[morbosfist]

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

I don't really get where people get this 'Suzaku does stuff to make himself feel better' stuff when it's pretty clear he couldn't possibly consider himself more of a dirty sinner. (Also: the line azul brought up in Turn 6 is pretty much an explicit example of Suzaku refusing to dress up the fact that he is killing real people for his cause.)

Just because he considers himself a sinner does not mean he's not deluding himself about what he's doing. Turn 6 is one of the instances where he outright justifies killing, but is using Nunnally as an excuse, and yet two episodes later he lets Anya sign a man's life away because he was too afraid to do it himself. That is the delusion. Suzaku doesn't like to admit he's a killer, and doesn't truly do so until he nukes Tokyo (and even that he tried to pass the buck on at first).

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

Screw whatever preconceptions those European generals' had of what constitutes a 'reasonable' battle; if the name of the Knight of Rounds' 'White Shinigami' doesn't speak enough for them, then they do deserve whatever consequences they get for not surrendering.

So a name is supposed to make people surrender automatically? You must be joking. Even a flying unit can be shot down. Suzaku simply has plot armor keeping him alive. Suzaku's request was entirely unreasonable. They were holding the line until he showed up, and had no reason to think one unit would be that much of a problem, reputation be damned.

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

I think one thing to remember when talking about Suzaku supposedly helping Britannia 'enslave' other countries is that, unlike the then present Britannia and Japan, Britannia and the E.U./C.F. are actually (perhaps intermittently, but certainly historically) at war. The fact is, in Code Geass it's pretty much a given that all governments are assholes anyway (go back to Lelouch and Suzaku's meeting in Picture Book 1/Stage 00 for an interesting idealogical reversal), so assuming and condemning Suzaku for enabling a 'political aggressor' like Britannia would be meaningless. Compromising with stuff like that is a fundamental assumption of 'working with the (any) system' in the first place.

Nevertheless, he's forcing veritable slavery upon millions, possibly billions, of people to help a minority. He didn't even have to participate in that EU battle. He just showed up. If he were following orders, then it might be excused. He's doing it to earn prestige, which is far worse.

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

Remember, Suzaku's goal is not 'get Britannia to stop conquering countries'. It's 'get Britannia to treat conquered countries well'; countries being conquered is not a detriment under this assumption.

No, it's "get Britannia to treat Japan well." He doesn't give a shit about anywhere else. Being Knight of One only helps Japan. He'd doom the world to hell for his own slice of heaven, so to speak.

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

Furthermore, speaking on Suzaku's contributions to Britannia 'enslaving' other countries in the style of Japan in general: unlike Japan, which was an independant nation, wherever it was Suzaku was fighting in Turn 4 (it was either Germany or Italy I think, but I can't remember) and more than likely anywhere else he took the field at was a part of one of the world's superpowers (the E.U. in this case).

This is because, after gaining military dominance around the time of the invasion of Japan, Britannia had already had around 8 years to conquer any of the weaker individual nations left around which it was interested in. However, considering all the military/technological advancements Britannia had been acquiring recently, it was probably in an expansionary period, even beginning to gain ground directly against its rival superpowers.

What this means is two things: first, given Britannia's much increased military potential, and given that it's recent gains are in areas much closer to the heart of it's rival superpowers, Britannia has much less incentive to consolidate/reform those areas than to convert them into staging grounds for further excursions or to use them as bargaining chips for direct negotiations. Second: given the influx of new technology, Britannia gained more room for growth/improvement so that less of its production capacity would be directed at satellite 'colonies' in the first place (I think you can see this in the state of Japan at the start of R2 for example--it is clearly not recovered from the Black Rebellion, and the general situation itself does not seem permanent or even sustainable). All this means that for me, the idea that Suzaku's contributions to Britannia's war effort would lead to anything remotely similar to new 'Area 11's is quite unlikely.

So instead of having their country enslaved it's simply razed to the ground? How is this better? One of the picture dramas has a scene where Suzaku sees first hand the lives he's affecting, when a little girl accuses him (rightfully so) of killing her parents. He just makes sure the orphaned girl will be ok and goes on his merry way. Regardless of what's happening to these countries, they are being made into territories and their citizens would become Numbers eventually.

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

So let me get back to the point: as I see it, Suzaku had no reason whatsoever to feel guilty over crushing those armies, so I don't see why he'd feel the need to 'dress up' anything in the first place; and indeed, the fact that he offered them a chance to surrender at all does seem to me to have been honourable.

It'd be honorable if they would be treated fairly. They won't. Likewise, if his request were actually one he could ever expect to be honored it would be, but it isn't. He knew he was going to kill them.

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

Similar in conception to the SAZ, Suzaku's administration could be used as a model for other colonies depending on how successful it is. Even apart from that, though, the second huge paragraph in my post talks about why logistically it wouldn't make sense for Britannia to make EU/CF territories it conquered into Areas.

Suzaku's administration coud also be seen as harmful to the stability of the Empire, and could be blocked. It's not like he has the power to cecede. That assumes he even gets there. More to the point, it also assumes Suzaku actually thought that far ahead, when he clearly did not.

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

I'm also pretty sure the EU isn't exactly modelled after the EU in our world, given Code Geass's alternative history and all. If I've got it right, Britannia's exodus from Europe basically took all of Europe's royal/noble families and the institution of monarchy in general along with it. Charles' comment from S1 also suggests some sort of uniform/universal democracy. I'm not certain it'd be all that accurate to assume it is similar to the EU in our world (also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I wasn't aware that our European Union had a military component? Okay, so I've never familiarized myself with world politics or current events to any real extent, but I thought the EU was exclusively a trade union).

This EU has a multi-national army culled from its member nations.