[azul120]

Originally Posted by Cynor

Easily? How? Schneizel has a recording of Lelouch saying he used Geass. He'd have to play a huge PR campaign as Zero, when the Black Knights have forsaken him. Don't you think that that would be a huge hurt? He was the CEO/Leader of them, and they shunned him.

His only option would be to use Geass on Xing-Ke and Kaguya and other UFN members to win them over to his cause and declare the OotBK rebels. But then who will able to bring them to "justice"? Don't forget that to join the UFN countries had to disband their armies.[/QUOTE]

The quote Schneizel used was a recording of the words "I gave the order", which, as Tamaki noted, could have been anyone. Beyond that, said recording was a selective Quote Mining of the conversation, and regarding those words, Suzaku notes that Lelouch was lying about giving Euphie the geass command.

Either way, Lelouch could have requested, as Emperor, a private meeting with the UFN and the Black Knights in order to demonstrate the limits of his Geass and clarify his usage of it. If they were to refuse him, they would be considered at fault.

Kaguya may have trusted him some, but she was still being cautious as she didn't know what was going and what to expect. She also did buy into the Geass thing as evidenced by the fact that she took precautions so that no one could be Geassed by him.

That much is understandable, but she still did seem to be more reasonable about it than the others. When she had been taken hostage, she was in tears, which pretty much speaks volumes about how she felt.

As for the BK not being saints... while that is true, where is the betrayal you're talking about? Do you mean joining forces with Schneizel? How does that betray the UFN? They were still a "private company" and if they wanted to go try to kill Lelouch it's not like that was going against something the UFN said. Nor were they keen on attacking Lelouch's flagship because there were representatives from the UFN on it.. Schneizel was the one pushing for that, and he made them obey his commands to prevent him from doing that.

Or do you mean them turning on Lelouch was the betrayal? 99.9% of the members of it didn't know Lelouch was Zero and thought Zero died in battle. They were just dutiful soldiers following orders. Ohgi and the higher ups were the ones who "betrayed" him, but they had a valid reason to as he was being secretive and they didn't know if their actions were their own or not. Granted if they were Geassed they shouldn't have been able to think about betraying him, so that is proof they weren't... if they were thinking. But for the bulk of the order they knew nothing.

I'm referring to the latter. And the reason I'm calling out Ohgi in particular is because he led the charge, and he was using Lelouch as a bargaining chip for Japan, among the following forms of hypocrisy: using Kallen as bait to draw out Lelouch even though he hates the idea of using people as pawns; abandoning the UFN with the under the table deal of Japan, which negates any right he had to complain about being abandoned during the Black Rebellion; and earlier on, abandoning his position in the Black Knights to meet with Villetta who he knew was planning on killing him, which also contradicts his complaints about Lelouch abandoning the Black Rebellion; and finally, any of them having issues with Lelouch being an exiled prince and recruiting Britannian help, even though they take the word of the most notorious Britannian royal himself, Schneizel, as well as Villetta, a Brittannian spy who Ohgi was seeing behind their backs even though she tried to kill him, and had already crippled him during the Black Rebellion.

While I will agree with that to an extent, that wasn't the biggest point of Zero Requiem. Zero Requiem was done to bring peace to the countries and stop all the wars that were between countries. That doesn't mean there wont be rebels still or things like that. But wars between countries should be stopped. They saw how bad it could be/get, and don't want to go back to that.

True enough, but that makes the plan even more of a waste when you think about it. The process involves an Inferred Holocaust, as well as the death of Lelouch, who would be more useful to the world if he were to live on as a leader and offer his expertise. The inevitable return of conflict will make the Requiem a Shaggy Dog Story.

The death thing still makes sense with everything he did to get there. That was also part of what he was trying to atone for. Using the people as cannon fodder, the assassinations (which tbh I don't remember, but I know he demoted a lot... and I know Schneizel used FLEIJA on the capitol with everyone still there... but whatever), etc. That was part of what he was atoning for. He wanted to create a sea of blood so that the "Massacre Princess" event would be forgotten or viewed as nothing. By giving peace to the world he makes it so they didn't die in vain.

Here's the thing: he didn't even have to do any of that in the first place! He was intentionally digging his grave because he wanted an excuse to die. He could have explained that the Massacre Princess incident happened because of an impostor.

There were other methods, but maybe they weren't as effective or took longer. Or maybe he chose the death one because of what he thought about Nunnally being dead and stuff. By the time he learned she was alive he was already committed so had to complete it. He couldn't change things, he was already walking down the path of blood and he couldn't suddenly go "oh, I'm actually a nice guy" and try to start a new path.

The Nunnally part would be the more accurate explanation, in combination with everything else, including the betrayal, which was pretty much the Despair Event Horizon for him. (Prior to that, there was one last Hope Spot when Kallen managed to talk him into coming with her to the warehouse.)

I bet a lot of the other paths may have involved staying Zero and turning the OotBK into villains are you were saying above. But he went and (publically on world wide tv) admitted to killing his father and then proceded to Geass a ton of people... those who knew about the possibility of Geass (Kaguya, Xing-Ke, etc) now had proof it was true. What else could explain the sudden change. No, he HAD to stay on the path. He couldn't change now.

No. He could have simply returned to the Black Knights and the UFN and explained everything, with Suzaku guarding him. He could have even chosen to be a good emperor if he wanted.

There are a couple of decent For Want of a Nail fanfics in the works by a writer called karndragon: Changing Course and Lelouch vi Britannia the 99th Emperor. The former is a what if scenario of Lelouch being saved from the betrayal by an OC instead of Rolo, and manages to secure Nunnally with his help, keeping him from the path of the Zero Requiem. The latter fic picks up from the latter part of Turn 21, only with Lelouch deciding to be a good emperor in memory of the ones he lost (or thought he did, in Nunnally's case).