A post made by @redladydeath the other day about Grell and William showing emotions made me really think about all the Shinigami and their emotions. When I started considering the matter, the Shinigami we see the most often do seem to have some issues.
Grell:
Grell is easily the most emotional of the Shinigami. In fact, itās rare to see her calm and quiet. Even when sheās alone, sheās complaining or displaying a talent for innuendos. Even after killing Madam Red, she took the time to lecture the corpse.
But itās not always clear about how genuine Grellās emotions are most of the time. Everything is so over the top. It seems as if most of what we see is an act or at least an exaggeration.
William:
On the surface, William seems like Grellās exact opposite. Heās not overly emotional at all. In fact, he almost acts as if he doesnāt feel. The only emotions heās really displayed much is the occasional annoyance or anger.
This isnāt to say he doesnāt feel. He makes a speech about how itās pointless to bring emotions to their work, but itās seems odd to say such a thing unless you do feel.
I think he does feel, but he tries to hide the fact he has these emotions. In fact, heās more like Grell then he first appears. Both are hiding deeper emotions but doing it in exactly opposite ways. Grell exaggerates every little thing in order to hide what sheās truly feeling, while William pretends to feel very little.
Ronald:
On the surface, Ronald seems the most easy going of the three. He likes to have fun and flirt. His emotions donāt seem exaggerated nor is he hiding the fact he feels. At the same time, he can casually flirt with a woman he knows is about to die.
I donāt think Ronaldās actually cold-hearted, but that does seem a bit crude. This leads me to another possibility. Ronaldās smile and easy nature could be his method of hiding his deeper emotions. He might be doing the exact thing as Grell and William but in his own way.
It seems possible that this is a common problem for Shinigami. They were human and still have some of the same emotions. However, feeling too much when your job is collecting souls and watching people die could drive you insane. Many Shinigami would have to come up with defense mechanisms, which is what is happening with Grell, William, and Ronald.
Undertaker was a Shinigami for what we assume was a long time. The way heās always searching for laughter could have actually been the method that he learned to cope. Also, like the others, his actual emotions can be hard to read.
Whatās interesting to me, however, is that the only Shinigami we know that has deserted, is the only one weāve seen openly cry.
Thoughts?
So slightly jacking this post to add thoughts:
Okay I know a lot of people would argue using musical canon is iffy but Yana has adhered to literally every other bit of musical canon as far as theĀ ārulesā of shinigami apply. Theres a line in Shinigami Haken that actually somewhat addresses this. As They are going through their rules this line comes up-
Number 5! We work coldly without even a smile.
The fact that this is an actual rule not just a habit of theirs, is curious. Also looking at musical canon this is probably predominantly to avoid risk of Thorns, which is something that hasnāt been exactly touched upon in the Manga. In short The Thorns are contracted when a soul destined to die becomes vengeful and fight against the reaper and eventually will kill them, it wasnāt named but shown in the Tale of the Shinigami William OVA, and in TMBDitW Alan is stated to have been sympathetic to the souls he reaped and allowed them to attack him.Ā
That being said I highly doubt this is the ONLY reason for the rule but it could be a reason.Ā
With how much Undertaker is lingering on those amulets, with his experiments of trying to reanimate the dead, he might of cared ALOT about some people he had to reap.
Heres where things get real interesting. There is no known cure for the thorns. Theres only the rumor of collecting 1000 pure souls (collecting not reaping there is a distinctive difference). Even in TMBDitW we dont know if it would work since Eric only reached 999.Ā
Grell got reprimanded for killing a few people not on the list. Eric was going to be not just eliminated but any and all record of his existence was going to be wiped out.
Now Im not saying that Undertaker cares way too much about (some) mortal lives, developed the thorns, and went rogue trying to cure himself so he can continue trying to find a way to save those he lovedā¦ but Yana choosing the point of time to bring Eric and Alans death into manga canon seemed fishy to me and im totally saying undertakerĀ
In the Kuroverse there are a plethora of Grim Reaper characters, with at least 9 distinct Grim Reaper personalities all meddling with the human world. But why would Yana Toboso bother to include so many Grim Reapers? Surely one or two could get the single job they all do (reaping souls so you can see backstory) done? (like Scotland Yard with its 2 members)
A characteristic the Grim Reapers share is boredom (like the Undertaker, William, Ludger) or a longing for innovation in their monotonous jobs, and lives (Grell, Ronald, Sasha, Othello).
Sashaās reaction goes to show how boring and unchanging the Grim Reaper world is. The Grim Reaper institution as complained about by many, is a strict and rigid society.
And when you want to start a revolution, you need multiple people to make an impact. So the Undertaker could be helping them in a revolution to change the way their society is run, bringing attention to his work to give them a shock or bribe with the reanimated corpses that seem to be causing trouble for them, so that the world of the Grim Reapers is ultimately reformed, allowing more innovation and individuality, and better working conditions, and help for those who are sick
(A reference to the Musical āthe most beautiful death in the worldā, in which Alan and Eric leave the Grim Reaper department because Alanās rare illnesses requires a sacrifice of one thousand souls to be cured).
Why does William hate overtime so much anyways. What are the hobbies he does outside of work? Not organising a revolution group I hopeā¦
(In the official translation, the words to piss him off are āIāveĀ always been part of the anti- overtime school to begin withā) I see him as the mostly likely candidate for the leader because why act like such a goody-two-shoes, punishing everyone for breaking rules he knows off by heart, when he clearly hates his job, and doesnāt want to be there doing it for a second longer than he has too?
Basically every character introduced by Yana Toboso plays a further role somewhere down the track (and if they donāt, they die), so Iām pondering the role of the abundance of Grim Reaper characters.
We know basically NOTHING about the supernatural elements of the Kuroverse, especially the home worlds and societies of demons and Grim Reapers, so I donāt really have any hard evidence for or against this Shinigami uprising theory, itās just food for thought.
[Iāll be discussing these ideas under the assumption that Shinigamis working for their āforgivenessā means that theyāre working to gain access into heaven, though this hasnāt been explicitly stated. Some of this is just theories on top of theories, I fully admit it, so Iām not stating any of this as a solid idea.]
I was talking about Undertaker being a deserter with @midnight-in-town and she pointed out how in chapter 105, Sascha said there are others who have seceded too:
But the fact that Sascha says āevery once in awhileā makes it seem not so common – especially considering the whole world would have Shinigamis, it could be centuries in between a single country having a āseceder.ā Still, this got me thinking whether or not thatās a giant flaw within in whole Grim Reaper system considering theyāre dealing with peopleās souls. It seems risky right? And where are the limits on these faults?
This is all just speculation, and some of this is really a shot in the dark, so if anybody else has an idea, feel free to sayā¦
The General Purpose of the Shinigami Dispatch
Letās first look at why the system is set up as it is in the first place for the Shinigamisā sake – not for the souls.
Individual Meaning
The fact that there are deserters shows that there is free will. The Shinigamis have kept this component of human nature even after death. The Dispatch is not some sort of collective mindset, though as a whole they seem to generally agree on what matters (the souls).
From what theyāve said and how Iāve taken it, being a Shinigami is basically a second chance for a person to not go to hell under the belief that suicide a mortal sin. The only difference between them and regular people, besides their new supernatural abilities, is that their āsecond lifeā is set up to basically force them to have to appreciate life. In our life, one learns that through friendships, helping others, supporting othersā¦for a Shinigami, theyāre left to learn this through witnessing other people. Itās hard for them – itās a punishment, after all. Itās not our traditional sense of improving as a person. But presumably itās effective.Ā
In my opinion, itās basically an alternative to hell or traditional purgatory – itās like a very specific purgatory for these people who took their own lives.
However, because it requires individual thought, they canāt rely on others to pull them through. Back to my initial statement, they still have to have free will so that they can individually make decisions and come to their personal enlightenment by their own terms. The horrible thing is that with free will, there are bound to be deserters. Iāll get to that in a bit though.
Collectively
Despite the individuality, I think they can help each other some, though. Just the next in the chapter, Sascha calls being a Shinigami a vocation:
Ā This is seen as odd for a lot of reasons. A vocation is, by definition:
In other words, itās your calling. Itās your purpose. And thatās a pretty grim purpose. The only reason I can think as a vocation – which would give it more reason than individual contemplation – is that they can at least be there to help motivate the others towards forgiveness.
So, if one does fail, that canāt settle well for any of them who knew that Shinigami. It might even make it more of a personal offense.Ā
TheĀ āSecedersā – So are they a Risk?
If people were perfect, the Dispatch as a pathway for redemption would work and theyād learn their lesson with no problem and presumably get to heaven (if thatās the purpose of the Shinigami Dispatch in the first place). Well, if people were perfect, they wouldnāt need this as a path in the first place. But the point is there: with having human qualities such as free will, there is room for mistake. Mild mistakes arenāt a big deal, but what about the big ones? Can these ādesertersā be forgiven?
Grell was forgiven. There was a punishment of course, but it wasnāt too long afterwards (especially for an immortal being) that they were back to their regular Shinigami post. Grellās not a complete deserter, though.
This leaves the question if Shinigamis have it easier than humans though on their path to salvation, because if theyāre supposedly immortal and can have second chances until they reach āenlightenmentā (we assume), then that means they canāt ever be sent to hell. This seems to give them an advantage over people in their āfirst life.ā Is this fair? I donāt know.
ā¦or certain offenses are considered unforgivable and Undertaker crossed that line. But what could be worse than murder, like Grell? Is it worse to just desert than to murder but not consider yourself different?
Grell may have murdered the physical body, but murder does not equate to ruining the soul.
So is it that Undertaker messes with souls? Some say he wants to revive those on the lockets, others argue that the bizarre doll soul-tampering in general is bad enoughā¦but Undertaker had already quit before he started doing this. At least, he must have because he says he hasnāt been an active Shinigami in 50+ years and we donāt know enough to say if he started tampering with souls earlier. Nothing says iirc.
That means the other option is that he thought his past actions couldnāt be forgiven, even if he could have, so he figured nothing mattered and went a step further to steal the souls and then it became unforgivable for real. Or maybe he didnāt care or want forgiveness, but now he doesnāt want to die and go to hell either so he hides out and works on his more taboo stuff because heās got nothing to lose so long as heās not caught.
In short: When UT deserted originally, maybe it wasnāt a āriskā but just regular personal rebellion from free will. Now heās messing with souls and like the impending WW1 plot, everything suddenly becomes a bigger deal for Shinigamis.
Sascha mentioned deserters, but never said that a deserter was somebody who messed with souls. Every Shinigami weāve seen except Undertaker have seen the souls as something not to mess with.Ā
So is this Dispatch Association actually a risky, flawed system?
In my opinion, as a whole, flaws are not necessarily a risk. āSecederā can mean a lot of things, and it could just mean Shinigamis trying to escape in general. Undertaker may be special (in a negative way), and thatās what makes the plot more interesting. Regular Shinigamis arenāt a threat, and deserters arenāt a threat necessarily if they live as people without trouble. Maybe Undertaker stands out as the first real threat to people. It could have been tried before, but the new technology of the 1800ā²s is actually making it worrisome because it could be possible.
I really like a lot of whatās mentioned here since thereās so much speculation going around about the Shinigami and their punishment.Ā Iād like to add Eric as an example from the musical though, since he was also tampering with soulsāor rather capturing them in attempts to use themĀ for Alanās recovery from the Thorns of Death.Ā Ā Furthermore, even though Shinigami are technicallyĀ immortals, they can still be killedĀ as proven by Ericās and Alanās deaths, at which their second chance ended.Ā For all their strengths theĀ ShinigamiĀ have their own perils to face, such a fighting against demons over souls.
Ā Even more than that, theyāre not immune to their own Death Scythes, so it’sĀ actually possible for them to attemptĀ commit suicide a second time if they tried.Ā (This, I personally believe, is the main reason Death Scythes have to be registered andĀ are kept under such rigid control by Dispatch.Ā In the OVA, āThe Tale of Will the Shinigami,ā we even see that Death Scythes basically have to be checked out of General Affairs before they can be used by the agents in Collections.)Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā
Weāve seen Shinigami die, but weāve never seen one we knew had been āforgiven.“Ā That leads to the question of what happens when theyĀ are forgiven?Ā Do they simply disappear and move on?Ā And what about someone likeĀ Alan, who contracted the Thorns of Death and perhaps possibly never learned before the diseaseĀ took his life?Ā What happens for those who are made to faceĀ their death a second time?Ā What if itās onlyĀ after their second death that they are judged for Heaven or Hell?Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā
In a video I watched a few months ago about suicide victims that had jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, it said that out of theĀ 1% of survivors, every one of them said they regretted their decision instantly.Ā The victim they were interviewing, Kevin Hines,Ā (who is now an author btw) said that, "The millisecond my hands left the rail,Ā it was an instant regretā and thatĀ he remembered thinking, āNo oneās gonna know that I didnāt want to die."Ā Ā Taking that information and putting it intoĀ perspective for the Shinigami, I see many of them holding that same regret and seceders stemming more so from a loss of hope in the endlessness of their situationĀ or a case of desperation.Ā
I like both your thoughts a lot and I just wanted to contribute on a few things š
About the Undertaker
Here comes the rambling part but UT is an extremely interesting character to analyze. To sum up: I think that when he went back to the human world after deserting becauseĀ āhe got curiousā it wasnāt a crime in itself since, as wondrouswatchdog pointed out with Grell, Iām pretty sure he would have been forgiven at that time (because deserters are a thing).
No one expects the Shinigami job to be easy, except maybe for Sascha because itās theirĀ āvocationā, since itās to be taken as a long punishment in the first place, until the Shinigamis learn their lessons about giving up on their own life.Ā
So back to UT, I agree that he probably became a threat from the moment he started messing with souls and death but, and thatās where it becomes interesting for me, you were wondering whether he cared or not and I actually donāt think he gives a single care about his actions.
Whoever those seven guys were and no matter how they got along with him, theyāre the reason he probablyĀ āforgotā he wasnāt really a living human until death came by for them and he found himself all alone once again. UT is a character made of contradictions but the main thing is that, while every reader surely thought he was just funny in the head with probable sociopathic tendencies for a long time, ch105 was the first proof that heās in reality becoming totally desperate, hence the impossible BD project and many other crazy things (like sacrificing a big amount of people on the Campania for his experiments).
(You can see it pretty well actually: UT in the Campania arc with Ryan is just beyond ruthless with his words even though heās also responsible for all the dead people, while he became very emotional after just seeing a picture of Vincent in his younger days. It wouldnāt be an understatement to say that he might be losing it for real)
I think seceders/deserters in general are just guys who canāt put up with the job anymore and itās understandable because redemption after a sin like suicide would certainly never be so easy to reach (so they probably have to work for a looong time), but while UT probably started as aĀ ānormal secederā (he had enough of his job + curiosity), things escalated when those seven guys died.
We have no idea about his previous life and how long he worked as a Shinigami, but we can guess he might have forgotten there was a time limit to his enjoyment with a few humans he found particularly interesting and thatās probably what started it all: if he found a new interest in ālivingā at the side of those seven guys, the fact death took them away from him is something he probably couldnāt accept.Ā ā¦And itās even worse in case he actually had a family with one of them as some theories propose.Ā
So I really think UT stands out asĀ āthe first real threatā from the Shinigami world (if anything because BDs were probably never a thing before, according to Will + Grell + Ronald) and if heās caughtā¦ I donāt think redemption or forgiveness will be considered at all.
About the Death Scythes
Really good point on death scythes being able to inflict major damages even to Shinigamis and this is just a headcanon of mine, but I wouldnāt be surprised if some of UTās scars were actually done by a death scythe. ā¦ To be entirely honest, at one point I even considered the idea that maybe he indeed tried to attempt suicide a second time at the beginning of his time as a Shinigami by stabbing himself through the heart or by trying to cut his own head.
Time will tell what these scars really are about but I justā¦ wouldnāt be surprised.
As for Redemptionā¦
The whole point of the Shinigami job is toā¦
give a chance to people who committed suicide not to go to Hell directly by having them watch countless records of people with probably happier lives than them (not always, but still)
have a way to collect human souls
So I think that if/when a Shinigami was punished enough (= worked nicely for a really really long time), then redemption can be reached because they learnt their lesson and in that case, they donāt necessarily have to go to Hell but instead their tortured soul can rest in peace.
Technically Iām thinking that in Kuro, even though suicide is a major sin, theĀ ārulesā take into account that people who committed such an act were probably extremely sad and desperate, and even though they have to be punished and to learn what exactly they gave up on, mercy and forgiveness can still be upon them if they repent enough.
As you said silyabeeodess though, suicide can also be a decision takenĀ āout of the blueā in a real moment of desperation so maybe the Shinigami job is also a way toĀ āgive them a chanceā at gaining peace in the afterlife, because humans make mistakes and suicide can definitely be one of them (as through my own experience of talking with people who committed suicide and who were saved, I always heard that they regretted trying, not necessarily just for them but also for the people they would have left behind).
š„ There is beauty in destructionš„ 