Tag: phantom five

Was this real Ciel?

I was on discord, having a convo with @rachel-angelina , and she posted this pic, saying it was a missed opportunity to give Clayton and Cheslock first names:

That’s true, but even Joanne is “billed” here as Harcourt. The easy excuse is that they preferred to use their last names. Only Soma and Edward go by their first names here, instead of Kadar and Midford.

However, what caught my eye was this:

Is there any chance that that is real Ciel standing in front of Blavat… there to check out the P5 (from a slight distance, of course)?

Do you think Tanaka was kept alive on purpose? I mean, the culprit managed to kill everyone else no problem (the twins were a different story), so how come he was the only survivor (besides the twins)? I doubt Tanaka was just lucky.

Answered 4/23/18:

I somewhat doubt he was just lucky, too. However, perhaps the attackers just underestimated him, and they thought he was dead… didn’t stop to make absolutely sure. So… maybe he actually WAS just lucky, as far as the STORY goes.

There’s a PLOT DEVICE reason for him to live, though, of course. He doesn’t seem to be able to tell our earl who the attackers were, but he is later needed (plot-wise) to explain to present company (the other Phantomhive servants) about the fact that there were twins. Our earl can’t get the (hardly any) words out, due to shock. Sebastian can’t give the full story because he wasn’t present before they were born or when they were little. Madam Red is already dead by this point in the story, and the Midfords are somewhat preoccupied elsewhere.

And, yes… my Mother3 “Theory of Everything” predicted (about 2 years ago) that he would turn out to be the character parallel to Leder. As I’ve mentioned before, Leder is the Tazmily Village bell ringer; he’s completely silent (until much later) and extremely tall. When he finally speaks, he explains that out of all the Tazmily villagers (new settlers on Nowhere Islands), he’s the only one who was allowed to keep his memories. All the rest were stripped of their memories of their lives before coming to Nowhere Islands on a huge white ship. The idea was to start fresh after an apocalyptic event elsewhere. [The Egg of Light (or Hummingbird Egg) was used to wipe/store their memories.] He was selected because of his grand height; when the time is right, the person who can fulfill the prophesy must seek out Leder to gain knowledge of their history. **He had taken an oath to remain silent until that moment.** So, Lucas, Boney, Kumatora/Violet, and Duster happen to find Leder trapped in the sewers of New Pork City; Leder has been chained up like some wild animal. I don’t think they are even able to free him right then, but they learn about the Dark Dragon who sleeps under the islands, the 7 needles that keep it incapacitated, the Magypsies who guard those needles, and the reinforcement of the idea that Lucas is the “chosen one”. (This is SO Harry Potter searching out the 7 guarded horcruxes to make the “Dark Lord” defeat-able that I’m laughing right now as I type this. I really need to finish my Mother3 masterposts and my triple-comparison posts between BB, the Mother series, and HP. Anyways….) 

So, here’s how that all compares to BB. Tanaka is the only person to even survive the attack at Phantomhive Manor, besides the twins, and we know that real Ciel only lives about a month longer. Instead of acting mute and being extremely tall, Tanaka only says anything beyond “Hoh hoh hoh” when he has something important to say… and even though he’s actually a regular height, he’s often (particularly at the begining) depicted in super deformed or deformed/chibi form. Either way, he definitely stands out for not being talkative and for looking unusual. So, Phantomhive Manor and its surrounding estate become the parallel to Tazmily Village. Besides our earl (Lucas), Tanaka (Leder) is the only person to survive the attack at the manor and its aftermath about a month later. The other people who live on the surrounding lands (the earldom) just stay hush-hush about the twin situation, probably out of respect, once our earl returns to the manor. Same goes for others who knew there were twins, like Madam Red and the Midfords. Discussing it, particularly around our earl, would be cruel; discussing it around the Phantomhive servants would be wholly improper. Instead of going into some long-ago history about the Phantomhive family, Tanaka says he had **planned to take this truth to his grave**, and then he just (FOR NOW, anyway) explains the unexpected arrival of (mirror) twins into the household and how they were pretty much inseparable. We don’t see him chained up anywhere (like Leder is)… again “yet”… but he is being forced to serve his “Lord Ciel” as butler, and he doesn’t seem to pleased about it.

Only time (and future chapters) will tell whether Tanaka suffers further at the hands/orders of real Ciel (or someone else, like Lord Polaris/”Knife Dude”/butler to Lord Sirius)… or whether he ends up spilling the beans to our earl (and Sebastian) about some other historical/family knowledge. Even though the other people hearing this, right now, are other Phantomhive servants, I still think that Edward Midford will step back in as the parallel to Duster, and Gregory Violet will step back in as the parallel to Kumatora/Violet.

BONUS: Ch66 has such an interesting parallel to all this, since it’s about an Easter Egg hunt, in which Lizzie makes it a game for everyone to hunt for her painted egg. She falsely claims it’s something they did when they were younger, when the fact is she’s never done this before. It’s a set-up to test out our earl’s memories, and he fails. Afterwards, Lizzie is left wondering what could have possibly happened to “Ciel” during the month while he was away after the attack at the manor. Of course, everyone is determined to find the painted egg first, including her brother, Edward. Later, Edward talks our earl into helping him find Lizzie. Our earl later talks Edward into joining the Phantom Five, a five-piece band (in which he has to take on a new persona that is completely unlike himself), and it’s all in the name of finding and saving his little sister. Both of these “hunts” involve Lizzie. The first time they (actually Sebastian) **track Lizzie down, knock her out, and bring her back to the townhouse, she sneaks out and runs away again**. (Side notes: 1. We know that Lizzie is very picky about what shoes she wears around our earl. 2. Lizzie is the “genius with the sword”, not Edward. 3. “Edward Vision” is Edward’s ability to see only Lizzie in a room full of people. LOL)

In Mother3, there are two hunts for the Egg of Light (Hummingbird Egg), and both of them revolve around Duster. In Mother3, he grabs the egg the first time it’s found, but then he gets separated from the others in his team; it erases his memories to the extent that he suffers full amnesia. He hides it somewhere (inside a Clay Golem) and then he’s clueless. Now he can’t even remember where he put that egg. The four members of a local band, DCMC, take him in, teach him to play bass, and give him a new name (Lucky). He accepts this new persona and plays in the band, now a five-piece. (Note, the band in Mother2 is called the Runaway Five….) Then Lucas shows up to get Duster/Lucky out of the band to help him, but now they also need to find the Egg of Light again to restore Duster’s old memories. They finally find the egg; it’s in a **Clay Golem that’s kind of busted but keeps fighting and getting away from them**. They finally get the egg out of it at a city dump…. (Side note: Duster’s strongest weapons are his shoes, which can be upgraded later.)

Point of the bonus part? Lizzie is the parallel to the Egg of Light (Hummingbird Egg) and the memories it contains, since she also knows there were twins and wonders what happened to “Ciel’s” memories. She’s also the parallel to Duster’s greatest weapon, symbolized by the focus on her footwear….

Sorry, I didn’t mean for this to be so long, but then I got into “Mother3 mode”…. LOL!

During the Phantom Five arc in the manga, what was Agni’s role, and what was he doing? And was UT spotted anywhere in the background of the manga, after the Weston College arc?

I have written maybe just one post about Agni’s involvement at Funtom Music Hall, and I’ve seen maybe one or two others, but that might be about all. Since Soma was in the P5, Agni definitely would have helped out. I think he made curry buns… possibly helped with other food preps, and then he would have helped in any other way possible (helping Soma with costume changes, etc.).

Regarding Undertaker, I sure haven’t noticed anywhere (definite) except the end of ch108 and again in a single panel in ch120. Ch120 was Halloween for our earl et al, so we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in a month’s worth of timeline… UNLESS he’s the one driving real Ciel/Lord Sirius and Lord Polaris/“Knife Dude” to the townhouse and manor. The driver of that carriage looks suspiciously like Undertaker (from the back).

abybweisse:

I love this scene. The extreme happiness/contentment is too much for the demon and his protégé. There’s just something wrong with those women… obviously 😉

(Happy Boxes in Mother3 have the EXACT same effect on people. The boxes don’t actually DO anything; it’s placebo-induced euphoria. Lucas, Boney, and his fellow protags are deeply disturbed by the undue giddiness of those who buy/accept Happy Boxes….)

And what undoes/reverses the brainwashing effect of Happy Boxes?

The music and merch of a five-piece band called DCMC. That’s the band for which Duster took on a whole new persona named Lucky (cough cough Edward joining the Phantom Five and portraying a stage persona cough cough). If you name him Lucky at the beginning of the game, then DCMC renames him Gorgeous. In Mother2, there was also a band with members named Lucky and Gorgeous; it was called the Runaway Five… even though they actually have six members on stage LOL. (The Japanese name for the band actually means Runaway Brothers but the official English release of Mother2 changed it to Runaway Five.)

Source: onehellofan-undertaker

OMG poor Agni and Soma :(( But they have not even made an appearance before Bravat or been to the Sphere Music Hall yet, so how do they get involved in this? Besides, why would an enemy of Ciel want to kill Agni or Soma?? I am getting really confused

Soma did go to Sphere Music Hall because the Phantom Five interrupted an S4 performance.

Soma had performed at Funtom Music Hall several times. And anywhere Soma went, Agni followed to serve him. They became deeply involved in all this.

Besides, just being near the earl can get you killed. It’s common to go after people close to your enemy because it weakens their support and (usually) weakens their morale.

However, it’s possible that the gunman (also) wanted to clear people out of the Phantomhive townhouse… say, if they thought the townhouse really belonged to them…. It’s a common theory that the gunman is the Bizarre Doll version of the real Ciel (our earl’s older twin), so this real Ciel/Lord Sirius might try to reclaim his birthright and take back what he believes is his. And he apparently has the help of at least Lord Polaris (the dude who went overboard with the knives).

An appreciation post for the real people….

This reminds me of how Shigesato Itoi explains that a character like Duster should exist in the world of the Mother/EarthBound series:

I figure that because there are handicapped people in our world, it would also be part of the world of Mother 3. After all, there’s no way that any two people have the same physique or even the same personality. Just like with the Magypsies, I included Duster so we could have someone with bad breath, a disabled leg, and living as a thief. The Mother 3 world is all about having friends like them. Perhaps you could call them symbols of not rejecting such people. – from earthbound.wikia.com/wiki/Duster

As a friendly reminder:

Duster’s strongest weapons are his shoes. And even though one leg is lame, he’s the second-fastest character on Lucas’ team (second only to Boney, the loyal family dog). He loses his memories and ends up with a completely different persona when he joins the five-piece band DCMC – they name him “Lucky”. (Note: if you name him Lucky at the beginning of the game, his name when playing with DCMC becomes “Gorgeous”. DCMC is the band whose music un-does the brainwashing of those Happy Boxes being sold by Fassad (and delivered by a trained, enslaved monkey named Salsa). The reason his name choices in DCMC are Lucky and Gorgeous is because those names are taken from band members in Mother 2/EarthBound’s band, the Runaway Five (funny side note: Runaway Five actually plays on stage with six members). In Chapter 5 of the game, if you have him defeat Lord Passion, he gets a shoe upgrade….

His parallel in Black Butler (according to my “Mother3: Theory of Everything”) is Edward Midford. Though his sister, Lizzie (with her shoes) is the genius with a sword… and though Edward feels insecure in his own abilities, Edward’s “genius” is his ability to use others as mentors; they become his incentives to practice until he becomes just as (or at least pretty darn close to it) good at something as the person he’s emulating. Basically, he becomes second best (at whatever it is) only to the person he’s learned from. When he joins the Phantom Five, he apparently doesn’t have a new stage name, but he definitely has to adopt a completely different stage persona than he has in real life. Phantom Five was set up to draw the “brainwashed” crowd away from Blavat’s Starlight Four and Sphere Music Hall. So… if Edward gets to have any personal victory over Blavat Sky? He gets his sister back. Will this experience for Lizzie lead to an “upgrade” of sorts? Will Lizzie start wearing the shoes she prefers? Hmmm…. (Check out @abybweissekuromother3 for more about Mother3 theory….)

Source: greatthewayiam

So I just wanted to know this out of curiosity if it’s not too much trouble. What do you think is going to happen to the remaining Phantom Five members? (I say remaining since Midford was dragged off stage and most likely out of the group permanently.) Just returning to Weston? Or do you think perhaps there could be some sort of another reunion with the S4? Or at the very least they play a role in the story still?

Out of the P5, Soma will at least try to help (and he might still prove useful), and there is no way Edward is going to just sit on the sidelines; he will still be involved.

Out of the S4, after the earl gets what info he can from them, the only one I expect to be of continued use is Gregory Violet….

(cough cough Mother3 theory says so on both Edward and Violet cough cough)

Kuromysteries: Sebastian the Dog

into–the–abyss:

(Created by thedarkestcrow and me; look here for our complete list of Kuromysteries)

In this latest installment of Kuromysteries, a combined effort between thedarkestcrow and myself, we’ll be taking a look at Sebastian the Dog.

We know that Ciel named Sebastian the demon after the Phantomhive family dog.  But why, exactly?  And is there anything special about the first Sebastian in Ciel’s life?

In Goethe’s Faust, which has its own parallels to Black Butler, the demon Mephistopheles first encounters Faust in the form of a stray black poodle who follows him home.  (It is also important to note that “poodle” is used here to refer to a medium-to-large dog similar to a sheep dog and not necessarily a poodle as we know it today.)  It is possible that Ciel naming Sebastian after the family dog is a clever nod to Black Butler’s literary influences.

(Engraving from Goethe’s Faust, showing Mephistopheles as a black poodle.)

It is possible, too, that there are other reasons for Ciel deciding to name his new demon servant after his lost canine companion.  Given that ten-year-old Ciel had just suffered a traumatic experience, it could be that “Sebastian” was the first thing that came to mind and it reminded him of the dog who had protected him during happier times.  The demon Sebastian also serves Ciel like a faithful dog would–and he also defends and protects his master, just like Sebastian the dog did for his master.  Given the power struggles between Ciel and Sebastian that would ensue in Chapters 62 and 63, it could also be that Ciel may have been “putting Sebastian the demon in his place” by naming him after a servile creature.  In which case, Ciel has a rather biting sense of humor, and Sebastian (the demon) does seem to still be a bit bitter about it, if Chapter 100 is any indication.

It is unclear exactly whose dog Sebastian was–although in any picture of him in the manga, he is shown with Vincent:

He does seem to be friendly with all members of the Phantomhive family (and Lizzy, too:)

In Ciel’s flashback in Chapter 19, we see Sebastian’s body first, and then the bodies of Rachel and Vincent.  Given how Sebastian was close at Vincent’s side, it is possible that Sebastian tried to protect his master from harm and was killed as a result of his efforts.

Just like Rachel’s and Vincent’s deaths, circumstances of the first Sebastian’s death are somewhat suspicious:

The shadow(?) under Sebastian’s body is different than the pool of blood under Rachel and Vincent.  It is rather shadow-like in appearance, and not only that, it bears a passing resemblance to Sebastian (the demon’s) tendrils when in his true form:

It’s possible that the marks under Sebastian the dog are just how Yana illustrates a pool of blood, or it is possible that they are perhaps something more.

Sebastian the dog may be just a little footnote in all of the other mysteries in Black Butler–but sometimes the most profound clues hide in the smallest of details.

Really good point about Faust! (Man, I love me some Goethe!!) You are probably correct about this literary nod.

However, that’s not the only thing Yana-san could be referencing. Please allow me to weigh in on this with a gaming nod… one of the major aspects of my “Mother3: Theory of Everything”. Namely, another possible reason why Yana-san named the demon after the family dog is because… 

In Mother3: 

Lucas’ mother is killed, his mirror twin brother, Claus, is killed soon after (and reanimated as a Fascinating Chimera), and his father is so grief-stricken that he becomes essentially useless. The only “member” of the family who can still help him is Boney, the family dog. Boney helps in ways that only something like a dog can… like sniffing things out, digging things up without tools, getting into tight spaces a human couldn’t manage, etc. He makes the most loyal companion, too. The last creature Lucas encounters (after his dead, reanimated brother) is the Dark Dragon, whom he wakes up from its long slumber…. When it wakes, it must be given the “heart” of the person who woke it, meaning it will follow the will of that person.

But, in Black Butler: 

Not only are the earl’s parents both dead (and later the mirror twin brother, Ciel, if you follow twin theory [he might also have been reanimated as a Bizarre Doll]) but so is Sebastian, the family dog. Like Lucas, the earl needs a faithful companion who can see, smell, and otherwise detect things/details he will undoubtedly miss… or do other things humans cannot. Enter the demon who is under contract to be loyal, protect him, and do his bidding. As long as the contract is in place, the demon acts much like a loyal canine companion. However, he’s also the Black Butler that the earl woke from his long slumber (check the lyrics to the Phantom Five song “Phantom? Knight!”), and at the end (even after confronting his dead, reanimated brother, as I suspect he will) he will be expected to give his soul to this Black Butler who has already been following his will….