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Children of Ill Omen, sometimes translated as Children of Misfortune ( (まが) (つみ) () Magatsumi no Ko), is a term from Jun Mochizuki's Pandora Hearts, referring to a group of people born with red eyes. Prior to the Tragedy of Sablier, Children of Ill Omen were regarded as cursed beings, harbingers of disaster, and blasphemous in their very existences, and thus had been subject to considerable persecution. By the time of Oz Vessalius's escape from the Abyss, cultural knowledge of Children of Ill Omen had faded.

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This article contains plot and/or ending details for Pandora Hearts.
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There are three named, confirmed Children of Ill Omen. By order of birth, these are Lacie Baskerville, Vincent Nightray, and Xerxes Break. There was a fourth known Child of Ill Omen, killed by Levi Baskerville, though this person was never named and was only mentioned in extracanonical materials.

Definitions[]

In common usage, a "Child of Ill Omen" simply referred to a person born with at least one red eye. No other distinction was explicitly made between a person who was Ill Omened and one who was not, at least among laypeople. Those born with red eyes were referred to as "cursed," though no name existed for the curse separate from those afflicted by it. Prior to the Tragedy of Sablier, Children of Ill Omen were regarded as heralds of misfortune, and were subjected to persecution, trafficking, and abuse. After the Tragedy of Sablier, the stigma surrounding Children of Ill Omen faded, and legends of red-eyed children as those who brought calamity fell out of public consciousness.

Among Baskervilles, a Child of Ill Omen was the only being other than Glen Baskerville capable of interacting with the Core of the Abyss. These people were branded by their red eyes. As only Glen was permitted to interact with the Core, and even then only under extreme circumstances, Children of Ill Omen were regarded as heretical. Their ability to interact with the Core gave them the potential to upset the balance between the material world and the Abyss which was the Baskervilles' duty to protect, making them extremely dangerous. Children of Ill Omen were thus set for execution for their curse. This was usually carried out by an ascendant Glen, who was believed to have retroactively generated the Child of Ill Omen.

In truth the purposes for the creation of the Baskervilles, the Children of Ill Omen, and Glen which had been close secret since the beginning of time are not what they themselves had believed. Jury, the deity who created everything, conceived the Abyss as a "Tale" to be lead to a designed "End"—that is, to be destroyed. Glen is the being designated as the "Crossroads" who will lead the Tale to its End, and the Baskervilles merely exist to obey his every command and unquestioningly serve his will. The Children of Ill Omen are the sole exception to this. Created as aberrations by the Core of the Abyss herself, they exist outside of the Jury's control and perception and came into being as a direct response to counter Glen's existence. Thus the Jury's intense revulsion towards Children of Ill Omen and adamant commands for their executions.

What exactly determines a person being Ill Omened is never expanded upon aside from the characterizing attribute of red eyes. This is because Children of Ill Omen are only created retroactively, regarded as a distortion caused by the existence of Glen, and thus there are no qualities that can be considered inherent to being a Child of Ill Omen. The Core of the Abyss creates Children of Ill Omen due to her loneliness, out of her yearning desire for connection through the Abyssal desolation of her isolated life. While this motivation behind their existences greatly and deeply influences the nature of the Ill Omened, this less so determines the virtue of who they are from birth and more so indicates the character of the people they would eventually become. Rather than possessing a predestined fate from their births, the Child of Ill Omen is simply a role that a select few step into due to their values, decisions, and beliefs.

Thus all known Children of Ill Omen share many a commonality that represent the role they've accepted. They all exist as counterparts to an incarnation of Glen. They all harbor a certain awareness that grants them clarity to the nature of the universe, the design of the system that operates it, and the roles played by those around them. They are all associated with powers that countercheck the powers of the Abyss as wielded by Glen and the Jury. They are all outwardly off-putting, unsettling, and foreboding in presence; which is itself an intentional act put on by each Child. They all make deliberate use of a mask constructed from false presumptions and external expectations that explicitly serve to distance themselves from others. They all live by the same modus operandi, using and manipulating people for their own calculated ends, and without exception these ends of theirs are selfless and altruistic in intent. They all have placed absolute faith in an ideal that they believe is more valuable than their own lives. And most vitally, all of them ultimately fought for the same goal—to save the Tale from its lonely End, which itself reflects the reason for their very creation—to grant the Abyss true connection.

History[]

It is unclear when Children of Ill Omen first began to appear in the history of Pandora Hearts's world. Their existence is tied to that of Glen Baskerville, and the Child of Ill Omen was repeatedly stated to appear as a consequence of Glen's own manifestation, usually as a younger family member. It can be assumed that Children of Ill Omen began to appear sometime after the formation of the Baskerville Clan. The Child of Ill Omen's relationship to the Core of the Abyss posed a threat to Jury's control over the Abyss and the Tale. This led to the persecution of Children of Ill Omen within the Baskerville Clan and outside of it. All Children of Ill Omen were declared to be the forerunners of disaster. Jury ordered Glen Baskerville to execute any Children of Ill Omen he discovered, and the ritual execution of Children of Ill Omen was incorporated into Glen's training and ascension.

For an untold number of generations, the incumbent Glen Contracted the last of the five Black Winged Chains and summoned the Chains of Condemnation against the Child of Ill Omen. Through these means, Glen not only killed the Child of Ill Omen, but destroyed the Ill Omened soul and prevented reincarnation through the Hundred Cycles. A number of reasons were given in support of the ritual, though it was most prominently described as a form of torture for the incumbent Glen. The last Child of Ill Omen to be ritually executed by an incumbent Glen was Lacie, the younger sister of Oswald. While Vincent was slated for execution by his elder brother Gilbert, the Tragedy of Sablier separated the two of them from the Baskerville Clan.

Following the Tragedy of Sablier, without Jury and the Baskerville Clan to encourage persecution against Children of Ill Omen, public awareness of the Child of Ill Omen faded. By the time of Kevin Legnard's upbringing about fifty years after the Tragedy, knowledge of a curse marked by red eyes was obscure. It is unknown if any Children of Ill omen were born between the birth of Kevin Legnard and the conclusion of the story.

Plot[]

Swan Song Arc[]

Glen discovered the true nature of the Children of Ill Omen about a century following the Tragedy of Sablier, when Vincent Nightray accidentally harmed the otherwise invulnerable Jury. As Oswald realized only Children of Ill Omen could directly defy the Jurors, he sought Vincent's assistance in breaking open the door to the past against Jury's orders. Despite having realized that Children of Ill Omen were not truly sources of misfortune, he continued to describe Children of Ill Omen as dangerous and attempted to execute each Child of Ill Omen he encountered.

After Oswald's death, Leo, the current incarnation of Glen Baskerville, refused to partake in the persecution of Children of Ill Omen. Instead, he declared the Child of Ill Omen a necessary role within the Baskerville Clan. As it was the isolation of the Core of the Abyss which allowed for the Tragedy to begin with, he commanded Vincent, the last known living Child of Ill Omen, to serve as the Core's companion. The Child of Ill Omen was thus no longer declared a cursed existence, and did not face persecution for at least the next century to come.

Powers and Abilities[]

There are certain abilities explicitly stated to be unique to Children of Ill Omen:

  • Reality Warping - The Children of Ill Omen possessed passive abilities to warp reality, being the only entities naturally capable of defying the Jurors. Through manipulation of the Core of the Abyss, they could potentially exert active reality warping, though this never occurred in Pandora Hearts.
  • Extraplanar Vision - Children of Ill Omen were able to see across multiple dimensions. Specifically, they were able to see both the Juror's dimension and time travelers, both of which are invisible to most people.
  • Immunity to the Abyss - Children of Ill Omen are the only individuals capable of freely interacting with the Abyss, and the only ones capable of friendship and communication with the Core of Abyss, due to being beyond the perception of the Lurking Eyes.
    • At least some Chains are ineffective against Children of Ill Omen, such as when Duldee was unable to create a Duldum of Vincent.
  • Abyssal Conduit - It was stated that the Intention of the Abyss could use Vincent's body as a conduit between the material world and Abyss, which allowed her to open the Door to Abyss prior to the Tragedy of Sablier.

This list does not include speculated abilities.

Oswald stated that the abilities of human Children of Ill Omen are not as powerful as those of Baskerville Children of Ill Omen. Baskerville Children of Ill Omen have the same powers as other members of the Baskerville Clan, but do not appear to be bound to Glen Baskerville's will.

Known Children of Ill Omen[]

Lacie[]

LacieP

Lacie of the Baskerville Clan is the earliest known iteration of a Child of Ill Omen. Her entire life has been defined by her existence as an Ill Omen, and thus she represents the most strongly what it means to be Ill Omened. She has been forcibly isolated her entire life and told the reason was her very existence being abominable and dangerous beyond forgiveness. The most significant and impactful people in her life either reveled in her suffering, were fated to eventually kill her for living a cursed existence, or exploited her for their selfish goals. From childhood she always put on an outward act of capricious indifference towards everything, even her own eventual execution. But nonetheless, Lacie deeply and truly loved the world and everything within it with an earnest selflessness. She possessed a very critical worldview that allowed her to be the first to understand the true nature of her role and the origin of the Ill Omened as a whole. She over all other beings has the closest bond to the Core of the Abyss, spending her entire life and even beyond attempting to find her true connection. And the legacy she left behind persisted throughout the entire spinning of the Tale, was carried on by those who inherited it from her, and by the conclusion served as the motivation for the world's salvation and a happy turnabout for the Tale's End.

Vincent Nightray[]

VincentP

Vincent Nightray's existence as a Child of Ill Omen is counterpart to his elder brother Gilbert, who was to inherit the role of Glen Baskerville from his predecessor Oswald. However Gilbert's ascension had been interrupted by the Tragedy of Sablier and was never completed, with him even rejecting the role himself by the time of the conclusion. Vincent with his singular red eye reflects this incompleteness and rejection of the cosmic role granted to him, as for the duration of the entire Tale his singular driving motivation is to bring about his own miscarriage. This goal of his drove him to commit actions that lead to others loathing him, his self-villainization serving to justify his death. However even these roundabout suicide attempts were fully motivated by altruism and a desire to save people, and despite his claims to only love his brother Vincent demonstrably cared for near everyone who had impacted his life. By the Tale's End Vincent has given up on his suicide, instead coming fully into his existence as a Child of Ill Omen which allows him to achieve true happiness and for the persecution of all Ill Omens to end.

Xerxes Break[]

BreakP

Xerxes Break is the only Child of Ill Omen to not be a Baskerville, meaning the connection he has to the Abyss is comparatively much weaker and thus his presence as an Ill Omen is not as potent. This is reflected in one of his eyes having been lost in a violent altercation prior to the story and him spending the duration of the entire Tale possessing only one single red eye. Nevertheless his role and significance as a Child of Ill Omen is as undeniable as his impact on the Tale and his companions. His Contracted Chain the Mad Hatter is unique and infamous for harboring Chain Killing abilities, created explicitly to counter the powers of the Abyss by the Intention of the Abyss whose yearning wish he carries with him. He puts on an act that he only ever uses other people as pawns to manipulate and cannot be trusted, when in reality he deeply cares for all his comrades and continuously works hard behind to scenes to guarantee their happiness. And by the End of the Tale, Break was the bridge who showed the path and lead the rest of the characters to achieving the proper conclusion.

Other[]

Oz Ill Omened

While there are only three confirmed Children of Ill Omen who are significant to the Tale, just as there are four major incarnations of Glen Baskerville, it is heavily implied that there is a fourth Child of Ill Omen to be counterpart and follow the system designed by the JuryOz.

The evidence for this is mainly portrayed through symbolism, the characterization he displays throughout the story, and the deliberate parallels with the existing confirmed Ill Omens. Oz's true form possesses red eyes, which manifest in Jack's body when he is using his powers as the B-Rabbit. This is specifically noticed and acknowledged by Vincent, with astonishment.[1] When viewing an illusory memory generated from the Abyss in the depths of Sablier, Oz is referred to as "禍々しい子供" (magamagashii kodomo). The word "magamagashii" is derived from the same character "maga" (禍) as "magatsumi," in "magatsumi no ko." Tomo Kimura's translation renders both as "Child of Ill Omen."[2] Break notes that his and Vincent's ability to notice and enter the Courtroom of the Jury is likely due to their being Children of Ill Omen; Oz also notices the dimension and his eyes turn red as he does so.[3] Children of Ill Omen are heavily associated with "Chain Killing" as both entities nullify the powers of the Abyss and thus are both regarded as anomalous and heretical existences; along with the Mad Hatter Contracted to Break, Oz as the B-Rabbit are the only known Chain Killers.

However these facts are merely supplementary to the most significant way Oz manifests as a Child of Ill Omen: his role within the Tale. For his entire childhood with the Vessalius Dukedom, Oz has lived by the ideal of "accepting everything" no matter how sad or terrifying it may be, to always keep a smile on his face. This serves to distance himself from others and keep concealed how perceptive and intelligent he is in truth, as well as his concerning lack of care for his own life and well-being. He harbors many characteristics that parallel those of the other Ill Omens; he always implicitly understands Break's modus operandi of using people in his schemes, he is secretly suicidal to a self-serving degree just as Vincent is, and he views everything in the world as worthy of love like Lacie believed. And from the moment he was cast into the Abyss to the revelation of his true identity as the original B-Rabbit, his existence has been constantly called a sin, cursed and abhorrent and dangerous just as every other Ill Omen's existence. It was only when Oz accepted his existence and connection to his loved ones, regardless of those who called his being alive sinful, that he could fully come into his role. And by the Tale's End, he willingly gave up his life to allow for the happiest possible conclusion and the salvation of their world.

Trivia[]

  • The word (まが) (つみ) , officially translated as "Ill Omen," is exceptionally rare in Japanese. Individually, both characters have multiple meanings, but (まが) is usually translated as either "disaster" or "ill omen," while (つみ) generally means "sin."
  • "Ill Omen" was sometimes used as an adjective when referring to Children of Ill Omen or their eyes. In these cases, they were referred to as "Ill Omened."

References[]

  1. Retrace LVI: Rabbit Eyes
  2. Retrace XXXVII: Glen Baskerville
  3. Retrace XCII: A Story

Navigation[]

v - e - t Pandora Hearts
Characters

Main: AliceGilbert NightrayOz Vessalius
Vessalius: Ada VessaliusAda's CatsJack VessaliusMrs. KateOscar VessaliusRachel CecileSara VessaliusXai Vessalius
Nightray: Bernard NightrayBernice NightrayClaude NightrayEchoElliot NightrayErnest NightrayFred NightrayHansLeoMrs. FinnRaymond NightrayVanessa NightrayVincent Nightray
Rainsworth: EmilySharon RainsworthShelly RainsworthSheryl RainsworthXerxes Break
Barma: Arthur BarmaCalum LunettesGrunerMiranda BarmaReim LunettesRufus Barma
Baskervilles: CeliaDugFangGlen BaskervilleGlen Baskerville (♀)JuryLacieLeviLilyLottieNoiseOswald
Abyss: The Core of the AbyssThe Intention of the Abyss
Other: Flower GirlThe GeneralHarris WatsonHeadhunterIsla YuraJyantaMariePhillipe WestRytasTurnerWilliam West
Chains: AlbusB-RabbitBandersnatchCardsCheshireThe CookDemiosDodoDormouseDuldeeDuldumEquusFawnFlower Girl's ChainGrimGryphonHedgehog ChainsHumpty DumptyThe Intention's DollsJabberwockLacie's ChainLarsLeonMad BabyMad HatterMarch HareOwlRavenRocking-Horse-FlySnap-Dragon-FlyTove
Caucus Race: Dahlia GarlandGarland ButlerGeraldGreat MotherJosephineMarcelMia

Nobility Barma DukedomBaskerville ClanNightray DukedomRainsworth DukedomSinclair FamilyVessalius DukedomWest Family
Terminology Species & Factions: Black Winged ChainsChainsContractorsIsla Yura's CultPandora

Objects: Arthur Barma's Memoirs"Chains"Doors to the AbyssJack Vessalius' Pocket WatchKeys to the DoorsSilent Clock TowerStone Seals
Events: Coming-of-Age CeremonySuccession CeremoniesTragedy of Sablier
Miscellaneous: AngelsChildren of Ill OmenLacie (Song)Holy KnightStatice

Locations AbyssBarma HomelandCarillonDimensional PlaneÉbaucheHouse of FiannaLacie's TombLuca's GateLutwidge AcademyReveilSablierTower
Volumes IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXIXIIXIIIXIVXVXVIXVIIXVIIIXIXXXXXIXXIIXXIIIXXIV
Omake Maidora HeartsBumbling Sleuth BreakMagical Girl Ill-Omened❤LaciePandora Academy
Episodes 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425Special Episodes
DVDs IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXBonus Story
Guidebooks & Artbooks 8.518.524 + 1Official Animation Guide〜Odds and Ends〜「There is.」
Light Novels 123
Drama CDs Pandora Hearts Drama CDNightmare of Vessalius Academy!Alice's Tea PartyAnimedia Radio SpecialRadio Special 1Radio Special 2Radio Special 3Retrace 42.5Another Story of A Promise Lost
Soundtrack OST 1OST 2Parallel HeartsMazeWatashi wo MitsuketeEverytime you kissed me
Character Songs Swear to...Kinjirareta AsobiTruth
Calendars 20102011201220132014
Extra Pandora HearchuMochizuki's MusingsTimelineReal-World References
Author Jun Mochizuki
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