#vnc theorie

[lynnlyrae]

VnC timeline

I’m mostly an artist in this fandom, but sometimes inspiration strikes and leads me in completely weird directions, such as… figuring out dates of every event in VnC!

With the invaluable help of @retracexcviii, who has created timelines for VnC events before (thank you forever and ever💜) and helped me to avoid some really silly mistakes, I’ve done… this monstrosity of a text, which includes every important canon event I could think of.

— All events are distributed by centuries, starting with XVI and finishing with XIX, and after listing all the events of each century I will put screens of the same texts with correlating manga pages. Additionally, there are numbers of chapters for most of the events.

— Some dates are marked with ~, which means that this date could fluctuate a bit (could be a bit earlier or later). 

— Events that I couldn’t put anywhere specifically are in “UNKNOWN MOMENT” category. I still tried to differentiate them between centuries.

Alright, here we go! 

XVI CENTURY

1493-1500 — creation of an engraving; plague, cataclysms, Paracelsius is looking for a way to save humanity.

(7)

~ 1500 — Babel. The awakening of Faustina, who is considered to be the first vampire.

(19)

1500-1550 — the awakening of Teacher and Machina as vampires. Machina might be younger than Teacher. Creation (awakening?) of Luna? The awakening of Teacher and the creation of Luna — probably around the same time?

(19)

~ 1550-1560 — Chloe is born. She becomes a vampire at the age of 4.

(31)

Between 1550-1600 — Ruthven becomes a vampire. He is currently more that 200 years old, and it’s unknown whether he was born as a vampire or awaken or even when exactly his life began. But looks like an adult in 1650, so he was most likely alive in 1600. He is also younger than Chloe: when she calls him a “child”, he doesn’t correct her.

(31)

Presumable order of awakening of the oldest vampires: 

Faustina —> Teacher —> Machina —> Chloe —> Ruthven. 

When exactly was Luna born? Does Kresnik exist in this century?

XVII CENTURY

~ 1650 — the war between humans and vampires. Chloe meets Ruthven.

(31)

~ 1665-1669 — Jeanne awakens in a flask in front of an unknown person. She leaves the flask. Later, she is adopted by Eric and Louise, Ruthven's students.

(39)

~ 1669 — Chloe meets Jeanne. Ruthven tries to establish peace between humans and vampires.

(31, 32)

~ 1672 — (3 years after Chloe and Jeanne met, 30 years before the end of the war) Ruthven loses his students, his eye is injured; Jeanne becomes the Bourreau of the Senate; Chloe meets Machina; Machina tells about the fate of Ruthven and Jeanne. Almost immediately, Naenia appears for the first time (indicating that Faustina is already a cursebearer); Ruthven visits Chloe for the last time, they part as enemies. If Naenia exists, does Charlatan exist as well?

(32, 33)

UNKNOWN MOMENT BEFORE 1672 — Faustina becomes a cursebearer.

(33)

UNKNOWN MOMENT BEFORE 1672 — Luna creates the Books of Vanitas, which are considered to be the reason for the appearance of the Malnomen. Could the books be created to cure the cursebearers in the first place? Most likely, this happened early in the timeline, since there is a whole folklore about it. Even earlier, someone gave Luna the name " Vanitas", which is also reflected in the title of the books.

(48, 49)

XVIII CENTURY

Before 1702 — Ruthven joins the Oriflamme family, becomes one of the Queen's advisors and a senator. The Queen is still alive, but she is also active as Naenia. Luna sees Jeanne in battle.

(33)

1702 — the end of the war. According to the pact, vampires move to Altus and sell Astermite to humans in exchange for other goods.

(33, 59)

1764 — Chloe spends more than 50 years alone. Death of village girl Jeanne, who speculated to be killed by a Beast, but was a victim of radical anti-vampire group. On the same day, she is visited by Naenia and then meets Jean-Jacques. The Beast conspiracy continues.

(36, 33)

1767 — Chloe witnesses one of the murders and reveals her vampiric powers when she defends herself. After that, the general belief is that Chloe is the master of the mysterious nonexistent Beast and both are the culprits. Her human family is killed. A few days later the Chasseurs (Vampire eradication fraction?) and Ruthven come to Gévaudan. Jean-Jacques becomes a Cursebearer to protect Chloe. Jeanne, now the Hellfire Witch, finds Chloe. Chloe tries to jump off a cliff, but Naenia comes to her again. Chloe also becomes the Cursebearer. Jeanne kills other hunters, but Ruthven saves her, makes her give him an oath (she tries to resist) and puts her in deep sleep. The Beast stops attacks. Conspiracy between Ruthven and the Chasseurs presumably continues.

(35, 36, 37, 43, 39)

UNKNOWN MOMENT BETWEEN 1672-1702 — Luna witnesses Jeanne in a fight with vampires. Later, after 1767, Luna also knew about Jeanne’s sleep.

(4)

XIX CENTURY

1861 — Olivier is born. 

1862 — Roland is born.

1868 — Dominique and Louis are born. Teacher takes Louis.

(46)

1869 — Noé is born.

1870 — Vanitas is born; Dante is born.

1873 — Astolfo is born.

~ 1875 — Olivier meets Roland.

(58)

~ 1874-1875 — an elderly couple finds Noé. They live together for some time.

(9)

~ 1876 — Mikhail is born. Luca is probably born around the same time or a bit later.

~ 1876-1877 — Noé is kidnapped and ends up in a black market, gets an eye injury and is bought by Teacher. Noé meets Domi and Louis (their proportions are quite similar to Astolfo in his childhood flashbacks, where he is presumed to be around 8 years old, but Noé looks younger, so here I’m assuming Noé and the twins could be 6-7 or 7-8 years old). // Probably around the same time, Dante is abandoned by unknown woman. He meets Johann and Riche. Absence of his glasses and bandages indicate that there could be at least a few weeks or months between the two events. 

(9, 61, 62)

~ before 1881 — Vanitas is orphaned and placed under the care of the Church as a potential future Chasseur, but is kidnapped by Moreau for secret experiments.

(49)

1881 — sketch of the Tower of the Sun by Amédée Sébillot, electrical engineer. He worked with engineer Jules Bourdais on this project, but in fact the tower was unrealizable. If the monument designed by Sébillot was real, it would have collapsed under its own weight.

Before or early 1881 — Roland and Olivier move to Paris. Roland is injured, but it’s unknown how it happened. Olivier’s hairstyle may indicate that it happened earlier than the time when Roland almost died. 

(46.5)

~ 1881 — Roland (vice-captain) is injured while defending Olivier. Olivier was injured too. // Misha (who looks about 5 years old??) meets Roland, but later ends up in Moreau's laboratory, where Vanitas is already located.

(47)

~ 1881-1882 — Astolfo secretly meets a vampire. When Astolfo befriends Olivier, he tells him about this secret. The death of the Granatum family. Astolfo meets Carl, Roland (his injuries, which were still visible when he met Misha, have already healed) and other Paladins. Olivier definitely had a title of Obsidian by the time of Granatums’ murder, so some time passes between the day Astolfo met a vampire and the day of Granatums’ murder. 

(48, 58) 

~ 1882-1883 1881-1882* — Louis dies. Domi learns the truth about her and Louis being twins. // Luna saves Misha and Vanitas when they destroy Moreau's lab*. Moreau joins the Charlatan. Misha agrees to be bitten by Luna. Later, Luna loses their true name; Misha loses their arm; Luna dies by Vanitas’s hands. Vanitas and Misha inherit the Books, but are separated, and Teacher takes Misha.

*@torterrachampion mentioned in reblog that Noé is officially 12 years old when Louis’s died ang provided an image from a booklet for the Blu-ray of the anime. I completely missed that fact, so thank you for bringing it up! I’ve decided to change the time range for this event to 1881-1882 for better accuracy.

*It is likely that Noé witnessed Louis’s death around the same time Vanitas and Misha were saved by Luna; bonus card features Noé in the same outfit as on the day of Louis’s death together with Vanitas dressed in his lab clothes. 1881 or 1882 is a possible year for Louis’s death and salvation of Vanitas and Misha. In this scenario Luna dies later than Louis.

(9, 46, 51, * bonus card)

1887 — possible start of construction of the Tower of the Sun (in reality, the construction of the Eiffel Tower started on 28 January 1887).

~ 1887-1888 — Astolfo and Roland have a conflict.

(59)

UNKNOWN MOMENT (after 1702?) BEFORE 1888 — Veronica and Loki, along with Machina, become Beastias, and Antoine enters the Senate. How old are Veronica, Antione and Loki?

UNKNOWN MOMENT (not earlier than 12 years?*) BEFORE 1888 — “death” of Faustina at the hands of her Beasts and Rusven. Luka replaces her on the throne, but the Senate controls him. Strangely, he isn’t even officially presented yet. It’s unknown how old he was when he assumed his current position, but it’s unlikely that the Senate and Beastias would “kill” the Queen without choosing a suitable successor first.

*Alternatively, it could happen earlier, if Loki, Luca’s older brother, was supposed to inherit the throne prior to becoming a cursebearer as well, but was replaced with Luca. But this is a pure speculation.

(38, 13)

UNKNOWN MOMENT BEFORE 1874 — Archivists disappear. It’s unknown whether there are any living Archivists other than Machina and Noé in the present. It’s also unknown why Noe thinks about blood when he thinks about his clan.

(57)

UNKNOWN MOMENT BETWEEN 1871-1888 — Vanitas meets Teacher, or Saint—Germain, who at that time had a different appearance. Were Luna alive at that moment?

(55)

UNKNOWN MOMENT BEFORE 1888 — Machina becomes patron of the dhampires and creates her network of information brokers.

(62)

~ 1888 (before current events) — Astolfo and Roland become Paladins. // 6 month before — Teacher goes somewhere. // 1 month before — Jeanne awakens from her sleep.

(13, 4)

1888 — Teacher asks Noé to witness the story of the Book of Vanitas via correspondence. Current events begin.

(1, 52)

Possible future event — The Exposition Universelle of 1889, which was held in Paris, 5 May to 31 October. The Tower of Sun (instead of Eiffel Tower in VnC universe) was created for this fair. However, at least some of the buildings were ruined.

(44, 20.5, 46, 55)

That’s it for now! I think I will update this post in future when we have enough new information to define unclear dates and add new details and whatnot~

[neversetyoufree]

I cannot be the first person to point this out, but I never quite processed until now just how much the "cracks" spreading out from Luna's Mark on Vanitas resemble Altus's sky.

We know the spreading cracks from Luna's Mark are related to how Vanitas is being rewritten, and we know that Altus's existence traces back to the rewriting of the World Formula during the Babel incident, so it seems like this cracking effect is caused by Formula alterations. But in what context? We see lots of formula rewriting in this series, including some pretty massive revisions in G��vaudan, and I can't find or recall any other instance of reality cracking into spiderwebs like this.

Vanitas's Mark contains the power of The Vampire of the Blue Moon, and Altus's cracks center on its moon, so maybe that has something to do with it? Or perhaps it's a sign of a rewriting's instability, since from what we see with Misha, becoming "something else" as a result of the Mark is not a good or stable state of being for the blue moon boys.

In any case, there's no real way to know what's up with this right now, but this connection has been haunting me since I finally caught it this week.

[beanyboobee]

Realised Noe never actually had a childhood. It was always abruptly interrupted.

And that's something he and Vanitas had in common. Vanitas is more noticeable however for obvious reasons.

But Noes fascination with the world doesn't come from the fact thay his teacher sheltered him, but because his teacher [weather we want to admit it or not] actually answered his questions on the world and allowed him to see more of the world than he had seen before.

Noes earliest memory is being found wandering around the human realm by an old couple. And while they loved hom its clear he wasn't Introduced to anyone else during that time, they died and thus that childhood was interrupted. Right after that he was kidnapped and sold on the market- definetly not a childhood there. And then the teacher bought him and even though they were kept on the Manor grounds they were permitted to play with other village children. That might be the most of a childhood Noe had before that was also abruptly intrupted and then ruined with the death of Louis and the other village children, the memory of that time in the Manor is forever tainted with that memory.

Noe is one of my favorite characters simply because we know so little about him and yet so much is implied. Nothing and yet everything is said at once when it comes to him.

His facination with street magic as seen in the manga for a quick joke panel, his endless exploring, his like for sweet treats, may come from more than this idea of a 'sheltered' life we accociate Noe with. Because he didn't have a 'sheltered' life , thats just others around him says and he never corrects them. Because why would he? Those around him have led worse lives than him. Or so he beleives. His carefree attitude and seemingly 'obvious' nature is what leads us the veiwer and those around noe to veiw him as sheltered, When perhaps we should be asking- why doesn't he know this? Simple, he never had the chance to learn. Not because of the sheltered life he led. But because he was constantly thrown between two worlds who couldn't exactly tell him in detail, and even if he asked questions. What would he ask? He was a child who went between an old human couple who didn't know enough about vampires to explain this. Then trafficers who thought he was human so why would they explain this? Till finally to a teacher who would only answer what was asked of him.

This may be where the turning point between Noe and Vanitas began, when Vanitas maybe started to concider Noe someone closer to him. Because they were similar. They both lost their childhood to something out of their control and both were then taken in to a apperantly 'better' life.

Noe breezes past his past because this story is from his perspective but he is writing it abiut the people he has met and not himself. Therefore he doesn't veiw his past as important. Just a footnote whenever it is brought up by others

[briebysabs]

Since I am such a normal individual I’ve decided to attempt breaking down vanoé’s character song “Le Formidable”. I don’t hear much talk about it but the lyrics are just as cryptic and wild as the OP/ED.

Before we get into it, in terms of translation, I could only find one on YouTube that thankfully color-coded the lyrics so I could decipher who sings what. If anyone has any other translations, I’d love to know please. So a bunch of the lines you can kinda figure out who’s singing but here’s how it’s gonna be:

Vanitas =💙

Noé =💜

Vanoe= 💙💜

Simple enough let’s get into it :)

💜: /I want to stay in bed feeling the warmth of the sun and drift in and out of this sweet dream/

Already we’ve mentioned dreaming, a running theme in this song. There is the well-known line Teacher says in chapter 55...

Sleeping, specifically in regards to Noé, is something mochijun makes the audience take note. He can’t sleep without holding something. When he can’t fall asleep, it is highlighted like the night Vanitas rejected Noé drinking his blood. He doesn’t want Vanitas to disappear and I personally like how in the recent chapter, Vanitas stays by his side for a while. Almost like callback to that moment on the train but I’m getting carried away. You get the correlation I’m making, it’ll get very important later on.

We also have those warmth and sun connections to Noé, a large part of his character and Vanitas’ gravitation towards him.

💙: /With this grey weather today, this day will go by without any harmony/

We see Vanitas’ pessimistic outlook on life; grey, cloudy, devoid of color. Devoid of comfort and obviously these two contrasting people will clash but mix together throughout the song.

💜: /Tarte Tatin, Altus Paris! Endless interesting things!/

💙: /It’s always like this! Here and there, endlessly losing sight./

This seems pretty straightforward, Noé is getting distracted by all the wonderful things as usual and Vanitas chastises him. But let’s frame this another way, Noé is choosing to not focus. It’s simpler that way. He’s turning his focus elsewhere to better things, more pleasant things. And Vanitas is trying to wake him up. I’ll explain more in my theory soon.

💜: /What to look for today from this city/

💙: /Ah with all these things/

💙💜: /There is no time to rest/

Simple lyrics here. No comment.

💙💜: /Le formidable! Le formidable! It’s really easy. Just colliding, rolling down, and repeating again/

Here we are entering the chorus. There’s a common thread of repetition in every OP and ED in VnC. Like clockwork, these two have fallen into this pattern.

Colliding- Vanoé meeting, two worlds learning how to come together, joining as one

Rolling down- their downfall, incoming despair and tragedy

Repeating again- they find themselves back where they started, fated to be born and to die

Let me say the first part of my theory and keep this in the back of your head while remembering the lyrics: VnC is not a time loop in the traditional sense but rather a loop of memories. Also keep in mind the first ED Zero: “Now I remember, oh I have never lived a day without you. Untie the layer of memories...”

💙: /This worthless-/

💜: /wonderful-/

💙💜: /world we are walking on. Even not knowing is sometimes nice, right?/

Again, vanoé with different outlooks on life meet each other. But more importantly, we see the display of ignorance or blissful unawareness. We the audience have a vague idea on how this story ends and in a way, so do they. Vanitas knows very well he is doomed and has already entrusted Noé to end his life if it comes to it. But we also don’t know the specifics of their downfall and neither do they.

So this line has a double meaning that refers to the characters and the reader. As yeah it is nice to read vnc and enjoy the happy moments without knowing the painful details of what’s to come.

💜: /Over there something is flapping their wings/

💙: /And these uncountable days pass by. It’s not worth worrying about. So many unknown things, without meaning/

💜: /Escalier! I want to see the bright colors beyond!/

Noé, again giving his attention to supposedly insignificant things as Vanitas tends to see the larger picture, not caring for the mundane. Uncountable days can be matched with the grey weather mentioned earlier. But that also means things are murky, blur together, cloudy. They don’t make sense to Vanitas (such as love, his self-worth, the nature within people) while Noé wants to experience all the brightness of the world.

💙: /I told you to be quiet today, yet here we are!/

💜: /Now you loud person!/

💙💜: /I told you I hardly have time to breathe/

So, hypothetical scenario if we take this song literal: Vanoé is exploring the city because Noe wanted to Vanitas couldn’t say no. Vanitas is fed up and Noé thinks his complaints are aggravating. But this part shows a lack of understanding. They’re yelling about their own hardships but don’t see the other’s perspective.

💙💜: /Le formidable! Le formidable! It’s a simple thing. It’s just finding, losing sight and repeating again/

💜: /I want to dream/

💙: /It’s just a dream/

💙💜: /The world keep walking while not knowing the truth at this point/

Ok there’s a lot to dig our teeth in here. First of all, the finding, losing sight, repeating is another way of describing the colliding and rolling down said prior. Vanoe find each other, they lose each other, it’s fated to happen all over again. Now the big piece here, I want to dream/It’s just a dream. Surface-level interpretation > another instance of their differences. Noé wants be surrounded by dreams and wonder. While Vanitas looks at that beauty and scoff at it, since it isn’t real therefore not worth caring for. But if we read into this carefully, Noé wants to dream. He wants to stay in these memories, he doesn’t want to live in a world without Vanitas.

Let’s go back to OP 1: “I love this world and the light only you give me.”

We know OP 1 is Noe’s POV so let’s ask ourselves why would the Noé we are seeing, the one smiling at all the colors of the world say Vanitas is the only light he has (emphasis on “only”). Because the Noé singing the first OP is operating with far more knowledge and despair. We don’t know the truth at this point. “This world” is not real.

Allow me to offer what I think is happening. Noé and Vanitas meet, they go on this journey of understanding, trust, and love, Vanitas reaches his end and is killed by Noé. Noé lives on. We can tell the Noé writing this story is full of regret and sadness. But why is he writing this all down? He’s retelling the memories, putting them down physically on paper. Two things happened:

a) He exchanged his name with Naenia, wishing to remain in a world with Vanitas in it. Because that wish is still very present, Naenia has great interest in Noé. She mentions seeing him before in Louis but it could be a classic mochijun misdirect and it’s actually from receiving his name in a different iteration. There is that official art with Noé wearing Vanitas’ coat with that goat entity he saw in Gevaudan, pinned to his vest.

However this can only work if Naenia is still around and isn’t resolved/defeated in the memoirs.

b) This is more likely in my opinion. Noé uses the Books and the memoirs act as a catalyst for him to have the world become his memories or for him to live in them. I know only those with blue blood or something can use the books.

Which is why Dr. Moreau had those experiments with Vanitas and Misha. Don’t worry, I already have a theory that Archivistes are some form of blue moon vampires but that is a whole other discussion. Point is, I think the Books of Vanitas are like an Elliot sword situation. Yes, Elliot owns the Nightray sword and carries it around but you don’t know its true purpose in the story until Leo wields it.

Noé causes these memories to replay, perhaps to save Vanitas or simply to dream again. Go back to when he was last happy. But here’s the thing, the Noé in this memory is unaware or ignorant of this, sees his present world as the real one and undergoes the events of the series. Vanitas dies, he lives on, and creates a memory world for himself. Rinse, recycle, repeat. Essentially, the first ED gave it away. The entirety of VnC is a layer of memories. Even the narrator Noé we are hearing is a memory that is trying to manifest a world of his own.

Reality and dreams are all intertwined now and Noé got lost in it. There are leaks in the cracks, for example when Vanitas cries and tells Luna his mother died at childbirth why would he call to her. Initially, you can read this as he’s just missing what he never had. But what if Vanitas’ mother was present in his life 9 memory loops ago but because these memories get further from the truth the more it happens, Noé simply forgot that detail when making the memoirs at some point in time. So now, in the memory layer #52 Vanitas has no mother.

💜: /We will see what we “cannot see”/

💙: /We will know what we “don’t know”/

💙💜: /The final stop of this world that seems to be changing, seems only further ahead/

Noe’s line possibly goes into his Archiviste nature and how he experiences reading memories. It can as well build back into the dream/memory loop thing, he’s seeing things he can no longer “see.”

Vanitas’ line can be drawn to what Noé said during their fight.

Vanitas acts like he has the final word and has a full grasp of how this world/himself works. But he really doesn’t and Noé is living proof of that, proving him wrong on several occasions that there’s still hope, they can’t give up yet, he won’t leave him etc. The final stop of this world is changing, but it’s further ahead. This is a story, a preserved section of time from the past. We gotta ask ourselves... why would the last stop be changing? Again, Vanitas’ death is the final stop but it’s changing, perhaps from the countless iterations we’ve gone through Noé writes the memoirs in a way that delays the ending. So he could remain just a little longer…

💙💜: /Le formidable! Le formidable! Everything is fine. While forgetting, hiding, and repeating it/

💙: /This worthless/

💜: /wonderful/

💙💜: /world we are walking on/

💙: /I don’t know but even so/

💜: /If it can make you smile.../

After this, it ends the song by repeating the first chorus with the colliding-rolling down part so I’ll make this the cutting point. The “everything is fine” totally doesn’t stick out in a story where we know everything will not be fine. The forgetting and hiding goes back to my dream-memory theory, Noé is hiding from the truth in these stacks upon stacks of memories and is possibly forgetting things as they really happened as a result. We already know he isn’t the most reliable narrator. But Noé wants to see Vanitas’ smile.

If it can make you smile again, if it can replay your laughter, why would I ever leave this wonderful lie? In OP 1: “Your laughing was reflected by a daydream”.

I’ll conclude this by saying two things. If you want to get even deeper, you can interpret Vanitas in this song as the voice in the back of Noé’s head. Its just a dream, this world is actually worthless, and Noé is trying to drown out those thoughts. Because yeah they sing lines together but the only time they’re directly speaking to each other is when Vanitas scolds Noé and Noé shouts back, calling him loud. Finally, I could be wrong in all this. I am aware how crazy I may look and I'm so thankful if you read this far.

But yeah if this is anywhere near canon, mochijun must be the most unhinged, absolutely cracked author I’ve ever seen. We’re going into Pandora Hearts levels of intricacy here. I hope you enjoyed my insanity 👍🏼

[starlight2634]

So what if Noe didn’t actually kill Vanitas?

We all know that The Case Study of Vanitas is from Noe’s POV and how at the end of the journey he kills Vanitas.(which I think for Vanitas is freeing him)

I have a theory. And it could just be bs and all but hear me out.

From my semi vague understanding of the plot, Vanitas’ name isn’t his own but the original vampire of the blue moon’s.

And with Noe saying he killed Vanitas at the end of the journey, and I’m going on a limb here, that he figuratively killed him. Like somehow freed Vanitas from his role as the vampire of the blue moon without killing him.

As in Noe got rid of Vanitas role and thus killing the name of the vampire of the blue moon. The whole anime and manga(haven’t read) revolves kinda around Vanitas freeing Curse Bearers by finding their true names.

What I’m trying to kinda say is that Noe found the blue moon vampire’s true name and set them free, releasing Vanitas role as the blue moon vampire.

TLDR: Either Noe figuratively kills Vanitas and Vanitas is released from being the vampire of the blue moon. Or this is just a 3AM random thought and I’m sleep deprived.

[existingtm]

Gil, the narrator of Pandora Hearts, is the only character who didn't die at some point in the story.

Noé is the narrator of Vanitas no Carte, so I think he'll live as long as that's his role. I'm worried MochiJun will shift the role of the narrator so she can kill Noé at some point.

The story of VNC is presented to us as memoirs written by Noé that detail Vanitas's story in the time he knew him, up until he kills him. However, MochiJun likes her twists and turns in the plot, so I know that she is likely deceiving us to some extent. The question is, to what extent is she deceiving us?

Will the story end when Noé's memoirs end, or will someone else pick up the tale? Perhaps another Archiviste?

[2econd2ight2aver]

Vanitas no carte theory

It's probably been pointed out before, and I haven't read the manga yet but...

Is Noé's teacher his cat also?

I mean, think about it. Aside from the obvious similarities in their eyes, this guy has been referred to as the Shapeless one, it could mean that he can switch bodies, shapes, if you will.

[kaurwreck]

I don't think any well written work with unreliable narrators can be understood if you're disregarding everything from those narrators— understanding where and why they're unreliable is key. That requires discernment rather than bright line rules.

Otherwise, the narrators wouldn't be unreliable. They'd be reliably dishonest, and that wouldn't make for a compelling or relatable story.

[evatheunicutie]

Twins are Bad Luck in Vamp Society, eh?

I think this has to do with something to do with Faustina and Luna being twins and something happening thousands of years prior to the canon storyline in VnC.

I just know it.

[theory-basket]

Everyone says Ruthven is gonna use his one command to get Noe to kill Vanitas straight up, but I’m not so sure.

Personally? I think Ruthven will command Noe to reveal his true name.

There’s so much emphasis from the Shapeless one on not telling ANYONE your true name, and Naenia seems very interested in it. Knowing Noe’s true name is so much more dangerous, because Ruthven could hand it over to Naenia any time she wanted.

And that puts Vanitas in an awful position. It’s already been proven that even when he’s lost his own free will, Vanitas can’t bring himself to kill Noe, and Noe can’t bring himself to kill Vanitas.

Wouldn’t that parallel be fucking tragic? Noe couldn’t kill the one person who begged for it the most, Vanitas killed the one person who gave him a chance because they were a curse bearer. But now Noe is the one out of his mind with killing intent and Vanitas is willing to die if it means curing him.

You know the story is good when you can see a dozen equally tragic, equally meaningful endings.

[lynnlyrae]

…… I think I read too many vampire related manga

[neversetyoufree]

Alright. Okay.

So the entire time I've been reading VnC, I've been assuming that Noé is the sole known survivor of the Archivistes in a relatively normal way. I've been assuming that something happened to the Archiviste clan within Noé's lifetime, just before his human "grandparents" found him in the snow. Obviously I wondered about what happened—who slaughtered them if they were killed and what else might have happened if they aren't all dead as we've been told, but I never questioned the timeline. I assumed that the Archivistes must have been alive and kicking until recently, even if Noé's last remaining family was living in hiding from the rest of vampire society or something like that.

But. We don't actually know that that's true. We don't know a single thing about the timeline of the Archivistes' extermination other than what Nox says about them having all died "long ago." Noé is nineteen years old, and we have no idea how old Nox is. Could the fifteen to seventeen years between Noé's first adoption and the present day be enough to count as long ago?

This is Jun Mochizuki we're talking about. There is extensive precedent in her work (by way of Pandora Hearts) for characters turning up seemingly out of nowhere, often with no memory, and in Pandora Hearts, these cases never had a simple answer. It was always caused by the time-bending properties of the Abyss.

It is entirely within the realm of possibility for the rest of the Archiviste clan to have died years, decades, or even a century or more before Noé was found by his human grandparents. We don't have precedent yet for anything that messes with time in VnC like PH's Abyss, so I don't know how this could have happened, but I don't think we can fully discount the possibility. The outer bounds of world formula rewriting as a power are yet to be fully explored, so it's hard to say firmly that anything's impossible. There might be a way for Noé to exist in the present even if the rest of his clan was killed well over nineteen years ago (be it by PH style time-bending or by some entirely different mechanism).

It's still possible (and even likely) that the Archivistes died or disappeared less than twenty years ago, but it's not quite the concrete fact that I've been thinking of it as this entire time. It's entirely possible that Noé's backstory contains Mochizuki Timeline Fuckery, and now that I've had that thought, I can't unsee it. The author of Pandora Hearts going out of her way to say that her protagonist was found mysteriously alone and crying with no memory of how he got that way is. conspicuous as hell.

[beanyboobee]

Sometimes I look at vanitas and noe and see another similarity in them which could be another reason why Vanitas is able to warm up to Noe.

Neaither of them are fully what they claim to be.

Vanitas because of all the experiments- can no linger be considered fully human. The curse on top of that seperates hom from the rest of humanity making him differant from them. Detaching him from them.

Noe despite being a vampire, is also an archiviste. A being that we know is differant from other vampires from the difference in abilities and what appears to be stamina alone. Noe isn't refurred to as just a vampire by others often, he is usually accociated with being an Archviste first, vampire later.

The same way Vanitas is refurred to as Vanitas [the vampire of the blue moon] first and then human later.

Both of them stand on the border of being their species but also being something else, something almost demonic when compared to their own kind, they are outliers and perhaps this might just be something that ties Vanitas to Noe, because theya really so similar in morw ways than one

[briebysabs]

Vnc OP 1 - Sora to Utsuro

We are here again! I’ll be taking the time to talk of VnC’s first opening and breaking down the lyrics. Specifically in regards to what I will refer to as the dream loop theory. If you don’t know what I mean by that, the base summary is that the VnC universe is a story. Noé is the narrator, the character, the archiver and the creator. Noé is writing the memoires to manifest his memories. Let’s call it a memory world. He does this either to escape his regret-filled reality or to save Vanitas. However, when he “loops”, he doesn’t remember why he’s there so everything plays out the way it was written in the memoires.

Then Noé will live on, write the memoires again, and the cycle continues. And because he’s done this countless times, the memoirs gradually stray away from the original story. I’ll elaborate further when talking about OP 1. Right about now!

This was the main translation I could find for the full song (not including English covers but I could reach the same conclusions for those as well) If anyone has other translations for the whole thing, I’d love to see it. https://youtu.be/G_bJwB1YePw?si=xPVlV3_Fd57S-Bo1

/You’re pondering the simple things, pretty much human emotions and love/

/I hope one day you’ll understand/

/Too many wounds have left you patched together, a miserable sight/

/That doesn’t even know the definition of alive/

It is confirmed that this opening is from Noe’s POV. But keep in mind for the rest of this thread, it’s future Noé speaking. There are two main readings for the song; for the most part it’s Noé talking to or about Vanitas. And then there’s Noé talking to himself. This part has both interpretations.

Noé to Vanitas: Vanitas does struggle to understand his emotions throughout the story, that includes love. Vanitas is a broken individual, has too many wounds/trauma Noé cannot ignore and for a long time, was fueled by getting his “revenge”. Thus he’s forgotten what it means to live. You can also read into “doesn’t know the definition of alive” in a meta sense, from the beginning of the story he’s already dead.

And the very name ‘Vanitas’ is surrounded with the imagery of death, futility and mortality. So yes, Vanitas as a concept doesn’t know what ‘alive’ is.

Noé to himself: Noé as well is trying to figure out human emotions. This is a case study of a human after all. The memoirs follow Noe’s journey in understanding Vanitas’ thinking. And we’ve had Noé blatantly ask Vanitas what love means. But we can read this as Noé , sort of telling his past self that one day he will understand and feel this pain. Take note of “many wounds have left you patched together”. As I said, he could be talking about how “fragile” Vanitas is but what if this is about himself?

/No need to say “just the two of us” or anything/

/I have a feeling we can understand each other/

/And that’s fine for now/

This is calling to the Catacombs Arc, where Vanitas repeats Noe’s line of being able to do anything together. Interesting enough, it’s that arc where we see a bit of Vanitas’ backstory and it ends with the two sitting against each other. An understanding has been reached. Of course we all know that’s what VnC is about but of course he adds the ‘for now’ because what would this show be without its looming doom.

/I love this world and the light only you give me/

/Makes the world I see through these fractured eyes/

/Look gleaming and bright/

It’s these verses that made me want to spend more time on this. First of all, ‘I love this world’, a little weird right? I can only hope this translation is the most accurate but we’re saying ‘this’ instead of ‘the world’. Makes it sound like “I like this one. I prefer this one.” And ‘the light only you give me’ is very odd if we’re saying this is from Noe’s POV. Emphasis on ONLY.

Another reason why I believe it’s future Noé singing because why would present Noé say Vanitas is the only light he has? Vanitas is the only thing keeping him from falling apart. Vanitas being the sole reason Noé loves the world…doesn’t line up with the Noé we’re seeing now. Now it could be Vanitas is a “special” light. But that kinda raises more alarms because Vanitas is very admired in this song guys. And present Noé I feel wouldn’t be so sure in proclaiming this. The world being seen through fractured eyes could be multiple things. We know Noé sustained an injury on his left eye when Teacher bought him.

This could feed into a theory that has been speculated over the years that Noe’s vision was permanently altered and he sees things from that eye differently. Of course, it could refer to future Noe’s perception of life being broken due to the events of the series. Thus why Vanitas is the one thing that makes it gleaming and bright. You could then ask “But Vanitas is gone in the future so how is that possible?” In comes my theory. It’s interesting how Noé is often associated with light, the sun etc. but here we see him give those characteristics to Vanitas’ presence.

/There’s no such thing as a sure thing/

/But you can see me can’t you?/

Things get a little fuzzy here. Obviously, nothing is sure, nothing lasts forever. This period of happiness will pass. But “you can see me”. Assuming this world is a memory, this could be Noé being elated from seeing Vanitas. That his plan has worked. But you can also interpret this, I forgot who pointed it out but ty whoever you are, that this is the one moment Vanitas interjects in the song. Essentially saying, “you can see me, so this is not real.” As if trying to wake Noé up. And if you look at the OP itself, for most of it Vanitas is following or lagging behind Noé like a ghost. There’s even a part where Noé is looking at a drawing of a view instead a real one, Vanitas is yelling at him, trying to get his attention and Noé ignores him completely. Not to mention the OP starts and ends with Noé sleeping, Vanitas nor his belongings ever in the room almost as if it was all a dream hmmm.

You can see this also as Noé acknowledging the world he has created is only temporary. Noé knows this isn’t real, isn’t a sure thing. But then Vanitas comes in to be like “you can see me, can’t you. So is it that bad?”

/I’m pondering the simple things, pretty much emptiness and frigidity/

/One by one lies have increased/

/Playing with a simple puppet/

/My rusted head is shaking/

We’ve contrasted “human emotions and love” with “emptiness and frigidity” here. Frigid here means the bitter cold, stiff, lacking in warmth. The opposite of what Noé says this world gives him so safe guess, he’s talking about the reality he is escaping. Where Vanitas is dead as well as a lot of his friends. The lies have built upon each other, adding to my theory where the numerous times Noé has done this has created layers upon layers of worlds. And each one has more inaccuracies than the last. This is his story, a play, he is the writer and the puppeteer of everyone’s roles. When they appear, what they say and do is decided by what Noé writes in the memoires. But by all the loops he’s made himself a puppet too. His head being rusted could hint at many, many years passing since everything happened. What’s even more interesting is remember, Vanitas is the one usually associated with cold and emptiness. So why is Noé assigning those things to his thoughts? It really shows how future Noé has come to view Vanitas vs himself. Because ignoring any theories or whatever for a second, future Noé is clearly burdened with regrets and hate towards himself.

/Your laughing was reflected by a daydream/

/Without knowing yet we just want to laugh/

/Throw away the answer, whatever you want is fine for now/

We circle back to the dream thing again. What is a daydream? It’s something you fantasize about when you are bored or in need of a distraction. A reflection looks and behaves exactly like you, copies your movements, but is it real? We all know mirrors and reflections play a major role in the story. Whether having mirrors or frames in official art or volume covers. Characters reflecting each other like Vanitas/Astolfo, Domi/Louis, Ruthven/Noé etc. I think the “throw away the answer” is interesting, it could be Noé again knowing what the “right” thing to do is but is desperate to see Vanitas laugh. Feels very much like a “oh forget about all that, what do you wanna do?” Noé putting other people before himself and being selfless to a fault.

/I love this world that lacks everything/

/If the mechanical echoes/

/Everything seems to be laughable/

/I can’t be proud of it/

/But isn’t the burning dream beautiful/

Why would you love a hollow world? This is Noé saying this. How can a world lack everything if it’s meant to be real? Unless it isn’t. Unless it lacks what you truly desire even if you claim to love it regardless. Echoes fall into the same vein as reflections I brought up previously. ‘Mechanical’ implies it’s a machine, tying back to it being empty and hollow. Lacking realness. And it’s funny, Noé says he’s not proud of it. His world, his creation if you will. That it’s laughable even but then goes on to call it beautiful. Think about that for a minute. The dream is burning because Vanitas will always die no matter what Noé does. Everything will go up in flames, it’s only temporary but guess what? To Noé, this fleeting period of happiness is far better than whatever he has left when he wakes up.

/When the sky and the void meet look back because the dreams will come later/

/When the sky and the void meet look back be still in bloom/

/When the sky and the void meet born and die repeatedly/

/The future and lies break and laugh/

We’ll stop here because the song then goes back to the first chorus “I love this world and the light you give me” stuff. This part of the OP I would say is the most vague, you can read this a lot of ways. However you want to interpret it, there is a clear loop going on. We can see “sky and void” as metaphors for Vanitas and Noé. Personally I’d say Noé is the void because of that official art that has Vanitas with a clear sky in the background and Noé is sinking into the darkness. Similar to when he drinks someone’s blood and sees their memories.

But while Vanitas has a few purple butterflies, Noé is given that distinct glowing blue butterfly. Vanitas is Noe’s light. We talk about that art for hours but that's for another day. Plus given how Noé talks in this song, it’s safe to say he sees himself as the void. And once they meet the dreams will come later, to be born and die repeatedly. Meeting could be their actual meeting from chapter one and the cycle/memory world begins from there. It could be wherever fuck they were when Noé failed to grab Vanitas’ hand. The future and lies….what lies? Who my dear readers would be lying to us :000. But eventually that mountain of lies will come tumbling down.

And, no theory just pure delulu I’ve always headcanoned that when Vanitas dies Noé is going to break out laughing. So if that happens the op spoiled it.

[this-is-a-blog-yo]

Vnc guys in light of the vol 11 cover: what’s the time loop theory everyone keeps talking about???

[existingtm]

I've been revisiting old VNC chapters for a variety of reasons, and I came back to these panels in Memoire 7:

This is when Domi accuses Vanitas of worshipping the Vampire of the Blue Moon.

Now, we've seen Vanitas use this kind of de-personing language when he needs to create emotional distance, such as when he calls Noé "that vampire."

We know a few things. We know Vanitas killed Luna. We know that in order to protect his memories, Vanitas will go into a trance that de-persons whoever he's fighting (Is this only applicable to vampires? I'm not sure). And we know he cared about Luna and Mikhail at one point (and likely still does despite his deeply repressive reaction).

What we don't know is if his de-personing mindset lasts after he breaks out of the full trance. Is this intense, de-personing reaction... 1. left over from an altered state of mind he needed to enter in order to kill someone he loved? 2. a regular trauma response? Or 3. an indicator of something more sinister about Luna?

These are the three possibilities I can think of.

I don't think Luna is secretly evil in the way Jack was, however, I suspect there's something rather sinister about them all the same.

The devil symbolism is a pretty well-known aspect of Luna's character at this point, but Luna's comment about trying to find out what they are is also intriguing to me. Whatever it is doesn't seem to be their fault, but it does seem to be bad all the same. Maybe it's really just their Malnomen form, but these little hints about them in their normal form make me think that there's more to it.

@lynnlyrae mentioned their theory about Luna being a homunculus here, and that's a possibility I find very intriguing. If Luna's not a homunculus, then they must at least have a narratively similar origin.