When it comes to modern fiction, there’s
a reason that overly idealistic sentiments
such as “I want everyone to love each other,”
or “I want world peace,” tend to come
out of the mouths of the naive, or, more importantly,
the young.
When corruption is rife and things are going
badly in the world, the ones that resolve
to change it tend to be the youth, uttering
words that mean well but demonstrate a lack
of true life experience.
The older generations may have had similar
ambitions when they were young, but as soon
as a person matures and gains a broad awareness
of how the world works, realism sets in and
those initial goals tend to fade away.
Because they have long since decided that
such dreams are virtually pointless, and have
no place in the world if you intend to live
a happy life because of the huge boundary
that blocks global revolution.
It’s not that changing the world is impossible;
it’s that changing the world is only possible
through great sacrifice, pain and suffering.
Tangible societal change cannot happen without
destruction.
By and large, a new world cannot be molded
from the current one if it’s core is rotten.
Any given system of power, corrupt or otherwise,
did not get there overnight.
There are many layers to bodies of power,
and there is structure in place that must
be overthrown.
Society must be pulled up from the roots by
those who don’t just talk the talk, but
truly intend to do something.
Yet, because of the nature of revolution,
the personal and grand repercussions on the
path to influencing the world can be so consuming
that losing oneself is a true possibility.
And with this new framework, seemingly commonplace
questions are given new stakes and meaning.
What is true conviction?
When someone becomes engulfed in darkness,
is there really such thing as true redemption?
What is the value of morality in smaller situations
relative to the end results of the big picture?
How far can utilitarianism go, and at what
point do biases blind our self-awareness to
the point where we completely lose our way?
Despite the bombastic mecha fights and school
hijinks, Code Geass is an anime that hones
in on its themes, ideologies and characters,
rather than set pieces or gimmicks.
While there are some very valid criticisms
that can be directed to the narrative, the
show does tackle some very interesting concepts
in an effective way.
Just a quick disclaimer - I’m not the biggest
fan of Code Geass.
Unlike most of the stories that I cover in
my videos, this isn’t a series that I consider
to be great or a favourite.
While I did enjoy it and my impression of
it is comfortably positive, there were quite
a few aspects of the show that dragged the
experience down for me.
I know that some people consider the sole
fact that I make analysis videos on certain
shows to indicate that I automatically recommend
or adore the show, but that is not the case
here.
As a result, I felt the need to mention this
for the sake of honesty and transparency.
However, while I don’t think the show is
amazing overall, it does have some great aspects.
And one of these is the dynamic between Lelouch
vi Britannia and Suzaku Kururugi.
The narrative’s most prominent relationship
is quite an accomplishment in terms of theming
and development.
The dynamic between the two main characters
and the characterization of each is what I
consider to be the show’s biggest strength,
consistently driving the plot forward, providing
some of the story’s most emotionally impactful
moments and tying everything together nicely
by the end.
The intertwining character journeys of Lelouch
and Suzaku are terrific, displaying a couple
of men with identical intentions whose life
experience and contrasts in personality made
them go about those intentions in opposing
ways.
It’s a story of two flawed individuals whose
ambition constantly threatens to get the better
of them, and how their actions changed their
world on a grand scale.
However, the intrigue in their dynamic comes
not from the fact that they changed the world,
but from the way they themselves changed on
the path to a goal that could not have been
achieved without sacrifice and suffering.
Lelouch can be summed up with one word: conviction.
His resolve is admirable, and his overcoming
of nearly insurmountable odds due to sheer
dedication is inspiring.
Along the way, he wavers, he screws up, and
he does terrible things.. but this is a big
part of what makes him shine.
He’s not a wish fulfillment protagonist
because of how treacherous his path is, but
his arc is one that is resonant because of
how flawed he is.
He’s not a power fantasy, but his ability
to stick it out until the end and achieve
his goal is truly empowering.
And in my opinion, flawed as he is, he is
undoubtedly the hero of the story, despite
being a villain to his world at large.
Originally Britannian royalty and heir to
the throne, Lelouch’s childhood was very
difficult.
His mother was killed in a conflict with the
warring nation of Japan and his sister, Nunnally,
was blinded.
Traumatized and infuriated by his father’s
preoccupation with selfish goals and his inability
to protect his mother, Lelouch cut himself
off from the man by renouncing his claim to
the throne.
Due to this, the Emperor exiled him and Nunnally
to Japan, where they were kept as political
hostages and first acquainted with Suzaku,
whose family took them in.
After feeling betrayed and witnessing the
dismissive, cold nature of the vast majority
of those involved in politics, Lelouch begins
festering a burning hatred for Britannia.
Many seem to mistake this lust for revenge
for childish one-dimensionality, but that
is not all that there is to Lelouch’s motivations.
For him, it’s not just a personal quest
to overthrow Britannia for revenge.
After coming to understand how brutal and
broken society is, he genuinely hopes for
a better world for Nunnally (and eventually,
the rest of the world), and due to this, he
starkly disagrees with Britannia’s rule
and philosophy.
Prior to obtaining his Geass, Lelouch lived
his life in meandering monotony.
His intellect and tactical mind made him a
great candidate to lead a rebellion, but the
constraints of society made this very difficult.
The story establishes that Lelouch wanted
the world to change, but had accepted that
it was unlikely to happen despite his claims
that it was always part of the plan.
His intelligence and apathetic outlook made
school a chore, and though he cared for his
friends, his interactions with them were characterized
by a sense of resigned loneliness.
He interacted with them and enjoyed his time,
but it was almost as if he lived in a different
emotional universe altogether.
As he says himself, his life prior to meeting
C2 was a slow death.
It was defined by this distinct emptiness
as a result of his inability to carry out
his ambitions when he wanted, and this is
partly why he has so much dedication to his
goal.
When he gets his Geass, his potential is unlocked.
He’s been given a gift and he has no intention
of wasting it, no matter how far he has to
go.
As pointed out in Sam Lasky’s analysis,
Ironically, through a power that allows him
to oppress others and dictate their actions,
he desires to oppose an Empire that he hates
partly because it oppresses and dictates the
actions of others itself.
Lelouch is completely aware of this hypocrisy
as well, and it doesn’t sit well with him..
but it’s what needs to be done.
Lelouch’s path to eliminating Britannia
left a lot of bodies in its wake, and this
causes plenty of internal conflict.
The deeper he went and the bigger the collateral
damage got, the more torn he became.
The further he goes and the closer he gets
to eliminating Britannia, the more obvious
it is that his initial goal and it’s value
seem to be getting burdened by bloodshed and
corpses from his choices.
Is it really worth doing all this?
In comparison to his starting point, his dark
choices and actions give off the impression
that Lelouch has become corrupted by power
a la Light Yagami - but a huge distinction
between these two characters is that Lelouch
is all too aware that he is doing terrible
things, and this pains him.
And coinciding with this is a significant
shift in Lelouch’s motivations.
While he initially just wanted to make the
world a better place for Nunnally, all of
the brutality that he witnessed made him realize
that this world was in worse shape than he
could have imagined, and this slowly causes
an alteration in motive for Lelouch; he starts
wanting peace not just for his sister, but
for the entire world.
Lelouch is a self-proclaimed utilitarian,
believing in the classic philosophy that the
ends justify the means.
But there is important nuance to his brand
of utilitarianism.
Firstly, Lelouch is hypocritical in his mindset
- he is grudgingly willing to cause death
and sacrifice to reach the finish line, but
the minute that the repercussions of his actions
affect someone close to him, he gets extremely
upset and loses composure.
In fact, issues of personal significance in
general put Lelouch on edge.
Prior to his shift in motivation, a substantial
portion of the story had Lelouch focused on
his rage towards his father rather than what
he proclaimed to be his end goal.
It’s not like he didn’t want a peaceful
world, but his hubris and anger took over
at times and pushed his more honorable goals
to the back of his mind.
Not that this is wrong or even abnormal; quite
the contrary.
Little personal flaws like this make Lelouch
all the more believable.
But a more important aspect of his methods
relates once again to his self-awareness - by
the end, he knows that he is doing terrible
things.
He does not try to ask for forgiveness or
make excuses, and he is willing to bear the
full burden of his actions on his own.
This distinction ends up being one of Lelouch’s
most significant character traits.
Yet Lelouch isn’t primarily characterized
by this ruthless pragmatism personality-wise.
In fact, the essence of his true self is difficult
to place.
Throughout his journey, he has had to learn
to adapt to situations as best as he could
to progress, so his interactions are rarely
genuine.
His story is one of masks.
He isn’t entirely the cold, charismatic,
and cruel Zero, and he isn’t entirely the
kind, soft mask he puts on at school for his
friends.
He is somewhere in between, and he shifts
masks accordingly.
In almost every waking moment of his life,
he must be exaggerating or fabricating his
persona to maintain his progress, so he can
hardly ever relax.
His true self is likely the one he shows to
C2 and the way he acts when he’s alone with
her, because he cannot hide anything from
her.
As such, when Lelouch is with C2, he has no
need to deceive and he acts more real than
when he is with anyone else; even Nunnally.
What’s significant here is the nature of
his masks.
It’s often postulated that Lelouch’s school
persona and his Zero persona are completely
different entities, and that his true self
is one of the two with the other one being
a completely false persona, but I believe
the answer to be a bit more nuanced than that.
These two personas are exaggerated extensions
of different parts of his personality.
At his core, Lelouch has elements of both
masks as essential parts of his psyche.
His compassion, love, need for human connection
and desire for peace make up the root of his
school persona, and his pragmatism, coldness,
logic, and ammoral lack of inhibition make
up his Zero persona.
Of course there is more to his personality
than just these two sides, and things are
more dynamic and fluid in his mentality than
this dichotomy, but for the sake of discussion,
this frame of reference is important.
He is not as good as his school side displays
and not as cold as his Zero side displays,
but these are exaggerated to serve a function.
This much is clear both in his interactions
with C2 and when he loses his memory where
he displays a personality thats akin to a
hybrid of both sides.
Lelouch is not a purely good person nor an
evil man - he’s somewhere in between.
Whether one side is truer to Lelouch’s core
self is up for debate, but for the sake of
his goal he knows that he must allow his Zero
persona to dictate his actions, gaining more
and more influence as he progresses forward.
Zero is exactly what was needed; the ideal
type of person to lead the revolution.
However, compartmentalizing and shutting away
an element of your personality is far from
easy.
Lelouch needs to be Zero, but the root of
his school self shines through and is both
consciously and subconsciously a factor in
his actions and behaviours.
He pains, he hesitates, and his care for his
loved ones tends to hinder his tactics.
As much as he would like to make decisions
with his head the entire time, the heart was
always a big factor in his plans.
Yet despite all of this, Lelouch eventually
matured, steeled himself and came to realize
that destruction must come before creation,
even if this destruction affected his loved
ones.
The ruthless and efficient Zero became the
face of an uprising, and to the public, Zero
was what Lelouch needed him to be.
Zero works as a symbol to fuel the Japanese
and as a disguise to hide his true identity,
but it is also just a darker, twisted and
overemphasized version of Lelouch.
And the minute he puts the mask on, he forces
himself to be overtaken by this.
As postulated by reddit user 7TeenWriters,
Lelouch desires a change in the world, and
Zero represents the unchained parts of Lelouch
that can carry out this change.
Becoming Zero is deliberate - it is the most
conscious of choices.
And slowly doing harsher and harsher things
on the path to that change was always part
of the plan.
Of course, this didn’t make it any easier
when the difficult decisions came, but this
demonstrates an important distinction: Lelouch
does NOT lose his humanity in a power trip
similar to someone like Walter White or Light
Yagami.
Instead, he sacrifices it and gives it away
because it is what needs to be done for the
greater good.
He has shut himself off and resolved to be
a person that he may not like, but who is
still a part of him.
The part that he needs to be to succeed, even
if he doesn’t fully want to cultivate that
aspect of himself.
This sacrifice is once again a show of his
resolve and lends great insight towards what
his final plan, the Zero Requiem, truly meant
for him.
We’ll discuss the requiem later, but it
is the ultimate demonstration of his intent.
Lelouch sacrifices everything to have the
world’s malice focused on him, and for his
global legacy to be one of an evil tyrant..
only to be killed by his best friend.
All for the sake of a better world.
Some tend to interpret his willingness to
die for the sake of the world as him scrambling
for some redemption after being ashamed of
his actions.
But while his actions do bring him shame,
he does not seek redemption through the Zero
Requiem, as we’ll see in a bit.
What tends to be overlooked is that a death
like this was something that Lelouch was prepared
for since the beginning.
Right in the very first episode, Lelouch says
something significant.
Many interpret this as him addressing the
men who were trying to kill him, but hindsight
makes it clear that he was also referring
to himself.
This line encapsulates his entire philosophy,
and him saying it before his first killing,
his first step on the path to his goal, is
very telling.
It’s clear that from the start, he was willing
to kill, and more importantly in this context,
he was prepared to die if need be.
His plan had improvisation in the small situations,
but the broad strokes of it were all deliberately
laid out.
It was not a desperate, disorganized struggle
to the end - it was a methodical, arduous
journey, one for which Lelouch was prepared
to do evil to combat evil, and one where he
was totally willing to die and spurn his legacy
if it came to that.
Lelouch was not a good person; he was a person
that the world needed.
He knew that pain would come to him, but by
the end, he considers his well-being to be
unimportant.
He acts; he takes agency.
He struggles and falls, but he had the foresight
to know that his humanity would slowly deteriorate,
and this was all part of the plan to benefit
the world.
Now, this intent may not have been this clear
the entire way through, and selfishness definitely
did rear up.
Throughout the story, Lelouch does some incredibly
dark things.
He sacrifices innocents and jeopardizes his
mission because of his own needs.
But heroes aren’t always faultless.
As I said, Lelouch is not a good man and he
is extremely flawed as a person, so naturally
these flaws will be accentuated when he is
in a position of such power.
However, despite this , by the end he carries
out an admirable plan.
This is what prevents him from being a completely
villainous and makes him heroic, even if the
extent of his heroism depends on interpretation.
He is rightly viewed as a villain in-universe,
but his final impact on the world tells a
different story.
Some will say that his terrible deeds were
justified and par for the course, while others
will say that killing is wrong in any context.
The key point, though, is that Lelouch had
noble intentions, and carried out those intentions
for the benefit of the majority.
He’s not a knight in shining armor or a
romantic savior; he’s a dark hero - the
man who forced himself to become capable of
doing the difficult, reprehensible things
required to achieve change.
Suzaku’s story is one of darkness - about
harbouring admirable intentions, but losing
oneself along the way to achieving one’s
goals.
It’s a character arc that contrasts with
Lelouch’s in almost every conceivable way
- but there are two huge similarities between
the pair from which these differences are
made apparent.
The first is that despite the initial disagreement
when it came to method, both men originally
seeked to liberate the world from Britannia’s
tyrannical rule.
And the second is that both slowly lose their
light humanity as the story goes on, feeling
the strain of their terrible deeds as they
pile up.
But while Lelouch is someone who, despite
his difficulties, nobly and consciously sacrificed
his humanity, Suzaku is the complete opposite
- someone who unintentionally loses himself
in his ideals due to hypocrisies and self-loathing.
He had honorable enough original intentions,
but unlike Lelouch, he never really committed
to carrying them out and lead himself astray
due to selfish desire and sentiments that
were meaningless in the context of war.
He lacks a basic awareness because he never
had the laser sharp focus on his goals that
Lelouch did, nor the realism that was required
to realize how arduous a task like changing
a corrupt body of power from within is.
Intentions can easily become clouded by hubris
and pride.
Hindsight helps, but nothing can prepare you
for the little things that can ever so slightly
alter your path.
Since these little things are subtle, only
when you are far down the path do you realize
how far you have strayed because of how small
these alterations seem in the moment.
Lelouch sticks to his plan and values right
until the end, while Suzaku loses focus of
his goals and ends up being the type of person
and concept that he so hated in the first
place.
It’s a terrifying concept.
Suzaku’s philosophy itself is a naive one
in the context of this story.
He believes that the means are more important
than the end result.
However, it’s all too clear from the start
that this is an ideology that was doomed to
fail.
Suzaku is sympathetic character, at least
in structure, because he’s a misguided soul;
not an evil one.
At heart, he really does want to change the
world for the better.
But this noble want is clouded so much by
hypocrisy, a compensatory death wish, feelings
of entitlement, survivor’s guilt and a sort
of messiah complex that it never really properly
manifests until the story’s end and ensures
that Suzaku is far from the hero of this tale.
Originally Japanese and son to Japan’s last
Prime Minister, Genbu Kururugi, Suzaku became
an honorary Britannian soldier after forming
his desire to “change it from within.”
When he was a young boy, Britannia invaded,
and in witnessing his father resisting until
the bitter end for the sake of pride while
his people died, Suzaku killed him to spare
countless Japanese lives through assimilating
with Britannia.
After the death of his father, Suzaku grew
to believe that rebellion and resistance were
foolhardy and only resulted in pointless death,
and although he didn’t approve of Britannia,
he believed that he could change it from the
inside into a much more just body of power.
He wanted to take responsibility for the death
of his father and atone.
Although he thinks did the right thing, he
feels guilty about the incident and constantly
places himself in dangerous positions because
he subconsciously (and sometimes consciously)
wishes to atone for his sins with death.
Not only this, but he longs for an honorable
death due to wanting to escape from his guilt.
However, when Lelouch uses his Geass to command
his old friend to live on, Suzaku finds himself
wanting to die, but unable to.
Suzaku and Lelouch are of one mind in believing
that Britannia is corrupt and must be stopped.
However, Suzaku’s desire to change it from
within stems from wanting to show that his
father died for a reason.
It all comes back to his philosophy in the
early parts of the show that states that achieving
results with wrong methods means nothing.
But his minor, peripheral endeavors grow in
influence and he eventually gets possessed
by them.
Rather than firming his resolve when it came
to making Britannia a better kingdom, he became
transfixed on his hubris and selfish goals.
Suzaku is someone who is fixated on posturing
- always trying to make it look like he is
taking the moral high ground.
As said earlier, his ideals were admirable,
but they became warped due to his obsession
of trying to be a better person than Zero.
If we were boil Suzaku’s flaws down to one
thing, it would be a lack of self-awareness.
He genuinely tries to be good, but cannot
bring himself to realize that the more he
is concerned with looking good, the farther
he gets from his goals he gets and the closer
he gets to becoming a reflection of a man
that he hates.
It’s an inevitable, symmetrical little arc
that is darkly poetic.
To his credit, Suzaku is not an evil person.
Even in the midst of his dark descent, he
refuses to order the deaths of a million Black
Knights due to both his respect for Nunally’s
wishes, and the fact that it’s not in his
nature.
Similar to Lelouch, Suzaku bears a thankless
burden for this as well.
However, unlike Lelouch, this is not a defining
trait for Suzaku.
While he does avoid full out war and massacre,
Suzaku becomes increasingly cruel, willing
to kill virtually anyone opposing him.
Suzaku becomes remorseless.
It’s very telling that while those on Britannia’s
side view him as the White Knight, the Japanese
nickname him the White Reaper - and it’s
not hard to see why.
By the latter parts of the story, he kills
without reservation and spares no thought
for morals, despite his constant outward justifications
for his actions.
When Zero announces his plans to make the
United States of Japan, Suzaku begins planning
to become Britannia’s knight of one, to
be a better focal point and symbol for the
people than Zero.
It’s likely here that Suzaku is not purely
doing this because he thinks it would benefit
the people and the world, but because he wants
to win against Zero.
After he cannot ignore the mass bloodshed
he has spread, He sheds all notion of his
honor.
He stops trying to fool anyone, and resolves
to reach his goals using any means - notably,
he becomes the very ideological concept that
he hated Zero for in the first place.
Throughout the story, Suzaku holds two philosophies.
The first adheres to the idea that a positive
end result does not matter if the path to
that result is immoral, but eventually he
shifts his views so that he and Lelouch both
believe that the ends justify the means.
However, his journey towards shifting ideals
has quite a bit more substance to it than
people give it credit for.
Suzaku’s massive guilt and constant deathwish
show that he is a self-loathing person.
He hates himself, and a primary reason for
this is because of the way he murdered his
father.
This aspect of him is the foundation point
for how his philosophy develops through the
show.
In the immediate aftermath of his patricide,
Suzaku realized that this was the right thing
to do because of how many lives the act spared.
As such, a seed was planted in his mind that
advocated for utilitarianism.
But because of how horrified he was at his
actions, any emotion or thought attached to
the murder that even remotely held it in positive
regard (other than the surface level idea
that he saved a lot of people) was suppressed.
Suzaku knew what he did was wrong, so did
not feel right in accepting that any part
of his act was okay.
Because he was so obsessed with being morally
righteous, he overburdened himself with a
deathwish, massive guilt, and most significantly,
false ideals.
Deep down, maybe even subconsciously, Suzaku
felt that killing his father was right in
the grand scheme of things.
But because he knew that it was wrong morally,
he rejected his feelings.
And so, he built up a new philosophy, one
that completely opposed his true thoughts,
to form some sense of internal balance.
What is at work here is a psychological defense
mechanism called reaction formation, in which
a person represses their true feelings which
they find to be unacceptable, and instead
express those feelings in a contrasting form.
It’s a form of hiding from the truth about
oneself.
So perhaps Suzaku despises Zero so much not
just because of the terrible things he did,
but because he is a walking reflection of
the part of himself that he hates.
Suzaku was terrified so much by his true feelings
that he built a false, opposing philosophy
around them, with the truth repressed and
buried deep within his mind.
When he finally honed up to who he had become,
he confronted the fact that he didn’t care
what he had to do to reach his goals as long
as he met them.
This is when the philosophy that was established
all those years ago finally properly showed
itself.
Now that he had tossed away the lies that
he had been telling himself, the seed had
sprouted.
And he was fully exposed to his flaws for
the first time in his life, which eventually
lead to his attempts to properly atone.
So while Suzaku did become the very thing
that he hated, from a certain point of view,
you could say that that is who he was all
along, and that it was just buried underneath
insecurities, fear and avoidance.
Perhaps he was more similar to Zero than he
originally thought, and his fixation on trying
to be morally superior to him was his way
of compensating for the shame that this caused
him.
By the end, however, this all fades away and
Suzaku is left to deal with who he is and
what he’s done.
His story is one that deceptively focuses
on self-acceptance.
Suzaku was someone who truly wanted what was
best for the world, but good intentions remain
intentions if they aren’t carried out properly.
He postured with fancy ideals, trying to be
self-righteous and feel superior, and this
pushed him off the edge.
But Suzaku comes to the realization that he
had gone too far and lost sight of his goal
in his darkness.
He realizes that the constant war would have
to be broken by something to bring prosperity
to the land, and he turns his attention back
to a peaceful future.
By the end it’s clear that he realized his
mistake and he does virtually the only thing
that he could have done to make strides to
atone - he loses his identity and becomes
Zero, a symbol of peace.
A symbol that will endure thanks to Lelouch’s
command to Live.
In my eyes, Lelouch was the hero of the story,
but Suzaku represented something just as important.
There’s a reason that Suzaku is so hated
- he is what happens when you lose sight of
yourself, a deep-rooted fear in modern society,
a concept that is naturally repulsive.
If Lelouch showed what could happen when man
sticks to their convictions, Suzaku shows
even more humanity by displaying what we fear
our intentions will never lead to.
And there is profound value in that message.
As said earlier, Lelouch and Suzaku share
the common trait of being individuals that
wanted to change the world and ones that,
through their means of doing so, commit terrible
deeds.
But the two branch off from each other from
that foundation point and oppose one another
in almost every conceivable way.
There is much more of a reflection and asymmetry
to the two than the obvious contrast in philosophy
early on.
At a base level, Suzaku spent the majority
of the story doing things that stemmed from
selfish motives that he tried to hide behind
a front of morals.
Meanwhile, Lelouch did the total opposite
- selfless motives with the goal of making
himself seem amoral.
Lelouch was never concerned about trying to
have the moral high ground as much as he was
about doing what he believed was right by
the end.
But Suzaku drove himself further and further
down the path of amorality by trying to make
himself seem better - to both himself and
others.
Lelouch stays consistent with his values throughout
the show and Suzaku loses himself.
Lelouch does what needs to be done with no
thoughts of trying to be righteous.
Suzaku does his best to look good and follow
meaningless abstract notions that he calls
ideals, which hold no weight because he doesn’t
adhere to them and practice what he preaches.
There’s an almost lyrical mirror image in
approach at work here - a detached, cold,
logical selflessness on Lelouch’s part and
an emotional, heartfelt selfishness on Suzaku’s.
However, the most important among these when
considering the conclusion of the show is
that Lelouch consciously sacrificed his sense
of self while Suzaku unintentionally lost
track of his.
And there is a note of irony behind the interesting
dynamics of the two best friends.
Lelouch’s kind move to command Suzaku to
live is unintentionally cruel given Suzaku’s
deathwish, though he shifts the intent of
it to give Suzaku the freedom and atonement
that he had been seeking his whole life.
This element dovetails with how the two men
lose their light humanity to make the Zero
Requiem the most appropriate ending possible
for these two characters.
The Zero Requiem is the final narrative beat
of the show, occurring after Lelouch and Suzaku
realized that their goal could only be achieved
through cooperation.
In an act that was essentially Lelouch’s
suicide, Suzaku fakes his death in an earlier
battle with Kallen, while Lelouch rises to
power and proves himself to be a true tyrant
to the world.
In recaptured Japan, Lelouch is paraded through
the streets as the nation’s leader, until
Suzaku appears under the mask of Zero and
assassinates his old friend, much to the joy
of the populace.
It is revealed that Lelouch told Suzaku that
in doing this, he must sacrifice himself,
renounce his old identity and take up the
mantle of Zero, a faceless man with the sole
focus of securing the world’s peaceful future.
People band and unite under symbols, so naturally
they can band and unite against symbols.
And in killing Lelouch, the man the world
is now unified in hatred against, the nation
will unite after blaming all of the evil deeds
of the past on him.
The Zero Requiem lead to more focus on benefitting
the world rather than war, and in turn, Lelouch’s
dream for world peace was achieved.
I won’t be going into the specifics of the
plan or whether or not the aftermath was believable
because that isn’t pertinent to the discussion
at hand.
Instead, with much help and thanks once again
from 7TeenWriters, I’ll focus on what this
event meant for Lelouch and Suzaku, and how
it was extremely effective in concluding their
respective arcs through displaying who they
truly were at the deepest level.
The Zero Requiem, it’s implications and
Suzaku’s role in it are the ultimate display
of kindness and love from Lelouch towards
his best friend.
It is both exactly what the world needed and
what Suzaku needed, and the only benefit or
selfish element it had for Lelouch is that
it was the final step of his grand plan, an
affirmation of his original goal.
The Zero Requiem is not and has never been
Lelouch’s redemption: It was Suzaku’s.
Lelouch seeks no redemption.
He is what he needed to be; a symbol of hate
to unite the world.
He never wanted redemption, and from the very
beginning he knew that his role in this revolution
for peace would be a thankless one that would
likely lead to his death.
His best friend, however, through this act,
is ironically given the ultimate means for
redemption; some would say, the ideal gift.
While Suzaku originally thought that death
was the ultimate punishment and the suitable
consequence for his actions, Lelouch’s final
words change his whole perspective.
Suzaku seeks to be punished?
This is his punishment.
He seeks to atone for everything he has done?
That may not be possible, but this is the
closest he can ever get to righting his wrongs.
He still maintains his original wish of making
the world a better, more peaceful place?
This is the way to do it.
Through the Zero Requiem, Suzaku dismisses
redundancies and achieves what he wanted so
deeply.
This is his salvation.
And at the same time, Lelouch carries out
what he had been intending to do - creating
the world anew.
It doesn’t matter that he’s universally
hated because as always, the results are what
matter, not the path to getting there.
Though he understandably wavered on this throughout
the story, he has always stuck to this philosophy.
This is why the Requiem is not a redemption
for Lelouch, but an affirmation of his plan
succeeding.
The redemption is for Suzaku.
One man dies as a pincushion for all of the
malice in the world for the sake of his desired
better future, and one forsakes his identity
and ideals to live out the remainder of his
days atoning for his sins, yet is fulfilled
by this.
Both achieve their original goal, and through
this, some twisted sense of balance and harmony
is struck with these two characters, and the
narrative as a whole.
