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

You mentioned I think somehwhere before that the author/director meant in a way to criticise Lelouche's actions or make him look like a bad character, or something along this line. However it seems he kept it all to himself, because there is no sign of critique in the show as for L's behaviour.

Not one character ever points out Lelouche's hypocrisy. Except for Schneizel who gets discredited a few episodes later on by being a potential mass murderer, which makes his argument look stupid, or Nina responsible for Fleia. In other words, only those characters portrayed as to some extent evil dare to point out L's flaws, but no one takes them seriously because they are evil. Or just lost- and they need to be shown the right path. The path of Lelouche. Characters who do seem to make some sort of critique towards Lelouche all end up loving him in the end.

I never said I am agains any kind fo symphaty, but I think there is no counter balance for this overflowing love and admiration for Lelouche. I miss a character that would provide a real worthy opponent, rather than a bunch of characters that all in all end up being portrayed as idiots, which makes all their critique of Lelouche's actions invalid. Discredit of all his oponents make it seem like in fact there was no one worthy enough to point out he was wrong.

I will once again hint at Gungrave, which succeeds in everything that CG fails at. Gungrave makes CG look like a piece of cheap propaganda really.

No I don't confuse them. I explained it above- the construction of the plot where all major characters either syphhatise with Lelouche or get shown by him that they were all so wrong is a tool that is used to pretty much say the viewer that if you criticise him, you are wrong as well.

Also, lelouche NEVER throughout the whole show accepts any responsibility for any of his actions...

One thinag about this: Lelouche suspected the first trap which is why he called out Guillford right before it, did he not? So as I said, he has magnificent fortunetelling abilities right until and after the one point when millions of human lives are involved.

Nothing in the show, as I understood it, told me that Lelouch was immune to any kind of criticism.

If you make a mistake, and cause great harm you don't cause more harm to dull the pain. If I run over some guy's dog, I am not going to then run over his kid to make me running over his dog not look so bad, and yet Lelouch does just that.

I think Im a bit tired of reading your 'so what?' questions. You say Lelouche is a hero of the show. And so what, I can askequally. Does this mean he must be idealised and worshipped? You abuse the word machiavellan here, as if the fact of Lelouche's questionable genious and abuse of geass made himany closer the The Prince. 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. Would you say Saddam was machiavellan? After all, he was aiming at a greater good... for his family.

A hero might as well be demonised, and I think here the show would profit out of it, becoming more real, more mature and less directed to satisfy teenage girls who fall for pretty characters. 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.

I see how Lelouche had not an actual tool to kill Euphemia, although I do not believe that he would not have found something as he always did when he needed to (knocking her out would have done a trick as well for heavens sake). Here he decided to use an opportinity to kill her when it was most convenient.

As for Fleia. Ok, imagine a situaton when you have a huge battle coming. And someone tells you that they have a new weapon that can make a huge whole in the ground and kill millions of people. Would you really say: whatever, man? regardless of who says it? Suzaku works for Schneizel who is not exactly known for producing lousy technology that does not work. Would you not think that there might be some truth in it? Specially being an omniscent character yoourself who can figure out what people will say before they even know thy will say anything al all?

Besides, Lelouche would have known about the school incident when Nina went all crazy and wanted to blow everyone up, and he would have knowna about Lloyds reaction when she wanted to detonate the bomb (if I remember he was at the school at that point? and if he wasnt, someone would have told him). So he should have suspected that by refining the idea, such weapon would be possible to create. So it would not matter whether Schneizel would tune in to the conversation in person, or whether Suzaku told Lelouche about the danger. Suzaku did not tell him "I have this bomb than can kill your army", he said that it was a danger for the civilisation on the whole city, but as I said before, Lelouche never shown much care about people's lives, regardless if it was hundreds or thousands. He was not particularly shocked when the Imperial city was nuked either.

Well, we have a contradiction here. On the one hand he wanted people to have free will, on the other, he forced everyone to accept his vision. It seems like he did not really know what he wanted as long as it was making sure everyone would follow his orders. He finally agreed people to believe they have freedom while by manipulting them, depriving them of dignity and confusing his closest ones. He would give them a sort of limited freedom, where they acted exactly as he wanted. In a way this is not far off what Charles and Marianne planned. What is different, is whose plan was the one that was reinforced. Lelouche was dying knowing that people would hate him, but it was all about him, that he created this wonderful world.

So anything that happens is necessarily going to have to conform to somebody's vision. Nothing happens in a vacuum or completely free of human will. If anyone, whether Lelouch or otherwise, challenges Charles, they are necessarily trying to create their vision of what the world should be. If no one challenges him, then Charles's own vision remains in place. So I guess I'm just not exactly sure what you're complaining about, or maybe more accurately, I think you're complaining about a basic fact of human existence that when two or more people want different things, the ultimate result of that conflict is going to conform to what someone else wanted. But the difference between Lelouch and everyone else is Lelouch wanted a world where people were still free to choose what to do with their lives. As he puts it, Charles wants a world where you're living in the past, even interacting with the dead. Charles is that guy who still hangs out around his old high school years after graduation because he doesn't want to move on. Schneizel wanted to preserve the world as it currently was, fearing that the future might be worse; he didn't necessarily want to go backwards but he wanted stagnation and the status quo. Lelouch wanted "tomorrow," an uncertainty that clearly made Charles and Schneizel uncomfortable, where the only thing that was certain was the fact that nothing was to be decided for anyone else. You're right that Lelouch is still enforcing his own personal vision on people, but his vision is essentially the same thing as when people say that "the only rule is that there are no rules." Lelouch goes through his brutal dictatorship where nobody can do anything for a brief period so that he can bring about an indefinitely long era of peace and tranquility where people can do whatever they want. That sets him apart from both Charles and Schneizel.

Lelouche faced this situation twice, but the second time he regained the memory, and he was no longer scared or surprised or shocked by the power of geass. He is sold blooded about the whole thing. he knows the power of his geass, he does not need to have the soldiers killed. I think you tend to treat him as a sort of scared, innocent boy who just woke up into a nightmare, maybe by seeing yourself in his situation, which is not true. It is not a kill or be killed situation. it is: kill, or let them goand forget about the whole thing. Even when he fir st kill the soldierat the beginning of the first series, he does not look shocked. he reminds me of kids that tear off insects legs to see what happens to them, except that he does it on humans. He is cold and calculated. "If I tell them to kill themselves, will they do it. They did, my power is amazing"- which is what he says in general in the second episode. This is not what a scared student would have said, is it?

And funny how he seems to cherish innocent civilians lives then, but later on lets hundreds of thousands of them get butchered on different occasions. As I said, whatever is convenient to him.

I never said that it was unlikely, to for example Nunnaly cry for Lelouche or Kallen like him despite of what he did. I just said that I was disappointed with such portrayal. You mentioned I think somehwhere before that the author/director meant in a way to criticise Lelouche's actions or make him look like a bad character, or something along this line. However it seems he kept it all to himself, because there is no sign of critique in the show as for L's behaviour.

Not one character ever points out Lelouche's hypocrisy. Except for Schneizel who gets discredited a few episodes later on by being a potential mass murderer, which makes his argument look stupid, or Nina responsible for Fleia. In other words, only those characters portrayed as to some extent evil dare to point out L's flaws, but no one takes them seriously because they are evil. Or just lost- and they need to be shown the right path. The path of Lelouche. Characters who do seem to make some so

No, what I said is that the word machiavellan was heavily abused in this discussion in attempt to screen Lelouches actions and instead of calling them by their name call them something they were not. My point was that not all Lelouches actions can be labelled machiavellan, and not all of them all 'morally ambiguous' There is nothing morally ambiguous about mass murdering people whim you are supposed to protect.

zaphdash you are of course right that western Europe has been enjoying peace for a very long time, the problem is that focusing only on western Europe means overlooking the larger picture, the consequences of the Second World War were not limited to peace in western Europe.