[Kusaja]

Originally Posted by azul120

Okouchi erred by deciding Lelouch should die before creating the leadup, which is why the final arc was so janky. Heck, M. Night freakin' Shyamalan cautioned against that sort of thing in a panel he did once. The second cour of R2 needed a serious rewrite considering the overall character arc.

As always, that's ultimately a subjective opinion. It depends entirely on each person's expectations and individual analysis of the situation. The same topic has been debated many times over the years and there are multiple interpretations across the Internet that have argued otherwise. And I don't just mean those which assume that Lelouch never actually died in the first place. For a fair amount of people, his death was an absolute necessity in order to complete the character arc, rather than something that troubles them. Yet I won't repeat my own thoughts on the subject at length, because it would be redundant given that we have never agreed.

Instead, I will just link to a rather interesting analysis here from a completely different standpoint that finds the conclusion fitting regardless of the alive/dead status of the character. I wouldn't be surprised if you disagreed with that one too, especially if you are allergic to incorporating the show's transparent homoerotic subtext, but it is an example of how there can be alternate interpretations that are well constructed and supported by the source material.

Also, him being brainwashed into becoming Julius makes him an even bigger universal chew toy. And Suzaku an even bigger hypocrite

In terms of personality analysis, which I find rather productive, Julius reflects how Lelouch could have easily turned into a version of Schneizel if he had never been exiled from Britannia and simultaneously lacked an emotional connection to mother/sister figures. It brings additional perspective into just how terrifying it would be to use Lelouch as an instrument of domination rather than of rebellion (which, interestingly enough, is subverted here via his fake "terrorist" act). Adding to that, it seems the implication is Lelouch won't remember this because of how confused and unstable his mind was at the time, before Charles took him back in and retooled him into a role that he was more comfortable playing with: the bored student he always had been at the start of the story, except with a brother instead of a sister.