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Old 2008-06-14, 23:38   Link #1201
m1thril
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which is what people are pointing out to those who think that everything he does is correct.
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Old 2008-06-14, 23:40   Link #1202
Dann of Thursday
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Who here thinks everything he does is perfect? I can't think of anyone in paticular who thinks that.
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Old 2008-06-14, 23:43   Link #1203
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Suzaku is an 18 year old soldier and everyone expects him to be perfect while Lelouch seems to by past everything with charisma and tactical brilliance but in the end it leaves the Black Knights as a rather shallow and bleak organization with little to no guidance without Zero. I mean watch episode 7 with Kallen and her willingness to do anything that he commands and be used all for the sake of one cause spoke about all the members as a whole, although hopefully they actually try to think for themselves since not all the Blck Knights are as loyal as Kaguya and Kallen.
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Old 2008-06-14, 23:44   Link #1204
m1thril
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just to those who justify everything he does. why are you being so nitpicky about it? it's just a generalization
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Old 2008-06-14, 23:46   Link #1205
Dann of Thursday
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Well, some seem to demonize everything he does which requires some to look at it in a more positive way rather than always looking at him as evil.
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Old 2008-06-14, 23:48   Link #1206
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i completely agree
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Old 2008-06-14, 23:49   Link #1207
Dann of Thursday
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The same can be said of Suzaku. Though the problem there is when people try to paint all his acts in season 1 as acts of a virtuous young man when it was confirmed throught interviews and the show that this was not the case. People are a bit harsh on him I suppose.
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Old 2008-06-14, 23:55   Link #1208
m1thril
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that is very true...suzaku is in no way perfect...he does some pretty stupid things. but hey that is suzaku for you

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Originally Posted by Dann of Thursday View Post
People are a bit harsh on him I suppose.
which is why i find myself over-critical of lelouch and lenient on suzaku o.0

i honestly think that they pretty much the same at their core though they have opposite viewpoints and different ways of achieving their goals
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Old 2008-06-15, 00:00   Link #1209
Dann of Thursday
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I don't think it's good to be over critical on one and not on another.

I'm not so sure they are exactly the same at their core though. Taniguchi's intent with them was to have Lelouch be someone that seemed like a villain yet wasn't and Suzaku being someone who seemed like a very good person but was really more selfish. Neither is pure evil or anything though.
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Old 2008-06-15, 00:10   Link #1210
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i guess i meant they are both "good" people at heart as opposed to some of the maniacs in brittania
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Old 2008-06-15, 00:13   Link #1211
Dann of Thursday
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I would definitely agree with that except that I don't know if Charles can really be called a maniac.
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Old 2008-06-15, 03:16   Link #1212
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I just thought of something: After 30+ eps, what HAS Lelouch achieved, besides killing two members of the royal family?
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Old 2008-06-15, 03:23   Link #1213
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Originally Posted by yezhanquan View Post
I just thought of something: After 30+ eps, what HAS Lelouch achieved, besides killing two members of the royal family?
Organized a full-sized network internationally for fighting against Britannia, with proper funding, budget, PR, and R&D departments.

If it was easy to do, Japan would have done it years ago without him.
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Old 2008-06-15, 03:27   Link #1214
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Organized a full-sized network internationally for fighting against Britannia, with proper funding, budget, PR, and R&D departments.

If it was easy to do, Japan would have done it years ago without him.
Hmmm... Lelouch's charisma and intelligence did bring a new dimension to the Resistance. Still, we have 10+ episodes to go. The chess game goes on. One thing's for sure: Charles is enjoying himself so far.
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Old 2008-06-15, 04:45   Link #1215
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Originally Posted by m1thril View Post
i think what dean is saying is that explaining your actions whenever you can is part of being a leader (which i agree since doing this will make things more efficient). He then elaborates on this point by giving examples of the two extremes. Of course, doing this part does not mean you're necessarily a good leader, but ignoring this part means that you are not as great as a leader as you can be. Though LL is a good leader (produces results with minimal casualties), he isn't great as he can improve on many things.
Was it a weakness, an unintended omission, or were the purposes of the actions consciously left out?

Do not underestimate the power of mythology: Lelouch's Zero is an anime version of a conscious character creation, a personality cult that essentially declares that Zero is perfection itself.

Note: the following takes a positive view of Zero's leadership; it does not fully represent my opinion on the topic, which is essentially, "I don't know either, arguments could be made either way: what do you think?"...

Depending on circumstances, a leader who seems above human can inspire his followers a lot more than a leader whose actions are logical, and therefore human, which essentially translates to a leader who isn't perfect, who can be understood, grasped, guessed, imitated, and consequently replaced with a suitable replacement. But who can replace Zero?

Moreover, the odds faced by these Black Knights are essentially insurmountable. Anything less than a miracle -- a Zero -- cannot bring Britannia down, or so the people feels. Why else did Toudou fail so spectacularly when Zero left the field at the end of Season 1? Toudou is a military genius, he even won a "miraculous battle" once. The problem, the show seems to tell us, is that Toudou is human, understandable; his plans are logical, they can be seen, read, prepared for -- they might be sheer genius (or not, we are never shown that in the show), but a human with a recognizable face made this plan. How can a human beats insurmountable odds?

I understand that from a follower's point of view, you and I want our battles to have meaning. We want to know the purpose of our actions: why are we doing this? What will we achieve from it? We want our Leader to tell us what's going on so we won't be left in the dark. We aren't slaves, we are humans: we want to know the value of our sacrifices, the trade-off that we would have to make, and what we will gain from them. But many leaders often find that the effect could be quite to the contrary -- why are virtually all military organizations insist on absolute obedience, disregarding self-conscious reason at some level? Why do they insist on ranks and files even when the specific society at large moves on to value concepts like equality for all? Why do they demand that their soldiers fight without questioning, without knowing what they will accomplish? Mostly it's because sometimes, leaders have to do painful things. They have to make compromises, give out sacrifices, and let their subordinates pay, often in blood, for problems that might be of their own making or not. That's why most people aren't leaders: at some point we just come across this choice of horrible and fucking horrible and we don't know which road to take. Leaders...must take a road nonetheless, and the Zero of Code Geass took many roads which are extremely questionable in many, many ways. In this, Zero is merely using the same thing, the lack of information among his subordinates, to get away with it just like many leaders do in real life (and oh yes even the greatest makes mistakes, sometimes on epic fail levels); with a different style and at a different scale of course: this is anime after all.

Imagine for example, if Zero happens to follow your line of thinking and explains his overall plan to the Black Knights. I'll ignore any espionage factors involved (i.e. Britannia learning of Zero's plans because of this) for the sake of argument and because Britannia's espionage network seems to be made of fail. Instead, things happen this way: Zero explains his plans, the Knights marvel at his genius, they know what they're getting, they are directly told that, if they point their guns 30 degrees this way, they'll take down one Britannian Sutherland, and if they blow up all the bombs, they'll finish off the Britannian commander. Everyone trusts Zero of course, he tells them what they're doing, there's no doubt to things at all.

Perfect right? Compared to the hush-hush masked man, this Zero is so much nicer of a guy. Right now, if I have to choose, I'll prefer this open Zero to the Leader who never speaks up. I prefer to know if my sacrifice will mean something after all.

Well then, it just so happens that Britannia mans up, the idiot ball got removed from the plot, and now the Superpower comes at them with its full might and with competence for once, something that's been missing in the show since Cornelia left the game. Zero, being who he is, plans to fight this awakening behemoth head-on and save his people. He's got a plan of course, and now he's explaining things to his subordinate. Since Britannia actually uses actual tactics this time, the Black Knights are in a tight spot! Zero can't think of anything else, he draws up a great plan, but it will cost them: if they are to survive this epic battle, they'll have to make sacrifices, say, half the Black Knights' existing force. A heavy price, but a price must be paid for everybody's sake.

Now we begin to see problems:

1) Some subordinates dislike the idea of a guaranteed loss of half the army, which they know because Zero tells them what he predicts is going to happen, as part of the plan. Say, Tamaki, screams at Zero, "Am I supposed to die!? That's unfair!" Insubordination begins.

The problem could probably be dealt with if Zero uses his charisma to convince them. "It's a sacrifice for Japan, for Freedom, for Justice! Blah blah blah." Tamaki understands. He cries a little, but you know what? If he's gonna die, he'll die a hero. He'll make everyone proud. He's Tamaki the Black Knight after all. Tamaki, you're awesome! Tamaki, your death will not be in vain! We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall imitate Churchill, we shall never surrender!

Problem solved?

2) Well, now this battle is going on, and everything goes according to plan so far. Zero appears to lose, the Knights are dying left and right, but since everybody knows what's going on, they steel themselves and face the Britannian assault with the heart of true soldiers. Epic stuff happen, the Black Knights are turning the tide, as predicted. Huzzah Huzzah Zero! What a genius!

...then an unexpected thing happen. Say, Suzaku appears (lol), torch half of the Zero strike force, and pursues him. Kallen forced out of the main battle just to keep Zero alive. The plan is falling apart.

Now things are beginning to get heated.

Since everyone knows the plan, they also *know* the plan is not working. Confidence begins to drop, morale falters. Oh shit, we're pwned. Britannia = competent? Did Cornelia come back? Did Schneizel man up!? It's the end of the Black Knights! But wait, Zero is still around, he'll think of something!

Problem contained?

3) As it happens, Zero *did* think of something. It involves more sacrifice of course, but even as he runs away from that damnable Lancelot, he figures out a really, really cool trick! You know what, we're not gonna win this, in fact we'll lose most of our forces, but we'll survive for another round!

Zero explains the plan for everyone, they follow it of course, it's this or total annihilation. Their morale is shaken, Zero has failed, there'll be dissension problems waiting for Zero back at the Secret Base. But it's later and not now.

But then, as the plan is set in motion, something worse happened: say, Nunnally got kidnapped. Now Zero runs away from the battlefield at full speed; screw the Black Knights, I'm a sis-con and my kawaii ultra-moe baby sister comes first!

Things fall apart, as expected, right? And you might say here, what's your point, Irenicus, you sonofabitch you just wasted my time! Things fell apart with that other Zero in the stupid show too, what's the difference?

4) Let's skip all the "epic confrontation mwahaha Lelouch got Geassed mwahaha Time Skip mwahaha there's a new Lil' Bro mwahaha Zero reawakens mwahaha" part and proceeds right to Zero back at the base, ready to restore the Black Knights back to war footing. Now we've got a problem. The Zero in that melodramatic show solved the whole shaken confidence issue with a blatant about-face "I did what I did because that's what I do (yeah yeah yeah Rolling Stones)." Imagine this Zero doing that. We won't talk much on what's gonna happen because we all know what's gonna happen. The open, honest, leadership-filled Zero saying this assery of an excuse? It's such an obvious ploy of a desperate human! Let's forget all this Rebellion nonsense and go get drunk at the local karaoke bar or something. We Japanese are just better at smoking and drinking alcohol and playing pachinko than fighting an epic rebellion anyway! The Black Rebellion has just, well, failed, with one epic defeat. Because they understand Zero, they understand he is human. And they understand his actions in human terms. That half-assed excuse is a clear sign that Zero is not riding high like he used to be; why? Because they themselves would do the same in that position; and, well, nobody likes to stick with the loser.

Now you might say, "wait, this nice, reasonable Zero won't say such half-assed stuff! He'll explain himself!" And it becomes utterly obvious where the problem is: "Right, guys; you see, I know I kinda left you hanging that last time around Tokyo -- but I've got my reason y'know. See, I'm a sis-con, and my uber-cute-ultra-moe-onii-sama-lovin' baby sister got kidnapped by some idiot shota of a wizard, so I went to save her. You've got a sister too right? Good, I'm sure you know how I feel. Now that she's [somewhere I can't reach/safe and sound] though, let's get back to bis'ness ev'ryone!"

It's never gonna pass.
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Old 2008-06-15, 05:15   Link #1216
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That logic makes no sense. They'd still lose just as badly whether they knew the plan or not. Considering their whole reason for losing was Britannia being more competent than usual. I think you need a different scenario that doesn't revolve around the enemy suddenly getting better. The only difference here would be the Order lynching him upon finding the truth about his ditching them.
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Old 2008-06-15, 05:37   Link #1217
Irenicus
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That logic makes no sense. They'd still lose just as badly whether they knew the plan or not. Considering their whole reason for losing was Britannia being more competent than usual. I think you need a different scenario that doesn't revolve around the enemy suddenly getting better. The only difference here would be the Order lynching him upon finding the truth about his ditching them.
Doesn't that, like, spell the end of the Rebellion?

That example focused on the aspect of Zero continuing to lead the Rebellion without it being plagued by dissensions and factionalism (and, trust me, rebel organizations are notoriously fractious -- the Black Knights is a fictional exception...thanks to Zero's "perfect" presence). If you want one where the "silence" and "divine" aspects help gain victory, then I can only say that the effect will be more subtle, but the example *does* contain them.

Moreover, the whole "Britannia gaining competence" is just a little joke. That kind of situation, though not exact, did happen in the show after all (although they *did* for some reason got a lot more effective right when Zero left the field, though the show attempted to portray it as the Black Knights losing the Zero Aura which essentially falls into my argument...)

At number two, I bolded the statement "the plan is falling apart" with the intention of pointing out the consequences of telling everybody what he knows. What if he didn't? You might say that they'll lose all the same -- but can you be sure? The morale won't suffer (they'll still think Zero is doing what he's supposed to be doing -- in fact since they don't know the plan, they won't even know they're supposed to lose that much), or at least not as much, and they might continue to be confident even when Zero knew things are in trouble.

Also, on the very first part of my post, before the abridged example, I focused on his creation of a personality cult. This requires that Zero be detached, essentially, from "normal humans," and not giving away his purpose aids to that sense of mystery. A lot.

He screams "Results! Results!" all the time. What does that mean? I'd say it's implying that "I am the one who brings in all these miracles! I am the miracle!" and implicitly asks that everyone trusts him no matter what, with these "results" as reasons why. He also said it another way when he observed that Diethard wanted to make him "God." God doesn't tell his followers why he does things. God is, and you'd better trust in His Almighty even when you're busy wailing and gnashing your teeth in good old hell.
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Old 2008-06-15, 05:41   Link #1218
Dann of Thursday
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Except Lelouch doesn't think he is God. All those delusions were taken care of in 22 and 23.
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Old 2008-06-15, 05:43   Link #1219
Irenicus
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Except Lelouch doesn't think he is God. All those delusions were taken care of in 22 and 23.
He plays God. That's the whole point.

Lelouch might be a decent guy outside that suit, but the Masked One, Zero, is God to many of his followers. It's how he maintains power.

'tis obviousness is obvious.
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Old 2008-06-15, 05:46   Link #1220
Dann of Thursday
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It's not like he plans on being Zero forever. Zero is a symbol as shown during episode 8. Meh, it probably doesn't matter.
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