It’s the third arc now that we are faced with UT’s shenanigans involving the dead being brought back to a state that resembles “life” and, in each arc, UT gave pieces of his motivations, so that we could try and assemble the puzzle.

As with everything else, it is only my opinion, but I don’t believe that bringing back the twin is UT’s ultimate goal or end. It’s not just a mean, but it’s not the only end either, so

there is probably more that UT thought he ought to achieve through the BD project. 

Thanks to ch140, it’s confirmed that UT’s goal is strongly related to his connection to the Phantomhive family, so this post will focus on that to try and explain how we ended up with UT going off the rails so badly.  

First of all, please note the reasons for his actions he gave in each arc so far:

• # Campania arc

The Campania arc tells us that the original idea was born while he was still a shinigami or about to desert. However this doesn’t mean that he started to work on his BD project back then already, just that the idea that started everything is older than his connection to the P family. 

Furthermore, it’s implied that what triggered it all at its very origin was UT’s curiosity in humans. By Grell’s words or Seb’s, a Shinigami is a being who’s supposed “to stand neutral between Gods and Humans” (JTR arc) and yet as far as UT is concerned…

…”he was seduced by the lives of humans” and that’s probably why he ended up deserting with that little idea born from curiosity about “what would happen should we edit a human’s cinematic record”. 

• # Weston arc

This time it’s slightly more defined and there is a notion of UT’s personal wish already underlying there. 

It’s not exactly about curiosity towards humans in general, even if the way he’s jokingly presenting it could be misleading. In my opinion, since the fated end he’s talking about here is death, it seems UT simply isn’t fond of how death can take interesting humans away from him, thus putting a stop to UT’s “fun”.

So editing the records and bringing them back (cheating death), would allow UT “to look beyond the fated end” and pretend as if death didn’t take these precious humans away from him (also, from the way it’s worded, maybe UT was thinking about a human in particular and something that he was expecting to see with them, but couldn’t because this person died, which leads to the same thing). 

Anyway, I think maybe this would sound slightly less insanely random if we consider UT’s existence overall: 

• if he is a Shinigami then it means that he hated his previous life so much that giving up on it was his only way out

• yet he’s not exactly “dead” because Shinigamis work hard to earn redemption after killing themselves, so it’s understandable that the idea to bring back humans who didn’t kill themselves would interest him when Shinigamis are such an odd example of “dead” in the first place

• besides that and considering the way Sensei uses comic relief in her story, if UT likes having fun so much (making it payment in exchange for his info), it could be that the notion was unknown to him until someone he met after his desertion taught him what it was, thus why he’s so fond of it.

This shouldn’t be an excuse to anything he did obviously, but at least that factors into understanding why he’s so interested in whatever is “beyond the fated end”, thus perfecting his BD project to bring back some people in particular and make them as seemingly human & alive as possible. 

• # Blue sect arc

The current arc answers an even more specific question revolving around why UT went through so much trouble in order to bring Ciel’s twin in particular back and the answer is that the twin himself is just supposed to be a representation of how much UT seems to care about salvaging the Phantomhive family from death.

So it’s not that UT cares specifically about bringing real!Ciel Phantomhive back,  more like his grand dream would be to have all of them back if he can make it happen (the little issue here being that we already know bringing back Vincent is impossible), because of the connection he has to them through Claudia. 

And it’s not about giving them another chance at life, nope nope:

• either it’s about “me, myself and I” because UT doesn’t want his connection to the P family (to Claudia in particular?) to disappear
• or it’s because he promised Claudia he’d protect them all and he doesn’t want to fail his promise to her

Either way it’s entirely selfish. That’s why he can even mention having a custom coffin already waiting for our!Ciel: in case our boy dies, well, it’s okay because UT now has the perfect way to bring him back (from his current point of view). 

In other words, is there a difference between life and death? 

Well, not as far as UT is concerned, because that’s the only way he found to keep going: the Phantomhives are almost all dead? Thanks to his BD project it doesn’t matter though, because UT is just happy to have a way to see them all again after all this time.  

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So chronologically speaking, what happened?

• UT killed himself and became a Shinigami.
• Before deserting, UT got curious about what would happen if he were to edit a human’s cinematic record
• Then he deserted for a reason possibly related to “being seduced by the lives of humans”
• afterwards we don’t know what happened but we know his connection to the P family started because he met Claudia Phantomhive 
• and ch140 confirms that one goal of UT through the BD project is to make sure he “won’t lose another Phantomhive”. 

I’m kinda digressing but I think we received enough hints throughout the story to consider that Claudia Phantomhive really is the start of everything when it comes to UT’s attitude and attachment to the P family and thus to his place in the whole narrative…

…even if the truth behind the bond between UT and Claudia remains a mystery till now. The nature of his own feelings isn’t really hard to guess, but we know nothing when it comes to Claudia’s (so is UT Cedric K Ros– or not => no idea). 

What’s likely tho’ is that, through this bond (and even if he had unrequited feelings), UT probably lived several years where he was happy (maybe for the first time ever or in a long long time), even possibly living the human life that seduced him into deserting in the first place (if he was Cedric K. Ros–?). 

However, the Watchdog duty then got in the way…

leading to the situation as we know it now, with Claudia and Vincent dead and only the twins left (since we don’t know how he feels towards Frances’ side of the family for now). 

Finally, to say that the BD project is entirely about the P family would possibly be a mistake because Claudia’s locket belongs on a chain with 6 others and UT referred to all of them as “his treasure” during the Campania arc. 

That being said, even if he didn’t care exclusively about Claudia back in the days, it’s likely that she was still extremely important to him, especially if he had romantic feelings for her (or if just because the story revolves around her grandson and UT is too present in the narrative for this to be a coincidence).

TL;DR there is a good chance that, while the experiments for the BD project as we know them possibly started when UT decided to bring back the twin…

…the entire thought process between the idea he had as a Shinigami to the actual realization he started to work on 4 years ago was triggered by Claudia’s death as well as the death of the other people represented by the lockets.

So, yes: UT is most likely using the BD project as the ultimate mean to “recreate” the years he spent alongside some humans he truly cared about (7 lockets + Phantomhive family) but who are almost all dead now.
And it’s likely (thanks to the current arc) that he’s also justifying it as not being only for himself but also for other members of the P family (like our!Ciel, or even Frances, Lizzie, etc).

Call it madness or desperation, I’m not here to excuse him because that’s selfishness alright. As for to the upcoming consequences of his acts, I’ve already spoken of them here. 

As always, thanks for reading and let me know if anything is unclear. 🙂