Shadows House (Official Colored) - Ch. 198 - Monologue

[IrregularPerson]

Joseph is one of the 3rd floor residents that is closest to father, Grandfather has not spoken once. And Edward is upset that the 3rd floor residents remain to be closest to Grandfather. There are the fragments of favor.
The Grandfather has a similar appearance to Joseph, though it's hard to tell given his crown with beads. He would also be familiar with dressing like a noble and would have an origin for a motive.
My guess is that Joseph who was an intellectual wanted more. He looked at the habits of the morphs, provoked them and constructed Grandfather as a centerpiece of the entire operation.
If recall correctly the Shadow, Joseph had either a comment or interaction about/with Kate. He was the most mellow of the 3rd floor shadows.

 

[Coldlight]

That solves the mystery of Joseph's identity. He was the right-hand man of Alfred Mirrors. So Alfred remarried without knowing his wife was still alive, but barely. It bothers me that he spent no effort to try and look for her and his would-be heir; I mean, he had ~50 years to try! Surely a man who deeply loved his wife and child would do something? He seems to have given up quickly and many years later once he got reminded of his mortality, he decided to just remarry (technically committing bigamy) and make a new heir to continue his plan.

Christopher (now called Anthony)'s mother was Joseph's daughter (they could at least have given her a name)... I'm guessing this happened around maybe ~40 years or more after the mansion takeover. In theory if Alfred was ~25 (and Joseph's daughter was ~5) when they fled, then he'd be ~65 and she ~45 by the time he sired Christopher. Advanced maternal age is apparently linked to higher likelihood of death during childbirth, so this checks out. It's a little bit less icky considering Joseph's daughter was already in her 40s by the time she gave birth. She didn't look like a young woman anymore when she died giving birth to Christopher.

Joseph is shaping up quite well to be the possible big bad final boss of this story based on how he allegedly betrayed Alfred to begin this entire sequence of events. Maybe I was wrong to think he could be Kate's ally. This also makes the theory that "Great Grandfather" isn't even a real being, but some sort of soot power puppet even more likely.

But this begs the question, how much of this is actually orchestrated by the real Joseph and not him after getting taken over by a morph? We now know he was researching morphs during the Mirrors era, but what are the chances he was the first to be (accidentally?) "unified" during the course of his research? So the Joseph who betrayed Alfred was really a soot fairy who killed and took over Joseph's body?

But the fact that he saved his young daughter also doesn't quite line up with the possibility that he isn't human anymore at the time of the morph takeover. Saving his daughter doesn't benefit a Shadow Joseph, but it helps a human Joseph. The revelations just lead to more questions, and that's not bad. I really do like how the plot thickens in this story.