Claire Stanfield



Not much is know about Claire, especially his early years. No one is sure how his parents knew the Gandors (it is possible that either one or both of his parents worked for them) as well as how they died (though, given the time period, it was most likely from the Influenza outbreak in 1918 or because of something they did for the Gandors). Sometime around the age of 14 Claire left the Gandors to join the circus where he became adept at the trapeze. It is unclear how long he remained with the circus before deciding to become the assassin Vino or at what point he decided to become a railroad conductor. What is clear is that he has been doing both for at least a year, though probably more, before the start of the anime.

Claire is an out and out solipsist, which is a philosophy that states that your mind is the only thing you can truly know, and because your mind is the only thing that you can truly know how do you know that the world you are experiencing and the people you are meeting are real? This is why Claire, in the anime, says that he cannot die (because the world of Baccano! is only a dream and if he were to die there he would only wake up (whether “waking up” would mean there is another world where he is sleeping or if it just means he starts another dream is unknown)). There is evidence in the anime to suggest that Claire is partially right in his assumption that he is god (the gun that appears in his hand when he's fighting Ladd. The fact that he seems to change shape slightly when attacking two of Ladd's white suits. His eyes glowing red.). Unfortunately this isn't "hard" evidence since Baccano! is a multi POV show and those scene could be from other POVs (thus their emotions and perceptions could be what makes Claire the way he his and not him actually being that way in reality).