I will say… these are excellent questions to ponder and consider. I don’t have a theory exactly, if anything, I have more questions. The story and canon source material has not given us much deep insight into Rachel Phantomhive, and why Vincent fell in love with her, and chose her as his wife.
I know that this may disappoint some Vincent-stans, but it’s a question I have often deeply pondered myself– and it doesn’t reflect well upon him as a father or exactly make him look the most responsible.
In the very first place: Why did Vincent get to marry for love as the Queen’s Guard Dog and have that privilege?
Was it because his mother died when he was still young, and did not yet decide who he would marry?
In that case, why is this something that he felt he could take away from his own son by betrothing him to Elizabeth?
I understand why he did this, to protect him and try to provide that security and all, but it’s still a BOLD move to make as a father, for his son. To just put them both together often enough, and HOPE they fell in love.
(For that matter it was a colossal move to make on the part of Elizabeth’s mother– subjecting her daughter to that life and training her from a young age to handle it– but that’s another topic).In the second place: If he had the right to marry whomever he wanted and take whoever he wanted as a wife, why then, would he choose a wife that had such health problems? As far as we know, Rachel had a sweet and playful demeanor most of the time– and had asthma and sometimes got sick. Hardly the ideal match for the Queen’s Guard Dog.
The only answer I have, is that it was a very genuine, and deep– even irresponsible and selfish, love. A love that he might have known would be difficult and dangerous, but despite that, he went through with it anyway.They died in one another’s arms, Vincent holding her in a protective way… they were in love, no doubt about that.
But I will say this… even if Rachel didn’t have a darker side to her, I think the fact she married him in the first place when she was so caring and so sweet may speak to her character by itself. Maybe she was the kindness that Vincent needed in his life to face what he had to face on a daily basis.OR…
Given that her sister had the capacity to become a vengeful serial killer, it’s also entirely possible that she DID have a dark side to her, secrets that have not been revealed to us yet. People tend to forget that her side of the family had those vengeful, serial killer genes! So maybe she was more involved with Vincent’s position than one would believe? Maybe she was guilty of something and Vincent caught her and loved her too much to arrest her? I don’t know, but I wish that I did.
I know I didn’t answer any questions but – there’s my two cents.
Étiquette : rachel phantomhive
Do you think that if the twins had been born females then they’d have the same superhuman physical prowess that lizzy and Francis seem to possess? It does seem to me that whatever supernatural power there is in the Phantomhive lineage, it seems to menifest in physical forms only in the girls. Vincent, both ciels and Edward all seem to be your normal average joes. I wonder if Claudia had the same amazing strength as her daughter and granddaughter.
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
Thanks for stopping by!
– mod Nina
Recap post: the “real!Ciel mastermind theory”
As proposed on Friday, here’s a recap post about my take on it, for the few who wanted it and in hope that it might help some others with the few misunderstandings I’ve seen going around. Let me know if anything is not clear!
First thing first, despite the name of the theory, real!Ciel isn’t exactly the mastermind or the real target of Ciel’s revenge for me, if just because he and our!Ciel wouldn’t have ended up with child traffickers and sold to the cult if there wasn’t another party involved (and wanting for them to suffer).
So someone else definitely manipulated real!Ciel and his possible wishes, in order to get to the Phantomhive household. They sent someone, very probably a supernatural being considering how they appeared right behind our!Ciel, to kill almost everyone before making sure the boys would know Hell.
For simplicity’s sake and this post, we’ll assume the true mastermind is Queen Victoria (+ John Brown) and if there is a need for more explanations, please check these posts [x][x].
Moving on, in my take of the RCMT, there were only two attackers on December 14th:
and while #1 is the supernatural being (Brown?), #2 is real!Ciel (see below).
However, I know, why would a ten year old child ever wish doom on his own family?
Well, first of all, things very probably didn’t go according to real!Ciel’s plan, way before the boys were even given to child traffickers: I’m of the opinion that initially all that real!Ciel ever wanted was for his father to die.
And why? Because with Vincent dead, he was the next head of the Phantomhive family and as such…
…he might have a say into his little brother’s project to go to London and become a toymaker, leaving him behind.
But things escalated from the twin’s initial plan, very probably because of the real mastermind who used real!Ciel’s little wish to get his father out of the way to almost entirely annihilate the Phantomhive household, before getting rid of the twins in a much crueler way
(possibly because real!Ciel was an accomplice).
So overall was it a horrible, irrational and childish idea coming from real!Ciel? Well, yeah, but he was ten years old and, mostly…
he apparently had (& still has as a bizarre doll) a rather pathological attachment to his little brother
(bordering on obsession really) and that could be enough of a reason for him to truly fear the future separation.
He might have even seen his parents as being unsupportive of him and his issue on the topic, because they clearly seemed to be okay with our!Ciel’s choice in ch133. Thus getting rid of at least Vincent to replace him and have his say on the matter was a minimal price to pay for not being separated from our!Ciel.
I disagree with fans labelling real!Ciel a psychopath in the past (it’s possibly different now because of UT), however I do think something was wrong with him if his little brother was the only one who mattered above everyone else to him. And, again, I really think that’s the case because…
(”together” as “just the two of us”)
…Lizzie, the Midfords, Ann (before she died)? Well, he didn’t/still doesn’t seem to consider them at all. :// Our!Ciel does though…
and that’s from where I draw a comparison between what’s normal and what seems to be less so, because it’s as if Sensei wanted to insist that they’re very different on this point.
So, looking at ch133/134, what happened?
First of all, it’s very important to realize that there is a one and half year time skip between real!Ciel breaking down about our!Ciel leaving him behind (with Vincent and Rachel not taking his side) and December 14th, 1885.
And it’s important because that means that Sensei purposely hid what the twin did or even how he acted between the incident and the actual massacre, after focusing for two chapters on real!Ciel being bothered by his brother leaving him.
So “he was a sweet kid, loved his parents and he would have never done that”? Well no one can know that for sure, since it’s not like we really saw anything about him between “I have no choice but to become Earl Phantomhive” and the attack on the manor. Besides, it’s kind of very Sensei-like to do foreshadowing this way, just saying.
Moving on, I’m not going to expand on how/when/why real!Ciel could have ended up as an accomplice of the attack of December 14th because we have no clue of that yet (that’s all in that one and a half year missing from the flashback), however I think everyone pro or against RCMT realized by now that the outsider who killed almost everyone received help from inside the house.
That helper is real!Ciel for me: he’s the one who muzzled Seb the dog and locked him in, so that he wouldn’t warn anyone/attack the intruder, but also maybe so that he wouldn’t be killed.
As I said above, I doubt that real!Ciel considered that anyone besides his dad had to die for him to get what he wanted and both the dog and servants could still be useful to him as the next Earl
anyway
(in order to keep the exact same household, except for Vincent himself).
As for Rachel, well, from the way she and Vincent died, embracing each other…
…I think she tried to shield Vincent and was killed first. ;_;
However,
had his initial plan gone perfectly, I’m not sure either that real!Ciel thought it necessary for his mother to die (just like the dog and servants).
Either because he imagined that, once he’d be Earl, a woman would have no way to stop his decisions (I mean, look at what he said to Lizzie, I know he was a kid but ://), or because he thought she could understand after what she said about her and Ann in ch133.
There again, real!Ciel’s plan definitely didn’t go as expected, since the real target of our!Ciel’s revenge ordered her assassin to annihilate the whole household instead (the twins awaiting another horrible fate), which…
is
what
took
place. Well, almost because someone survived.
Before I get to this part though, I have to say: I don’t think real!Ciel is the one who killed his parents. He wanted his father dead, yes, but he’s not the one who stabbed them, or Seb the dog, or even most of the household.
Just look at ch134, all the dead people our!Ciel came across had a lot of blood pooling around the bodies, a lot of blood on the walls or furnitures around too, which in my opinion signs the work of a real skilled killer (that supernatural being, attacker #1).
So I doubt the twin would have been able of that, not at ten years old, not when he didn’t have blood on his clothes and not when he seemed to suck at fencing. What he did do however is at least muzzle and lock the dog, take the Phantomhive ring from his father’s hand (the ring that proved he could inherit the position after his father)…
and possibly stab Tanaka at least once (making him attacker #2).
The reason I think the twin is the one who stabbed Tanaka is the opposite as to why I think a real pro took down everyone else: Tanaka was stabbed twice
meaning that the first time wasn’t enough to kill him, so:
- either he held his own against a supernatural being because he was strong enough
- or real!Ciel is the one who wasn’t skilled enough to kill him on the first try.
Also, the second time Tanaka was stabbed was precisely as he attempted to warn our!Ciel of something about real!Ciel…
And if real!Ciel was in on the plan about December 14th, frankly I doubt he’d want his little brother to know that he was an accomplice in the massacre that took place.
The last chapter even implied that servants aren’t exactly people real!Ciel tends to care about anyway…
…so who knows if even Tanaka wouldn’t become disposable from the moment he caught on about real!Ciel being an accomplice? ://
So basically, real!Ciel is the one who stabbed Tanaka in the back, just as Tanaka tried to warn our!Ciel, but then the supernatural attacker showed up and took our!Ciel away before he could see who was the one with the knife.
I know Tanaka is still considered as a suspect by some fans, but honestly I just can’t see how or why. And when it comes to how Tanaka managed to survive his wounds and the fire that destroyed the whole manor, since that’s one point making him suspicious, I discussed it a little here for those interested.
Additional hints & details for the RCMT
To tie with the more recent chapters, since UT brought back the twin, but not mandatory when it comes to understanding the theory, so under read more:
the twin’s behavior towards our!Ciel
I think it’s a hint by itself, because he still seems very obsessed with the idea to finally “be able to be together forever”.
Real!Ciel being a bizarre doll though, that means UT brought him back through editing his cinematic record with “episodes” (i.e ”yearning for the future”).
In other words, if before he died real!Ciel was strongly envisioning his future as “being together forever” with his little brother (as the flashback showed well enough), it could explain why he’s still super obsessed with the idea, because that’s literally what keeps him going as UT’s current masterpiece.
A real obsession can be dangerous: look at Ann and the JTR arc, or look at UT who can’t mourn the dead Phantomhives and instead tries to bring them back through lots of horrible and bloody experiments. So in real!Ciel’s case, it’s not that impossible that it could have led to December 14th.
the attack on Soma and Agni
Could be a hint depending on why the twin became violent and what was the purpose of the twin coming to the house in the first place.
- Was it to see our!Ciel? And that’s why they wrote a creepy message on the wall? In that case, discovering Soma living there or Soma acting familiar with him triggered his violent reaction.
- Or was it because of Soma himself? It’s obvious that UT told real!Ciel about what life his brother led for the last 4 years, so he could have mentioned Soma. However, considering how real!Ciel only sees and cares about him and his little brother, Soma calling himself “Ciel’s big brother” could have made him super jealous. ://
why did the attack happen on December 14th precisely?
In case anyone else is wondering. I’ve seen three possibilities until now:
- because it was easier for the twin to get everything ready (muzzling the dog, etc) while everyone else was otherwise busy preparing their birthday party. There is even a mention of real!Ciel reading till super late the night before, to the point of not getting enough sleep.
- because, in the idea that real!Ciel was really missing some screws, the plan to kill his dad so that he could become Earl was supposed to be a birthday gift to both him and his little brother (since the plan was one way for them to “be together forever”) (proposed by @asthmaticastre [x])
- rather than being related to the twin, the choice of the date is related to the mastermind, because Prince Albert was Queen Victoria’s love of her life and historically he died on December 14th, 1861.
So if in Kuroverse the Queen thinks her Watchdog at the time (Claudia) was somehow responsible… she could hold a grudge => short version of the theory.
could someone have prevented the RCMT from happening?
Because I remember that a lot of readers used to despise Vincent and Rachel for “badly raising their son” and not paying attention, but I just don’t think it’s their fault, because I don’t think that real!Ciel behaved particularly oddly aside from that one trait.
That being said, as I explained here, I think there is a slight possibility that Vincent might have caught on about his first son’s strong (rather abnormal if the rcmt is a thing) attachment to his little brother…
Not that it saved him or Rachel, so I guess no one has to care, but we’re still missing one and a half year from the flashback and, in general, Vincent is a rather mysterious character so… in case we ever address that time skip again, it could be useful to at least consider the idea.
why would UT even bring back the twin if the RCMT is true, considering how much he cared about Vincent?
Last point, but at the heart of the current arc and I agree with @dorkshadows on the matter, which is to say that UT is so biased obsessed with not wanting to lose more Phantomhives that he would probably find every reason to excuse real!Ciel’s involvement in what took place on December 14th.
Though there is also the possibility that UT didn’t even watch this part of the twin’s cinematic record before editing his record post credits, because he was already convinced that the Queen was behind the attack on December 14th. In that case he wouldn’t even know that the twin played a role in Vincent’s death.
I’ll conclude by redirecting you to what @cielsama14 once said about the RCMT here, which I think is extremely fitting, especially considering what Sensei always said about the P family being cursed.
Long post as always with me, but I hope it was understandable!
Please keep in mind that this is my take on this theory, but there are other versions.
Don’t hesitate to ask if there is anything. Thanks for reading. 🙂
Rachel: So how did you know Alexis was the right one
Frances: He looked at me the way all women want to be looked at…
Rachel: Awww
Frances: With fear in his eyes.
Rachel:
Rachel: Awww
helloooo,I was just wondering did rachel and madam reds parents die before or after the twins birth?
Hi Anon! I’d say they died after:
but I’m not 100% certain. We can see their dad when he introduced the girls to Vincent but that’s basically all we have about their parents. Due to the thing I highlighted I always considered that Lord and Lady Durless died after the twins were born, but I could be wrong. 🙂
Have a nice day!
Hi! It’s true the current flashback is certainly hard to read and hard to write as it was conveyed to us that Yana, too, had her difficulties with showing this part of her story.
It’s probably almost over though, this month’s chapter is harsh, the next two might also be, but I’m sure she’ll be able to take care of herself afterwards. ^_^
She’s doing a good job by delivering us Kuro every month and I’m sure she knows her fans support her 😀
Have a nice day!
I love your comparison with Zeke Jaeger! I never thought about it, but now I totally see it. (It’s too early to know, of course.) From what /I/ see so far, I think maybe the resurrection of RC has amplified his bad sides? Making him more possessive of OC. Obviously if he was a pawn for the killers, regardless if he expected his parents to die or not, something scary was definitely driving him. The future development will be so interesting. He seemed to feel guilty on the past, ->
Hi Anon, thanks for reading. :))
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 obsession as 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! ❤
Y’know, I don’t think RC, at least when he was alive, ever has any truly malicious thoughts against anyone. I think maybe the thought of OC leaving him scared this 10 year old so bad, someone who were supposed to “make it so OC also could be an earl” were able to trick him, (somehow) and then all hell broke lose. Everything happens because of love, right? I don’t think Seb killing RC now would fulfill the contract, since he was probably tricked into helping the culprits.
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.
Have a nice weekend Anon. :3
do you think vincent/rachel and alexis-leon/francis were in love?????
Hi Anon!
- Vincent/Rachel, in love?
hell yeah! Also in the character guide book, Vincent is described as a loving husband who really cherished his family. :))
- Alexis/Frances, in love?
h e l l y e a h! And Yana also mentioned once that they’re a very lovey-dovey couple and that Frances is Alexis’ dear lady. :))
You know Anon, they’re the only two real canon couples in Kuroshitsuji so far. ❤
Have a nice day!
Diedrich: Dude, do not pretend you’re not the kind of guy who keeps a list of all the girls he sleeps with.
Vincent: I have one. It’s called my marriage license.
Vincent & Rachel: [high fives]
midnight-in-town 