I haven’t reread the first volumes in a while, but it looks familiar indeed even if it’s not particularly surprising that it does, since it’s been theorized before that, after the JTR & Campania arcs, Druitt might have (had) ties to other organizations from the underworld. :))
To this day though, personally I still don’t know what to make of him and of any possible link to the cult that abused the twins 4 years ago, as well as to the blue sect (since it’s yet another scientific organization and his nephew is involved). I think the chances are far from 0 that he might be or might have been involved, it’s just that he is lucky enough to have avoided retribution all this time.
Other great bloggers wrote very interesting posts on the subject too, especially on the matter of his character being inspired from a man named Aleister Crowley, so if you haven’t read them please check out:
Thanks for sharing Anon, it was a great observation! :3
For now though, I can’t decide whether it was just Sensei reusing an old design for this mask (especially since it’s one of the early volumes of the series) or if Druitt really had some ties to that cult of 4 years ago. In my opinion both are possible, especially considering Druitt’s general involvement with shady organizations so far, and maybe he just wasn’t around that one month the twins were bought and prepared for the sacrifice (like Kelvin). I certainly wouldn’t put it past him in any case.
Thanks again for sharing this cool detail and have a lovely week as well Anon! ^3^
Of course, this isn’t a full comparison since Zeke clearly has had strong daddy issues for a while when real!Ciel’s motive might be tied more directly to his brother, but I found the slight resemblance interesting.
About zombie!real!Ciel though, yes I agree and it’s something I and several others have mentioned before. When you look at bizarre dolls in general, even if we don’t know whether real!Ciel was brought back by UT or not, well…
they always had violence and obsessionas common points.
It might be because UT said that BDs tended to seek what they lacked, or it might simply be his method of using the “episodes”
within the cinematic records
(yearning for the future: in real!Ciel’s case => “staying with my little brother”, making real!Ciel a more perfect version of Derrick and Agares), but my personal opinion is that the whole process of bringing the dead back to “life” is so unnatural anyway that it’s bound to never work perfectly.
The other explanation where real!Ciel is concerned could be that…
his time with the cult 4 years ago and him being sacrificed were such traumatizing events that he became crazy while on the brink of death and it’s something that stayed even when he was brought back (because let’s be honest here, our!Ciel fares much better than he did 4 years ago thanks to going back to a life where he had caring servants, loving family and friends, even if he tried to push all that away).
Also about the twin, again I agree that if the RCMT is correct, then…
the massacre of the entire household was unplanned. However, it’s just my opinion but considering his weird reaction in this scene…
…I know it’s absolutely horrible (though @dorkshadows will surely like it), but my current take on the RCMT is that
maybe Vincent and Rachel were the only targets in real!Ciel’s initial plan,
(hence why I find there might be a resemblance with Zeke Jaeger in the first place)
or maybe real!Ciel took his “ally”’s words for it that they had a solution to his problem and when he found their parents dead, he realized a little too late what that solution was (which is similar to your idea that he went with the flow and took the ring).
Maybe that’s why there is such a strong focus on real!Ciel taking the ring with barely a reaction about their parents’ death and the ring representing his wish to “start over together”. Maybe for the year and a half after this scene…
…he couldn’t hide how bitter he was to have to become Earl Phantomhive when our!Ciel would become a toymaker and leave for London, which is what the mastermind used against him.
So, when December 14th came and if the RCMT is correct, real!Ciel at least muzzled the dog because he knew someone was coming to do something. The question now is, did he count on the plan leading to his parents’ death or did he just realize too late what the “plan” to help his wish was? At this point it’s hard to say, even if @thedarkestcrow rightfully pointed out to me that the first option is maybe too extreme since real!Ciel didn’t hate his family.
Sorry for the long post, it’s just one possibility and my opinion, so it could be 100% off.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Anon and have a lovely day too! ❤
Hi Anon! Ah, well, in my opinion, the thing to keep in mind about the RCMT is not to make shortcuts so, in real!Ciel’s case, making a bad decision + being manipulated =/= not loving your family.
As I explained before, I don’t know yet if we’re supposed to think that real!Ciel had a rather pathological attachment & love towards his little brother…
but I think it’s not a mistake to consider the idea and, even in that case, it wouldn’t mean that real!Ciel hated his family, just that he loved his brother way more than anyone else and couldn’t stand the idea of them being separated.
Also, just saying but…
as @akumadeenglish explained here, this scene is another weird hint to add to this theory because of how real!Ciel emphasized the idea of them together as possibly “just the two of us”, meaning there is no inclusion of Lizzie or anyone else from their remaining family.
Again, the idea of real!Ciel being slightly obsessed with his little brother doesn’t necessarily mean that he wanted everyone else to die (if anything, remember the side story where he was very worried about Rachel’s health and spent quality time cooking with his dad). However, it’s possibly what allowed the mastermind behind 4 years ago to manipulate him and what led to the annihilation of the Phantomhive household.
I once compared the Phantomhive twins to the Liebert twins from Urasawa Naoki’s Monster, not that I want to expand on this, but just to give you another example that the trope of one twin going obsessed with their sibling exists and might be where Sensei is going with the attack on December 14th.
Finally, please keep in mind that…
one and a half year passed between the moment real!Ciel cried in front of his parents about our!Ciel wanting to become a toymaker in London and the attack on December 14th. So, despite smiling and saying “fine”, we don’t know for sure how the twin dealt with the bitterness that “he had to become Vincent’s successor” while our!Ciel was free to leave for London:
Did he gradually become more pissed at his parents for not taking his side or not stopping our!Ciel? Impossible to say, but an idea to keep in mind just in case.
Was he just manipulated because someone whispered empty promises to him and he believed them because he was barely ten years old? Could be that too, but again, impossible to know for sure.
I hope it makes a little more sense. 🙂 Just watch out for shortcuts Anon: at this point we just don’t know if the RCMT implies that real!Ciel was obsessed about staying with his brother or if it was more innocent than that. In any case, even if the RCMT is true, we at least can guess that the whole household wasn’t supposed to be annihilated as I explained in the previous post.
I personally think that real!Ciel could have had a disturbing attachment to his brother and that he possibly changed during that one year and a half, which is why Sensei precisely didn’t expand on it, but anyway everything remains to be confirmed so take it all with a grain of salt.
((Confirmation that real!Ciel is the one who attacked Soma and Agni if we needed any)).
Hi! As you can see above, I mentioned it last month Anon-chan ❤
For me, it’s important by the way, because that definitely signs the attack on Soma and Agni as being from real!Ciel, so you were right to mention it if you thought no one had addressed the subject. :3
Haha, no worries Anon, but yeah I think we’re not going back to present time before the end of March’s chapter (see below), which means basically that we won’t address the mysteries of the current arc again before at least April if not May, if April is a recap chapter (like ch121).
Don’t worry though, I’m like you, the curiosity is killing me, especially about the truth behind the blue sect but the flashback is also a very important part of the story, even if there isn’t exactly anything new.
It’s still extremely useful to confirm what was implied before, since not everyone agrees about how Seb was summoned, if Ciel really sacrificed his brother and what happened to real!Ciel’s soul, so I’m satisfied with the content of these last chapters (despite the horror of it all).
Once we get back to present time though, then like you, I hope the pace will pick up a bit now that we’re fully into what’s going on, otherwise it’s going to be a little annoying. ^^”
Thanks for passing by and have a lovely day too Anon, I hope your week is going well! :))
Hi Anon and don’t worry your English is great. :33
Ah, well, apparently the chapter is going to be 30 pages long, so basically I was thinking it was going to depict the whole month that they spent with that horrible cult until the day of the sacrifice and that would include all the different parts of previous flashbacks that I mentioned in the link you saw.
In my opinion all of these moments can take up to 30 pages, because Yana’s goal precisely is to build up to the absolute despair that our!Ciel felt during this whole month, with the culmination of it all being the twin being killed in front of his eyes which led to Seb being summoned (this being February/March chapters in my opinion).
There is also something else I want to check during this chapter, but since it’s just a very cracky idea I’d rather not tell unless I somehow turn out to be right (I think there is a 95% chance I’m wrong hahah, that’s why I’d rather not make it confusing now, since the chapter is out tomorrow).
We will see soon anyway, but yeah I think that:
ch136 is about that one month during the cult and it ends on the day of the sacrifice
ch137 will be about the day of the sacrifice and real!Ciel’s death, with a cliffhanger about Seb showing up
ch138 will be the last part of the flashback, with Seb making that contract with Ciel, annihilating the whole cult and Ciel literally taking the ring from his brother’s tummy before going home, with the chapter possibly ending back on present time and our!Ciel having a breakdown
I might be completely wrong too, so take it with a grain of salt and we will see what will happen on Thursday. :))
Of course, this isn’t a full comparison since Zeke clearly has had strong daddy issues for a while when real!Ciel’s motive might be tied more directly to his brother, but I found the slight resemblance interesting.
About zombie!real!Ciel though, yes I agree and it’s something I and several others have mentioned before. When you look at bizarre dolls in general, even if we don’t know whether real!Ciel was brought back by UT or not, well…
they always had violence and obsessionas common points.
It might be because UT said that BDs tended to seek what they lacked, or it might simply be his method of using the “episodes”
within the cinematic records
(yearning for the future: in real!Ciel’s case => “staying with my little brother”, making real!Ciel a more perfect version of Derrick and Agares), but my personal opinion is that the whole process of bringing the dead back to “life” is so unnatural anyway that it’s bound to never work perfectly.
The other explanation where real!Ciel is concerned could be that…
his time with the cult 4 years ago and him being sacrificed were such traumatizing events that he became crazy while on the brink of death and it’s something that stayed even when he was brought back (because let’s be honest here, our!Ciel fares much better than he did 4 years ago thanks to going back to a life where he had caring servants, loving family and friends, even if he tried to push all that away).
Also about the twin, again I agree that if the RCMT is correct, then…
the massacre of the entire household was unplanned. However, it’s just my opinion but considering his weird reaction in this scene…
…I know it’s absolutely horrible (though @dorkshadows will surely like it), but my current take on the RCMT is that
maybe Vincent and Rachel were the only targets in real!Ciel’s initial plan,
(hence why I find there might be a resemblance with Zeke Jaeger in the first place)
or maybe real!Ciel took his “ally”’s words for it that they had a solution to his problem and when he found their parents dead, he realized a little too late what that solution was (which is similar to your idea that he went with the flow and took the ring).
Maybe that’s why there is such a strong focus on real!Ciel taking the ring with barely a reaction about their parents’ death and the ring representing his wish to “start over together”. Maybe for the year and a half after this scene…
…he couldn’t hide how bitter he was to have to become Earl Phantomhive when our!Ciel would become a toymaker and leave for London, which is what the mastermind used against him.
So, when December 14th came and if the RCMT is correct, real!Ciel at least muzzled the dog because he knew someone was coming to do something. The question now is, did he count on the plan leading to his parents’ death or did he just realize too late what the “plan” to help his wish was? At this point it’s hard to say, even if @thedarkestcrow rightfully pointed out to me that the first option is maybe too extreme since real!Ciel didn’t hate his family.
Sorry for the long post, it’s just one possibility and my opinion, so it could be 100% off.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Anon and have a lovely day too! ❤
Hi Anon! Well, I don’t like the anime either, but to be fair I’m not sure this part was particularly referring to what happened to Ciel, but rather to Angela/Ash finding almost all humans to be “unclean” because they weren’t perfect.
I do agree that this makes it worse though, but it’s just by how dumb it is. We know Our!Ciel felt disgusting for a while because of his trauma, but anyone else who dares to formulate a judgement about what happened to him can’t be worth of any interest because of how irrelevant it is of them to do such a thing in the first place.
So this sums up my feelings for Angela/Ash pretty well actually, as well as my dislike for s1. Couldn’t have gotten dumber and it’s actually rather sad for an Angel. x)) I don’t care what s/he says, I’ll always support my son for being so brave and strong. ❤
So don’t worry Anon, that creepy little doll’s words are wayyy too irrelevant, even if they were to come from the manga.
Hi Anon! Well, I definitely agree that he most likely didn’t kill his parents himself and was manipulated by the one(s) who wanted Vincent dead, but still, if he was mostly motivated by his ideal to “stay with his lil brother forever” then a part of me can’t be sure that his brotherly love wasn’t pathological on some level.
Or if it wasn’t in the past, it now is anyway, so the result is kinda the same.
@akumadeenglish‘s post explains it way better than I, but if there is a real emphasis on the notion of “just the two of us” (disregarding even their still living family), then frankly I wonder how far he was ready to go in the first place. I mean, we can’t know what was the initial deal if this theory is correct:
was it just a promise that there was a way for both twins to stay together?
or was it a more precise demand, like maybe making Vincent and Rachel disappear in an accident, so that the twins would rule the Phantomhive household together?
I can’t say that I know the twin enough to make a difference between pathological brotherly love or just a simple strong affection between children, but…
for now at least, I think it could easily be either possibilities.
…Forgive me for the slight digression Anon, but do you read/watch Shingeki no kyojin? I apologize in advance if it’s boring, but the other day the idea struck me that real!Ciel could have a huge parallel with a character from SnK: a dude who, as a kid of 6 years old, sold his own parents to the enemy side, because…
His past aside, to this day there is something still wrong with this dude anyway. We don’t exactly know which side he is on, but trusting him fully would be a bad idea.
So back to the main topic, in my opinion, something similar could have happened with real!Ciel. It’s not that he hated his family but…
…being forced to become Vincent’s heir because he was the first born, while his little brother had more than one way to move on from a life with him because he wasn’t, might have triggered something within him.
In other words, if the RCMT is correct, then what happened on December 14th…
might have been a huge miscalculation on his part because all he wanted was simply a way for him and our!Ciel to stay together
might have gone slightly according to his plan (even though he was still manipulated), if he decided that whatever would happen to his parents was a necessary damage in order for him and his brother to stay together forever: maybe he even thought that his parents were the problem in the first place, because they didn’t allow him not to be Earl and didn’t stop our!Ciel from leaving him.
It’s just that currently, we don’t have enough info to dismiss either idea in my opinion.
Where I agree though is that Seb killing real!Ciel won’t mean that the contract is fulfilled, since real!Ciel isn’t the mastermind but a pawn who got thrown away when it was done being useful:
It’s not a funny topic, I know :// Besides, it’s just my personal opinion, you don’t have to agree with any of it.
Thanks!! I hope you had great holidays, too<3 (And I’m sorry for my late reply!)
As for the “RC mastermind theory” (or actually the “RC had a hand in the attack but he got betrayed by the real mastermind theory”),
I still think there’s a chance that it might turn out true! The latest chapter, especially the scene where RC was crying and apologising to OC, kinda
reinforced the theory for me xD
I interpreted these scenes as RC blaming himself for getting himself and his beloved brother into this huge trouble:
“How pathetic [of me for being deceived so easily. I should have known better.]”
“I’m so sorry [for getting you into this trouble, I fucked up big time.]”
“I’m sorry [it wasn’t supposed to be like this.]”
Idk,
maybe it’s just me but his reaction seems a bit exaggerated and out of
place if he’s just apologising for “not being a good enough eldest son
and heir” To me RC sounds more like he’s feeling terribly guilty for the things he has done and that would also explain why he looked even more devastated than OC:
Also, the fact that RC said
“We’ll start over… *(just) the two of us.”
*Note: In the original language, RC used the word 二人で (”the two of us”), instead of 一緒に (”together”). I personally think there’s a slight difference between these words.
definitely reinforced my conviction that the only person who is important to RC is OC and if RC indeed had something to do with the attack, it was most probably because he wanted to stay together with OC forever. But yeah, I’m aware that I have a bias against RC, so maybe it’s just me reading too much into what he says haha xD
Tl;dr: With the latest chapter, I’m now 70% (+10% than before) convinced of the RCMT!
To me RC sounds more like he’s feeling terribly guilty for the things he has done and that would also explain why he looked even more devastated than OC:
midnight-in-town 