#like i'm not ruling out some weird family tree shenanigans later on but shannon is definitely not the character to do it with

[pochapal]

I'm saying this as someone who has NOT read far enough to know if this is true or not, but grouping Shannon with the cousins the way they have, and the fact that she wears the one winged eagle, might also suggest that she's an illegitimate Ushiromiya. Let's hope not for George's sake.

shannon being related to them would be horrifying but i'm pretty sure it's not the case since "secret illegitimate family member masquerading as a servant" is kind of like so incredibly blatantly obvious as a mystery trope and i think if it was what's going on the "hints" wouldn't be laid on this thick in episode 1. i think the story wants you to think this might be the case but i also think it really truly is not the case.

i'm 99% sure the notion of "ushiromiya shannon" is being used as a smokescreen to detract from the real reason behind why shannon bears so much ushiromiya iconography and why she's actually trapped in this servitude role and receives so much attention from kinzo. given what we know about kinzo and how much he loathes his family/bloodline and his "anyone can solve the epitaph and win the headship wink wink nudge nudge" thing it's far more likely that he would only passively encourage someone not of ushiromiya blood to assume the headship. there might be some kind of loophole in his contract with beatrice where if the fortune is not in the hands of an ushiromiya when beatrice comes to collect her debts it's untouchable or something and so kinzo's been half-grooming shannon since infancy to assume some kind of role like that (my personal running theory with little evidence is that he's actually planning on using shannon's body as a vessel for beatrice's spirit to possess but if you go through the mental gymnastics of double-metaphor obfuscation, being possessed by beatrice and assuming the headship are kind of the same thing) as a servant with no will of her own or the ability to say no. so "ushiromiya shannon" could be argued to be the objective and not the starting point.

also logistically i cannot see how shannon being a secret child would work at all. since she's sixteen it means she'd have been born after every other cousin except for maria, which then limits whose child she could be - the existence of battler, jessica, and george dictate that rudolf, krauss, and eva aren't responsible. rosa is a fair deal younger than the other siblings so there's no way she could have concealed what would have in all likelihood been a teen pregnancy from the other family members. and if it was kinzo given his absolute rule as the ushiromiya patriarch there'd be no motive for him to conceal shannon in an orphanage and then backdoor hire her as a servant.

so yeah i think positioning shannon to the family like this is more indicative of a) kinzo's direct controlling abuse of her and b) the love and bond that the cousins have with her rather than some elaborate plot that makes sense from a trope-based point of view but not a thematic one.