I believe this post should begin with a clarification: I don’t consider Code Geass a story imbued with deep philosophical ideas. In all honesty, I find the entire series entirely fabulous and unabashedly silly, and exactly why I unironically love it. I am, however, without irony, a fan of Lelouch and C.C.’s dynamic in the series.



This is not a shipping manifesto. I don’t ship them romantically, although I can say that in terms of writing, their relationship is written with romantic undertones. That’s not the point. I love the dynamic of Lelouch and C.C. because, in terms of engaging to political question, I consider them a good model to Hannah Arendt’s concept of freedom and equality. For those who are acquainted with Arendt’s political thoughts, it’s an outlandish claim, and I can see that, but please humor me on this.

Freedom, according to Arendt, is the capacity of humans, as a collective, to create something new. The American Revolution is a manifestation of this freedom not because of the American liberation from the then British Empire, but because of how the founding fathers treated each other as equals, participating in this public political realm where they have sustained dialogue, sharing thoughts to how they can create a new republic, and to finally institutionalize that freedom.

Freedom is rooted on the Arendtian concept of natality. “Birth” is not simply about the biological process, but is based on her definition of homo sapiens. Unlike animals, humans are distinct because we are all different. In our capacity to think, to speak, to do action based on our thoughts, no human existence will be the same. That’s what frees us from the nature’s “circle of life.” The moment we are born, we already changed something. The heterogeneity of our history is born out of the fact that we are all “contingent and innovative,” and this is where our true freedom lies.

Freedom requires equality and the exercise of freedom is power. A supposed act of “freedom” that is not grounded on equality is not power, but violence. Freedom is always deeply connected to political activity, and hence is connected to the public realm. This public realm is based off the Greek concept of polis, a close knitted society where they participate directly when it comes to politics, where they communicate with each and work together as equal men. A great example of this in the American society, according to Arendt, are the town hall meetings, where a person can participate in politics as a man among men, as a citizen among citizens. As the American Revolution is a manifestation of that freedom, it’s also already flawed. The presence of slavery in the American society is its fundamental flaw. The greatest offence of slavery is not that it has taken away liberty, but the taking away of even the possibility of fellow men to fight for their freedom, since they are not permitted in the public realm.

This freedom and equality, since they are deeply connected to the distinct capacity of humans to think (in the perspective of others, and to judge what they think through dialogues), is what makes people fully alive.

(Hannah Arendt is more subtle in her political thought so everything you think is flawed in this concept is probably because of my misinterpretation.)

So, why is the relationship of Lelouch and C.C. a good model to this Arendtian concept? We all know that the entire basis of their relationship is partnership. They are each other’s accomplice. Their collaboration, their contract with each other, is also what sets Lelouch’s journey to create something new. With the power that C.C. gave Lelouch, ironically the power of violence, Lelouch became fully alive. When C.C. asked Lelouch if he hated her for giving the geass, he said no. He chose his own path, the realization that he now can have the freedom to change something, the capacity to create something new, is what made him fully alive. For that, he was thankful.

At the end of the series, C.C. finally realized that she just didn’t want to accumulate experience, but to truly live. For all the years she has existed, she’d never met someone like Lelouch. What’s the difference? She wasn’t treated something special. Not a goddess, not a witch, not anything but a fellow person, someone you can stand on equal footing. If it means, for Lelouch, to turn into a warlock to emphatically say that C.C. is not alone, that someone can stand next to her as equal, he is willing to be one.

More than anyone in the series, no one knows Lelouch more than C.C., and no one knows C.C. more than Lelouch. They know their secrets, their pasts, and although they did hide things from each other, they express their thoughts with each other as well. But that’s really not the point I want to make here. The thing here, to see each other as equal is a fundamental part of their relationship; it’s what binds them together. C.C. will not have that more open relationship with Lelouch if he started treating her as only a witch, something you only fear, or a goddess, something you only admire. C.C. is achingly human in front of him, because despite his attitude, that’s what she is to him.

Lelouch is not just Zero to C.C., he is not just the Emperor, he is not just the brother. He is, as she is to him, achingly human.

Episodes 15-16 of R2 really embodied this fundamental dynamic between the two. Everything is off, everything became different the moment C.C. treated Lelouch as her master. I also love that little detail they put when Lelouch accidentally cut C.C.’s finger. I like to think that when Lelouch put a bandage on C.C.’s ring finger, is to reemphasize the mutuality of their contract, that like marriage, they are bound to each other, forever, until death do they part. In this case, since C.C. remains an immortal, their contract is perpetual. Which is also a different way of saying that C.C. will never be alone.

Their relationship is this: you value the essence of life, not because of the presence of death, as C.C. finally relearned. You value life because you are alive, and it means there is always something new to experience, because you can share it with others. Because you will never be alone in your thought. You will always have that someone you can have a dialogue with, someone you can share your thoughts with, someone you can make something new with. That when everything is said and done, history really doesn’t repeat itself. And that is freedom, that’s what makes you fully alive.

To quote Lelouch:

“A life without no changes can’t be called life. You can only call it experience.”

What about the fulfilment of C.C.’s wish?

At the end of the series, the camp that argues Lelouch isn’t really dead dead believes so because he hasn’t fulfilled C.C.’s wish yet. He didn’t make C.C. smile yet. I disagree. Lelouch fulfilled her wish. Look at how happy she was at the final clip of the series, when she was having a conversation with Lelouch:

That was a genuine smile. But, then again, to smile is not her real wish, right? Correct. C.C.’s wish is not to die. It’s also not to smile. It’s to be loved. We know this. Even so, Lelouch still fulfilled her wish.

She was loved.

Again, according to Arendt, love is the most apolitical human force. Here, Arendt refers to the love born out of craving. This love in the form of intimacy/craving is fatal, because it’s an expression of escapism, a form of hiding from the problems of society. It’s fatal, because it has the capacity to destroy the public realm, where freedom and equality lies. With Lelouch’s love to Nunally, he destroyed his goal to create a new future, a society with no hierarchy. If not for Rolo, he would not have survived. I would argue, in this case, that Lelouch, more than C.C., seeks intimacy with Kallen the most. Between the two of them, Lelouch loves Kallen, based on the Arendtian definition of love. In two instances, whenever Lelouch lapses in his desire for a different political community, whenever he wants to hide from society’s problem, he seeks intimacy from Kallen. This love is born out of loneliness. More than anything else, it’s a thoughtless action because it reduces a person’s ability to tell what is right and wrong, to maintain the equality in the public. This intimacy that he seeks from Kallen short circuits both of their capacity to communicate with each other as equals. It is without the presence of reflection. It’s a rejection of wordliness. Particularly in his love for Kallen, she is only a phantasm, where he only sees and tries to feed his own craving, and not the person in front of him.

Amor Mundi, or love of the world, is entirely different. It’s a form of understanding with what happened in this world, reconciling the self with the world as it is. It’s an expression of human activity for the the continued creation of human wordliness where we can live together as equals despite our differences. Amor Mundi is Arendt’s articulation of a different love that is not meant to destroy, but to build, to maintain our humanity.

The paradox of Amor Mundi is that it requires a form of distance. To express Lelouch’s attempt to maintain the human wordliness, to re-establish a political community based on equality, freedom, civility and friendship, rather than hierarchy, he has to let go of his desire for intimacy, his craving, with Nunnally, and yes, with Kallen. To seek for their love is to reject their humanity. Hence, why Nunnally had to keep asserting who she is and what she truly wishes to Lelouch, in the same way why Kallen also had to assert herself in front of Lelouch during his lapse of judgement.

So how did Lelouch fulfill C.C.’s wish? He gave her the love of the world. He gave her an answer on how to love the world. Slavery, genocide, isolation, war, pain, betrayal, rejection: C.C. is the embodiment of the complex and contradictory world we live in. How can you love an existence that seems to mock the essence of life? Love is not just between the person and the beloved, but a recognition of the space between them, that the other is not the same as you, and still to love the entirety of who they are. C.C. is what happens when we forget to love the other in a way that we recognize their differences, to see life in the perspective of others, she is what happens when we strip the world of humanity. Lelouch is the only one in the series who embraces (metaphorically) C.C. not despite of who she is, but because of who she is. Thus, he doesn’t hate snow, he finds it beautiful. As the Zero Requiem is his expression of his love of the world, it’s also his expression of love to C.C., our world as it is.