Code Geass R2 03 and the truth behind Rollo’s geass
April 20th, 2008 by Shirukii
ZA WARUDO
…except, not.
Let me start this entry off by saying this: Rollo’s geass does -NOT- stop time. Justification to follow in the ‘Thoughts’ section.
Just as Rollo is about to geass his way past the guards at the Chinese embassy and kill who he thinks is Lulu, having regained his memories as Zero, he gets a call from his “brother” who is actually at school attending supplementary gym class with Villetta. Inside the embassy, it’s C.C. who is behind Zero’s mask, acting out the broadcast with pre-recorded audio. Kallen recognizes the brilliance of the switch but isn’t too keen on the fact that they hid the truth from her.
Lulu, now realizing that he’s under constant surveillance of Britannian intelligence continues with his school life, careful not to show any changes in his behaviour. Villetta, who is leading the surveillance team, along with Rollo, who is one of the 48 undercovers they have monitoring Lulu, now question whether he’s regained his memory. Surely Zero wouldn’t go back to the school knowing that it’s under full surveillance.
Afterwards, Villetta and Rollo have a private talk, Rollo confirming that there’s been no trace of Lulu using his geass. In the midst of their conversation, one of the other members of the surveillance team walks in on them, Rollo uses his geass to kill him, revealing that the geass is a tightly kept secret, one which can’t be leaked into the general ranks of the Tokyo division.
Meanwhile, at the Chinese Embassy, Kallen wonders why Lulu hasn’t given them any orders yet, the Order of the Black Knights is a mere shadow of its former self yet Zero hasn’t taken many steps towards its rebirth. C.C. continues to negotiate with the Chinese Ambassador, who is holding off negotiations with the Britannians for as long as he can. Suddenly, a news broadcast airs, Guilford makes a bold move, bringing out all the imprisoned members of the Order of the Black Knights and announcing their public execution if Zero does not reveal himself and duel him one on one.
Oh, and throughout all this Suzaku continues to whore himself out to the Emperor, going on solo missions to expand the reach of the Britannian Empire.
With his subordinates facing death, Lulu can no longer afford to sit idly. Luckily, an opportunity to move is presented to him by Shirley, who needs to go shopping for Villetta sensei’s birthday present. A quick flashback reveals that Lulu’s geass is still permanently activated, it’s merely being concealed by a contact lens that C.C. had especially made.
The surveillance team really goes all out to follow their mark, by the time Lulu arrives at the mall it’s swarming with undercover agents. To complicate matters even further, his conversation with Shirley is overheard and they’re being tailed by Rollo, the student counsel pres, and…that blue haired dude whose name I can’t be bothered to remember. But it seems like it’s all within Lulu’s calculation, he quickly sets up all conditions that need to be met for him to turn this situation around.
Using Shirley to buy him some time and throwing off the surveillance team, Lulu calls in a bomb threat to the mall, creating unrest among the employees. He uses his geass on a worker, telling him to sound the emergency alarm at a given time. Walking out into the open, he makes sure he’s being tailed by one of the surveillance team members when the alarm goes off. In the confusion he geasses him, feeding false information regarding the whereabouts of C.C., simultaneously confirming his suspicions that she is their main target and he’s merely bait and sending them on a wild chase. Meanwhile, Rollo heads down to surveillance headquarters where he finds the team cleared out and is met by Lulu holding him at gunpoint, just as planned. However, right as Lulu is about to geass Rollo into becoming his slave so he can use him to find out where Nunally is being held, Rollo uses his geass and now has Lulu at gunpoint.
As if that miscalculation wasn’t bad enough, the Embassy harboring the Black Knights falls into chaos when the Chinese betray them, Li Xingke vowing to bring them down.
Thoughts
Alright, first up. Rollo’s geass, as I said, not a manipulation of time (well, assuming the animators didn’t screw up, that is).
For evidence, we turn to the scene where he’s underground with Villetta. When he uses his geass, a field expands, trapping the random passerby and Villetta in what seems to be a time bubble. However, notice that their surroundings did not freeze, that is, the water remained in motion. If Rollo’s geass did give him the ability to stop time, locally or globally, the water would have frozen in place as well, but it didn’t. This suggests that his geass merely freezes the people around him, whether by immobilization of their senses or simply stopping their perception of time itself. Not too far off from my guess of “removal of presence” that I made last week.
Though there is still a glaring inconsistency in Rollo’s geass. When he used it this week, he stopped Villetta mid sentence, to those inside Rollo’s geass (ie. himself and us, the viewers) there is a distinct pause in Villetta’s sentence, and after he releases, she continued to speak as if not interrupted at all. Now, think back to when Rollo was attacking Babel Tower and Zero’s men were radioing him as they were being taken down. There were no breaks in their transmissions, which doesn’t make sense unless the area which Rollo’s geass covers is HUEG. So…simply an error in continuity? Or is there something else to Rollo’s geass that we still don’t know about?
In terms of plot, things are shaping up fairly well. It’s episodes like these which I always thought were the best, where you see Lulu taking every precaution to ensure an outcome which benefits him, contrast to the later episodes in R1 where you just had to blindly accept that Lulu knew enemy positions and conveniently detonated bombs to wipe them out. I didn’t particularly like the twist at the end where the Chinese turn on the Black Knights, Rollo turning the tables on Lulu was something that was justified and the conditions were there, but there wasn’t any foreseeable reason why the Chinese would defect. From the looks of it, Li Xingke is another moralfag along the same lines as Suzaku, which angers me, the last thing this series needs is another Suzaku.
This episode also didn’t help the division between my inner Kallen and C.C. fans. Kallen is a great character, she’s more or less a kid in this war. She tries to get her head around everything and act accordingly, but it’s clear she lacks the understanding to do so, and when she gets caught off guard, her reactions are priceless, like her walking in on negotiations with the Chinese half-naked. Plus, she seems to be about the only character who showers in Code Geass.
C.C. is awesome for completely different reasons, being one of the few who are even close to Lulu in terms of intelligence. She was quick to call Kallen on her feelings about being lied to and just as fast at realizing Lulu was fishing for more information when asking about the contact lens to block out his geass. And there’s all the pizzabutt fanart, of course.
Next week’s episode looks like it’ll focus on Lulu’s operation to save the imprisoned members of the Order of the Black Knights, in which he’ll have to find some strategy to counter Rollo’s hax. Which means that we’ll soon see the rise of the Order to their previous strength, good news for people like me who are waiting for more grand scale battles.
Wow, it’s been three episodes and C.C. hasn’t had any pizza yet, she must be dying inside
~ Shirukii ~
27 Responses to “Code Geass R2 03 and the truth behind Rollo’s geass”
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I didn’t particularly like the twist at the end where the Chinese turn on the Black Knights, Rollo turning the tables on Lulu was something that was justified and the conditions were there, but there wasn’t any foreseeable reason why the Chinese would defect. From the looks of it, Li Xingke is another moralfag along the same lines as Suzaku, which angers me, the last thing this series needs is another Suzaku.
I think it’s less moralfag and probably the fact that the Chinese government realized their consul was going off the deep end. We don’t know whether or not the Empress knows about geass or not, but the consul was clearly acting against the interests of the country as a whole so they canned him. One would suppose Li is just following the orders of the central government, although the full details are not revealed to us this episode.
My heart wa beating fast this episode, it was cool feeling.
I love C.C.’s expression there. That smile is great.
And for some reason I like Lelouch’s jacket outfit (it’s been called the “stalker outfit” aswell) he looks cool in a carefree way.
I think Li has something greater planned. He could be luring Britania army into a trap, which he then shows and uses it to get the Black Knights have some obligation to help him out.
i believe that the chinese attacking might have been zero’s plan…
what better way to hold off the britannian army from storming in than to let them believe that the order has been wiped out already…
and it isn’t the first time that he hasn’t told the order of his plans…
ps:
kallen is win, but still you gotta give some love for shirley…
she’s been developing on me lately… last season she was even willing to kill someone just to defend lelou even after finding out he was zero… and this season they seem to be resurrecting the romance angle between shirley x lelou…
btw it looks like rolo will be piloting a knightmare next week based on the preview…. would it be possible that he’ll be the one dueling guilford next week maybe after lelouch offers him another locket in exchange for his services… X.x
Now, think back to when Rollo was attacking Babel Tower and Zero’s men were radioing him as they were being taken down. There were no breaks in their transmissions, which doesn’t make sense unless the area which Rollo’s geass covers is HUEG. So…simply an error in continuity? Or is there something else to Rollo’s geass that we still don’t know about?
It’s possible that Rollo’s Knightmare Frame has been modified to amplify his geass coverage.
One thing out of the whole student console group is Nina. They never mentioned her at all. This might be from the cause that their memories have been changed, but if that is the fact, Lulu should already know something, or just not care at all. I just find it a bit odd that Nina wasn’t recognized at all.
We also have at the end of the preview where Lulu seems to have a plot with people that had their memories changed. I wonder what that could be. Rolo’s attachment with him is also something to ponder about. He might be the one to possibly switch sides depending on the situation.
Ah, and Kallen did had a great idea! C.C. is very well suited to be the bunny girl. :)
Ah, Kallen definitely is the only one who really cares about her hygiene, hey? She’s my favourite and I love CC cos she’s got this cool personality. I wouldn’t mind seeing Lelouch with Shirley though. And I truly wish that there was another character out there that could outmatch or have the same level of intelligence as Lelouch. Definitely don’t mind seeing another L and Light fight. Suzaku must be replaced! But the anime is more interesting with a character to hate.
Yay! I was kinda right about Rollo being able to stop people’s sense/perception of time. Plus, though I do admire Lelouch’s excellent strategies, its always nice now and them to see him be completely surprised.
P.S Doesn’t Rollo seem a little bit crazy? Though he’s suppose to be spying on Lelouch, seems like he’s developed a real attachment to him i.e the whole locket scene. Doesn’t seem like it’ll stop him trying to kill Lelouch though.
Next week’s episode looks like it’ll focus on Lulu’s operation to save the imprisoned members of the Order of the Black Knights, in which he’ll have to
find some strategyuse shonen ai to counter Rollo’s hax.There, fixed.
I still prefer Kallen over the rest of the female cast. Especially in the first season she deserved more screentime aside from in-battle scenes. It seems that we’ll get some more of that this season. *crosses fingers*
As for the Chinese turning their backs on them, it’s most likely what Lelouch expected. (it would be quite the let-down if that weren’t the case anyway)
Rollo is shaping out to be an interesting, if generic character. The whole “getting too close” thing has been done to death, but I can see it working very well alongside Lelouch’s mindgames. He’ll probably use something like that to get him out of his current bind.
And now we play the waiting game. Again. >_>
This is why I hate watching series as they come out, I vastly prefer a good marathon. ^^
So Rollo’s power is brain-freezing, and he doesn’t even need to make eye contact in order to activate it, nor does it have a one-time-per-person limitation. How cheap is that? That geass better have some huge downside. There are already too many one-man armies (coughSuzakucough) on the emperor’s side.
Luckily, with great power come great urges to show off. Otherwise, Lelouch would already be a goner, just like that poor guy down in the waterworks.
@ Calawain: Hmm, that does make sense. Though that’s sure to bite them in the ass when Lulu manages to rebuild the rebellion. I forgot what his relationship with the Chinese was like in R1, were they even mentioned?
@ Avisch: Haha, I thought that jacket made him look like a rapist, his creepy “Just as planned” facial expression doesn’t help in that regard either.
I don’t know if I could see Li pulling something like that, he seems like a man who is rooted in principle. Though, if Lulu is anything to go by, looks can certainly be deceiving.
@ kaz3phyrous: I don’t really see any clues that the Chinese were going to turn, but then again, I’m not Lelouch, lol. It sounds plausible that he would know, given his amazing abilities of foresight. But the fact that he hasn’t mentioned it in any of his internal monologues that go over his plans suggests that he hasn’t factored them in.
I’ve never really like Shirley, she just doesn’t have the depth of personality that Kallen or C.C. do, mostly due to lack of screen time.
lol “services”
@ lipsen: Hmm, interesting hypothesis. Though, how do you magnify something intangible like geass?
@ Dando008: Uh…who’s Nina again? I forgot, lol. The one who’s in love with Euphie, table girl?
I’m sure that we’ll see Rollo switch sides sooner or later, we’ve seen the instability of his mind, it only makes sense that it would cause a similar swaying in his loyalties.
@ blissmo: According to various sources (ok I lie, wiki) Li is supposed to be almost as smart as Lulu. Which would make the series quite interesting, regardless of whether he turns out to be friend or foe.
@ Randor: Yea, Rollo definitely has a couple loose screws up there. I’m eager to find out how Lulu gets out of the situation he’s in. He either has to reason with Rollo, using his attachment as leverage, or (my theory) the gun is empty, lol.
@ ItAintEazy: We have enough yaoi fangirls creaming themselves over LuluXSuzaku D=
@ Vadigor: I’m with you, I love marathoning series, it just flows so much better and the gaps between episodes is nonexistent, so no painful waits. But on the other hand, marathoning leaves nothing to the imagination, meaning I can’t come up with crazy theories and etc. which would leave this blog pretty empty, haha.
@ Erilex: Yea, it’s a pretty broken geass. I’m thinking that he probably can’t hold it up for very long, a time limit of sorts. Would also make sense that the bigger he makes the coverage area, the shorter its duration.
Yea, Rollo should have just offed him in the geass, stupid villains and their need to blurt out ridiculously long speeches before finishing people off, when will they learn.
@Shirukii: Yeah I guess that’s true, the only problem with following a series week by week is that I sometimes tend to get bored of it, or don’t feel like ending it by watching the last episode.
Also, I hope I’m the first one to do this, it’s a bit of a rushed job but I like how it turned out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS-Kvmt-9dg
I thought, really thought, that it was the “Za Warudo” and laughed at first. But later, watching the scene again, I realized that that the waterfall hadn’t stopped.
Anyway, we have to review what we all know by watching http://youtube.com/watch?v=qbArvIqZzkI at this point.
This episode really showed Lelouch’s intelligence. How he planned it all to the last detail. Unfortunately he didn’t know bout Rolo having a Geass as well. Wonder who is his contract? Is Rolo kind of like the kind of person who always wanted a family but never had one? Cos he was really protective over the heart pendant he got from Lelouch. Haha
@Shirukii
Yes, the “table girl” does not seem to be in any of the memories of the student console itself and Lelouch. Makes me wonder how many peoples’ memories were altered. C.C. seem to be able to unlock Lelouche’s memories, but the next goal would be to unlock everyone else’s memories, which could be a good or bad thing if done. The suspense is killing me.
Aboutt he scene in the babel tower, It think it might be because of the heighten speed of the Knightmare compared to his walking speed and the range of the geass, which essentially means that he freezes the mind (Or whatever term you call it.) boosts to next to the person and kill him just as he sends the transmission. Just my two cents.
Its interesting how Rollo is working as Lelouch’s foil for the early part of R2, while Suzaku is off in the weeds. The ED shows Rollo with one ‘Britannian’ wing and one ‘Black Knight’ wing, but as brutal as he is, its hard to see him as a good guy, whichever team he ends up playing for.
Among the antagonists who might ultimately join Lelouch, Viletta is the most obvious, because of the efforts made in setting up her background with Ougi and her role as one of the more admirable Britannian opponents.
Still, where on Earth is Cornelia? She’s just honorable enough a bad guy to eventually turn on the Emperor. Its not been made clear where she has gone, or why.
>>> There were no breaks in their transmissions, which doesn’t make sense unless the area which Rollo’s geass covers is HUEG. So…simply an error in continuity? Or is there something else to Rollo’s geass that we still don’t know about?
You should be expecting a letter from Sunrise soon along the lines of “Stop pointing out our plot-holes, asshole!”
This episode brings back one of the great unsolved mysteries of Code Geass… How does C.C. fit all that hair inside the Zero helmet?
re: “Though there is still a glaring inconsistency in Rollo’s geass. When he used it this week, he stopped Villetta mid sentence, to those inside Rollo’s geass (ie. himself and us, the viewers) there is a distinct pause in Villetta’s sentence, and after he releases, she continued to speak as if not interrupted at all. Now, think back to when Rollo was attacking Babel Tower and Zero’s men were radioing him as they were being taken down. There were no breaks in their transmissions, which doesn’t make sense unless the area which Rollo’s geass covers is HUEG. So…simply an error in continuity? Or is there something else to Rollo’s geass that we still don’t know about?”
I think it was done this way to show the difference in perceptions, i.e. to rollo, he probably perceived everyone freezing and not moving, but to the rest, it is simply a continuous disappearance and reappearance by the former. a difference of perception between rollo and the rest i believe.
@ Vadigor: Ahaha, nice. Could have used a color inversion though, and the steamroller!
@ barosl: Yep, waterfall gave it away that it wasn’t full on time stoppage.
@ Brian: Well, the only other contractor we know of other than C.C. is V.V., so until revealed otherwise, we’ll have to go with that. Rollo’s identity is just as mysterious, some people say that he’s just Nunally with rewritten memories and a guy’s body, I’d lol if that turns out to be the truth.
@ Dando008: Yea, I’m wondering just how many memories were rewritten as well. All of the student counsel for sure, but how many beyond that? C.C. was able to unlock Lulu’s memories because he possessed geass and a link to her, but can she do the same to everyone else, alternatively, can Lulu geass everyone and order them to remember? So many questions D=
@ Alias: Ah, that would actually explain it fairly well. Rollo could move along with the expansion of his freezing field and attack just as their senses were cut off, essentially killing the delay we saw. That would take some insane speed and reflex to pull off though.
@ Silvering: I can see Rollo turning, since he does seem to value Lulu almost as a real brother. But Villetta? Really? I do see the connection to Ougi, but would that be enough to make her turn?
Also, didn’t Cornelia die in the final battle in R1? Or…am I remembering that scene wrongly?
@ Telliamed: Huge helmet is hueeeg!
@ KCC: Yea, we know of the difference in perception from Villetta’s attempt to speak while he froze them. But what is inconsistent is that we didn’t see that same inconsistency over the radio transmissions. If Rollo’s geass only works locally, which seems to be the case, Lulu would have heard the same break in speech, but he didn’t.
@Shirukii: as I said it was a rush job, I was hoping to get it done in the infamous Windows Movie Maker in half an hour or so but it ended up taking quite a lot more than that. CCCP screwing up WMM’s encoding didnt help much. At one time it decided to launch 24 copies of the divx audio decoder… -_-
Shirukii: Cornelia’s body was not shown and she’s an important enough character to have a death sequence. No indication that she is dead.
Re: Cornelia
I went back and checked Episode 25! Cornelia was last seen knighting Suzaku and deploying him to pursue Lelouch. Her wounds did not seem terribly bad.
Lelouch was even planning to take her hostage, before Jeremiah interrupted. And indeed, Cornelia is an important enough character that she’ll not be killed offstage.
I expect she retreated from view for her own reasons, possibly involving Euphemia or even Marianne’s death.
Fortunately, given that Gilford will feature in the next episode or two, he’s likely to mention what happened to Cornelia between R1 and R2.
I’ve shared my thoughts on this on numerous blogs, but why not do so here too?
Lelouch needs to free the detained Black Knights somehow. And given his lack of numbers and what not, if the Chinese really have turned on him, that’s going to be all but impossible.
I think Li “turning on him” is just part of a ploy hatched by Lelouch, the results of which we’ll see next week.
Otherwise… blargh. I really don’t want another moralfag.
actually, I think rolo cannot use his geass continuously. in the 2nd episode, I think he just turns his power on/off making him look (for the black knights) he is here then he suddenly appears there. Lelouch was not inside the effective radius of Rolo during episode 2, the part where his men started blowing up is his point of view.
In episode 3 where Rollo uses his geass, it was Rollo’s point of view.
So when Rollo uses his geass, to him the targets are not moving. From the point of view of the affected, he is teleporting. He will only look as if he was teleporting if uses his power like an On/Off switch
Nah it isnt just Kallen who showers in Code Geass lol, Lulu did remember in Season 1 when he took a shower and banging the bathtub cuz he was regretting the fact that he indirectly killed or caused Shirley’s father’s death. Also you can see C.C. in that hot school swimsuit swimming in the pool while Lulu looks for new recruits in his army in Season 1.
“In terms of plot, things are shaping up fairly well. It’s episodes like these which I always thought were the best, where you see Lulu taking every precaution to ensure an outcome which benefits him, contrast to the later episodes in R1 where you just had to blindly accept that Lulu knew enemy positions and conveniently detonated bombs to wipe them out. I didn’t particularly like the twist at the end where the Chinese turn on the Black Knights, Rollo turning the tables on Lulu was something that was justified and the conditions were there, but there wasn’t any foreseeable reason why the Chinese would defect. From the looks of it, Li Xingke is another moralfag along the same lines as Suzaku, which angers me, the last thing this series needs is another Suzaku.”
Hmmm… if u watch closely in Episode 2 of R2 u will see that the Chinese leader guy is being geassed by Lulu — he might’ve came back to his usual self.That would explain Li Xingke’s behaviour like being outraged to the fact Zero used them without wishing to do so.