#I think it's implied that killing vanitas would be an act of salvation for him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bemused-writer · 5 years

Note

Vanitas for the character meme

Ohh, Vanitas is a great choice; such a complex character.

favorite thing about them - My favorite thing about Vanitas is the conflict we see in him, the mystery. He has periods of manic joy (when he first asks Noé to join him for example) and moments where he loses all control (at the Bal Masque when he revealed he was human, how he feels about VotBM, etc).

Between these two extremes we see someone who is more fragile then he lets on and I think that’s fascinating. Most of the time he puts on a mask of confidence and purposefully tries to make people angry with him (usually to gain an advantage of some kind) but with Noé I think we start to see a more honest version of Vanitas. He takes a bit more time to consider his answers to his questions and actually allows for some give and take in their relationship.

In other words, my favorite thing about Vanitas is learning about Vanitas!

least favorite thing about them - His treatment of women leaves something to be desired. However, I can also see how this fits into his background. Why does he have such an issue with them? Why is he so hung up on Jeanne? I may have my own guesses but we don’t know for sure yet and I’m very curious to see how this turns out!

favorite line - “I reject your rejection,” from volume 4. Still one of the funnier exchanges those two have had. XD Of course, I enjoyed his opening speech, “I will save you without fail” quite a bit since it establishes pretty much the entire story.

brOTP - I had a bit of trouble with this at first because Vanitas has a surprisingly limited amount of people he interacts with. XD However, I would definitely say Vanitas & Dante. They have an odd, business-style relationship but the impression I get is they’ve known each other for a long time. Maybe a few years at least? They have quite an amusing back-and-forth established though.

OTP - Vanitas x Noé. I think that Noé is bringing out sides of Vanitas we wouldn’t get to see otherwise. Vanitas acts differently around Noé than he does with other people: he forgives him for all kinds of things, actually listens to him, and treats him like an actual person. The way he treats everyone else is pretty hit-and-miss to put it nicely....

He’s also actively allows himself to care for Noé and, while I think he’s acknowledged it to himself, I don’t think he’s happy about it. He criticized Jeanne mercilessly for allowing herself to form an attachment. Imagine how much he must be getting on his own case for doing the same thing.

nOTP - Vanitas x Dr. Moreau is probably the biggest NOTP I can think of for the series. 8D

Uh, other than that I don’t actively ship Vanitas x Jeanne; I think that’s a “learning relationship” of sorts. It will be interesting, chaotic, but ultimately I think they’ll each be happier when it reaches its conclusion. My main question is how far will their relationship go before that inevitable parting? Will it be on good terms or bad? It’s impossible to say right now.

random headcanon - I’ve wondered if Vanitas might have multiple personalities. Not in a medical sense but from his mark of possession, rather. It seems to act differently from the rest we’ve seen in the series so far (a limited amount, granted but still). At times he almost seems like a different person and I can’t help but wonder if that’s why.

I also think his definition of “salvation” tends toward the negative. He’s killed vampires as a way of bringing salvation and offers death to Jeanne as a kind of salvation if she loses herself as well. “If that time comes, I’ll kill you. I promise... I’ll kill you.” And then he remembers Misha right after, which seems to imply he didn’t grant this final wish to him and he knows he should have. It’s actually a little reminiscent of how Noé couldn’t grant this particular form of salvation for Louis either. It also raises the question of why death would have been an act of kindness for Misha as well.

One more: I think the day we see Vanitas dress differently is the day he’s finally escaped VotBM’s influence. Right now he imitates her style of dress quite a bit and he’s obsessed with her.

unpopular opinion - I’m not sure if I have any particularly unpopular opinions about the character. I suppose my views on some of the ships could be unpopular. :0

song i associate with them - Nothing in particular. Sad, longing, haunting pieces would suit him well, I think.

favorite picture of them - So many! For the sake of brevity, I decided to just pick a few mostly recent ones and leave out panels in the manga:

I really like how vaguely ominous this one is. We see at least two marks of possession (possibly a third depending on how you want to interpret the purple splotch), the book’s chain links him to Noé (which I cropped out but you get the idea), and he’s partially submerged underwater on his left side. He’s grinning but to me this looks like someone who is losing himself piece by piece. His body has been marked as belonging to different people (at least one of which he sort of allowed to do so), he’s not clutching at any particular lifeline (while Noé is holding onto the chain Vanitas, himself, is not), and he’s acting like everything is okay even when it clearly isn’t.

I also really like the extra ones Mochizuki has given us on Twitter. You can see them here, here, and here.

For the first one, it’s just very beautiful. I get the impression it��s probably in their hotel room since he’s dressed in a more relaxed way then he normally is. It also looks, to me, like it’s just after rain has fallen. I don’t know but it’s lovely.

The second one just amuses me. Loosely translated he’s basically saying “Take it.” I’m pretty sure this picture is a response to the February free page where Vanitas wins a crown? I’m forgetting the name of the custom. Regardless, I suppose he knew Noé would be way more excited at receiving such a thing than he would be. XD

And then the third is driving me crazy. 8D It’s a simple silhouette but the writing on it says something like “I’m/you’re alive” (生きてます。） I mean... Mochizuki is just giving us tantalizing foreshadowing now.... At any rate, it’s a haunting piece and I really like it.

Thank you for the ask! ^^

#vanitas no carte #vnc theories #ask meme #Bemused's reply #vera-invenire

39 notes · View notes

bemused-writer · 7 years

Text

Character Study Part 2: Vanitas

And here we are with part two! Vanitas is definitely a complex enigma at the moment and a lot of what we learn about him is through Noé’s own interpretation but let’s see what we can do! There are a couple of things that strike me about this character as is.

When we first meet Vanitas it goes without saying that he is a flashy guy: he makes an entrance with a bang, dresses eccentrically, and likes to take charge of the situation. Pretty much any situation, really.

For example, in chapter 15 Noé realizes that “He wants to use me as a shield but he doesn’t want me to shield him of my own accord...?” I think this insight of Noé’s reveals something very telling about Vanitas: he wants to have complete control over his surroundings, including the people in his life. It’s one of the most recurring themes of this character so far. I’ll get back to that in a moment though, since his desire to have control is tied up with several other factors.

Another trait of his is that he is pretty well unhinged. “I’ll do as I please, use methods I choose, and no matter what you people want I will save you without fail!” Healing and saving people is usually supposed to be a comforting thought but when it’s followed by a seriously manic grin you begin to wonder what “saving” implies. Of course, we are soon confronted by the Charlatan and vampires so far gone to the curse that Vanitas cannot save them. Instead he brings them “salvation.” And even he admits he doesn’t know what that means.

Connected to this is his tendency to eagerly dash into or purposefully provoke violent situations, something that Noé comments on himself and seems quite bothered by. Vanitas doesn’t believe in diplomacy or calmly reasoning with people. He believes in making jabs and taking what he wants because he can’t afford to put himself in a position of weakness. All of this undoubtedly ties into his experiences as a test subject and being captive under Vanitas of the Blue Moon.

I’d say this is a character who is very much dealing with depression, deep misogyny, may be masochistic at best or suicidal at worst, and absolutely despises himself and the world at large. This may sound like a rather dark interpretation of the character but I do think we have substantial evidence for this.

Let’s take a quick look at depression. Vanitas doesn’t seem to care all that much about what happens to himself. We see this by how he puts himself in dangerous situations when he doesn’t really have to but most pertinently, when Jeanne asks him why he’s risking himself to give her blood, he says “no real reason.” He tries to cover it up but I think that first statement was absolutely true just like his initial statement about wanting revenge on Vanitas was absolutely true. Vanitas has occasional outbursts where he’s completely honest and completely out of control and whenever this happens it’s obvious he is aghast at letting so much slip. He’s a character that tries to keep up an act at all times but isn’t always that good at it.

So, let’s get back to that theme of control. Vanitas hasn’t had any agency for a significant portion of his life. We learn that vampires killed his parents, he was given to the Church who in turn gave him to Dr. Moreau who abused him mercilessly in the hopes of progressing “science” and when he was rescued from that he was marked as property of the vampire Vanitas and, quite likely, abused some more considering how much he despises this person.

We see how he tries to maintain control over his own person by putting on different masks. Usually he is wearing the slightly eccentric, super enthusiastic mask but he has other ones such as with Dr. Moreau. He’s perfectly polite, makes no disagreeable remarks, and is utterly complacent to the man’s moods. Dr. Moreau himself comments that Vanitas was a “perfect” test subject. Before Vanitas got away from vampire!Vanitas and Moreau it seems that his only way of maintaining control was by not revealing how much he was truly suffering. Given his reaction to simply hearing “number 71″ though there are some things that are still traumatic enough to cause a panic attack.

Now, I personally think that Jeanne has become his primary target for venting and symbolically reversing a lot of this. He sexually harasses her for entertainment and for the purpose of having control over something. He told Noé that he calls it love because “it’s more interesting that way.” This strongly implies that he knows he’s not in love. He’s playing a game. At the same time, he has “no interest in the sort of person who would fall for me.”

What Vanitas has told Noé, in a roundabout kind of way, is that he knows what kind of person would fall for him. And that person would have to be monstrous because that is, in turn, how he sees himself. It’s far too early to say anything for sure here but considering how much he hates vampire!Vanitas and that vampire!Vanitas marked him, something he associates with “love” (think of how he brought up Jeanne’s mark as being indicative of “that kind of relationship”), and we potentially have ourselves a backstory of abuse that would, sadly, go a long way toward explaining current events. The amount of his self-loathing seems further emphasized to me by how he parades about calling himself the name of the person he hates most in the world. He didn’t call himself “Moreau” he calls himself “Vanitas.”

I also think that with Jeanne, as much as he is trying to exercise control over a vampire, he is also trying to punish himself. He says he enjoys Jeanne drinking his blood but every shot we see of this has him doubled over in agony. He knows that Jeanne could kill him. That “thrill” he gets when he met her seems to be the thrill of knowing he could die at any moment but for now it’s not happening. That “thrill” seems to be the same as the “shiver” or manic grin that show up when Vanitas knows he’s pushing his boundaries and might suffer physical harm for doing so, such as when he insulted the queen.

As a side note, I would just like to say that none of this excuses what Vanitas is doing to Jeanne and his misogyny isn’t just directed at her, it’s directed at every female character he’s spent any real amount of time around. The way he referred to Dominique as a “convenient female” really drives this home. Mochizuki more or less compared Vanitas to Vincent of Pandora Hearts, another character who had misogyny that, I think, stemmed from his experiences with Miranda but we never delved too deeply into the issue. I suppose now we will be exploring the concept more fully in this series.

At any rate, all of this trauma and self-loathing is met with Noé, a fellow who declares he finds Vanitas interesting as a person, obviously wants to understand Vanitas, and who will protect him and disagree with him regardless of what Vanitas says or does because he has no intention of quietly doing whatever Vanitas wants in the first place. Vanitas clearly is not comfortable with any of these concepts whatsoever. He has tried on two separate occasions to convince Noé that sticking around is unnecessary. The first was the aftermath of the ball. Vanitas had clearly been sitting by Noé’s bedside mulling things over because when Noé gets up he comments that the seat is still warm.

While Vanitas was obviously unhappy that Noé protected him, the comment that threw him over the edge was Noé realizing Vanitas had “given up on something.” Whatever this something is (most likely himself considering the aftermath of the catacombs) it clearly hits too close to home.

The second occasion is when Noé refuses to take a woman hostage. Vanitas sees this as being weak willed and unrealistic and once again tells Noé he’s done with having to deal with him and even goes as far as calling him a slur (”bat”) but considering how events turned out it seems that combative diplomacy was the way to go. And once again Noé stays by Vanitas’s side while also not doing whatever Vanitas wants--he took Vanitas hostage in one of the most wonderful twists of irony I’ve seen in some time.

I’d say that where we are in the story (chapter 20) Vanitas has a tentative trust toward Noé; he seems fond enough of him and certainly finds him interesting in turn. But I think there’s a long road ahead of him before he’s willing to accept that maybe someone likes him for who he is without any ulterior motives. It will probably also take some time before he accepts that he doesn’t need to control or abuse people to assert he isn’t weak. His “date” with Jeanne is evidence of that. He’s using different tactics but the goal is still to maintain control over her.

We’re definitely seeing a building trust on Vanitas’s part toward Noé though. He allowed himself to fall asleep on Noé’s back after the incident in the catacombs, relented to what Noé thought would be morally right, and ultimately saved quite a few humans and vampires.

I think it’s also important to point out that Vanitas’s behavior is a tad different around Noé. He often takes a little more time to think about what he says before he says it. He has an almost hesitant vibe around him--several of his sentences begin with an ellipses, indicating that he’s either unsure of what to make of Noé himself or unsure of what he should say. He is also honest with Noé when he doesn’t necessarily have to be, such as admitting how tired he was and that he doesn’t know certain things. I think Noé will certainly be the main catalyst of change in his life, hopefully for the better.

I’m looking forward to seeing Vanitas develop. He’s a fascinating character and still very likable despite his overwhelming flaws. We still have a lot to learn about him and Noé as well as their backstories, which are very bare bones at the moment. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more. ^^

#vnc #vanitas no carte #les memoires de vanitas #the case study of vanitas #Bemused's post #I think this actually got longer than my Noé post....#Vanitas has a ton of problems though. XD #My goodness #I can't wait to see them all explored in the manga. 8D

132 notes · View notes