When he gives an order as cold as the one for murder, frex, his staff doesn't react as though he's Doing the Right Thing and they're impressed (or glad to be enlightened or throwing themselves headlong into following along) -- they're taken aback, a little upset, emotional, and not-so-subtly unhappy with the action. The usual "we do this because it's for the hero" is twisted against itself, to become doing evil because that's the hero's path.
And one thing I think is brilliant about this is that we essentially see this from Sebastian's point of view, or so it seems to me. We see that the staff doesn't admire it and doesn't want to do it, and I don't think the narrative means for us to admire it as some sort of Right Thing Ciel has to do because he's the leader/protagonist, making the difficult decisions. But we see Ciel coming back to himself there, in all his uncompromising will and bitter intelligence, and he's beautiful, in a kind of pure and crystalline way that he wasn't when he was agonizing over Aberline and the possibility of treating the world and other people in it as if it were all real and they all mattered. And, astonishingly, it actually feels plausible that a demon of incalculable antiquity and experience could find something new and precious in this contractor.
I'm still stunned that they managed to makek that work. At any point, really, let alone over 24 episodes.
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Date: 30 Aug 2011 07:23 am (UTC)When he gives an order as cold as the one for murder, frex, his staff doesn't react as though he's Doing the Right Thing and they're impressed (or glad to be enlightened or throwing themselves headlong into following along) -- they're taken aback, a little upset, emotional, and not-so-subtly unhappy with the action. The usual "we do this because it's for the hero" is twisted against itself, to become doing evil because that's the hero's path.
And one thing I think is brilliant about this is that we essentially see this from Sebastian's point of view, or so it seems to me. We see that the staff doesn't admire it and doesn't want to do it, and I don't think the narrative means for us to admire it as some sort of Right Thing Ciel has to do because he's the leader/protagonist, making the difficult decisions. But we see Ciel coming back to himself there, in all his uncompromising will and bitter intelligence, and he's beautiful, in a kind of pure and crystalline way that he wasn't when he was agonizing over Aberline and the possibility of treating the world and other people in it as if it were all real and they all mattered. And, astonishingly, it actually feels plausible that a demon of incalculable antiquity and experience could find something new and precious in this contractor.
I'm still stunned that they managed to makek that work. At any point, really, let alone over 24 episodes.