Code Geass/Headscratchers/Miscellaneous Two


 * In Episode 23 of Season 1, why does Lelouch insist on personally shooting Euphemia out in the open? I mean, if he had just let Kallen fry her Gloucester with the radiant wave surger like she wanted, Suzaku would've had no reason to target Lelouch himself later; he'd probably assume she was just killed in the crossfire and focus his hatred on Kallen or the Black Knights in general instead. My guess is that he wanted to correct his mistake in person, but honour aside, it just seemed like he was drawing way more fire toward himself than was necessary.
 * Guilt seems to be the main reason. While he quickly managed to turn this mistake into an advantage, he was still horrified of what had happened, even crying when he decided to kill her. And for the "drawing attention to himself": First, he didn't know that Suzaku was watching. Second, at this point Suzaku neither knew about Zero being Lelouch, nor about Geass. So it really made no difference if he hated the Black Knights as a whole, or their leader Zero in particular.
 * Actually, now that I think about it, Suzaku would've gone after Lelouch regardless of whether he saw him shoot Euphie or not because of V.V.'s interference. Even if Kallen killed her and Suzaku didn't find out about it until later, the fact is that V.V. specifically told him about Zero, so there was really no one else he could have gone after. So much for that...
 * Yeah, it's pride. It's stupid of Lelouch, who is a capable, but not Rounds-level pilot like Suzaku and Kallen, to lead his army as one of them, but he does it because of his pride, which is like Cornelia's. It's Lelouch fault that he made Euphemia into a monster, so he'll stop it with his own hands.
 * I see two good reasons. First one is propaganda. It's way stronger if the genocidal princess is killed by Zero, compared to a robot piloted by some officer. Second is punishment: it's very painful for Lelouch to do that, and he wants this pain as a punishment for what he did to Euphie. There is also the respect for Euphie: he doesn't want her to die at the hands of someone who thinks she is a monster.
 * One thing that has always bugged me...Oghi's jacket. Why does it have this on it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge
 * The show has several shout outs to WW 2, this is likely another one of them, he is after all part of a persecuted minority.
 * Also it has some historical plausibility, a Japanese Diplomat assisted a good number of Jews in escaping the Holocaust by giving them passage into Japan. As a result there is a very small Jewish population in Japan today. Assuming something similar to the Holocaust happened in the Geassverse history, then Ohgi could be the descendant of a Jewish immigrant. That would also explain his curly hair, a common trait for Semitic populations as it served to retain moisture in the Middle Eastern region.
 * Oghi as a jew? Considering he's become a major Scrappy, that just runs full of Unfortunate Implications...


 * Is there a reason why Suzaku was the only one besides Lelouch who could know about the Zero: Requiem plan? Obviously, it wouldn't work if it became public knowledge, but he could have at least let the Black Knight leadership know that he wasn't actually going to betray them (and that they weren't actually going to be executed). Also, why did he have to actually die? He'd already faked his own death once, he could do probably do it again. As long is it never got out, the effect would be the same.
 * But he didn't want to risk word getting out. The only way to ensure the plan would work would be to actually die (the actually plausibility of the plan etc. notwithstanding).
 * Jeremiah, Sayoko, Lloyd and Cecil knew the plan as well. Lelouch has also done horrible things in the two month interim. It's Redemption Equals Death by choice.
 * Where is it stated that Sayoko, Lloyd, and Cecile knew the plan? The only people who seem to know are Suzaku, Jeremiah, and C.C.
 * It's made fairly clear on the bridge when Lelouch tells them to betray him. They must have known he was going to turn it around. They also hint at it while locked up with the other BK members.
 * As already stated Lelouch felt that he needed to die to atone for his actions while using Geass.
 * Would they even have believed him? Kallen might have, but beyond that, it's questionable. They believe that he betrayed them and when they called him on it, he decided to act nastily to save Kallen rather than explaining himself at all. They had no reason to trust him. If he was lying, then they could very well have given up whatever chance they had of defeating him if they had let him do his thing. Also, for his plan to fully work, he needed everyone to oppose him. He wouldn't come across as totally evil if the BK didn't oppose him fully. As for his death, both he and Suzaku seem to prescribe to the Japanese idea that dying somehow fixes things (particularly your sins). He'd already given up on his life the moment that the BK betrayed him. He went after the emperor with the intention of locking himself in with him. He seemed to think that his life was totally expendable at that point. So, he used his death to further his plan. Now, I really think that there was a better way for him to go about things than becoming the world's ultimate evil and having Zero kill him, but he seemed to think that it was the best way and that it would somehow let him atone for the nasty things that he'd done.
 * Actually, Lelouch simply went with it because he was overcome with despair following Nunnally's apparent demise and the betrayal.
 * Fridge Brilliance came just after reading this question. What would Kallen do if Lelouch explained her the Zero Requiem? She would insist on faking the death rather than killing Lelouch. There is no way Kallen would allow Lelouch to do an Heroic Sacrifice. Suzaku, on the other hand, wants to kill Lelouch to avenge Euphie -- and Lelouch agrees.
 * What exactly is the 'Homolust' thing and where did it come from?
 * Exactly what it sounds like, 4chan.
 * Now that's probably clear that geass doesn't make you physically stronger, how did Mao survive being shot multiple times by the police? I know he explains it that Lelouch messed up by commanding the cops to shoot him rather than kill him, but honestly, the guy received multiple bullet wounds and was left for dead.
 * He had likely obtained body armor at the beginning of the episode, when he goes to the weapon's dealer and blackmails him into supplies. In other words, all the bullet wounds were to his extremities.
 * Since Lelouch didn't tell the police to kill Mao, they came out of the Geass as soon as they finished shooting him. So they'd have no idea who he was and would immediately transport him to the hospital, saving him from death by blood loss.
 * The real question would be how exactly none of their shots managed to connect with his head, but that seems to happen a lot in all sorts of shows.
 * He specifically says that he's amazed at how good Britannian hospital care is.
 * Most people (unless they are elite snipers) tend to aim for center mass so they have a higher chance of hitting.
 * I believe there is a more-or-less "official" explanation provided; it's on the Fridge Brilliance page.
 * Episode 25 of R2. Why did they attach chains to Nunnally's useless, paralyzed legs.
 * Because Lelouch probably looked more evil that way.
 * Exactly. The worse Lelouch is with his little sister, the more popular she will be. It probably even works in-universe, especially with people who know she is paralyzed.
 * Mao did the same thing back in season one when he had Nunally tied up and photographed.
 * Maybe he was scared that if she got back her sight through sheer willpower, she could do the same with walking? (Not fully logical, but it does also make him look more evil, as was said.)
 * In Nightmare of Nunnally, after coming to terms with herself, she regains her sight and her mobility.
 * The chains on her legs seem to be the only ones anchored to the ground by way of the weights, so they were meant to keep her in place in case someone tried to rescue her (although Lelouch knew how it would all play out). Oddly enough, her arms aren't restrained, either.
 * Note that in general, this parade is a completely ridiculous parody of evil overlord triumph. Obviously justified in-universe as a parody!


 * What's up with all the two-letter acronyms/alliterations in the series? We have C.C., V.V., R2 (one way to transcribe it is "RR"), Lelouch Lamperouge (LL), Cecile Croomy (another CC?), Karen Kouzuki (KK), Sayoko Shinozaki (SS), Anya Alstreim (AA), Gilbert G.P. Guilford (this one is so cool, he can get a GGG acronym, too)...
 * I never noticed that until you brought it up, but it occurs to me that given that Lelouch has a lot of super-hero traits (e.g. a costume and playing the Rich Idiot With No Day Job role), this might also be a reflection of Western comic book tropes.
 * Does anyone know what the plot of R2 was supposed to be like had it not been for the supposed Executive Meddling due to the time slot change? This troper heard that the series was supposed to have picked off immediately after S1's cliffhanger finale, but that's not exactly a detailed description.
 * I'm unaware of any official outline for what was changed. They had to change the beginning to make it work better as an entry point to the series, but that's all that they've said was changed. They have said that the ending was what they'd always intended, so obviously not everything was changed. Best guess, they had to alter the beginning somewhat which resulted in compressing the rest of the series a bit because there was less room for the original material (which is probably what resulted in some of the pacing problems towards the end of the series that people have complained about). So, the overall story is the same, but some of the details are different and they weren't necessarily able to go into detail on everything that they wanted to. However, as far as I know, it's never been revealed what exactly had to be changed.
 * I read that in one of the DVD interviews or such they said that there were two scenarios that they had come up with. The one that they were going to go ahead with before Executive Meddling kicked in involved Lelouch being captured and imprisoned in Brittania after his standoff with Suzaku at the end of episode 25. Then there was some weird stuff about him breaking himself out somehow and going up against Schneizel in a political election or something. The second scenario, which is the one that I thought would be more interesting, involved Zero coming back to the Black Knights, except it would be an imitator; actually a girl named Lycia who would basically be a gender-swapped Lelouch. Of course, this leads the Black Knights to get very confused. So while they're all onboard their Cool Airship base, Lelouch himself comes back and has to join the group as himself, without any disguises and he gets picked on by Tamaki a lot. I think the Ashford characters were supposed to be there too, presumably being pulled along for the ride after the events of the season 1 finale.
 * How did Suzaku survive his fight with Kallen? I may need to rewatch this, but I seem to recall that he pretty clearly didn't eject, his entire robot exploded around him, and he even commented that even his "Live On!" command wasn't going to be enough against her. Is this something else we can just chalk up to his Charles Atlas Superpower?
 * He probably did eject, but it was hidden from view by a pillar.
 * Having rewatched it, as planned, this doesn't seem to have happened, as we can see his hatch the whole time until Lancelot explodes, and it neither opens nor ejects.
 * No, the second poster is right. While most of the hatch is shown, enough of the very back of it (aka, the part that opens) is obscured by the pillar. Not too sure about how he escaped that explosion though...
 * If Suzaku was interested in Lelouch regaining his memories so that he could ask Lelouch why he killed Euphemia, why didn't he do so between capturing him and turning him over to the Emperor?
 * This is probably one of those things he became interested in after Lelouch was memory-wiped. He was probably just too angry to ask him before said memory-wipe.
 * Where did the train full of Sutherlands in episode 2 come from? Did it just happen to conveniently pass by the battle area?
 * Incoming troops Geassed by Lelouch off-screen?
 * How did V.V. get a code?
 * Presumably the same way as C.C.: from someone who had it before. There's probably a fixed number of immortals in the Geassverse, with their powers existing since time immemorial, and they can be only be transferred, not created or destroyed, at least until.
 * Right, but the timing seems a little wonky to me, since it seems like in every other case the "contract" between the person who bestows a code and the person who gets the Geass takes a significant amount of time to fulfill--both C.C. and Mao got their Geasses at a young age, then grew to maturity before they were supposed to fulfill the contract (IIRC, C.C. sort of discarded Mao when he couldn't bring himself to kill her). I guess V.V. could have gotten his geass at a really young age, and just fulfilled his contract with unusual ease (which implies he was a lot like Rolo in some ways), but--did he have his Code when he made his pact with Charles? I guess these aren't plot holes so much as questions which we'll never know about because of R2's "not as planned"-ness. Does any of this come up in the picture shows, or the audio shows, or other supplemental material? I haven't seen all of those.
 * Well, notice if you will that CC asks Lelouch to kill her in R2, not much more than a year after her first encounter with him. And so presumably if you really, ah, do it to it, it's possible to evolve your Geass to a level that would make you immortal pretty fast (which VV could have done). Mao and CC both received Geass at young ages, with no prior knowledge of exactly what they were, and so they might not have thought to develop it at the same rate. Also notice that CC apparently received her Geass when she was about ten, and took over the Code when she was about sixteen. Compare that with Mao, who received his Geass when he was six, and at seventeen still hasn't taken it over (and so potentially had his regular Geass for longer than CC). Clearly it's not necessary to hold a Geass power for any long amount of time before you can take over a Code. VV looks about thirteen, right? So if you go by Lelouch's timeframe, he could have been eleven or twelve and still taken over the Code by the time he was thirteen.
 * What would have happened if Jeremiah had used his Geass canceler on Anya while she was still holding Marianne's consciousness? Would it have erased Marianne from existence? What if a Geass canceler was used on someone while Mao was reading their thoughts? Would it make Mao unable to read their thoughts, temporarily (presumably for the duration of the blue sphere thingy) or permanently?
 * It'd probably only be turned off in Jeremiah's blue sphere thingy.
 * The Geass Canceler erases permanent Geass effects, so presumably it would either just erase Marianne's consciousness, or send her back to her original body (which would effectively kill her in either case). Since it doesn't make the affected people immune to Geass (Lelouch was able to geass Shirley a second time), Mao would probably be able to read their minds as soon as Jeremiah turned his power off.
 * When Rolo joined the Black Knights for the assault on the Geass Directorate, did they know he was "Lelouch Lamperouge's brother"?
 * Doesn't seem like it.
 * Rolo has had his Geass for much longer than it took Lelouch to develop Power Incontinence. Why did Rolo retain control of his Geass for so long?
 * Until Lelouch started going to work on him, Rolo was very much The Stoic; my guess is that his comparatively low level of emotional arousal, compared to Lelouch constantly flipping out, affected it, and that if he'd lived he would have developed his Power Incontinence really quickly. (This could also be why Charles still had control of his Geass despite having it for at least ten years, though it's also possible that he used his Geass on himself in the same way that he stopped Lelouch from mind-controlling everyone while oblivious to his ability.)
 * I think Lelouch's geass went out of control because he was using it so much; he geassed hundreds of people in just a few months, which accelerated its permanence. I would say that Rolo didn't use his nearly as often, which means he has longer to go before his gets out of control.
 * Sneebs thought is was to do with Rolo being an experimental test tube baby who was designed to not have some of the shortcomings of Geass and instead have cardiac problems. I thought this would explain his isolated childhood (and hence his reason for latching onto Lelouch) as well as his rather peculiar Achilles Heel (overusing the Geass results in heart failure - seems like a fail-safe to me).
 * After reading all of the above, the real question is: why is Bismarck's geass permanently active? Did it start out that way? Or when he said "never thought I'd use it against anyone but Marianne" did he mean "I'd never use it again after it became permanently active, except against Marianne"? On an unrelated note--as the Knight of One, what territory, if any, did he claim? So many unanswered questions about Bismarck, basically.
 * It could be that there are some Geass that evolve faster, regardless of their user's emotional state. If Lelouch's Geass was fast evolving, AND became weakened by emotional shocks, it could evolve as quick as it did, while Rolo's is more resilient. As for Bismarck, perhaps it's hard to avoid not seeing the future? That he had a natural tendency to see what other's were going to do, and thus had a much harder time stopping it, hence the sown eyelid.
 * Why did Lelouch's Geass eye disappear for the duration of the Time Skip? Does it mean that Charles's Geass can block other people's ability to use their Geass in addition to rewriting their memories?
 * He also used his Geass to make Nunnally blind--even if it was psychosomatic--so clearly it's more general than manipulating memories. I'm guessing it grants him a measure of control over an individual's unconscious mind, and that this is enough to surpress an out of control Geass. (This also adds a new angle to his obsession with the World of C...)
 * Was Charles affected by Lelouch's order to die, or did he fake it? It's of particular note that his "suicide" actually takes him out for a short time, but the subsequent shots Lelouch fires take no effect.
 * While it seems more likely he was affected, I like to think he was faking it, just to be a dick.
 * There is some evidence for this. When Lelouch shot his geass at him, they didn't show the whole neuron shift thing. Considering they do that consistently throughout the entire show, the fact that they didn't do so in this instance must mean something.
 * Actually, this is not the only instance where it isn't shown. He is, however, shown from afar, so that viewers can't see whether his eyes have the orange tint that indicates being under the control of Geass.
 * He had the code, so he must have been immune to the geass. He was just being a dick.
 * Yeah, he was probably faking it. Usually when Lelouch gives a suicide order, they gleefully accept and shoot themselves in the neck. Charles sounds almost annoyed by the order and shoots himself in the heart.
 * It's been bugging the hell out of me since the start of the series: Lelouch states pretty clearly that he made the word "Geass" up. Even C.C. was surprised by the name. So why does everyone in the world refer to that kind of power as "Geass"?
 * He didn't make it up, he heard it from the telepathic conversation with C.C. when she bestowed the power upon him and assumed that this is how the power was called. A lucky guess, if anything.
 * I've been watching the dub and the sub over and over and I never hear her say "Geass".
 * It isn't said when they make the contract, at least onscreen, but later, when Lelouch meets her again, he claims that he heard the word during the mental contact.
 * Where is it said that Nunnally succeeded Lelouch on the imperial throne? It sort of makes sense given the montage at the end, but is it said explicitly?
 * Next of kin. She may be imprisoned or have violated the laws or whatever, but she is Lelouch's sister so without a son or named heir she would be crowned. It works a similar way with things like wills, family will always get your stuff if there isn't a will and provided that you weren't the killer. It's actually what would really happen in a situation like this but that just brings an It Just Bugs Me to real life.
 * This's been bugging me since episode 21 of R2. How old is Marianne? Why hasn't she aged considerably like Charles? and seeing how her personality is that of a 13-year-old girl on growth hormones, why does she fit Anya better than Anya herself?
 * She's younger than Charles, and she hasn't aged due to being dead.
 * Missing the point here. She looks the exact same from when she (presumably) first met Charles and both V.V. and C.C. were with them, to her time of death. Charles aged a LOT since then, going from light brown overly long hair to gray curls. Where's her change?
 * Well, the youngest we see her was in 1997; Lelouch would have been born at the end of 1999; and she died in 2010. Her appearance in 2010 is somewhat older than in 1997, so she did age - albeit not as much as Charles has appeared to (though he is quite a bit older than she is). However, once she was dead, any time you see her it would be a mental image of herself, so her actual age wouldn't really matter. Still, when we first see her in the World of C, she looks basically the same as when she died. So, I really don't see a problem here. She doesn't appear to have aged quite as much as Charles did between 1997 and 2010, but he's a fair bit older than her and he totally changed his hairstyle. It's not out of the question that she just aged better.
 * As for Anya: it seems that Marianne's Geass affected her profoundly. Presumably, Marianne has taken the reins from Anya in circumstances besides the ones we see; I don't think Marianne would be particularly restrained in doing so, either. Since she had Marianne in her head from a really young age, the effect periodically losing control had on her during her formative years is probably why she's so...well, Rei Ayanami-y. Also, given that "Marianne the Flash" was apparently a very skilled pilot, she's proabbly the reason why Anya is a Knight of Rounds. Come to think of it: do we ever know whether or not Anya was aware of Marianne's presence in her head? I don't remember any indication that she's aware, so probably not...which is even scarier in some ways.
 * Well, she may not be aware of Marianne's presence in her head specifically, but the memory lapses do make her resort to recording things whenever possible. So, to an extent, I guess.
 * How does Lelouch signal the Zero costume to reveal his eye? I don't think the mechanism can be so sophisticated that it reacts to acts of will...
 * He could just have a button on his wrist, like Spider-man's web shooters.
 * Nobody at Ashford Academy has any clue that Kallen is half-Japanese until actually told. Even Suzaku is shocked at the revelation. Conversely, she has no problem passing as Japanese when she's undercover at the beginning of the second season. If she's ambiguous-looking enough that she can pass as either race without question, you'd think someone would have noticed -- if being even slightly Japanese by blood is reason enough for a painter not to win an award, her presence at Ashford would likely be upsetting.
 * It's anime. Caucasians, mongoloids, Arabs, and native Americans all have the same skin tone.
 * They're drawn this way, but they don't literally look like that. My guess is that she looks Britannian, and in R2 episode 1 she applied some kind of make-up making her look more Eleven-like, as part of her bunnygirl disguise. We don't see it because of animation limitations.
 * You're reading too much into this. There's a much simpler explanation: One can look Asian and still be, say, British or American or what have you in real life. Who's to say the Geass-verse is different in that respect? The prejudice could easily have nothing to do with race and everything to do with country. (Do you automatically assume every Asian person you see is Chinese/Korean/Japanese/etc.?)
 * If race has nothing to do with the prejudice, how do the Brittanians know who to discriminate against? Even "honorary Brittanians" like Suzaku are often treated with contempt. It's pretty hard to treat people as second-class citizens if they don't stand out.
 * Look at Villetta for a better example. She's clearly not white and she experiences no discrimination from any Britannian. In fact, as soon as the Japanese start to riot during the Black Rebellion all of the Elevens who see her know she's a Britannian. My best guess is that Britannians and Numbers wear different clothing and that's how people can tell the difference. Look at each instance of an Eleven or a Britannian being on screen and the Elevens are always in shoddy clothing or jumpsuits or something like that while the Britannians wear expensive clothing and business suits.
 * About the fact that "even Suzaku is shocked at the revelation" - that one thing is not that unlikely. I am half-Korean, and quite a few white and black people I talked to noticed that I look like I have some Asian ancestry, while every single Korean I talk to for the first time says something along the lines of "You're lying", "No way" and "You don't look Asian at all". As for Kallen's acceptance at Ashford, it may have something to do with the fact that the Stadtfelds maintain that her mother is Mrs. Stadtfeld, not their Eleven maid. It was mentioned that they are an influential family, so it is plausible that some would not dare to question their daughter's pedigree, even with her supposedly ambiguous looks. Or it could be that the Academy does not really care that much about Britannia's racial policies.
 * Who's to say that Kallen had to look Japanese for the bunny girl plot to work? It seemed like most/all of the servants at that establishment were Japanese, so if you see a woman wearing the same outfit as them you'll probably assume that she's Japanese, too.
 * I can accept giant robots, magic eye powers, and most everything else about the show, but how the heck did Lelouch pull of that million Zero thing in episode 8 of R2? Either he somehow managed to get his hands on a million Zero costumes, fitted for every single person who showed up, and distribute them in a few minutes; or he got a million people to each obtain a Zero costume and change into it when the mist appeared. He did this without any information leaks, and apparently set it up so that only people with Zero costumes showed up for the second attempt at establishing the Specially Administrated Zone. How the hell did he pull off something on such a massive scale without anyone leaking information to the authorities? There's no way he could have geassed a million people in that time, and the logistics of it all would be ridiculously hard even if he had the aid of Light Yagami, David Xanatos, and Nerissa. Just...HOW???
 * This has bugged me too, and while it's a touching and thought-provoking scene, I consider it the largest flaw in the entire show. He probably negotiated the production of the costumes with the Chinese Federation alongside the exile itself, but I see no way he could have distributed them to so many people in Britannian territory in complete secrecy. Not to mention how they put them all synchronously. No Delays for the Wicked at its finest.
 * I just had to say "Rule of Cool" and move on. Not only was it a great scene, but for extra Rule of Cool points you have to consider the possibility that when he did that, Lelouch knew what his last move in the end game was going to be. And also that all those people might still have their costumes. Which allows this to happen.
 * I just rewatched this scene, and I'll have to amend that from Rule of Cool to Rule Of Absolutely Ridiculous. I really can't defend it on any logical level--the way everyone acts like this is a daring yet sense-making strategy (especially Lloyd's "Ah-ha!"), or how everyone changed perfectly into costume while blinded by smoke, or how they were all tailored, or basically anything that happens in that scene. Except that it's hilarious and awesome and someone took the time to put a helmet on a dog.
 * You really think people don't know how to put on clothes unless they can see them?
 * In addition, the reactions of Britannia during this incident is laughable. Apparently the only options are to massacre or to let them leave. Why not just stop them from boarding the ships or recant the exile order?
 * Recanting the exile order would lead to a riot. Riot would lead to either massacre or bloody battle.
 * For that matter, why couldn't the Black Knights just handle the transportation in secret instead of resorting to this really far-fetched and error-prone public stunt? They did transport and distribute the costumes in secret, after all.
 * The costumes are easy to explain. Zero becomes a hero and symbol of the population and suddenly it becomes fashionable to dress up like Zero. Look at V for Vendetta when everyone has a Guy Fawkes mask after V starts to become a popular symbol of freedom. Basically people will just try to copy him and make costumes to resemble him. It wouldn't be too difficult to find one from some tailor who's trying to rake in the dough. As to the whole stunt, it could work but it would have taken hours before they were actually all released. Remember they don't know who the real Zero is. Unmasking everyone would've been a huge waste of time because "Ok everyone's mask is off...which one of you is the real Zero?" No one's going to give up their chance to leave behind the repressive government of Area 11 and so it would only be a matter of time before they're all exiled. Also, as Suzaku pointed out, all that Britannia did was exile pretty much every malcontent and Black Knight in the country. No more internal struggle to worry about. And if the Black Knights start a fight from the outside, we all know which empire is the best at defeating external enemies.
 * V needed to  to arrange for the transportation of those masks and even then he needed to set the entire thing up well in advance. In Code Geass people are apparently able to put a plan in motion mere hours after thinking it up.
 * Looking back on that scene, I have to wonder about two more things: They may not know who Zero is, but they know damn well that the real one most likely isn't in that audience. Since, you know, he was clearly directing everyone else dressing as him on screen. From a completely different location. Unless that message was prerecorded, taking into account everything anyone would say and when (which wouldn't surprise me too much, considering other times in the series he's done something like that), then Britannia should've known that none of those people were the real Zero. Even if Zero did do that, Britannia would've needed to consider that fact, which seems like a bizarre thing to think of as opposed to the fact that Zero was televising his orders to every other person dressed similarly to him. Then there's the fact that he revealed himself atop a ship afterwards, which should've let everyone know that those people dressed as Zero most likely weren't Zero. The second thing I'm wondering about is why Zero removed his mask. Was he just too far away for anyone (including those whose range of view is improved by their mechs) aside from Sayako to be able to see him without his mask on? Even with his face being halfway covered up, enough of it is still visible enough for someone to take a picture to hopefully make some kind of identification... Granted, he was headed for China and was exiled, but they had no guarantee that he wasn't going to screw with them again and, despite the fact that Zero became a symbol, the Black Knights were clearly still being led by him.
 * Zero could easily hang out in the crowd and have a double do the talking from a prepared speech. Zero was leading the conversation most of the time. They couldn't just consider everyone in the crowd fakes, not without Suzaku admitting he could positively identify the real one. As for Zero removing his mask, same problem. No one aside from Suzaku knows he's the real Zero. Even if they were looking at that exact moment, they couldn't say for sure it was him. Most of them don't even know Lelouch personally. He's just another guy.
 * I don't understand why Britannia was so weak-willed towards the Chinese Federation, despite being portrayed as clearly stronger. So you clearly have an antagonizing country wanting to carve a piece of Japan for themselves, and Britannia seems to be in appeasement mode. You have a "rogue" Chinese general supporting an revolution and somehow that does not result in war. However, having the Chinese embassy harbor terrorists and retaliating will result in war. If the Chinese Federation is so much weaker than Britannia (to the point of pretty much selling out the country), why does it seem like Britannia is afraid of the consequences to appropriate responses?
 * Britannia may be stronger, but that doesn't mean China is weak. My impression is that if they went to all-out war, Britannia would win but suffer extremely heavy losses which might end up bringing down the empire in the aftermath. Also, at the time Zero and pals claim sanctuary in the Chinese consul building, most of Britannia's military force is in the EU; if China were to launch an attack on mainland Britannia, they could conquer a substantial amount of land. Even if they didn't topple the government, Britannia would have lost a lot of territory and resources by the time the bulk of its miliatary returned from the EU, and then if they manage to force the Chinese out, they'll have to deal with a resurgent EU. The end result of this would be either Britannia being weakened by conquered by China, weakened by China and toppled by the EU, or trapped in a war on two fronts with China on the west coast and the EU on the east. Either way, Britannia loses.
 * In episode 13 of the first season, Kallen walks into a warehouse Lelouch happens to be in. Luckily for Lelouch, he's partially hidden in the shadows, so Kallen doesn't realize that he's Zero. Thinking rightly that she's talking with Zero but not realizing that Zero is Lelouch, Kallen talks with Lelouch/Zero. Kallen has talked to Lelouch at school before, so why can't she deduce by the voice of Lelouch that he's Zero?
 * Lelouch uses a different, deeper voice for Zero. That's why Kallen doesn't recognize him over the phone either.
 * She did suspect him at first but he arranged for her to get a phone call while she was in his shower after being soaked in champain, after that she gave up on the idea that the 2 of them were the same
 * Is it just me or does V.V. physically resemble Nanami from Revolutionary Girl Utena a little too closely? The character designs are uncannily similar...
 * For how long was Villetta carrying Ougi's baby? It seemed like she realized she was pregnant in the last episode of the first season, and as this troper recalls, a year passes between R1 and R2. That's well above the normal gestation period for humans, so Villetta ought to have given birth...
 * Easy. She slept with him after she met up with him in R2. Once she was on the Ikaruga, they may have had the chance to have fun in bed even before they betrayed Zero. And once they'd done that, she was free to wander the ship as she pleased. Add to that the month that Lelouch was gone plus the couple of weeks that he was emperor before saying that he was going to join the UFN, and Ougi had plenty of time to get her pregnant in R2. No, it doesn't make sense that she would still be pregnant from R1, but she had plenty of time to get it done in R2.
 * If there was one at the end of R1, She likely had two, and aborted the first. Post R1 she officially reported Zero's identity, which earned her a barony. Having a half-Japanese child would raise awkward questions (especially since she's not even in a relationship, and that's ignoring the fact that she's somewhat resentful of Oghi early in R2, so she's even less likely to want to keep any child of his.
 * During the infamous Table-Kun scene, why was Nina masturbating in the student council room instead of her own room or a bathroom? She was lucky it was Nunnaly, and not Lelouch or Sayoko, that walked in on her.
 * The lights were off, and it was at night, so everyone else was presumably in their rooms. She had no reason to suspect that anyone would come in at that hour, whereas she might have a roommate (like Shirley does), and people might be using the bathrooms.
 * ...how did Nunnally even figure out that Nina was even in there? More over... why would Nina use a table?!
 * During the Time Skip did Charles personally rewrite everyone's memories at Ashford, or what?
 * Maybe his Geass works like Lelouch's in that it can be used on multiple people at once. He would just have to arrange all the students and staff to the auditorium, visit the place icognito, and tell them to replace their memories about Nunnally with memories about Rolo.
 * Most of the students left after R1. The student council members are pretty much the only ones who stayed. That's why Suzaku didn't know much of anyone when he came back. The emperor only had to Geass the student council members. A covert trip to Ashford or summoning them to see him during a visit to Japan would be easy enough. He would then alter their memories to replace Nunnally with Rolo and off they go none-the-wiser. It is a bit odd that it's just the student council members who stayed (though at least it's obvious why Lelouch and Milly stayed), but the fact that most of the students left for Britannia after the whole Black Rebellion mess isn't all that hard to believe. In any case, it's pretty clear that he Geassed the student council members and it's clearly stated that pretty much everyone else left for Britannia after R1, so no one at Ashford in R2 except the student council wouldn't have known Nunnally anyway.
 * This one is actually sufficiently explained in the Manga (the original one, Vol. 7) After Jeremiah un-Geasses Shirley, she has a flashback sequence where, apparently, the Emperor goes to Ashford Academy to make a speech, then his eyes flashed." That's it. Kind of anticlimactic, but whatever.
 * I believe it's pretty much inferred in the montage of suppressed memories flooding back into her head, which includes the face of Charles, in supposed reference to him rewriting everyone's memories.
 * Aside from moar angst related reasons, why did they put FREYA on Lancelot? Lloyd lampshades how stupid this is, pointing out quite reasonably that there's no reason to graft a strategic weapon onto a tactical one, but then they go and do it anyway. The closest to a good reason they offer is to have FLEIJA in Suzaku's hands, because they all think he's a trustworthy and outstanding guy (despite massive evidence to the contrary), but they could have just given him a detonator. Also, why isn't there any fallout for Suzaku for this--are Knights of Rounds really immune to standing trial for killing millions? (Actually, that would explain how Luciano was still a member...and be a pretty good example of how friggin' corrupt that system is.)
 * To this troper it seemed that Nina had already installed FLEIJA on Lancelot without asking anybody's permission, and Lloyd was chastising her for doing it, not for wanting to do it. Presumably there still wasn't a fixed launching system for the missile, so she had to improvise by attaching it to a Knightmare, instead. And as for the Rounds, considering that they work directly for the Emperor, it would make sense that only the Emperor would have the right to chastise or punish them, the Britannian system being what it is. Any chance that Charles would be bothered by some mundane matter, like few million dead?
 * Plus, there's the chance Schneizel told Nina to attach it to FLEIJA, since destroying the Tokyo settlement all worked according to his plan.
 * Why didn't Lelouch just Geass Schneizel while they were playing chess, when the whole purpose of the game was to get rid of Suzaku (who was left in an entirely different room during the game), so that he could Geass people freely? It shouldn't be too difficult to mask it as an innocent sentence considering the circumstances: "After a few moves you will lose and have to submit to my requests!", just for example.
 * I think the big hole opening in his mask might be suspicious...
 * Was anyone behind Schneizel to see it? Most of the time other people just watched the sideshow through a monitor, as far as I was able to determine.
 * Suzaku was there and commanding Schneizel followed by Schneizel actually doing it would be a dead giveaway that he used his Geass and thus that he was Lelouch. Suzaku wouldn't even need to see the slit in the mask to figure that out. Still, I suppose that you could argue that he should have just Geassed everyone when he first entered the room and had them restrain Suzaku (though that might have been a bit hard for them), but at that point in the show, Lelouch isn't generally Geassing people to permanently follow his orders. In any case, in order to Geass Schneizel, he needed to deal with Suzaku somehow because he couldn't afford for the emperor to find out that he was Zero because then Nunnally would be in danger.
 * Does Lelouch not realise what the phrase 'United States' means? Japan appears to have been united long before the Britannian invasion, so if it were to gain independence, it would be a case of a single nation breaking away from The Empire. In the cases of the real-life United States (namely America and Mexico, and almost Australia), it was a case of several nations breaking away from Britain or Spain and then deciding to unite under a single government for strength. Why, then, does Lelouch want to establish the 'United States of Japan'? What nations other than Japan would it include?
 * Ya. It's a bit odd. United States is obviously a collection of, well, united states - which Japan isn't. So, it's definitely odd. He compounds the error by talking about United India, United China (though that one does make some sense), United everything that had been in the Chinese Federation. My guess is that the writers were thinking that United States equals freedom and since Lelouch was creating a free country, it would be the United States. And of course, being Japan, it would have to be the United States of Japan rather than the United States of America. Still, it's definitely weird.
 * A United India would obviously include Pakistan and Bangladesh, maybe even Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal. It's not that strange. India was a lot of different states back when the british began to divide & conquer.
 * You could make an argument for some of the countries he lists as being "United States of X" making sense, but quite a few do not - Japan being at the top of the list. Lelouch basically seems to have tagged "United States of" onto the front of the name of every country he intends to have join him. He's definitely not using the term "United States" correctly.
 * Heck, 'United States of India' would be a reasonable descriptor for Real Life, modern-day India. India is already divided into a number of autonomous states, which have about the same status as the states of America and Australia, the oblasts of Russia, and the provinces of China and Canada, plus many of them have their own languages. When India gained independence, they just decided to go with 'Republic of India' instead. 'United States of Japan', however, makes no sense at all.
 * Maybe the Ryukyu Kingdom, which Japan annexed in 1879? Maybe the Ainu in Code Geass have their own autonomous republic, like the inuit's Nunavut in Canada? Sakhalin? Parts of Korea? Micronesia? Nauru? Marshall Islands? There's a lot of possibilities, really, considering that Code Geass follows a different timeline, and that Japan historically controlled a vast empire in Asia and Oceania during the post-WW 1-period.
 * The United States moniker is simply used as a reference to the original name for the United Nations. The US already had that name, so they went with UN. Japan should be called the United State of Japan or The State of Japan. It's just a mistranslation. The USJ is supposed to be a constituent state of the new confederate United Nations that Lulu planned to establish; he wasn't the one using it wrong, the translators/writers were.
 * This troper always figured it was nothing more than a Shout-Out to the American Revolution--a colony of the British Empire declaring its independence and fighting a war to that effect. Since Area 11/Japan is a colony of the Holy Empire of Britannia, it makes sense. I doubt it has anything to do with the impotent Real Life United Nations.
 * No, no, no. "United States" is a legitimate political term. A country is made of one or more states. A single stated country, like the State Of Japan, may have multiple provinces with their own laws, but it is theoretically possible for the ruler or parliment of that country to disband those provinces, or force them to use a single set of laws. A multiple stated country has it's states as a matter of the constitution, and cannot be revoked without something like two thirds or three quarters of all voters accepting it, or whatever, depending on the country. There are actually several multiple stated countries already existing in the world. For example, the United Mexican States, more colliqually known as Mexico. This is why everyone who's not an American thinks that the United States of America includes all of North America - that is how everyone else in the world uses that term.
 * Lelouch referred to the United States of Japan as a place where "all peoples, histories, and ideologies" are accepted and live in peace together. So the United States thing may have been in reference to the many states across the world that (he hoped) would come together to support the fledgling country's growth.
 * This is probably just bad translation, since I was watching a fan-subbed version, but Lelouch mentions that Kirihara was called "Benedict Kirihara" by the Japanese people due to his (supposed) role as an accomplace to Britanian colonization. In a world where America lost the revolution, it seems unlikely that the name Benedict Arnold would still be synonimous with "traitor."
 * He could have still been a traitor, just a really lousy one. It's possible that he ended up betraying Britannia to America, resulting in his unpopularity. In our Britain and Canada he is often treated with a positive historical viewpoint, while in America he is the big Traitor.
 * I saw the English dub and I don't recall any mention of Benedict. You probably just had a dodgy fansub.
 * The nickname is simply "Kirihara the Traitor"; that fansub was definitely taking liberties.
 * Bismarck's swordfight with Suzaku in episode 20. Why didn't the "live on" command just make Suzaku run away to begin with? Was Bismarck using his geass or not (if not, why did his right eye light up; if so, what was the point of the eyes sewn shut)? How was he able to use his sword as a baseball bat without cutting Suzaku in two? Most importantly, though, is the way it ends: Bismarck has Suzaku defeated and at his mercy, declares his intention to kill him, and then the scene cuts away, and when it comes back Bismarck is...on the phone? How'd that happen? "Hang on, I gotta take this." And then there's the setup for the fight itself: 1. Suzaku thinks the best way to assassinate someone is to make a big speech about despair and sin and all, giving someone time to move in to block your strike (or was Bismarck just Behind the Black the whole time? That's really what it seems like), and 2. Charles was already immortal, so Rule of Funny means that Bismarck should have just stood back and left Suzaku to just stab the emperor a bunch of times while Chuck sighs and just lumbers over to the gate.
 * To be frank, quite a few things about that episode didn't make sense. Instead of going directly for the Emperor, Lelouch spent a lot of time geassing soldiers and wreaking havoc in the Britannian military... why? Just to make a dramatic appearance? The whole thing with Marianne suddenly restoring C.C.'s memories looks like Scotch Tape. The Black Knights charge after hearing the news of Lelouch's diversion, leading up to... absolutely nothing. I guess that was among the parts that suffered the most from the compression of the second half of R2, leading to all unresolved issues in the Britannia vs. Black Knights story being dropped to make way for the Zero Requiem arc. But to answer some specific questions: 1) Bismarck stepped away from Suzaku when Lelouch made his over-the-top appearance. 2) This is Suzaku we're talking about. "Covert" is not about him. He can't kill someone without first making a dramatic speech about how wrong that person is.
 * The soldiers were there to stop people like Bismarck and the crew of the Great Britannia from interfering. Because they were right there, and Lelouch has no chance in hell of defeating them.
 * As for the "live" command not just making Suzaku run away, it doesn't seem to account for the best possible solutions. There seems to be some free will associated with the command: All it did was tell him to live, not how, which means how Suzaku goes about living is entirely up to him. He doesn't wanna run? Well, then he's got to do the next best thing to survive, so long as it's physically possible. It's only when he thinks has no other options that he's forced into doing a specific action. Other instances within the series supports this idea.
 * What was Emperor Chuck's plan anyway? He was going to kill God? And make it so nobody could lie? What does that mean? Was he going to make everyone into a Hive Mind? Make it so everyone lost their imaginations? He doesn't even have that kind of power, he can only effect memory.
 * Geass influences the mind. Using the Thought Elevator, he can access every mind everywhere. What he was going to do... isn't made very clear. Merge everybody into a Hive Mind, perhaps; it doesn't seem beyond the power of Geass. (Just make everyone mindreaders, like Mao, and let the elevator do the legwork of connecting them.)
 * So is that girl doomed to make those marks on that forever? Is she stuck going to that wall no matter what for the rest of her life? If she wants to travel abroad, is she compelled to travel back to that wall?
 * Yes. Her parents think she's sleepwalking.
 * At the end of R1, the Guren lost its Radiation Wave arm in a fight with the Lancelot. How did it get it back by the beginning of R2? Rakshata was off the radar. Did the Black Knights have a spare?
 * Rakshata didn't drop off the rader immediately. The Black Knights probably didn't break apart cleanly; it's not outside the realm of reason that she fixed the arm before she left.
 * Alternately, they took the arm from the Pre-Production Gekka from Lost Colors and slapped it onto the Guren.
 * The above, if not necessarily accurate to the show, is pretty much what happened. Look at the arm in R1 vs R2. The former has a five-fingered claw. The latter has three regular fingers. It's a pallette-swapped version of the Gekka arm.
 * So like, what was Gino's deal anyway? At first it looked like he was going to be the happier counterpart to Suzaku, but that didn't go anywhere. Then it looked like he was going to be the one figuring out the connection between Lelouch and Zero, but that didn't go anywhere. Then it looked like something was possibly going on between him and Kallen, but nothing ever came of it. Then it looked like he was going to be the focal point of people feeling conflicted by the new regime change, but nothing ever came of it. And he didn't get an ending. So why did he keep appearing?
 * How come all of the Ashford girls are eagerly telling each other they all have dates arranged with Lelouch, even though it never seems to cross their minds that none of them have a monopoly over Lelouch? Shirley is the only one who's genuinely shocked and angered; are none of the girls furious that Lelouch appears to be cheating on all of them (although it's really Sayoko who's responsible).
 * Considering he's canonically got his own fanclub among the girls of Ashford, they're probably not at all surprised at the multiple dates.
 * Also, his father has 108 wives. Sayoko set up 108 dates. See some similarities?
 * What is it about Lelouch that attracts Shirley so much, besides his looks?
 * In the first season Shirley relates a story where Lelouch witnessed a car accident caused by a young man who started berating the old couple he ran into; Lelouch's response was to get the jerk's car towed, but he did it without boasting or mocking, as if he considered standing up for the old folks to be the natural thing to do. As Suzaku himself surmises, Shirley fell for Lelouch then because she saw that he's actually a caring person beneath his aloof exterior.
 * How does Lelouch put on contact lenses so effortlessly? From what I've seen with people who use contact lenses and such, they don't just stick it onto their eye without a mirror.
 * It was asked above, and a pretty sensible answer was giving: Lelouch's eyes are huge so it's not really a problem for him.
 * Just a li'l thing: when Mao is addressing CC in the fairground he mentions how he wants to run away with her to a house he has in Australia. But Mao is only about seventeen or eighteen years old, and he has the disposition of a six-year-old boy. Houses are expensive to build; it's not clear that Mao works and he never gives any clues as to the source of income. And even if he did work, there isn't really the possibility for big money in jobs that hire older teenagers. So how could he get himself a house overseas?! This troper's beginning to think it's all a delusion brought about by his general craziness.
 * Theres a few ways. One, blackmail some contractor with the skeletons in his closet. Mao could probably have had a decent, two-person cabin built that way. He could also have built it himself, but then it would probably be a crapsack place to live. Third, find a house that's already built and talk the residents into suicide, or just outright kill them.
 * He got his gun this way.
 * How was Suzaku able to pursue a career as an active duty soldier while still in high school? I'd imagine it would have been a full-time job.
 * He was absent a lot, and wasn't even schooled until Euphemia threw him in.
 * Given that Lelouch uses a vocal distorter as Zero, to the point that Kallen, who talked to both regularly, and even had a conversation with "Zero" with his mask off and never even thought they sounded similar, why would the black knights immediately recognize Lelouch's voice in a decidedly less-hammy tone than Zero delivers? Zero, leader of the black knights and "Lelouch trying desperately and sadly to get Suzaku to protect Nunnally" don't sound very similar, so wouldn't the Black Knights have been bewildered by something that sounded like a shitty imitation of Zero's voice with the wrong inflection being presented as evidence?
 * It sounds close enough for them to connect the dots, and at that point they were looking for a scapegoat anyway. Plus they didn't buy the recording at first. It took Ohgi backing Schneizel up to seal the deal.
 * The similarities between Zero's and Lelouch's voices bugged this troper throughout both seasons. Granted there are some differences in tone, but essentially anyone who was paying attention and had heard both Lelouch and Zero speak (like Kallen and Shirley had) should have been able to immediately make the connection. That should have been a dead giveaway. In addition, unless Lelouch had a new voice alteration system installed on the mask, then there is NO WAY Zerozaku is going to sound anything like Lelouch did. So unless they are fully prepared to accept a "new" Zero, wouldn't the Black Knights, or for that matter the entire world who'd been following Zero/Lelouch's exploits, become instantly suspicious?
 * Actually, when she's suspicious, Kallen admits to herself that she doesn't have the hearing required to get a good match. And that's before the voice modulator. Throw in speaking to both Lelouch and Zero in the same room, and thinking that they're the same requires some really severe out-of-the-box thinking.
 * The vocal distorter he used was a piece of cloth over his mouth not the best vocal disguise
 * What happened in a few short months that Suzaku goes from being in over his head in an on-foot fight against Bismarck, to just annihilating the guy fairly effortlessly in a Knightmare even with the full effect of his geass?
 * Simple. Must have been part of his going after results and using his Geass command as a cheat, rather than acting in spite of or against it.
 * There's a big difference between those two fights. However superhuman Suzaku is, Bismarck is bigger, stronger, and faster than he is on foot. Suzaku was fighting a battle he could not win and damn well knew it. In their second fight, Suzaku was piloting a vastly superior Knightmare and the only reason Bismarck could even keep up is because he could see the future. Once Suzaku activated his Geass, he could push his Knightmare to the limits and render even seeing the future a useless skill.
 * Suzaku's "Live!" Geass only activates when he A) has given up on living or B) is in mortal peril. Secondly, as shows, the command cannot save someone from dying. So by the time he'd get to the point where his old age would activate it, he'd be far too old to do anything about it. Taking the Code requires not only having an actual Geass, but evolving it to a point where the transfer could take place. Moreover, he doesn't even know about the existence of the Code, so he wouldn't know that he could take C.C.'s immortality.
 * Curious that Lelouch doesn't simply command 'Obey everything I ever tell you to do.' or something similar, to avoid his power's one-time-use syndrome.
 * Originally, Lelouch refrained from using it in this way because he doesn't actually like the idea of twisting other people's will to his own, and hence only gives short term commands. He starts to use his power to make people his full time slaves after the Black Knights betray him on the suspicion of doing so, at which point he crosses the Despair Event Horizon and throws his inhibitions out the window,.
 * If the Celts beat back the Roman invasion, why do they come to call themselves Britannia, the Latin name for Britain? That's like America defeating Germany then changing its name to Amerika. Not exactly the most obvious of outcomes.
 * We don't know enough about the history one way or another. Maybe the world adopted the Latin name because previously, the British Isles didn't really have a single, cohesive name. Besides, you'd prefer 'Albion'?
 * Britannia is also the name for a (relatively) popular anthropomorphic version of Britain. Like Uncle Sam... but female.
 * If you read the Collector's Booklets it states that the references to the Celts defeating the Romans and the new Imperial Calendar date to the first Emperor of the "Britannian" Dynasty, Ricardo von Britannia in 1813. Since he was not a member of the previous Tudor Dynasty, all of the references to the King of the Celts was probably propaganda to make him seem more like a legitimate heir to the throne. The real place where the history of Code Geass seems to split from our world (other than the existence of sakuradite) is the birth of Henry IX, the son of Queen Elizabeth I.
 * And on top of that, it claims that there were 98 Emperors of Britannia.  If that were even remotely true, Britannian Emperors remain in power for 20 years on average over the course of the 2000 years since the supposed founding of Britannia. Charles is 35 years older than Schneizel. So unless dying early and leaving everything to your sibling is common... yeah. Especially compared to real life British royalty.
 * Considering that England/Britain had 53 Kings/Queens/Lords Protector/Emperors/Empresses between 925 and 1837, that's not particularly over-the-top. Even since then it's not that far out - Victoria was Queen 64 years, Elizabeth II 58 and counting, in between them? 4 Kings in 51 years.
 * If Brittania's like a lot of Real Life European monarchies, then when the one Emperor dies their appointed heir is supposed to instantly and automatically become the new Emperor. However, assassinating your rivals to the throne is a very entrenched practice among Brittanian royalty. There are probably a lot of cases where an Emperor who's ruled for decades dies, then their heir is killed before they've even been on the thrown for a month, and a few more Emperors are crowned and killed over the next couple years before someone with enough intelligence and a solid enough power base to keep themselves alive finally gets the thrown.
 * While Lelouch's Memory Gambit to beat Mao and save Nunnally was totally awesome, did he even actually need to play the game to engage the deactivation switch? In theory he could have reached up and slapped his end of the scale and that would be that. Now it might have gotten him shot and Mao may have been lying about it deactivating the bomb but it still seems odd the thought never crossed Lelouch's mind.
 * The second it did, Mao would slap his first. Boom.
 * How do we know Mao didn't setup both to set off the bomb?
 * Schneizel's reaction to Euphemia's massacre. While anyone who knows Euphie would be shocked at her actions in the Japan Special Zone, the look on Schneizel's face and the tone of his voice aren't just shocked: he seems to be genuinely horrified by what's happening. Then a year goes by, and now Schneizel's killing people on an even larger scale, even getting the one character on the show more sweet and innocent than Euphemia to do some of the dirty work, and he does it all without displaying a single shred of guilt or disgust or anything other than self-satisfied calm. What happened between seasons to turn him into such a bitch?
 * I think you've missed a fundamental difference here. Schneizel is willing to kill on a massive scale. What is utterly shocking to him is that Euphemia, whose very nature precludes such a massacre, would be so gleefully carrying it out. He's not horrified by the death and destruction per se, but rather the fact that Euphemia is the one leading it.
 * How did Suzaku survive in Turn 25? We see the Lancelot Albion exploding. Did he just eject and we didn't see it? Did he escape as it was exploding?
 * I think at the angle Gino saw it from the damaged Tristan, and the fact that there was a mysterious pillar just covering the edge of the cockpit block was put in to hide this issue
 * Why didn't Lelouch use the Gawain's Hadron Cannons to annihilate the government bureau's defences that were giving the rebel coalition so much trouble? The range of the guns was long enough to blow away air reinforcements so why not take pot shots at the Brits while they can't shoot back?
 * Probably because he'd cut the building in half.
 * But in the earlier Battle of Kyushu he was able to cut through the walls without cutting through the fortress.
 * Fair point. He might have been intending to keep it mostly intact for the impending invasion from the mainland.
 * How does the FLEIA work exactly? First off, it makes a perfect sphere, making a very clean cut as seen here. Second, there were no bodies or anything. Does the FLEIA just make a huge explosion of a perfect sphere, and anything within the sphere just gets absolutely demolished to the point that NOTHING remains? That NOTHING at all can survive in the sphere? Which would then make me wonder about Guilford...
 * Only the top half of Guilford's Knightmare is seen going in. The cockpit block probably came out alright. The best explanation is that Nina developed an extremely efficient nuclear weapon, one which wastes no energy. The blast radiates to a certain point then collapses in on itself, leaving nothing behind. All matter is vaporized.
 * Nuclear weapons don't work that way. You could handwave it away by arguing that sakuradite has unknown properties but that still feels like lazy writing. Besides that it still doesn't explain how Guilford got those injuries if his cockpit wasn't even in the blast.
 * In Turn 20, just HOW does Bismarck's sword NOT cut Suzaku in half, or at least cut him in any way? It just swats Suzaku away as if Bismarck's sword was a big huge baseball bat or something.
 * Bismarck hit Suzaku's sword, not his body.
 * Why did Clovis issue a ceasefire in Stage 2? Lelouch only used his Geass on him in Stage 3, to ask about who killed Empress Marianne. So how was Clovis convinced to call a ceasefire?
 * Lelouch was pointing a gun at him.
 * When Suzaku went to assassinate the Emperor, and Bismarck stood guard to stop him, why'd they both use swords? A gun might have come in handy.
 * Because as a Knight he doesn't seem to carry a gun that often. That, and Suzaku's ridiculous idea of honor might have compelled him to give the Emperor would could be considered a "dignified" death.
 * Why did Lelouch Geass Guilford to recognize him as Princess Cornelia? Lelouch never knew that he was going to be apprehended in Turn 17. Was Guilford being there just a coincidence? Was it assumed that Lelouch just wanted to use Guilford as just another pawn to battle with in the upcoming battle for Tokyo?
 * Maybe he just figured it might come in handy at some point.
 * That and something else. As of R2, Guilford has become a threat to Lelouch/Zero in his own right. Granted, he's not a threat to Lelouch's plans on the scale of Schneizel or Charles or even Suzaku and Cornelia, and probably never would have been. He's not nearly as savvy as them (come on; he actually thought Zero would fight fair when he challenged him; that alone should tell you he's not the savviest guy in the world), and he's explicitly being kept out of the loop with the Intelligence Agency, so he doesn't know about Geass. However, he does have the potential to become a greater threat than he was at the moment, through sheer persistence if nothing else. Now, consider another Britannian officer who became, however briefly, a threat to Lelouch's plans through sheer persistence: Jeremiah. Lelouch's intent may have been to recreate the Orange Incident of R1; after all, destroy Guilford's credibility and his capacity to be a threat to Lelouch evaporates. And indeed, at least in the sub I watched one of the Britannian soldiers seems convinced that Guilford's gone completely off his rocker once he's under the influence of Lelouch's Geass.
 * Both the Lancelot Albion and Gurren SEITEN have energy wings, yet only the Lancelot Albion is able to shoot energy bolts from it. Why is this, and how is it so powerful?
 * It's able to do it because they needed an excuse for Suzaku to wipe out an entire fleet. Also, maybe the Guren is designed for speed while the Lancelot is more of a powerhouse.
 * Moreover, why didn't Lloyd and Cecille add anything to the Shinkiro? There was enough time to make C.C. a makeshift pink Lancelot...
 * Because the super tech only works for super pilots like Suzaku and Kallen.
 * How did V.V. get aboard the Avalon? How did he know about Lelouch's Geass and why would he tell Suzaku about it?
 * How he did that isn't clear. Maybe he snuck aboard. As for Lelouch's Geass, he knew because C.C. knew. They talk. Finally, he told Suzaku to throw a wrench in Lelouch's plans.
 * Why did Lelouch order Schneizel to "Obey Zero"? He could have said something like: "You Will side with the Zero Requiem" After that Schneizel would have asked: "What's that?" and as long as Lulu worded it right, Schneizel would have surrendered, became Nunnaly's Advisor, and refrain from using Fleigas ever again, all without losing as much free will as he did. It would feel more like someone changing your mind. Schneizel would believe in upholding Zero's peace and he wouldn't have been MIND RAPED INTO BEING A MINDLESS PUPPET What the Hell Lelouch
 * Orders require the one being ordered to know what you're talking about. If he had given that order, Schneizel wouldn't have known and thus wouldn't have been compelled to obey. Geass doesn't compel the one being Geassed to seek clarification under fuzzy circumstances. They do their best to obey as they understand the order. Furthermore, the less free will you give a man like Schneizel, the better. Even a little leeway and he would try to reason his way out of it.
 * How do you KNOW he would? He goes along with the best idea available (confirmed by Word of God) If he was geassed into thinking that one idea was the best FOREVER, he would never betray anyone. He's not evil. bw, was it ever mentioned that Geassed people don't ask for clarification?
 * Geassed people never have asked for clarification. Look at Cornelia. Lelouch Geasses her to answer questions. When he stumps her, she just sits around doing nothing. She wasn't capable of acting upon an order she could not understand or complete. As for Schneizel, he may not be evil, but he's far too pragmatic for his own good. The idea to go death from above was entirely his. If slaved to a man like Zero in any way that he could reason his way out of it, you can be sure he would leave immediately and start up with whatever evil-ish plan he had in mind.
 * Death from above couldn't have been his idea alone, it doesn't suit him. It smacks of something someone hypothetically came up with after the Black Rebellion, when Nina tried to use the Proto-Fleiga. He thought it was a good idea, and worked to achieve that goal behind the scenes of R2. He has core values and dislikes, he wants peace, and no one had posited a better idea to achieve peace than the Damocles concept. If, via a Geass, he changed his mind, and after seeing the tremendous good the Zero Requiem did for the world, he'd have no need to go back to the Damocles. Also, Geass orders take into account the capabilities of the people their posessing and what situation they were in. Cornelia didn't answer because they were in a warzone, and there'd be no way to find the answer to the question in her state. All Schneizel need do is ask "What's that?"
 * There's indications he was building it as early as season 1 as I recall. That speaks of long-term planning to me. You're flanderizing the idea that he has no motivation. He obviously has motivation. He has to, otherwise he wouldn't be where he is. Geass changing his mind would be unlikely, as any Geass would have to force him to accept a particular idea, and that would break his free will as easily as making him obey. Cornelia didn't obey because she couldn't, she didn't know and couldn't find out. She never said, "Wait and let me get back to you." Schneizel wouldn't ask "what?" because Geass doesn't force him to. It just makes him obey.
 * How exactly is Schneizel a mindless puppet? Geass victims retain their intelligence and free will in everything not directly relevant to the order. Presumably, Schneizel is still the brilliant strategist he was, except the Geass now compels him not to scheme against Zero (that is, Lelouch and later Suzaku). Think of it as RoboCop's directive 4: it doesn't activate until he directly attempts to disobey an OCP employee.
 * Something just hit me: Is Nunnaly ok with geassed Schneizel? She showed an absolute hatred of Lelouch's power before, now she seems to be accepting the help of what basically ammounts to a mindless puppet, and if Schneizel's geassification was kept a secret from her, then that's kinda shitty when Nunnaly specifically stressed how annoyed she was about being kept in the dark.
 * Considering she was nuking the shit out of Lelouch's forces and her plan was even worse (morally) than his, she has no right whatsoever to object to Schneizel being made a veritable slave, especially in the interest of continued peace. If she knows, which she probably does, she's smart enough not to make an issue out of it when her brother is already dead and secured world peace in the process.
 * but her plan was exactly the same as Lelouch's, just substitute "Dictator" for "The Damocles" but that's not the point, Lelouch wanted Nunnaly to be in charge, he trusts her, and he's in no position to demand anything, considering all the terrible shit he did to secure a temporary peace that only worked because of luck, and only existed because he wants to die. There was no point in letting Nunnaly be emperess if they were just going to disobey her wishes merely because Suzaku didn't like them. Plus, keeping Schneizel like that is a TERRIBLE thing, and it goes against the show's message about free will, or at least, momentarilly sacrificing free will for the greater good. Schneizel wasn't evil he was just after peace (via horrific ways mind but that was his goal), and now that it's been attained, he'd have no reason to turn on anyone. You'd just need to restrict his authority so he couldn't go behind your back. It just seems weird for the adamantly Anti-Geass Nunally to accept help from someone in his state.
 * Nunnally's plan was worse because she didn't have an end-game. Her plan stopped at "people hate Damocles". There was no way to move past that. As for Schneizel not being evil, please. That man is is an example of the worst kind of evil. Not evil like Lelouch, a self-recognized necessary evil, or the Emperor, a cartoonish ends-justify-the-means evil, but evil that fails to see itself for what it is. Schneizel doesn't see his evil, he sees it as another move on the board. There's no recognition of it, just a statistic. It's a necessary evil to keep him under thumb, because he was not going to stop of his own accord. He wouldn't accept Lelouch's peace, and he wouldn't wait for it, either.
 * How do you know that he wouldn't accept it? No-one ever told him, or anyone what Lelouch's true goal was. He assumed that he was fighting against a force of pure evil. Schneizel's philosophical ideals do make sense, especially when you view them from his perspective as a prince who looks down on the world. All he's seen his entire life was the greedy aristocracy, and his numerous siblings fighting with one another in a single minded race for the crown. Lelouch pretty much states that Schneizel lacks the proper perspective to realize that his plans are inherantly evil, and that because Lulu had spent so much time with regular people, he could understand that human ambition could lead to good things, rather than just greed (which is what Schneizel thought and was trying to expunge from the human race). Once the Zero Requiem went off, and peace spread throughout the world. Schneizel would have no reason to go back to the Damocles plan, he would fight to maintain the peace that Lelouch created. Peace WAS Schneizel's goal. Cornelia herself says that in a more peaceful world, Schneizel would make a perfect ruler. Now he had the chance to prove it, and instead he's a mindless slave.
 * Why would he accept it? He outright denies Lelouch's idea of peace during their conversation. That's as solid a confirmation as you can get. You're acting like he'd just stand by and wait for it to happen. He would not. That's why he's a slave. Because he can't be trusted not to act in his own interests, and certainly would not have waited months to see Lelouch succeed. There's no guarantee he wouldn't try his plans in peace-time, either.
 * Then why didn't they just kill him? Lelouch was supposed to have learned that free will was absolute and that denying it, if not for more than a short time, was an unspeakably horrid thing to do. I'd have been perfectly fine with Schneizel dying, but instead he was made into a mindless slave, the very ANTITHESIS of the world Lelouch was trying to create.
 * I would think the answer is obvious: Suzaku is an idiot. He cannot be Zero by himself. The first sign of crisis would utterly obliterate any chance he had of maintaining the ruse in the public eye. Schenizel is his insurance policy. If a crisis breaks out, Schenizel is there to cover Suzaku's inadequacy.
 * I'd argue that idiot is a bit harsh, but your saying that Schneizel's basically acting as Suzaku's brain then? At least this proves that Lelouch respected his brother in some way then.
 * Respect is not trust. He respected his abilities as a strategist and other such things. Doesn't mean he trusted him not to act on his own interests.
 * I know, It's just we never really got to see what Lelouch thinks of the royal family outside of Euphemia, I didn't know if he liked Schneizel at all.
 * I was rewatching the show, i reached the end and i wondered why didn't "ATTENTION ENTIRE WORLD" become a meme?
 * From what I´ve seen of the fandom, a lot of people absolutely DESPISE Suzaku´s Big Damn Hero moments, yet are completely okay when CC does the exact same thing. (Even though her examples are equally egregious) Why?
 * Because Suzaku is used as a Diablous Ex Machina. Everything he does is just a contrivance to foil Lelouch at the worst possible moment.
 * but CC's exactly the same. At least Suzaku's moments are set up before they happen. CC shows up out of fucking nowhere JUST to save him from defeat. He would've lost LOADS of times if it wasn't for her. Why do people call Suzaku a Diabolous Ex Machina when he's clearly set up in EVERY situation. He never just APPEARS.
 * C.C. is a Deus Ex Machina, the helpful one. And really, how many times does C.C. just show up out of the blue? Once in Saitama and once at Narita that I recall. Compare Suzaku, who gets a totally cheap victory against Kallen their first real battle just to screw over Lelouch, gets outnumbered five to one and just gets new tech to compensate, and continues to keep showing up to mess things up throughout both seasons. C.C. is nowhere near as bad an offender.
 * Episode 25 of season 1: Suzaku and Kallen find out Zero is really Lelouch. Suzaku knows both about geass and Lelouch being a Brittanian prince so he has reason to think that Lelouch has just been using everyone for his own goals. What about Kallen? She assumes Lelouch was using her. Lelouch doesn't deny it, but why does she believe that in the first place? All she knows about geass is what Suzaku said at that point, that it's a "convenient way for Lelouch to avoid getting his hands dirty". Suzaku never actually says that 'Lelouch can control minds'. Is it because Lelouch is a Brittanian? Kallen already knew Zero wasn't Japanese and from his speeches Kallen probably thinks Zero's reason for leading the Black Knights is because he really hates oppression. Nothing about Zero being Lelouch goes against this (as far as Kallen knows at this point) but she still thinks Lelouch was using the Black Knights for personal gain. What personal gain could she be thinking of? She doesn't know Lelouch is a prince so she can't be thinking "Lelouch is doing this to become Emperor". Also, aftering finding out Zero is not Japanese, his being Brittanian should be the least shocking reveal. If Zero was revealed to be say, Chinese then Kallen could've been thinking "Zero was using Japan to weaken Brittania for The Chinese Federation". Sure it was probably shocking just finding out Zero was a classmate of hers, but that doesn't explain her "you were using us" reaction.
 * Kallen overhead most of the conversation prior to that point, so she knows he can control minds. In any case, it's not that he's Britannian, it's that he's the seemingly flippant boy she knows from school using their resistance for his own goals, which he outright admits and says shouldn't bother her (that's pretty damn cold).
 * Why does any of this series have to happen beyond, let's say... episode 3? Lelouch has the power to make anyone do what he orders. Why go to war? Why not walk up to Suzaku's jail, order him released and then erase camera footage? Then proceed to become a diplomat for his family and make all the world leaders and nobility grant freedom and justice to their civilians? Even if you don't want to look at that from a 'peace, love, and understanding' point of view, how about just the simple logic of not wasting time, money, nor risking your life with bullets and giant mechs when you can simply have people do what you want?
 * Because it is incredibly situational, such that one guy with a visor would foil his plan instantly. Lots of mooks wear visors. Moreover, his family disowned him and his sister, so he doesn't exactly have the option of doing things through the system.
 * Since Lelouch's Geass only works on a person once, he'd have to use a general "obey me" order to make that work in the long run, and Lelouch has moral qualms about permanently rewriting someone's personality like that. You'll notice that, once he decides he's just going to get himself killed soon anyway, he does start Geassing people to "be my slaves!" and is able to take over and remake Brittania in a matter of months.
 * In Season 1 Milly knew that Lelouch and Nunally were outcast royals trying to keep their true identities hidden. Then, in "The Stolen Mask", she learns that a cat is running around with some piece of evidence Lelouch is absolutely frantic no one see. Before she mobilizes the student body to search for the cat, does it ever occur to her that the cat might be carrying around evidence of Lelouch's royal lineage, and that she may be helping to expose him and Nunally and putting their lives at risk?
 * That's why she wanted it brought to her, presumably. It's highly doubtful whatever the cat stole would be undeniable proof of royal lineage. Whatever it was, she probably felt it was either harmless or not something the ignorant would recognize immediately.
 * Why exactly did Mao go after Shirley and Lelouch in the first place? He didn't know that Lelouch had Geass or even that he knew CC until after he started messing with them. Does he just go around mind raping teenage girls For the Evulz?
 * Not true. He had been tracking C.C. for a while. He's shown watching her at one point. He knew Lelouch had Geass before they even met. He knew Lelouch was Zero before they met. It's how he set all of that up.
 * So did Cornelia know about the Zero Requiem? We see her at the end watching the parade and right as Lelouch is killed she rushes out with Guilford and the others to free the prisoners like she knew it would happen. I was just wondering if she just took the opportunity or knew the true plan.
 * She didn't know about the plan. They were watching in secret, and didn't have any plan to free the prisoners. Lelouch's death just happened to be a timely opening.
 * That's what I thought. It just seemed too convenient how they were right there to declare his death but I doubt he would've told Cornelia about it so it makes sense.
 * The Chinese Federation Arc in Season 2, from my point of view all it seems like is an excuse to Throw Kallen in Jail, make a rather pointless Excuse Plot in the arranged marriage between the boring Odysseus and the Tianzi, who's only real purpose in the show is crying. Because other than those two points, nothing really happens (Personally this is where I believe R2 starts to fail in quality, as it only got worse from here until Episode 20 where things got intresting again.). They kill the Eunuchs but that could've been done offscreen or not at all, Xing-Ke could've easily joined with the Black Knights while he was still in Japan, and if you skip it in a rewatch you really don't miss anything, as the only deaths are characters contained within the arc (The only things that I can think of being missed are the Shinkiro and Shen-Hu, but those could've both been introduced later with no problem, and the revolt of the Chinese Federation could've easily been glossed over.)
 * Here's an interesting question: Why didn't Lelouch reveal his identity to his inner circle? If he had done that he could have cut off a lot of the suspicion that was afflicting him later into the series. I am not saying that he should have revealed the information to them immediately, but during R2, it probably would have built up a stronger level trust with them. I mean just look at the example of Kosetsu Urabe. He remained completely loyal to Lelouch after finding out his real identity and even helped him out when it was most necessary. So that Lelouch could at least secure his position, he could have at least shown them all he was Britannian and possibly told them all he was a former prince and then taken the time to explain his reasoning and why he was fighting Britannia instead of treating them like he could barely trust them and acting all mysterious. If he had told Tohdoh, Tohdoh would have almost certainly accepted him as Tohdoh is the most level headed member of the Black Knights, and already knew Lelouch personally, along with his backstory and probably would have trusted him immediately once he understood the situation, like that the old man who was part of the N.A.C. and trusted Lelouch originally. He could of told Dietard, who, while not completely loyal, was Britannian himself, and probably would have found the whole situation amusing. He could have told Rakshata, as she isn't Japanese and probably wouldn't have cared one way or the other. Ohgi already knew Zero wasn't Japanese, and, at least up to the end, he was quite a reasonable person, and probably would have appreciated the new level of trust. Kaguya already knew Lelouch personally and probably would have understood and accepted his predicament. Asahina and Chiba (I am not including Ryoba as he died early on) are a little bit harder to decipher as they weren't loyal to Zero anyway, but Tohdoh could have kept them in their place. The three remaining black knights leaders are also harder to decipher. The two that aren't Tamaki were both quite loyal to Zero, but not overly so. They both may have accepted Lelouch if they knew Kallen had accepted him and if Ohgi accepted him. Tamaki is an idiot and could probably be kept in the dark; that, I am sure, everyone would agree on.
 * I could not agree, in R2 the black knights should have little reason to trust him after Zero abandoning them in the first season without giving them a reason why after joining up again. They follow Zero since he still the best chance the for Black Knights to win. If Lelouch told them he was exiled prince I think they would trust him less after their rebellion got crush. Maybe after rescuing Todoh since they knew eachother before the war and Tohdoh could help in convincing the other to trust Lelouch since he still highly respected.
 * Yeah, that's what I am saying. If Lelouch could get Todoh on board, and there was plenty of reason to believe he could have, and possibly won Ohgi over, he could have strengthened his grip on his inner circle. The inner circle is truly the most important part of any organization. If they aren't behind you, your screwed. He could have at least taken steps to make sure his top general and Chief Executive officer were on his side and leave them to deal with any dissent. Todoh and Diethard, and Ohgi initially, all realized that Lelouch was their only chance for victory, and aLL would have taken the steps necessary to ensure this. Its called Fait Accompli: we are in this together whether you like it or not, now go make sure we win.
 * R2, Turn 06. So Suzaku tried to figure out whether Lelouche had "awakened" by pulling a surprise call from Nunnally on him, and ended up countered by Rolo's Geass. That's fine, but why wasn't there anyone monitoring the call to be sure? Or better still, just bug the phone. Both would be very easy becasue 1) he has full support from a surveillance team working on just the same goal and 2) that phone is HIS.
 * Why didn't Charles do anything to V.V. after he murder Marianne. V.V. kill the one woman he loves out of jealously and lied to his face he had nothing to do with it. And yet no snapping at neck, shooting, stabbing anything to test how far the geass immortality work, nothing. Plus going as far to help cover it up and closing the case unsolve like it didn't matter. With Charles powers he could set anyone up for the fall to least give Leouch some closures that justice had been served. I could understand that he needed V.V. but with C.C. she could have taken over V.V. job and V.V. could have been put in Pod and stay there till he was needed.
 * How did Zero Requiem even work? There's the huge power vacuum and the fact that no one would be allowed to fill that void due to distrust, thus causing a complete collapse of the worlds political system. If Leouche was truly intelligent, he would have just geassed everyone on the planet with the command "Everyone be nice to each other and teach your descendants peace." Boom, discriminatory problems solved and bigotry doesn't pass onto the next generation. If he's willing to become a tyrant, he should be more than willing to compromise his principals to do something that would reduce the death toll to 0 with only the hatred of the populations free will gone.
 * How did Zero Requiem even work? There's the huge power vacuum and the fact that no one would be allowed to fill that void due to distrust, thus causing a complete collapse of the worlds political system. If Leouche was truly intelligent, he would have just geassed everyone on the planet with the command "Everyone be nice to each other and teach your descendants peace." Boom, discriminatory problems solved and bigotry doesn't pass onto the next generation. If he's willing to become a tyrant, he should be more than willing to compromise his principals to do something that would reduce the death toll to 0 with only the hatred of the populations free will gone.