2011-10-20, 15:55 | Link #1901 | ||
~Smile~
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: U.S.A
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I recommend it, though I'm really behind in following it. XD They are very fun characters haha!
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2011-10-21, 01:04 | Link #1902 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Age: 35
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As far as Shirley joining the Black Knights, there was an image from the 2012 Code Geass calendar which was posted in the "New Code Geass Project launched" thread which I thought was pretty interesting. Anyway, as far as how Shirley could fit into the Black Knights, I think her role would actually be fairly major.
If we recall, Shirley's core mission from the moment she decided what she wanted to do for Lelouch was to ensure that "Lelouch is never alone". Shirley understood, from Lelouch's situation, that practically the whole world had become his enemy, and so she took it as her mission to return his friends. Her first step was reconciling his broken relationship with Suzaku. The next goal was to somehow reunite with Nunally. All the people Lelouch cared about, Shirley would have devoted her life to rejoining Lelouch to them. The next step would be more general and wide-reaching. Not simply rescuing his personal loved ones, but Shirley would've pursued helping Lelouch gain real allies. That is because she understands that Lelouch's kind heart is hiding under a mask. But that kind heart is what she believes needs to be brought out into reality. As such, I believe one of Shirley's first major tasks upon joining the Black Knights would be to help Lelouch confide his true identity to the general organization. Because Shirley genuinely believes in Lelouch's goodness, and because she knows that she herself was able to forgive him, I think that Shirley would clearly feel that it should be possible for Lelouch's allies to understand him. This would be the first step in building a foundation of real trust in the organization, and at the same time easily explain and establish a purpose for Shirley's role beside him. What Shirley would essentially be doing is building a network of real friends and allies around Lelouch to support him. She would in time become his diplomatic adviser, and his strongest advocate for Hope. Shirley's background and personal experiences regarding Lelouch would make her ideally suited for diplomatic functions of establishing Lelouch's faith and credibility. By forcing Lelouch's real goodness out into the open, Shirley would be instrumental in moving the organization towards helping the world move towards a direction of genuinely constructive reform/diplomacy. I myself believe that Zero: Requiem was the best solution, both politically and emotionally, for Lelouch in the aftermath of Shirley's death. But it is easy for me to see the ways in which Shirley could have drastically changed the outcome of Code Geass's ending, and been the strongest ally to Lelouch that he would ever have. For me, not only on a personal level, Shirley's death can without question be seen as the greatest tragedy in the story's narrative. |
2011-10-21, 03:15 | Link #1903 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
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More than anything though, real life tells us that people fall into conflict over various things all of the time, which alone makes the ending absurd. On top of that, he had ended up causing more damage than he did during the rebellion. It only makes sense in Lelouch doing it as a suicide plan. Not just because of Shirley's death, but Nunnally's apparent demise in the FLEIJA blast and the betrayal from the Black Knights. |
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2011-10-21, 11:37 | Link #1904 | |||
Philosophos Basileus
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Yes, he set up the UFN. He had no intention on running it. He knows there must be a system, but that doesn't make him suited to running it. I could make all sorts of pronouncements about how the world ought to be run from the safety of my figurative (sometimes literal) armchair, and I'd like to think that some of them have a good bit of sense in them, but I'd never make a good leader because I'm just too damn indecisive. Lelouch is by no means indecisive, but the parallel nevertheless stands. When he set up the UFN, Lelouch let Kaguya and the other world leaders run the political side of things; he just wanted to lead the Black Knights against Britannia. I imagine that if he'd won without dying, he'd have more or less retired from public life. As for being Emperor of Justice for a while: being Emperor of Justice for a month (or how long) off-screen is one hell of a lot easier than being it for life on-screen (or so-to-speak), particularly when he had the last vestiges of the old Britannian system to focus himself on eradicating for that month. Plenty of revolutionaries have started off running the show pretty well, but far fewer have managed to sustain that over a period of many years. Again, I'm not saying that Lelouch definitely would've been a failure as Emperor, but I think that it's very likely, and entirely in his character archetype. Quote:
Almost, but not quite. The reason none of these details are brought to the fore is, of course, that they're far less important to the story. And this is the real reason why I like the Zero Requiem and want to defend it. Yes, it was bloody, though the wars it replaced would also have been bloody; after all, it's hardly as though Lelouch would've been able to take down Britannia without spilling rivers of blood however he did it, and he'd almost certainly have had to face off against Schneizel sooner or later. But it was a story of atonement, it was a happy ending that I pray we're not all too cynical to enjoy, and damn it all, it was just utterly fabulous. In short, it was a near-perfect end to the series. I'll admit that, from a realistic, cynical point of view, the Zero Requiem was at best no sure thing. It could've all gone wrong, even after Lelouch's death happening as it did. But I honestly don't think that matters. The thematic sense it makes, and the lift it gave me despite all the bad that had happened, matter far more. And that's why I defend it. Quote:
In closing: I'm probably making the show sound a lot deeper than it, overall, deserves credit for here, and even a lot deeper than I really think it is. By and large, Code Geass isn't deep; it's a fabulous show with large hams, giant robots, Xanatos tropes up the wazoo and more plot holes than than a particular holey bit of Leicester cheese. But that doesn't mean it didn't have anything going on beneath all that, and the ending, the Zero Requiem, was where that came to the fore, where the show as at its deepest. And that's why I disagree, politely, with people who call it no more than a silly, arse-pull happy ending. Now, if you still want to take me up on this (which if you disagree I by all means encourage you to do), I suggest we take this onto either Lelouch's thread of the Turn 25 thread. |
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2011-10-21, 12:23 | Link #1905 | ||||||
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Join Date: Dec 2008
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Suzaku was the opposite, a rebellious child who freaked out after his big stunt, killing his father to stop his nation from fighting to the death, ended with Japan's occupation, and his lack of punishment. It was because of that that he tried working within the system in hopes of peaceful change, though with a secret death wish. Quote:
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2012-02-14, 14:48 | Link #1907 |
Likely To End Up In Jail
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Your base,stealing your Knightmares.
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Shirley is a great character,but her death was surely an important event that was the catalyst to many others happened later on. I wouldn't mind having her back somehow,and I am royally pissed by how the Britannians could save Mao from over ten bullets and not Shirley from just one.
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2012-02-16, 21:10 | Link #1908 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
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2012-02-18, 02:45 | Link #1909 | |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Cali
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2012-02-26, 01:45 | Link #1910 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Feb 2012
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Just a quick question on Shirley's death that may have been addressed before...
Lelouch gives Shirley a geass command to live when he sees her, and she responds to it - her eyes go red and she kind of responds to it verbally by promising to come back to life again over and over. Ultimately, it doesn't go through in the way he intended it, but this is still different than the few other times he's tried to use a geass multiple times on the same person (primarily based on the eyes going red, showing a response to the power of the king). Did his power actually get stronger without him ever noticing it? It might have changed the flow of the series if he had noticed this, and could have issued a second geass order to Suzaku. |
2012-02-26, 02:06 | Link #1911 | |
Philosophos Basileus
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2012-02-26, 20:33 | Link #1914 | |
The Dark Empress
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Battleship Hyperion
Age: 33
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Also I think there is no canon material that states she was trying to go back to Ashford to mark on the wall.
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2012-02-26, 21:38 | Link #1916 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
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From what I can remember, it is apparently something from an e-newsletter that was being released at the same time as R2 was being broadcast. The details should be somewhere else on this forum. In any case, the point is that the Geass command hadn't expired even if the person was physically removed and prevented from going to the wall's location.
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