#phantomhive dynamics

Hey Anon. Oh, hell no, is what I think.

Look, I could quote the entire story and demonstrate that our!Ciel has some things to address in his dynamic with Liz and entirely different things to confront real!Ciel about, but I'd rather prove it in one go :

The reason Lizzie's dynamic with our!Ciel is absolutely unique in the story is that both hid their true self from each other, despite being canonically the closest person to one another*, because they were afraid to be rejected by each other.

And the culprit behind this false belief ? It's real!Ciel.

*This was confirmed by Yana talking about Lizzie's feelings during the Campania arc, but also by Bravat within the narrative (in ch122 or 123, depending on if you read the magazine or volume version) mentioning that Lizzie was the one person closest to our!Ciel.

It just so happens that Liz's reveal was during the Campania arc when our!Ciel's was more recently (and has bigger consequences).

So, narratively speaking, real!Ciel's return is meant to be antagonistic to both our!Ciel and Lizzie because :

real!Ciel possibly used to poison our!Ciel and also played a part in the tragedy of 4 years ago, before coming back from the dead and taking everything away from him

real!Ciel triggered (accidentally or on purpose) big insecurity and feminine issues in Lizzie, turning her into a passive girl to fit his standards when her true self is a strong active fighter that our!Ciel respects

(I'm not even mentioning how real!Ciel also antagonizes Edward's character, but this is also super important considering Ed's protectiveness towards Lizzie when it comes to "Ciel" was triggered by Lizzie's self worth issues, which were caused by real!Ciel.)

TL;DR real!Ciel has his own narrative role to play, as an antagonist, to our!Ciel, to Liz and also probably to Edward ; just like our!Ciel has to confront his cousins about his choice to lie 4 years ago, at some point, so they can obviously choose his side.

Yana is not erasing Lizzie any time soon in the story, mark my words.

To follow with my post about fighting against misinformation, here’s a first topic. 

Ciel’s remaining aunt is often viewed by the fandom as a mean lady who doesn’t care, because of a) all the mysteries around the family that Ciel doesn’t know about and b) the use of comic relief in Kuroshitsuji often used to hide some relevant clues, as previously demonstrated in this post. This is actually far from what her character really is about and I intend to demonstrate it now with a (long) recap post. 

I have talked about Frances a lot in the past, about her caring about our!Ciel and about her possibly knowing, like Tanaka, that he was lying about his identity. While the former is undeniably true, the latter is still up for debate. [X][X][X][X] However, with the upcoming adaptation of the Weston arc (probably) in 2024, I don’t want the old discourse to come back, so without further ado...

What Yana has said about Frances’ character

Besides our!Ciel, Frances is the last remaining Phantomhive (not counting real!Ciel as a BD). She’s Vincent’s younger sister, they both have the same parents (that is to say Claudia P and Cedric K. Ros) and she married out of the family (implying that maybe the Phantomhives have distant relatives still alive), becoming Lady Midford. 

According to Yana, Frances takes after their dad while Vincent takes after their mom and the same is true for her kids, meaning Ed takes after her (thus takes after his maternal grandfather) while Liz takes after Alexis. 

As far as her relationship with our!Ciel is concerned, here’s what Yana said in the guidebook : “Frances' strength of character is why Sebastian chose her as a role model Ciel should follow”. Since her relationship with Lizzie is sometimes also viewed negatively, I’d like to add that both in the guidebook and on twitter, Yana said that “Liz thinks her mom is kind and strong so she looks up to her mom as a role model she aspires to become”, hence the similar hair style.

TL;DR Yana’s overall description of Frances is that a) she’s kind and strong which is why b) she’s Lizzie’s role model, as well as the role model Sebastian thinks our!Ciel should follow.

Now that this is established, here’s what the canon story gives us, to illustrate Yana’s words. Spoilers for the entire manga series and long read below the cut.

No offense Anon, but... have you ever met or interacted with children? 

Don’t worry, I agree about real!Ciel objectively being obsessed with his brother, but I think you have to carefully distinguish the implication of what a 7 or 8 year old is also saying. 

Young siblings generally dislike the first thought of one day being parted with each other if they’re really close, especially when it’s the younger one who’s “going away” (note that I speak from personal experiences with kids, there is no psychological or behavioral analysis here). 

In other words, real!Ciel throwing a fit about his brother leaving him behind, all alone? Not particularly worrying or weird, considering he’s a young kid who just realized for the first time that at some point he and his brother will be less close and available than they are now.

His reaction after his parents explained it to him though? And his possible behavior after that (see RCMT)? 

Way more an indication in my opinion of a pathological attachment to his twin brother, which was amplified by UT’s process of turning him into a BD. 

Anyway, please don’t forget that young children sometimes can act irrational about their fears and dislikes because they are not, well, adults who are supposed to think and understand more easily what a situation is all about. 

Hey Anon! Yep, Vincent didn't appear to be wearing the Phantomhive ring when he was a student in Weston...

...despite already being the Watchdog when he was a prefect. :) The reason for that is probably to avoid getting weird questions from fellow students. For the record, our!Ciel wasn't wearing it either in the Weston arc. :)

As for where the ring was since Vincent still spent 2 or 3 years at Weston while being the Watchdog, the answer is most likely with Frances: she was very probably his spare after all. [x][x]:)))

Hey Anon! Interesting question but, I mean, can’t it be both? Like, Yana initially using the Chosen One trope (a young boy burdened by a tough position and selling his soul to a demon for revenge), but then subverting it? I like that in a writer, personally (Kato-sensei from Ao no Exorcist is a specialist, I find).

Anyway, I remember a post about Yana or Editor K saying that Yana’s thing is to explore widely the tropes she chooses for her themes, plot and subplots. Therefore it only makes sense that our!Ciel’s character would be included in a similar writing process. :)

Honestly, I believe Kuroshitsuji does vouch for self-assertion and self-confidence, specifically through the Phantomhive family and, as a contrast to Seb who’s one hell of a trash demon, our!Ciel particularly represents that notion. At least in my opinion.

To explain, remember Vincent’s words from Ann’s flashback ?

As I detailed here, I think it was a completely serious compliment.

Well now, our!Ciel also offers similar advice to different characters in the story, taking even “odd” servants in and not caring one bit about what strangers think of him. It’s a strong quality of him, mixed with that kindness of his, that was pointed out by the Undertaker during the Weston arc as “standing out”, namely from his twin brother.

It makes sense though. After all, our!Ciel himself 4 years ago experienced survivor’s guilt and decided to “become his brother” until he realized that he ought to live for himself and for nobody else.

As such, I believe he has an eye for people more easily than others, because he can recognize that same duality that dwells within others (the fear not to be accepted as who you are). Therefore he can respect Lizzie, a young woman, being stronger than most men, Finny being a test subject with immense strength who could crush him with one hand, he can accept Sieglinde’s past and he can recognize that he used to share (or would have shared) a lot of similarities with Soma.

Ciel has that trait that makes him pretty selfless, despite being hung up on a very selfish vendetta. Quite the contrast, but a meaningful one and I love it.

However, I wouldn’t necessarily say that it comes down to the Chosen One trope, aside from the fact that he’s one of the two main characters, meant to embody more specific tropes of the type. In fact, as I said above, it may be meant more as a contrast with Seb, his servant, because as a demon Seb classifies everyone who’s human under the category “grasshoppers”.

Additionally, most of the Phantomhive family actually cultivate differences and that’s why I love them so much. Best example is Tanaka, a foreigner who was tasked with protecting them. As we can notice, he is never hiding in the shadows, but rather standing proud as the butler and then the house steward for this family.

As another example, there is no difference between Vincent and Frances, other than the pretenses they have to use because it’s not an era in which women are even remotely equal to men (like Vincent naming Alexis as his sons’ guardian in the event of his death, only because Frances as a woman can’t officially become their guardian, but mostly so that she’s still going to be involved if needed) and it’s quite heartwarming to see Vincent trusting his sister so much.

We also know Lizzie is the strongest kid in the family, something practically everyone encourage her to pursue, Ed has a distinctive learning ability because he knows to respect other people’s gifts and our!Ciel is quite selfless for a man burdened with the Watchdog’s duty.

You mentioned the lineage and, as you said, we don’t know yet if it comes from UT possibly being Cedric or if it precedes Claudia’s generation (the latter as far as I’m concerned). However, I doubt it’s the entire answer either to your question, since it’s likely that Ed, Liz, real!Ciel and Frances are also gifted thanks to that lineage.

To sum up, I’d say Ciel subverts the Chosen One trope. He’s different from his family, yes, but that’s what we call individuality, while at the same time sharing similarities with them as an individual born amongst them.

So we don’t know how anyone else from his family would have reacted, had they been confronted to a similar trauma (though we kinda get an example with Frances [x][x]), but at the same time, since they’re all different individuals and not blueprints of each other, it’s quite likely that no one would have reacted similarly (that’s why he has no reason to blame himself in the first place).

In fact, I thank Sensei for illustrating that the twins aren’t that similar in personality after all; something that subverted a lot of manga twin tropes, hahaha!

Furthermore, if we consider that the plot hides another master & demon duo as the big bad (see here for full theory), then the Chosen One trope is still subverted because, in that case, Ciel selling his soul in order to get revenge is a plot device that he’s using but that he will also have to face in order to get his revenge.

Finally, that’s just my opinion, but I’m hoping that a conflict eventually arises between Ciel and Seb and, in that case!, maybe we will see a bit of the Chosen One trope, if our!Ciel manages to reevaluate the contract he made with a demon and eventually to get out of it while still getting his revenge (primarily for himself, but also a little bit for his family).

I’m beyond tired, so I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s my answer?

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. :///

Hey Anon! 

About the Shinigamis, oh yeah, it’s definitely “bullshit”, because more than a job, it’s actually a punishment and there is most likely more to it than we have yet to find out. 

Obviously, it’s a terrible fate, which is why UT’s also using the BD project as a way to call out the higher ups after his desertion. You can read more about these ideas below: 

About UT disliking the Shinigamis’ higher-ups (post ch149) [addition 1][addition 2]

Shinigamis’ tag

As for my favorite things in the series... Hmm, to be honest, I think that what Yana writes best is her cast. The characters are, for most of them, incredibly complex and she loves to explore the entire white to grey to black spectrum for all of them, which is very fitting considering the main themes of the series and the fact that Seb is the main character and also a trash demon.

About the plot of Kuro, I think so far Yana created a lot of potential for this series but, considering the pace for the last 4 years or so, right now I don’t know if she’ll manage to pull it off. I hope for her that she will, since she built a lot of momentum through the different subplots and I’d love for her to pull off (what I envision as) her brilliant ideas eventually, because thematically Kuroshitsuji is an amazing series. 

My ultimate favorite part of Kuroshitsuji is the Phantomhive family though. My master post has a lot of links on why, or you can also check the Phantomhive dynamic tag! 

I agree with you about Yana maturing and thus developing a lot of good ideas in her story throughout the different arcs, which gives a really different atmosphere to the story compared to its beginning! My friend @chibimyumi expanded on this quite well, so you can check their masterposts for more on the subject!

First UT arc (Campania)

Ciel and Lizzie have a meaningful moment, with Lizzie revealing that she was hiding her true self from our!Ciel (sounds familiar?) out of fear to be rejected...

but he accepts who she is

and they do get closer thanks to this arc (the one thing UT did correctly).

Second UT arc (Weston)

Ciel works together with Soma... 

and also gets closer to Edward (as a consequence to the Campania arc as well), who chooses to support him after an initial misstep, knowing full well why he was at Weston:

And again this arc made Ciel closer to both Soma and Edward.

Third UT arc (Blue sect)

Ciel ends up at odds with Soma, Lizzie and Edward for different reasons revolving around the fact that he lied about assuming his brother’s identity after the tragedy 4 years ago.

So now I can’t help but think: is Sensei meaning to be taking down what she built and emphasized on during the Campania and Weston arcs (because Seb is to remain our!Ciel only ally)? Or...

will these bonds be what will eventually bring our!Ciel victory over his brother and UT in this arc?