Hey Suzaku, don’t you think wishes are the same as Geass? Things you can’t accomplish with your own powers, you ask assistance from others. — Lelouch, Code GeassRelevant Nerd Credentials
- We’ve both seen all of Code Geass and loved it
- Neither of us has seen Akito in Exile, so please don’t ask us about it
- What continuation? (The current ending is perfect as it is)
Code Geass is an incredible show for a wide range of reasons. Both of us thought about it obsessively when we finished and read bajillions of articles examining Lelouch’s character, Suzaku’s hypocrisy, the moral quandaries! There’s so much to say about this show. We’ll probably keep coming back to it too, but we’ve chosen to start with the Geass powers themselves since this topic is really what inspired our blog in the first place.
In one of our many text conversations, the two of us were talking about how Lelouch’s Geass met Sanderson’s Second Law of Magic very well (limitations on a power should be greater than the power itself), and during all those thoughts we were thinking, we noticed that in a way, each Geass power fulfilled the user’s desire—but with terrible consequences (obvs).
Bottom line of about a hundred texts: with great power comes a pretty terrible death.
Let’s break that down.
MAJOR SPOILERS ABOUND. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.
Lelouch vi Britannia
This one might seem like a no-brainer, but that makes it a good starting point.The Code Geass writers were not very subtle when it comes to Lelouch and chess. Heck, his very first scene is him totally squashing a nobleman at the game. You get the sense in that scene that Lelouch appreciates the feeling of control and mastery, and the more you learn about him, the more you can see why.
Pre-Geass, Lelouch had little control over his life. As a Britannian prince, he was shuffled around by his dad, exiled to Japan as a hostage, and eventually ended up in hiding after being tossed aside during the war.
Unlike his life, chess is a game that Lelouch knows he can always win; everything has clear rules, he has complete control over his pieces, and his massive intellect can shine. If only the real world worked that way—he would seriously rule.
Oh, wait.
Lelouch’s Geass gave him complete control over people for the duration of his command. It turned pesky humans into actual chess pieces! Their action becoming one of his game moves. It was more than a little psychotic, sure, but also friggin’ perfect…
Except that it wasn’t. Though it initially seemed like a godsend, his Geass ability removed Lelouch further and further away from his goals and the people around him. The more he treated people like objects, the more he set himself up for future failure.Lelouch was brilliant, and he was able to accomplish amazing feats despite massive disadvantages, but we’d argue that true success often eluded him. A daring rescue on live TV? It established the presence of the Black Knights, but Suzaku refused to join Zero. Fighting Cornelia’s arrogant and seasoned troops? He beat them soundly, but failed to capture Cornelia and accidentally killed civilians (including Shirley’s dad).
His most meaningful and successful victory was only when he completely understood the people he was closely working with and let them make their own decisions. Oh, and he turned the rest of the world into chess-slaves.
It ended super well.
It is actually what he planned. Just maybe not the outcome he’d hoped for when he thought the world should be more like chess.
CC
Oh CC. We love you. Which is fitting but also sad because CC desperately wanted to be loved when she was young and living in horrific conditions amongst some pretty terrible medieval people. She was so alone and abused, and her Geass changed that—it made people love her. They had no choice to. Seems great, but ultimately it made her feel disconnected because she couldn’t tell how people really felt about her.Even more ultimately, she had an immortality code forced on her, removing her Geass and completely freaking out those terrible medieval folk. They called her a witch, tried killing her many, many times (by the looks of her flashbacks, at least), and she became a complete pariah.
Yay Geass.
All this led to CC just wishing to die because she was so alone and without hope, but being unable to unless she forced someone else through the same terrible process—enter Lelouch! Because CC needed him alive, she had to get to know him, had to help him with his plans and stay so close to him as he dealt with passion and goals and life. She came to know Lelouch so well, and he helped her realize that life could still be worth living and that people could care about her genuinely—and then he died, leaving her alone yet again.
Yay Geass.
(Unless you subscribe to the theory that Lelouch is the driver of that wagon, which we don’t.)
We want to hope for the best for CC. But even if CC did move on from here, her immortality means she’s still destined to continually be left by the people she meets. Even if they love her, they will eventually die and she’ll be left alone again and again.
Yay Geass.
Charles zi Britannia
Charles was never that stellar of a soul to begin with, so we’re not too choked up about his life or his end. Sure, his childhood of watching his family kill each other was sucky, but that did not humble him or help him understand the importance of lives. Instead, he was Charles zi Britannia, the strongest and the smartest and the most capable. So capable he would kill God, or the collective consciousness that makes up humanity, and forge all humans into one being.Yeah, whatever. Though it would theoretically allow death to not be a thing anymore, it would also effectively end life and time and change. And as CC can attest, living forever in an unchanging state is definitely the pits.
It’s also totes cool how he consulted the rest of humanity about how they felt about this.
Similar to Charles’s grandiose plans to force a new reality on the world, his Geass power allowed him to alter memories, effectively forcing a new reality on individuals. He remade Lelouch into Lelouch’s worst nightmare of himself (a quaint, well-liked high school nobody, the horror), made Nunnally blind, and probably adjusted countless other subjects. Since Lelouch & co. didn’t know they had been altered, in effect their self-perception, their reality, was just different than before.
Ultimately, his ambition led him to the Sword of Akasha (not gonna lie, we found this part kinda hard to follow) where not only was his desired reality thwarted, Charles was completely removed from reality altogether.
At least, we feel like that’s what happened? Is that what’s happening here?
(After all, Marianne’s already dead, so what else could this be?)
Marianne vi Britannia
Marianne. We don’t really know a lot about her personally due to her death, but pretty much any time she’s mentioned in the show it’s with adoration. It seems everyone who knew her loved her, and everyone is so motivated by even the memory of her.Her Geass power only enhanced this. She could move her spirit and power into other people’s bodies, taking over or riding along as she pleased. She filled people with herself, literally and metaphorically taking over their minds. Not hallmarks of an amazing person.
That might be only minorly terrible, but what she demonstrates with the whole Ragnarok Connection/kill God thing is that she’s actually kind of the worst. Marianne is supremely selfish, always putting her needs and her goals first, regardless of who that hurt. It didn’t matter that letting VV sort of kill her meant that her children would grow up traumatized and injured, that Nunnally would not only never walk again but would be blind without actually ever being blind. It didn’t matter that she lived in Anya for years, taking over whenever she felt like it and leaving Anya confused and faint and afraid of forgetting everything about herself.
The pinnacle is probably that Marianne cared so much about living again—sort of—that she helped Charles attempt to remake the world so that death wouldn’t exist anymore. (As previously mentioned, that plan sucked for most of humanity.)
Also as previously mentioned, this works out awesome.
These two are seriously the worst ever as parents.
Rolo Lamperouge
Let’s have a look at the poor chap who didn’t ask for a Geass, shall we?We don’t know much about Rolo’s past, but what we do see is so not pretty.
His Geass was forced upon him at the ripe old age of six, but we have no idea how many tries it took those sketchy Britannian scientists to make that work. How long he was experimented upon in that crazy lab is anyone’s guess.
What’s crazier, being a lab rat was actually the highlight of Rolo’s childhood. Rolo’s Geass was the power to suspend anyone’s perception of time in a given area, effectively freezing anybody nearby him, right? Right.
So, once the Britannian Secret Intelligence Service figured this out, their first thought was, "Perfect for killing people!"
Geass: enabling child assassins since ‘06
Because Rolo never asked for Geass—it was forced on him—it’s possible that the wish → Geass → horrible death formula was flipped.
See, Rolo’s Geass only ever separated him from others, freezing them all together while he was left conscious and alone. That happening over and over and over again, paired with, y’know, murdering people on a regular basis, makes it conceivable that all little Rolo would want would be to feel close to someone, connected and important and there with them. (Basically the opposite of what his Geass did.)
In any case, eventually Rolo (already super healthy in the head from shooting people all the time) made his way to Lelouch. We then had the pleasure of watching him dissolve into obsession, paranoia, psychopathy, major self-delusion, and eventual horrible death. All the fun stuff, y’know?
And a note about the major self-delusion. Lelouch had become Rolo’s entire world—seriously, the dude straight-up murdered Shirley to keep them a duo—and Rolo had complete faith in Lelouch to always save the day and have a master plan. But more than that, he truly believed that his “older brother” loved him.
In other words, Rolo lived in a complete fantasy world, totally separate from everyone else.
...Kinda like what his Geass did to him in reality, eh? That was way great.
Lelouch dramatically staring at Rolo’s grave
Mao
Mao, the crazy minder. It’s unclear exactly what his childhood was like, though given that he received his Geass from CC when he was about six, we can assume it wasn’t peaches and chocolate cake. It seems most likely that he was orphaned or abandoned, making him an outcast like CC herself. It’s conceivable that as a child, his main desire was to belong, to understand the people around him so that he could fit in and be wanted. (It’s sad this is such a trend.)In theory, his Geass power of mind-reading could have helped. That kind of insight into a person’s most intimate thoughts and nature could definitely enable him to understand them.
Unfortunately, knowing facts about people is not the same as actual empathy or connection. Suddenly knowing all these things about random individuals in proximity without any context and at such a young age just overwhelmed Mao. It made him unable to connect with people at all. It freaked other people out, stressed him out, and drove him crazy (or crazier?). Eventually, the only person Mao could stand to be around was CC, since he couldn’t use his Geass on her.
When it turned out he wouldn’t ever be strong enough to fulfill his contract with her, CC abandoned Mao. He only got crazier, listening to an endlessly looping recording of her saying encouraging words, really learning how to manipulate people, and trying to create a world where only he and CC would exist.
CC was super jazzed about that idea.
Bismarck Waldstein (AKA Knight of Five AKA Knight of One AKA Eye Guy)
Not gonna lie, we had to look his name up since we just called Bismark “knight eye guy” or “guy who sewed his eye shut” or “knight who could see the future atium-style”.After reading his Code Geass wikia page though—yeah, still don’t remember his name. And that’s kind of his deal. Bismarck didn’t really have a life or goals of his own. He was a tool of the leaders around him, and took on their visions as his own. Charles and Marianne were the visionaries, the dreamers, the thought-leaders, and he worshipped them.
For his Geass, Bismarck could glimpse a few seconds into the future. Theoretically, with this edge, he could avoid making his own choices and instead rely on vision outside of himself to act and win.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view), like Bismarck himself, his Geass ultimately proved pretty useless. He sewed his Geass-eye shut and only ever used it twice. Apparently, once against Marianne for some undisclosed reason (thanks Code Geass wikia!), and again against Suzaku.
That worked out awesome, btw.
He looks super stoked about his impending death.
(Fun story, Bismarck died saying Marianne’s name, so even in death he wasn’t focused on himself.)
VV
We got nothing here, actually. We never learn what his Geass power was, since it was presumably lost when he gained his immortality code (that whole process was never super clear in the show).Staying young and never growing old though, keeping things as they are—that’s an awful like his desired friendship with his brother, Charles. VV wanted so much for their relationship to remain the same, forever close and forever the most important person in each other’s lives. Them and their Geass alone against the world. VV took this wish so far that he tried to kill Charles’s favorite wife and children (Marianne, Lelouch, and Nunnally) because he feared they were starting to crowd him out of the picture.
Unfortunately for VV, that didn’t immortalize a loving, trust-filled relationship with Charles.
In Conclusion
ALL HAIL LELOUCH VI BRITANNIA!But seriously, we just appreciate how thoughtful the writers of the show were in granting and employing Geass. We don’t know what the powers of all those other, massacred Geass-users were, but we like to think that if they hadn’t been murdered, their abilities would have been just as significant and just as doomed.
But that’s just how we feel about it. What do you think?
Other Awesome Code Geass Reviews by Peeps Not Us
- Code Geass Is a Complex Morality Play with Mecha & Super Powers
- How Kururugi Suzaku Beats Chivalry to a Pulp and Wears It Proudly in Code Geass
- Character Analysis: Lelouch vi Britannia
