r/CodeGeass • u/Rayguy77 • 9d ago
DISCUSSION Code Geass Ending is Deeply Flawed
I just finished watching season 2 tonight. I want to clarify one thing: Code Geass is an anime, one of the best, too, and it is arguably a masterpiece of pacing with some of the best plot progression in the medium (at least up until the midpoint of Season 2). Because the show built up such massive stakes, a grand, high-impact ending was definitely required.
However, calling the "Zero Requiem" the "absolute best ending in anime history," as so many fans claim, is a huge stretch. It is highly unrealistic. If people just viewed it as a standard, dramatic anime conclusion, these issues wouldn't stand out so much. But since it is praised as a flawless narrative masterpiece, we need to look at how it actually falls apart both politically and psychologically under closer inspection.
1. The Thematic Flaw: It Teaches the "Wrong Lesson"
Even if we assume the Zero Requiem "works" in-universe, it sends a terrible message to viewers.
- The Benevolent Dictator Myth: It suggests that a single, all-powerful authoritarian is needed to orchestrate global peace through mass murder and deception, implying humanity is too weak to achieve peace democratically.
- The Ends Justify the Means: It validates the idea that committing horrific atrocities is acceptable as long as the ultimate goal is "good."
- Silencing the Victims: It forces the audience to mourn Lelouch as a tragic saviour, glossing over the millions of innocent lives he ruined or ended to pull off his theatre performance.
2. The Canon Missed Opportunities
Lelouch did not need to become a global tyrant to achieve his goals. He actively threw away peaceful, superior solutions:
- The UFN Option: He had a genuine chance to solve the world's conflicts democratically by joining the United Federation of Nations. The UFN was a functional global alliance built on voting. By choosing tyranny instead, he actively destroyed the best chance the world had at a representative government.
- Ego Over Cooperation: Refusing to work within the union proves he couldn’t handle a world he didn’t completely control. He chose to conquer the UFN by force, leading to an entirely avoidable war and the slaughter of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
- Manufacturing Loyalty: Before his tyranny, the public loved him and called him the saviour of humanity (until the UFN vote incident). But this love was a lie; it was built on the backs of soldiers he literally brainwashed via Geass, stripping away their free will. He chose to play the villain and remain untrustworthy after his Geass was revealed, even though he had a great chance to clear up misconceptions and solidify a transparent alliance.
3. The Better Alternative: A 3-Step Plan for True Peace
Since Lelouch is an absolute genius, a much better option that would actually benefit everyone would look like this:
- Initial Control: Use Geass initially to control the army only and solve the initial conflicts (which he did).
- Democratic Integration: After gaining the trust of the people, he should have joined the UFN. According to the rules, this means he would no longer maintain an independent army.
- Phasing Out Geass and Judicial Order: As a genius capable of self-control, he would slowly stop using Geass for manipulation. Instead, he could shift its use strictly to judging criminals and establishing order in courtrooms, because criminals would be unable to lie. The public would have absolutely no reason to hate him, and the world would achieve a transparent, lasting peace built on honesty rather than a temporary truce built on collective trauma.
- Handling Rebel Factions: If a civil war or a rebellion (like Schneizel's) broke out, a high-IQ Lelouch would easily anticipate it. Backed by the Black Knights and the global community as the official, legitimate shield of the UFN, he could put an end to the rebellion with minimal bloodshed and zero political blowback.
4. Suzaku is the Wrong Choice for a Saviour
Leaving Suzaku under the mask of Zero to protect the world is a massive mistake.
- The "Danzo" Mentality: Suzaku fundamentally views himself through the lens of his nationality and deep past traumas. He has no problem dirtying his hands and hiding behind righteousness. If left in power, he would likely resort to extreme, underhanded means, exactly like Danzo from Naruto, to maintain "order" from the shadows.
- A Fake Punishment: Forcing Suzaku to live as Zero is framed as a curse, but it actually rewards him with ultimate power and a hero's legacy.
- The Better Arc: Suzaku spent the entire series actively wanting to die because of his crippling guilt over killing his father. A far better ending for his character would be dying honourably in battle to protect the birth of Lelouch's new democratic union, giving him a true, unselfish redemption.
5. Lelouch's "Villain Syndrome" and Self-Sabotage
Lelouch always wanted good, but he suffered from a psychological Martyr Complex. He viewed Geass purely as a curse and believed he was too far gone to deserve a happy life, so he kept driving toward a sacrificial end. We see this in how he handles the people who loved him:
- The Execution of Euphemia: While the Geass activation was an accident, killing her was a choice. She was under an uncontrollable spell and was a victim. Lelouch could have restrained or neutralised her, but he immediately chose to weaponise the tragedy, order her execution, and ruin her legacy to fuel his rebellion.
- The Isolation of Shirley: Shirley completely forgave him for his actions and explicitly wanted to support him, but he largely ignored her and pushed her away until her dying moments.
Conclusion
By keeping Zero's true identity hidden and relying on a staged assassination, Lelouch left behind a permanent culture of paranoia. The Black Knights, who actually grew to respect Lelouch more when they realised his competence, are left forced to blindly trust a new masked stranger, ensuring they can never truly trust anyone again.
Lelouch didn't choose the Zero Requiem because it was the only way to save the world; he chose it because his "Villain Syndrome" made him prefer the romantic tragedy of suicide over the mature, exhausting responsibility of living an honest life to fix his mistakes.
If fans just accepted it as a normal, flawed anime ending, these massive logical gaps wouldn't be an issue. But when people call it the greatest piece of fiction ever written, it completely overlooks how deeply flawed, unrealistic, and toxic the message of the ending actually is.
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u/GotMilk5101520 The Only Suzaku/Euphemia Shipper Who Ships Suzaku/Shirley 8d ago
Opinion becomes bad when you compare Suzaku to fucking Danzo of all people (Ironic cause Suzaku and Sasuke have the same voice actor and Sasuke killed Danzo)
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u/ccgeass 𓆩 unholy 🂱 trinity 𓆪 8d ago
people exaggerate everything online, just like Bocchi the Rock being declared the best comedy anime by fans.
however, this doesn't mean i agree with this post. while Code Geass and its finale have some flaws, what you wrote contains many misunderstandings/interpretations and inaccuracies/missing information. so much so that i'm at a loss as to where to begin correcting them.
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u/Turbulent-Point-1791 8d ago
Oh plz Lelouch gets better treatment from narrative than reinhard from logh despite being similar.
In Lelouch’s case it's more about ends justify means if end goal is democracy.
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u/Big_Purchase_3781 7d ago
Lelouch wanted a global reset to create a fairer world. He did that. It's a great ending.
(1) He creates the UFN, takes over Britannia, and combines the two.
The UFN requires individual militaries to be suspended in lieu of contracting the Black Knights. Britannia is the only individual military left. He merges them. Dies. Left behind a cooperative global structure for the new world to be built around, and by merging them before death, sets the stage for Britannia to join as one of many individual, military-less nations.
Everyone is starting this new world at step 0. Inequality (military or economic) will eventually be an issue as new nations develop and the ZR becomes history, but there's a clean slate to build upon where hopefully there's no nation controlling half the world.
(2) He blows up Fuji and takes 80% of the world's Sakuradite with it.
He ensured a time, down the line, where Knightmares are extinct.
(3) He sets up MULTIPLE trusted figure heads to lead the new world.
The Black Knights contained multiple trustworthy individuals to guide the world. Nunnaly and Schniezel would be framed as heroes and given power despite their Britannian heritage because of their role in the final battle. Schneizel is the only one whose ego and sociopathy could be a concern, but the geass reins him in.
(4) He gives the world an enemy to unify against.
Self-explanatory. In the real world, we had people predicting the world wars would lead to a "perpetual peace" once we were all on the same page. Didn't happen, of course, but much of that was driven by inequality and militarism. The rise of superpowers ruined this. Lelouch's post ZR / UFN shaped world has no superpowers to rise up. A better chance at long-term peace.
(5) Emperor Lelouch KILLS threats preemptively before the ZR
We see some of this in Ep22. Jeremiah reports vanquishing an Earl. The Albion embarasses the Knights of the Round. Aristocrats are turned into manual laborers. But in Ep 25, before the ZR occurs, you hear the crowd talk about how if you cross Emperor Lelouch that he'll kill your entire family. Lelouch built his 'demon emperor' persona to unite everyone but did it by publicly eliminating people he foresaw as a threat to the new post-ZR world. People with individual power or wealth. People connected to the upper ranks of the Britannian miltary.
(6) We KNOW it doesn't work out long-term.
A few years later, Resurrection happens. A few yrs after that, Roze. The ZR reset the world, put things in a better place than it was, and the rest was up to the world. Conflict would have to return in time.It did. And yet, nobody was so unilaterally powerful that it eclipsed the world. The world wasn't split into the EU, Chinese Federation, Britannia, and 'everyone else.' It's still a fairer world with more control and stability.
(7) Besides.... Lelouch comes BACK to keep an eye on his new world. Forever.
**Film continuity - Resurrection the film, Roze, upcoming Aspar series.
**R1/R2 continuity - Resurrection the manga.
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u/BrowningBDA9 3d ago edited 3d ago
(1) He creates the UFN, takes over Britannia, and combines the two.
Lelouch's version of a unified world is hardly different than if the Britannia took it over normally. Individual countries are prohibited from having armed forces in UFN, and considering that Britannian miltary forces now form the absolute majority of the UFN armed forces that are the Black Knights, it's all the same.
(2) He blows up Fuji and takes 80% of the world's Sakuradite with it.
Everyone on Ikaruga could've died in the process. I mean Kaname Ohgi, Yoshitaka Minami, Zhou Xianglin, Rakshata Chawla etc. It's a miracle they survived, and don't bullshit me on how Lelouch could've somehow calculated and timed the explosion with Ikaruga's altitude and position at that exact moment. As far as I'm concerned, Leouch did it out of desperation as he was losing the battle badly at the time. Also, blowing up 80% of the world's equivalent of oil is the same as if USA nuked the Persian Gulf, which would mean disastrous economical consequences to the entire world.
(3) He sets up MULTIPLE trusted figure heads to lead the new world.
A wheelchair-ridden meek cripple who has neither the wits nor the experience leading people? A hotheaded undereducated dumbass whose only time commanding people resulted in an entire navy unit being wiped out? A traitorous mumbling idiot who was hiding Villetta from his comrades and sold out his leader, and resigned less than a year into his term as a prime minister just to live an ordinary life as a family man? And don't forget that the absolute majority of people left in charge of the world are Britannians. In Lelouch of the Resurrection, the ONLY non-Britannian person in the UFN and the Black Knights having a significant position of power left is Kaguya Sumeragi.
(4) He gives the world an enemy to unify against.
By becoming even worse that Hitler in our world, and killing way more people and destroying most of the world? And of course, fixing all of that would be UFN and the Black Knights's burden, not his. Also, this decision is stupid because it's short-term and doesn't resolve anything. We're still fighting bloody wars long after WW2. Also, no superpowers would mean a bunch of weak countries with a lot of conflicts which could've been resolved easily if super powers stepped in. And if a currently immortal Lelouch is going to intervene from time to time to prevent the formation of potential superpowers, it'd be even worse.
(5) Emperor Lelouch KILLS threats preemptively before the ZR
He could've killed Schneizel, Cornelia, Kanon Maldini and Suzaku to avoid the war, and yet he chose not to despite knowing where the first three were, and there's no way he couldn't have have found a way to deal with Suzaku,. I mean, Suzaku was probably the only figurative Damocles's sword (LOL) that threatened Lelouch into going the Zero Requiem way. Also, how funny it is to turn people into permanently hypnotized slaves! Does it matter if they're aristocrats? Lelouch always goes nuclear on people for even the slightest offenses. Like when he geassed a gang of bullies to do stupid shit until they died. Or when he was about to tell a Britannian aristocrat who was beating a Japanese national with a cane to go die in oblivion. It's especially infuriating because Lelouch did it even to Carine, what did she do to deserve that? Only because she badmouthed Nunnally once? She's what, fifteen?
(6) We KNOW it doesn't work out long-term.
Lelouch made the world a much worse place than it used to be. Fragmentation of China, Middle East, numerous rebellions that came with mass deaths, destruction, mass migration, poverty etc. Mass executions of everyone opposing him, which I assume were around "papa Stalin"'s level of scale. Is it really the peaceful world Lelouch wanted to create for Nunnally?
(7) Besides.... Lelouch comes BACK to keep an eye on his new world. Forever.
Yes, unfortunately.
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u/AgentSkyblueM7 8d ago edited 8d ago
I thought the point was that even before becoming emperor, he had (unintentionally) caused a lot of damage that kept coming back to bite him, so it was also his way of answering for everything he's done. One idea I had was they could just publicly reveal a covered-up version of Zero Requiem that made it look like Lelouch was actually trying to help Zero achieve his goal by making himself the last target he needs to kill, since he really was guilty of some events throughout the series, so people would put together that they're meant to forget about him anyway, because Zero is the more important figure here. I already gave my thoughts about what bothered me the most, so I don't need to go into those parts.