Theoretically, yes, I think it’s possible. Undertaker was the one in charge for Madame Red’s funeral so he definitely had the opportunity to experiment on her body. As for Joker and Doll, UT was at the scene when that tragedy in Kelvin’s manor happened, and we know UT can easily retrieve a body from a burning building without Seb noticing (just like the case with RC 3 years ago), so it’s possible that UT is in possession of Joker’s body.
That being said, I can’t really think of a good reason why UT would want to revive these people. I mean, his main goal is to “not lose the Phantomhives anymore” (ch140), so it remains a mystery why he would be interested in reviving Madam Red, Joker and Doll – who are not Phantomhives – in the first place. The only reason I can think of is that he just needed as many bodies as possible for his Bizarre Doll experiments (though, iirc he had collaborated with Dr. Stoker’s hospital and was provided with enough bodies to experiment on, but yeah, maybe he just needed more…).
Plot-wise though, we know that Madam Red’s, Joker’s and Doll’s deaths deeply traumatized OC as we see them in his nightmare in ch95 along with RC, Vincent and Rachel, so maybe Yana will have them reappear and thus have OC face his trauma once again, idk. (I mean, she loves to have the characters from past arcs reappear in later arcs…xD)
Conclusion: I think the plot twist is possible, but I’m not sure whether I personally like this kind of plot twist (probably bc I don’t really feel attached to Madam Red, Joker & Doll).
can i just say that the whole “who else knew about Ciel lying about his identity from the start” is totally the same situation as the blue miracle bullshit from the weston arc? Look, be it for Vincent
or Ciel
Tanaka, Frances and Seb (and UT but not present in the scenes) are never fooled 😀
Sensei you did it on purpose for the current arc, didn’t you? xD
*whispers* the ones who figured the thing out about the blue miracle and possibly also Ciel lying (still theoretical for Frances, I know) are also the most likely to already know about Seb not being human, just saying.
For UT it’s been confirmed for several arcs, but I proposed the idea before as far as Tanaka was concerned and I don’t think it’s that far-fetched considering he is obviously mysterious and very aware of tons of things we’d all like to know.
As for Frances, there is the whole lineage thing that’s vouching in her favor. [x][x]
Of course others might suspect it (like Lau who didn’t appear very surprised when it turned out Seb wasn’t dead after all) or will soon add the pieces together (Sieglinde for example), but Tanaka, UT and Frances remain the holy trinity of characters who are somehow connected to the main mystery aka “why must the Queen’s watchdogs die so young generation after generation” so
Cracky thought, but actually I wonder about if UT didn’t happen to really leave his scythe behind when he deserted…
only to get it back right after the events of Vincent’s death and the twins’ abduction…
which would explain why he said he had so many troubles managing to rescue the twins in the first place? He arrived after the contract was made (that’s why he wanted to check Seb’s CR during the campania arc) and just in time to collect the twin’s corpse before it got burnt.
Maybe that could also explain the change of design, from simple-looking scythe
to “skeletonized” after he got it back, even if we still don’t know whose skeleton it is (either Claudia’s or Vincent’s, but someone he most likely thinks he can’t bring back if he cut up the skeleton to make it a part of his scythe).
I know he said that he “found it hard to part with it” and that’s why until now I always thought that it was justifying why he had possibly deserted with it.
However, who knows if the English translation isn’t a little misleading and the whole thing may actually be meant as “it was actually very hard to be separated from it after/for such a long time” (aka about 45 years) “and I had a lot of troubles taking it back”.
We don’t know why UT deserted, we don’t even know when exactly in his punishment he deserted, like:
was he super close to being forgiven and he decided that he didn’t want to go “rest in peace” soon?
or did he still have some time to work and he got so fed up with it/curious about humans that he left?
but maybe his decision to desert was one he took after he got back to HQ from that mission with Othello 50 years ago and, in that case, he could have left without his scythe (especially if he was throwing away his shinigami life and wanted to meddle a little with humans).
It’s when the situation got total desperate, when Vincent was killed + the twins were nowhere to be found, that he imagined that the whole case could have a supernatural component and that’s when he had a lot of trouble getting his scythe back? Without his scythe, it’s harder to fight against other supernatural beings after all.
As I said, just a crack theory, I’m probably reading too much into this x) but otherwise I fail to see what else could have taken UT so much time to find the twins?
Undertaker took the time to stand up and pick up Vincent’s portrait to place it in the armchair where he was previously sitting, before trying to grant him his rosette’s power.
The special thing about this is just that Undertaker
gave his place and power to Vincent, and is literally replaced by Vincent in the next panel
So yeah don’t mind me, I’m just here staring at this chapter’s beauty and marvelously implied hints and symbolisms that we’ll eventually learn to be true or not in about a decade from now.
can i just say that the whole “who else knew about Ciel lying about his identity from the start” is totally the same situation as the blue miracle bullshit from the weston arc? Look, be it for Vincent
or Ciel
Tanaka, Frances and Seb (and UT but not present in the scenes) are never fooled 😀
Sensei you did it on purpose for the current arc, didn’t you? xD
Yeah, Undertaker’s views on how to ‘help’ someone seem kinda twisted. And right now it’s hard to see how any of what he’s doing right now is going to do any good to our Ciel. However, I still think that Undertaker’s goal is to actually help our Ciel to survive.
The biggest threat to our Ciel’s life in the long run is definitely Sebastian. The contract bounds our Ciel to him and as soon as it’s completed Sebastian will eat his soul. Even if our Ciel gives up on his revenge that would end his life as we’ve learnt in the Green Witch arc. Sebastian surely won’t give up on his price willingly. And it never really seemed like our Ciel regretted the choice he made back then. He accepts that he’ll die by Sebastian’s hands and he’s okay with that after he achieved his revenge. Maybe he even thinks that’s what he deserves after being the survivor while his brother had to die. He clearly feels very guilty (which I think is the main reason why he even took his brother’s identity). And he accepted that Sebastian would take his soul quite quickly.
So it’s already quite difficult to save our Ciel from Sebastian because of Sebastian. But our Ciel doesn’t even want to be saved so that makes things even more complicated.
Now this is the situation Undertaker is confronted with. He knew at least two generations of Phantomhives before the twins. And from what we’ve seen about him carrying Claudia’s mourning locket and him crying over Vincent’s death it’s obvious that he’s quite close to them. He cares about them even to a point of obsession. And that includes the twins – both twins.
Undertaker lost Claudia, he failed to protect Vincent and then both twins were abducted and tortured – one of them died and the other one sold his soul to a demon. I suppose UT blamed himself much for all of that. So he may now try to do anything in his power to save who he can still save. However, in order to save our Ciel from Sebastian he has to make our Ciel actually want to be saved. And maybe that’s the big plan behind all his actions. Our Ciel needs to confront his lies and his guilt in order for him to process all of it. Only if he sees that he deserves to live, that he doesn’t need to blame himself for what happened and that others still love him for who he is he may allow himself to live on. And then he might actually accept help in order to get free from Sebastian.
So maybe letting our Ciel face his guilt in the form of his dead brother and exposing his lies to everyone is UT’s way of starting that process of acceptance for our Ciel. It’s a very drastic and painful way but maybe UT sees no other way.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s horrible what our Ciel has to go through right now but I think it might lead to important character development for him which could be the start of a change in the contract with Sebastian. And maybe that’s what Undertaker is aiming at. I’m quite certain that in UT’s weird and obsessive way he actually really wants to save our Ciel in order to keep the Phantomhives alive (maybe in order to uphold a promise he once made to Claudia or even to himself to protect her descendants and to make up for earlier failures).
There aren’t two ways to go about it: UT doesn’t want to lose more Phantomhives (ch140), he’s even ready to go as far as to bring some of them back from the dead. So, indeed, being confronted to a young boy who went through so much that he thinks he actually deserves to die and have his soul eaten by a demon…
…what is he supposed to do? If he doesn’t up his game (both towards Seb and Victoria, imo), Ciel is lost.
I agree with you @thedarkestcrow, it doesn’t mean he chose the best way to do this (especially not with what the twin did to Soma and Agni, when Soma was slowly getting closer to Ciel, or even how sad the whole arc made Lizzie), and this decision of his may be the result of having lost many Phantomhives, but then again, who has a better idea to offer?
Clearly not Tanaka, despite being another character who’s probably well aware of the past of the P family and even possibly of Ciel’s contract to Seb (and maybe that’s even why he’s still at the P manor in ch145, because he’s the same as UT when it comes to wanting to save what’s left of this family).
The only possible alternative I can see to UT’s rather drastic ideas is Frances (who’s also someone who knows about Claudia and who has a way imo to know about Seb and the contract), mostly because she’s been conveniently absent lately and there are reasons to vouch for her being eventually the one to foil UT on this (I swear I won’t do this on your post tho), but nothing is certain rn.
Thank you for writing this, friend ❤ It was amazing! And sorry that I ended up slightly rambling. The point is we can call UT out for a lot of his bullshit, I love doing that personally, but thinking that saving our!Ciel is not a part of his goals is probably missing the point of most of his character throughout the story.
Thanks for your addition, @midnight-in-town. I was actually searching for that post where Yana implied that UT wasn’t a villain but I couldn’t find it so I left it out. But that’s exactly it! UT’s ways are surely not ‘nice’. What he’s doing to our Ciel is cruel at the moment. But he may see no other chance anymore.
The point is that in those nearly four years that the contract exists nothing much has changed regarding Ciel’s view on the contract. It’s obvious that Undertaker kept an eye on him. Maybe at first he thought that reminding him of the importance of one’s soul and giving him time would change our Ciel’s view on his future and on the contract but apparently it didn’t. In the meantime our Ciel could get closer and closer to his revenge and therefore to the end of the contract. I wouldn’t even be that surprised if UT tried to prevent Ciel from getting closer to the truth about his parents’ murder (by distracting him with his Bizarre Dolls or by hiding evidence) so that the contract wouldn’t end too quickly before UT has the chance to do something about it.
Maybe somehow UT even knows what happened in Germany and fears how quickly Ciel’s life could end. That may have shown him that preventing Ciel from getting his revenge may not even be enough because Sebastian could eat his soul as soon as Ciel gives up on his revenge.
So UT may now have seen the necessity to act, however cruel the methods may seem now.
Ohh and one last thing @thedarkestcrow: I think you’re also right because we know that during the campania arc UT checked Seb’s cinematic record about how he and Ciel met and that included how the contract was made, so…
he must have seen this too (ch138).
Of course he was already going through the process of bringing the twin back ever since he had rescued his body, but still, maybe that convinced him that seeing his brother again could be one way to help save Ciel from the contract.
In fact, the more we’re seeing of UT in this arc, the more I think that he really doesn’t want to lose more Phantomhives but that bringing back the dead Phantomhives could be something he’s justifying as not being (only) for himself, but also for Ciel (Vincent and real!Ciel), Frances (Vincent and Claudia), maybe even her children (real!Ciel => Lizzie), etc.
It’s just that our!Ciel is the one with the most precarious situation at the moment, so maybe he even hurried with the twin and brought him back first for that reason (since Vincent can’t be brought back anyway).
Hear me out, because Ciel and his servants can’t go back to the Phantomhive mansion (real!Ciel is there), they can’t go live at the Midford mansion (not after the latest development), the townhouse in London was attacked + it’s not exactly a good hideout, Soma is at Sieglinde’s and I doubt that Ciel wants to involve them more.
So where are they going to go and mostly how are they going to counterattack (Frances’ advice: it’s always easier when your opponent makes the first move)?
I made a small post before on which readers left a lot of cool ideas, like going to Lau’s opium den (@isammy7936 and @frederickabberline) or asking Diedrich for help (@my-lady-no-further) and, while I love those ideas (let’s get more people involved), there are other characters from this arc who also need to stop the undead twin + UT duo…
so I’d say a team-up with them first would make more sense for now, at least if we ever hope to see this arc move closer to its end. xD
Grell can’t face UT on their own after all, since UT won against Grell + Ronald + Seb during the Campania arc, which is probably why Grell and Othello ended up leaving as soon as Ciel and Seb were arrested by Scotland Yard.
Seeing as Seb & Ciel probably want the same as Othello & Grell though, either side could easily vouch for an alliance in order to stop UT’s BD project and the twin’s plan. Besides, at least the Shinigamis know the twin is undead and they have no reason to support his return.
The second point that’s making me think this idea could be the next development is…
what Othello said the first time he met Ciel: “you have a familiar face”.
Considering that Othello didn’t comment anymore about this upon seeing the twins together a few chapters ago, I am thinking it never was about real!Ciel at all, but rather possibly about another Phantomhive he met 50 years ago (the last time he came to the human world), which is to say Claudia Phantomhive, one of our main mysteries.
The twins do look like Vincent a lot and Sensei said that Vincent took a lot after Claudia, so Othello could have been reminded of Claudia when he saw Ciel (50 years ago she’d have been ~10 y/o and he’s almost 14).
Furthermore, if we’re assuming that Othello couldn’t remember who Ciel reminded him of exactly in ch125, after meeting with UT and seeing the twins with him, there is a good chance his memory was jogged (maybe that was even the whole point of making the Shinigamis show up at the manor despite them not doing anything before leaving).
And why it might be important is because one way to get to UT could be through confronting him about his link to Claudia…
especially since he seems rather sensitive on the subject [x][x] and she could be one objective of his BD project (remember how he cried about Vincent, ch105?).
Anyway, no matter if this what happens or not (if Claudia gets mentioned or not, I mean I’d looove that but let’s not hope too much), Othello just sharing stuff about UT from 50 years ago could be useful to Ciel (since UT has an emotional connection to the Phantomhive family) and, in return, I guess Ciel could lend Sebastian to the Shinigamis to try and take UT down.
Besides, don’t we know that the Shinigamis are understaffed? xD
So I’m all for Will as reinforcement (especially since Will was investigating about UT in Germany), but somehow I can see this happening during the final part of the arc (to take UT away, he’s done enough), just not right now.
IDK but considering that Shinigamis are everywhere in Kuro’s arcs, it’s interesting that we never had a temporary common front before between them and Ciel & Seb (it didn’t even happen in the Campania arc because Seb was fighting against Grell and Ronald too).
It certainly happened in the anime (with Grell too), so for the ones who are fond of parallels with the anime, this could be an opportunity to see it in the manga. 🙂
Side note: we don’t know if Alexis and real!Ciel talked about “the truth” yet, but I’m also still vouching for more investigation by Edward who might hopefully remember about Weston and the undead students & vice principal.
midnight-in-town 