I have a theory, so, for everyone who‘s read the book and Azriel‘s POV:
We know how Az is feeling towards Elain & we also know that his shadows were dancing around him, when he spoke to Gwyn.
When Az gave Gwyn’s gift to Clotho it said: „He could picture it, though, as he ascended the stairs back to the House proper. How Gwyn‘s teal eyes might light upon seeing the necklace. For whatever reason… he could see it.“
And then: „But Azriel tucked away the thought, consciously erasing the slight smile it brought to his face. Buried the image down deep, where it glowed quietly.“
I‘m just gonna point out that SJM said „glowed“ & „for whatever reason he could see it“.
So, I‘m assuming that - just like Elain has a mate - Azriel & Gwyn might be mates as well. And I‘m also thinking that Elriel might be the ship that SJM uses to show that you don’t have to be with your mate in order for you to be in love & happy. These two might be the ones not choosing the mating bond, but their love & affection for each other.
Also in related news I’m obsessed with those ancient aliens types who are like “there’s no way this civilization could have known how to do this” and it’s just math. Like
Or if you really want to put your tinfoil hat on there are people who are like “how did Aztecs and Egyptians BOTH build triangles if they weren’t in contact with an Extraterrestrial Being telling them to, hmm?” because it’s the most structurally stable shape. You can find this out by stacking rocks on top of each other
i’d like to clarify i don’t think he’s less intelligent or anything i just mean did he go out of his way to learn that shit when newton invented calculus in the 17th century? we know he didn’t even like studying wizard school so he’s a jack of all trades. i’m gonna assume that includes math
So by now some of y’all might know I just can’t help myself when it comes to Thedosian lore. It’s partially why Bioware owns my soul. This post is going to theorize about the future of the Dragon Age series through the lens of a part of the Chant of Light called the Canticle of Exaltations. No, I’m not exactly pro-Chantry. So why this?
I think Exaltations hints at things to come in DA4 and way beyond, once you remove the Chantrification (that’s totally a real word). Including…
The removal of the Veil and Mythal’s return
all hell (Fade) breaking loose
Balance restored?
As always, I claim no special insight. Take everything here with a grain of salt. Also this post is long. Very long. As in I break down an entire canticle stanza by stanza type long. Continue forth at your discretion. Or, if you want, skip to the end, where there be predictions and a tl;dr.
So I’ve read some “adrien knows” theories and I think that it could be true.
Of course he doesn’t know now, but eventually I think he would be the first one to know who ladybug is. I don’t think Marinette will believe that Adrien and ChatNoir are the same person because she idealizes Adrien and ChatNoir isn’t as “perfect” as him but Adrien… I think he will find out how similar Marinette and Ladybug are not only because of how they look, but how they are: always protecting and taking care of others (thATS BASICALLY LBs JOB)
Let me know in a comment which are your theories and who do you think/want to find out the identities first.
As folks have noted, Kitty’s “solution” that made Stotz to quit the force doesn’t address the larger problem that he’s statistically likely to be violent with someone else someday. Removing him is a short-term fix that will make Hannah’s life easier and consequently make Tommy feel better. It’s not about justice or healing but rather immediate gratification, dealing with the problem directly in front of them. (I don’t mean to suggest Kitty was necessarily wrong to act as she did, just that it has ramifications.)
She had a similar reaction in 3x02 when she thought they should let the innocent man plead guilty and go to prison so he’d feel like he was doing something instead of nothing. It was what he wanted NOW so why not let him have it, bigger picture be damned? Pouring her soda over the laptop to destroy Watson’s mss is another example of her acting on impulse to reach a conclusion instead of belaboring the point.
At the same time that she’s drawn to the quick fix, she also has long-term (if perhaps short-sighted), goals. I don’t think Kitty actually wanted to be a detective when she started working with Sherlock; as she told Joan, she’s moving toward something, and I think that’s payback for what happened to her. The skills and knowledge and contacts she’s acquiring are for that. When Sherlock told Marcus she reminded him of a younger version of himself, I thought of “M” and his speech to Watson about how all her lessons helped prepare him for the opportunity to avenge Irene.
My guess is that Joan’s influence will alter Kitty’s plans, but to what end?
oh! Also I should take this opportunity to air my crack theory about Night Watch, to wit: Ned Coates is a time-traveling grown-up Young Sam.
My evidence:
Ned is the only other Watchman who is new to the squad, and new to Ankh-Morpork.
He is supposedly the only person who knew the real John Keel, but he never calls Sam out for it. If there ever was a real Ned Coates, and he really knew John Keel, we only have Ned’s word for it.
When he and Sam spar, he fights just as dirty as Sam does, and claims John Keel taught him the tricks Sam uses himself.
He’s protective of Vimesy, moreso than other Watchmen though he’s known them all for the same length of time.
He is clearly up to SOMETHING; Sam thinks he’s one of the real revolutionaries plotting to overthrow Winder, but none of the other revolutionaries interact with him or seem to know him that I can recall.
When Sam admits he’s a time traveler, he’s unfazed; his question “From how far back?” would make perfect sense as “from how far back in my timeline, where you are my dad?”
He supposedly dies in the last fight, but Sam doesn’t see it, and Sam supposedly died in that fight too.
Lu-Tze is 100% good enough to have two time-travelers operating at the same time without breaking the timeline; he does, however, worry about the unusual strain he’s creating.
So, let’s say an adult Young Sam has a time-travel accident. Possibly after some sort of major falling-out with his dad, one that’s got him still pissed off at him. And now he’s stuck in a vastly more shitty version of the city he grew up in, and the versions of his dad he has met so far are a) a dumb kid and b) kind of a dick. He is not having a great time. He really, really wants to go home, but first he has a revolution to see through.
I love the moment in DwIT when Thomas is trying to explain himself and the following exchange happens;
Thomas: “Virgil, I don’t want to do what he says!”
Virgil: “You mean you don’t want to act on what you think!”
Logan: “Virgil, enough.”
Remus: “Ugh, here we go, Virgil. Looks like Logan has reached his ‘listening to others’ limit for the day!”
I love this so much because it’s obvious that Remus is trying to separate Virgil from the others by playing to their weaknesses. Logan often doesn’t listen to the others, and even though in this situation he’s right, Virgil is still frustrated by him. He plays to Virgils weaknesses often. Like, when Logan reveals that Virgil is partially at fault for Thomas being so distraught and getting no sleep, Remus says, “Despite his best efforts, Virgil could never stop being the bad guy!” Which effectively makes Virgil feel at fault.
Did you notice how quiet and reserved Virgil is that whole video? How defensive he becomes at times? How many times you see a shot of him, standing silently and scowling at Remus?
(This is such an old draft I wrote but I never post on this blog and I feel like this can’t stay in the drafts. Clearly I was going feral over this for some reason.)
I don’t know if people have thought about it, probably yes but I’m new on reading comics and making comic theories and shit, but!
Technically… Just technically… Mutants and Inhumans are the same thing, with only one difference:
MUTANTS are NATURALLY able to develop powers and stuff. Their mutations are triggered by bio response to something. INHUMANS, on the other hand, almost strictly need their drugs
Sorry, their MISTS to ACTIVATE their powers and stuff.
Cause like, hear me out: when the CELESTIALS came to Earth and made the ETERNALS and the DEVIANTS, they also made something with HUMAN ANCESTORS, which would make them capable of becoming awesome and stuff.
Ok, the terms were “latent gene potential” or something.
So, mutants *and heroes who overcame accidents* and stuff. (I love to say -and stuff, bear with me).
ANYWAY…
the Kree came and made new experiments with humans, again, which culminated on the Inhumans, who technically already had that latent gene potential, but had to be activated through the terrigen mists.
AND THERE’S ALSO THE ETERNALS, but no one really cares about them, sadly. I think they’re neat.
So just technically: eternals, mutants and inhumans could be considered cousins? Like cats, lions and tigers. Idk, just thoughts.
My point is: the MCU will never be able to properly respect this potential for amazing stories. I hate their goddamn retcons, but anyways.
Good for those species, having their cities and countries! Go for it besties.
A little disclaimer: a theory is a theory, defined as an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true. Nothing is being confirmed and should be interpreted as a confirmation. This is just my summary of the fan theory I discovered along with my thoughts on it. (Here’s the source of this theory) source: Nickelodeon We all know Avatar: The Last…
But anyways, I finally introduce the project I’ve been working on for many hours throughout the days.
Formalizing the ÖXXÖ XÖÖX language.
Basically, if you’re a fan of ÖXXÖ XÖÖX, you’ll probably have known that in their music, there’s this alien language. Now, if you ever looked at their lyrics with the dictionary, you would have noticed that there are some weird untranslated and nonsensical bits here and there. The goal here is that I attempt to make sense of all of those weird bits and even make the language a ton more usable and communicate-able than ever before!
This is done by observing patterns and making light and sense of them and proving there existence. Slowly, even the music lyrics and the language as a whole should make a lot more sense to you after gazing or even attempting to learn this.
Even if you aren’t a fan, if you enjoy looking at theory work and very weird conlangs and how one would figure out them. Then give it a look if you want!
There’s also the enhanced dictionary where It’s basically the vocabulary on the album but fixed of spelling errors and with pronunciation! (It’s not done yet but we’ll get there.) Also, while rereading the lyrics a bunch of times, I found out that there were some words not posted on the official dictionary from the original site so I added those in too.
Working on a theory where Killer is actually a long lost member of the Donquixote family. Like, he was separated from them at birth, either Doffy and Cora’s parents gave him up when he was born after they gave up their nobility because they couldn’t afford to keep him. They were living in a small dirty junkyard shack, dirty and could barely feed themselves, they couldn’t feed another hungry child and Doffy was being an entitled little asshat and getting their family hated by people and Homing was a naive idiot who thought the commoners would welcome them with open arms, so they thought it would be wise to give him up and that he didn’t deserve to be born into that life and shortly after they gave him up, their mom got sick and died. They probably gave him The Prince of Egypt treatment and sent him floating up a river in a basket and hoped that he would reach safety, because God knows the townspeople wouldn’t have taken him in.
I can see some resemblance to Killer and that family, such as their long, blonde hair and how he looks near identical to Cora when he was a kid
I know what you’re thinking: Killer has blue eyes while the rest of the Donquixote family has brown eyes, he can’t possibly be their long lost sibling and son !
Well there’s a thing called recessive genes. As long as both parents carry the genes for blue eyes, even though they’re brown eyed, they can still have a blue eyed child. Besides, we’ve never seen Doffy’s eyes, Doffy could have blue eyes too
So yeah, Killer could be their long lost buff ass baby brother.
And I’m not even gonna try to bring math into this cuz I don’t feel like adding or subtracting anything, so I’m just gonna say Killer’s age and birthday are what he decided, since he was given away without any birth certificate. So he gave himself the name Killer and randomly gave himself an estimated age and birthday after meeting Kid.
Sangwoo is the step child…in this latest chapter I can’t help but think when Woo talks to the dying woman about her “nuisance” step child he’s really talking about HIMSELF. As a child, since he sees the woman as his own mother, it would only make sense.
Adding on to that the flashbacks to his mother coming at him with a knife. Maybe she’s saying something like “if only you weren’t born!!” Typical abusive manga/anime/manwha mommy saying. Now this begs the question is he the abused wives child? Or the abusive step fathers child? It can honeslty go both ways.
(Spoilers!) In The Umbrella Academy: Dallas issue #3, it is revealed that Number Five and Luther (Spaceboy) are actually twins, and the only twins of the forty-three women. And when the commission needs Allison (The Rumour) and Five (The Boy) to comply with a mission, they threaten the life of the mother of Five and Luther before they were born to do it.
So, because the story says “forty-three women around the world gave birth”, and one of them gave birth to the twins, this means that there are actually up to forty-four children. So we shouldn’t be asking “Who and where are the other thirty-six children?” We should be asking “Who and where are the other thirty-SEVEN?” This is of course assuming that the show keeps this detail. However, the comic specifies that it was forty-three children, not women. Interesting that they phrase it so uniquely and specifically in the show though…
Didn’t do day 6 ‘cause there are so many moments from the show to choose from. I just love them all.
But here is Day 7: Theories
I am all about galra!Keith. There are a few moments in the show, from the last couple of episodes, that can be hints to Keith being part Galra. Although, I think the number one moment that could support the theory more would be Keith placing his hand on the scanner of a Galran base. And have it respond to him. Throughout the show we are reminded that only a Galra or someone with galra tech (Shiro) could place their hand on the scanner and have it give them access.
All in all, I hope Keith is part Galra, would love to see how he and the others would react.
I know White’s only had a few lines so far, but there’s a detail that feels kind of unsettling.
“You certainly gave everyone a scare. They’re all thrilled to see you safe and sound.” (Not“You certainly gave us a scare. We’re all thrilled to see you safe and sound.”)
“Thank the stars it’s over.”(Not“I’m glad it’s over.”)
“Everyone is so relieved.”(Not“I’m so relieved”or“We’re so relieved.”)
She expresses personal feelings and opinions as if they’re not even connected to her in any way, but are simply the collective sentiment and will of “everyone.” It’s like some weird form of royal “we” that completely refuses to acknowledge herself as a discrete entity, even as part of the collective.
I would love to make an official timeline of Pokemon media (ranging from the games to the movies) in terms of mythology, and the actual game’s lore, because I’m almost ENTIRELY convinced that the meteor that fell thousands of years ago? The one that spawned the whole Delta Episode of ORAS?
Is the same one that Arceus tried to stop in the movie Arceus and the Jewel of Life.
Ok let me see if I can formulate this into words without sounding like an absolute loon.
So we know there’s the existence of two universes in the Pokemon canon:the one that has Mega Evolution,andthe one that does not. We know this from Zinnia’s story in ORAS, along with a few other sources.
In the universe that DOES have Mega Evolution, we know from the Delta Episode that the ancient Draconid people called upon Rayquaza in times of crisis using the power of the meteorites that crashed to earth in order to stop Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre from fighting. It’s also why the whole Delta Episode exists at all: you use the power of the meteorite to help Rayquaza Mega Evolve to stop the meteor (carrying Deoxys) that’s going to crash into the world, just as it did thousands of years ago.
In the universe that DOESN’T have Mega Evolution, the Ultimate Weapon never fired, and there was no Primal Groudon or Primal Kyogre. In fact, the whole reason Zinnia crushes the dimensional shifter is because she KNOWS this dimension exists, and sending the present meteor there would have disastrous consequences, as Mega Evolution hasn’t been discovered yet, and there would be no way to defend themselves from such an attack.
Now, as for how Arceus plays into all of this: for those who haven’t seen the film Arceus and the Jewel of Life, it describes a meteor coming down to earth thousands of years ago that would likely destroy the world, until Arceus tackled it and destroyed it. However, it took so much energy from them that they crashed to earth, injured, missing one their sixteen Life Plates, and close to death.
It wasn’t until a man named Damos (who I’m pretty sure is somehow related to N, but that’s a WHOLE other can of worms that we don’t have time for today) returned the missing Plate to Arceus, helping it heal from the injuries it sustained.
Now, at this time, Michina Town (where the movie takes place) is a wasteland that’s spreading (most likely due to the fight aftermath), to where many wouldn’t survive the coming winter. Seeing this tragedy and both wanting to thank and pitying the people who rescued them, Arceus gifts Damos with five of their Life Plates: Grass, Water, and Ground, bound together by Electricity, and — interestingly enough — enhancing its power with Dragon.
The result is the formation of the Jewel of Life, a creation that soon leaves Michina Town prosperous and fertile once again. Arceus then makes Damos promise that, by the time of the next solar eclipse, he will return the Jewel, as without its full set of Life Plates, Arceus is weakened and wouldn’t survive a full onslaught.
So here’s my theory, in short: in the universe where Mega Evolution exists, Mega Rayquaza stopped the meteor that fell to earth thousands of years ago, while in the universe where Mega Evolution doesn’t exist, Arceusstopped the meteor, because it was the only creature powerful enough to do so at the time.
In ASOIAF, a rejectionof one’s own nature directly leads to their demise and/or death and acceptionof this nature leads to their escape from that fate.
Parallels with Robb
Robb rejects his wolfish nature, even though Greywind ripping someone’s hand earned him the truth and loyalty of his men —> This puts him in a grave danger —> Death
Daenerys locks her dragons up —> This puts her in a grave danger —> ???
Parallels with Arya & Jon
Arya: Reconnects with her nature —> ‘'I am a direwolf, and done with the wooden teeth.” —> Manages to escape the Harrenhal —> Survival
Jon: Has a weaker connection with his wolf —> He’s now dead, stuck in Ghost —> He is forced to reconnect with his direwolf —> (Possible) Survival
Dany: Drogon crashes the wedding party —> This forces her to reconnect with her dragon —> (Possible) Survival
Drogon has oldest sibling energy, but I always think of him as technically the youngest of Dany’s children because I associate the third really loud cracking of the egg as his egg hatching
Oh, and it would fit the order of the Targaryen siblings the dragons are associated with. Rhaegal for Rhaegar as the oldest, Viserion for Viserys the middle child, and Dany being Drogon’s rider as the youngest.
It also is connected with the domino of power. If Rhaegar had lived, he would have been the head of Dany’s family. Then when he died it became Viserys. Then through marriage, as a third, it was Drogo. In the same domino order, her destiny would have been, in turn, to live as the consort of one the three, as well.
Rhaegal is not the oldest, though. Viserion is the oldest, Rhaegal is the middle child, and Drogon is the youngest:
She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.
Only death can pay for life.
And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children.
The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world. - Daenerys X AGOT
But what you said really is interesting. Drogon is the youngest, but he is described as the fiercest of Dany’s dragons, the biggest,and the bravest, just like Dany ends up being the most important of the Targaryen siblings and the one who accomplishes the most, despite being the youngest and a girl.
If you believe the theory that Tyrion, Jon, and Dany are the three headed dragon (which I do), and that they’ll ride Viserion, Rhaegal, and Drogon respectively, then their own birth order matches their corresponding dragons as well!
Aka me avoiding working on Part 2 of my Father Meta bc idk how to approach it.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been thinking about this ever since Chapter 80 dropped. And if you’ve been thinking about it, there’s one thing we’re all undoubtedly scratching our heads over:
what’s the loophole?
Well, here’s a singular theory. Elaboration under the cut.
Well, now that I’m back to being lost about whether Father went into Yomi 1) alive to get the kotonoha 2) alive to get his girl back or 3) dead and had to be soul called by the girl might as well look into what other people have to say about it.
Yana Toboso writes her characters with their futures in mind and plans events in the story as much as ten years in advance. Following a short discussion with @abybweisse, I decided to make a post covering Grell’s character arc, which will go into depth about how I think Toboso has been rewriting her portrayal and what I see as the character’s future. I want to talk about Grell’s introduction, what Toboso has chosen to focus on since that introduction, what she has discarded, and what I see as her intentions for the future of the manga. This is entirely my opinion, so don’t treat what I say as gospel. I took inspiration from this postandthis post.
Origins (2007; chapters 9-12)
In many ways, Grell is an unusual character in Black Butler. As mentioned in the first post above, she was added to a pre-existing story about a female serial killer (Angelina Dalles) as a supernatural foil to Sebastian to appeal to GFantasy magazine’s shounen demographic. The design for the grim reapers wasn’t even finalized until during the Jack the Ripper story arc, which is why Grell has pointy teeth but none of the grim reapers who appear later do. Because of this writing decision, she runs into the problem of potentially not having a predetermined place in the story, unlike other characters whose arcs were decided as many as ten years earlier.
Right off the bat, Grell is depicted as a serial murderer of cisgender women, one of the oldestandmost common tropes of queer characters in media. Her writing also invokes specific stereotypes of transgender women found in Japanese media at the time but that’s a topic for another conversation. Grell is a thoroughly unsympathetic character in this arc, whose motive for helping Angelina in chapter 11 is explained as sympathy for Angelina’s desire to have children, but is framed in a way that looks a lot like manipulation:
She also kills her partner in crime of nearly three years because she thinks Angelina has gone soft when she won’t murder Ciel, her nephew:
At the end of chapter 12, after Grell is defeated and William arrives to arrest her, Sebastian provides a moral to conclude the story that applies as much to his twisted relationship with Ciel as it does to Grell and Angelina:
Humans are easily tempted. When they are poised on the edge of hellish despair and a spider’s thread of salvation presents itself, they will invariably grasp it… no matter the manner of human.
2008-2010
Black Butler was greenlit for an anime adaptation in 2008, unusually early for a manga that only started being serialized in 2006. The existing story arcs of Black Butler were all adapted into the anime, but because they ran out of material from the manga to adapt, the staff of the anime were forced to write original stories with the same characters. Grell is missing from the manga from chapter 13 to chapter 54 (although… canonically she’s only absent for a little over five months and punished for exactly three), but she reappears only a few episodes after her arrest in the anime.
I’m not going to cover season two because she gets no development in it, but Grell’s character arc in season one of the anime goes like this: after she is arrested by William, she is allowed to return to her job and ends up helping Ciel rescue Elizabeth after she is kidnapped and turned into a doll. Ciel and Sebastian gradually come to see Grell as an ally and she regains William’s trust, as he first allows her to use a death scythe similar to his, and then returns her original, illegally modified scythe to her by the end of the season.
The anime’s character arc for Grell was a good start, but it always felt incomplete. The fact that she murdered Ciel’s aunt and attempted to kill both him and Sebastian is swept under the rug, and this version of Grell feels way more silly and less competent than her manga counterpart. For better or worse though, the anime did help popularize Grell and affected the fandom’s perception of her as a result.
In 2009, while Grell was still absent from the manga, we saw the publication of the manga’s only character guide. There isn’t a lot to go over, but the character guide confirms that Grell was being truthful when she seemed to sympathize with Angelina. It also reaffirms her reason for killing Angelina (the part with the arrow above) and confirms that Ciel grieved at the loss of his aunt.
Return (2011-2012; chapters 55-65)
2011 was an important year for Grell as a character because she finally returned in the manga’s March issue after a 42-chapter hiatus. Chapter 55 starts where we left off in chapter 12: she is still a danger to Ciel and Sebastian, she is still an antisocial character who is unaffected by human suffering, she is still impulsive and hypersexual.
Except this time some things have changed. We’re introduced to Grell’s younger colleague, Ronald, for whom she is a mentor. With Ronald, we get to see her let her guard down for the first time in the manga, and even have fun. Unlike her interactions with William, Ronald never uses violence to persuade her. We also see her competently performing her job as a soul collector, in line with Toboso’s desire to portray her as a capable grim reaper.
Undertaker is the main villain of this story arc, and during its climax, Grell battles him one-on-one. This only lasts a few pages, but it gives us one of our most interesting insights into her as a character and sets up a future conflict between her and Undertaker. In this scene, he attempts to manipulate Grell by pointing out their similarities, and we get our first hint that she can feel remorse for her actions:
Oh…
To wrap up this story arc and bring the reader back home, we get a comedic scene of William coming to drag Grell home similar to the ending of chapter 12, but this time we know there is more to her as a character, which puts her boisterous exterior into perspective.
2011 was also the year the final OVAs of the second season of the anime were aired, including The Story of Will the Reaper in April. This OVA, inspired by the idea that William owes a debt to Grell, is Toboso’s favorite of the OVAs, and she was personally involved in its creation. In it, we meet a younger Grell who is still closeted and coming to terms with herself, and are thus shown a side of her that we haven’t seen before in the manga or the anime. This OVA is the first time her queer identity is treated with any sensitivity, even though it misses the mark sometimes.
2013-present
Grell has another long absence from the manga from chapter 66 to chapter 104. When she reappears in chapter 105 she is with William and once again the manga contrasts her silly exterior with the information about her we are given. This is a way to deliver this information without forcing the reader to feel sorry for her. What we see versus what we hear:
This chapter lays the groundwork for the manga’s next story arc, which is an Undertaker-centric arc. So far, Grell is not a major player in this arc, but we’ve met another of her grim reaper friends, Othello, and learned that she died less than 70 years ago. This arc also promises a rematch between her and Undertaker in the future.
The future?
In future chapters of Black Butler, Grell could remain as a minor antagonist, but since Undertaker is already in the spotlight it’s more likely she’ll continue to work to stop him. She could side with Ciel and Sebastian, but Grell barely seems to remember who Ciel is, while he still responds like a traumatized person whenever he sees her:
Clearly some things would need to change in the story before they could form an alliance. Ciel, never a forgiving person, would have to get used to working with his aunt’s killer. Toboso acknowledges that Ciel and Grell’s relationship so far is not normalized. One thing that could help is to develop Grell’s relationship with Angelina further. In a series of posts on her Twitter from January 2018 (first,second,third), Toboso explains that because the writing on the Jack the Ripper arc was rushed, she hadn’t figured out the details of Grell and Angelina’s relationship but popular fanon convinced her that they were friends. Hopefully in the future this can be explored in the manga itself!
I would also like to see more of Grell’s relationship with her workplace as we learn about the grim reapers. She is stronger than William but lets him mess with her, why? Is he also indebted to her in the manga? Why do William, Ronald, and Othello have so much faith in her? How does she really feel about her job, when she ran away from it? As a side note, I know this fandom believes Grell and the other grim reapers will get backstories but the servant characters are only getting backstories because Toboso planned for them ten years ago, while Grell might not have originally been intended to be redeemed.
Ido want to see her fight Undertaker again, because they have some parallels that would make their interactions very interesting to me: they are both grim reaper deserters but she is weaker than him and got caught. They both became emotionally invested in individual humans. His style is austere, and he doesn’t use an electric scythe, while Grell is a modern, career-oriented reaper with flashy fashion tastes. He is incredibly old, while she seems to have deserted when she was still young (reminder that her death list was still just a stack of paper when she ran away ↴↴↴). Both have a body count.
Maybe then she can finally get her manga cover?
This is a really good assessment of Grelle’s development, so far, in the series.
I’d like to note a few things, though:
In the anime, when Grelle first returns to work, the temporary death scythe is two bonsai shears, but yes that’s closer to William’s averruncator than Grelle’s usual chainsaw.
Othello doesn’t say Grelle wasn’t a reaper 70 years ago, he asks isn’t it trueGrellewas a reaper 70 years ago. And you show above that Yana-san was directly involved with the “Story of Will the Reaper” OVA. Of course, we know there’s an issue with the way that OVA was drawn. It has Thomas’ record saying he was born in 1775 and dying in 1779. There’s no way Thomas was only 5 years old. Maybe add 20 years to that? But that would still have Grelle in reaper training before 1819, around the time that Undertaker destroyed half of HQ. Therefore, it seems to me that Othello is questioning why Grelle doesn’t recall 136649. And that goes back to my posts where I ponder what really happened as part of Grelle’s three months of suspension. Were Grelle’s cinematic records messed with?
Grelle might have been holding those paper clipped files for Madam Red because it was more information than what would usually be in the agenda. We don’t really know whether Grelle already had that Chanel agenda. Then again, it could be that Grelle simply hadn’t bought that agenda yet. It’s really no clear indication of Grelle’s age as a reaper.
I’m also expecting Grelle to have another major run-in with Undertaker, ever since Othello sent that dove back to HQ to request backup.
But ever since Othello asked Grelle for protection in the human realm, I’ve pondered Grelle’s chances for survival. My Mother3 theory has each of the reapers needing to either die or return to their realm. The Magypsies don’t get much character development in the game, but some of them assess their lot in life before they disappear for good.
I don’t expect Grelle to get a volume cover until it’s a volume that has a major showdown between either Grelle and Sebastian or Grelle and Undertaker. I still say it could ultimately end with Grelle’s death, particularly if Othello somehow gets in the way or causes Grelle distraction. If Grelle dies protecting Othello, that might be the most character development we get, since Grelle had previously shown a very selfish personality. It would finally force Grelle to wear Madam Red’s shoes, so to speak, not just her coat.
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