One should not kill unless they are ready to be killed themselves!
If the king doesn't lead, then his subjects won't follow.
C.C., listen to me. I won't let Geass destroy me. I will conquer its power and bend it to my will, and use it to change the world. I'll fulfill your desire, and my own......
Suzaku. You will become a hero. The messiah who saved the world from the enemy, Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia. Zero......
Yes...I...will...destroy...the world...and...recreate it...
-Lelouch vi Britannia
I don't really know how I want to grade R2. Not yet. This episode? This ending? Absolutely A grade.
For me, everything comes down to one truth. I've said it before and will indulge myself to repeat it just once more. With Code Geass, it all comes back to Lelouch. The distractions of the absurd filler episodes of the past, Ougi's absurd romance, the assorted writing flaws--they are just that. Distractions. For that matter so was the final showdown between the Lancelot and the Guren, which I enjoyed quite a lot for what it was. It was a superb ending to the battle, though as good as it was it wasn't the best thing about this episode.
This is not to say that the flaws are irrelevant. I don't want to seem as though I'm just ignoring problems so that I can be comfortable liking the show, that's not it. I think I've been vocal about them when I thought that the complaining was well deserved. Are those issues symptoms of a season that could have been much better than it was? No question about it.
But just as this ending doesn't whitewash those mistakes, neither do those mistakes change or define what was done here. This was no trainwreck. What did the ending accomplish? Everything, I would submit, that truly matters.
Where to begin? First of all, Lelouch won. He won against Geass itself, against the legacy of his bloodline, and against himself. Time and again in this thread, I'd written about my fear of Lelouch losing himself. Losing to despair, to the temptation to abuse Geass, to compromising morality for his goals so many times that in the end he would become the erabodiment of all that he once swore that he would destroy. How often I feared that circumstance would turn our flawed, tragic hero into a tyrant. That would have been the saddest possible outcome.
But no. Zoorabie made a very good point about Lelouch surpassing his parents by sacrificing for the world, in direct contrast to their selfish designs. Yes, I was moved by his planned downfall. Very much. Nunally realizing the truth and telling Lelouch that she loved him, Suzaku's sorrow over seeing the plan through, Lelouch's final worRAB to Suzaku, all of it. From start to finish, the whole scene was masterful execution.
But you know what, I think that the biggest reason I was impacted by that scene was because I was happy. I was relieved. Even after all of the twists, all the turns, all of the sins, and sometimes even the living hell that Lelouch had to endure in this series, at the very end it was there: ultimate, irrefutable proof of Lelouch's integrity and character. He'd sinned. He'd deceived. He'd trampled the will of who knows how many people. He united the world by becoming its greatest villain. He knew he was tainted by his actions. And there he was, ready to pay the price for all of it. Of course there was a price. There had to be.
One should not kill unless he is ready to be killed.
A king must lead if he expects his subjects to follow.
To that, I add a third and final statement: power shouldn't be wielded by any man that isn't prepared to surrender it.
Lelouch was prepared.
He won the world that he wished for. A world free of Britannia's aggression and tyranny. A world united under principle, not the bigotry of "people are not equal!" A world where Nunally could, indeed, live peacefully, with Suzaku at her side. He's practically her knight now, just as he wished in season one.
I will never again tolerate any comparison between Lelouch and Death Note's Light. For all those evil smirks, all the brash arrogance, all of that confidence, he ultimately used his powers and intelligence for a positive outcome. He always did what he did believing that it was what he had to do for the future. There's no comparison between that and Light having such delusions of Godhood that he all too quickly became drunk with power. Lelouch is the anti-Light, and I love him for it.
Suzaku's ending, too, was marvelous. Granted, his taking over the mask of Zero is bittersweet. It's the end of Suzaku Kururugi, though key people in his past life like Kallen and Todoh know better. But it's also a blank slate for him, a chance to leave his tainted self behind and start over as the ally of justice that he wanted to be. I also agree with the comments about his life of atonement being a positive thing. See also: Rurouni Kenshin.
I find myself mostly indifferent to the fate of the supporting cast. I'm glad things generally turned out well, though I cared a hell of a lot more about Kallen and Tianzi and Xing-Ke than knowing that the surviving black knights hang out at Tamaki's bar. But I see this as a small complaint. As said, I see their happiness mostly as a statement about how the world is moving forward to a better time. That stuff was syrabolic of Lelouch's succeess, not some cheap justification for his death.
What I did enjoy was Kallen leading a normal life again. Her mother is back home, safe, and off drugs. And, thank God, there wasn't a pairing in sight for Kallen in the end. After all of the struggle and hard times she's been through, I'm glad to see Kallen just having a chance at tranquility for a change. I actually predicted that to XOMiss_Samantha a ways back, and it was very nearly the only thing I got right back when I was pondering a theoretical ending. Go figure.
Planned or otherwise, Lelouch survived the ending. I knew something was wrong the very moment Nunally was seeing Lelouch's memories. This can't be explained any other way, and the argument becomes all the stronger when you consider the rest of the circumstantial evidence. Lelouch going with C.C., of course, had been made obligatory--he'd promised to make her smile, and so she did. I'd talked about the possiblity of Lelouch disappearing with C.C. before. Don't feel sad--as she says, at the end he's not truly alone. Personally, I would really like to believe that Lelouch had at least considered the possibility that he would survive. The fundamentals of what makes the ending great are the same either way, but the idea of Lelouch pulling off one last great trick at the end makes it feel even more satisfying to me. It is exactly the kind of thing that Lelouch would do. Well, I don't know the answer for sure, but either way I certainly approve.
Whether Code Geass stanRAB the test of time is one thing, but Lelouch himself is one of the best anime protagonists to come along in a long time. Lelouch is someone who far, far surpassed the series that he found himself in. The ending saw through his character to the very end, and for that I am very grateful.
Now, bring on the return of Gundam 00. It excites me to know that things are only going to get better from here as that show takes the baton from this great ending and hopefully continues its high standarRAB of consistent quality.
