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Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 (TV).

I don't believe that geniuses, real or fictional, are made of stone or incapable of error (including, yes, stupidity). Conceptually speaking, I find perfection more unrealistic than the alternative. In spite of Lelouch's supposed intelligence, both seasons are full of situations where he was arguably mistaken or let emotions control his actions when a more cold-hearted and rational path existed that would have been preferable from an objective point of view. Intellectual prowess doesn't make you a flawless or unfeeling machine and, let's be honest, there isn't a lack of precedent for this in the context of the series either.

Other than that, all I can really do is repeat once again that we don't even know what the hell Zero Requiem really entailed. He won the battle, took over control of Damocles and FLEIJA, and then we suddenly skip ahead two months and just get people calling him the demon king and vague murmurs about how he'll kill your family if you speak out against him. Whatever he did must have been pretty bad if his plan succeeded, as we're led to believe it did, but we really have no idea what it was that he did. I don't think we can pin any specific crime like mass murder on him as part of Zero Requiem, considering we're completely in the dark as to what specifically Zero Requiem was.

Nightjuan, I see now what you mean, if one focuses on intentions I can understand why Lulu can be considered ambiguous. I can see the difference now, you focus on his intentions whereas I only take Lulu’s action into consideration and I don’t take his good intentions as an extenuating factor.

The relative peace of in Europe is due to the fact that both sides of the Cold War had nuclear missles, making it so that both sides had to be willing to risk nuclear armaggedon to make war.

The new alliance between Russia, and the uSA, and Britain fell apart immediatly as Russia tried to take over all of Berlin by blockading it from the western powers. The Cold War had two wars (the Korean War, and the Vietnam War), and several other scares. The threat of war didn't diminish until relations with the other side began even today Russia isn't really an ally.

I should point out that we know Charles massacred people as we saw not only the Middle East in flames, but several sections of Tokyo is in ruins even today. The problem with Zero Requiem isn't that you have to piss off the Britannians, but you also have to piss of the rest of the world. That means that you have to be worse than Charles not only to the Britannians, but the rest of the world as well. That means that unless Lelouch preformed crimes against humanity than people would see him as an improvement over Charles.

Murder him in cold blood? No, the only time he almost got killed with cold blood was the very first episode. After that, Lelouche geassed to death so many people, not only soldiers, but also security guards, people who were in charge of monitoring, etc They were not a part of the army and they were just doing their job, there was no need to tell them: shoot your colleague's head off. Specially if you can disarm your opponents by telling them to turn around and go to sleep or never aim at zero again.

Why was not Lelouche disarming people and just telling them not to fight? Would that not deprive Britannia of huge amount of supporters? But Lelouche saw only one way out, which was to massacre as many as he could.

I actually think Lelouche enjoyed the power he had so much that he did nto cared if he killed 100 or 100000. He was killing because he could. Lelouche was actually in power to stop the spoiler[Tokyo massacre, even by killing Euphemia straight away before she gave orders. He was usually so quick with taking decisions, what happened here?
He chose to use the opportinuty to turn her into a bloody princess, call out the Black Nights, kill some more people, and kill Euphie when thousands of people would have been already dead,] making himself to look like a hero. As for Fleia, Suzaku warns Lelouche about it, but why would Lelouche care?

Lulu does state that he is going to kill people to make them forget Euphy, the rumors seems to be confirmation that he carried out his plan and nothing indicates that he abandoned this plan. It’s never shown how he kills, but he is portrayed in a sympathetic way. Even though that I think CG R2 is a disappointment, I have to admit that CG creators succeeded in selling the protagonist as a good person to the audience. And I agree with Charred Knight if Lulu wanted to be seen as the most evil person in the world by everybody he had to beat Charles.

(...)

As to the rest of your post, I think it's already been explained, particularly well by nightjuan, why you're just straight up wrong in your claim that the show portrays Lelouch as an "almost-saint." We are expressly told by Kallen that the world still hates Lelouch. We get a rosy picture of him from her because she loved him, but she's just about the last person who does at that point.

Lelouche is portrayed as an almost-saint. Kallen might have said spoiler[that people hate him, but she also in the same sentence heavily underlines that it is thanks to him that *world peace* is achieved. So it is kind of like saying: people hate him, but they don't know how tender and loving and caring he was, the same thing is done by Nunnaly.] Just like people back in the old day hated Jesus who died for them. The analogy is there in the series. Pointless, since Jesus did not need to butcher people to unite them, but the show still insists on this far fetched comparison. Also, the fact that Kallen, and then CC, are the last ones that speak, both being favourable to Lelouche, makes him look even better. You don't remember angry faces, you remember peaceful music and joy on everyones faces. And it is openly said that all of this happened thanks to Lelouche. I have not met a fan of the show who would have said that Kallen loved L. and her commentary was partial. spoiler[What people say is that Lelouche did such a brilliant thing and saved the world from hatred, which as I already stressed, think is quite fake.
]

You try to point out that he tried to wash Euphie's crimes by being worse than her and making people forget about her. My point is, the massacre should not even have happened in first place as he could stop it before it happened. There wouldbe no need to proceed into killing more people so that people would forget about Euphemia's crimes. spoiler[As I said, if he needed to kill her, which he did, he could have done it before she gives the fatal order. But that as we know was not convenient for Lelouche, since his fame would have suffered.]
Funny how quick Lelouche was in reacting throughout the whole show, but it was not in his force to stop Euphemia after all...

If I spoke to an enemy that tells me he has got a superweapon that can wipe out the whole city and a few million people (and I knew he was able tu produce one- and lelouche knows what Schneizel might be capable of), yes, i think I would have given it a thought at least for a second instead of thinking that the other person is bluffing. Would you not? How often do you see people bluffing in relation to millions of lives? We are not talking about Suzaku threatening Lelouche with a little bomb in the school, we are talking about millions of lives, but hundreds or millions for Lelouche does not matter, since they are all just pawns in a little scheme.

Lets not forget, Lelouche-Guerilla somehow got into the headquarters and managed to kill Clovis. I can't believe he would be unable to pull the same trick (without the killing part), to geass people not to fight. (not even mentioning the fact that apaprently there was no need to kill Clovis at all, even Schneizel did not dispose of his siblings like this). Much as difficult it was in the fist part of the show, in CG2 he had many more possibilities, but he preferred to blow peoples heads off.

Finally, I don't think that Geass wears out, as you said it.spoiler[ Nunnaly breaks it with her will. Suzaku is still geassed as far as we know. If a geass can wear off, that means that one day Schneizel will wake up with a huge hangover and there goes Lelouche's plan of Schneizel's everlasting obedience to Zero... I think apart from Nunnaly and people who got their geass cancelled by Jeremiah], geass is a permanent condition. So geassing soldiers not to fight would be a more effective way to change the world than killing them.

I don't think he was a blood-thirsty psychopath, i think however that as the rest of his family (except of few of its members) he seemed people as instruments and he respected only a few, he was also slowly loosing his humanity, which was never stressed enough. Although he was not so innocent to start with. I wonder, in the very fist/second episode, you say that he had to defend himself against the soldiers who were about to shoot him. But he had quick enough reflex to tell them to kill themselves. I'd say that definitely proves how he saw killing people as an easy and convenient way to make his way to the top.

If you make a mistake, and cause great harm you don't cause more harm to dull the pain.

Also it's quite clear if you read the interviews Okouchi gave that he clearly intended to speak through Kallen, he has always said that lelouch made the right action.

ave said that Kallen loved L. and her commentary was partial. spoiler[What people say is that Lelouche did such a brilliant thing and saved the world from hatred, which as I already stressed, think is quite fake.
]

The entire point of his conflict with Charles was that he wanted to give people the ability to run their own lives and live for the future. His plan was all about heavily manipulating the world into choosing peace, but it was still the world's choice to make. If all he wanted was to force peace on people, he could have just let Charles do his thing, or he could have let Schneizel enforce peace with the military, or he himself could have enforced peace with the military.

No, not really. I'll leave your other point alone because even repetitive debates deserve a little variety.

As someone who isn't any less informed about the subject, I question your representation and interpretation of those interviews. I don't believe Okouchi ever addressed, at least in the interviews that non-Japanese speakers can look up, the issue of the moral "righteousness" of Lelouch's actions during the final part of R2.

The most you can argue is that Okouchi thinks it was a "good / happy" end for Lelouch (as opposed to a "bad / sad" one) but that has more to do with his being the protagonist in the context of a story. He said almost nothing about how viewers should or shouldn't ultimately classify Lelouch's actions on an absolute moral scale.

In fact, in those same interviews Okouchi isn't afraid to refer to Lelouch as "more evil than heroic" or a "demon / demon king" when speaking about his character archetype, which implies that he's not unaware of the negative moral implications of his protagonist's actions regardless of the sympathetic portrayal involved.

Then again, if we're going to speak about archetypes...it's no secret that villains, antagonists and rivals have often been portrayed just as, if not more, sympathetically for a long time in anime and manga (including but not limited to mecha shows). It's just that the protagonist is usually someone who has more in common with the likes of Suzaku than Lelouch, which makes things more predictable and politically correct but perhaps less interesting.

Most of the interviews after the series ended talked about how Lelouch was heroic.

I don't think I have ever seen Okouchi once call Lelouch evil or a devil.

-----In the first episode of "R2", Lelouch declares: "I'm not the one at fault; the world is." In other words, "Code Geass" is the story of the side attempting world domination, isn't it?

Okouchi: It's the opposite of your usual anime set-up, isn't it? A demon king instead of a hero. The leader of Evil instead of the ally of Justice.

Q: What was the main thing you changed then?
Ohkouchi: First, we felt that if the anime is airing late at night, the main character should be more evil than heroic.

The Day A New Demon Was Born (Majin ga umareta hi)

The Day a Demon Awakens (Majin ga mezameru Hi)

This shows up in the way his treated with Kallen, Nunnaly, and C.C always complimenting him

Okouchi had a chance to show the horrors that Lelouch did but he chose not too. He chose to basically show a complete lack of morality in his show. He showed that everyone will forgive you if you just feel bad about what you did.

Does this mean he must be idealised and worshipped?

A lot of dictators and war criminals would be then loved to be considered machiavellan, because that sounds so much nicer than murderer or psychopath.

A hero might as well be demonised...

Making Lelouche all pretty is a cheap way out, that's it.

I didn't expect the show to give a definite answer, but I was also disappointed at the fact that he was glorified and treated as a hero, through Kallens final commentary, Nunnaly's tears and the whole cheesy ending including people with smiles on their faces.

It is kind of like lets say, nuking H iroshima and Nagasaki, and later on making an American documentary about happy Japanese people because the war ended. Again, this is my remark pointed towards bad, simplified writing.

No, that is not necessarily the case.

It is, however, entirely possible to understand or empathize with Lelouch on a certain level while still considering his morality dubious or even outright lacking. For instance, not even criminals and murderers are automatically despised by their own friends and families in this world of ours, much less in a completely fictional context, so I wonder if you find that equally repugnant or simply impossible.

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Do you seriously believe that there is some sort of universal agreement about hating "evil" and loving "good"?

I still think you're confusing sympathy, understanding and even (for those who were close to him) love for a tragic figure with actual "heroism" and supposed "glorification" when there is absolutely no need to do so.

However, I still don't see anything wrong with the reactions of those two characters mentioned, neither from the perspective of plausibility or -what I believe is far more important for this show- thematics.

As for Lelouch's failure to believe Suzaku, that was clearly a foolish mistake on his part but a rather predictable one. Why? Because Lelouch had just (wrongly) concluded that Suzaku had set up a trap for him and had no reason -let alone the disposition- to trust his former "friend" anymore. Besides, I don't agree with your assumptions about what Lelouch could or couldn't have taken for granted. It's certainly debatable.

Unicorn_Blade have you seen Legend of the Galactic Heroes? I'm quite sure you will like it, Code Geass borrowed some ideas from LoGH, the difference is that LoGH never becomes as simplistic as Code Geass.