Lightbrand Hey look who's this new guy and why should I care what he thinks. That's probably what I would be thinking when I read the title and open to see a wall of text. But I think this should be a good read for those who are really bored or a huge Code Geass fan or just brooding over it like me. There is a lot of stuff I want to "share" and it'd be great to find others who might feel the same way about this as me. Ah Code Geass what an anime, I can't say I am a big anime fanatic for I only watched a few through my meager life-span. I think I can even count them all. Dragon Ball / Z, Inu-Yasha, Love Hina, Doreamon, Death Note, Detective Conan (stopped long time ago), Pokémon (stopped after Johto), Naruto/Bleach (stopped after timeskip/soul society arc). As a side note I prefer to read mangas which includes most of those above plus a few more, for those mangas I didn't bother to watch their anime counterpart because I realized I can read 5 chapters in less than 10 minutes while an episode takes up 20. As an additional side note, I think Code Geass is the first anime I watched that is not based on a manga or "light novel" or anything, and no I did not watch any Gundams because to my own surprise, I never liked mechas. What set Code Geass apart from all the other animes I've watched at least from my view first came to me when I heard R2 being called the "second season", being a newbie to the anime scene I was not aware that "season" can apply to an anime. So somewhere close to my subconscious but not quite there, I was joking to myself wondering whether there would be a cliffhanger ending in the end of season 1 and have it completely ignored in the majority of the season two premiere, until the last five minutes. The real explanation will then come in the following week in episode two. A classic cliché for Live TV series. Code Geass had done just that almost to the letter. It's a pain in the a** for someone watching on a weekly basis but I get to watch it in a marathon so it didn't bring down my enjoyment because I immediately turned to next episode. There's so much I want to talk about and it's actually affecting me in real life where I can't focus on anything else until I let this out. I had underwent this a couple times before but only one is as "severe" as this, the last time this happened was when I first beat a game where the protagonist's main love interest dies at the end to save everyone. The tragic part was that you were separated from her for 3/4 of the game and whenever they meet it's only for a day or so before something separates them again, a true star crossed lover trope. This probably doesn't belong in a forum as much as it should belong in a journal or something, but because I don't own any Facebook or blogs of the like, there's nowhere else to type this aside from my word processor, more importantly, who would read them? Then again, with me posting this on a forum is a bit selfish since I am in a way "forcing my thoughts" onto you guys and for that I apologize. Alright I think I have addressed the detour that is everything about me let's get on with the show. The biggest thing in Code Geass will have to be its ending; it is irritating to see Lelouch giving his life after spending fifty episodes with him. This goes obvious for those who are major supporter of his actions. Even for those who does not approve of what he had done still have to admit that there is a bond developed between the viewers and the character. If you feel no bond with Lelouch throughout then his death will have no impact on you and with that, the ending itself. I understand for sure there will be people that did not feel a thing regarding Lelouch's death because I myself felt the same way when L, Mello, and Light died in Death Note and I was completely indifferent. Now speaking of Death Note I must sidetrack once again for a bit. I once read this How-to-Read "guide book" thing for Death Note where it contained interviews with the writer and artist for the book. One thing that stuck to me was when the writer mentioned how the style of storytelling is different between those who write complete novels and those who write in a more serialized format. The biggest difference mentioned in the interview was that serial writers can have a lot of flexibility where they can actually write in a week-by-week basis without a clear ending in mind yet. Whereas a novelist pretty much need to have a ninety-nine percent idea on everything before they can even start. The implications are HUGE in regarding to this difference in style of narrative. Upon learning this, thinking back now I realized how much more sense everything seems to make when I keep this knowledge in mind. What does this have to do with the ending to Code Geass? I shall clarify. But before that… If you are a novelist whose worth your name, one of the top concerns you should know is that by the end of the book, all loose ends should have been tied. This goes obvious for any stand-alone novels but even for books such as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, even though the big problem might not have been solved, at least the major conflict within that book itself should be at an end. At the very least, upon finish the readers have to go "okay yeah I'm fine with this even though we haven't caught the bad guy, at least we foiled his plan in this book." instead of "wait isn't X still trapped inside that locker?" Of course these little details can be hand waved by the readers since they are not "game breaking" but as an accomplished writer you'd think twice before even consider having your story to require the readers to "just play along okay?" Then when the grand finale comes, everything needs to be wrapped up in a neat bow, even if the ending is left ambiguous. The difference here being there should only be "one or two" ambiguous points for an ending, everything else needs to be properly given closure. If everything is ambiguous at that point, then it's PROBABLAY not a good idea to end the story there. If that's the case the most common audience reaction upon finish will be to flip one more page hoping to see more then go "wait, that's it? What?" Now here's the shocker, what I mentioned above does not necessarily have apply to any story told in a serial format…or at least in the sense that the audiences are so used to it that they turned to accept it, as a writer you can interpret whether that's good thing or not. Then again, who actually remember the names of any screenwriter as oppose to book authors? I can go to more detail about this but that'd be way off topic. Now what was all that rambling about? Let's get back to Code Geass with the big question! Lelouch dead or alive? It seems to me the screenwriter had made it that Lelouch's death is suppose to be THE centerpiece to the ending, so much so that the rest of the Code Geass world at that point did not matter. Fans know this, those who did not care about Lelouch realized it even sooner that the world is most likely not going to be a better place just because Lelouch is dead, leaving Nunally to be in charge. Yeah in the epilogue everything seemed fine but that is a writer's trick because at that point they are just pushing piles and piles of info into the audience trying to tie up loose ends while the shock of Lelouch's death is still fresh in people's mind. Once again keep in mind what I said about the style of writing, the trick here being that this is a TV series, and television is very good at dumping large amount of information to viewers that will be forgotten just as quickly. The screenwriters are banking on that majority of the audience will be so affected by Lelouch's death that their reaction to the epilogue will be something like "Oh my God Lulu is dead! Suzaku is the new Zero, But he killed Lulu! Orange is now living in an orange farm? He seems happy but damn I can't believe Lulu is dead!" I'm not sure if I got my point across with that example but what I am trying to say is that at that point, our brain is so focused on something that all the explanations will seem to be make sense/acceptable. It is only until later when we realize "wait that's not right" which may be referred to as "Fridge Logic" (Tvtropes, beware.) To me, R2 finale had definitely not tie up any loose ends and it had made no effort to try, and yet it still slide past the audience effortlessly. I will play along to this and this is what I think in simple terms. If this is the grand finale, with all its flaws and questions unanswered, if I were to shut my brains off and accept everything the epilogue had threw at me and play along, then Lelouch being dead is by far the better ending than if he's somehow alive. I'm certain that being male is part of how I view this, as much as I want to include romantic closure and whatnot, but to me in a storytelling wise, if the story is to end here, Lelouch being dead will be one loose end tied if anything else. THIS is the reason the creators said that Lelouch is dead. I'm not even going to say it's my opinion, because I am so certain that if the creators who are capable of writing Code Geass were to share any similar view with me, this will be their reason to say Lelouch is dead and nothing else. There will be so many more questions raised had he been alive. It is just simply a better ending for this pile of mess of a finale. Of course then again if you think about it, they can never, NEVER say "oh Lelouch is still alive at the end" in an interview no matter what, just ponder that for a moment. They can NEVER, it's either no comment, keeping it ambiguous… or dead. The most common theory of how he can be alive is that he took his father's Code, becoming immortal and will spend eternity with C.C. which I can understand might be what most female audience will find a better closure even if they do not support the pairing or whatnot. This theory itself I find to be actually viable in the sense that it can be worked around to be canon if the creators want to ever cash in on more Code Geass merchandise by making a sequel to R2. I think if they were to make a sequel, resurrecting Lelouch will be the simplest task comparatively because enough fans already believe in the Immortal theory due to that whole Ragnarok segment being so out of place and messed up that the ambiguity of what the hell happened there helped the case. So far this theory's only "true" counter from what I've seen is all backed up in real life with the creators rather than in-universe with the characters. Once again if the creators ever want to create a sequel to R2, whether it is to sell more toys or because of fan reaction or whatever, Lelouch coming back to put the world back in place will be the guaranteed scenario. I know the creators are not stupid, they know who the fans want, they know Lelouch is what sells this anime, but at the same time I can understand if they decide not to make third season because honestly it will be really hard for them to come up with any solution to the mess they've left in R2. Resurrecting Lelouch is easy, but coming up with new villains, what to do with Suzaku, Kallen, and overall the state that the world is in will be a really hard case for them to explain. After all that is why they didn't explain them in the finale at all, because they couldn't think of anything, I can't think of anything. In a way it really seemed that they had forced themselves into a corner with the progression of R2. It will truly be a feat if they were to pull off a third season, but then again I'm not sure if the fans will settle for anything that might be full of "a**-pulls" on the other hand though, Lelouch will be back. Put it blandly. If the R2 last episode is the Grand Finale: Lelouch is dead. If the R2 last episode is the Season Finale: Lelouch is alive. To me this is a good enough closure to settle this, whether if you believe there will be a continuation or not this is pretty much the end-all of all debates. I think I was told that there will indeed be another Code Geass but it will be prequel set in ancient Japan or whatever, it makes sense to me why they would choose to do that, if you read this far you probably know why too if you haven't already. It's just the easier method to make more money, of course if that series doesn't do as well who knows they might have to go back into making the true sequel. Thank you for reading this rambling of mine, maybe I might have left out something and didn't go into more detail on what is in my head (I can explain this pretty well verbally) but I doubt anyone will ever want to hear all from me. . Edited 9/7/2013 #1