[Sol Falling]

Originally Posted by Nogitsune

I already discussed this with blade over several pages.
Lelouch wanted to change the whole world (mostly for Nunally and himself, but also for other people), and he is shown to dislike sacrificing human lives for his goals. He still does, and he's not selfless, but if I knew I'd wake up as a random character in the world of Code Geass tomorrow, my self-interest would dictate I support Lelouch, not XingKe. There'd be a chance I'd die for the cause, but an even bigger chance it would do me a lot of good in the long-run.

To be clear, what I disagree with with regards to your posts is the idea that Lelouch is somehow a better person (by virtue of being 'more moral') than the majority of Code Geass characters. In particular my concern lies with the other villains (Charles, Schniezel) and the other hero (Suzaku); with regards to the 'normal' characters you are discussing currently, I think they are fundamentally incomparable--or that, the principle factor separating them by your morality seems to be competence.

Here are two examples to illustrate my point:

You have before stated that you view Lelouch as more moral than Rivalz because while the former attempted to help victims of a traffic incident the latter was more concerned with being on time for class. However, from a results standpoint, Lelouch (who at that point in time had yet to attain any real power) didn't achieve much of anything. Physically weak, was Lelouch able to clear any debris? Untrained and unequipped, could Lelouch have provided adequate first aid? Just as Kallen's hopeless, meaningless resistance against Britannia only harmed the elevens attempting to survive within the system, Lelouch's actions only served to make Rivalz late.

(As a side note, I also think that Lelouch's actions in these types of situations had a lot more to do with not being part of the sheer idiocy that is a crowd loitering around an accident taking pictures than genuine altruism.)

That is to say: until Lelouch gained the competence/power associated with Geass, Lelouch's morality (as expressed by his 'willingness to do the right thing') cannot amount to anything greater than Kallen's. Furthermore, from a results standpoint, it is certainly still arguable that Rivalz' was the more 'moral' position during that incident.

Now the second example. You have before made the point that the global scale of Lelouch's ambitions makes them more moral than for example Xingke or Suzaku's more localized ones. I have to say, this is again a question of competence/power. Let's take a look at the three characters who possessed global ambitions from the beginning: Charles, Schniezel, and Lelouch. The common thread between them is obviously their Britannian heritage: Britannia being the single global superpower, the ambitions of those weilding either its power itself or the power to destroy it can afford to be global in scale. Compare the powers of Charles/Schniezel/Lelouch to Xingke/Suzaku: Geass + the military of the world's sole superpower/Fleija(Damocles) + the military of the world's sole superpower/Geass + the military of the worlds largest union of nations, versus Xingke's lowly 'partial control of the military of a declining, outdated superpower' and Suzaku's 'independant authority (as in, outside the chain of command, as a Knight of Round) within the military of the world's only superpower'. As you say, from a results standpoint, intentions beyond one's means are not moral, so it only makes sense that Xingke and Suzaku were concerned with more immediate goals.

Now to get to the point of this point: you've made a point of distinguishing 'pre-Zero: Requiem Lelouch and Suzaku' for this morality comparison. However, from your position, it is not Lelouch's morality that changed post-Zero: Requiem, but Suzaku's, right? After all, Lelouch had always wanted to change the world (as you claim). Then, what exactly widened the scope of Suzaku's ambitions? What changed his goals from local to global ones? That is only, the acquisition of power via his association with Lelouch. So as you can see, Suzaku's ambitions have always been in line with a consequentialist morality, just as Lelouch.

So to summarize: my understanding of your assertion of Lelouch's moral superiority lies in the fact that he possessed both the ambition and ability to reduce suffering. However, characters uninterested in reducing suffering aside, I think that the scope of one's ambition to do so is directly based on the scope of one's ability to achieve that ambition. Furthermore, under a results-based morality, acting on ambitions (or having intentions) which are impossible to achieve is actually immoral. Under such premises, the only character's I think you can truly claim to be less moral than Lelouch are characters (such as Kallen) who try to do 'the right thing' despite having no chance of succeeding (because, I don't think you can argue, it would be wholly indefensible to try to claim for example that Nunally would not have wanted to change the world for the better in S1 had she had the ability/power), and then in that case you still have to provide some convincing argument that 'results' (achieving the 'right thing') are morally more important than intentions (trying to achieve the 'right thing').