Black Butler (manga)/WMG

Ciel's current goofy staff are ghosts.

We know that Tanaka was stabbed by cultists right before the fire. It's possible they were all killed and Sebastian's keeping up their images to keep his contractee sane until he can fulfill his contract.

• As per ep 7, we know that Finian was used for weird experiments. Possibly they aren't all ghosts, but they might all be weird, in different ways.

Grell is the bastard son of Suigetsu and Karin

I mean look at them. He gets his teeth, sense of humor, and his love of giant swords from his dad and his hair and his taste in "friends" from his mom. The resemblance is hard to deny even if you don't ship it.

• MUWHAHAHAHAHA! I'm not the only one that thinks Grell bears a resemblance to Karin!
  • Wait, didn't Grell appeared earlier than either of them? Besides that, yeah that makes so much sense.

Ciel's current staff is/was his personal army

(note: I'm going from the manga) Ciel picked this Power Trio for their usefulness in combat but they haven't been needed because of Sebastian. With nothing else to do Ciel made them his house staff, much to his eternal regret.

• Maid - Child soldier and expy of Roberta and Ms. Van Winkle.
  • That's First Lieutenant Van Winkle.
• Cook - Guerrilla fighter/gun runner/demolition expert. (He wants to be the flambe chef from Ratatouille but he just can't.)
• Gardener - Cute Bruiser due to experimentation (super soba with a side of gamma rays?) Is currently about to HULK SMASH! an intruder due to trespassers in Phantomhive Manor being a Berserk Button
  • The above three are confirmed.
• Butler Tanaka - Very, very extended Heroic BSOD due to the fact that his dead master has returned as the butler combined with, just maybe...

Sebastian slaughtered Ciel's family

He wanted Ciel's sweet, delicious young soul (after a bit of "tenderizing"). One day Butler Tanaka's going to snap and go "It's HIM!!!" and attack Sebastian with his own pastry.

• Alternate theory: Sebastian was summoned by the cultists, but he liked Ciel better.
  • The 'Alternate Thorey' is confirmed as of chapter 63. The main thorey, however, is jossed.
• If that were the case he wouldn't have agreed to eat Ciel's soul only after he killed his parents' murderer would he? Catch 22

The Noah's Ark circus' performers prosthetic limbs

Are made of PEOPLE!!!

• • All of them (save for the doctor and maybe Joker) have been slaughtered by the servants (who are indeed Ciel's personal army) and thhis doesn't appear to be the kidnapped children's purpose, so I guess we'll have to wait.
  • Confirmed as of Chapter 34.

Sebastian is not in his real form.

He is actually assuming the shape of Ciel's father, as per his request.. I thought they looked uncannily similar.

• ...Ciel's father was Alucard?!
• The final episode confirms that Sebastian's usual butler form is not his true form.
• In chapter 62, it is shown that Sebastian merely conjured the form up because he wanted to 'suit the servant of an earl'. He didn't even know Vincent when he made his form, nor did Ciel instruct him to look like his late father, so that's another theory Jossed.

Sebastian's feline friend is a supernatural of some kind.

Ciel is (somehow) the lovechild of Count Cain and Lelouch.

Pretty self-explanatory.

• Delilah does make a lot of dolls and dabble in some very bad hoodoo...

The Cultists were trying to summon Sebastian.

In the manga, if you look closely, his symbol is on the floor of the room where they were torturing Ciel. Maybe they were trying to summon him using the children's souls as payment instead of their own? Furthered by the fact that Ciel seemingly manages to summon him 'accidentally'... by renouncing God and calling for "someone, anyone" to come save him, "It doesn't matter who, it doesn't matter how". If the link was already open by the cultists' attempts, that seems much more likely to work.

• Confirmed as of chapter 62

Sebastian doesn't really have sex with either of the girls.

He just fingers them. Note how in both scenes Sebastian seems to be fully clothed and not moving very much, and after he comes back to Ciel in the manga he isn't wearing his gloves because "They got dirty".

• • Well, I guess that's somewhat better...
  • The inflagranti delicto scene in the manga IS rather ambiguous. However, both hands are accounted for (one gloved, one not -- he'd removed one already because it had gotten bloody from the preceding confrontation with Spears), suggesting either he wasn't using them OR there was some creative position-switching occurring between frames. It's likely left unclear on purpose to allow the reader to insert his or her own interpretation... which I'm sure many of us have done with gusto. But there is something delicious about the implication that Sebastian is so efficient, even during sex, that he doesn't need to disrobe.
  • Fangirls would like to think that he just fingered them. His scene with Beast is rather ambiguous, but it's pretty obvious that he at least had sex with the nun. Also, all over Kuro fandom, Sebastian always has sex fully clothed. I'm pretty sure that it's canon that he doesn't like being naked around humans, so there's that, too. It is canon, as quote "However, the first time in my long life as a demon... that I ended up showing humans such a humiliating state. [they were looking for Ciel's master key, so they de-robed him.] while explaining to Wordsmith about the solution of the Phantomhive Murder Mystery, in chapter 49.

Sebastian in his true form is... Uryu Ishida.

They do look similar. A lot, if you ask me. The events in Black Butler happen after Bleach, and Ishida could have become Sebastian in an arc we have yet to see. And since he's a powerful demon of sorts, he doesn't need his glasses anymore. Also, it'd be hilarious to see Ishida as a Memetic Sex God. Not that he isn't really near of one in the original series, though. He just needed to lose his awkwardness, which happened majestically. Also, he changed his name so Ichigo and the others won't mess up with his current mission/forms. He'd be at disadvantage if they decide to "cure" him.

If you still doubt that, compare them.

...Alternatively, Rokudo Mukuro is one of his reincarnation (or getting possessed by Sebestian).

They look extremely similar, have the same suave attitude and have supernatural powers. Plus, their closest partner both wear eyepatches signifying the bond between them.

Sebastian is not dead.

While this is probably not very wild, by looking at what happened in the newest chapter we have Sebastian giving Ciel his 'comfort pillow.' My guess is that this is BS and really Sebastian slipped a note in said pillow, outlining the plan of the 'fake death.' Finny was ordered to clean out all the fireplaces; Ciel probably burned said note- that chain is pretty long so it's possible- and Finny unwittingly disposed of the evidence. Ciel was awake before Arthur, giving him plenty of time to do this. My guess is that the servants are not in on this plan and their reactions are genuine. Ciel, however, is acting albeit extremely convincingly. During his seeming hysterical fit, he manages to pull something off of Sebastian's clothing, which will help Ciel determine the identity of the true murderer or confirm his suspicions. It also is likely to be whatever was found in the fireplace.

• Somewhat confirmed with chapter 47.
• Completely comfirmed in Chapter 50 with his 'revival' in the cemetry
• Okay, come on. Did anyone actually believe that? He can freaking tank barrage of bullets, why would a simple stab to the back kill him?!

The killer in the mansion is a shinigami, likely Grell.

Therefore making the 'needle and string' theory unnecessary. In earlier chapters, William and newcomer Ronald mention that Grell is somewhere on the premises... What if he NEVER LEFT and is hiding out somewhere in the mansion?

• Supported by the fact that the killer does seem to holding a weapon that looks a lot like a scythe
  • Jossed. That wasn't the murder, it was just Bard.
    • Jossed again. Everything is explained in chapters 48 and 49. one faked, later killed by Grey. Phelps is killed by a snake. Sebastian is 'killed' by Grey. Besides, Grell was probably there for actual Reaper duties. Who knows what kind of punishment he went through after the Jack the Ripper arc.

Combining the above two theories...

Sebastian's 'death' is an attempt to make Grell SO DAMN UPSET that he comes out of hiding, either in front of everyone, where he would be revealed as an obvious suspect or alone, where Sebastian could incapacitate him without breaking character. He is pretending to be  dead after all.

Ciel planned the murders

For unknown reasons, Ciel planned a string of murders with Sebastian as his accomplice. Ciel invited Arthur Conan Doyle to the party so that there would be someone smart enough to "solve" the case based on the subtle hints arranged by Ciel, confident that Arthur wouldn't discover the real truth since he wouldn't know that Sebastian was a demon and what he was capable of.

Ciel shot von Siemens and then did the trick with the thread and needle, which he had practiced earlier. He told how he did it to Arthur since Arthur would be intelligent enough to be suspicious of what would have been such apparent stupidity had Ciel been the murderer. Ciel also made a point to act like a nice child around Arthur in order to evoke his sympathies.

Sebastian brought Ciel a means of opening the lock of the chain inside the pillow. Ciel faked sleep until Arthur was soundly asleep and then opened the chain and slipped out to "murder" Sebastian. With Sebastian playing dead on Ciel's previous orders, the both of them now had good alibis: Sebastian due to supposedly being dead and Ciel due to having been under guard. Moreover, Sebastian was now free to move about stealthily and murder additional people without himself or his master being suspected.

It's possible that Sebastian even made the weather to suit the plan.

• Partially true. It seems he knew the murders were going to happen but he let them happen in order to expose a few of the guests. It's also explained above

Sebastian is Ciel's grandfather

Ciel's father Vincent looks suspiciously like Sebastian, but the reason for that is not that Sebastian based his current appearance on him but that Vincent is Sebastian's son. The Phantomhive family's reputation for evil goes back for generations, and Sebastian was the demon they dealt with. During this time Sebastian became an expert in the ways of English noble households and learned to cook all of those fancy dishes while remaining ignorant of things like curry. Sebastian took different shapes during the years. He served as Vincent's familiar in the form of a black dog.

Grell is the 13th guest

Oh come on. We all want him back.

• It's Snake from the Circus Arc as of chapter 50 Yeah...didn't see that coming either.

The killer from the recent arc is Beatrice.

The recent arc is starting to play out a lot like the first game in particular, though like the following games as well- Sebastian being a demon, who knows, there could be some sort of connection between them. Plus Beatrice would have absolutely no trouble committing those murders, being a witch and all. Basically, Beatrice is trolling him out of boredom. Works particularly well with the above theory that he is originally Malphas, which means he may be one of the 72 demons mentioned in Umineko (similarly to Gaap and Zepar and Furfur).

A snake is used as a weapon in the recent murder mystery arc.

Because since they are parodying Sherlock Holmes, they might as well run with it. ...Actually, might as well say the whole arc is a condensed version of A LOT of Sherlock Holmes stories.

• As of Chapter 47, this is confirmed.

Jeremy is really Sebastian in another body.

Considering Jeremy's extensive knowledge about dead bodies, criminology, the Phantomhive estate, and cooking, it's not that far out there to think that Sebastian may have just switched bodies since we all know he can't be killed for real due to Plot Armor. Maybe he switched bodies on purpose under Ciel's orders in case they actually did murder the guests or maybe the killer got the upper hand and he didn't want to resurrect himself in front of them so he was forced to come back as another person. In addition, in Chapter 45 Finny says he has the odd feeling that he can trust Jeremy. There's also Jeremy's creepy smile and impeccable manners that are far too similar to Sebastian's to be a coincidence. Although this troper will be very upset if her theory is true and we will no longer get to stare at Sebastian's gorgeous former body.

• As of Chapter 47, this theory is confirmed. Boo-yah. Though it wasn't Sebastian in another body. Jeremy was just Sebastian wearing a mask.
  • Plus Jeremy had the same gloves as Sebastian

Sebastian has been poisoning Ciel's tea

The story puts a lot of emphasis on Sebastian serving tea to Ciel. What if that's actually plot relevant? In the anime Sebastian has shown the ability to make supernatural kind curry, and several things that have first appeared in the anime have later appeared in some form in the manga, such as the backstories of the servants, suggesting that the makers of the anime have had access to spoilery information. My theory is that Sebastian has been using his culinary demon powers to make Ciel's tea suffused with evil. That tea has been gradually poisoning Ciel's soul throughout the manga and is in large part responsible for the direction of Ciel's character development. In the manga Ciel is not aware that Sebastian can do that kind of thing, which is why Ciel has given no orders to forbid it.

Ciel is the alternate-universe version of Batman.

Both run their own companies and are the children of wealthy families. They are both pessimistic cynics, very intelligent, fond of dark colours and sometimes have to mask their true natures. They wage war on the criminal underworld, driven by the need to avenge their parents' deaths. And has anyone else noticed that Tanaka and Alfred look awfully alike? The manga even has a character named Joker, who happens to be a circus performer! So either Bruce Wayne is the reincarnation of Ciel Phantomhive or the both come from alternate dimensions.

The Noah's Ark Circus is Coming Back

The mangaka could have killed him off arbitrarily, but didn't. Instead, he was spared and put to work as a footman with the promise that they would find the rest of the circus. There's no other reason to keep Snake alive unless he's going to sacrifice himself during this chapter or he's going to find his buddies in the circus and they'll ALL work for Ciel.

Lizzy knows everything

She's just pretending to be oblivious because she doesn't want Ciel to feel guilty.

• • Semi-confirmed as of chapter 57. She is apparently aware of her future husband's duty as the Queen's Watchdog, but how much else she knows has yet to be revealed.

Ciel isn't the real Ciel Phantomhive.

He just another kid that looks a lot like him, or somehow he was able to transfer his looks to another body after being sacrificed by the cultists. Would explain how in chapter 54, he can't seem to tell whether he was in the cage, or dying on the sacrificial altar. Or alternatively....

Ciel has an identical twin.

And they had some memory melding like process and can't tell whose memory is whose anymore.

Sebastian's true form is that of Dr. Frank-N-Furter

That or Catwoman.

Soma Asman Kadar had an ancestor or relative who died and became Yoruichi Shihouin.

They both are rich kids with purple hair, golden eyes, a somewhat excentric yet nice personality and a very special relationship with their bodyguard.

Every time Ciel says, "Sebastian, this is an order," he owes Sebastian a little bit more.

He does tend to restrict that phrase to important times.

Ciel told Sebastian to treat most of his orders as requests in order to keep Sebastian from having as many opportunities to be a Jerkass Genie.

"Sebastian, this is an order" means "Now, exactly as I say". They have a standing deal that any other orders he gives are to be treated as requests from a boss, and for Sebastian to take his time and use common sense to try to interpret them as Ciel most likely means rather than as might benefit Sebastian the most.

Sebastian wasn't always a demon.

Why Not? It's possible that he was wished into being/ wished himself to become a demon, much like Ciel in the anime. Another possibility is that he was (most likely unwillingly) turned into a demon by another cult. His Extreme loyalty to Ciel could be a parallel to a strong devotion he had to someone while he was human and/or the last empty remnants of his personality after a horrifying dose of Break the Cutie. As for the reference to the black death, he has either been a demon for hundreds of years (This would explain his Antiquated Linguistics) or is straight up lying. Demons aren't the most honest creatures in the world. I'm rather new to the series, so let me know if this is Jossed already, and please don't get angry if it is! >__<

• Not completely Jossed. However, Sebastian and demons in general do not lie, and the reference to the black death wasn't in the manga. Furthermore, his devotion to Ciel isn't exactly 'extreme' per se and he has no qualms about endangering Ciel. This is only in the manga though, so your theory may or may not be correct in the anime!verse.

Elizabeth is going to find out that Sebastian is after Ciel's soul and then she'll try to fight him.

We can all see where that's going to go...

Shinigami can see in more dimensions than humans.

Cinematic records are only visible in a dimension that humans are generally unable to see. Shinigami eyes are configured to be able to see this additional dimension, but it throws off their sight in regular dimensions. Hence the reason all shinigami are nearsighted. Their glasses are constructed in such a way that they correct vision problems without making the shinigami unable to see the extra dimension.

• Not that you don't have a point, but the only Shinigami to be seen with horrid vision is William, and that was just in the anime. Ronald's reaction didn't seem to be one of that who truly knew the importance of reaper glasses. Still though, everything else is plausible and makes a lot of sense.
• as of chapter 61 there seems to be some truth to this. At least the nearsighted part was confirmed although if they are aware of more "dimensions" or something like it, it's probably not through sight as Undertaker said to Ronald "you seem to relying on your eyes" .

Grell Sutcliff is related to Death the Kid from Soul Eater

Think about it. Death the Kid is a grim reaper. Grell is a grim reaper. Kid is trying to turn his weapons into death scythes. Grell already has a death scythe. Coincidence? I think not!

• That applies to both characters' entire species. This could just as easily apply to Ronald, William, or Undertaker.

Sebastian's actual demon form in the manga is female.

All the hints of of Sebastian's demonic appearance seem to be leading up to more of a Fashion Victim Villain than an Eldritch Abomination (seriously, heels, what might be mascara, and Femme Fatalons?) but is actually playing on the assumption of the readers who have gotten used to all the Ho Yay that gender means anything to Sebastian; unlike Grelle, who's transsexual and actually is mentally female, Sebastian elected to Gender Bender herself a) For the Lulz (guys still want her even as a man, something that amuses her to no end, and now women are swooning over her) and b) Ceil saw what she used to look like and seeing her in a male form possibly modeled after his father is meant to make him uncomfortable; Sebastian's not going to be a servant for god knows how long without SOMETHING to make that less pleasant for the one giving orders, after all.

Sebastian hates being naked (especially in front of humans) because his true form has built-in clothing.

We see that it has something resembling stiletto winklepickers when he transforms in the anime. Perhaps he feels that humans are naturally vulnerable as well as weak, using clothes as prosthetic scales/feathers/whatever in the way that a hermit crab finds a shell, and that he feels less like a naked human and more like a plucked bird when stripped of clothing in his human form.

The killer of Ciel's parents...

Is the Viscount of Druitt. Why? Because he just won't go away, he seems to have really shady connections to damn near everything (selling unsuspecting women into slavery, naming himself Caesar of an immortal society...) and this manga has a habit of turning its Joke Characters into Lethal Joke Characters. And you don't get more "Joke" than the Viscount.

The Undertaker loved a human woman who lied to him.

Manga continuity. She was either in a deeply committed relationship with him or they were actually married, if shinigami can marry humans. She possibly betrayed and/or left him, but he never stopped loving her. Eventually she died, whether by natural causes or as a consequence of the betrayal--it's possible that he even killed her, given his recently-revealed willingness to slaughter innocents for a selfish whim. This is why he says that the dead are more beautiful because they can lie no longer, like the living always do--because he was lied to before, and found his lover the liar to be more beautiful after her death. It also accounts for the momento mori that he keeps around his waist and calls his "treasure," since (though I'm no expert) lovers and married couples often had them made as mourning pieces, out of locks of the dead person's hair. It's quite possible that this grief and love had to do with him giving up life as a shinigami to work as an undertaker instead. He probably kept her body and "played" with it. (Ew.)

• • Support. For extra WMG, the woman who died/he possibly killed was Rachel, Ciel's mother.

Grell will finally get that sex-change operation that she's apparently always wanted.

Sebastian will be squicked. Or maybe he'll like it. Who even knows with this series sometimes.

The "Ciel" we are seeing is not the real Ciel Phantomhive.

When the real Ciel was in captivity, he befriended another prisoner who looked almost exactly like him, a la The Prince and the Pauper. The real Ciel was killed by the cultists, and his doppelganger took his place as Ciel Phantomhive. We see "Ciel" get quite brutally stabbed on the altar in several flashbacks (at the time that the contract is made, the real Ciel looks like this, and the text even says "Ciel isn't here anymore."), but the Ciel who contracts with Sebastian is not wounded in any way, and even if it had been long enough for the wound to have healed 'and' the wound was survivable in the first place, there's no sign of blood. Not to mention when the contract scene is taking place there's a bloody hand on the altar still. And in Baron Kelvin's recreation of the scene, there's the dead "Ciel" on the altar, and another boy in the cage who looks just like him. When introducing himself to Sebastian, "Ciel" hesitates before referring to himself as the Earl of Phantomhive. Sebastian even seems quite amused that this is what his new master is calling himself, though that may just be because of "Ciel"'s age. "Ciel" has no knowledge of things that a young nobleman would have already begun to learn, which is why Sebastian has to start tutoring him from scratch. "Ciel" also seems to have a very impersonal connection to his family after his return, as though he knows who they are and knows who they are meant to be to him but lacks the familiar love of a whole childhood spent with them (he even exclusively refers to Vincent as his "predecessor", not his father). He warms up to Lizzie and Madam Red as time goes on, because they show him love and he begins to love them back. Though "Ciel" has the goal of avenging Vincent and Rachel, perhaps he's doing it to avenge his dead friend and put his spirit to rest.

In conjunction with the above, the Ciel we are following in the series is biologically female.

This is rather more on the "Wild" side of Wild Mass Guessing, however, This Troper's guess stands. Whether he truly identifies as male or is living as male in order to take the real Ciel Phantomhive's place, as mentioned above (it's highly unlikely that this theory holds water if the Ciel we're seeing is the real Ciel, because it's Victorian England, and he's engaged to a girl he's known since birth.) there are a handful of signs suggesting this- and it's even lampshaded a few times. Ciel is very feminine in appearance (as proven by how exceptionally well he passed in drag) and he's been getting progressively more feminine as the series has gone on.(Contrast this picture ^{[dead link]} to this one.) Beginning to go through puberty, perhaps? In chapter 37, Nina Hopkins comments that his measurements have stayed the same, with the exception of his waist being slimmer, implying he's getting somewhat of an hourglass figure. Frances comments that he's built more like a girl. And this is, perhaps, slight nitpick, but in Noah's Ark Circus, considering the backgrounds of most of the performers, he seems resistant to removing his clothes in front of other males beyond what one would expect for just the brand on his back. And even when he knows that Freckles/Doll is able to lift up his shirt at the back and see the brand, he determinedly holds his shirt down over his chest. Sebastian would obviously be aware of this (and most likely Tanaka as well, though Tanaka most likely knows EVERYTHING) as he's the one who dresses and bathes Ciel, but he would have undoubtedly been ordered not to breathe a word of it to anyone immediately. Just putting the W back in WMG, don't mind me.

Ciel's contract with Sebastian feeds off his energy

It's the only explanation I can think of for how someone that spends most of his days sitting around or being carried by his butler -- while eating a diet predominantly made up of sweets and cakes -- can stay so skinny. It may also have something to do with why his asthma suddenly came back after years of health.

Yana Toboso is a Bleach fan.

Compare Prince Soma with Yoruichi, Undertaker with Urahara, and William with Uryu Ishida. Also William and Ishida have the same Japanese voice, Noriaki Sugiyama.

Ciel, Batman, and Barnaby are alternate dimension versions of eachother.

Think about it. A rich kid see's his parents killed. He then becomes obsessed with avenging them. All three of them are the same.

Mei-Rin's likes wearing her glasses because they impair her vision.

In the beginning of her backstory, there's a man that says that her eyes are special and that she was born to be an assassin. Maybe she loves wearing her glasses so much because they keep her from seeing everything as a target, and that's why she only removes them when she's shooting. Even if they do make her a clutz, she won't take them off because she'd run the risk of killing everyone.

Doll survives.

And then she kills everyone. Including Ciel, that heartless son of a bitch. The end.

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