Annabel, Duke And Pluto: Similarities Between Conflicting Parties

Annabel, Duke and Pluto: Similarities Between Conflicting Parties

We're now well into Nevermore Season Two, and having been in the mood to word vomit about this topic for far too long now, it’s finally time that I went into some thoughts I’ve been having about Annabel, Duke and Pluto.

As Lenore’s love interest and closest companions respectively, there was always going to be a lot of interest in the dynamic between Annabel and the boys, and with Annabel’s involvement with putting Duke behind the wall and especially Duke and Pluto’s murder attempt, the dynamic between these three is going to be fascinating to see develop onwards. Any further interactions between them are going to be tense and any further conflict between them is going to be personal, and with Duke currently being in possession of Chekhov’s gun in letter form, a possible need for them to cooperate with each other might be coming up sooner than any of them could ever expect.

I bring all of this up because, with the information we have presently, Annabel might be able to add two more people to what might as well a growing collection of ‘I fear only a few people have truly ever understood me and i fucking hate the guys’, with Annabel sharing noticeable similarities with Duke and Pluto, as well as both potential and actual key factors in their respective deaths.

Duke and Annabel

Oh Duke and Annabel...from a comedic shove out of the way during the maze, to both of them being involved with a plan to kill the other in their first week at Nevermore. These two are so much fun to delve into, and their building similarities is going to make the inevitable need for them to work together so much sweeter. Before we get into the big one, here’s a few that I wanted to give a quick mention to:

Association with blue

In classic Romeo and Juliet fashion, Lenore and Annabel have clear colours associated with them and their family, with Annabel being commonly associated with blue, with some additional cold colours mixed in. Keeping this detail in mind, it was very interesting to see that two of the main colours in Duke’s spectre design were purple, a colour we’ve mainly seen him in through his dressing gown, and blue. Particularly with Duke’s spectre being revealed during the Cellar arc, having Duke and Annabel be connected with a shared colour can both highlight their equal importance to Lenore, as well as emphasise the split that resulted from the reveal that Annabel was the one that suggested Duke be the one that the acolytes trapped behind the wall.

Performers

Performance holds particularly significance to both of them, although in very different manners.

Duke made a career out of performing while he was alive, appearing to be a successful one to boot. While his status as a performer was only confirmed in episode 72, Duke’s passion for the stage was easy to see early on, from his dramatics, his mannerisms and his attempt to encourage Pluto in episode 17 to name a few examples. Since we only have one flashback for Duke at this moment, it is difficult to speculate the possible extent his profession affected his personal life while he was alive, but considering how he died…might be something we want to put a pin in for a later time.

While Annabel doesn’t share the same attachment to the literal stage, performance is something that runs deep throughout her life and her time at Nevermore. To use her own wording ‘everything in life is an act’.

Annabel spent her whole life presenting herself as the perfect high society lady, having to consistently conceal any feelings that would be seen as improper in fear that she would be considered mad. This survival tactic continued to be a necessary tool to Annabel even after her death, with the academy being structured in such a manner to encourage conflict, deceit and violence among the students. Funny how Annabel has had to perform throughout her life and even needed to perform an encore after she’s six feet under, while the literal performer has had more opportunities to exist authentically.

Relationship with Lenore

Especially after the events of the Cellar arc, Lenore’s respective relationships with Annabel and Duke and what they have represented for Lenore’s desire to escape with the misfits and Annabel are ripe for picking when it comes to analysis. Keeping the focus on Annabel and Duke, they obviously both care deeply for Lenore, but it’s interesting to see their unknowingly shared sentiments when it comes to her:

-Both sharing the belief that Lenore is able to make anything possible (special note goes to my lovely friend likeastars for this point)

-Both encouraging Lenore not to place unnecessary guilt on herself

-Their reactions to Montresor's comment about Lenore's 'hysteria'

-Then of course, we have...

Betrayal

With those similarities sorted though, time to get into the big one: both Annabel’s and Duke’s deaths were the result of a betrayal.

In order for her manifest, Annabel was informed that she was murdered, being, as all Nevermore theorists know by heart at this point, ‘betrayed by the one who loved you above all else else’. Considering this description was given to her by the deans, and we as an audience are privy to the knowledge that the deans were making an active attempt to separate Lenore and Annabel by making Annabel manifest the way she did, it would be fair to take this wording for a hint of salt. For example, there's the possibility that the one who murdered Annabel and the one who betrayed her are two different people. However, considering that this description did make Annabel manifest, I believe the reliability of this description is acceptable for the time being.

In episode 83, we see that Duke died in a sabotaged water torture cell, with Duke desperately attempting to call for help when he discovered the top of the cell wouldn't move, only for his assistant to cover up Duke’s distress as a part of the act before turning around to smirk at Duke as the curtain went down.

This similarity between their deaths is intriguing by itself, but as BlacknedSoul pointed out in one of their wonderful posts, how they have reacted to these betrayals and how it has currently affected their relationships in Nevermore is really fascinating to compare.

Specific discussion around who shot Annabel is going to be saved for a later section in this post, but while the identity of Annabel’s murderer and what exactly happened are important for further understanding Annabel’s headspace while in the academy, the main factor at hand remains unchanged: Annabel was betrayed. A betrayal that led to her death. Annabel felt close enough to this person, trusted this person enough, that their actions were a betrayal to her, and with our current knowledge about Annabel while she was alive, the number of people that could possibly fit this description is already incredibly low as it is.

As we have clearly seen throughout season one, this betrayal has had a significant impact on Annabel’s willingness to trust anyone outside of Lenore, claiming that everyone would turn against them if they learnt about their scheme when Lenore questions why she couldn’t let Duke and Pluto in on their plans during episode 28. Though a level of caution is more than understandable given their current situation, Annabel’s mistrust appears to go beyond this. That betrayal is not a possibility but a certainty. While she has made some progress, with her desiring to have a genuine friendship with Prospero and everything that has currently happened in the Wild Hunt arc, Annabel’s fear of the possible consequences of letting anyone in on her and Lenore’s plan cannot be more clearly emphasised than it is in episode 98.

Lenore attempts to tell Duke the truth about her and Annabel as a final resort to prevent Duke and Pluto from killing Annabel, and Annabel looks on at her in absolute terror. Her life is currently being threatened, she is possibly moments away from falling to her death, and yet all her fear is focused on Lenore's attempt to confess.

She immediately does what she can to stop Lenore in her tracks, yelling out that ‘I won’t let you get away from this!’ before attempting to drag Duke over the railings with her. I don't think this can be emphasised enough, Annabel would literally prefer to fall to her death than have Lenore tell Duke to truth. She is so positive that there would be irrecoverable negative consequences to the misfits learning the truth that death would be a preferable option to her.

We don’t know the extent of Duke’s relationship with his assistant at the moment, nor his exact motivations for having Duke killed. Hell, we don’t even know their name. However, it appears Duke at the very least had a level of trust in him, considering that our unnamed man was in the position of Duke’s assistant in the first place. As per the role of an assistant, he would be entrusted with preparations for all of Duke's acts, acts that would put Duke's life at risk if something were to go wrong. Duke had entrusted his safety in his assistant’s hands, and what does his assistant do? He takes advantage of his position, and gets him killed.

Despite what happened to him, it doesn’t appear that his death has negatively impacted his ability to trust others in the same manner it has for Annabel. We can see through his relationships with Lenore, Pluto and the rest of the misfits that he’s still quite open to forming connections and trusting relationships with others, far more than Annabel originally showed. Even after what happened between him and Lenore in episodes 98 and 99, something that occurred after he remembered how he died and could cause him to have more caution going forward, he still has complete faith in Lenore's abilities and is the first person to take part in the blood oath after Lenore. While he is comparingly more open to others than Annabel, that doesn’t mean that Duke is completely free of caution or is immediately welcoming when it comes to others. There are some small examples that illustrate this, such as him underestimating and being willing to ditch Pluto in the maze before Pluto showed he was much more capable than Lenore and Duke originally gave him credit for, as well as him being hesitant about Berenice and Eulalie first joining them when they went to look for a hideout. The main example here though this how he cautions Lenore about how she interacts with certain people in the academy. We see this most when referring to Annabel and Ada.

Through Duke's cautioning, episode 38 provide us with this important scene:

Duke appeared to end up the victim of a manipulator. He put his trust in the wrong person and it ended up getting him killed. While he might no remember the details of his death at the time of this scene, one of the last things he would want is for someone important to him to go through such an experience.

When Lenore's and Annabel's connection is revealed to the misfits, there is no way these experiences of betrayal aren't at least touched on, and with the topics discussed in the next section of these post, deep experiences of broken trusts are not going to stop there.

Pluto and Annabel

When it comes to Annabel and Pluto, while we have some fun surface level similarities, such as them both being English while coming from very different backgrounds and regions of England, there are two main similarities I want to dig into: the complexities in their relationships with their fathers and the current absence of their mothers.

Relationship With Their Fathers

We haven’t seen too much from both their fathers, with Ira, Annabel’s father, appearing in three episodes and Pluto’s father only appearing in one. Nevertheless, they have left us a good amount to chew on in very different ways.

When it comes to Annabel and her father, I don’t doubt that the two dearly love each other, with one of Annabel’s first concerns after Lenore presents her plan to elope and run away to her being what would become of her father, and Ira being shown to take great pride in his daughter. However, we can quickly see problems in their relationship start to present themselves when Ira reacts to Annabel’s panic attack. We’ve seen that Ira is someone that places great importance in appearances and maintaining advantageous relationships. Some prime example of this can be seen with him arranging a suitable husband for Annabel in case no one can beat her by the end of her third social season and the reasoning behind Annabel meeting with Lenore in the first placing being that Ira wished to know Lenore’s father better. With this starting to be established even before Ira made his first appearance, it should be of little surprise that Ira is quick to dismiss Annabel's panic attack, something that mind you, was brought on when Annabel learnt that someone she seemingly spent time with on a daily basis for six months died in a terrible house fire.

No matter what love Ira does have for Annabel, this concern surrounding appearances and what he believes is best for Annabel ultimately dismisses and neglects Annabel’s emotional needs. There can be discussions around how much of his reaction here is motivated by his concerns about preserving his image, in comparison with possible concerns about the consequences Annabel could face if someone else caught her in such a state, but the way Ira switches to calling Annabel by her name back to calling her ‘dearest’ once Annabel has ‘calmed’ herself is very telling.

When it comes to Pluto and his father…honestly I think I can just gesture in the direction of episode 83 and any point I could make about how fucked that relationship is will be well enough illustrated.

To further discuss though, there is the popular idea that Pluto’s father could have been a decent/good parent before WWI, with the aftermath sending him into a downward spiral and alcoholism, lining up with details provided to us about the narrator in ‘The Black Cat’, the short story Pluto is inspired from. I think this is very likely, especially when considering all the problems soldiers faced after returning from WWI. While this undoubtedly adds more possible tragic to Pluto and his father’s relationship, until we get confirmation of this idea, any further discussion on their relationship will be limited.

The real thing that gets me about their relationships with their fathers isn’t just the complicated nature of them, it’s how they can be tied to their deaths. Although we don’t have the complete details on Pluto’s and Annabel’s death as of yet, we do have enough to make some informed guesses, and it just so happens that with these informed guesses, their fathers are either inescapably tied to their deaths in the best case scenario, or are the ones who murdered them in the worst.

We currently have three main suspects for the person who shot Annabel: Lenore, Annabel’s childhood friend and Ira. Discussion and analysis of each of these suspects really deserves a dedicated post of its own, so I am going to keep this as brief as I can.

Despite the evidence mounted against her, I have a lot of doubts about it being Lenore. There are a number of details that don’t appear to completely fit if that was the case, with the prime one being that we know the deans were actively trying to separate Annabel and Lenore when they told Annabel how she died, and those memories greatly suggest Lenore was the one who shot Annabel. While those scenes in episode 91 would otherwise be a slam dunk, knowing about the Deans' manipulation highly suggest that either Lenore wasn't the one that shot Annabel, or the events that occurred are much more complicated than those panels would lead us to believe.

Next, we have Annabel’s childhood friend. While the details episode 42 provided about him definitely stood out enough for me to put a pin in him for the time being, the fact that we haven’t to met him yet and there currently being no further reference of him since episode 42, it’s harder to make a solid case about him being the one that shot Annabel. There’s also important consideration needed to whether Annabel would be close enough with/have enough trust in him that his actions would be considered a betrayal. Given the way she described him, it doesn’t seem likely at the moment.

Finally, we have Ira. Given what we know about him, there is a strong case to be made against him. He could both believably fit the description of ‘the one that loved you above all else’, as well as have his actions be seen as a betrayal in Annabel’s eyes. Furthermore, with what we discussed about him before, it wouldn't be hard to put together a motivation for him. If/when White Raven’s plan was exposed, it isn't too hard to believe that he would shoot both of them in a desperate attempt to cover everything up and preserve his image. I could see him believing it as a kinder fate for Annabel than if she survived. Rather than being seen as a mad woman, institutionalised for trying to run off with a other woman, she could be seen as a poor victim, manipulated by a violent criminal and losing her life because of their wicked schemes (totally not covering up for the shame he would face if the public were to discover the truth, why would you even think that?). Even if Ira doesn’t end up as the one to pull the trigger, there is no way that he wasn’t at least involved in the events that led up to Annabel’s death. He can been seen chaperoning Annabel and 'Leo''s walk through the rose garden, he is friends with Lenore's father and him and Annabel were staying with the damn Vandernachts during the social season. There is no way that he wasn't involved with the discovery of White Raven's plan.

Pluto’s death is much easier to break down in comparison to Annabel. We know that Pluto felt relieved in his final moments and that, judging by how his spectre first manifested, he likely died by hanging.

Taking these factors in combination with the plot of ‘The Black Cat’ and what we currently know about Pluto’s home environment, there are two main theories on how Pluto died. Either Pluto committed suicide or his father murdered him. I don’t believe I have anything specific to further support one theory over the other, but I think I'm currently leaning towards his father killing him at the moment. Like with Ira though, given the…well everything about Pluto’s father, even if he didn’t murder him, there is no doubt in my mind that he was at least involved with what happened to Pluto.

Current Absence of Their Mothers

Currently, Annabel's and Pluto's mothers have yet to appear in the series. Now, you can fairly point this out as being a bit of a stretch. After all, the only characters so far to have both their parents shown to us are the Vandernacht siblings. Why should the absence of their mothers pose particular interest compared to the absence of Prospero's father for example? I have two reasons for this.

The first reason concerns how the absence of their mothers could have impacted the relationships Annabel and Pluto have with their fathers. While this hasn't been confirmed, the absence of their mothers clearly implies one thing: neither of them are in the picture anymore. If this is the case, that leaves us with the big question of 'why?'. I would place a bet on them both being dead, but we obviously don't have anything that could confirm or deny this at the moment. However, how and when their mothers left the picture would undoubtedly effect how the two's relationships with their fathers would have developed. For example, I would imagine there would be noticeable differences in Pluto and his father's relationship depending on if his mother died before, during or after WWI.

The second reason is that there are certain details about Annabel and Pluto, both in the webtoon and the work they were inspired from, that suggest that their mothers will have a decent amount of importance in their backstories.

Annabel's Mother

The current status of Annabel’s mother has to be one of the things I'm most intrigued about when it comes to the casts' backstories. While there isn’t a particular character from Annabel’s poem that we could draw from to speculate on her personality, the themes surrounding Annabel's story, and especially two key aspects of Annabel’s character, could both inform what Annabel’s mother was like and the impact she could have had on Annabel.

The first aspect I'm referring to is Annabel’s view on becoming a matriarch. As stated in episode 42, Annabel considered getting married and becoming a lady of the house death, that card games would be one of the only things that could stave off the building madness as she’s forced to go through the motions expected from such a role, with particular emphasis on needlepoint, needlepoint, the goddamned needlepoint. This stance naturally feels like something that could have been impacted by how Annabel saw her mother and how her mother acted, especially with Annabel having such a distinct distain for needlepoint. For example, it’s possible that Annabel’s mother was similar to what we've seen of Lucille, Lenore’s mother. Being lifeless around the house, constantly doing needlepoint to pass the time.

The second aspect I'm referring to is Annabel’s fear of going mad. We first delve into Annabel's fear during episode 66, where we received these important scenes:

We currently don’t know when this fear started to surface, however, in combination with her mother's absence and the knowledge that Annabel has been experiencing panic attacks since she was younger, there's the possibility that this fear is at least partially rooted in how her mother was treated, if she was seen as 'hysteric', and/or treatment and teaching from her mother when Annabel was experiencing a panic attack.

Until we learn anything about Annabel's mother, all we can really do is speculate, but with everything we current know about Annabel, there is the potential for some compelling and tragic reveals.

Pluto's Mother

With Pluto’s mother, she is particularly interesting since she actually has a character from Pluto’s story that she could be drawn from: the narrator’s wife.

In ‘The Black Cat’, the narrator states that he married early, expressing the following about his wife throughout the short story:

‘my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point’

‘my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures’

‘[from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself], my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers’

When the narrator attempts to kill the second black cat with an axe, his wife stops him, with the narrator killing her instead. The narrator then hides her body behind a brick wall in their cellar.

Now, do I think Pluto’s mother met the same fate as the narrator’s wife in the Black Cat? No. It currently seems very unlikely that she would have met the exact same fate for following reasons:

1) The narrator’s wife dies after the first cat loses his eye and is killed, and from the limited amount we’ve seen, Pluto’s mother already appears to be out of the picture when Pluto loses his eye.

2) Aspects from this part of Pluto’s story have been used during the cellar arc. In ‘The Black Cat’, the narrator uses a crow bar to dislodge bricks from the wall in order to hide his wife’s body, and we see Pluto also use a crow bar while trying to dislodge the bricks that are keeping Duke trapped. Furthermore, when the police came to the house in search of the narrator’s missing wife, the second cat alerts both to the body’s location, with the police tearing down the wall to reveal that the second cat had been walled in with the body. This event can be linked to how Pluto was the one that helped Duke finally manifest, allowing him to escape the wall.

3) If Pluto’s mother was murdered by his father, who then hid her body behind a wall, I think this information would have been revealed to us during the Cellar arc. Unless Pluto never found out about it (which holy shit, I don’t think I would want him to find out if that ends up to be the case), you would think such a specific event like ‘a group of people trapping one of your closest friends behind a wall and leaving them to die’ would spark up some memories about what would hypothetically be one of the most traumatic experiences of your life.

Placing her current status to the side for now, the fact that Pluto's mother has a character she could be drawn definitely, at least in my eyes, increases the chances that she is going some make some appearance in the future. Furthermore, if we were to use descriptions of the narrator's wife to speculate what Pluto's mother was like, it lines up quite well with what we've seen from Pluto, with special mention being able to be given to his name.

During episode 103, when Eulalie asks Pluto about knowing the myths surrounding Charon, he replies with 'My name is "Pluto"'. It was interesting to see mentioned, since while we know on a meta level that Pluto gets his name from the short story he's inspired from, 'Pluto' is far from a name you would expect from an English man born to a working class family some time in the 1900s.

Both his name and knowledge on mythology could suggest that mythology was an interest of one or both of his parents, and with the narrator's wife being 'at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition', I could totally see Pluto getting his name from his mother.

What could this mean going forward?

So, with all of this covered, how could it potentially be used in the story going forward?

It's hard to say when Annabel will be interacting with either of the boys next, but with her swearing that they will regret trying to kill her, it isn't going to be pretty if Lenore isn't around. Most significantly though, we have the inevitable reveal to the misfits that Lenore and Annabel knew each other while they were alive and have been working together.

With a literal letter that details Lenore's and Annabel's relationship being in play, no matter if Lenore does or does not 'die' during this arc, there is no way that letter isn't getting read by someone, whether it is by Duke or by a completely different party.

Taking into account what we have discussed and current tension between Annabel's group and the misfits, there is no way this reveal is going to go smoothly for anyone, since just to quickly review, we have:

Annabel - has shown that she is willing to die if it means preventing her and Lenore's secret from being revealed.

Duke - died because his assistant betrayed him.

Pluto - got blinded in one of his eyes by someone he should have been able to trust.

Throw in the rest of the misfits and we have a time bomb of emotions waiting to explode, with many of them having experiences that could more than understandably make them react more poorly than they might have if they knew sooner.

If Lenore wishes to achieve the best possible outcome from this reveal, then I can only hope she realise that, especially after both Duke and Annabel nearly dying, keeping these secrets is only going to make things worse in the long run. The longer she hides her relationship with Annabel, the worse the misfits' reactions could potentially be, and if she doesn't explain to Annabel why she believes telling the misfits the truth is necessary, Annabel has shown she is willing to go to extreme lengths to protect their secret.

Even if the reveal goes as smooth as it could, actually working together is going to be a massive work in progress. We know that they have common ground that they could connect with, but when and how they would actually see that...only time will tell.