#the hellfire witch

On every level but the literal one, Jeanne has been dead since the moment of her parents' execution. "Jeanne" was a fully formed person with feelings and desires and individuality. But the moment her parents were killed, the moment she became a bourreau, all that went away. The Hellfire Witch was a tool, a mindless weapon of the senate, and in becoming her, "Jeanne" had to die.

Furthermore, Jeanne's name is explicitly called out as a reference to Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), and everything about her bourreau persona ties back into Joan's death. Joan was killed at 19, the same age that our Jeanne appears to be physically frozen at forever. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, just as Jeanne's parents' heads were burned. Joan was burned for, among other things, accusations of witchcraft, and Jeanne became "The Hellfire Witch." For all intents and purposes, our Jeanne burned on the pyre with her parents' bodies, just like the death of her namesake.

Then, as she begins her life after death, Jeanne is given her crimson gauntlet, and it becomes the Symbol of The Hellfire Witch. It's how people identify her. And she carries it around in a coffin on her back. It is the ultimate emblem of her status of bourreau, of Dead Woman Walking, and it lays in a coffin where her body cannot.

The gauntlet is the Hellfire Witch, and the Witch is already dead.

And to go back to the comparison to Vanitas's earring, it's so interesting to look at what a burden that coffin must be for Jeanne. Vanitas wears a symbol of his death, and he wears it seamlessly. It's a small thing, hooked onto his ear and ever-present. It passes as a natural part of him. But Jeanne's symbol is heavy.

Jeanne carries an object that marks her as already dead, and it is a massive, hulking thing that she has to carry on her back. She's strong enough to manage it, of course, but that doesn't mean that lugging it is pleasant.

Because Vanitas has his own issues to unpack, but unlike him, I don't think Jeanne is particularly suicidal. She doesn't want to die. She's just been pushed into an existence where "my individual self is already dead" is the status quo, and a lot of her arc so far has been about breaking out of that pattern of behavior. (And though she'd rather die than lose control and hurt Luca, I actually think Vani's promise to kill her helps her be more alive and lively in the long run). Vanitas's death symbol is something he presumably put on himself as a reaction to Luna, but Jeanne's was forced upon her.

She could be a vibrant, stunningly alive person if not for the Senate forbidding her to act as such, and we're beginning to see bits of that as her personality comes back to life. Her status as dead is something that she carries, but something outside of the core of who she is. And though the weight is tragic, and she's spent far too long "living" as an undead tool, the other thing about the coffin is that. she can take it off.