Code Geass Episode 5: Discussion!

[gods-debris.livejournal.com]

Episode 5: 皇女と魔女
The Imperial Princess and the Witch










We begin by seeing Cornelia taking control of Area 18 with her army. For whatever reason I always somewhat felt that Lelouch had some sort of a similarity with her. Well, at least for this episode they were both introduced with a fiery entrance (at least Zero was shown to the public that way in the last episode). Cornelia has decided to take control of Area 11 and avenge the death of her brother, Clovis. Her goal? To find Zero!

Lelouch returns home to see a familiar face of someone whom he thought died via bullet to the brain. I guess I'd be a little surprised too. I mean, he did watch her die in front of him. There was a bullet in her head, after all. She survived and there's not even a scar to show she was ever shot. At any rate, it's nice to see that Nunnally and C.C. are getting along pleasantly—except she's under the assumption that Lelouch is marrying her. I gotta say, though, I didn't get the feeling that Nunnally really believed the breaking of that cup was legit. Unfortunately for Lelouch he doesn't get to have a lot of his questions answered by the mysterious C.C..

In other news poor Jeremiah has lost his leadership due to the whole "orange" incident. No one trusts him after he let Zero escape and even attacked his own men claiming they were disobeying his orders. For those wondering what "orange" meant, Lelouch claims it was just a casual remark that some people will want to know the meaning of and others will begin to analyze what it does mean. Suspicion. Luckily for Suzaku, due to the whole ordeal they acquitted that there was not enough evidence to charge him with the murder of Clovis, so he was found innocent! Other than that other terrorist groups are making a ruckus because of the whole Zero thing, thinking it's time to revolt; even the Japanese that Toudou is a part of wants to act now, but Toudou seems to be very patient and he wants to wait and not get caught up in the whole Zero thing.

Anyways, is it just me or is this entire anime built on lies? When Suzaku meets Euphemia for the first time one of the first thing she says to him is a lie. She's being chased by bad people? Moreover she lies about who she is—well she omits the fact that she's the princess Euphemia and just tells Suzaku that she's Eufie. However, I get that she did that so she could see who he was on a different level. For example when Suzaku stepped in when some Britannian soldiers were creating a ruckus with an Eleven. He took a lot of heat from the Britannians. Later he stepped in when there was a coup d'état against Jeremiah, which later caused Euphemia to step in and stop the fight using her royal power. Maybe it was a test for Suzaku because she knew who he was when they met, I believe. Either way, Lloyd knew the entire time, that bastard!

I gotta hand it to Lelouch, though. He put Geass on a girl to test how long Geass stays on a given person for. Every day at the same time she goes to the same spot and carves in the wall the same image. Even C.C. is impressed.

Suzaku is attending Ashford Academy! :D

Next time: 奪われた仮面
The Stolen Mask

P.S. I will be deleting previous image batches from my flickr account within the next week, save for this one.

Comments

Re: MAJOR SPOILERS

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

The only thing that really changed with Suzaku and Euphie when they became an official couple is... well, they admitted they were a couple

Yeah, I just wish we had gotten more time with them after this. I can't remember late R1 so well right now but as I recall, the Euphinator incident happens so soon after the declaration of love that they basically got no time together as an official couple.
This is not a complaint about quality, I suppose, as the situation is obviously supposed to be part of the tragedy. Once they finally admitted their love to each other and could actually maybe enjoy everything about being a couple, Euphemia died tragically. I think this is part of why it hit Suzaku SO hard.
I just wish, as an audience member, that I could have seen more of them together post-confession.

Re: MAJOR SPOILERS

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I'd say that's what fanfic is for, but Suzaku/Euphie fanfic is surprisingly uncommon for a pairing that seems reasonably popular. It mostly shows up as a side pairing in Lelouch/whoever fic, instead of getting much focus on it itself.

Re: MAJOR SPOILERS

[otakukeith.livejournal.com]

I think Sunrise has a phobia about showing established couples being happy together. You see it a lot in Gundam - if people's relationships aren't messed-up and wrong (Kira/Fllay), the two spend most of their screentime apart (Kira/Lacus), get broken up soon after being established (Athrun/Cagalli), or one of them dies before they have a chance to just be together for more than an episode or two (Shinn/Stellar, Kamille/Four)

In the same way, they seemed to wilfully resist actually pairing Lelouch with anyone, probably so no-one would stop watching because they didn't get their ship and so they could push all possible pairings in supplementary materials/merchandise. Shirley gets shanked right after getting her memory back for the Nth time, C.C. loses her memories after the sorta-declaration in C's World, Kallen and Lelouch are constantly interrupted...

This obviously isn't limited to Sunrise - anime in general loves the Last Minute Hookup trope (cf. Escaflowne, every harem anime ever, etc.). The reasons suggested above aside, I suspect it's because it's felt that there's less drama/conflict in people being happy together. However, I think there's a lot of mileage in showing an 'established' couple dealing with conflict together rather than dancing around each other or having misunderstandings. I remember the creator of the webcomic Megatokyo saying that he wanted to write beyond the 'declaration' portion of a relationship.

Re: MAJOR SPOILERS

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Sunrise seems to have come from the same school of relationship related drama as Joss Whedon and his ilk.

But I actually agree with you in the end, which is why I wish there was more fic for the pairing itself, instead of just as subplots.

Re: MAJOR SPOILERS

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

I know this reply is ridiculously late in Internet Time but...

a. Well observed!

b. The reasons suggested above aside, I suspect it's because it's felt that there's less drama/conflict in people being happy together. However, I think there's a lot of mileage in showing an 'established' couple dealing with conflict together rather than dancing around each other or having misunderstandings.

I feel the same way, but I've been so conditioned by the conventions of fiction that I'm usually caught off-guard. When I was watching The Office (US) I thought "Pam and Jim could never get together. It'd be boring." The writers ended up getting them together after a few seasons and it has only worked to the show's benefit.
It was also why I found KareKano/His and Her Circumstances so refreshing. It's a 26-episode romance series and the main characters are together in the first few, and the rest of the show is them developing the relationship and dealing with hurdles while remaining in love. It really highlighted what I find irritating (and usually lazy) in typical romance fiction, relying overly much on "WILL THEY OR WON'T THEY (of course they will but we'll keep drawing out the inevitable forever)" or "Ok, they're together, but NOW IT'S WACKY MISUNDERSTANDING TIME! Because realistic relationship tension can never be interesting; she has to think he's a cheater/jerk/criminal/etc even though he's innocent!"