UT and/or Tanaka about double-crossing the blue sect. :))
Higemaru’s bit about letting go of past sacrifices and baggage is actually a really big turning point for the series!
It actually reminds me a lot of Hinami & Ryouko’s revelations.
By focusing on the future that ghouls and the CCG can bring together (medical miracles, a possible alternative for ghoul food), they can continue to keep the alliance going.
midnight-in-town 