#aidentxt

so when moreau asks for one of his eyes, he doesn't even flinch. because he's a nameless child again who has to endure whatever moreau wants to inflict upon him in order to keep misha and other potential victims safe

but then noé intervenes because this is clearly insanely fucked up and revolting and no person should ever be abused like that, and vanitas looks genuinely confused as to why he would do that. i mean, he has to comply in order to get information, right? he has to do what moreau wants in order to protect everyone, right?

and i feel like when roland expresses his disgust too, and everyone starts attacking moreau, that was the last drop that was needed to make vanitas snap out of that trauma response, which leads to this amazing panel

speechless vanichan

then it dawned on me. what if vanitas reminds him of astolfo in a way? we as readers noticing their parallels is a given since we're being presented with all the information the story currently holds, but even noé – a character in the story – sees their similarities, so surely roland must have noticed them too, at the very least subconsciously.

yes, vanitas turned out differently to astolfo, aren't we all glad etc., but roland is right in the sense that vanitas is a volatile being, although, at least in my opinion, not quite as much as roland is making him out to be.

i think his past with astolfo exaggerates his emotional response to vanitas. i can't imagine him not carrying a crushing sense of guilt for not having been able to save astolfo – he tried but failed, resulting in casualties. the way he looks at astolfo with a stern yet pained expression tells me he not only hates how he turned out, he feels directly responsible.

that might not be roland's durandal, but it's the same weapon he used when he saved astolfo, as we can see in astolfo's memory here

and he has in fact used this weapon at least up until astolfo's breakdown during the human trafficking vampires mission

it's a thought that breaks my heart but it would make sense given what we know about the two so far:

roland took astolfo in and trained him - raised him - to become the person he is now. he tried to save this young boy but, because he couldn't provide the care that astolfo needed to truly heal from his trauma, he might feel like he's shaped him into a killing machine inhabited by the same battered, violated, traumatised child he found all those years (?) ago. he couldn't save him then, so he's trying to save him by becoming astolfo's target of hatred in hopes that it'll stop astolfo from hating himself.

but, as we all hopefully know, it doesn't quite work like that. hating something or someone else doesn't dissolve one's self-hatred. it just masks it. combating hatred with more hatred makes everything worse.

roland's and astolfo's former close knit relationship is in shambles, but roland still cares for the boy

look at his sad expression. he still wishes for astolfo's salvation

(this is another facet of the ongoing theme of salvation in vnc, which many have already analysed in a far better way)

now my humble conspiracy theory is not only that astolfo gets killed, it's that roland himself does it, based on the similarities in the panels mentioned above.

but what could his reasoning be?

maybe it's his last shot of offering salvation. his love and affection couldn't save him, his teachings couldn't save him either, not even becoming the object of astolfo's hatred could save the boy, what else is there?

i'd assume something terrible happens (aka normal day in vnc), maybe astolfo goes on another murderous rampage or something equally horrific to witness, people''s lives are threatened. it doesn't really matter what exactly happens, it just has to be a situation in which roland feels so cornered that he feels like his only option is to kill astolfo, saving the boy at last. and i can very much see that happening.

on a side note i'd like to point out astolfo's facial expression in the foreshadowing panel