OMG!!! This is awesome, underrated and very-well written, this actually made me change my whole perspective about O!Ciel and Sebastian. This showed the actual 'demon' side of Sebastian. I have never read something so detailed about their hidden part of their relationship. This post has broke down every single aspect of their relationship and showed us how not only unique it is but how toxic and emotionally abusive Sebastian is towards O!Ciel making us realize the demon he is and how O!Ciel have such power over Sebastian. This is marvelous, I never knew how much I needed this until now, and I am so reblogging itš.
how would you describe cielās and sebastianās relationship? like yes literally itās contractor and the one who agrees to the contract. but like their day to day relationship with eachother. i dont ship them but i love how they interact with one another but donāt know how to characterize their relationship.
Dear Anon,
O!Ciel and Sebastianās relationship is not something I could fit into any inter-human relationship categories. This is because theirs is simply something that seems very unlikely for humans to have in our society. However, that is exactly what makes this master-servant duo interesting.
Most clinically, O!Ciel and Sebastian are indeed master and servant, child and adult. Though surely very rare, child-employers with adult-employees might exist in our world. What makes O!Ciel and Sebastianās relationship unique is by no means limited to this āsubversionā of child-adult dynamic. Let us unpack this master-servant bond category by category, layer by layer.
A unique characteristic of O!Ciel and Sebastianās relationship is how they do not behave like any child vs adult would. Sebas treats O!Ciel like a child, but he does not see his master as a child. And by āchildā, I mean more specifically āa less-than-adultā person. To Sebastian who is centuries old, a human who is 13 is as inexperienced and foolish as a 30 or 60 year old human. Instead, it seems like Sebas treats O!Ciel like a child only because it gets on his masterās nerves and it is entertaining.
We must remember that humans are cattle to Sebas, and that O!Ciel is no exception. For analogyās sake, let us imagine a pig. Humans usually donāt have a higher regard or respect for adult pigs than they have for piglets. We donāt take adult pigs more seriously than we do piglets.
The most unique part in O!Ciel and Sebasā relationship is not that a child is the employer of an adult, omnipotent demon. The uniqueness is in the detail that this specific employer has absolute command over Sebastian, and can even use the demonās powers against him at will. We see in the Werewolf Arc for example, how O!Ciel has practically already broken his end of the contract. Sebastian was in full right to claim his payment for his service and return home. But since the contract was technically not over yet, O!Ciel stopped the demon from exerting his right with just one simple phrase: āitās an order.ā
Sebastian may seem all-powerful, but if O!Ciel wishes to make Sebas do something against his will, O!Ciel merely needs to use the binding magical term āitās an orderā. This binding term is so powerful it can infringe all of Sebastianās personal autonomy, and it would be āālegalāā. What if Sebas doesnāt want to be touched? āItās an order, let person X touch you and get away without harm.ā What if Sebas doesnāt want to expose himself to lethal danger? āItās an order, do it anyway.ā
This is the reason why SebaCiel could never work (even if O!Ciel were an adult!), simply because the power balance is inherently tipped way too much to O!Cielās side. A romantic and/or sexual relationship cannot work as long as the power balance is off, and true consent cannot be given on all sides. Consent that can be coerced, or cannot be withdrawn freely, is not true consent, after all.
There is a lot of back-and-forth bickering between O!Ciel and Sebastian, which is very uncharacteristic of employer-employee relationships (No way Iām going to bicker against my boss!) Sometimes the bickering is light-hearted and comical, and I surmise this is part of the reason people might have the illusion that their power-dynamic is not completely off (as described above).
This light-hearted bickering is a great appeal, and it makes the master not behave like a full master, and the servant not like a full servant. On surface their contract bears semblance to a friendly relationship wherein both parties also fulfil their respective roles in this employment. This is a powerful ingredient in their usually fantastic cooperation during their missions! O!Ciel allows Sebas some freedom (when he sees fit), while Sebas returns this ākind gestureā with helpful initiatives (when he sees fit). I dare say that many if not most āKuroshitsujiā fans are here exactly for this reason. Regardless of how fantastic this cooperation might be however, at core their relationship is still āemploymentā.
On the darker side however, this bickering is also one of the fruits born from insidious manipulation. In this post I discussed how Sebastian stretches his arms and legs as WIDELY as possible within his tiny constraints. To a certain extent, O!Ciel turns a blind eye (pun not intended) to it. Why though?
Of course O!Ciel is not a complete tyrant towards Sebastian, but this is the result that Sebastian managed to fight and win for himself. All the way back in chapter 138 Sebas didnāt even know O!Ciel yet, and yet he already made very clear that:
He should not try to exert too much control over him
That if he does try to do so, he should be careful with words
That if he is not careful, Sebas will take any opportunity to punish him for careless word-choice
In this small incident O!Ciel learned that if his demon misbehaves, heād have himself to blame. THIS is the silent lesson Sebas instilled into the boy; that if Sebas mistreats O!Ciel, it is not Sebas who crossed boundaries, but that O!Ciel didnāt set the boundaries right. āO!Ciel had it comingā. This lesson taught by Sebas leans dangerously close to ā if not downright within ā the category of victim-blaming. (Sebas you trashy Trash Demonā¢, I love you.)
3.1. Circus Arc
So far in the manga, the most obvious example of this victim-blaming dynamic is the incident with the snakes in the Circus Arc. Sebas very clearly reminded O!Ciel that he is not above allowing his master to get hurt semi-mortally. O!Ciel was seething when he found out, and justly so. But did Sebas show any remorse? Of course not. Instead he blamed O!Ciel for:
Not being careful enough with his commands
Being too boring to see the āfunā in this game
3.2. Jack the Ripper Arc
Far more dramatically, this same victim-blaming dynamic can found in the Jack the Ripper Arc, and this one arguably even dictated how O!Ciel is going to become as a person.
In the Ripper Arc Sebas also obeyed O!Cielās order to the T. But thatās it; only to the T and nothing more. Because the demon deliberately withheld information from his master necessary for the investigation, more victims fell while the case was still in O!Cielās hands. Who gets the blame? Jack the Ripper obviously. But who is made to bear the guilt? O!Ciel is; through the victim-blaming Sebastian made him internalise.
O!Ciel is still O!Ciel, so he probably didnāt really lose any sleep over the deaths of 5 people. But had he not been him, then surely this guilt would have been mind-crippling. However, we need to bear in mind that O!Ciel was not unaffected; had Sebas not withheld information, then O!Ciel would have stopped the murders earlier, and presented a scapegoat to the Queen. Letās be fair, had Madam been arrested then sheād still be awaiting capital punishment. But as the Watchdog, O!Ciel pulls some strings. He would have tried VERY hard not to lose his aunt too.
As it is however, the enormous guilt about the death of his own aunt is what Sebas made O!Ciel suffer through slow and insidious manipulation. Sebas never gave O!Ciel the time to mourn his aunt, and instead pressured the boy into admitting that he ācallously sacrificed Madam as a pawnā. He made him mentally TAKE the blame for the murder that Grell committed, and Sebas could have helped prevent.
As we can see in chapter 13, O!Ciel was desperately trying to externalise the blame, coming up with excuse after excuse, justification after justification. None however, works. Good seasoning skills, Sebas, amazing food-prep.
I am fairly certain that O!Ciel doesnāt even realise how much heās being emotionally manipulated by his butler throughout the years. This insight about emotional manipulation and psychological abuse is something that requires a level of abstract comprehension we cannot expect from most people, let alone a 13 year old child (however smart they may be.)
In conclusion, both Sebas and O!Ciel exist in this relationship rather amicably on surface level, but they are inherently toxic to each other. Sebas is continuously manipulating and emotionally abusing O!Ciel, while O!Ciel holds the absolute power to infringe all of Sebastianās autonomy.
This ā illustration by Yana is the perfect symbolisation of their bond.
We can attach adjectives like āf*cking toxicā and āfascinatingā to this relationship, but we canāt find a category of inter-human relationship to fit O!Ciel and Sebastian into. In real life there are no children who can wield magical command to strip someone entirely of their autonomy. Likewise, there are very few adults who would not consider a child as āless-than-adultā. Should we try to shoe-horn O!Ciel and Sebas into a human category, then we risk over-simplifying this relationship. Over-simplification of this relationship can be very harmful, because the subverted formula of āchild-master and adult-servantā SEEMS to compensate for the inherent power imbalance.
Yana however, managed to write this relationship SO brilliantly complex, that Sebas will always remain the servant who is at O!Cielās mercy, while O!Ciel suffers continuous mental abuse despite holding the ultimate ace card against a demon. This complex relationship is the ultimate evidence that even the most toxic relationships can look functional on surface level, and I love hating it!
I hope this helps give some insight!
Of fucking course
What sick bastard doesnāt
A creepy ass Drawing by ME :/
Hot takes that will probably get me called a bigot on this hellhole
Making floating glass dollsĀ
Bold of you to assume that I have followers
reblog if you want more interaction w your lovely followers
What if his dad also has a de-aging kind of quirk. Then that would explain it.
First things first lets take another look to these panels
On one hand, the doppelgƤnger mysterious guy is wearing the SAME school uniform that the other students are, so itās impossible for him to be Midoriyaās father, because that would imply that Hisashi and Deku are almost the same age and, well I donāt even need to explain that. If you watch carefully, you can see that both boys wear the same uniform and you can even notice a small shield on the collar of his coat.
On the other hand, we have Izuku, here are a few things why I think itās not him:
Heās not wearing the school uniform we saw him on the first chapters. (Also, imo that guys seems pretty confident, not really like Izuku back on his junior high school days)
Deku doesnāt know how to tie a tie. I mean, guys, look at that perfect tie and now look at Izukuās tie.
He doesnāt have freckles. And for me, is the most important detail. As far as I remember, Horikoshi has been really careful about drawing Izuku with his freckles in every form that he could. Here are some panels that even though the circumstances, you can still see his freckles
Ochako slapping him
Fighting Stain
In the Shie Hassaikai arc
Even with that black thing covering his face, Hori was careful enough to give some space to his freckles
We havenāt seen Hisashi yet, but Iāve always thought that Izuku resembles Inko a lot, but now with this? Iām not pretty sure. I donāt know what to think, my mind has been blown. Send help.
Yes
Definitely
Absolutely
Pick one.
she/ her | Bisexual | trashy artist | ą¤Ŗą„ą¤°ą¤æą¤Æą¤¦ą¤°ą„ą¤¶ą¤æą¤Øą„ |
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