[azul120]

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

Well to be honest, that's pretty much the position I was eventually getting at. With regards to Suzaku's tenuous hold on morality, my reading is that he had pretty much abandoned himself and given that up the moment he witnessed the death of Euphie. Whereas Suzaku's earlier ideals were driven by self-hatred and suicidal tendencies over the sin of murdering his father, after Euphie's death Suzaku's hatred became outwards directed so that the only real principle guiding him was the pursuit of power. While throughout much of R2 Suzaku still experienced some internal struggle over not "becoming what he hated", by the time of the nuking of Tokyo Suzaku basically abandoned all pretenses of moral righteousness entirely. So in the end, I think the "honest" part of Suzaku's ideologies began fading away long before Lelouch and him decided to cooperate.

Meanwhile, Lelouch's initial hatred was outward directed, towards Britannia, but at the end of the story turned inward into a suicidal resolve in atonement for his sins, paralleling early Suzaku. So yeah, this was a deliberate inversion on the part of the authors. At the start of the story, Lelouch valued "ends" over "means", being willing to commit any atrocity in order to destroy Britannia ("become evil to destroy evil"), while Suzaku (having already committed an atrocity) was consumed by guilt and self-hatred; by the end of the story Suzaku became consumed by the pursuit of power by any means in order to achieve his objectives (i.e. paralleling Lelouch's early justification of continuing forward so that the blood which has already been lost is not wasted) whereas Lelouch came to acknowledge the weight of his sins and thereby resolve himself to die in atonement.

Lelouch's own initial plan was never right either: by committing atrocities, bearing sins, becoming evil himself to overcome the evil of Britannia, Lelouch was only continuing the chain of hatred (i.e. it was precisely because Suzaku was forced to "become evil for the sake of defeating evil" in trying to stop Lelouch that in the end he too was lead to abandon his morality). Whereas Suzaku's initial method would have only ended in his own death without accomplishing anything, Lelouch's initial method also only managed to exacerbate the pain and conflict. The resolution at the end of the story was thus a synthesis of initial Lelouch's hatred for the atrocities of others, and initial Suzaku's hatred for the atrocities of oneself, in the form of an "evil" which destroyed other "evils" by committing atrocities, but then atoned by destroying itself.

Zero Requiem was not going to close the chain either. Human nature abhors a vacuum. Besides, as I've said multiple times, one does not atone by committing greater evils.

Britannia was always too big to destroy externally. They were the largest empire/nation on the planet holding at all times the greatest wealth, technology, and industrial capacity. A war of destruction under the initiative of the UFN and the Black Knights could never have ended in anything other than more hatred, more death, and more tragedy. From the start, an internal reform/revolution of Britannia was the only solution which stood a chance at succeeding.

Biggest, perhaps, but they were always at the risk of stretching themselves too thin. By the time the UFN was created, Lelouch's side had a legitimate shot at beating Britannia. Lest we forget, by the time he ended up on the other side, the UFN/Black Knights were so strong, they were jobbing Lelouch's Britannia so hard, he had to blow up Mt. Fuji to so much as have a shot.

Lelouch deserved death in atonement above all those other people for his atrocities as the Emperor of Britannia. Those atrocities were in turn necessary to create the peaceful world Lelouch and Suzaku desired.

He didn't have to act as dictator in the first place! Besides, were we not talking about the stuff beforehand? You know, the stuff he was doing this all out of atonement? It was not necessary for him to act as a tyrant for peace. He could have just been a GOOD leader, and pinned the blame on Charles and Schneizel.

And those people I mentioned earlier interfered with his earlier attempts at peace, either as opponents or spanners.

Suzaku would have killed Lelouch right then and there after Charles was gotten rid of if Lelouch had not shown his sincere intention to atone for Euphie. If Lelouch had not, Suzaku would have been entirely justified in killing him by the same terms of Lelouch's hypocrisy in committing atrocities to destroy Britannia; "become evil to defeat evil".

There's NOTHING that states this. You're going on pure speculation here. Besides, you're ignoring the part where I stated Suzaku was responsible for 35 million deaths, apparently including Nunnally. Which would have made Suzaku full of it.

Lelouch was the one to die because he was the one who chose to take up the burden of committing irredeemable sins to bring peace to the world/destroy old Britannia. By any measure, Cornelia held herself to a higher moral standard than Lelouch did. Schniezel, meanwhile, was just as amoral as Lelouch was, which is why he was put under the thumb of Suzaku.

Higher moral standard? Then she's a flaming hypocrite. She murdered scores of civilians in the name of Britannian supremacy, and worse, she'll never have to answer for it.

See above. Suzaku's hatred/continued intention to kill Lelouch was what prompted Lelouch to realize he had to atone to end the chain of hatred/make up for his atrocities.

No it wasn't. Again, you're going on pure speculation.