Black Butler: Emerald Witch Arc

Episode 10

In fiction, history is malleable. I'm saying that as much to remind myself as anything; this season of Black Butler has been playing fast and loose with the difference between 1889 and 1914. Or maybe it hasn't – yes, Frau Sullivan and the German army have come up with both mustard gas and tanks twenty-five years before World War I, but in these most recent episodes, we've also watched Sebastian destroy them. The point, therefore, seems to be that the Germans came up with these things a quarter century before the war and then had to reinvent them to deploy in that conflict. Given original creator Yana Toboso's notes in early manga volumes about how she knew nothing about the Victorian world when she started the series, this seems fairly plausible; Toboso's work has been increasingly historically accurate as Black Butler has gone on, so this feels like it must be on purpose.

“His Butler, Mopping Up” perhaps refers to the way Sebastian removes these weapons from the world for a little while, but it certainly doesn't tie up all of the loose ends. (Which is good, since we have several more episodes.) For one thing, when grim reapers Sascha and Ludger come in at the end of the episode to tally up the dead (or at least read about them), it's noticeable that the only one they mark as definitively dead is Anne. She was not alone in the tank, and I have a hard time thinking anyone could have survived it, but it still feels like more than a reminder of what year the story takes place in. Symbolically, it's an interesting moment, though – Sebastian refers to the tank as an “oven,” which, okay, first gave me WWII feelings (family history is hard to escape), but was more likely intended to be a reference to “Hansel and Gretel.” As you may recall, at the end of that fairy tale, Gretel pushes the witch into her own oven, killing her. Anne and the others are presented as witches to the outside world, so Sebastian is simply carrying out a narrative directive. Witches burn. It's right there in the story.

Of course, wolves usually die, too, and that's not a foregone conclusion for Wolfram. When the tank is brought out and begins shooting at Ciel in Sieglinde's clothing, Wolfram realizes that the army (and perhaps her mother) never intended to let the girl live. Since Wolfram has been protecting and caring for Sieglinde since she was a toddler, this revelation is a shock. His job has been to protect and care for Sieglinde; to suddenly discover that it was all a temporary situation, if not an outright farce, looks like his breaking point. When he runs off, it's not because he no longer cares what happens to Ciel; it's because it's more important that he find Sieglinde. He may still think that the British have terrible plans for her (and that's fair; the Victorians weren't known to be kind to foreigners), but the bigger issue seems to be that he wants to be there to protect her from her people. He's less the Big Bad Wolf and more a loyal hound, protecting his mistress from the real wolves and witches, and I suddenly find myself really hoping he lives through this.

With another five-minute recap, this episode is again on the shorter side. Looked at in a certain light, it doesn't have much new plot, especially since the tank is introduced and destroyed in less than twenty minutes. I daresay the most important moment is the introduction of Sascha and Ludger, although what part they'll play going forward is unclear. Still, it's hard to argue with Sebastian being at his devilish best, simultaneously caring for Ciel and gleefully ripping open a tank like my cat Ollie trying to get into the recycling. Even if this was a preparatory episode, it's still very enjoyable, and it makes me glad that devils and demons in the old fairy stories often end up better than the witches.

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Black Butler: Emerald Witch Arc is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.