Code Geass/Headscratchers/And Alternate History

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• Okay, so this timeline starts off with Ceasar not conquering Britain. One can reasonably assume that Britain will stay Celtic possibly indefinitely and that, given that the butterfly effect will mean differant Roman screwing around in the chaotic tribal stew of ancient Germania, any tribe which overruns Britain need not even be Germanic, let alone Saxon. And we have a Duke of Essex, that is, a Roman Military Leader of the East Saxons how,exactly? Let's not even start on Queen Bess and Napoleon Bonie being born and ruling after many centuries of changed history. According to the purist interpretation, no-one will ever be born the same after history changes (there are a zillion sperm vying for the place here). According to the flexible interpretation... the Tudors won't come to power and there won't be a French Revolution as we know it, leaving aside fathers and mothers never having an opportunity to meet. I have several times added a short and polite example to the page for "Did Not Do the Research". For all its merits as a series, CG has simply not looked up how history and alternate history are supposed to work. Can somebody tell me why these keep being deleted?
  • While I agree in principle, you're arguably being very picky about it. It's not totally implausible that things would turn out to be very similar but still divergent enough to get the world of Code Geass that we know rather than the real world. It's a classic case of Alternate History. Sure, the probability of so many things staying the same isn't high, but it isn't zero. The writers said that it went that way, so it went that way. It may be implausible, but it's not impossible. They already have crazy stuff like magical powers which can compel people to do whatever you want. Code Geass' alternate history is nothing in comparison to that.
  • I'm being prickly because it really does defy common sense. Without a Roman Empire in Britain, you wont get English Dukes, even if by some incredible convergence you still get England. Magical powers are something about which I can willingly suspend my disbelief. Of course with slightly more difficulty I can suspend my alternate-history disbelief and enjoy the show, but what's bugging me is not so much the error as the fact that my attempts to politely point it out being swept away by overly zealous fans.
    • Well, I certainly concur that if you were to actually go back in time and somehow alter history at the point that Code Geass' universe diverges from ours and make history diverge in the same way at that point, the odds of us getting anything like the alternate history of Code Geass are astronomically low. The farther back in time the divergence, the greater the differences will be by the time you get to the point in history that Code Geass takes place at. So, the odds are definitely against it, but it's not necessarily impossible (unlike Geass and the like since that's pure fantasy regardless of how cool it is). However, it's quite typical of alternate histories to diverge fairly significantly in a number of ways and yet have a lot of the same people with a lot of stuff the same. The Alvin Maker books are a great example. So, Code Geass' use of Alternate History isn't exactly abnormal, but it is probably a bit unique in how far back it goes. Usually such histories are a couple of hundred years at most while the point at which Code Geass' history diverges from ours is at least two millenia ago. So, arguably, Code Geass is a bit of an extreme case. But still, I don't think that it's unreasonable for the writers to say that that's how it went. Of course, I do think that the whole Alternate History aspect of it is one of the coolest things in Code Geass. In any case, I think that you have a very valid point: Code Geass' Alternate History is unlikely to the point of absurdity if you're really looking at the likelihood of such a thing happening if you were to alter time at the point which Code Geass' history diverges from ours. However, while it's highly improbable, it's not impossible, and it works quite well.
    • Ahem. England was established by the Angle and Saxon settlers - the name England is a corruption of Angleland. The Angles and Saxons were Germanic tribes who arrived from central Europe about a century after the fall of the Roman Empire; it's entirely possible they integrated themselves into the culture, rather like the Viking settlers in Ireland, thus allowing the descendants of the Celtic super-king to remain on the throne even if England shifts to being Germanic. The dukes could have been introduced some time later by French invaders. The national language of Britannia seems to be modern English, indicating that its history was predominantly Germanic and French rather than Celtic.
  • It's quite simple: the occupation of Britain by Rome was in no way an important historical event. Julius Caesar was just being macho; the actual occupation didn't happen for a good while after the "official" declaration of it's addition to the Republic/Empire. Therefore, the rest of history could still happen as it ended up going down (right to Elizabeth I's son). The Anglo-Saxons invaded since they had established a foot-hold as protectors/mercenaries for the Celts, who protected them from the northern tribes up in Scotland.
• Why is Britannia called Britannia? The Point of Divergence was supposedly the Celts repelling the Roman invasion, yet Britannia is the name the Romans gave to the province consisting of the island of Britain. Shouldn't it be called, um, something else?
  • Bismarck's Geass can see into alternate realities and he saw the name Britannia and told Chuck about it. He decided it was awesome, and so renamed the Empire. This is why everyone's shouting "All Hail Britannia" so much, to drum the new name into their heads. Bismarck's Geass seeing alternate realities combined with Chuck's love for random historical revisionism is also the explanation for all other alternate-history-related wonks. (This was all going to be explained in the original plan for the series, but then Bismarck's role was shortened to "I know what's going on and am trying to convince whoever's in charge not to be dumb, blurrgh I am daed")
    • Heh. In all seriousness though, I'd speculate that even if the Romans were defeated, the name might have remained and was popularized somehow at a later date...or just because.
  • It's called Britannia for Rule of Cool. MST3K Mantra, my friend; They only wanted to use a name that would differentiate Britain from Britannia. Also, it wouldn't be the first time a country adopted the foreign name for their country as a translation to their country's name in their own language. Japan is called Nippon/Nihon, but will refer to themselves as Japan when speaking in English. The Celts probably just took on the name to refer to their new Empire as a whole, rather than give it a name they couldn't agree on.
  • This is actually incredibly easy to explain. There are plenty of historical examples of groups taking the name there enemies have given to them and using it for themselves. For the best real world example, English soldiers called American revolutionaries "yankees" as an insult. American troops liked the name so much they adopted it. So Romans go to attack the barbaric Britannians and lose. Britannian becomes synonymous with barbarism and the Britannians adopt the name as an insult (i.e. "Nyah nyah, we're just a bunch of barbarians and we kicked your ass".)
    • That's slightly different, though - 'Britannia' is the official Roman name for Britain, and 'Britanii' for its people; neither carries a pejorative sense, unlike words such as 'yankee'. Besides, the examples you're thinking of there are never official, just colloquial - it's still the United States of America, not the United States of Yanks. The only reason Britannia would have become the official name for the empire is if the Celts were at some point conquered by either the Romans or a Romance-language-speaking people. This is still entirely possible, though - the fact that the Tudors ruled Britain rather suggests that the Norman invasion of 1066 (going by our calendar, of course) was successful, even if it was against a Celtic king rather than an Anglo-Saxon one.
      • Or, alternatively, it could just be Translation Convention in play.
      • 1) Remember, we're to assume that they're speaking English, according to Word of God. However, if English did exist in this world, it would have been extremely different from the language that we're using right now. In the case of the name "Britannia", it has to be remembered that the Romans got this name by translating a local term - Pretani - into Latin. The term for these people also gives us the Welsh name for the Island of Great Britain: Prydain. It could be that in "Britannia's" own language, they call their country Prydain and their people the Pretani or Pretannians (which, for whatever reason - Latin as a Lingua Franca, Napoleonic Conquest, etc. - are translated to Britannia and Britannians). It could even be that they refer to the regions of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and Logres, Cymru, Alba and Eire.
      • 2) With a possible explanation for the name out of the way, I'd like to suggest that perhaps the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions were similar to the OTL Norse Invasions. In short, they were never able to conquer the entire Briton homeland. In Real Life, the Anglo-Saxons were only ever able to conquer the part of Britannia that we know today as England; Wales was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, they were only brought into the fold by the Normans, and properly consolidated as a unified part of England by the Tudors. Scotland was never conquered and absorbed at all - they joined willingly in the Act of Union. It seems far more likely in that case that the Anglo-Saxons of the Geass world tried to invade, but were stopped by some other Celtic Super-King who forced the invaders into an "Angle Law" of sorts (like the OTL Dane Law). Intermarriage between these people (much like what happened between the Celts and English in Real Life, if genetic testing is to be believed) led to cultural blending over time, only on equal footing rather than the assimilation into Anglo-Saxon culture that happened in most of OTL England, meaning that what we know as Sub-Roman Britain likely remained united under Britannian rule with moderate-to-significant Anglo-Saxon influence. The Norse invasions would have added Old Norse (Norwegian-Danish culture) to the mix. The end result would have been a united Kingdom stretching from at least Hadrian's Wall (if not inculding Scotland) down to the English Channel, and from the coast of Wales to Kent; the culture being predominantly Britannian (Brythonic, Welsh, Cumbrian, and Cornish) merged with Anglo-Saxon, with influences from the Norse on the whole shebang. And if that somehow butterflyed away Harold Godwinson, then William of Normandy would have simply walked in and staked his claim to the throne with no need for an invasion. Scotland itself was quite Norman-influenced due to intermarriage and and alliance against England OTL, so why not a similar situation here? In fact, with both Briannia and Alba under Norman control, they could have achieved union 700 years before they did OTL, assuming they weren't united since the Romans. With Norman influence and their bloodline on the throne, Norman society would have influenced this United Island Kingdom in a similar way it did OTL, resulting in a Brythonic-English-Norse-Scottish-Norman Realm that is similar to our own, and yet so very different (For one thing, "English" in this world would have been greatly influenced by Celtic, possibly even resulting in a Pidgin Language that became standardized and integrated into a single Anglo-Celtic tongue). It would have also put the Normans and Tudors on the throne whilst butterflying away the Stuarts in Scotland (explaining why Elizabeth III could retreat to Edinburgh after Napoleon's invasion even though the Crowns shouldn't have been united.
      • 3) With "England", Wales, Cornwall, and Scotland (essentially all of the Isle of Great Britain and it's assimilated territories such as Man, the Orkneys and Shetland) united, and the Germanic Anglo-Saxons and Norse, as well as the Franco-Norse Normans integrated through lack of outright conquest and cultural/economic ties, that just leaves Ireland. Whilst Ireland would have continued to raid the Welsh coast, the fact that Britannia was united, as you said, meant that Ireland would be more easily defended against. Also keep in mind that whether Scotland joined at the Roman Invasion or at the Norman ascension to the throne(s), they had a history of intermarriage with the Gaelic Irish, which is why Gaelic-Pictish-Brythonic Caledonia (as the Romans called it) united under the Gaelic name Alba and saw Gaelic/Scotch culture become dominant and integrate the other two groups. This could have given Britannia an "in" with at least some of the Irish. Combined with the OTL Norman conquest of Ireland, and Britannia would have been able to bring them to heel given some time. If this Britannia continued to espouse an ethnic nationalism similar to the Holy Empire, then they would have integrated Ireland as a "natural part" of the Realm. Granted, the Irish would be treated with paternalism and a lack of recognition of the unique aspects of their culture, but they wouldn't be beaten down and told that they were barbarians the same way the OTL English did, meaning that open rebellion becomes far less likely. If the Britannian King adopted the "Ard Ri" (High King) title at Tara, along with the "Lord of Ireland" title bestowed by the Pope (or a Code Geass equivalent, considering our lack of consensus on Religion), Britannia could have adopted a "More Irish Than the Irish Themselves" attitude to the Island, resulting in a politically and culturally integrated Kingdom by the time the Tudors were done consolidating their Realm. Keeping in mind that we know nothing of Religion in this world (No Christianity in Britannia? Limited Christianity in Britannia, being one of several faiths? Celtic Polytheism? The Collective Unconscious? The Eden Vital Church?), we may even butterfly away the Wars of Religion and the Catholic/Protestant Divide, or at least minimize them. With the ethnic, religious, and political dividers minimized, the Kingdom could have developed a strong absolute monarchy, especially if Kings Richard and/or John stopped the Magna Carta and suppressed any Celtic and Germanic assemblies... Wow, this went on longer than I thought it would... still... make of it whatever you will. *Backs up into a corner*
• The fact that Napoleon was more successful in this timeline bugs me. From what I've read, the American Revolution failed because Benjamin Franklin betrayed the rebels, which certainly makes sense. However, the French Revolution apparently still occurred; furthermore, Napoleon managed to conquer Britain and even more of Europe. In the real world, France aided the rebels in the American Revolution in order to weaken Britain. However, the country was nearly bankrupted as a result of paying for soldiers, ships, supplies, etc., which led to the peasants starving, which was the main factor that led to the Revolution in the first place. If the American Revolution never happened, France stays wealthy and the peasants have no pressing need to rebel; hence, no French Revolution, and no opportunity for Napoleon to seize power.
  • As I understand it, the revolution still happened; it just didn't succeed. So France pumped massive amounts of money into an ultimately futile cause, sounds like grounds for rebellion to me. (Alternatively: Napoleon had Geass too, and used that to seize power).
    • The logical theory when it came to historical events in Code Geass: "He (or she) who has Geass will most likely end up a successful Leader and Conqueror." Napoleon, the Celtic Super-King, William the Conqueror, The Emperor of Britannia (the first Empire, not the reorganized Holy one) who put down Washington's Rebellion, etc. all had a Geass. the Roman leadership at the time and the last Emperor to rule from the British Isles didn't. Or they were out-Xanatosed. The latter makes for Great fanfic ideas: Code Geass: Celtic Super-King of the successful resistance, or Code Geass: Napoleon of the Revolution.
    • "Celtic Super-King of the successful resistance" Hell yes.
    • Given that Caesar's "invasion of Britain" was essentially marching around Kent for a few weeks kicking some ass and going back to Gaul, Caesar losing (as in, "Not dying or having his army destroyed, but running back to Gaul with their tail between their legs) wouldn't be such a huge divergence. Given that Caesar's excuse for invading Britain (aside from Rule of Cool) was Briton interference in Gaul, some sort of Britannic Vercingetorix uniting the Briton tribes isn't really all that implausible. (Speaking of which, you want a real divergence point? Vercingetorix beats Caesar at Alesia and rules a unified Gaul hostile to Rome. Pompey is out dealing with pirates. Vercingetorix marches on Italy. Hilarity Ensues.) The key point to the divergent plotline here is Celtic super-king and his successors holding off the invasion of Britain by Claudius 100 years later, especially given that in this timeline, Claudius would've had serious interest in avenging Caesar's humiliation. Hell, Augustus might've even authorized an invasion of Britain ahead of schedule out of pride, especially if the whole Teutoberg Forest thing didn't happen. Even if Britannia was strong enough to maintain its independence from Rome, there'd still be quite a bit of cultural contact between Gaul and Britain. No Roman occupation, and even a unified Celtic Britannia, is no guarantee that Christianity and other importations from the later Roman Empire wouldn't happen. I just had an idea. c. 500, a massive Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britannia is thwarted by the Britannian Emperor, a warrior king named Arthur.
  • Really quick note to the person above, historical King Arthur was Roman so it wouldn't work out that well. Also the reason why Christianity spread so fast was due to the Roman roads and the security brought about by Roman rule. The roads made it easer to travel and the Pax Romana made people more likely to travel without fear. If there was a super king on an island who had fought off Caesar, this could negate the Pax but more likely it would seal off the island from Roman influence and as such no one would want to travel there to share christianity with the barbaric Britannians.
    • It would have spread eventually, just not right away. And Britannia would still be open to trade, since you can't just close yourself off without going through economic stagnation. Roman-era Europe was actually very closely tied together, even the areas not folded into the empire, believe it or not. Britannia would have likely tried to learn all it could from Rome in order to help its own fortunes on the world stage, in the same way that Japan adopted Knightmare Frames for its own use. As for Arthur, there's no way at all that someone from The Empire would ally himself with a smaller power for whatever agenda he had set for himself. No way. Not in Code Geass.
    • While his origin is still being debated (and whether or not 'Arthur' was actually several people) Arthur definitely would not have been a Roman. If a single Arthur existed he would have been a Briton (aka Celts).
  • I'm still wondering where Napoleon got the money to finance his successful invasion of The British Isles. According to the Other Wiki he received the funds from the sale of Louisiana to the States and with no US and (I assume) the Britannians not stupid enough to buy Louisiana, and France in 1805 still loaded with debt, one wonders how Napoleon paid for the Grand Armee with no money.
• Not sure if this is the right section or not, but this troper was thinking over where the characters of Code Geass would be if history had remained unchanged and realized he had no idea what Lelouch's nationality would be. British? American? Japanese? Any thoughts?
  • He was born in what's really the USA. But the correct answer is that in a more real world he would never been born at all.
  • He would never have been born. But if we consider Alien Space Bats, then he'd likely be a member of some branch of the British Royal Family who has English (father's side) and American (mother's side) ancestry... who lives in Japan.
• Also, how can Pizza Hut exist in an alternate reality? I guess Product Placement trancends realities.
  • In regards to your Pizza Hut question, and all the above Alternate History questions... did anyone else get the feeling that it was all completely made-up? To put it succinctly, the reason why there's so many holes that we keep pointing out is precisely because these holes exist in-universe. With the power of Geass at the command of many clever leaders throughout history, C.C. may be the only one alive who knows the whole truth. What seems like Did Not Do the Research becomes quite confusing when you realize that Geass consists of an entire Masquerade that spans the entire world and history of Code Geass. It wouldn't be the first time that the creators of the show outright lied to us. It's not like they can spoil the series for us, so instead they offer false leads. The Fridge Brilliance page says it best:

At first, the idea of having Pizza Hut in the series seemed like stupid Product Placement, but it now hits me that unless some really bad In Spite of a Nail is going on, this is yet another sign that the "official history" in the series in complete b.s. —- Jordan

• As mentioned in the Narm section: how did Nunnally in Nightmare of Nunnally get to the Shinjuku Ghettos? Alone. With no one (presumably) to bring her there. In the middle of a massacre. Did I mention that she's blind and crippled?
• Can someone explain the joke? People have said in the picture dramas Nunnally is a Covert Pervert..Huh?
  • In the picture drama referenced on the Fetish Fuel page, the student council all cross-dress. The girls mostly go gaga over how pretty Lelouch looks in a dress and a long wig, and Nunnally says she's sad she can't see it. That's it, basically. There is actually another picture drama where she makes remarks that could be taken that way, namely episode 8.75 (the Pool Episode); she asks Lelouch to "train her in various ways" so she can be more like Cornelia, in reference to Milly saying Cornelia probably "trains in various ways with her male subjects".
  • A lot of it seems to be misinterpretation by the perverted Milly. It seems to be a running (mostly innocent) joke amongst their friends that Lelouch and Nunnally are "Married-Couple-Close". Remember, in one sound episode, Shirley is terrified that Lelouch will not love her, instead marrying Nunnally, Suzaku, or, at one point, everybody.
• Nina's design. First of all, did her hair color change part way through the first season? Her hair looked originally black, but later it gained a green hue even in the dark. Also, is it me or does her design look different from other characters? It's not her glasses either.
  • She's relatively cute living in a world filled with beautiful people. It was the ugliest they could make her without making her a Gonk.
  • If this had happened, she would be Distaff Counterpart to Attenborough.
• Kallen's mom. Wasn't she supposed to go to jail?
  • She did, hence her complete absence until the finale. Getting a pardon is easy when you're good friends with the Empress.
    • PLUS remember she'd be resigned to Britannian jail....in Area 11. When the Black Knights made the deal with Schneizel, after the whole mess ending with Lelouch's death Ohgi became the first Prime Minister of the new Japan, thus he could have had her pardoned anyways if not outright freed just on his authority as the deputy leader of the Black Knights.
    • The Black Knights didn't get jack from that deal. It was sheer dumb luck (and quite undeserved at that) that got Ohgi the position at the end.
• Why can't Nunnally get cybernetic legs? They fixed Orange-kun pretty good.
  • No doubt Jeremiah's work was damned expensive (and was military funded). Nunnally couldn't afford it at first, and might even elect against it after she could. It was also probably quite experimental.
  • It's brand new. Give them a few years and she'll probably elect to get it once it's available to the public.
• If Britannia is supposed to be an absolute monarchy, why does it have a prime minister? (Note: 'Because Britain has one' is not an answer, because Britain is not an absolute monarchy, nor was it at any point after the office of prime minister was established.)
  • I always handwaved it as being for the sake of appearances - It makes the Britannian nobles/public think they have at least some say in governance. They don't, of course, but it at least looks that way.
  • The fact that the prime minister in question is the Emperor's son makes the arrangement perfectly compatible with an absolute monarchy - there are some real life absolute monarchies where one of the king's brothers or sons is designated prime minister. At times I suspected that in Britannia's case the position was created specifically to give Second Prince Schneizel some position of power, since he is clearly more capable than First Prince Odysseus.
  • There have been positions throughout history in various cultures that we've translated into English as either being "Prime Minister" or "Vizier", since they're the closest available words we've got. It basically means "the guy that the King/Emperor chose as his legislative second-in-command and advisor". Note that Britannia has a Senate (Parliament) and a House of Lords. Both can exist in an absolute monarchy, it's just that neither can have any real power beyond the constitution and rubber-stamp legislation.
  • Britannia is not an absolute monarchy they are a constitutional monarchy with several branches of government including an elected parliament and a high court. Many high ranking officials that the emperor douse not have control over, these include the Chairman, Prime Minister, Speaker, President, and chief justice. They can be seen with the emperor at Clovis’s funeral. The emperor only has power over the military with every thing else he is a figure head, this was explicitly pointed out by him. Where everyone else was during Lelouch’s take over is unknown but my guess is under his geass control.
  • Given the sheer size of Brittania, much of the Emperor's power is going to have to be delegated. He remains an absolute monarch so long as he can overrule the other government officials, regardless of how often he chooses to exercise that power.
  • The Emperor does spend most of his time doing his mad research instead of actually managing the empire. Schneizel probably does most of the day-to-day leadership stuff.
• The end of Season 1. Euphinator related. ..Why did Lelouch choose to say those words? Seriously? Was it supposed to be funny? Was that the only thing he could think of? Why choose that phrase?
  • Idiot Ball. He was just trying to give the most horrific example he could think of.
  • He just has a really terrible sense of humour. It shows up once or twice in the sound episodes, too.

• So Kawaguchi apparently stated that he wants to announce a new animated production soon. Does this mean a third season of Code Geass? And since Lelouch was killed by the end of the second season will we get a new main character?
  • No telling. The only info out is about a manga with a prequel plot, and that announcement was months ago.
    • Hasn't the manga been slated for an anime adaptation?
    • No. At least, there's no plans for such a thing. The latest news is some sort of OVA about a new group of characters in the show's timeline.
    • That's what I said. I heard that the new OVA (or is it a season?) revolves around the new manga, as in an adaptation of it.
    • Again, no. It's about a new group of characters in the show's timeline, not the manga.
  • Apparently, there are three Alternate Continuity mangas: the Lelouch of the Rebellion manga, the Suzaku of the Counterattack manga, and the Nightmare of Nunnally manga. Then, there's the Strange Tales of the Bakamatsu manga which may be canon but is likely just a Universal Adaptor Cast story, taking the Code Geass characters and placing them in the Edo-era. The new canon manga is called Renya of the Dark (or Black), and is explicitly stated to take place in the canon anime timeline, in the equivalent to the Code Geass Edo-era. Then there's a new anime series to be released (it's currently in the works). It's called Akito Of The Ruined Land (best current translantion), and it will take place in 2017 a.t.b., or, concurrently with Season 1. So no, neither are sequels, one's a prequel and the other is an interquel.
• The names. Did they pick them from a French furnishing catalog or something or is it some odd case of Theme Naming? A lot of their names directly translate to or are similar to certain words which are furniture based. "Red Lamp" for Lelouch and Nunnally's fake last names, "Window" for Shirley, "World of Wool Brushes" for Rivalz, etc.
• The culture. Isn't almost anything Japanese supposed to be repressed and underground? Then why does everything seem rather Japanese? Especially the schools.
  • Creator Provincialism, probably....
• Nunnally... was supposed to have a crush on Suzaku? Huh?
  • In case you haven't noticed, most of the people in Code Geass are on par with the Olympian Gods in regards to beauty. And Nunnally is 14 years old, with Suzaku having been one of the only guys that Lelouch let near her for more than 5 seconds (aside from Rivalz, but he's... well, Rivalz). Of course, part of it may have just been Lelouch encouraging it out of his own desires...

• Suzaku is Japanese, right? ..He has green eyes and tan skin. Light colored eyes can happen in Asian people but it's very rare, and the tan skin could just be a tan he's had for years. But that seems unlikely.
  • Kaguya also has green eyes (along with more traditional Japanese hair colouring), and she's his cousin, so maybe it's a family genetic quirk.
  • C.C. has green hair. No one finds this remarkable, probably because she's not the only one. Complaining that Suzaku doesn't look all that much like his ethnicity is rather like the people who nitpick about the alternate history when you've got psychic powers and masses of Applied Phlebotinum floating about.
• Immortal Geass users and having body parts removed. How does that work? As in how would they regain their body parts. For example, CC has been Guillotine'd in the past and also crushed by water, after she met Lulu. VV survived being blasted.
  • On a similar note, how did CC "survive" getting crushed by water? Wouldn't she just stay there?
    • Assuming she wasn't tangled up in the wreckage, her mangled corpse would float back up.
    • She either opened the hatch and let herself be crushed and floated to the surface then healed, or she was crushed inside the Gawain and stayed there until it was salvaged by the Black Knights (as parts of it ended up in Shinkiro and the Ikaruga) at which point she was freed and healed.
    • This troper just assumed she drowned and had to walk.

• The beginning of Nightmare Of Nunnally. How the heck did a crippled, blind, wheel chair bound girl get to an accident by herself? So far away from home too, and without being seen?
  • Probably the same unlikely sequence of events that led to Lelouch getting thrown into a truck, taken to the ghetto, and dropped off right near his mother's old contractor...
    • How'd she get out of her room?
• Lost Colors and the kimonos. How? Why? I thought Britannia suppressed almost everything remotely Japanese..Plus how did they get Nina into one?
  • Creator Provincialism... besides, hypocrisy and a pretentious attitude are kind of the the Britannian stereotypical trait in that universe.
    • But how did they get Nina into it?
  • Japanese culture is suppressed among the Japanese people in order to keep them under heel. Brittanians dressing up like old timey Japanese is probably a different matter; that's probably accepted in the same way blackface used to be.
    • When you say it like that, it reminds me of Orientalists. Colonial powers in occupied lands will collect "exotic curiosities" as some sort of novelty.
  • Like how America renamed German things in WWI (sauerkraut became liberty cabbage), Britannia did the same. Just because. So instead of kimonos, katanas and mochi; they are now oppression robes, oppression swords and oppression cakes. (My Orientalism theory makes more sense, just let me have my fun with this one)
• Say, do you think that anyone in-universe noticed that Emperor Lelouch was piloting the Shinkiro Knightmare Frame. You know, the Japanese Frame that was supposed to be Zero's personal Knightmare. You'd think people would have noticed that...
  • As I recall, Zero's piloting of that Knightmare wouldn't be common knowledge. The cameras were off by the time the China battle picked up and he used it the first time. Cameras were again taken out the second time. The military should recognize the use of Zero's personal Knightmare, but they covered that on the spot by radioing that it was stolen. It's weird, but nothing that couldn't be explained.
    • Fair enough, the whole "Rolo stealing it to rescue Lelouch" would explain it, in universe... Still, I could see a few eyebrows raised by those not-in-the-know, unless they thought that Lelouch stole Zero's knightmare to use against them...
    • The core members of the Black Knights, who knew that Lelouch was Zero, would obviously not be surprised to see him turn up with the machine he escaped in. As for the official cover story, they could just have claimed that Rolo commandeered it, as a Britannian inflitrator working for Lelouch.
• Milly loves Lelouch? I..Never noticed it. Am I missing something? She just seemed like a Cool Big Sis.
  • Part of their Backstory. She was an Unlucky Childhood Friend from Lelouch's earlier days living with the Ashfords.
  • In the Cupid Day episode she ordered the clubs to try to get her Lelouch's hat and admitted to Sayoko that she wished she had gotten it. Combined with one of the picture dramas and it's definitely implied that she has feelings for Lelouch even if she's mostly given up.
    • She still seems like a big sister though.
• Why do people say Rolo is in love with Lulu? It seems like a twisted brotherly love to me.
  • Well, at least Kimura Takahiro and Rolo's voice actor seem to take for granted that his feelings were romantic. If "gaze upon me only", “Brother is only mine…", "no one can save my soul, only you", "you give me the reason to live", "he won’t smile at me - For something so simple, why does my heart hurt so much?", "wouldn’t it be enough that the two of us could stay together forever, somewhere in a quiet place? That way we should spend all eternity in happiness", among many other of his lines don’t sound as being in love to you… Not to mention the amount of times official sources depict Rolo blushing or with floating hearts around when he's together with/thinking of Lelouch, and the way he not only wants to occupy Nunnally's place inside his heart but also gets jealous when Shirley becomes his "girlfriend", after CC claims that Lelouch and her are getting married, during the whole kissing scene from Rururu Goukon Rhapsody...

• As Emperor what exactly did Lelouch do that would cause the Black Knights to think a Kill Sat that was going to nuke every major city from orbit was a better option? I could see them being upset and betrayed by him claiming the Britannian Throne but at least he didn't build a weapon of mass destruction whose only plausible purpose would be to force the world into fearful obedience.
  • They're idiots. They never realized the purpose of it.
  • Which is the problem with the Zero Requiem. Not only that, he would also have to be worse than Charles. It would have been more productive, and less bloody, to get people to center their scorn towards Charles and Schneizel. Which only leads all the more credence, along with his loss of resolve following Nunnally's apparent demise and the betrayal incident, that he was looking to kill himself. Not to mention that it was also a luck based mission, in that it involved Kallen going against him.
• How did Geassing the collective subconsious of humanity not remove Lelouch's ability to use his Geass anymore? It's supposed to only work on a single person once but wouldn't the collective subconsious count as everyone?
  • Everyone who's dead. The living are apart from it, if not quite separate. Besides, he didn't really Geass it, so much as ask nicely.
• Who created the knights of rounds knightmare frames and when were they made? Most of them seem at least as advanced as the original Lancelot, which was nonetheless described as the first 7th generation knightmare, even though it apparently has little improvement over knight of rounds models. Even more, Mordred uses a weapon that was perfected less than a year ago, yet Anya should have been a knight of rounds longer than that. The flight pack is also mentioned as new and unique, yet at least two of the rounds models have it built in.
  • An in-universe justification might be that the elite knights are getting advanced models but the real answer is probably that they were given new knightmares to be a better threat to the Black Knights.
  • The Rounds have had a year to get these new models, the tech for which is already developed if not quite out of the experimental phase at the time. We don't see them with it prior, so it stands to reason they didn't have them.
• How are the royals competing with one another? If they were as ruthless as Lelouch stated, there is no way Euphemia, Clovis and Oddyseus would be that high up in the chain of succesors.
  • Their ranking seems to have something to do with birth and not necessarily personal ability. They also don't appear to be as outwardly violent as nobles might have been when Charles was young. At any rate Schneizel doesn't consider assassination until near the end. As for Euphemia, her sister is Cornelia. Making her angry is a bad idea.
  • Cornelia was Euphemia's full sister so she was probably scaring everyone else to keep her alive. Clovis was Scgneizel's full brother so he was probably maniplutaing things to keep him alive. Oddyseus was more or less useless but as long as he was the First Prince the other more capable nobles like Schneizel and Cornelia aren't as big targets so they keep him around as a distraction.
  • Or maybe they're that high up in the chain of succession because no one wants to bother with getting rid of them. They know full well that, when the Emperor croaks, these guys are gonna stand no chance of seizing the throne, so why not leave them be?
  • Each candidate probably appeals to the nobles in a different way: some nobles might want a smart Emperor (Schneizel) to keep things running, or a strong warrior Emperor (Cornelia) to defend them, or even a figurehead Emperor they can manipulate easily and/or marry their children to for more personal power (Odysseus, Clovis, Euphemia). Schneizel probably keeps that nice-guy act up so the nobles don't worry about what a threat he could be to them.

• Ok Britannia is a globe spanning empire with an extreme imperialistic streak and a proven superiority over all factions that dont happen to have a major character, that's well established. So... Why the hell dont they ever get round to taking back their own freaking homeland?!
  • Based on the (incredibly) little information we have on the European military they seem to be autonomous enough that maybe the English navy is powerful enough to stop an invasion. Or maybe the writers didn't want to mention Europe any more than they absolutely had to.
    • Yeah... Except that they have successully invaded France, Spain and Russia.
  • Good question. I always wondered why they didn't take back Britannia proper or turn France into an area as an act of revenge.
  • Presumably the EU figured they'd want it back, since besides being the historical homeland of the nation it would give them a very useful base from which to attack mainland Europe. Letting this happen would be very bad, and thus the EU-controlled British Isles are very heavily fortified, making an invasion too costly to be worth it, especially if the rest of the EU aided in the defence.
• What bugs me is this..."What happened to Nazi Germany?" Did they defeat it? Did it never happened? It may not seem important, but I still want to know? They seem to mention the start of the Britannian empire, but not anything truly beyond it. And plus, Japan had Sakuradite, and if they were allied with Hitler, the Nazis could have taken the Sakuradite as well to help them defeat Britania before the Invasion of Sector 11 or something. I mean, WWII was an important (and tragic) moment in history, and when a story has an alt history, I would really like to know what the hell happened with the most evil empire known to this history.
  • The environment which gave rise to Hitler's reign would never have come to be here. There's the second Pacific War, which seems to be a vague analog, but it's likely the Nazi party never gained a foothold.
  • Why would there even be a Nazi Germany in this timeline? A European superstate (an EU that appears to be a direct descendant of a successful Napoleonic Empire) seems to have total dominance over the continent.
  • I'm kind of curious how East Asian history was like in this universe.
    • From what I can gather, the point of divergence in East Asia occurred during the late 3rd century AD, which was the Three Kingdoms period in China. As fans of Romance of the Three Kingdoms will know, Cao Cao, Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty and de facto ruler got trashed in the Battle of the Red Cliffs by the combined forces of Shu-Han and Eastern Wu. In this series however, it was Cao Cao who won and he brought about the re-unification of China much earlier than actual history. Imperial authority was re-asserted, and the capital was apparently permanently relocated to the old Han capital of Luoyang with a palace complex analogous to the real-life Forbidden City. Apparently, this change of events altered Chinese ruling ideology such that the famous voyages of Admiral Zheng He (which interestingly still took place in our 15th century) became not only just a mere display of imperial might but one of subjugation, which explains the territorial boundaries of the Chinese Federation in the series.