I'm so happy we are at 2020 talking about Code Geass philosophy. Thanks for this gift.

Whatever you want to think of him, he's better than his father and mother 😂

I had an interesting idea for another sequel to Code Geass someone somehow manages to uncover the truth about the zero requiem and he manages to inform the whole world tearing down everything Lelouch buit just like what Bane did revealing the true about Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight Rises. In this new antagonist mind all Lelouch did was poison the world with a beautiful Lie our antagonist would much rather live in a painful truth. He wants the world to be moved forward by the truth. Or to put it another way our antagonist has the same mindset as adult Simon from Gurren Lagann he is an idealist in a realist world. It's Super Robot philosophy and ideals butting heads against real robot philosophy and ideals.

I really love the diagrams you do. As a visual learner, it made a huge difference in fully understanding your points. Thank you so much for the consideration there.

I love your code geass analysis videos so much. The thing I love the most is how deeply you contemplate the philosophical themes. Such content is not easy to come by. I hope you continue this CG series.

Very well written and thought out video on the subject. It definitely gives me more to think about and a slightly better appreciation of Lelouch's plan. That said I still take issues with it (the Zero Requiem not your video, for the most part). I get the whole escapism aspect of watching fiction but a large portion of the show centers around how Lelouch's plans don't always go exactly as planned and are either thwarted by outside factors or have long term ramifications Lelouch's didnt forsee and thus wasn't prepared for. So for this plan which requires so many things going right and several people keeping several secrets (Lelouch's goal, Susazu's survival, Schnitzels plan and possibly him nuking pendragon, and whether Lelouch truly did all the things people blamed him for) and the fact that alot of it happens off screen takes me out of the experience personally and makes me start questioning the validity of things. Plus I feel even if the truth is lost if the person telling the lies can no longer be considered trustworthy then people may just make up their own truths, possibly ones that paint the person in an even darker light than what they may have been otherwise. There's also the matter of the epilogue kinda throwing away the moral ambiguity of Lelouch and his plan when being narrated by Kallen. I get that she feel in love with him(side note: I'm an avid supporter of Lelouch/Kallen) but it would've been interesting to hear the thoughts of the other Blacks Knights and such that didn't have a high opinion of Lelouch and who didn't agree with his plan. Finally I have a hard time believing things to be that much better than what they may have been shown otherwise. Off the top of my head I assume things like millions of people left with nothing and feel like they have no reason to go on, countless Brittannian soldiers traumatized from being forced to take part in such evil deeds, energy crisis from the sakuradite reserves in japan being destroyed and several unstable nations due to such a drastic change in such a short amount of time. Honestly there were times where I was asking myself if I'm really suppose to care about most of these people by the end. I have more minor gripes but those are the main ones. One good thing I will say about the Requiem is that it's a great wrap up to Lelouch's and Suzaku's character arcs but other than that it's hard to see it more than the insane machinations of two emotionally unstable teenagers too broken by the terrible things they've seen experienced and even took part in and feeling that they lost most of the people closest to them that they felt they had nothing left to live for. Now despite all these criticisms I did greatly enjoy this video and like I said before it's given me alot to think about. I'll definitely be checking out your future and previous content beyond just Code Geass. Keep up the good work man. Also sorry for the rambling.

I maintain that Lelouch was in the right from the beginning. I disagreed completely with Suzaku's philosophy that peaceful surrender is better than fighting for freedom. Maybe that's the American in me but I would not take a hostile take over kindly and whoever tried to strip me of my right to fight would be hated which is Suzaku's position. Lelouch allows once more for people to have a choice to or not to fight and attempts to give Japan freedom. One wouldn't generally think "War. War will bring them peace" because violence begets violence but that is not always the case. Violence at times is the only way to get a point across when it comes to nations with different beliefs. Plus, Zero's plan was righting a previous wrong, Suzaku's wrong which was to give up the freedom of an entire nation in his selfish quest for peace without fighting. He is a stubborn idealist willing to kill for his way of thinking. Meanwhile, there's Lelouch who also selfishly pursues his goals and is willing to kill but alongside countless elevens trying desperately to free themselves from tyranny. In short, I liked Suzaku in acknowledgement that he wasn't a bad person but partially hated him too seeing that he was deaf to the cries of his people. I also liked Zero who in response to seeing the corruption of Britannia sought to help a people that wasn't his and hated knowing that inevitably he would die because there had to be one enemy of all that would bring ultimate peace. My guy was a sociopath, make no mistake, but he was also a genius and I respect that. Anyways, that's my opinion on who has the moral high ground.

man says truth and lies so much you'd think he's talking about persona 4

I love this breakdown of lelouch's actions and such. I'm glad you made the video and I think its an excellent analysis of his method to reaching goal. I gotta ask have you ever played fire emeblem three houses? This video reminded me of another analysis video on a charatcer (wont do spoliers) on there particular characters. I want your opinion or viewpoint on it.

Ok, initial viewing comment. (because I'll probably drop another monolith after I sleep on this) Note: "sin" is used as a shorthand for all the negative implications of lying etc, to make this more readable. I'd love to sit down with you and pick apart your brain, because this one was extremely stimulating. As a conneseur of lies and manipulations, I'll first refer to what a geass was in Lelouch's own words, as they confronted Charles in the world of C. "Geass are wishes" The same applies to lies. They are wishes for the truth to not come to pass. They can be conscious or unconscious (brain safety mechanisms like repressing memories), but they boil down to, as you said it, replacing truth. If we consider the lies cycle you have shown, and we assume that the lies have a positive effect, despite covering the truth... The cycle will reach the breaking point at breakneck speeds on each iteration. The key point in all of this, is the ability to detatch yourself from life itself, from the concepts of loss and gain, or in short become a Symbol, the root cause of each and every lie, and the small amount of people that have access to the truth. The beauty of Lelouch is the fact, that while he would lie and sacrifice anyone, he couldn't fully detach himself upon his first trial, and he failed because he couldn't become the symbol, and that was the victory of Charles in R1. Charles was the symbol of unquestionable power and dominance, in the background working his own way to create a new truth, instead of lies. That's why I refer to the World of C moment. That is the moment, when Lelouch has matured enough to understand his role and power in all of this, to become truly selfless, to become a Symbol himself. So in a way, the missing part of this thesis is the psychology of the root liar. Manipulation and Good Lying come from a point of either believing the lies fully, thus never letting anyone perceive them, or being able to hold two ctruths" inside your head at the same time. The two truths can be seen as the True and Honest goal, as well as the lies that facilitate reaching it. Now, lying for a good cause, is not inherently a "sin" . Ie, withholding crucial information in care for the person who would receive it (introducing a child to the concept of death and that it has claimed a family member), bearing the potential of the truth coming out at some point, and being confronted for the reason of holding it back in the first place. Still... The main problem is that one element of the puzzle is necessary. After you attain selflessness and propagate the cycles of lies all the way towards becoming the Symbol, no matter how good the intentions, everyone who knows of this will have a different opinion and approach to the situation. Thus you need a connecting factor, something that goes beyond lies and truth. And that is genuine conviction. It's not something easily traceable, you can't measure it. Yet a human with genuine conviction, can even turn enemies aware of the truth, into witholders of truth. The final moments of the show, the most heartwrenching scene is seeing all the reactions and realizations that those about to be Executed, as they all, in their own little ways, acknowledge the True Conviction of the Symbol, the lie becomes the truth. Ok, this turned messy pretty fast. As noted earlier, fantastic vid, great food for thought, and need to sleep and re-read my insane ramblings in the morning. Good Night, and Thanks for another Fantastic Video! :)

Love this series. Love your content. Much love from Vancouver

The greatest anime ever

Another excellent video. I really enjoyed it. A great theme and a unique, as far as I have seen, delve into this particular aspect of CG. Maybe get a marker board for future visual representation because the paper is a bit hard to make out sometimes.

This was a really trippy thought experiment. I like it. It is also why I liked Code Geass too (Zero Requiem and Truth/Lies huh).

I really liked this video, the concept is awesome when discussing an anime and it's internal logic viewed from a more technical lense. I only have 2 small criticisms: 1) The script was pretty good, but it still needs some work to be more concise. Discussing relatively abstract and complex stuff should always be done with as little filler (which includes repetition and overly long tangential explanations) and as many simple examples as possible. In those cases, the attention of the viewer might start to wander and the overall theme might become lost in the explanation itself. This was still good, but it could become problematic if you delve into some more complex stuff. That type of stuff just comes with practise, so keep making more videos like this XD 2) The visual representation was good, but it might be better to switch to digital diagrams for a bit more clarity. It doesn't have to be super snazzy, just a few mins in MS Paint would make a world of difference. :) Who knows, if you like it, maybe you could add a few animations, for even more clarity and engagement That all being said, i effing love this style of content, please make more, it's soo cool. I can't wait to see what else you make XD

I liked this video very much and it is rare to get this detail of philosophy in youtube

Did you hear about the ghoul's new daytime talk show? It's called Phantom of the Oprah

This got some matrix type your life is a lie neo vibes to it

For some reason i just want to hear a discussion between Lelouch and Light.

i'm going to reply to 3 of your videos: this one, your last cowboy bebop video, and your thoughts on tokyo ghoul re. my tokyo ghoul re comment is going to be filled with rage, so good luck dealing with that lol with all that said, there's something else that's great about lelouch's plan as well. in r2 episode 17, when suzaku realizes that lelouch was lying to him about euphie and shirley again, he says this: "you're lying, aren't you? lelouch, there's only one way to redeem yourself for those lies: turn your falsehoods into the truth." lelouch is a liar, and a darn good one at that. he lied to the people of japan that he was going to free them from the tyranny of britannia, when in reality, he wanted to create a world where nunnally could be safe. where she could have a stable future. he also wanted to get revenge on his father and find out who killed his mother. lelouch has lied to his followers countless times, often using them as pawns in his schemes. he pretends to be this messianic, heroic figure in order to accomplish his goals. so then, why shouldn't he turn this ruthless pragmatism into the truth? by that i mean, why shouldn't he admit that he is no hero, but he is instead a villain? why shouldn't he turn this lie that he is a hero to the truth that he is a villain? in his zero requiem, lelouch pretends to be a villain. he enslaves the world under his rule, destroying all that oppose him and unites the ufn, black knights, and britannia together against him. and then zero, the symbol of justice, kills him and frees the world. lelouch frees the world and is seen by those who know the truth as a hero, but he only becomes a hero... by becoming the very thing he wished to destroy. he proved to suzaku that he is a true knight of justice, but he did so in a way that was still villainous. the zero requiem is not just a great plan in the sense that zero, schneizel, and nunnally are the new rulers of the world after lelouch's reign, but it is also a great plan in the sense that it's a brilliant closure to lelouch's and suzaku's character arcs. lelouch turns from a selfish man whose only concern was his sister and friends and nobody else to a self-sacrificing man who gave up everything for the sake of the world. suzaku turns from a man who wishes to die for killing his father and concerned with looking good and meaningless ideals to a man who realizes that results matter the most and atones for the sin of killing his father not through death, but through life. i know i say this too many times, but goodness gracious, i love code geass so much

Just please continue the series I honestly don’t know how they will return it because a world at peace is a hard plot to overcome

I love this show

I love how I’m watching this to learn how to lie better

Lies are like accumulating debt

Wow this was pretty fucking good

One of the best way to escape this is by creating a lie that is also true. The tell only the truth from that point onwards, the one connected to the created truth. so that if there are any investigation into this truth the name of exposing you as a liar, all they would fine is the truth you created. But such a lie would have to properly planned so that no one dwell on it.

There is not one truth, because perseption of truth depends on observer, it's subjective to him. There are as many truths, as observers involved.

What, in your opinion, was the worst point in the series? I really hated how they treated Nunally's return at the end of the second season, I think the decoy ship wasn't even mentioned, I had to google the CG wiki in order to find out what happened.

It's actually really hard to follow, and keep attention when I am still after 15 minutes not sure where are you going with it. And I would oftentimes appreciate more examples for what you say

Suzaku is the utilitarian lelouch is deontological suzaku chose to stop a war wanted by the people causing a small population (japan) to have their hapiness sacrificed for the bigger population (britania) lelouch wanted to give hapiness to the inocent even at the cost of way more attackers

This some big brain logic

What would happen if in your last lie you tell the truth even though everyone is under the assumption it will be a lie? Would then everyone think the lie that was supposed to be told the truth?

All hail lelouch

It'd be interesting to see your thoughts on the movie. It really is something that more or less has to be taken separately from the rest of the series, given its implications as a piece of media altering the original series' story. Fortunately the creators outright said you can consider the movie and tv version entirely separate. Not to say it has as much to say on its own as the series did, but I don't think it's bad enough to pretend it didn't exist, like the matrix sequels or other media pieces like that. It does have a simple critique on Zero Requiem, that being Lelouch flipping the world on its head actually screwed a lot of people over as well. Sure, it was probably a net positive, but there you go. If any future CG media comes out, I hope they keep examining that idea more deeply than the movie did.

While I agree that much Code Geass revolves around the concepts as you described, I disagree about the role of the Requiem or in fact the last few episodes. I will take us back to Rollo and the unmasking of Zero to prove my point. There were no fewer than four great lies that gave been operative to this point: 1) The role of Rollo in Shirley's death, 2) Lelouch's hatred and wish to kill Rollo, 3) Zero's identity, and 4) Lelouch's true intentions regarding the war. Schneizel reveals the last two lies and exposes the truth of Lelouch, and then under the strain, Lelouch reveals the lies that he and Rollo have told one another. This is where I believe the change occurs. Lelouch has not been served well by the lies he has created, and this leaves him alone, isolated, and preparing for death. Rollo is the one who shows the way forward and provides the ethical change. He rescues Lelouch in spite of the truth, and in his extended monolog he reveals all. He accepts reality and the consequences for all of his lies, but he also embraces the truths that have been exposed. In this instance his geass powers act as a form of hypnosis, and while Lelouch will not remember his words, Rollo is speaking directly to the unconsciousness that would still be active and processing sensory perceptions. We find Rollo confessing everything, including the truth that even with Lelouch's hatred, he is still the only person that Rollo considers family and so Rollo is willing to die for that truth in repayment for the lies. This brings us to the thought elevator and the destruction of Charles. Lelouch makes common cause with Suzaku based on a limited revelation of truth and it is enough to motivate them to broach the thought elevator and confront Charles. We again find characters who built an empire on lies and illusions, but this time Lelouch serves the truth, which we see in a brief flash to the image of Rollo. Lelouch also accepts the truth, but the heads of the empire insist on serving lies, and C.C. breaks with the seeing that truth serves better. Lelouch having destroyed the Emperpr ascends the throne, and reveals the truth of his powers, and embraces the monstrosities that he must commit to reach his goals, including becoming worse than his father in the pursuit of honorable goals. He hesitates just once when confronting his sister, but chooses again to operate in truth. He then reveals his brother's internal lies and destroys the propagandist who helped him spin his lies as Zero to the world. At the Requiem, Lelouch shows the truth of Zero. Zero was ever an illusion or mask that could have been anyone. To make this true, we see Lelouch strip Suzaku completely of his identity as a human being and Suzaku's will acceptance of tgis penalties as the price paid for his own lies. With the final moment of Lelouch's life, we see him destroy all of his own carefully crafted lies to his younger sister. Lelouch does not reveal every fact, but in the end he leaves behind only the cold hard truth. He does his best to strip away the lies, conspiracies, snd deceit leaving only the cold unvarnished truth. C.C., Kallen, Jeremiah, Suzaku, and Nunallie are the only ones who are privileged to know the price he paid to kill the lies. In the end it is not a well crafted lie that becomes the "new reality" but rather the restoration of truth to its superlative position that wins the day. And if Lelouch survived the Requiem and traveled with C.C. does that base the Requiem in a lie throwing the new edifice onto the same shifting sands upon which the old order was based? No. Lelouch vi Britannia the Emperor is dead, as is Lelouch Lamperouge. He is now reborn a different man who is free of the lies and burdens of his past, which is why he would be driving a cart in humble peasant garb. This is now his truth.

Do you think something like this is possible in reality? The entire world united in a common hatred against a single source (1 or a select few elites)

So what do you think of death note

WOHOO 100th like.

First time i check out from one of your videos. The philosophy and ethics of code geass, its characters and their actions are always fun to discuss but the section about what is truth, what are lies. How everyone lies and that within itself is truth because its a shared false perception and its paradoxical coexistence is pointless. I don't see or understand what it has to do with code geass. Maybe there is a larger point but i had to stop at 16:28 because i was falling asleep. Again, i love discussing the ethical dilemma presented from this anime but i found the discussion presented in the video pointless. I percieve it as meaningless rambling.

Hey viral what did u think of the most recent movie

Funniest part is how he was actually immortal and fake martyred himself as the villain and then left with c2 when everyone thought he was dead