#no wonder she wouldn't want to meet him (out of all the many Cedric = UT theories)

[midnight-in-town]

Do you remember how the fandom joked about Edward not being allowed to be on stage by his mom but Lizzy having the okay to be in a cult? I can't help but think if Frances not going after Lizzy in that cult the way she went after her son it's because maybe she figured something out about and for the same reason she didn't go to the manor just before. Some people say Frances is not in this arc but she still went to take his son off the stage. I think it's not a coincidence.

I like how you think Anon! :D Indeed, the fandom always found funny that this happened…

…when no one stormed into the Sphere music hall to get Lizzie back. And if Frances is capable of stopping everything mid-performance for Ed, I’m sure throwing a tantrum to get Liz back wouldn’t have been impossible for her. xD

I mentioned before that I thought maybe Frances dragging Ed away when she did was maybe not about the circumstances but rather about the consequences. As if she could have predicted this would happen…

…and wanted to spare her son, but nothing is confirmed yet. 

Besides the fact I agree she already knew about our!Ciel lying about his identity, I never went as far as to consider that she knew before he did who was hiding behind the sphere music hall, but…

…Considering that Tanaka seemed very aware of that fact (to the point we didn’t see any surprise when Scotland Yard showed up), it’s not impossible that Frances might have been too. 

In that case, it’s huge tho’, because her refusal to set a foot in the Sphere music hall and then in the Phantomhive manor, despite Liz being “in dire straits”, may imply that there is someone involved in this arc that she really doesn’t want to meet. 

We gotta place our bets on whether it is real!Ciel or UT (or both) now, although the answer always seemed rather obvious to me. 

More seriously, we don’t know how acquainted Frances was with her brother’s evil nobles, but she was on the Campania and Ed may have told her (or not) about what took place at Weston. Besides, Ciel told Dee that UT was behind the thing on the Campania in ch105. So figuring out that UT was up to some shit (like bringing her nephew back from the dead) within the Sphere music hall wouldn’t have been 100% impossible with the right set of info, I guess. 

Time will tell. :3 I’m sure glad more and more people in the fandom are enjoying the idea of Frances being aware of a lot of stuff and just sitting this one out or getting involved later. Her being very #nope about meeting UT and/or her undead nephew is totally my gig tho’! :D

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Anon! Please have a nice weekend. ^3^

[randomanimeandmangablog]

Here's a theory (and I don't know if it's been thought of before): The Undertaker is Vincent's grandfather, not father.

Some points, none of which proves the theory or means the Undertaker isn't Vincent's father, but which I do find worth noting:

Othello said Undertaker left 70 years ago, which would be 27 years before Vincent was born. Vincent was only a little older than Ciel at the time Cloudia died, so her death isn't what made him break with the Dispatch. Yet the age does mean he conceivably could have been the previous watchdog when human.

The Undertaker's scars. We've seen that shinigamis' bodies can take a lot without scarring or breaking. This makes me thinks he got the scars when he was human. But they're not normal scars. I can't imagine where they came from. They're scars that look like they came from wounds that would be fatal to a human. Yet they also don't look self-inflicted, and Reapers all committed suicide. If the Undertaker was a Watchdog, he'd be put in increasingly dangerous and bizarre situations that could lead to being injured in a way that would cause those scars. Maybe he intentionally faced some threat, knowing he would die, and it counted as suicide.

The Undertaker being Cedric, is a problematic theory because it would be difficult to hide Death surrounds the Watchdogs, and the husband of Lady Phantomhive couldn't hide in the shadows. The Reapers would have noticed if any relationship between him and Cloudia was too public. If The Undertaker was Vincent's father, he was likely having a secret affair with her. Still very possible, especially for someone with Cloudia's wealth and power, but it would make things more difficult given Victoria's values. She once shamed a maid because she thought she got public out of wedlock, but the maid turned out to have a tumor. Cloudia would have had to be very adept at hiding the affair.

The Undertaker remembers Francis's birth, but Vincent didn't meet the Undertaker until Vincent was at least a teenager. Even Francis says the Undertaker hasn't changed in 4 years, not that he hasn't changed in decades, which could mean she either didn't know him or didn't know him well until her brother started associating with him. Now it's certainly possible Cloudia wouldn't want to invite her lover to the mansion in fear of being caught, but I'd think Undertaker would want to see his kid(s). She could have had him over now and then, as long as she was able to frame it as watchdog business, maybe inviting others with him so that he could see the kids without being singled out. So for Vincent to not know him at all when young seems like Cloudia was being even more cautious than need be.

However, say Undertaker was a former Earl. In that case, Cloudia wouldn't want anyone to see his face. She would still have to socialize with people who had known her father. If someone could identify the Undertaker as her father, they'd need to engage in a massive coverup. People would question how he's still alive. They'd need to explain why Cloudia inherited the estate and the Watchdog title, and frankly, it's unusual that a woman was allowed to fill that role anyway. It points to the previous earl dying with no eligible male relatives, and the reemergence of the previous earl might be enough for people to wonder whether Cloudia should have the position. However, by Vincent's time, many of the old Earl's closest friends and family would have died. Those still alive would have been old enough to question whether this was really the old earl or whether their eyes were playing tricks on them and their memory faulty. Plus the Undertaker's eyes and youthful appearance would be enough that he could show his face and not be called out.