Code Geass R2 18
August 10th, 2008 by Shirukii
Amazing episode, absolutely sublime from start to finish, something which I haven’t been able to say about a Code Geass episode for quite some time. In addition to a great battle scene, albeit short in the tactics department as always, this episode changed the landscape of the plot and character development.
First and foremost, the death of Nunnally, by far the most notable event of this episode. Nunnally has always been more of a symbol than an actual character in Code Geass, her development in terms of personal growth was fairly limited, coming across as nothing more than the voice of innocence and naivety in a world of cutthroat war and politics. More than that, she was symbolic of Lulu’s will to continue fighting, his motivation in this war has always been twofold, to avenge his mother Marianne and to create a world where Nunnally could live without worry. On the Britannian side she was a pawn used for control, putting her in charge of Area 11 was nothing more than a means to keep Lulu’s hands tied, she was a hostage.
Nunnally was the last remaining advocate of peace in Code Geass, both figuratively, as a measure of restraint against the OotBKs and literally in that she was the only one vying for a peaceful settlement to the war, having tried in vain to once again establish the special administrative region of Japan. With Nunnally gone, there’s no one left on the side of peace and reason, not to mention her death will invoke Lulu’s vengeance, fun times to come.
An interesting question to consider is who is to blame for Nunnally’s death. Indirectly, Nina bears some responsibility for having created Freya, the bomb that killed her. Nina’s obsession with Euphie and her pursuit of vengeance is what bred this weapon, mowing down countless innocent victims in her blind pursuit to bring Zero to justice, all over her unrequited lesbian lusting.
Alternatively, one could default to blaming the Suzaku, because everyone hates the guy, and after all, he’s the one who pulled the trigger. He rushed into the battlefield with a weapon designed for complete obliteration, a weapon with no control system for identifying friend from foe, nothing but a carpet bomb meant to take out Zero and anyone else in its way. However, Suzaku never intended to use the weapon, he only took it along to use as a threat, which (ignoring the fact that he could have easily just taken a blank shell) absolves him of guilt.
Most interestingly is to place the blame on Lelouch, if only because it’s so deliciously ironic, albeit predictable. It was Lulu who cast the geass that led to Suzaku’s decision to fire Freya, it was Lulu who foolishly ignored Suzaku’s threat despite its specific nature, and it was Lulu who ordered Kallen to kill Suzaku, ignoring the two above facts, which combined lead to the resulting disaster.
It’s going to be fun seeing how Lulu will cope with the death of his beloved sister, even more so if he realizes that it was preventable and that he was indirectly at fault. And what will happen now? Will he lose the will to lead the resistance? Will Nunnally’s death further his belief that emotions have no place on the battlefield, that friends and loved ones are contrivances and that you can only trust reason and logic? Or conversely, will he realize that his unwillingness to react to emotion is what caused him to dismiss Suzaku’s threat? Given the preview for the next episode it looks like none of the above, that Lulu is going to succumb to rage, lash out and possibly do something stupid like launch a head on suicide attack.
Also, I wonder how Freya (FLEIA, whatever) will change things. Weapons with such massive destructive force have always been for threat purposes rather than actual use. Analogous to our real life nukes, which have seen limited use in warfare, most notably the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which weren’t necessities for advancement on Japan, but rather a message to the world (at the time, mostly Russia) that if you screw with the US, your cities become parking lots. On the other hand, Freya doesn’t have nasty side effects like fallout, so who knows, maybe Britannia will sanction their widespread use and we’ll see the complete obliteration of the OotBKs by next week. Alternatively, Lakshata’s R&D follows suit and Britannia and the UFN go into a Cold War-esque arms race.
Furthermore on the topic of Nunnally’s death, interesting to note how it would have happened even if Freya hadn’t been fired. Rolo pulled a short stick when it came to character development, he was given a typical traumatic childhood then introduced as a heartless assassin, only to inexplicably cave to Lulu’s brotherly love. While it was established that Rolo is ’so ronery ;_;’ and found solace for the first time in Lulu’s company, I can’t help but find that explanation lacking to account for him killing off anyone threatening to usurp his position beside his beloved nii-san. Much like Lelouch, I think Rolo has far outstayed his welcome and utility, he needs to be disposed of.
The big winner in all this is Schneizel, whose tactical abilities seem to far surpass his little brother’s. He seemed so sure of the battle’s progression, looking especially smug the moment that Freya was fired. I question the legitimacy of that smugness, however, the events that led to the firing of Freya weren’t something that Schneizel had any base to predict. I can accept that maybe Suzaku told him about the geass cast on him by Lulu, telling him to live, which would override Suzaku’s morality and allow him to fire Freya. But how could Schneizel have known that Suzaku would be backed into a position where he would be forced to do so to survive, assessing the machine strength and combat ability of the OotBKs, there’s no one except Kallen who could have possibly taken him down in Lancelot. Aside from releasing Kallen on purpose, which he didn’t, Schneizel didn’t have any reason to believe that the OotBKs ace would be returning to the front lines any time soon.
On that note, holy hax Batman, what the hell did they do to Guren and why didn’t they do it to any of the other Knightmares? Ignoring the arbitrary names being given to the attack and defense mechanisms thought up by Lloyd and Lakshata, it seems like Guren has offensive and mobility potential that outstrips Lancelot as well as defence potential rivaling Shinkirou (in that it can block a close range hadron cannon…if you know what I mean :3).
However, re-evaluating my gripe that Code Geass has fallen to Gundam syndrome in terms of hax units deciding the tide of battle, the extent of this claim isn’t as far reaching as I might have thought. While it’s true that hax knightmares are capable of taking out ridiculous amounts of mass production units, they’re largely resigned to taking care of the hax units of the opposing side and the end result comes up more or less balanced. Case and point, the reversing of the tides of battle when the Gefion defusers went offline and allowed <5th gen knightmares to return to battle.
And finally, a brief mention of Anya, her scene only serving to resurface questions about her significance to the plot and my bitterness about the geass subplot remaining largely unexplained.
Obligatory Kallen supplants obligatory Anya this week, in celebration of her return
~ Shirukii ~
10 Responses to “Code Geass R2 18”
Leave a Reply
Please use [spoiler] [/spoiler] tags for spoilers.
Loading ...
I liked the episode, even if it wasn’t strategically or tactically interesting and despite the continuing rationing of the animation budget, on an action and character level more than plot per se (there wasn’t that much of it, in my opinion, just a couple of bits like the build-up for the “betrayal”, because the big stuff is still to come later, other than device’s detonation).
But I’m not certain that Nunnally really died. In fact, I have a pretty good “hunch” that she may not have. Lelouch obviously thinks so, naturally, which should fuel his character development in the direction of further self-absorption and rage, but it would not be a surprise to find out that she lived. Will that be enough or too little, too late? Who knows, time will tell.
I just hope the eventual explanation is okay, or at least passable with some suspension of disbelief. Maybe that would still be anti-climatic, if not handled properly, but it depends on the circumstances.
But regardless of that, Suzaku is going to have a lot of guilt on his shoulders from now on, and I can’t see Rolo being around for long either. Schneizel and the Emperor have set their plans in motion (even if Schneizel couldn’t predict every detail, he could well have expected the device to detonate in the middle of battle). Anya’s story should also be explored eventually, even if briefly because the series is nearing its end each week, since all these bits must be building up to something too. How well it is executed is another matter.
You know what? Go Schneizel! Hot blonde alert! XD
All I could say about Nunally’s death was “FINALLY SOMEONE RATHER IMPORTANT AND INNOCENT DIED!”
http://animearimasu.animeblogger.net/image/CodeGeassR2/18CodeGeassR2Anya.jpg
This pic is effin’ wallpaper material. xD
I’m wondering whether she’ll turn up alive as well, I just hope that if she does, they don’t completely botch it up. I’m tired of Charles pulling more crap behind the viewer’s back.
I had a feeling that Lulu’s geass on Suzaku would trigger some bad stuff, but I don’t really see why he activated Freya for it. It only triggered because he was about to be demolished by the Gurren Seiten, a blow which turns out he could have avoided when we see him do so under the effects of Geass. I think that a Geass stating “Live!” would sooner make him retreat off the battelfield than fire a tactical nuke 10 feet in front of him. About that nuke, how the hell did they even manage to create something like that and then make it the size of a small caliber tank shell with propulsion and float generator and everything. Although I’m sure any attempt at explaining it with Sunrise’s SCIENCE would only break my brain.
About the emperor, I wonder what he’s up to now, so far he hasn’t done much but stand fixed in place and look important which he’s arguably very good at ( http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii98/1181_Lilith/motivator7033819.jpg ) but that’s getting kind of boring.
And I thought Lulu was going to be even more of a cold, heartless, calculating sonuvabitch after his betrayal by Suzaku. I don’t really believe that Nunally is dead. My physics might be a little rusty, but I believe that matter changes into other matter in the event of an explosion. No remains = no proof. Maybe she’s stuck in The World of C or something.
@ Camario: Yea, this is Sunrise we’re talking about. No one is dead until you see the body or the disintegration thereof, and even then, sometimes they come back (a la Mai HiME).
@ blissmo: Schneizel is FABULOUS indeed, but I want to see the reasoning behind his brain. Everything seems to play out perfectly to his scenario, but unlike with Lulu, we never get to see why.
@ Mikoto: Yea, and there is a serious lack of Anya wallpapers floating around.
@ Vadigor: There was no way he could have avoided Guren’s oncoming attack, though it is believable that he could manage one last desperation shot with Freya, so I think its firing was justified under the whole geass thing. As for the whole SCIENCE behind Freya, that’s something best filed under suspension of belief.
@ ItAintEazy: Many things can happen to matter based on how the explosion interacts with it, what type of matter it is, etc. Given Freya’s mechanism (they described it as destroying all matter withing blast range) more probably they meant it would decompose all matter in its blast range, which means that all matter would be turned into energy in the form of light, sound, heat, etc.
Hmm…as far as Nunnally being dead, I won’t believe it until the series ends without an appearance or there’s a confirmation that she died. As unbelievable as it may be, I’m thinking that either Sayoko miraculously got them out alive, or something just as ridiculous. Or even if she does die, I’m sure she’ll appear again somehow. OR maybe I’m just in denial after completing her path in Lost Colors.
As far as the three you mentioned that could be responsible, it seems that at least Suzaku and Lelouch will be depressions next week, but I’m most interested in seeing what Nina will say. Shirley’s death did affect her, but maybe she’ll be more angry at the fact that Zero didn’t die from the explosion?
Now that Lancelot had the shit kicked out of it, it’s only natural that in 2 weeks we’ll see the debut of Lancelot Albion and thus be the only Knightmare to go on par with Guren according to specs. Oh noez, MOAR GUN DAMNS!
And the Kuro no Kishi-dan…if Asahina did indeed manage to convince Toudou, then we could see things starting to fall apart withing the organization next episode as well…or maybe Lelouch redeems himself and they continue following him under the motive to put Lelouch on the throne and remove Britannia’s Areas?
Best one-liner? Jeremiah: “Orange? For that is the name of my loyalty!”
The episode rocked and as many of you have said I doubt Nunally is dead. We’re talking about Sunrise and if any of you have seen gundam 00 then does the name Patrick ring any bells? I mean the entire cockpit was shown being blown up and the stream of light behind him with his shit ass face just like it happened with Nunally but what do you know magic voodo powers of sunrise make characters imune to Metal melting lasers, Nuclear explosions and bullets *cough* Mao *cough* (I find it hard to believe that even with all the science in the world he could recover from a shot to the head come on one of those bullets had to hit his skull or something but seriously….. oh well Nunally will be just as lucky)
When did I learn to believe what I saw in CG episode?
“…and it was Lulu who ordered Kallen to kill Suzaku, ignoring the two above facts, which combined lead to the resulting disaster.”
An excellent observation, and something I didn’t really stop to think about too much. That’s kind of a rare misstep for Lelouch to not take into account the Geass that he’s placed on different people when considering tactics. I guess he must have really been rattled by all of the recent events of this last episode.