Yes, there are two of them.
Manga spoilers ahead!
Summary:
- There are two Ciels in the Black Butler manga.
- Our Ciel turned out not to be a real one.
- He took his twin brother's identity and pretended to be him.
A lot of things have happened in the Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) manga for the past years and we can only imagine how much is yet to come.
But one of the most interesting plot twists is that our main protagonist, the Ciel that we’ve been following since Chapter 1, is not the only one. Moreover, he’s not even a Ciel at all.
Twin Brothers
Turns out that the Ciel we’ve known for years is not the original Ciel, he’s his younger twin brother instead who decided to take his brother’s identity.
We don’t even know his real name, but fans have thought of a way to tell them apart. There is O!Ciel (Our Ciel; the one that’s been here since the beginning of the story) and R!Ciel (Real Ciel; his twin brother).
R!Ciel was superior in almost every aspect: he had a more charming and outgoing personality, he was stronger and healthier (his brother had asthma), more self-confident. He was just a better leader.
That’s why O!Ciel envied him and wanted to be more like him. It’s the way he thought the true Phantomhive Earl was supposed to be.
The boy that was ritually sacrificed to summon Sebastian was actually R!Ciel and not the one we thought. After that, O!Ciel stole his brother’s identity and kept living as him. But Undertaker resurrected R!Ciel and brought him back into the story.
Since R!Ciel was brought back from the dead, he’s no longer a normal human. He’s an undead Bizarre Doll with no soul. His body can no longer produce its own blood, so he needs infusions to stay alive.
O!Ciel didn’t just want to take his brother’s identity because he thought R!Ciel was superior. He was also ashamed to admit that the stronger brother had died while the weaker and a shy one survived.
Other Characters’ Reaction
The revelation about two Ciels was especially hard on Elizabeth. As it turned out, she was betrothed to R!Ciel instead of O!Ciel. When she learned that she’d been lied to, it hurt her tremendously.
Elizabeth blamed herself for not being able to tell the difference between the two Ciels and not realizing that it wasn’t her real fiancé.
There’s a great opposition between the two Ciels in the manga right now, and R!Ciel is the main antagonist in Black Butler. Various characters reacted to the reveal differently, but all the servants took O!Ciel’s side of course.