Code Geass

[Darmani]

How loose was of the genius asshole clock only more substantial the doctor house in terms of what he was doing. Exact sort of person into him is probably praising Taylor of web serial worm and worships Rick Sanchez

[Sam]

It's 1960 by the way. Their 2010 is our 1960. They have cell phones during a time when we thought the future was flying cars and moving sidewalks. Also, Napoleon conquered England. I like to imagine he got a Geass from the Rosetta stone and now every time I see the scene from Waterloo where they zoom into his eye I imagine the Geass symbol. Also, Britannica is the British Empire they just moved to North America.

[PerrySimm]

It was news to me, and also I can't find anything but a bit of fan speculation to support the 1960s idea. I mean, crossover fanfic is cool and all but by a simple look at this show, techwise their 2010 is more or less the same as our 2010, just with giant robots.

My question for the group is about the dissonance you might or might not have with the show. After all, Code Geass has been immensely popular despite Lelouche being so morally ambiguous. Do you think that you like Code Geass about as much as you like Lelouche? Or do you have separate feelings?

[Jonathan101]

I like Lelouch as a morally ambiguous anti-hero - your main protagonist doesn't have to be someone you agree with or always root for.

I wouldn't say it's popular despite him being morally ambiguous; I would say it's popular BECAUSE he is morally ambiguous, or at least that's a point in it's favour.

My problems with the story are more to do with the direction it takes in season 2- in the first season they struggled to conquer / liberate a single nation (and a relatively small one at that); in season 2 they've liberated China and East Asia, lose that but then Lelouch takes over Britannia and everything just feels so rushed and breaks my suspension of disbelief.

My main complaint of season 1 is the Diablo Ex Machina that comes when a guy who has just realised that his mind control powers are getting out of control starts casually talking about mass murder to his sister and is shocked, SHOCKED when she actually goes through with it- that just seemed forced and contrived; even then though, it at least built up to a Hell of an ending.

Season 2 though has an ending that reminds you it was made around the same time as The Dark Knight and other stories where the lesson is "lying to everyone is how you save the day". It's less morally ambiguous than it is seemingly arguing that the extremist was right and engineering a reign of terror to bring about world peace makes you a tragic hero rather than a delusional madman because most people are just sheep.

[MixedDrops]

Like I said earlier, I find Lelouch appealing in the same way one might find Walter White appealing- when done well, there's something cathartic about seeing an emotionally-driven character get what he wants, even at the cost of others. Thus, I wouldn't even describe him as an anti-hero- I'd actually identify him as a villain. Possibly an anti-villain at times, you can see him straining to protect the people he loves, but then he just as quickly drops all pretenses and acts completely ruthless for expedience. He's more someone who wants to imagine himself moral than someone who is actually moral, again like Walter White, which is why I almost threw my hands up when CC said "you're too kind of a person" in S2. Like, fucking really? But then I dislike most of S2 in general.

[Gruntagen]

You know, SF really can just pronounce Kallen’s name as “Colin”. If anyone’s going to get self-righteous about it, they’d already be getting upset with his decision to watch dubs. Besides, I don’t think anyone is going to match “The way he pronounced “Killua” makes me want to kill myself” in terms of unbelievable stubbornness on Jap name pronounciation.

[MixedDrops]

Back before the show was localized, I just straight up called her "Karen". Now I say "Cal-len" since that's the official pronunciation, but I maintain that's kind of dumb. Okay it's an alternate history where Britannia rules the world, China is still imperial and the Japanese are all innocent, but I still think the name "Karen" would've existed all the same.

[TrueMetis]

It was news to me, and also I can't find anything but a bit of fan speculation to support the 1960s idea. I mean, crossover fanfic is cool and all but by a simple look at this show, techwise their 2010 is more or less the same as our 2010, just with giant robots.

I believe it was established in side material, but the creators kept making mistakes and it was kind of abandoned.

I actually like the idea, because it made sense then how the knightmare frame became a thing. If it's 2017 like our universe, then the Invasion of Japan happened in 2010. Which means at this point the tank has been around for over half a century. So anti-armour tactics should be well established. As fast the knightmare's move, and as small as they are they would have to be significantly less well armoured than a tank. Anti-tank tactics would be easily adapted in order to overcome such a threat. (Especially as because of their supermaterial in Sakuradite propellant based weapons have been replaced by electromagnetic weapons. But whatever, give me a Carl G and I'll get you a fortune in scrap metal)

If we're in the 60's however, and the invasion of Japan was essentially their ww2, then we're in a bit of a different situation. Tanks are a relatively recent invention, and the crucible that forged tank and anti-tank doctrine is instead used from knightmare frames. And all focus shifts to them, and people decide that the only way to take down a knightmare, is with another knightmare. Little thought was given to infantry anti-armour tactics, and the only thing they're seemingly packing is what look like an RPG-7. Which would almost certainly cripple a knightmare frame on impact, but such weapons don't seem to be as ubiquitous in the code geass universe as they are in ours.

My question for the group is about the dissonance you might or might not have with the show. After all, Code Geass has been immensely popular despite Lelouche being so morally ambiguous. Do you think that you like Code Geass about as much as you like Lelouche? Or do you have separate feelings?

I mostly think that not a lot of attention goes to the fact that both Suzaku and Lelouch are clearly pretty messed up. Suzaku's Martyr complex is pretty obvious. And Lelouch clearly has a complete mental breakdown when he thinks his sister died, hence his dumbass endgame. I mean this makes sense in universe, Britannia's neo-darwinistic horseshit doesn't exactly allow for a proper understanding of mental health but the show never addresses it, or even seems to realize it is there.

At the end of the day there is one decent person who I would root for in this show. Unfortunately she gets shot because the main character made an out of character joke and the star aligned in the worst way possible.

[Cylus]

Lelouch might not satisfy my definition of a "good person" yet he does match my requirements for a "good protagonist". There's something charismatic about him, helped by the performance but also supported by the fact he does have plenty of emotional range and tension. You wanna slap him or see the guy suffer on occasion, but sometimes you also wish he could succeed. That makes the character work in both dramatic and comedic sequences. To a certain extent, that also applies to Suzaku. Like TrueMetis says, these aren't exactly supposed to be mentally healthy people. Living in such a world, a lot of psychological baggage is going to accumulate. The show doesn't come and spell it out (although it comes close, at least with Suzaku), but I think we can still see a bunch of scenes and elements that can be used to support this.

Unlike MixedDrops, I don't entirely see Lelouch as Walter White. There is a degree of overlap, yes, but he doesn't fall quite as far. He can still question himself and be kind towards certain people even near the end. All things considered, he did learn to treat C.C. as an individual person instead of simply using her as a source of power or blaming her for his own problems.

Furthermore, there is an online video analysis called "The Dynamics of Lelouch and Suzaku" that does a nice job in terms of discussing the contrast between them and what the core story was going for. The video also supports why, in my experience, the ultimate outcome of season two makes a whole lot of sense as a resolution to the two respective character arcs involved.

I will admit there were various parts of S2 that made me feel frustrated during the initial broadcast (this is why I also like that they cut about half of R2 in the new recap movies). Not angry, because I've seen way too much anime for that, but still. Even so, I think it was worth sticking with the show until the eventual finale. Most of that previous frustration doesn't affect me anymore, in retrospect, precisely because I found the destination to be a good release.

The last episode can be criticized for lacking realism, but my honest view is...well, the show has cared very little about realism over the past 49 episodes. It was rarely, if ever, a priority. I don't think it would be useful to drop spoilers left and right without warning though, so I'll keep the details scant.

[TheGreenMan]

"the darkest thing I've seen all year"

Chuck needs to watch "The Nautilus Faces Its Biggest Crisis" episode of Nadia next. Now that's dark.