So where does this leave Euphemia? A good woman doing the right thing, or someone so privileged and naive that she can only try to do something good but fails to understand why it wouldn't help? What if Lelouch didn't have that accident with Euphemia, and had disbanded the Black Knights and renounced to his Zero identity, bending to this little "breathing space" given by Britannia?

Oh my god i just spent the last few hours thinking about this after i got this ask because it’s actually a difficult question to answer. TL;DR: she’s kinda both.

First of all, I’m going to revise some things I’ve said earlier after consideration. One thing I want to take back is how I compared Suzaku to Martin Luther King jr and Lelouch to Malcolm X. I actually think that’s wrong now upon reflection. I’d actually compare Lelouch to Malcolm X and Euphie to Martin Luther King. Suzaku I’m going to compare to Barack Obama (until his big change of heart at the end of the series of course).

This is how I see it. Lelouch is for the destruction of empire and oppression by any means necessary (like Malcolm X). As he says, he just wants results. He wants the oppressors to pay. He isn’t for violence per se, just like Malcolm X isn’t for violence, but he does see violence as a means to an end. He recognizes that nonviolence will not work against a violent enemy—just like Malcolm X. Suzaku, on the other hand, not only opposes the use of violence, but decides to assimilate into the system and wants to move up the system to “change it from within.” Like Obama, what winds up happening is he doesn’t really create change at all, and his actions hinder Lelouch’s greatly. In fact, he helps the system preserve itself and works on its behalf, even though he privately opposes it. Also like Obama, Suzaku engages in acts of violence on behalf of the system itself. Euphie, however, like Martin Luther King Jr, is for real social change and actually acts against the system but nonviolently. She is not really against Lelouch although their methods do run counter to each other—as Lelouch says, she “defeated” him—or so he thinks at one moment. It’s almost like Code Geass inverts the narrative of the civil rights movement. Instead of having the nonviolent way of revolt winning out and oppressive forces co-opting this for an opportunity to placate the masses, Malcolm X’s method perseveres and winds up triumphing. Which might be what Euphie’s death actually symbolizes. But the show always honors her vision for peace and her role as a mediator and her strength as a peaceful activist. Euphie in my view, is the one character who never becomes corrupt. Ever. She represents what Martin Luther King represented: peace and faith in humanity.

But to me this is also her weakness. She has too much faith in the oppressors. She has too much faith that if she can stop the violence against oppressed people and remove them from the situation that this will be enough—she underestimates I think the oppressive forces of Britannia and doesn’t realize she’s playing with fire. And I think Euphie’s new Japanese state is not enough. It would not solve all the problems. Britannia is after world domination, after all.

On the one hand, though, your questions about Euphie have made me think a lot about privilege and what should we do with it. Should we always refuse it every way we can even if we can use it to assist other oppressed people in furthering the cause? Like, to provide an example: Schindler in Schindler’s list. Schindler is a non-jewish store owner. He uses his privilege to smuggle Jews out of Nazi Germany and save their lives. But what if he just outed himself as against Nazi Germany and took up a machine gun and tried to join the underground rebellion against Nazi Germany—or just tried to kill as many nazis as he could. He probably would have saved a lot less people. Euphie reminds me of Schindler in a way. She’s trying to get the Japanese people out of harm’s way. She’s using her status to do what she thinks is right.

The hard part is that, unlike Schindler, Euphie has a position in the government. She’s a figurehead without much power, but she’s still in it, and unlike Lelouch, she doesn’t relinquish her title or anything—and in fact uses it to try to enact change. But it’s also true that, after Lelouch relinquished his title, what good did it do for oppressed people like his disabled sister who he did this in the name of? Are we being self-righteous when we do acts like this? Like those rich dudes who start living on minimum wage or give away all their money and live in poverty because, supposedly, they’re in solidarity with poor people? What good does that do in the end? Maybe if they acted like Euphie they could actually accomplish more.

But then we come back to what I brought up before. That privileged people may not know enough to really help from that position of privilege. You have someone like Euphie who is very smart and capable and does all she can, but even her vision is incomplete and I would agree a little naive and perhaps actually counterproductive. Her privilege is, of course, what distinguishes her from Martin Luther King a lot. I think Euphie does fall short in negating her privilege (especially when you consider her relationship with Suzaku)—but it’s also true that her abilities to help which are very different from Lelouch’s abilities, would probably not help anyone in the Black knights were she to join. So maybe there is a way to be in the system and change the system…but if there is it’s very different from what Suzaku attempted. You’d have to be more like Euphie, working with people like Lelouch to completely alter the system and not be opposed to those who use violence even if that’s not your method and not be opposed to doing what you can from your position to enable them and help them. But you’d have to be, unlike Euphie, not naive or unaware of any privileges you’d have, and you’d have to be, unlike Suzaku, not committed wholly to “change from the inside” and not ideologically opposed to violence. And you’d have to be ultimately for the system being dismantled. And you’d have to be, unlike Suzaku, impervious to assimilating into the system or being corrupted by it. Tall order for sure.

So Euphie’s position and her some aspects of her methods aren’t without merit. But yeah I think her short-comings are about her misapprehension of the oppressor, and how they would co-opt her achievements to continue their oppressive rule, which is arguably what happened after Martin Luther King Jr’s work. And her incomplete vision about the system and the future. And also, her inability to properly appreciate her privilege and negate it enough.

Those are my thoughts at the moment. They may change… It’s a complicated subject for sure.