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.
I've had to think a lot about what vnc is about, not in terms of story but in terms of themes. Pandora Hearts was obviously about identity so what about vnc? Well, after what we've seen so far I think it's at least largely about trauma. There's definitely other themes at play, just like there were in PH, but trauma seems to be the main one.
All of our main characters have clearly suffered significantly before the narrative even began. For the sake of brevity I'll only be considering Vanitas, Noé, Domi and Jeanne at the moment but I do think there are interesting discussions to be had about Ruthven, Chloé, Jean-Jacques, Luca and Astolfo's trauma.
Let's look at Vanitas first. We know that his parents were killed by vampires, Moreau performed inhumane experiments on him, and he ended up under the care of VotBM. Storywise the last two seem most important to his character. He spent a significant amount of time with Moreau and we can see how the trauma from that experience shaped him. Vanitas clearly resents Moreau but he is surprisingly docile around him. When they meet in the catacombs Vanitas plasters a smile to his face and cheerily goes along with him.
Of course this is an act in order to gain information, but the way Vanitas slips into it indicates to me that it is somewhat a learned behaviour. It's easier for him to fake happiness and appease his abuser than it is to fight him. Vanitas's strategy doesn't even work for the most part, Moreau keeps his most valuable information secret and Vanitas nearly lost an eye. If Noé didn't step in Vanitas probably would have continued to comply with Moreau's requests.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
We don't know what happened between him and VotBM but we do know there is some trauma related to his time spent with her and Misha. The point is, Vanitas spent most of his childhood and adolescence in distressing situations and he's come out of it a very sad person. He closely guards information about himself and keeps other people at arms length. He despises himself outright yet it's obvious that he craves genuine kindness and affection.
His personality is often just a front he puts up, charismatic and somewhat maniacal when acting and angry, sad, and tired when sincere. He's contradictory and strange. Vanitas clearly cares about other people but he tends to mistreat them or antagonise them. His trauma taught him that people aren't trustworthy (and it's obvious where that particular idea came from) but it also taught him that he is just as bad, if not worse, than everyone else.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
