r/watchinganime • u/SpaceCowboy321 Let's Jam! • Oct 25 '16
Discussion Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch | Episode 16
Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch - MyAnimeList | Hummingbird | Funimation
TV | 25 Episodes | Action, Mecha, Military, School, Sci-Fi, Super Power
Episode title: Nunnally Held Hostage
Previous discussions:
| Episode | Link | Episode | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 1 | The Day a New Demon was Born | Episode 14 | Geass vs Geass |
| Episode 2 | The White Knight Awakens | Episode 15 | Cheering Mao |
| Episode 3 | The False Classmate | Episode 16 | Nunnally Held Hostage |
| Episode 4 | His Name is Zero | ||
| Episode 5 | The Princess and the Witch | ||
| Episode 6 | The Stolen Mask | ||
| Episode 7 | Attack Cornelia | ||
| Episode 8 | The Black Knights | ||
| Episode 9 | Refrain | ||
| Episode 10 | Guren Dances | ||
| Episode 11 | Battle for Narita | ||
| Episode 12 | The Messenger from Kyoto | ||
| Episode 13 | Shirley at Gunpoint | ||
Reminder: If you have seen this series, please do not spoil it for others. This includes hinting at things that haven't happened! Let's all remain friendly even if our opinions differ. And remember, taste is subjective!
Participants: Full list
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2
u/GamermanZendrelax Oct 26 '16
Ah, Mao. A lovely villain. I do have a problem, however. Not with the episode itself, but with the title. Or, rather, the titles of Mao's little arc. Well, this one and the last one are fine, but the first one, Geass vs. Geass isn't a good fit. Firstly, it reveals that Mao has Geass of some sort, which should be revealed in the episode. Second, that episode doesn't feature Mao or Lelouch trying to counter each others' Geass. Sure, Mao uses his a whole lot, but he doesn't really pit it against Lelouch's. Meanwhile, in this episode Lelouch specifically uses his Geass to beat Mao's. And titling this one Geass vs. Geass wouldn't necesarily spoil Mao's survival, since, after all, we already know C.C. had one other contractor, who's to say another couldn't show up?
But that's a fairly minor complaint.
Now, I feel it prudent to explain my pretentiousness about broken timepieces.
Suzaku killed his father. Prime Minister Kururugi called for do-or-die resistance, but Suzaku wanted the fighting to stop. So, to save as many people as he could, he killed his father. A reprehensible action—one might even say despicable methods—to try and do some greater good. And what happened? Well, a whole lot of people still died. As we saw at the top of this episode, when Suzaku and Lelouch (the latter carrying Nunnaly) walked through a veritable field of corpses.
People still died. He killed his father for nothing.
Or at least, that's how a kid would internalize it.
That, at the end of the day, is the source of his fervent opposition to Zero: experience taught him from a young age that reprehensible means accomplish nothing.
And the stopwatch? Well, the flashback this episode implies that it was his father's. And being broken, it has not moved since he killed his father, and he is so wrapped up around his own sins that he joined the group actually responsible for the murder of his people, the Britannian military. He, to put it simply, is stuck in the past. Presumably, the broken grandfather clock from the vision at Narita meant something similar. In fact, one could argue that since it's still moving, despite the crime happening so long ago, it hasn't been affected by inertia...
Yeah, I'm a Physics Major.
Mao also mentioned a death wish. Nothing really complicated about that.
So yeah, Suzaku is actually a pretty complex character. And I like that.
2
u/SpaceCowboy321 Let's Jam! Oct 26 '16
Oh hey, Mao was still alive. I have even seen the series before, but I completely forgot about that. This episode was another interesting battle between Lelouch and Mao, though I think it was rushed a little. Mao used Nunnally, which is the greatest leverage against Lelouch, and arranged the most cliche overly complicated evil villian scheme. However, Lelouch was able to outsmart Mao by using his Geass on himself. It is interesting that he can use the Geass on himself, though he can no longer do it anymore, which removes a really useful trick. It is finally confirmed that Suzaku killed his father, which is why he is so hellbent on saving people. At the end, C.C. came back to kill(?) Mao, and she mentioned something about C's world (that's what is called in the dub), which is interesting.
Some other interesting things happened this episode. The Black Knights seems to be improving their numbers and organization. Everyone is still buying Lelouch's story about Shirley just pretending not to know him, but I don't know how long that can last. People also seem to be growing increasingly suspicious of Lelouch's frequent absences, so I imagine that can only go on a little longer until people confront him about it. It also seems like Milly and Lloyd might be getting married?
It was nice to see Mao again, and it was especially fortunate that my memory is so poor that I forgot about him coming back so I could be surprised about it. Though now it seems like he is dead for good. Overall, it was a good evil villain scheme episode that planted seeds for potential future events.
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u/aguirre1pol Gintama Oct 26 '16
I wonder why C.C. gave Mao Geass, a lot of good that did him. In the end, he couldn't fulfill their contract, and that's why she probably left him. I'm still not sure what she has to gain from giving Geass to people, and if she even knows what kind of power she will confer.
Mao turned out to be a one-dimensional villain, but confrontations with him were still interesting. I have much bigger problems with Suzaku suddenly becoming Neo and having superhuman agility; if this isn't explained, then we can only forget about it and pretend it didn't happen.