#kuro105

"Humans really do change in the blink of an eye" (ch105) vs. "I feel as if you were born nary a moment ago" (ch151)

Hello Anon! Interesting question. :)) You make a good point, but I’d like to address several aspects that I hope will interest you.

First of all, I’d say that the most interesting part of their convo in ch151 was not the use of her maiden name but rather...

...the fact that, contrarily to what real!Ciel seems to think, Frances and UT have known each other since her childhood, in other words since her mother’s days as the Watchdog. You can read more about this here and here.

I also wouldn’t say it’s necessarily unprompted. After all, we’ve never seen UT interacts with anyone in the family besides the twins before this chapter, so we don’t really know for certain that this behavior of his is out of the ordinary. At least this scene tells us that he considers Frances to be a part of this family he’s working so hard (and so dangerously) to protect.  

So, who knows, maybe he was particularly emotional to see Frances (some say he kinda stuttered while saluting her)? After all, she never got involved in Ciel’s work as the Watchdog (rather sending Lizzie to check on him), but since she possibly used to help with her brother’s work, maybe UT’s just happy to see her if it’s been some years since he last talked to her (like with Dee, in ch105). 

Where I agree with you though is that he tends to be quite secretive on the subject of his ties to the Phantomhive family...

...but then again, isn’t it just when Seb is around? Seb whom he knows is a demon who will one day eat our!Ciel’s soul, so it’s definitely not in UT’s best interests (since he intends to save Ciel) to give Seb too much valuable information about himself. It is or will probably be the same for the Shinigamis who try to get in his way, now that I think about it. 

However, if you remember the Campania arc, when our!Ciel unexpectedly grabbed his chain of lockets, he was shocked but eventually...

...he smiled and let him keep it, as if he didn’t mind Ciel finding out some things about him. 

So the same could probably be said with the scene in ch151: no enemy is present, so that’s probably why UT could relax (not just in this scene, but also when he laid down to read a book while real!Ciel was hard at work) and refer to Frances as a Phantomhive, even half-saying that he has some fond memories about her childhood. :)

TL;DR Just my opinion but I’d say UT couldn’t help himself with the emotion of probably seeing Frances (*cough*his daughter*cough*) for the first time in a while. It’s rather similar to him joking around and then seeing an old picture of Vincent when he was young and alive...

...making him suddenly remember that his body was completely burnt and that he couldn’t see or talk to him anymore.

He’s got feelings, okay. He’s just not always realizing that he’s hurting the very same people he’s trying to protect. :///

Short post, just to say that it’s actually this scene above from ch35 that’s one of the main reasons why I think that...

「ああ　でも　"ファントムハイヴ伯爵"はまだいるからね…」 “Ah, but… there still is an “Earl Phantomhive”[*singular/plural/female/male not specified], isn’t there…“   [x] 

...UT’s words about “Earl Phantomhive” in ch105 refers not to one Phantomhive in particular (so not to the twin), but to the fact that the P family is still being bothered by the Watchdog duty and thus that UT still has to do his best and watch over the current Watchdog, like he did with first Claudia and then Vincent.

Think of it as a curse repeating over and over again right in front of UT’s eyes as he tries to put an end to it. We don’t know for how long it has gone until now, but for UT it started with Claudia, it continued with Vincent and so...

Hello! Oh, well, UT wishes to bring Vincent back alright…

but that doesn’t mean he thinks he can do it with the Bizarre Doll project since he has no locket for Vincent.

Just to make things clear about the theory concerning the chain with the lockets, UT said…

…that he started getting curious about what editing the records would do “after spending a long time as a Shinigami”, which means that we can’t be sure whether he had already deserted or not when he started wondering. 

In any case, the “first locket” is about a person named Molly/Mally who died in 1837 and as you can see below:

Not every locket seems to contain hair (Molly’s, Gilbert’s, Emile’s). 

So the fact that Vincent doesn’t have a locket, despite UT apparently still mourning him so much (ch105, ch107.5), seems to have nothing to do with his body being burnt badly and UT not recovering any hair to make a locket for him. 

That’s why I think that this chain with the lockets is related to the Bizarre Dolls project in the first place (as in, he started experimenting and created Bizarre Dolls because ultimately he wanted to bring back these 7 people), and Vincent not having any locket might mean that UT doesn’t think that he can bring him back through the BD project because…

his body was too badly damaged when he was killed. 

TL;DR I think UT’s chain with the lockets is still relevant to his current goal(s) and the BD project and it’s also a part of the reasons why I’m, for now, not convinced that he brought the twin back in the current arc (for more details, see here).

Hello Anon and no, actually I have a lot of trouble understanding why a lot of Kuro readers feel the need to describe UT as “obsessed with real!Ciel” in particular, no offense. :) I know the blue sect is all focusing on Real!Ciel, the blue star, quite obviously, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the same for the Undertaker. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think UT is obsessed with the Phantomhive family in general, which would make him obsessed with Real!Ciel yes… 

…but in my opinion that doesn’t mean that he isn’t also obsessed with our!Ciel, as we could see more than once in the manga in my opinion.

To get my point across a little better, here’s what I told someone (not tagging them in case they don’t want me to) who asked me privately about my interpretation of the Undertaker’s words in ch105:

「かわいそうに　骨の髄まで焼けてしまって　あんな死に方じゃもう・・・」“Poor thing. Even the marrows of his bones were burnt. Having died like that, XX not XX anymore…” [*もう means “(can) not anymore” in this case. So apparently, something can not be done because Vincent’s body is too damaged. Maybe UT was trying to resurrect him or resurrect someone else (Claudia?) by using his body, idk.]

「ああ　でも　"ファントムハイヴ伯爵"はまだいるからね…」“Ah, but… there still is an “Earl Phantomhive”[*singular/plural/female/male not specified], isn’t there…“

(This is @akumadeenglish‘s explanation as to the Undertaker’s words in ch105)

“I always interpreted chapter 105 and the “there still is an Earl Phantomhive isn’t there” part not as UT referring to the twin or our!Ciel, but just referring to the title “Earl Phantomhive” in general, which is to say to “the one with the watchdog duty”.

I might be reaching a bit in my assumptions, but by now, I think it’s not completely absurd to consider that the Undertaker might have been close to Claudia Phantomhive, no matter if the relationship was romantic or not. Now, we don’t know how she died, but the Undertaker stayed around after her death and helped Vincent Phantomhive, just like he helped our!Ciel until the Campania arc => he’s been helping the Watchdogs that inherited the duty after Claudia.

It might have been his decision or he might have made some kind of yet unknown promise to Claudia herself but

「ああ　でも　"ファントムハイヴ伯爵"はまだいるからね…」“Ah, but… there still is an “Earl Phantomhive”[*singular/plural/female/male not specified], isn’t there…“

I always interpreted chapter 105 and that line in particular as UT basically saying “it’s too bad that I can’t bring Vincent backsince I really miss him because his body burnt, but at the same time there is still someone of Claudia’s family who has to put up with being the Queen’s Watchdog, so I still need to be around and watch over him”.

That’s why I think Ciel himself was confused in ch105/106. Ciel can’t have been thinking about this twin as the other possibility besides him in ch105, because apparently until ch128 he thought that his twin had died 4 years ago.

So I don’t think UT meant Ciel or his twin in his words of ch105, I always interpreted it as a more general concept based on UT’s devotion to the P family: as long as someone of Claudia’s family will be bothered by the Watchdog duty, UT will stay around as much as he can and try to help. That’s why he said…

And…”

You see Anon, I really agree with this post by @hitsugikuro​ and this post by @thedarkestcrow​ and I don’t recall having seen a post that would explain with canon examples why exactly UT would be more obsessed with Real!Ciel than with our!Ciel, and that’s where the problem lies for me with all those “UT brought the twin back” theories.

UT wants to bring back people that he loved/liked/cared about, yes, but when it comes to the twins, I just don’t see why UT would treat them differently from one another, especially when Real!Ciel is most likely dead and already soulless, while Ciel still has his soul but it’s endangered by a contract to Sebastian.

So you see, considering UT’s advice to Ciel about taking care of his soul in the circus arc, I’d say that UT being more preoccupied by our!Ciel’s soul would actually make more sense than UT being more obsessed with someone who already lost his soul (especially when UT got to interact with our!Ciel more than with the twin before his death, since he helped our!Ciel with the watchdog duty for 3 years after the twin was sacrificed).

It’s the same with Claudia, since Vincent can’t be brought back. I always thought that the bizarre dolls project is all because he wants to bring her back, since she’s one of his lockets, but does this mean that in the meantime he’s discarding our!Ciel on the side with the problematic of the contract? As he proved with the circus arc, the campania arc and the weston arc, he’s not and he even made it clear before that he wanted to stop Seb from eating Ciel’s soul.

So I’m sorry Anon, maybe I’m biased, but I really don’t see why UT would favor any Phantomhive over another, as he already proved by not putting Claudia’s possible revival above watching over how Ciel is doing as the Watchdog.

Hello Anon, I suppose you meant the Queen (since you said ‘her’)? 

Anyway (assuming you did) yes, I think it’s also a possibility, the second I like the most actually, in case UT really is involved with the blue sect and not just behind the scenes. It’s kind of a more complex theory that started with this post because remember the Campania arc, Anon? Here’s what UT said:

Since we now know that Victoria prepares for war, I always found that what UT said about BDs being “the best military animals” could be a hint that he knew about Victoria’s war plans way before Yana-sensei actually started introducing the war subplot quite visibly in the story (which is ch84 and the GW arc).

Now, the thing is, UT doesn’t have to be explicitely talking about the Queen’s side when he says…

…especially since…

…the Undertaker apparently was doing business recently with other countries besides England (and since Will and Grell might have been after him when they came to investigate in Germany).

Besides, the Queen also apparently found out about Bizarre Dolls for the first time after the Weston arc…

…even if she was interested in them right away, so I’m thinking that UT’s “experiment” with the Campania probably wasn’t to show her how useful BDs could be, but people from Germany and/or France who also are to be involved in the war to come…

…which could make UT the little “element” playing with the balance of power in Europe.

Think about it, the Undertaker said that he didn’t like the Queen, she’s probably more of a bother in his eyes than Sebastian himself but now that she’s going for war against at least Germany, it is probably hard for him to take her down on his own, especially if John Brown is a supernatural being himself. 

So what if UT is trying to get in the way of the Queen’s war plans by giving the advantage to the countries that she intends on fighting against (Germany, France)? Maybe that’s why Diederich said thathe passed by Germany to go do business in France, when UT can teleport (and thus had no reason to pass by Germany to go to France if he had no business in Germany).

And so, to go back to your question and with this theory in mind, for the current arc: 

either UT’s pretending to help the Queen only to backstab her at the best moment

or he’s been sabotaging/trying to slow the experiment with the 4 lords behind the scene without anyone noticing

It all depends on how invested UT is to go against the Queen. Killing her might prove to be difficult (for obvious plot reasons and because of John Brown, whose nature is… unknown), which is why he might be trying to thwart her war plans, either by simply sabotaging the blue sect’s experiments (if the Queen is indeed behind that) or by going bigger and interacting with the enemy countries.