#kuro131

Hey Anon ! Do you mean this scene ?

Well, I have an explanation, but I doubt it's what you're expecting. ;)

In my opinion, this scene is actually maybe more understandable if you consider the Munchausen by proxy theory [x][x], on top of the RCMT.

Basically, both theories emphasize that 1) real!Ciel was pathologically obsessed with our!Ciel and wanted him to "stay by his side forever", leading to 2) real!Ciel trying to control our!Ciel, maybe even going as far as to more or less poison him, so that our!Ciel would have to let his twin take care of him, becoming very thankful to him, thus furthering their bond (in real!Ciel's mind).

Want a proof that this theory is likely ? In ch138, Ciel realized, after that one month of abduction and torture, that he didn't get sick at all, despite living in terribly harsh conditions (cold, lack of food, physical and emotional abuse, etc).

And the one big element missing from that awful month compared to their peaceful days at home ? It's real!Ciel "taking care" of him, bringing him tea and food for his health.

Don't get me wrong, with the circus arc, we know that our!Ciel definitely had a weaker constitution that he inherited from Rachel. However, he was also probably chronically poisoned by his older brother on the side, which is why he definitely got better from the moment real!Ciel was not able to bring him food and beverages anymore.

Let's rewind back about that scene you were asking about from ch131, now : Rachel and our!Ciel were sick, so Vincent and real!Ciel, with Diedrich, cooked food for them.

Then later during the night, our!Ciel was couching, so real!Ciel brought him milk.

The following day, our!Ciel's fever was not that bad but his cough was terrible so Rachel forbade him to go boating -> how s w e e t ! more time and occasion for real!Ciel to "take care of his little brother", nurturing that special bond between them, because they're made to be "together forever". Except...

our!Ciel acted selflessly, as it is a great quality of his [x] [x] [x], and insisted the family went to enjoy a day outside, since Rachel was doing okay, while he spent the day with Tanaka.

TL;DR In this scene, I think real!Ciel expected Rachel to say our!Ciel wouldn't be able to go boating, since he's the one who triggered the coughing, leading him to spend the day taking care of his little brother yet again (in other words, controlling him), except that he didn't consider our!Ciel would strongly insist for the family to go without him.

I told you it might not be what you expected as an answer. :) I, for one, am quite convinced that real!Ciel had a pathological behavior since childhood, that is ten times amplified now that he's a bizarre doll.

Hello! Ah, very interesting question. I’ll answer it but I just want to precise that my thoughts on the subject change pretty often, so take the current version with a grain of salt. :)

I’ll tell you what though, if Klaus isn’t mistaken…

then yes, I think UT acted as one of the evil nobles and full-time mortician ever since Vincent’s time as the Watchdog. So basically he did the same thing for Vincent than he did for Ciel until the Campania arc: info broker, autopsies, taking care of dead bodies…

I think it’s rather clear he liked his job as a morticiansince he even took care of dead bodies from hospitals, both because of the job in itself and the position that it brought him as a center part of the Watchdog’s investigations. However I wonder if the info broker and doing autopsies parts weren’t Watchdog-only. 

Anyway, I always wondered if the situation wasn’t different for when Claudia was the Watchdog though and he became a mortician full time only after she died. Sometimes I even wonder if Vincent had any idea about the ties between his mom and UT, if Klaus is right and UT is the second of Vincent’s evil nobles. 

To be honest, not so long ago I initially thought that if UT was one of Claudia’s evil nobles too (or just simply close to her), it would be logical for him to already be by Vincent’s side when he became the Watchdog at 15 years old. However, ever since ch131 I changed my mind.

This chapter kinda confirmed that UT’s main focus definitely is “the Watchdog”: he apparently met our!Ciel when he was 7, he didn’t bother sending gifts for the twins’ birthday unlike Klaus and Dee, which shows he kept more of a distance than other evil nobles and which contrasts with how much he seems to care for this family (or with sketches like this). 

I’m not saying that Vincent didn’t want him at home or anything, just that UT could have made some kind of promise to himself and/or Claudia about keeping an eye on the Watchdogs that would follow in her footsteps, which is why he never involved himself more than that with anyone besides the Watchdog, ever since Claudia died. 

Besides, it’s something I pointed out before, but I wouldn’t be surprised if UT’s strange appearance was, like, 30% depression and 70% on purpose which would imply that he doesn’t want any reason to fit in either. I mean, we all saw it, he cleaned up good during the Weston arc, so there must be a reason he’d rather constantly act the part of a creeper, especially when he’s “the most beautiful character” of the entire cast. 

All that to say, right now I think Claudia’s death was a transition in UT’s history with the P family and he became the character we met in ch6 probably within the first 3 years of Vincent’s time as the Watchdog. And in that case, Klaus is not wrong and UT officially met “Earl Vincent Phantomhive” after he became ”the Undertaker” and after Vincent had already tricked Diedrich.

There you go. That’s my current take on it, which is if UT’s not Cedric K. Ros lmao. I’ll spare you the very complicated versions with this additional detail. xD

I want to address two different things, the first point because it is strange, the second point because I saw a lot of possible misunderstanding.  

1) Vincent and foreshadowing

I want to talk about this scene that left me a bit ???...

because nothing particularly important is being said and yet Vincent says something that sounds like a premonition with a rather ominous face and what made me address this is that it’s not the first time. 

So, here I am, wondering if the possible regular pattern doesn’t mean something in particular, because we also had a possible foreshadowing moment about the current arc (probably referring to the twins’ conflict itself) from his own mouth in ch107.5…

And I already made a post on the subject, but in ch131 we had several Evil Nobles showing up on the same day as Vincent asking Diedrich for a favor, namely, to look after his sons should anything happen to him, 3 years before anything actually happened to him, as if he was expecting something to happen to him soon.

…going as far as to add after “You never know”:

In case you were wondering, yes I know this sounds crazy and I had never considered something as random as “Vincent had small precognitive powers” before this chapter, but I find that this makes for a strange and regular pattern.  And yes, for all we know, it’s just Vincent breaking the 4th wall because Yana enjoys writing him like that, but still...

We also know, thanks to ch103, that the Phantomhive family share a special lineage, even if the details are still unknown to this day, aside from the fact that it allows our!Ciel to see Shinigamis when he shouldn’t be able to. 

Obviously it’s hard to reach any conclusion until we see more flashbacks of Vincent, but it’s something to keep in mind in my opinion, just in case it’s useful later. x)     

2) Vincent and our!Ciel

This other point focuses solely on ch132 and starts with this scene:

Judging by Vincent’s silent glance, I agree with @akumadeenglish‘s interpretation that he was carefully observing his sons’ reaction and ideas at the time. The big question is, whose words did he appreciate the most?

I know many might think that it’s real!Ciel’s, since he seemed like the perfect heir when our!Ciel was weaker and not supposed to inherit anything, however I think ch132 is actually full of hints that Vincent took a real interest in how our!Ciel was thinking.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at the discussion with Frances:

...because Vincent initially seemed to be quite out of it as she made her point that the Watchdog duty would be too dangerous for our!Ciel, going as far as to answer pretty dismissively to his sister...

But I personally didn’t read this scene as Vincent just shrugging it off because he didn’t care about his second son dying, or what should happen to the family if his heir died, but rather because he simply didn’t agree with Frances on the matter of our!Ciel not being strong enough to take on the Watchdog duty. 

The second hint is that he took both his sons with him when he went to inspect the domain...

...even though many readers interpreted his words from before as not being very trusting of our!Ciel’s abilities. However, if he really didn’t think that our!Ciel could be a good and strong heir, then why did he even take him with him and real!Ciel in the first place? Why didn’t he appear to educate them differently, except maybe when it comes to fighting?

Finally, not everyone might want to call these hints, but this is Vincent in the side story With Father! and ch107.5:

And he doesn’t seem to particularly dislike the fact that our!Ciel is the current Watchdog (in case you were wondering, he never calls him “Ciel” so we can safely assume he knows which son’s adventures he’s reading x)). 

So back to this scene...

I think he actually found our!Ciel’s words interesting because, compared to the twin, our!Ciel’s proposition seemed more genuinely good-hearted and thus different from what he might have been expecting from a potential future Watchdog. However, this isn’t really surprising when we know what our!Ciel wanted to do as an adult and why.

Our!Ciel is kinder at heart and appears to be more selfless than his twin brother and I believe Vincent caught on that through our!Ciel’s answer (”granting everyone’s wishes sounds difficult”) & that it's what possibly interested him.

Because friendly reminder again that Vincent said that Kuroshitsuji (so literally our!Ciel acting as the Watchdog) was “interesting” and that it was something “the Undertaker recommended”, which means that Vincent seems to agree with UT when it comes to our!Ciel:

3) Conclusion?

1 => I don’t know how seriously we’re supposed to take Vincent’s words when he speaks about the future (see the examples above), because there is still a possibility that Yana enjoys breaking the 4th wall with using his character.

However, considering we still know nothing about how supernatural the Phantomhive lineage might be, I’m going to keep these examples in mind just in case there is a reason Vincent can foreshadow things.

2 => I don’t think Vincent ever casted off his second child (our!Ciel) as being weak, useless and not making for a good heir because:

he didn’t want to address the subject with Frances

he took our!Ciel along with real!Ciel when he explained what the duties of a lord were

there are hints that he shared UT’s opinion on how interesting it is that our!Ciel appears to act and think differently from the rest of his ancestors.

About this scene though, while Diedrich is harsh right because of inheritance laws and our!Ciel being the second son, our boy actually did make a living for himself by building and then expanding the Funtom corporation all by himself after he received the title of Earl Phantomhive (and it’s bringing him tons of money).

So, despite becoming Earl Phantomhive since Real!Ciel died anyway, he still went and proved that he would have managed on his own, had the tragedy not happened.

Crack theory, since plot convenience is surely more likely as an explanation, but since I dislike plot convenience, here’s an idea: did anyone else notice that not one but three of Vincent’s associates came to the manor on the same day that Vincent asked Diedrich that he looked out for his sons, should anything happen to him?

So are we supposed to believe that Vincent’s “friends” can randomly show up at the manor anytime they want, or is it that maybe Vincent called Pitt and UT over at the same time as Diedrich for a reason in particular? A reason linked to...

...Vincent having the feeling that something might happen to him “soon”?

He said that the twins were 7, so that’s 3 years before his and Rachel’s murders, but I still find it a bit odd that 3 Evil Nobles were at the manor on the same day that Vincent asked Diedrich for this favor for the very first time. 

Hello! Are you talking about this scene by any chance?

If so, I personally disagree: I interpreted this scene as him saying that both twins had the potential to be interesting in his eyes because he doesn’t only care about the twin who is going to become Vincent’s heir as the Watchdog (but I might be wrong, as with everything).

I do think he “cares” about them as separate and different persons though if that’s your question (so, not just because of their lineage, even if the fact that they are Phantomhives is the main part of UT’s motivation to involve himself with them in the first place), in his own strange creepy and desperate way, because…

this is how he acted with our!Ciel 

and this is how he probably acted with the twin. 

You could argue that he only cares because he has a goal in mind and that he needs to use the boys, but…

since I definitely can’t say that it seemed he only cared about Vincent because of his Phantomhive lineage, I don’t see why it would be different with his sons. 

In the end, I really think that any difference in the interpretation of UT’s character comes down to how one interprets his words in ch105. You have my personal interpretation here and that’s the reason I tend to think that UT isn’t after harming Ciel…

…and Seb seems to agree. :)

Hey Anon xD In my mind, it’s something he could have said, yes, though we don’t have any hint as to when UT met Vincent (and Frances), if it was when Claudia was still alive or not?

Anyway, hypothetically speaking, it doesn’t strike me as odd with his characterization, unless his theoretical promise to Claudia was meant to only be for the ones who would take on the Watchdog duty. It depends on why exactly he’s watching over the P family, but since he seemed to treat both twins as the same when one of them wouldn’t have become the Watchdog, I’m supposing that, as Claudia’s daughter, Frances would have been treated the same way as Vincent, at least until she married out of the family (since she would have been “safe” then). 

I like to think that this possible promise of him includes Lizzie too, since she’s supposed to marry into the P family and, as a girl who was taught to be strong and to fight, she’s bound to be interesting enough (when compared to her grandmother Claudia) for UT to enjoy keeping an eye on her. 

That’s all theoretical though. xD Ah, man, I’d really enjoy reading some canon UT & Liz interactions…. Oh, well.

I hope I answered your question, have a nice weekend Anon!

Hello, thanks for reading Anon! :) If you mean that theory then I guess some details have slightly changed, yes. It’s down to 50/50 for me but I still like the Cedric = UT theory, because:

it gives UT a name 

it gives a possible explanation to Ciel’s strange lineage in ch103 (and I like when things explain other things, it means spending less time on finding a different answer)

As for the matter of “can Shinigamis reproduce or not?” (since it’s the main reason that I’m fifty-fifty about this theory), some people have shared very good arguments that, as technically “dead”, it can be strange to think that they can make babies. However Yana stated that, despite their nature, they still need to eat and sleep, and we know that they can have the hots for someone else (seeing Grell’s innuendos), so I’m wondering if that really means that reproduction is out of the question. 

We don’t know how Shinigamis…exist when it comes to their soul. What I mean by that is that they’ve committed suicide so they are dead, but they obviously still have their soul otherwise they would be like Bizarre Dolls and the death scythe wouldn’t be deadly for them just like for any other human (or demon). 

So, for reproduction to be forbidden by the rules would be one thing, but I am still not sure whether it’s biologically impossible or not. 

The other thing is that the Shinigamis in ch103 mentioned a lineage so whichever explanation you go for, it has to involve at least two generations of Phantomhives, if not more. Besides the Cedric = UT as the explanation, I also like the theory that says that the P family was cursed long ago (?) and that this lineage of theirs is the reason they’re the family who is in charge of being the royals’ Watchdog.

Finally…

I could be totally biased here, but the fact that Yana went as far as to precise the initial of Vincent’s father’s middle name has me thinking that this Cedric dude will get a little focus at some point in the story (whether he is UT or not, I mean).

Anyway, all I’m saying is that, while this theory might not please some readers, we all know (thanks to the 2CT) that it is Yana’s thing to foreshadow important reveals and, for now, we’ve got only one nameless important character (UT) and one faceless grandfather, with Claudia as the common point to both. Might be an easy link to make, but sometimes I like simple theories. xD

I think that should be all that isn’t in the original theory. Sorry for the long answer, I hope it helps!