The whole Kuro chapter is not out and not translated
From the spoilers so far: Lizzie is beating herself up wondering about if her love for our!Ciel was actually fake/a lie all along and being a horrible/cruel person if that’s true (prediction: it isn’t).
Lizzie is 15 years old and human. We readers are omniscient thus aware of many points of view in the story which isn’t her case. As such any judgement you might have is biased from the start.
Our!Ciel has survivor’s guilt: he thinks he should have died instead of his brother and that no one in his family would have been happy to get him back, hence him taking his brother’s identity.
No one in his family
however (besides maybe Ann and that’s not even certain) ever thought that they would have rather gotten real!Ciel back. It’s not because he was the second son that our!Ciel was treated or loved differently (again, Ann aside, since she apparently favored real!Ciel).
We still don’t have a single idea as to what happened during that one month until Ciel came back on Undertaker’, Frances’, Tanaka’ sides:
how Tanaka survived & what he saw
what Frances possibly did during that month
if UT told anyone he was going after the twins
if he told anyone that he found one of the boys dead
we don’t know how Tanaka knew about our!Ciel lying
same for Frances in case it turns out she also knew
so any conclusion about no one caring @ what had happened to “the other twin” is wrong: if they didn’t ask maybe it’s because they didn’t need to/felt they shouldn’t.
Ciel’s family cares about him. He thinks they don’t because of survivor’s guilt, but that’s not true, we have many examples of that. Out of anyone, the only one we can doubt on this is Ann.
I love Ciel, he’s my fav’ character and he went through a lot, but I’m against the mentality that is to imply he’s just a helpless victim with a very heartless family. If anything, he’s the one who thinks he doesn’t deserve them caring because “his brother was better”, but imo this arc is here to challenge this mentality (I can be wrong though, of course).
Lizzie didn’t say in the newest chapter that she or anyone else in the family didn’t care about our!Ciel, or that no one had cared to wonder about what had happened to “the other twin” when “Ciel” came back.
She didn’t say or even imply it. And she never will because it’s not true.
UT (even if he’s a major dick) doesn’t favor real!Ciel over our!Ciel, Tanaka doesn’t favor real!Ciel over our!Ciel, Frances and Alexis don’t favor real!Ciel over our!Ciel. Our!Ciel thinks they ought to but they don’t. Only Ann apparently did.
this is old as fuck. but i was talking to @earlgreyandco about it and remembered this random ass 2CT hint:
sieg asks what ociel’s name is, and sebastian (who had been talking to her in german previously) is unable to answer. so he asks ociel to speak the lie
then when sieg asks ociel’s age, sebastian answers for him because that isn’t a lie. he’s therefore allowed to answer
Basically I think that one possibility for this arc, as far as our!Ciel is concerned, is that UT (with real!Ciel) is trying to get rid of the two dangers constantly lurking around our!Ciel.
You heard the man, he doesn’t want to lose more Phantomhives
and that definitely includes our!Ciel (he even said that he made no difference between the twins, in ch131).
To protect our!Ciel tho’, he gotta eliminate the Watchdog duty that’s like a collar Ciel will hang himself with at some point:
and that’s where the dead twin (and first heir) getting his title back could be useful since he’s already dead. So even if Victoria gets to him (since personally I think she’s the big bad), no can end like Vincent and Claudia.
The second danger is Seb
and that could be why Bravat (who was most likely speaking for UT) literally said he could offer help in dealing with Seb during his fortune telling.
Maybe that’s even what the whole framing thing is supposed to lead to. Somehow.
So I don’t know for sure, but it seems UT hasn’t lost his mind and still hasn’t reached his goal, as himself told Othello
and I think that is true, just like Sensei implying that he’s actually not a villain after ch131 came out.
Obviously the whole scheme is super complex, but if UT is after besting the Queen and a hungry demon in one go for our!Ciel’s sake, then he has to have no limit, including using people like Bravat who had a sad life or the S4 and then throwing them away.
I made a separate post, but then I figured it was better to add it to the first post I did on the subject, sorry for the double post
About our!Ciel being framed
TBH, the thing that is bothering me with the “let’s frame my bro” conspiracy is that no one is wondering about why exactly our!Ciel would go as far as to kill citizens to get their blood.
Like ??? what would be his goal in doing that as Lord Sirius/the blue star/the sect’s mastermind? Especially since real!Ciel is the one who was saying “oh I was in a very bad shape until recently” in front of everyone in ch143.
So I don’t want to call this a plot hole yet, because clearly it’s not the only part that’s not holding on (as far as characters like Ed could obviously notice), but maybe the whole framing plan is mainly working out because revealing that our!Ciel was lying for the past 4 years is increasing the doubts and confusion of the witnesses.
…Actually, since it’s definitely not an accusation that’s holding out so well, maybe the true goal is not even to frame Ciel himself. For example, UT could go next with…
“oh but Queen Victoria is the one who asked her Watchdog to create such an operation, because she’s preparing for war and wanted to experiment about blood transfusions :)))))” or an equivalent.
Because that would suddenly become very bad publicity for Victoria (killing her own people o.m.g + have you seen all the many witnesses that are just in time to hear about this), whom coincidentally UT doesn’t like at all…
Add that to the murders of the Parliamentarians (ch125) that Ciel could be accused of as well and…
…it could be one more argument that she asked her Watchdog to get them out of the way because they were getting in the way of her war plans.
Besides, that’s how Abberline was introduced to the Watchdog duty (ch15):
…so even he (who seems to be believing in our!Ciel right now) could start thinking that he was played for a fool, all for the Queen’s profit, if that’s the explanation he receives.
Ciel does work for Victoria after all and that’s something Abberline, Alexis and Edward all definitely know.
Never mind me rambling, but guys, I still can’t believe UT would simply want our!Ciel framed so that, with him out of the way, the title can go back to “the rightful heir”. That seems illogical when UT despises the Watchdog duty and said he didn’t wan’t to lose more Phantomhives.
TL;DR Ciel is not necessarily the one who’s really being framed here, if just because the accusation hardly stands if someone starts wondering about why he was after all that blood in the first place.
Meanwhile, UT has two enemies: Victoria and Seb. So maybe the whole point is to get to one of them (or both) by eventually pinning this whole case on them with our!Ciel being considered merely a pawn?
2/2 Of course as readers we are aware of how strong and capable he is but also of how fragile he can be .I think he does need someone else because the reason he sees himself that way is mostly because of the people around him .So perhaps Frances would get the job done but then again his other aunt told him she wish he was never born so I wonder what to expect from this one ?
3/3 That’s why I think he is insane because he doesn’t even see how wrong his actions are (just look at all the people who died during the compania arc) .I won’t call him batshit crazy but I don’t think he is mentally healthy .True ,and thank you for answering .
Hello again, Anon. Sorry for the delay in answering this time.
I think Undertaker’s obsession with the families is one of those mysteries a lot of us want to know. How did he get involved with them? Is it Claudia? In all reality, I think it will be some of the last things to be revealed, so we can only guess at this point. I do look for a detailed flashback.
A long time ago, I was working on different ways the contract could be voided when a friend pointed out that our!Ciel doesn’t want to break the contract. However, I think his guilt is only a tiny part of that. Another part is that was the deal that he made with Sebastian, and he isn’t looking to back out on his end of the deal. Remember he sacrificed his own identity. Just because his brother returned doesn’t change that fact.
Our!Ciel’s perception of himself isn’t just the way other people around him saw him. He did hear people talking about how he was suited to be the watchdog, but that’s actually not really an insult. He was just more timid and shy. Our!Ciel’s view of himself came more from comparing himself to his brother, whom he had put on a pedestal. He loved and admired his twin, It’s even quite possible he saw real!Ciel as being even better than he really was because of how he felt about him.
I was talking to @midnight-in-town the other day and said that if Frances shows up, she could be the voice of reason in all this insanity. I still stand by that. I have a strong suspicion she knew that it was our!Ciel who had returned and not his brother, so I think she might be able to act rationally in this situation.
Madam Red did say that our!Ciel should have never been born. Looking back now, I wonder about that. Was she saying the twins should have never been born because she should have been the one with Vincent, or did she recognize this was our!Ciel and she compared her experiences of being the younger sibling to our!Ciel? Maybe it was both. Either way, you can’t really compare Madam Red and Frances just because both are/were his aunts. Madam Red was selfish. She was mired in this idea that she should have had Vincent, and couldn’t really move past it. Later tragedies caused her to lose her grip on her sanity. Frances may seem cold and hard, but she loves her family, and I believe she puts their needs before her own. She firmly rooted in reality. She may push our!Ciel to make him stronger.
Personally I still think the person who will snap our!Ciel out of his current state is either himself, Lizzie, or Frances. I might be wrong, but that’s my guess.
Undertaker’s thinking and actions are certainly warped. He has canonically caused the deaths of more people in the manga than the literal demon. In his mind, he probably has justified it all, but it doesn’t seem rational to anyone else. A part of me wants him to have some moment of clarity so he can see what he’s truly done, but he might be too far gone.
Maybe Frances could bring him back to reality because she could remind him of Claudia, or possibly even Lizzie.
Hi Anon! Thanks for reading 🙂 And yep, Sensei said that UT is the most beautiful character (whether she means pre or even post scars is unknown) but that certainly doesn’t mean he has a good hygiene, haha! [x]
Whether the overall reason is that it’s supposed to fit his image of the creepy mortician or that he’s depressed (or a little of both), I don’t know, but I think we’re all going to be shocked once we get a flashback about him (without the scars and nails, with washed hair and not working as an Undertaker):
I’m actually a little frightened to meet his past version because, well, there is a chance back then he had 0 idea about what fun even meant (since it’s no important to him now, I guess he learnt about it post desertion), so we’re definitely in for massive differences about his character.
On the other hand, I can’t wait, because I love his character and I want answers. xD
Thanks again for reading Anon! Have a nice weekend. :3
Hey again Anon! Ah, well, I’m totally biased, but I don’t find that Grell and Seb are on UT’s beauty levels. Vincent, Ciel and Edward are, though! 😀
Anyway, yeah, since we know that UT ended his own life, he must not have had a fun existence at all originally.
In fact, I’m pretty sure that his warning to the Phantomhives is something that he experienced himself, which makes it all very ironic.
Besides, him enjoying fun so much to the point of making this his payment in exchange of info is how comic relief tends to work with Sensei, implying that whoever taught him about fun was someone important to him (like Claudia possibly indeed, since Vincent liked to have fun too). Or so I think.
I also made a post before about a possible parallel between UT’s story and Ciel’s, so I do agree that a comparison between how UT ended up learning about fun when Ciel won’t smile anymore is likely to be meaningful. If anything, “living” is probably something that UT learnt about after he deserted the Shinigamis 50 years ago.
However, I’m not so sure about a flashback for UT anytime “soon”. At least, I’d say that this arc will have to be over first, kinda like it happened with ch105, because I doubt UT is the one who will talk about himself. Not at first.
It doesn’t have to be because he doesn’t want to tell Ciel, but because he doesn’t want Seb to have any leverage against either of them + because the subject of his past alongside Ciel’s predecessors must be painful to him (otherwise he wouldn’t have cried in ch105).
So, if someone else is supposed to introduce UT’s backstory (Othello? Tanaka? Frances?), the arc will probably need to be solved first before we can focus on that. And frankly, seeing the current pace, I just doubt it’s gonna be this year. xD
Of course, I could be totally wrong. So take it with a grain of salt. 🙂
Thanks for passing by Anon and have a nice weekend!
You’re welcome Anon! Thanks for passing by and chatting. :3
To answer you, personally no I don’t feel that this is rushed at all. In fact I’d say the pace is rather slow (I mean the twin was introduced in the 26th volume) and I had expected our!Ciel to be framed for a while now.
As for what’s the point, it’s a chess game and UT & real!Ciel are the ones who initiated it from the moment they revealed themselves to Ciel. I agree they’re not the simplest characters to understand though, but I theorized about what they could be after here and here respectively! 🙂
Overall, I think the most important to keep in mind about this arc and the latest developments is that our!Ciel is supposed to be confronting all that he never did until now (in order to gain character development), which is something mainly illustrated by the return of his undead brother.
Rewinding the story
back
a little, try to remember why Ciel took on his brother’s identity in the first place and maybe it will make more sense. From the moment his bro died, our!Ciel became Vincent’s successor and the next Earl Phantomhive, so he had no real need to take his brother’s identity.
The reason he did it anyway is because…
he felt extremely guilty about not being the twin who died. It’s a condition called survivor’s guilt, because of the trauma induced by the horrible experience he lived through.
As such, he hates himself for having survived, even more after Seb made him believe that he had willingly sacrificed his brother’s soul into summoning him (which isn’t true, he never wanted any of this, it was an accident)…
and it’s all of this that led to his decision to take on his brother’s identity: because he wanted to make it as if real!Ciel was the one who had survived, both for himself and for what was left of his family (because
he saw himself as inferior to his twin brother and guilty, so he didn’t want to disappoint them).
And this, this mentality right here -that he is guilty and that Seb eating his soul will be his punishment for not having died instead of his brother- is what I believe needs to change for our!Ciel.
Hence the current arc and this face-off between brothers because, if there is any time when Ciel can reflect about his brother’s death from 4 years ago, especially when Lizzie and Soma (who are the closest to him) are also involved, it’s now with the current arc.
Basically, what I’d personally love to get from this arc is for our!Ciel to finally realize that people are happy he’s the one who came back (Lizzie, Ed), that they are happy to have met him during these 4 years (Soma, Sieglinde) and that’s he’s certainly not worthless compared to his brother.
Because, if our!Ciel gets this kind of positive development about himself, then later he may end up starting to question whether or not the terms of the contract are still something he agrees to.
And personally I’d love to see this type of conflict eventually happening between Seb and Ciel, because it’s just way more interesting narratively speaking than their highly functioning duo that exists ever since vol1, especially if Seb is truly supposed to be Kuroshitsuji’s main character (because main characters need to be challenged and to develop, be it in a good or bad way).
There you go Anon! I hope this makes sense? Honestly ever since this…
I’ve been waiting for a build up to an eventual conflict about the contract between Seb and Ciel. If it happens it will be way later though, if just because Ciel needs to get a better view of himself first if he’s to ever reflect back on the covenant he made with his butler.
That’s why Ciel having to confront what he decided 4 years ago and most of his behavior towards people who care about him is important right now. For me that’s mostly what the current arc is all about, with possibly some answers about the Phantomhive family and UT’s personal issues with them.
Sorry for rambling, as with everything it’s just my take on the subject but I hope this wasn’t too hard to understand. Thank you again for the kind words and have a lovely day ahead Anon! :3
Sorry for the delay, Anon! Basically your explanation is above: I tend to see it as a matter of dynamic progression & character development.
The story started with a highly efficient duo between our!Ciel and Seb, so addressing underlying issues that will at some point possibly be too many not to be considered is very relevant, narratively speaking.
+ As I said, if Seb is the main character, then he should be bothered a little, hm? So far, Ciel was pretty lenient about becoming his dinner (since a deal is a deal), so the biggest hurdle for Seb would be for his master to change on that fact.
Seb said it, he enjoys this game and doesn’t want to have to retort to acting like the beast he is by nature and yet…
isn’t that precisely what he did when Ciel wouldn’t snap out of PTSD? So, like, a few hours before he said “I don’t want to act like a beast”?
So, look Anon, all I’m saying is that stagnation is never good when it comes to storytelling. 🙂
It took 27 volumes, but Ciel is on the verge of confronting what happened 4 years ago with his brother and the consequences of his choices back then. I don’t see why he wouldn’t eventually do the same about the contract, should he get enough positive development to stop seeing the contract as “a punishment he deserves”.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in a happy ending for Ciel, but that doesn’t mean that Seb should never have to worry about being able to eat at the end. For now, UT is mostly the person who’s making him fear this…
…but one day I’m hoping our!Ciel himself will make Seb worry.
No one has to agree on this obviously, but that’s how I see their duo’s evolution. I hope it answers your question, have a nice weekend Anon!
as an accomplice to the serial killings committed in the name of the blue star (real!Ciel) who Scotland Yard believes is our!Ciel for now.
Seb will most likely go down the same way too, as an accomplice of our!Ciel, just saying.
I’m not sure Bravat will be helpful to either our!Ciel or Seb though. Clearly he’s a fanatic…
…so going down for the sake of real!Ciel’s radiance and freedom could be something he’s quite proud of/okay with.
The only way for Bravat to somehow become useful would be if he believes that UT and real!Ciel are supposed to get him out of prison and they don’t, which is likely to happen since neither probably cares about him (he seems to be Ryan 2.0 as far as UT is concerned).
Until then though, I doubt even Seb will manage to scare him into talking considering that he already knows about Seb being a demon and he seemed not to give a damn. I could be wrong though. 🙂
TL;DR yes, prison for Bravat too, but either he’s not expecting to stay forever because UT and real!Ciel are supposed to get him back, or he’s going down happy because he’s been useful to his star lords (real!Ciel and whoever the rest of them are) and that’s all that matters to him.
I discussed this privately with a few friends but I actually love the idea a lot so I’m sharing with everyone. 😀
So far in this very long arc, there were a few occasions the focus drifted away from Ciel & Seb. The first major time was at the very beginning of this arc
with Ed being the reason Lizzie went to the Sphere music hall in the first place and the second major time…
led to very unfortunate circumstances. T_T
So I was saying to my friends that I’d love to get some more chapters not focusing on Ciel and Seb, especially now that they’ve been put in a rather awkward position…
and might need the help of others to clear their names if they’re really arrested. And since Soma is hurt, more Ed-centric chapters could be more likely and I’d personally love that.
First of all, it’s hard to believe that Ed won’t question if real!Ciel truly isn’t involved with the Sphere music hall considering that Lizzie is with him and that she left the house for the Sphere music hall over two months ago.
Secondly, Ed is currently the only one who was also there at Weston when UT explained about his latest BDs to Ciel
so, should he recognize UT (even if we know Ed can’t see anyone else when Lizzie is here), he might be able to suspect that something is up with real!Ciel.
As for a team up with Soma, the reasons I find this idea so cool are because Edward and Soma both are characters who are very close to our!Ciel + at the time of ch143, what they know about the current arc is complementary, meaning that if they were to assemble their information, they would both easily realize that our!Ciel was framed.
To explain: what Soma knows and believes is that…
someone who looks exactly like our!Ciel attacked him and Agni, leading to Agni’s murder. So now he’s pissed at our!Ciel because he doesn’t know about the existence of the twin (since our!Ciel never mentioned anything about it).
Meanwhile, Ed just found out that the twin is back…
and that our!Ciel is believed to be behind the blue sect arc for different reasons.
So should Ed see Soma and find out about this…
If Soma tries to argue that our!Ciel did this even if this doesn’t sound like him, then Ed will at least be able to tell Soma that “wait, he actually has a twin brother who just came back???”, which could make Soma realize that his friend is innocent and Ed that the twin is up to no good (especially if he remembers about Weston previously to finding out about the attack on Soma and Agni).
Add Sieglinde…
who heard this, who can confirm that Ciel and Seb are the ones who brought Soma to her and who researched about the blood samples Seb found in the Sphere music hall + Nina…
who helped Ciel and Seb with getting into the Sphere music hall that one time, they will barely need Violet’s confirmation to understand that “Lord Sirius” is in fact the twin (even though I think Violet’ll confirm it either way, because our!Ciel helped him and his friends).
Violet (and also Lizzie) is more likely to be necessary in order to convince the other people involved in this arc that our!Ciel is not Lord Sirius: like the Double Charles (who may end up accusing Ciel of the Parliamentarians’ murders next), Randall (because Abberline won’t be able to convince him on his own I guess) and maybe even Alexis.
TL;DR Ed investigating some more as Ciel is possibly arrested and meeting with Soma could surely be one way for the entire truth to be revealed + also for Soma to stop believing that his best friend attacked him.
I just hope Ed does realize, one way or another, that there is definitely something not right about the twins and Lizzie.
I forgot to add that this idea is also likelyas a parallel to the Weston arc (additionally to UT creating even more perfect BDs)…
…and the Maurice Cole incident.
Except that this time,it’s Soma who’s falsely accusing our!Ciel and Edward who is more likely to investigate for our!Ciel’s sake. :)))
That’s also a big part of why this idea is pleasing me so much, because I loved the Weston arc!
midnight-in-town 