The Case Study of Vanitas

Episode 12

I'm not sure how I missed it until this week, but I've just noticed that Murr's heterochromatic eyes each take a hue from one of our two main characters: he has one purple eye (like Noé) and one blue eye (like Vanitas). That may turn out to just be a fun detail, but it could also speak to the link between the two men, one that is clearly going to be tested with increasing frequency when the second half of the series starts in January. Noé's moment this week, when he appeared to become overwhelmed by the scent of Vanitas' blood, certainly feels like an indicator of Ruthven's machinations. His seemingly last-minute decision not to kill Noé, but instead to bind him with a kind of blood oath, speaks to the fact that he believes that he can use Noé to get to Vanitas. (Or someone else, but my money's on Vanitas.) Noé being on the verge of wanting to bite the other man may not have been his own desire, but one that has been manipulated by Ruthven's powers, or at least enhanced by them.

Why would this be something Ruthven is interested in? Most likely because as an Archiviste, Noé has the power to read the past of anyone whose blood he partakes of. Vanitas is still very much an enigma to most of the other characters (something that I daresay is deliberate on his part), and Noé's powers offer an easy way to clear that little problem up. And if it also breaks the alliance between a vampire and a human? So much the better, at least to Ruthven's way of thinking. Noé could be a very useful tool to him beyond just Vanitas' past, and finding a way to use that, to separate Noé from Vanitas by forcing him to break the trust between them, only works in Ruthven's favor.

That it would destroy something between the two men is made very evident in this episode. Vanitas is more than just put off by Noé's desire to taste his blood – he's vehemently against it. Whether he's trying to protect one or both of them isn't clear, but it is clear that Vanitas wants to remain an unknown quantity, at least to Ruthven. When Jeanne mentioned that it was the redhead who gave her the day off, Vanitas immediately knows that he'll be going after Noé, so he may already suspect that Ruthven is behind Noé's sudden thirst. Whether or not that's why he relents at the end and allows Noé to sample his blood from his clothes and starts acting friendlier again, well, I'm not sure. But even if it's a false friendliness, it makes Noé feel better – and since he doesn't remember Ruthven forcing the oath upon him and therefore has no real idea what's behind his actions (his own slightly tortured romantic musings aside), maybe that's enough. And even if he distrusts what's going on, it's in Vanitas' best interests to keep Ruthven's newest pawn as close as possible.

As far as the next bit of plot goes, the series is introducing the real-life 18th-century story of the Beast of Gévaudin. Between 1764 and 1767, some kind of beast killed an impressively large number of people in the now-extinct Gévaudin province. The general consensus today is that it was a wolf, wolves, or wolf-dog hybrid(s); The Case Study of Vanitas naturally goes with the idea that it was a vampire, and presumably one that was (or is) a curse bearer. That's interesting in and of itself, but the more pertinent detail is that Luca's older brother is mentioned as being “Bestia Loki” in the episode, and the Occitan name for the Beast of Gévaudin is Bestia de Gavaudan. Does that mean that both Beasts stem from the same source? Is Luca's brother not as dead as he looked that one time we saw him? And can Vanitas cure either of them?

That's a question we'll have to wait until January to answer, along with Vanitas' motives in returning to a sort of friendship with Noé and what Ruthven's plans are.

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The Case Study of Vanitas is currently streaming on Funimation.