#theory fodder

Note: the lists were revised for people who extended their lifespans. The dolls are bodies whose deaths have been recorded and their souls reaped, the list has not been revised for bizarre dolls. Sebastian knows this, Ronald explained it. So he must have a different motivation for asking about this, which I’ve alluded to before..

That one Japanese undertaker blog brings up how Sebastian did not answer whether or not o!Ciel caught him in a lie, that he may have been capable of bringing r!Ciel back and dissuaded o!Ciel from making that wish. I don’t think that’s the case, Sebastian seems oblivious to the fact he can circumvent death by intervention beyond that of his contractor alone. He’s periodically impressed by the speed with which human technological advancement progresses. Ergo, there could be a possibility that Undertaker’s Frankenstein experimentation was in service of actual medical feats like blood transfusion and galvanism. I may want to mention here that the time period for this sort of experimentation lines up with the real life timeline, when medical science was making forays into it. Othello said that the nobles had their death dates changed because they were suffering from renal failure and they’d otherwise have died if not for the intervention, through application of real-world medical techniques. r!Ciel did die, at one point, but he was resuscitated and put into a coma/catatonic state while Undertaker experimented with dead bodies to practice his, like, clinical necromancy. I believe the other stars have maintained their souls, too. Undertaker was present for Doll’s death, as he likely was for r!Ciel’s. Modri has all but outright stated that he still has his soul. Layla is assisted by a reaper, herself, and when Ronald caught her he monologued about how reapers can’t themselves see souls. And with defector-reapers involved, would it not be reasonable to wonder if they may be the culprits behind the unaccounted for souls which Will complains so much about? Maybe he missed Doll, or maybe her name wasn’t on the list because Undertaker intervened.

The only thing that doesn’t fit quite into this is that we saw r!Ciel bite Undertaker on the campania, indicating that he is soulless, but I suppose an answer to that could be that Undertaker kept his soul (given he’s a reaper) and did not want to risk returning it to a dying body. This may be the same in Layla’s case. We never got any answer about what he was feeding r!Ciel out of that vial, but the starry eyes was imagery we once saw before once o!Ciel was granted the land back and his title as Earl Phantomhive— an resurrection of sorts in of itself

I’ll note real quick— maybe it’ll just be its own post later— but what Sebastian says here is “a fire that will not go out” using the word often rendered as “disappear” as their euphemism for dying. Scar and Kiss are homophones. Back to the season 2 clip. Here is another moment that it resembles to me:

We get one of those side-glances from Sebastian again when Ciel says that there’s been something troubling him. Then, “That would be a reasonable conclusion”… strikes me as an odd reply. It also always struck me as odd/annoying that we’re having the reanimated corpse aspect repeated to us at this point— when, here, I thought Undertaker showing up at the manor and explaining the entire thing to us (and Sebastian/Ciel) itself was the reveal that r!Ciel is a bizarre doll. What do you mean you “think” he’s still one of the corpses? Is it just redundant writing, because we were stuck on that staircase for 2-some-odd years? Possibly If it is the case that he’s still alive, and Sebastian even so much as suspects that and is withholding his doubts from Ciel, that is a massive betrayal. He’s allowing— supporting, even— Ciel’s endeavor to kill his brother by choking off his blood supply. r!Ciel’s operation may have resulted in deaths, but he’s not solely to blame, since their resources had been spread out until o!Ciel’s attraction induced more deaths. Back in the Circus arc, o!Ciel told Joker that he did the right thing trying to protect his peace, the lives of the people important. From this perspective, r!Ciel is sympathetic. He was as powerless as o!Ciel and he didn’t choose to be revived, but he also already regretted not being able to protect his brother before he died. Now he knows that all this time, o!Ciel had been living alongside the very predator who exploited him into (essentially) premeditating his own murder. Just like o!Ciel, r!Ciel was required to make a ruthless decision if he wants to save his brother’s soul. And he is all who r!Ciel would have any loyalty and obligation to. Though I believe there’s another layer to r!Ciel and Sebastian’s mutual distain, because they are in competition for the role of Ciel’s protector as well. I believe Sebastian robbing r!Ciel’s stomach of the ring has a symbolic element to it in that regard, among other ways. Ciel himself seems to have suspicions about Sebastian contractors having all been eaten. If my theory about Sebastian having spit them out instead holds up, we’ll have that revealed to us through the story of Anna, I’m sure. I don’t expect that to come soon, however, because I don’t think it’s likely that Modri is aware of that and I imagine Sebastian might be the one to admit to it when he gives his side of the story. Which he’d probably be less reluctant to admit as their relationship has grown closer, if it weren’t for fear of Ciel throwing him to the curb once he realizes he can indeed have his brother back.

By the end of the Circus arc, Yana sided with our protagonists. At the same time, she said that we were supposed to be left feeling like you wouldnt know what the right thing to do would’ve been either. It’s been the underlying moral conflict throughout the manga, this “Noah’s Arc” trolly problem where instead of it being the needs of the many vs the needs of the few, it’s you and the people you value most vs those you cannot save and don’t have any personal attachment to. Sebastian cares about Ciel, I’m fairly certain that he’s his entire world, but Ciel cares about other people. He likes that about him, it’s not something I’d believe he wants lost. I think Sebastian is afraid of o!Ciel being more loyal to r!Ciel than he is to Sebastian and himself, he’s also afraid that he’s been rendered completely impotent as the person who is supposed to grant Ciel’s desires when someone else now can. At the same time, he may be afraid that if Ciel were to know r!ciel is in fact still alive, he might not even care, too consumed by his greed and pain to have love and forgiveness in his heart. He by all means has reason to sympathize with his brother, and if he can’t do that then how could Sebastian ever expect Ciel to care about him? So, if it is the case that r!Ciel still has a soul, I think Sebastian wouldn’t even want to know for sure, himself.