“I haven’t written any crack theories in a while,” I said to myself.
This is what my brain responded with.
And slowly, somehow, this idea turned from crack into something I’m legitimately starting to think is the case.
The Teacher.
This theory hinges on one thing and one thing alone— the Teacher. We know he’s told Mikhail he can bring the dead back to life, and he seems to have saved Mikhail from the verge of death in the past (it’s even possible that Mikhail actually did die, and the Teacher brought him back). If the Teacher can actually bring Luna back after they turned to dust, it’s very very likely that he might have been able to do the same with Louis.
It follows to wonder… is this something that the Teacher would actually do?
For a while now I’ve considered the Teacher’s… er… disposal of Louis to be the natural conclusion of a finished experiment, but I’m starting to realize that Louis’s continued existence actually does hold some value to the Teacher. His experiment on Louis is complete, but whatever he’s got planned for Noé (and potentially Domi as well) is absolutely not over, and Louis would be a very high value piece to have on the board when it comes to those two. If the Teacher actually can bring people back from the dead, wouldn’t it be wasteful of him to just toss Louis’s ashes away rather than attempting to bring him back?
With that, we have the very first piece of this messy, insane puzzle. The chances that the Teacher just disposed of Louis’s corpse when he could potentially use it to manipulate or observe Noé and Dominique in the future seem very very slim.
So now let’s try to fit some more puzzle pieces together.
The Timeline
We’ve established that the chances of Louis not being… entirely… dead are, while maybe not high, definitely existent. But what’s all this talk about him being No.70?
First and foremost! If Louis isn’t dead, but the Teacher wants Domi and Noé to fully believe he’s dead, he’s gonna need somewhere far away from the two of them to store the kid until he can use him again. If Ruthven has access to those magic Jeanne clone pods the Teacher must too, right? Couldn’t he just shut Louis into one of those for a little while? But that kinda doesn’t feel like the Teacher’s style— why should he stash Louis in a pod when he could be performing yet another experiment?
We know that the Teacher has a great interest in the Blue Moon clan. He sends an Archiviste out to find Vanitas in Paris, he brings Mikhail back from the dead, the cat he potentially ran experiments on has one copper sulfate blue colored eye [link to a discussion on that at the bottom of this post]… it feels like almost all of his experiments revolve around either Naenia or Luna. So it follows to assume… if a human scientist somehow got access to a vial of Luna’s blood and multiple Books of the Blue Moon, the Teacher would be the first to notice, and he’d be absolutely fascinated by what was going on there.
Come to think of it, it might actually be possible that the Teacher was the reason why Moreau acquired those objects in the first place. Out of all the characters we know of in the series so far, the only one who I could logically see somehow acquiring the Books and Luna’s blood (short of Luna themself, and they’d absolutely never give those things to Moreau) is the Teacher. The Teacher sounds genuinely excited about the mere existence of a Book of the Blue Moon back in his letter to Noé in chapter 1, but I think this could absolutely just be him faking excitement as a way of maintaining his persona and staying in line with who he wants Noé to see him as.
With that, let’s start building a timeline here.
The Teacher has a few Books of the Blue Moon, and some of Luna’s blood, and he’s messed with both items a bit, but his experiments keep coming up short. He can’t open the Books, as he isn’t a Kin of the Blue Moon. He also has a newly reincarnated Louis lying around somewhere, hidden from Domi and Noé. And now he hears about this human scientist who’s running strange experiments on humans, trying to turn them into vampires.
Isn’t that just perfectly serendipitous?
Maybe the Teacher decides to pay Doctor Moreau a visit. He flatters Moreau, tells him he’ll give him the Books of Vanitas and Luna’s blood for his experiments. He’ll even throw in a vampire kid for free— all Moreau has to do is not kill the kid, and he can do whatever he wants with the rest.
No.70
So there’s a lot of parts of this theory that make sense. The Teacher reviving Louis? Makes sense. The Teacher giving Moreau Luna’s books and blood? Absolutely horrifying, disturbing, I hate it so, so much… but also makes sense. The only thing that doesn’t quite fit is the idea that No.70 is Louis. Wouldn’t it make so much more sense if No.70 was Astolfo’s younger sister Louisette, or some other random kid?
Let’s start with what we know about No.70. They arrived at the lab after Vanitas, but before Mikhail. Their gender isn’t specified, and Vanitas never says if they’re a human or a vampire. Vanitas speculates that something horrible happened to them in the past. We never see their neck or head. Oh, and they can’t speak.
This definitely all seems like stuff that could point to No.70 being Louisette. However, all of this evidence could also indicate that No.70 is Louis.
We know that while the Teacher seems to be able to bring people back from the dead, he can’t fix what’s already broken about them. He can’t repair Mikhail’s missing arm. And if, hypothetically, someone’s vocal chords were damaged when their head got cut off… maybe the Teacher couldn’t fix them.
No.70 also seems to be given some level of special treatment at the lab. Unlike Vanitas and Mikhail, they’re able to wander around freely at night. They’re clearly still being torturously experimented on, but they seem to have a modicum of freedom that the other test subjects don’t get.
It would also make a lot of sense for the Teacher to want to place Louis at the lab as an observer. One of my theories on Murr (again, linked at the bottom of this theory) is that the Teacher is somehow able to see what Murr sees out of one of Murr’s eyes, using the cat as a sort of living alchemical bug he can observe Noé through.
If the Teacher could do that to Murr, the Teacher could probably do that to Louis as well. If the Teacher was going to give Moreau the Books of Vanitas and Luna’s blood, he’d want to be able to observe what was going on there at all times, right? Sure, he could probably shapeshift into a mouse or a fly and sneak into the lab without any trouble, but that would take up a lot of time and effort. It would be so much easier to just have an observer wandering the lab at all times, someone he could check in on at a moment’s notice.
The Teacher needs somewhere to put the newly revived Louis. The Teacher wants to give Moreau some little presents for a horrifying and deeply disturbing experiment. The Teacher wants to observe this experiment.
The solution is clear.
Whew! So! I think we’ve established some things! I think I’ve made an actually shockingly half decent case for Louis being No.70! It follows to wonder… what happened to him after the destruction of the lab? The Teacher wouldn’t have just brought Louis back to the castle, where he could run into Noé or Domi at any time. The Teacher wouldn’t have just left Louis to the Chasseurs, either, as they likely would’ve killed him for a) being a vampire and b) being proof of Moreau’s crimes. No, actually, I think something else happened.
We’ve established that Louis can’t speak. There’s a character in VnC who only seems to be able to speak when they’re using a voice box.
We’ve established that Louis is connected to Moreau. There’s a character in VnC who seems to frequently appear around Moreau.
We’ve seen Louis fight before. There’s a character in VnC who uses the same melee style slashing attacks.
Hell.They’re even introduced in the same chapter.
If I was going to make a guess, I think Louis becomes
Monsieur Spider.
I was expecting this section to be crack. Hell, I was expecting this whole theory to be crack.
But once you start seeing the parallels, you really can’t stop.
They clearly have similar fighting styles. Monsieur Spider seems to speaks with a voice box (all of his dialogue uses a blocky, mechanical lettering rather than normal text). There’s the purposeful parallels in framing and composition between the two (as seen in the panels above). When Noé hallucinates a man inviting him to Charlatan during the Gévaudan arc, the man (sitting in a very Louislike pose, and saying something quite in line with Louis’s philosophy as a child) has horns— just like Monsieur Spider.
Y’know who else is associated with horns in VnC? Dominique, who wears them during the Bal Masqué. Dominique, Louis’s twin sister.
Of course, there’s a problem with this theory. Monsieur Spider doesn’t seem to like Noé very much. As a matter of fact, he seems very interested in killing Noé. He’s angry when Noé gets in his way at the Bal Masqué and seems genuinely upset when Ruthven fails to murder Noé in the cafe. This doesn’t seem in character for Louis, does it?
But look a little closer, and you’ll start to see it.
Monsieur Spider refuses to call Noé by his name when he tells Ruthven about his interruption at the Bal Masqué, despite almost definitely knowing it. In fact, he flinches when Ruthven says Noé’s name. He seems almost unnecessarily emotional whenever Noé is thrown into the equation, especially when compared to the cold and blank way he discusses Moreau. He has to desperately hold himself back from interacting with Noé when he helps Moreau escape from the lab.
Whenever Monsieur Spider shows emotion, it’s always because of Noé.
Now that sounds very in line with the Louis we know.
I think it’s very likely that Louis, just like our other reincarnated boy wonder Mikhail, has some level of amnesia when it comes to the past (specifically when it comes to how he died). It’s possible that his memories were damaged by his head getting chopped off (along with the whole reincarnation thing), or maybe the Teacher messed with his memories on purpose. Either way, I don’t think Louis remembers any specifics about Noé and Dominique (and if he does, they’re probably buried very deep under layers of suffering and hatred). All he knows is that he feels something when he’s around Noé, and he desperately wants to get rid of that feeling.
Hence the whole killing Noé thing.
And with that, I think our timeline is complete! Louis died and was brought back by the Teacher, who took him to Moreau’s lab along with Luna’s blood and the Books of Vanitas. Louis then spent some time as Teacher’s observer in the lab as No.70, and escaped from the lab with Moreau after the Teacher’s experiment reached its conclusion and Vanitas and Mikhail were saved by Luna. Louis then likely stayed with Moreau, and eventually became Monsieur Spider.
The Storytelling Angle
Whoof. I feel like there’s some very stronk proof here. But if you need a lil more evidence to convince you that these three very different seeming characters are actually one and the same, this section is for you.
First and foremost…. Mochijun has actually done something somewhat similar to this before (albeit in a way more obvious fashion) in Pandora Hearts.
When Oz comes back from the Abyss in Book 1, he and the readers both believe that only a short amount of time has passed since he was thrown into the Abyss. Mochijun capitalizes on this by introducing the readers to Raven, a character with a striking resemblance to Oz’s childhood friend Gilbert, but who is established as a different character both age and personality wise to build up to the big reveal. A few chapters later we get the emotional reveal that Raven is indeed Gilbert, and ten years have gone by.
I can’t help but feel like something similar is happening with Noé and Louis in VnC, just in a very different way. One of the most obvious clues as to Raven being Gilbert in PH (besides his physical appearance) was his strangely intense attachment to Oz, despite seeming to have only met him a few days ago. We see something very similar going on with Monsieur Spider when it comes to Noé (just in a very negative sense of “intense attachment” rather than a positive one).
In addition to this, and focusing more on VnC as a story… I can’t help but feel like Louis being alive would throw an absolutely delightful wrecking ball into the story.
Even though a lot of insane batshit crazy stuff has gone down during the Exposition Universalle arc, I can’t help but feel like after it’s all over, our characters will genuinely come out of it as stronger people with stronger relationships with each other (and with themselves @/ Dominique).
Noé and Vanitas have withstood the ultimate test of their friendship, culminating in what’s basically their equivalent of a love confession (and Vanitas sobbing into Noé’s chest, and Noé finally bloodying his hands to protect Vanitas, and them both desperately trying to save each other’s lives but refusing to abandon each other, and—). Dominique and Vanitas, Dominique and Jeanne, Dominique and Noé, and Jeanne and Noé all have some great moments where they rely on each other, learn from each other, and save each other while facing off against Mikhail.
Dominique in particular has absolutely transformed throughout the arc, finally starting to deal with her repressed self hatred and her intense survivor’s guilt. Hell, I’m actually able to picture Dominique confessing her love to Noé with a smile on her face, telling him she knows he doesn’t feel that way about her, and accepting that this doesn’t mean she’s inferior to Jeanne (or Vanitas). It feels like like Domi is truly on the road to becoming the best version of herself and she’s absolutely stunning and beautiful and Jeanne’s in love with her and so am I.
But this is Mochijun we’re talking about. Mochijun, queen of suffering and angst.
Wouldn’t it just be perfectly in line with her writing style if, in this moment where it seems like Dominique has truly grown and become stronger, all of it came crashing down with the reveal that Louis isn’t actually dead?
Wouldn’t it be fantastically painful if, in this moment where Vanitas and Noé seem to be connecting more than ever, their bond growing stronger than ever… Louis came and threw a wrench in it?
The End (for now)
And with that I think it’s high time we wrap it all up!!
Before we get to the very end of this post I do want to mention— there’s actually a solid bit more I want to talk about when it comes to this theory, but this post is already way longer than I wanted it to be. So!! There may or may not be a part two coming in the future. I will try my absolute best to get part 2 out… uhh… in the next…. uhh… increment of time or so!!
As always, please take this theory with a massive massive grain of salt. There is a compelling case out there for Monsieur Spider being Johann. While I do not consider the anime canon to the manga, it’s extremely likely that the anime version of Monsieur Spider is indeed Johann (which bodes quite ill for this theory). I do still have a lot of faith in the evidence I’ve presented but the simple fact that Johann Spider is (90% likely to be) canon in the anime knocks the wind out of my sails a bit. This post has a Lot of speculation and it’s very very possible that I’m completely wrong on all accounts here!
Thank you so much for reading this theory/ meta/ analysis/ insane rambling thing!
