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fivekrystalpetals · 2 years

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[I am unable put all of my thoughts in a single post (it is growing to a monstrous size ;-;) so I decided to split it into long-ish posts of utmost three chapters at a time bc I have so much to say about each chapter.]

My thoughts so far: Retrace XLIII to Retrace XLVI

Continuing from my last post, our main trio have started working on tracking the Seal on Glen’s soul that needs to be moved and hidden before the Baskervilles get to it. After the first Seal was broken (and led to the earthquake in Sablier), Oz and co. (+ Sharon this time) are off to find the second seal thanks to Rufus Barma’s information. Everything goes well, the old man accepts that Oz is the rightful owner of the seal because he is the contractor of the B-Rabbit and agrees to hand over the seal to them... when Vincent with his Demios strikes :) happy times 👏

Vincent, this guy, really has the patience and confidence to sit back and enjoy the show, doesn’t he? He gets others to do the job for him, hoping, or rather, watching things fall into place perfectly according to his plans and step in for the final act to reap the rewards. I said here too how he let the heroes run around for him, tracking down Alice’s memories from Cheshire’s domain and all—then simply kidnaps Sharon and gets Break to destroy their hard-earned reward. He has been the puppet master in almost 3 consecutive arcs.

tl,dr; Oz and co., lose the second seal as well.

Some points about this short arc:

1] tbh this arc felt less about Oz, Gil or Alice but more about Sharon. After Break was put out of commission because of his sudden albeit developing handicap, Sharon realizes she has to improve herself a lot more if she is to be of any help to Break. In the initial chapters of the manga, I had assumed that Sharon and Break were partners-in-crime, as in Sharon is a sort of plan-from-chair sleuth while Break does all the field work, brain and brawn duo but turns out Break is a one-man army, brain, brawn, diabetes, depression, everything.

so, thrice within the span of two chapters, reality smacks her right in the face. One, her naivety about the world and how calculating and dishonest people can be:

and two, how weak she is if not depending on her chain:

By the end of the Retrace 46, she ends up coming to a self-realization that she is powerless. And that she was too dependent on her chain (and Break as well)

which is all true, but I have to agree with the latter part of what Grandma Shirley says—

because I don’t think Sharon necessarily has to be adept at martial arts or field work? We already have Gil, Alice, Oz, Break and others doing that. At this point, what we need is more manpower for research and study and only Rufus Barma is actually looking into the history and records of the Tragedy. Since everything started from there, Sharon can devote herself to processing those files, research and planning? Running around blindly would only cause more casualties. We also desperately need someone who can counter Vincent’s masterplans. Whereas on our heroes’ side, nobody is playing against him in his game of chess. Someone has to predict the opponents’ next move if the heroes wanna be one step before the Baskervilles. I’d be so excited if Sharon takes on that role—I feel she is more than capable of doing that but she has been, in her own words, been coddled and guarded for too long. Plus, I’d love to see the look on his face when he finds out that the one to thwart his plans is a woman lol (which Echo already is doing btw, more about this here).

2] Oz, once again, ever since he met the Glen in Sablier, wields the B-Rabbit’s scythe to kill Marie this time. Had it not been for Alice, he might actually have cut off her head. Not chronological but I will simply dump my thoughts about this here—

After how Humpty Dumpty (a chain from the body of a previous Glen), who is always around in the human world to guard the latest Glen, going to the extent of killing at the slightest intent to harm Leo; and how Cheshire was the guardian of the Will of the Abyss, I have a similar theory that the B-Rabbit is not actually Alice, but a chain to protect Alice, because she is the host to the Will in the human world.

I also believe that Alice (the human from 100 years ago) was the actual contractor for B-Rabbit. But then she was murdered. Vincent says in Retrace 59 (and someone else said before but I forget) that a chain cannot exist in the human world without a contractor. Unlike Humpty Dumpty, where the rank of the main contractor passes to the next contractor in line, B-Rabbit had only one contractor.

So, it’d mean the B-Rabbit must have returned to the Abyss. Which is how we found it in Retrace 1-2.

Seeing how a lot of Chains are quite sentient—Cheshire, Raven (that continually challenged Gil through the Door of the Abyss), even Humpty Dumpty etc..—it is not impossible that even after her death the Rabbit tried to protect her soul and kept it safe within the Chain? This might also explain why the Chain is able to assume two forms (a human form) unlike other Chains.

But now, inadvertently but of course since he had no choice either, Oz has made a contract with the B-Rabbit. With the new contractor in the present, Alice’s consciousness as a contractor or even as a person is slowly vanishing (in Retrace 65, her body has started to become see-through), because she is already dead.

Whereas the chain is slowly transferring into Oz from Alice;

that’s why I am pretty sure here (Retrace 57)—

(Okay, this scene was so beautiful that I had to add the whole of it because just look,,,, if someone says something like this to me, I will only cry even more (TT﹏TT))

—it is on the dutiful desire of the B-Rabbit to protect Alice that Oz is involuntarily acting upon. However, he (or the B-Rabbit) is getting more and more violent, the more the hand of the seal moves and immediately goes for the kill whenever something tries to hurt Alice (like in Leo’s case). Must be because Alice’s connection is diminishing faster as it moves by yet another degree; so, the B-Rabbit is trying its best to save what remains of her. So, unless Oz has better control over his chain (getting increasingly difficult because of the moving hand), the B-Rabbit is going to end up killing someone important in its misguided mission to ‘protect’ Alice, a girl who no longer exists.

Even in the beginning, when questioned by both Will and Jack as to why he wanted so badly to protect Alice,

he couldn’t find any particular reason other than that he had to do it. I guess right from the beginning, the B-Rabbit’s emotions were already seeping into Oz.

Another point,, in favor of that the B-Rabbit is taking over Oz's body is (Retrace 56):

This is not Oz-kun anymore, it's the Blood-eyed B-Rabbit that's taken over the driver seat. Oz is rapidly losing control of his body.

However, I am not so sure about what role the B-Rabbit played in the Tragedy. That it was there, is for sure now; I guess those were the B-Rabbit’s memories that Oz looked into in the Cheshire Arc where he first encountered the corpse of Alice. Oz keeps getting the feeling that he killed and killed and killed but is that what happened? The Baskervilles have already confirmed that they were the ones that killed the citizens of Sablier so I am not sure what Oz is seeing. Anyway, Oz might be able to retrieve all memories of the B-Rabbit only when the needle returns to the starting point and then, it will be of no use anymore.

(please tumblr let me add this scene (Retrace 57) too because Oz going all BAMF mode for Alice is so satisfying to watch 💕 look at those action lines, he is so fast with his scythe they can't keep up!!)

3] Oz says something interesting here (Retrace 43).

This completely escaped my attention during my first read. So, for the other illegal contractors, the seal, after the chain is used, remains visible only for a while before vanishing and the skin becomes clear again till they use the chain again or the hand moves?

Well, that explains why in Retrace 53 Break was in such a hurry to get Gil to look at Elliot’s seal. I knew, since he was blind, he couldn’t possibly check it for himself... but I couldn’t tell why he was in such agitation and hurry. I simply assumed it’s because he had other urgent problems to deal with as well. This explains it better.

The reason why Break’s seal is always visible is because he had already gotten through one round. But then why is Oz’s seal always visible? Is it because this is the second time someone is contracting the same chain? First, Alice; now, Oz. And how is Oz’s relationship with Alice (B-Rabbit) as a contractor different?

4] But of course, we have yet another little mystery of Oz not being the actual Oz. That Xai Vessalius switched his kid with this Oz—is a theory that Uncle Oscar, Break and Grandma Shirley come up with, something that might or might not be true.

Some other ‘fun’ details:

1] Rufus Barma is so nosy ahjfksl (I love him, he is a funky little dude) look at that slight eyebrow rise,,, he has to know Things or he will die lmao. How does mochijun draw every character so expressive?? I am just in love with her art fr

2] I know this woman killed a lot of people who came to their house, searching for the Seal

but it's sad that the moment her duties to Rytas were over and she finally got her freedom to live her life was when she got killed. [She looks a lot like Melinda Desmond from Spy x Family btw lol]

3] Pandora’s Contracting method: so they simply dip a mirror into the chain’s blood and keep it on their person to exert the chain’s powers. If it breaks, the contract will be nullified. Seems dangerous. If the Baskervilles come to know of this, ig they will simply break Break's mirror to rid the Mad Hatter, no?

Also this,

I didn’t think much of it then,, just that Elliot, being a non-contractor, was ignorant of these details. But after finishing this arc, I am all ✨FoReShAdOWing✨

4] Alice hasn’t been doing... much these last few chapters. What with Oz taking on the scythe of the B-Rabbit himself, it seems like Alice is getting shoved out of the story a bit,, but it makes sense (even if it is heartbreaking) bc she is, as I said earlier, dead. And it’s only probably the last piece of soul being protected by the B-Rabbit (and if you take into account the memory/soul found from Cheshire and destroyed by the Mad Hatter), we have even less of her in the real world now.

By the way, I like this panel a lot. She doesn’t know why she stopped Oz from killing Marie, she is struggling to find a reason herself. but... this seems to be a glimpse of the real Alice from a hundred years ago.

That’s why I don’t like whenever Gil keeps jumping to— let’s kill Alice to rid Oz of the contract. I get what he says but it... is not fair to Alice, is it? She has, at least, a right to find out the reason why she was killed before she departs for good this time. The B-Rabbit went out of the way to protect her soul, this is the least she deserves.

#pandora hearts #retrace xliii #retrace xliv #retrace xlv #retrace xlvi #may-reads-ph #my thoughts so far #head hunter arc #oz vessalius #sharon rainsworth #alice baskerville #gilbert nightray #elliot nightray #vincent nightray

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