Spoiler Alert!!! If you haven’t watched Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch.

This analysis is a very close observation based on the evidences from the anime even though it’s quite a minor plot point. Actually I’ve seen many people supporting this fact on various media & later re-observing all these evidences cleared up literally everything.

Villetta Nu is actually an important supporting character in Code Geass. Her relationship with Black Knight’s IMPORTANT member Oghi affected the story in many possible ways aside from representing various themes & symbols such as : The peace created between Japan & Britannia; thematic bridge between two nations ; or even theme like tender bringing out the softer side of a general evil/selfish; or responsibility, growth, bravery or even selfishness getting born out of affection etc. But here our topic is VILLETTA & her temporary memory lose or casually Amnesia.

After the apparent death of Jeremiah at stage 10, & of Shirley Fenette’s father, Villetta uses Shirley to investigate Zero & the Britannian school boy Lelouch Lamperogue

Having fuzzy memory of seeing a schoolboy before being Geassed and that boy resembling Lelouch, Villetta suspects that Lelouch has involvement with the Black Knights.

During the battle with Cornelia & Lancelot (suzaku) at stage 13 , Zero gets injured and forced to eject from the cockpit of his Knightmare Frame and became half conscious from this result of getting defeated in the knightmere battle against Lancelot (Suzaku) . Before the entrance of Lancelot, Lelouch saw someone “like ” Shirley “there” & hesitated/got confused to shoot Cornelia.

Guren Mk-II (Kallen) ) was also there fighting the Gloucester ( Cornelia ) and almost cornered it while Lancelot was busy with Zero’s Burai. Lancelot rushed toward Gloucester since the situation was extremely tight for the Viceroy,top priority of the battlefield.

Shirley approaches Zero’s cockpit and takes Zero’s Pistol.

Later she misguidedly attempts to shoot Zero

as revenge/punishment for killing her father.

While Shirley started aiming ,Zero’s mask falls off from the aftershock of heavy ejection and as an effect of uncomfort from a minor injury on head from the rough ejection on the ground.

The identity of Lelouch gets revealed infront of Shirley.

Villetta sees this too as she was using,teamed up with and following Shirley the whole time.

She plans to bring Lelouch to Princess Cornelia who would finally promote

her to a noble as a reward of achieving that. Well, the main intention/motivation behind Villetta’s hard work gets revealed there as well and it was gaining NOBILITY since she actually wasn’t ONE despite of her LOYALTY.

She also tells Shirley that she will get some rewards too.

Shirley, the confused girl,gets even more confused from all those.

Villetta says all those stuffs because they were both teamed up to find more about Zero & Lelouch and both was successful at that .In all hesitation,Shirley shoots Villetta in order to protect Zero’s(Lelouch’s) secret

& leaves her for death on the coast where people won’t find her dead body easily.

Ohgi, at the morning, after escaping successfully, begins to question Zero ‘s intention cause he believed that Zero didn’t behave naturally on that night

& there were plenty reasons behind that for both sides (Zero & Oghi).Besides a question arised within his mind why would JLF attempt suicide?

He returns to the shore of the sea where whole JFL “committed suicide” and there he discovers Villetta .

She appeared as an unconscious injured (Britannian) Civilian. Being concerned , he goes helping her and finds that she’s still alive but almost unconscious. Realizing someone’s present ,Villetta subconsciously mumbled if he was Zero

as if she finally got her prey. It shows how much obsessed & focused she was with her intention of gaining Nobility and achieving that by capturing Zero or his secrets.

This sets up the first stage .

Oghi found someone who “probably” knew Zero’s identity whom he was questioning about more ever since the Battle of Port Yokosuka.So this was his main motive for taking Villetta in his residence secretly without letting Doctors and his comrades know about this whole situation. There were more into it.

Fair synopsis of the situation is done.

What our topic here is the fact that, after atleast one or two DAYS of getting injured, Villetta finally regains her consciousness at stage 15.

Surprisingly, Villetta had lost her memory “temporarily” at this point which can be labeled as ” Amnesia ” according the wiki even though I don’t remember the show marked it like that. It was more like a temporary memory problem after getting shot quite badly and not getting proper treatment right after that.

Now the real question is how come someone gets caught in AMNESIA from getting hit by mere Pistol Bullet?

Is it because the shock caused it? Or trauma of getting shot? Trauma option is invalid since she was a Soldier & nothing traumatic happened there.

This looks utterly ridiculooooous and duuuuumb that someone would suffer Amnesia from the aftershock of the bullet and specially when its on just a limb and from a pistol.

I mean we often see people getting Amnesia from getting hurt on head, right? But no head injury was shown in this case since she didn’t have a bandage on her head.

Now spare few minutes here before reaching an illogical conclusion.

There’s something more into it.

The anime didn’t explicitly declare that this Amnesia was born from a “bullet shock” or even “head injury”. There was absolutely no scene where something like this was stated or it was supported. There is absolutely 0 support for this.

It’s true that this didn’t get any explanation. But it shouldn’t get any since it wasn’t possible for characters to think & explore about it. It might’ve gotten a clear explanation if only Ohgi took Villetta to a doctor. But the anime did provide enough reasoning for him not meeting one. Therefore it wasn’t plausible to explain anything about it there since she didn’t meet any specialist & it’s a case that everyone doesn’t know about.

But interestingly there were some clues and evidences to interpret more about it.

On stage 14, (10:48-11:38min) Mao read Shirley’s thoughts and brought up the fact how Shirley shot/tried to kill Villetta at stage 13 and left her to die there. Atleast she thought that . She was highly inexperienced with all these therefore certainly didn’t have any idea how this worked or would work.

(16:16 min -) Oghi finds Villetta at morning or when the sun just rised for few hours.

On stage 15(10:27) Villetta regains conscious & wake up after couple of days of getting injured (most probably)

So, we got some evidences from stage 14 & stage 15

What evidencs are representing would be these if I summarize:

From Stage 14 (10.48min – 11.38 min) ,

Memories of Shirley’s :

1) Viletta was actually shot once and that was “most probably” on her LEFT ARM. (Explanation on this is coming later)

2)Shirley wasn’t looking at Villetta while shooting.

Shirley was too puzzled on that time.Shooting Villetta was already a tough enough decision for a person like her.

Her facial expressions were enough to express that . Even guilt of shooting/trying to kill Villetta later led her(Shirley) into a traumatic state where Mao manipulated her.

That’s a reason her shot missed any fatal point of Villetta.

3)The camera moved as if the bullet missed to hit center points such as belly or chest or liver of Villetta

From stage 15

4) There were multiple bandages on Villetta’s body

but most of the bandages were probably because of injuries from Shirley pulling Villetta toward the coast. Or it should be the case since Villetta was shown getting shot once and that’s her left side because when she was found on the coast, only left side of her was bleeding while other parts of the body didn’t bleed and she had only one bandage on left arm and it was pretty big comparing others. So it’s specifically left arm.

5) Remember the embracing moment Villetta faced infront of Oghi after waking up?

[ NSFW](check the image link)

That frame actually wasn’t just any crass out fanservice. It established few things like creating a special tension between characters which is completely out of our topic here . Relatable fact about that would be , it visualized Villetta’s possible wound cleverly & . It actually showed Villetta’s upper part of body explicitly and its a clear evidence that Villetta didn’t get any wound on chest or stomach or else (where Shirley aimed at first) that’s why she didn’t die from not- getting any treatment for a long time . And her wound must be at the arm since she was shot at left side and bleed out from left side.

This scene subtly confirmed that Villetta didn’t get shot on fatal center points of her body rather on her left arm.

Sure, not many people will be able to figure this out but it’s a clever evidence anyway.

Back to stage 14

6) Shirley dumped Villetta on the coast was another reason her dresses were wet aside from getting wet from blood. Oghi changed her dress in order to prevent her from catching Cold. It’s possible that she could’ve thrown her into the ocean or else. But nothing gets changed from that in this case.

Only one fact may get affected that, more blood evidences of her might get swept away . Nothing more.

7)It was clearly shown that the victim had (Villetta) lost massive amounts of her Blood after getting shot.

Scene 1: When Zero found that his pistol is missing & he discovered that for some reason there are huge amount of blood in front him

Scene 2: (16:16 min) when Oghi found Villetta on the coast.

That’s lots of blood to visualize.Sometimes many TV show doesn’t even show that much blood when someone gets murdered .

These two scenes also indecates that Shirley couldn’t decide what-to-do with Villetta right after shooting her. She was hesitating at least for few moments there or they were quarreling for moments. That’s why the place where Shirley shot Villetta is noticeable with massive amount of blood aside from the place where Villetta was dumped in. In both place she spent relatively more times.

It’s a clever foreshadowing of Shirley’s helplessness and puzzled state on the incident even though it was there during the whole time of facing Zero & shooting Villetta..

8) Second most important evidence that Villetta was actually shot in the NIGHT/MIDNIGHT

but Oghi found her at MORNING.

Even the anime clearly featured the sky for at least once when Oghi just found injured Villetta.

So it’s a large and enough time gap for her wound to bleed out a lot through her wound since she didn’t get any first aid until Ohgi found her. Which makes sense why she might lose that amount of blood and why there was massive blood even though she was shot in arm. On the other hand any other option looks as highly illogical.

9) Villetta was found as almost unconscious when Ohgi found her. She was also unable to move by that time atleast..

Infact getting gun-shot at arm could be lethal enough to loss a huge amount of blood which also could lead to death. But that DEPENDS on heavily on the INJURY. Since its not exactly a gunshot wound rather a pistol-shot wound,the blood loss and injury would be relatively less than a gunshot wound. That’s still enough to loss huge amount of blood but not TOO serious to die reach the condition where the victim would die in a few hours. That’s exactly what happened to Villetta.

Oh another question might arise that getting shot at arm should break her bones but why her bones were NOT broken?

Simple explanation would be, Pistol-shot at arm doesn’t always shatter bone. It depends on many factors. Even Gunshot doesn’t always shatter bones.

Reference : https://www.quora.com/If-a-bullet-is-shot-into-someones-arm-does-it-always-break-shatter-the-bone

Note -1: The most important evidence would be : VILLETTA DID lose massive amount blood in this incident. It was there during the whole time. All the evidences are saying this.

So this might lead her into two conditions:

Condition 1 : She got a hypovolemic shock at a extent because of massive bleeding through her wound which was shown & logical. The shock wouldn’t be too serious because she wasn’t shot that fatally . In that case she would’ve died in few hours.

Firstly what causes hypovolemic shock?

Hypovolemic shock results from significant and sudden blood or fluid losses within your body. Blood loss of this magnitude can occur because of:

bleeding from serious cuts or wounds

bleeding from blunt traumatic injuries due to accidents

With an injury, the most obvious casue/symptom of hypovolemic shock is a lot of bleeding.

Reference: https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/hypovolemic-shock.

Some symptoms of Hypovolemic shocks are:(All are not necessary here)

confusion

Definition: https://www.healthline.com/symptom/confusion#modal-close

She did mistake Ohgi as Zero at first which implies something was clearly wrong there with her.

weakness

Definition: https://www.healthline.com/symptom/asthenia

She was unable to move and didn’t actually move after getting dumped into the coast.

loss of consciousness

Definition: https://www.healthline.com/health/unconsciousness-first-aid

She ceratinly lost conscious and wake up after 1.5 or 2 days.

Reference: https://www.healthline.com/health/hypovolemic-shock#symptoms

If she lost that amount of blood why didn’t she need blood transfusion in order to survive?

Simple explanation is that , she didn’t lose TOO MUCH blood ,that’s why she didn’t need blood transfusion to survive completely. Because her wound was at arm , not in liver or heart.

How Much Blood Loss Is ” Too Much “?

” You may lose up to 15% of your total blood volume — roughly a little less than a quart for an adult — and likely won’t have any serious symtomps. “(Referring death like situation)

” Most people who lose more than 30% of their blood volume will also need a blood transfusion. But if the amount is less than that then it’s not too much to transfuse blood ”

Villetta’s wound wasn’t at liver or heart or any fatal point and it was cleared earlier . So even though she lost massive amount of blood but that wasn’t around 30% cause it’s impossible. It was around 15% at best according logic.

“The effects of hypovolemic shock depend on the speed at which you’re losing blood or fluids and the amount of blood or fluids you are losing. The extent of your injuries can also determine your chances for survival. Chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, previous stroke, heart, lung, or kidney disease, or taking blood thinners like Coumadin or aspirin can increase the likelihood that you’ll experience more complications from hypovolemic shock.”

Reference: https://www.healthline.com/health/hypovolemic-shock#complications ”

That explains why she didn’t suffered from other complexity such as HEART ATTACK . Because her injury wasn’t lethal to that level.

Note-2: massive bleeding led Villetta to get a hypovolemic shock into some extent. Which also GRADUALLY made her unconscious, weak etc and she was unable to move when Ohgi found her due to that.

Condtion 2 : Or she just suffered from massive bleeding or massive blood loss.

Now how’s this related with her getting an Amnesia?

That’s theoretically related. Specially with STROKE.

Condition 1 hypovolemic shock is related cause ” Blood loss of this level CAN contribute to stroke.* ” It actually causes stroke.

Reference : https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312348.php

Condition 2 is related because massive blood loss causes lack of blood flow in brain cells or neurons. & Lack of blood flow in brain or lack of oxygen flow in brain cells IS actually what causes strokes or brain damage (temporary and permanent both)

” BRAIN ATTACK. Strokes arise in two ways: when blood flow to the brain is reduced or when hemorrhaging occurs with in the brain itself. In both cases, neurons are starved of the oxygen they need to function. The ultimate outcome depends on where and how badly the brain is injured. “

Reference : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-causes-strokes/ ”

Besides there ARE something MORE.

Massive blood loss might also lead brain damage which has connection with Stroke . Because “The brain requires constant perfusion by oxygenated blood. “Massive blood loss “ causes hypotension. Hypotension can cause characteristic strokes, called “watershed strokes. ”

References :

Watershed stroke – Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watershed_stroke

Brain Ischemia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_ischemia

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/co…

Main Reference: https://www.quora.com/Can-massive-blood-loss-cause-brain-damage ”

Note-3: Villeta theoretically should’ve suffered small stroke from either the hypovolemic shock or just losing massive blood lose. The reason would be simply lack of blood/oxygen supply in her brain cells. Lack of blood flow and oxygen supply in brain cells damages brain at some extents or causes STROKE .

How Stroke or brain damage has connection with all these Amnesia stuffs?

Before getting into that let’s see what’s Amnesia.

Amnesia is when a person can no longer memorize or recall information that is stored in memory . It is very rare, despite being a popular theme for movies and books.

“Being a little forgetful is completely different to having amnesia. Amnesia refers to a large-scale loss of memories that should not have been forgotten.”

“These may include important milestones in life, memorable events, key people in our lives, and vital facts we have been told or taught.”

Reference: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9673.php

There are few reasons behind amnesia:

“The chance of developing amnesia might increase if someone experienced:”

Brain surgery head injury trauma STROKE Alcohol abuse Seizures OXYGEN DEPRIVATION

Reference :

1)https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/amnesia/symptoms-causes/syc-20353360 ”

2)https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9673.php

Amnesia actually happens when brain cells gets damaged or injured. Specially when brain cells related storing memories gets affected. Brain damage can be happened in two ways, from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)/injury from external forces or Acquired Brain Injury (ABI)/internal brain injury. All traumatic brain injuries are head injuries. But head injury is not necessarily brain injury. So happening amnesia won’t always happen from head injury .

Reference: https://www.webmd.com/brain/brain-damage-symptoms-causes-treatments

Classification of her Amnesia

Firstly , there is no need of classifying her amnesia. I haven’t seen (m)any fictional work where sickness can be classified easily or author maintains much logic into them. Its a fiction we are dealing with and classification doesn’t have any necessity here. This case isn’t beyond that. But still let’s give a try.

If we are to classify what happened than Villetta Nu most probably had Retrograde amnesia

“Retrograde amnesia affects memories that were formed before the onset of amnesia.”

“Someone who develops retrograde amnesia after a traumatic brain injury may be unable to remember what happened in the years, or even decades, prior to that injury.”

“Retrograde amnesia is caused by damage to the memory-storage areas of the brain, in various brain regions. This type of damage can result from a traumatic injury, a serious illness, a seizure or Stroke , or a degenerative brain disease. Depending on the cause, retrograde amnesia can be temporary, permanent, or progressive (getting worse over time).”

Reference: https://www.healthline.com/health/retrograde-amnesia

“Both large strokes and small strokes can cause damage to the brain. Depending on where the damage occurs, memory problems may result.”(referring Retrograde Amnesia)

Reference: https://www.healthline.com/health/retrograde-amnesia#causes

Note-4: Both Stroke(both small and large) & brain damage happens one main reason is lacking of blood flow & oxygen which might develops Amnesia. Villetta’s one was also developed gradually after getting injured that’s why she was able to remember the word ZERO at first glance when Oghi found her and tried to confront her. And her amnesia wasn’t too serious or extreme.

In actual reality Amnesia is quite rare comparing overall population and it doesn’t works like the many common theories suggest to do so. It’s quite irregular.

Many experiences are saying that aside from getting hit on head or internal mild/serious brain injury/damage, heavy metal poisoning or even news of fathers death triggers Amnesia. Besides,very mild amnesia changes personality at some extents.

References: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2yeozw/serious_people_who_have_had_amnesia_and_recovered/

Note-5: Fiction uses amnesia as its own trope. There’s a common idea among people that only head injury causes AMNESIA because most of the movie or fictional stuffs use this↓ cliché reason while using this trope.

” Oh someone got hit on the head→→suddenly becomes a stranger after getting treatment→→yeah we all can see that he has a thiccck bandage on his/her head→→So yeah it’s amnesia & justified→→he forgot every single thing & starts leading a new life→→Suddenly another head injury recovers everything of him miraculously”

But ↑ that’s not the only reason behind occurring this problem. Actually that ↑ reason is just too common for amnesia in fiction & exactly what I generalized happens most times to change the plot suddenly.

As a Science Fiction or as just a FICTION Code Geass atleast featured it by thinking of different reasoning while maintaining some rooms to interpret atleast plausible logics for it. Otherwise, author would’ve went with the head injury cliché trope

It’s a fiction . And Code Geass isn’t quite a show which follows REALISM perfectly because it didn’t need to do so since the show never established itself as a perfectly realistic show from the beginning like what many other TV show or anime based on realism does.There are plenty of great show which doesn’t follow realism perfectly. Code Geass does its job by balancing between Fiction-Science-Fantasy-Reality and in this case Fiction & Science.

There are many ways a show can think differently. Following every single thing isn’t really necessary here. It works fine when its a fiction . Atleast an amount of thoughts were poured into it before making it happen otherwise the author would’ve come with the cliché one which appears as logical without any thinking because viewers are used to it.

In this case, when the dots get connected , it makes sense & follows logics. Moreover THEORETICALLY it works just fine as the analysis mentioned so far.

Villetta’s Regaining Past Memories

On Stage 23 Japanese rioters broke down the door, accused her of being a Britannian spy. Which was the situation of whole country on that time.. & on stage 24 it seemed like she fought with them and regained her memories before killing the attackers.

So how did she suddenly become capable of remembering everything?

Furstly ,Her brain cells had enough time gap after her injury to recover and become normal when Black Rebellion was progressing. Theoretically in that big time period brain cells would recover and reheal her problematic areas of brains . Besides during this time period she got enough nutrition which might help her organic cells to become healthy again.

Secondly, as mentioned before, she most probably had a Retrograde Amnesia. So casual explanation would be fear and trauma of eleven(Japanese) rioters and losing dear life worked somewhat what Psychotherapy do for Retrograde Amnesia Patients. It triggered her past self who was a soldier thus she regained her memories and since she was a soldier ,it was easy for her to with them.

Reference: https://www.healthline.com/health/retrograde-amnesia#outlook

Conclusion:

Theoretically a shot to the limbs can lead to amnesia caused by a stroke (both small and large) as a result of lack of Oxygen supply in brain cells/Neurons which might occur from from lack of blood flow which might happen from massive blood loss through wound. & the amnesia wasn’t that serious for her actually. Giving her medical attention would’ve easily cured her probably. But it was explained why it didn’t happen.

& that seems to be the case here because we weren’t explicitly shown any injuries on her head like other cliché movies.It works fine .And it was explained in detailed here.

Later getting enough time to recover and getting triggered from fear and traumatic situation she regained lost memories along with new ones.

Falling into amnesia and regaining past memories both follows Consistent logics and the analysis already mentioned how & what are the reasons behind them.

Note-6: summing up the reason behind Villetta’s Amnesia would be

Lethal Wound at Arm

↓

Blood Lose From Veins & Lack of treatment & First Aid

↓

Big Time Gap for getting First Aid

↓

Massive amount of bleeding

↓

Massive Blood loss

↓

Either Lack of Blood Flow & change in blood pressure Or Hypovolemic Shock

↓

Lack Of Blood Flow in Brain

↓

Lack of Oxygen Supply in Brain Cells/Neurons

↓

Small Stroke / Brain damage into Some Extents + Fatigue + Etc

↓

Memory loss(Temporary)

↓

Amnesia(Retrograde Amnesia most probably)

↓

Enough nutrition & Recovery Times for Brain Cells

↓

Traumatic event + Fear of Losing life in rioters hands

↓

Triggering events worked as what Psychotherapy does

↓

Regained old memories while having current memories

What we got was evidences & results. Giving out the explanation wasn’t plausible from what situation the characters into. Besides explaining everything makes a narration boring or it needs a separate narrator such as LotGH had , which system Code Geass doesn’t really follow.

Still, it’s no where near being crass out, moreover it was more refreshing & thought out than the common cliché- head injury . The method was uncommon and not cliché. Viewers won’t find it everywhere. It makes sense when you go through all this analytical statements. Therefore it’s NOT REALLY A PLOTHOLE. At the very least it’s a well thought out use of fictional trope by grounding with the events of the anime, which Sci Fi CAN adapt by using its own method & merits . It also gives room of interpretation like this.

I had fun thinking, exploring and explaining this even though its a very minor plot point in the anime. Still, not less fun exploring since many points about it is pretty ingenious and well tied.