Just for me to collect my thoughts on anything noteworthy or suspicious. I forget a lot of things in the series so this should help me keep track and anyone else who wants to look back without rereading the whole series.
Okay, I've been thinking about this theory a lot lately and while I liked it when I originally read it I think years ago(?) I ultimately dismissed it due to my belief that M. Spider is 100% a vampire. However, I'm now combining it with a second theory so welcome to Johann is Monsieur Spider and a Vampire. I'll try to be brief.
Let's get Spider evidence out of the way first. As a quick note, most of this was written by (who I believe to be progenitor of the Johann/Spider theory) retracexcviii ages ago on this tumblr post here: https://retracexcviii.tumblr.com/post/676730616831787008/theory-time-mr-spider-is-johann
First point: Anime Spider
In the anime there is a frame, after Noé kicks him, in which we can see part of his face and... grey hair. It's a weird detail to add, why animate it like this at all? Showing under the mask was unnecessary and a strange thing to do unless the animators know who it is. Johann is the only character with this colour hair in the anime except arguably Veronica since Spider's hair colour isn't 100% clearly grey or white. And obviously he can't be Veronica. I guess Antoine could be an option but 1) he's not in the anime and 2) Spider is on the same side as Ruthven and Antoine displays in memoire 43 that he's at least interested in the prospect of outmaneuvering Ruthven/Luca.
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Broken arm:
As mentioned above, Noé kicked Spider into a wall. An interesting thing to note about this is that in the manga there is a crack sound effect when Noé hits him. And the next time we see Johann the same arm has been broken. He claims it was by one of Moreau's reinforced humans but it happened when he was alone with no one to corroborate this information. Dante and Riche were together when they got injured.
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Gévaudan Whereabouts:
Starting during the battle in Memoire 26 there is a period of time for which we have no idea where Johann is. We see him back to back with Dante when Charlatan arrives but a few pages later, when the Book goes out of control, he's gone and Dante is alone. I'm not sure if it would have been possible for him to do this without Dante noticing but he could have been the one who severed the Book's chain since we still have no idea who did that. And as an aside we see Jeanne, Dante, Astolfo, Marco and Noé all as the Book's power explodes. He's the only one other than Vanitas (whose reaction was already shown when the chain broke) we don't see.
