#me writing any meta and always slipping in sebaciel’s relationship somehow

[scliffe]

The similarities and contrast between the Noah’s Ark circus troupe and the Phantomhive household are quite interesting. The circus troupe was a group of children living in poverty who were saved by Baron Kelvin, the philanthropist. While he initially seems to have helped the children out of the goodness of his heart, he ultimately ended up using them to kidnap other children and commit a greater evil.

[The circus troupe’s name is also interesting. In Genesis, Noah’s Ark was the boat built by Noah, a man chosen by God, to spare him, his family, and some animals while the human race were condemned to death in the flood. In this case, I interpret Baron Kelvin as the “God” who condemns the kidnapped children to death while the Joker, being “Noah”, has no power but to save himself and his family.]

Similarly, the Phantomhives were a strange assortment of condemned people with nowhere else to go who were saved by Ciel Phantomhive. From the get-go, Ciel is no philanthropist and he took in these people as bodyguards or assassins to commit evildoings in the name of the greater good. It’s likely that due to Ciel’s trauma—although hiring more people and more security will likely reduce the amount of assassination attempts on his life—he refuses to hire a “normal” servant who would be helpless to defend themselves and could only end up as casualty in dangerous situations. (After all, it’s not everyday that you wake up to the rest of the house dead on your tenth birthday…)

There is also the manner in which the circus troupe and the Phantomhives treated Snake. Both parties are hiding their “dirty deeds” from him; essentially his relationship with them was built on a lie. Then while the circus troupe seems to have helped him out of philanthropy and treated him as family, from his records we knew that he actually hated living as a morbid spectacle with no dignity—a freak of nature; something for “normal” people to gawk and point fingers at.

The children of the orphanage did not have to be a circus—disabled people are just as capable as non-disabled people in some jobs, and there was also the artificial limbs technology. But they had to be the circus because it is the easiest way to kidnap children. Simply put, they have no dignity because Baron Kelvin was exploiting these disabled children who had no other choice—because they lack the capital to save themselves and their siblings in the orphanage. Although they were no longer living in the streets, in some way their situation remained unchanged.

The Phantomhives are also freaks of nature in each their own way, but they are living like normal people with dignity as part of an aristocratic household. Ciel and Sebastian met Bard before he could commit the indignity of cannibalism. They took Mey-Rin out of a life where she was treated like a weapon to be disposed after deemed useless. They gave a name to Finnian, the nameless experiment who could not even speak. They gave dignity to these people who were barely living like human beings, which is why the servants are extremely loyal to the Phantomhive household.

Ciel is not helping them out of the goodness of his heart; he recognizes their talents and abilities and chose to hire them as servants with a clearly established working relationship. He is not exploiting them for their “strangeness”—the servants are not living on his charity; they are providing their services and being compensated, thus making a living on their own. Thus, they are afforded a dignity that can only exist in a mutual two-way relationship.

Now, why is dignity so important? Because it is the basis on which Ciel’s desire for revenge stood. In the Phantomhive manor massacre three years ago, the Phantomhives lost all their dignity to a group of unknown assassins. The head of the household was reduced to ashes while the heir was murdered as a sacrificial lamb on an altar for the devil, not to mention the things the cult had done to the twins and the rest of those children—they lived worse than livestocks. This is why it was very important for Ciel to become Earl Ciel Phantomhive and reclaim the title and the lands from the queen, restoring the dignity of the Phantomhive household.

In the Athena Sanatorium for Former Servicemen, chief nurse Ada made continuous sacrifices because she recognizes that dignity is as important as human life. A person cannot live without dignity. It is such a humane concept—other creatures are capable of living just fine without it. Thus having dignity or not is what separates humans from animals or other beings.

Ciel could sacrifice his soul to the demon not because he merely wanted to live—in which case, the revenge would not be necessary as he could have lived happier without it—but also to reclaim that dignity. In Sebastian’s observation, it was beautiful and foolish—demons who could enslave themselves in order to devour human souls probably have no concept of dignity—yet he cannot stop that admiration for his master. He knows that this soul will not taste like any other livestock.