History Headscratchers / CodeGeassMiscellaneousOne

** Britannia is the agressor, and a ruthless racist authoritarian regime which occupies numberous countries by military force. There is no moral equivalance between them and the resistance whatsoever. As for Lelouch, regardless of his personal motivations, he’s fundamentally on the right side. And in the context of the world history, he isn't even very questionable character - there were many liberation and resistance leaders regarded today as heroes who committed much graver atrocities and could laugh Lelouch in the face for being a whiny pussy. Like for example his agonizing over the Mount Narita avalanche. When you are a resistance fighter collateral damage like this is inevitable, and no real leader would have problem with that. Winston Churchill, one of the most revered figures in modern British history, ordered deliberate bombing of German civilian targets which resulted in tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths. David Ben Gurion ordered the ethnic cleansing of Lydda and Ramle. Tito ethnically cleansed the Italian population from Istra and the German population from Vojvodina. Ask Eastern Europeans what they thought of value of life of German civilian in the occupied countries in 1943. Believe me - they didn't think much.

*** There are a lot of people who have sided with Britannia, and even view Gino as an okay guy, mistaking his [[UpperClassTwit cluelessness]] for [[HarmlessVillain harmless idiocy]], ignoring some of his declarations (he often believed that mass violation of Britannian law was a pretext to a purge) and his [[CombatPragmatist questionable and dangerous battle tactics]]. Not as {{egregious}}, though still suspicious, is the praise Guilford himself gets. While he is honorable and sympathetic, many of his fans mistake his valor for heroism. While he doesn't kick any dogs, he certainly doesn't go out of his way to help improve things, from being the knight of the brutal [[TheBaroness Cornelia]], and eventually being a more benign case of ObstructiveBureaucrat in R2. Evidently, he scored sympathy points after getting geassed by Lelouch (which ended up being out of necessity), almost getting caught in the F.L.E.I.J.A., losing his sight, and finally making it back to Cornelia. That he stands in the way of most efforts towards peace, whether or not by his own design, are overlooked.

*** Supposedly, the Britannian system is based upon the Japanese imperial system from a few centuries ago, when the Emperor would take several wives and concubines, have children by them, and have the children ordered according to age and preference. The heirs were known to marry each other as a way to strengthen inter-clan alliances. The Turkish Ottoman system was likely another influence of the ''Code Geass'' one, where the Sultan would have numerous children by wives and concubines, have them take over provinces as governors/viceroys, and then let them duke it out for the throne once the old king is dead[[note]][[{{Coldplay}} Long live]] [[FanVid the king!]][[/note]] ([[KlingonPromotion or before then]]). Likely, it's a mix of both systems with a bit of the British system thrown in. Taking all this into account, it's likely that Lelouch is 11th Prince (and Nunnally 11th Princess) due to the warring factors of his and his mother's brilliance and favour with TheEmperor, at odds with his mother's commoner heritage. Also keep in mind that Lelouch is 11th Prince, but it's likely that Cornelia, Guinevere, Euphie, and other Princesses are included in the order after each prince (Odysseus, followed by Guinevere, then Scheizel, then Cornelia, then Clovis, then Euphie, then Carine, etc... then Lelouch somewhere down the line). At one point in a sound episode, a brother by the name of Oscar is mentioned offhand by Schneizel as a possible viceroy for Area 11 before Clovis volunteers. Nunnally could be 87th in line for the throne due to the fact that she is considered useless due to her blindness and paralysis, having been bumped down the list after being reinstated (or being there all along, since she was seven when she was cast out and not particularly useful to Chuck). Lelouch, likewise, would be higher than some of his older siblings due to his genius, but lower than others, hence 17th in line whilst there were 21 princes and princesses ahead of him. Carine likely got so high due to her sheer bloodlust - a valued trait in a racist militaristic empire. Euphie probably got by based on being Cornelia's sister, which is probably why Nunnally was 11th princess to Lulu's prince. The number a royal heir is attached to doesn't always match up with their designated place in the line of succession, it would seem.

* How the hell did Rollo survive the FREIA explosion? If he was "covering Nunnaly's shuttle" like Main/ThatOtherWiki says or planned to kill her like my intuition says, either way he would have been well within the blast radius. Even Zero barely managed to Main/OutrunTheFireball in his prototype mech, so how did Rolo do that in his lousy stolen Glasgow?

* Why do people think it was so horrible and bitchy for Kallen to [[spoiler: go and kiss Lelouch]] in R2 episode 22? Come ON, an ActionGirl has ''right'' to have a more sensitive side, so [[spoiler: smooching him]] does NOT make her automatically less BadAss.

*** Supposedly, the Britannian system is based upon the Japanese imperial system from a few centuries ago, when the Emperor would take several wives and concubines, have children by them, and have the children ordered according to age and preference. The heirs were known to marry each other as a way to strengthen inter-clan alliances. The Turkish Ottoman system was likely another influence of the ''CodeGeass'' one, where the Sultan would have numerous children by wives and concubines, have them take over provinces as governors/viceroys, and then let them duke it out for the throne once the old king is dead[[note]][[{{Coldplay}} Long live]] [[FanVid the king!]][[/note]] ([[KlingonPromotion or before then]]). Likely, it's a mix of both systems with a bit of the British system thrown in. Taking all this into account, it's likely that Lelouch is 11th Prince (and Nunnally 11th Princess) due to the warring factors of his and his mother's brilliance and favour with TheEmperor, at odds with his mother's commoner heritage. Also keep in mind that Lelouch is 11th Prince, but it's likely that Cornelia, Guinevere, Euphie, and other Princesses are included in the order after each prince (Odysseus, followed by Guinevere, then Scheizel, then Cornelia, then Clovis, then Euphie, then Carine, etc... then Lelouch somewhere down the line). At one point in a sound episode, a brother by the name of Oscar is mentioned offhand by Schneizel as a possible viceroy for Area 11 before Clovis volunteers. Nunnally could be 87th in line for the throne due to the fact that she is considered useless due to her blindness and paralysis, having been bumped down the list after being reinstated (or being there all along, since she was seven when she was cast out and not particularly useful to Chuck). Lelouch, likewise, would be higher than some of his older siblings due to his genius, but lower than others, hence 17th in line whilst there were 21 princes and princesses ahead of him. Carine likely got so high due to her sheer bloodlust - a valued trait in a racist militaristic empire. Euphie probably got by based on being Cornelia's sister, which is probably why Nunnally was 11th princess to Lulu's prince. The number a royal heir is attached to doesn't always match up with their designated place in the line of succession, it would seem.

*** The DesignatedHero protagonist argument only goes so far. Plenty of straight [[TheRival antagonist]] AntiHero characters have been favored over the protagonist, regardless of whether or not the protagonist is boring. Some of the more notable examples have included [[Manga/InuYasha Sesshomaru]], [[Anime/YuGiOh Seto Kaiba]], and of course, [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Char Aznable]]. CodeGeass simply flipped the script by having the protagonist be the ByronicHero, while at the same time serving as a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] by him having heroic motives and a more sympathetic characterization. And the other aforementioned characters received more than enough screentime to be portrayed and/or act more sympathetically, but just didn't. It certainly doesn't help things that [[CosmicPlaything the universe often has it in for Lelouch when he's trying to do the right thing]], or that the only other characters with any true vision and competence, namely Xing-ke and Kaguya, can be counted with one hand, with the rest impeding any hopes for world peace in one way or another. To put it another way, if not for Suzaku's [[SpannerInTheWorks troublesome interference]] or [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom Ohgi convincing the Black Knights to betray Lelouch based on suspicious evidence]], Lelouch would have never flown [[DespairEventHorizon off the deep end]] and resorted to a [[ThanatosGambit self-sacrificial gambit for world peace]] [[GenghisGambit that hinged on him creating even more destruction]], and leaving the world without his talents in case of another conflict, which is too likely, since it is impossible for humans to cease hating on the currently existing, and to focus all the hate on one person is [[FridgeLogic questionable at best]]. Add to that that many of the undeserving people, including Ohgi, Villetta, and Cornelia, got happy endings, and it's pretty clear why Lelouch gets a lot of enduring sympathy.

*** This is ''CodeGeass''. There's no such thing as a totally "good" character [[spoiler: and if there is, [[KillTheCutie you're]] [[DiabolusExMachina basically]] [[DroppedABridgeOnHim screwed]]]].

** By comparison, in NightmareOfNunnally, [[spoiler:Euphemia]] takes the throne and gives the numbered areas their freedom. There is a considerable amount of transition, and Britannia has to deal with being the object of the world's hatred, but it's a more sensible alternative to this.

** Plus, Lelouch is only playing the role of an autocratic dictator, so conditions after his death could be rather different than the conditions that that follow the death of a real-world dictator. In particular, since he only intends to stay in power for a few months, he can pick and choose who he goes after. For example, he could give his successors a leg up by ruthlessly crushing powerhungry and extreamist groups while alowing moderate and pro-democracy groups to slip under the radar. Also, if he fosters many small pro-democracy revolutionary groups in every contry he might be able to stop any one person from gaining too much power. Additionally, he has the power to force potential revolutionaries to support his Zero plan, via geass.

* In the first episode terrorist attack and steal bbeiological weapons (which turned out to be CC) and then go into a heavily populated area to use civilians as human shields from the pursuing military. At the time the Britannians had 2 choices either allow the terrorist to escape with WMD that would cause the death of thousands or attack the people thnatruiey were using as shields killing them to get to the bad guys. It was pretty much a catch 22 for Clovis at that point and obviously thought that attacking the people the terrorist were trying to hide behind was the lesser of 2 evils. Yet people act like the empire goes around committing slaughter on a whim and for fun. At the same time they tend to give a free pass to the terrorist that stole the weapons and drew the army there, and act like an attack that they provoked was justification for their actions later in the series

*** No terrorist ever has the intention of being caught however the police were already in pursuit by the time we see her there were plenty of chances for them to either ditch the cargo or get to a less populated area before they turned into the ghetto tunnels where Britannia trapped them. Also she did not want to use the gas because it would kill the two of them not because of the safety of the people around them. She was also willing to kill her friends because she thought they might have identified her as a terrorist (I know the saying "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"). She only seemed a little disturbed after the land slide contrast that with Lelouch who was actually devastated. Her view on most of the japans was that they were weak subservient to the Britannians, maybe not as literal as her biological mother but it was the same principle. She thought this because they weren’t fighting like she was and the empire actually had a higher approval rating then the terrorist until the tower. Suzakue did not drug her because it would damage her, what zero douse damages people. They did not trick her into betraying him. They simply asked him to bring him there so they could confront him about the pile of evidence, plus they assumed that she had been keeping information from them which she was. Ohgi seemed to have better morals then her and even though he was used by a pair of evil princes in there insane revenge schemes like she was, he was always much more cuscus and did not have a hand in any mass murder.

*** True, but comapre this to Suzaku, who's doing pretty much the same thing as a death wish only to ''his own people''. Kallen at least has the good sense to pick the right enemy.
** Kallen is a JerkSue BloodKnight that only liked fighting and shows no remorse about killing, she gave Japanese independence as her reason to fight but it was established during her DayInTheLimelight episode that she really douse not like them either because they are week especially her mother(even though she douse gain some sympathy for her). She would literally stab her friends in the back without a second thought if they try and stop her.

* In the first episode terrorist attack and steal biological weapons (which turned out to be CC) and then go into a heavily populated area to use civilians as human shields from the pursuing military. At the time the Britannians had 2 choices either allow the terrorist to escape with WMD that would cause the death of thousands or attack the people thnatruiey were using as shields killing them to get to the bad guys. It was pretty much a catch 22 for Clovis at that point and obviously thought that attacking the people the terrorist were trying to hide behind was the lesser of 2 evils. Yet people act like the empire goes around committing slaughter on a whim and for fun. At the same time they tend to give a free pass to the terrorist that stole the weapons and drew the army there, and act like an attack that they provoked was justification for their actions later in the series

*** Blame the bad writing level of the last arc for failing to bring across Kallen's conflict properly. and the fact that she opposes him right after he seemingly rejects her, without stressing her reasons properly, give some people the (clearly wrong) impression that she is [[WomanScorned trying to kill him BECAUSE he rejected her]], instead of making it properly clear that she is opposing him becouse he started acting (from her, [[LockedOutOfTheLoop un-informed]], point of view) like a monster, and has effectively betrayed everything they ever fought for, and became everything she ever fought against (he takes over Brittania, joins Suzaku, conquers Japan, etc).
*** And her inability to figure out what Lelouch is up to stems from the fact that 1)no one would ever believe that Lelouch would try to take over the ENTIRE WORLD as step one of a plan. 2)Lelouch had given her absolutly no reason to believe in him at that point, and she gave him a chance to explain himself before the mess started, and 3)in order to understand lelouch's actions kallen would also have had to make the rather arrogant (albit, completely accurate, as it turns out) assumption that while lelouch is facing the greatest challenge of his life and having to take on the entire world in battle, he nevertheless pushed her (his LONG TIME BODY GUARD) away, rather then let her help becouse he wants to protect her. so kallen sitting on the sidelines and simply watching an evil tyrent conquer the entire world, clinging to the faint hope that he MIGHT mean well, just becouse she has feelings for the guy, was hardly an option.

*** He didn't have to have noticed Schniezel was there. He should have noticed the [=BKs=], and that should have been enough for him to Geass everybody in the area, including Schniezel and Kanon. After all, the [=BKs=] only ''fired the bullets he kept from hitting Lelouch''. And killing Schniezel while he had his senses stopped by the Geass so that he couldn't speak or anything would have shut down the ability of the mutiny to threaten either him or Lelouch, since he'd have a far easier time sneaking Lelouch out if needed. Really, the scene made the PlotArmor of both Schniezel and the [=BKs=] crystal clear at that point, because Rolo ''killed [[WhatMeasureIsAMook random soldiers]]'' during the escape so that he could evacuate Lelouch. The BKs would have been random soldiers to him, since it's Lelouch he's attached to, not them.

** Lelouch tried to seal himself for eternity with his father, Suzaku tried to kill the Emperor and become the most powerful Knight in Britannia, Nina stood around ground Zero for at least an entire day, The Order decided to enter negotiations with the people who had oppressed and killed them,and everyone else was just trying to bury what remained of the dead. I'd hardly call any of the principle characters reactions normal, and in fact the general public reaction was quite a bit like episode 12 of the first season. As for Schniezel, he was counting on FLEIJA being used from the start, no surprise he wasn't affected by it.

*** There are a lot of people who have sided with Britannia, and even view Gino as an okay guy, mistaking his [[UpperClassTwit cluelessness]] for [[HarmlessVillain harmless idiocy]], ignoring some of his declarations (he often believed that mass violation of Britannian law was a pretext to a purge) and his [[CombatPragmatist questionable and dangerous battle tactics]]. Not as {{egregrious}}, though still suspicious, is the praise Guilford himself gets. While he is honorable and sympathetic, many of his fans mistake his valor for heroism. While he doesn't kick any dogs, he certainly doesn't go out of his way to help improve things, from being the knight of the brutal [[TheBaroness Cornelia]], and eventually being a more benign case of ObstructiveBureaucrat in R2. Evidently, he scored sympathy points after getting geassed by Lelouch (which ended up being out of necessity), almost getting caught in the F.L.E.I.J.A., losing his sight, and finally making it back to Cornelia. That he stands in the way of most efforts towards peace, whether or not by his own design, are overlooked.

** First off, he's the protagonist, so we're automatically going to want to like him and give him the benefit of the doubt. So, we're far more willing to forgive him for doing nasty things than if the story were told from a different point of view. Next off, he's fighting against the evil empire that's busy discriminating against everyone else and trying to take over the world. And probably most of all, he's just plain ''cool.'' I mean, sure he does things that he really shouldn't. He's not necessarily the nicest guy. But he's a [[MagnicentBastard genius]] and is constantly pulling [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome crowning moments of awesome]]. So much of what he does is just plain ''[[RuleOfCool cool]].'' So, while you may not always agree with his methods, he's so cool that much of the time it just plain doesn't matter - or at least you let it slide. He also has a much better attitude about things than Suzaku does. He's a bit narcissistic, but he fully acknowledges that what he's doing isn't necessarily nice. And, as Diethard pointed, ''he gets results.'' Lelouch may be too willing to be nasty at times, but he's definitely cool.

* In the first episode terrorist attack and steal biological weapons (which turned out to be CC) and then go into a heavily populated area to use civilians as human shields from the pursuing military. At the time the Britannians had 2 choices either allow the terrorist to escape with WMD that would cause the death of thousands or attack the people they were using as shields killing them to get to the bad guys. It was pretty much a catch 22 for Clovis at that point and obviously thought that attacking the people the terrorist were trying to hide behind was the lesser of 2 evils. Yet people act like the empire goes around committing slaughter on a whim and for fun. At the same time they tend to give a free pass to the terrorist that stole the weapons and drew the army there, and act like an attack that they provoked was justification for their actions later in the series

** I've always wondered about Suzaku's hatedom, I guess it comes down to [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation interpretation]] right? I see where people are coming from, but i've always seen Lelouch as the bigger asshole, and the main reason people side with him is because he won, if Suzaku and Britannia had achieved peace through their means we might've been cheering for them instead. To me, Suzaku is a well meaning, kind hearted young man who's tainted past won't leave him alone, some would be able to cope had they been in the same position, Suzaku could not, and it's only natrual, after all, [[spoiler: Killing your father at age 10 is not something you get over quickly]]. [[DeathSeeker Suzaku wanted to die so bad]], as a form of redemption, not only that but he wanted die doing something as heroic as possible. What's wrong with that? Lelouch feels the need to litter his plans with pointless [[RuleOfCool theatrics]] just for the hell of it, why not let Suzaku die in a blaze of glory doing what he believes is right? I always though he joined Britannia because he's overcompensating for what happened with his [[spoiler: father]], that happened because he disobeyed the governments rules, and he never wants to let that happen again, but he also wants to free Japan from the slavery HE caused, so he devised a plan, wherby if his suicide attempts failed, he'd try rising through the system, and helping them out that way, to be honest, if it weren't for Zero, that plan might've worked. As evidenced by the falling women in episode 2, Suzaku truly does care about others, and wants to protect his people, he's just got his morals, self imposed or trauma-imposed getting in the way. I found Suzaku to be likeable, as a person, he treats his friends with respect and admiration [[spoiler: With the exception of Lelouch later on but he has a very good reason]] and their one of the only things that can help stabilise his mind. The destroyed visage of Suzaku that we see in R2 is, in my opinion, a complete creation of Zero, yet no one blames him in the fandom. First off, the "Live" Geass that was gifted to him, magically blew the foot off his plans to kill himself, in his mind, Redemption has become completely unobtainable, which means that the spectre of his tragic mistake burned into him from childhood will be there FOREVER, this alone would make one lash out widly at the soul who caused it, in this case, Zero. What's worse, love had finally entered his life, someone who could both accomplish his goal of freeing Japan, and maybe help him let go of his guilt at the same time, maybe then he wouldn't need to kill himself. Lo and behold, who gets in the way? Zero, [[spoiler: he kills Euphie, and not only that, he makes her slaughter the very people Suzaku strove to protect first, then used that massacre as a means of furthering his plans, true it was an accident but he's never told that]]. I don't care who you are, you're gonna be vengeful after something like that. Vengeance was half of Lelouch's overriding motivation after all, and people like him. From that point, Suzaku was all but insane, and I can't defend all he did while like this, he tried to uphold his beliefs, what was left of them, but everything around him got too complicated, too fast, and he was too broken to do anything about it. Suicide was out, so all he had left was his plan of rise through the ranks. He still couldn't bring himself to strip Kallen of her free will however, showing that he is still good deep down. If people can look past Lelouch [[spoiler: murdering hundreds, if not thousands of unarmed civillians just because Shirley died]] then I don't see why Suzaku isn't covered aswell. The guy did horrible things, they both did, but they also wanted peace, both for personal AND ethical reasons.

*** What evidence do you have that their culture was suppressed besides the black knight saying so. People where seen dressing in traditional japans clothing practicing customs and even apparently adapting there social ideas (have you ever seen a 17 year old western girl reacting to having to kiss somebody like they were being forced to lose their virginity). Also the knight I was referring to was not Suzaku are you forgetting that Gilford was also Japanese a knight and became viceroy, yet nobody bated an eye. I think Britannia apprehension around Suzaku was more because he was the son of a former enemy then that he was a former number. And even though Cornelia was the most brutal viceroy and like her brother considered dead civilians collateral damage, she did attempt to evacuate areas they were planning on attacking.

*** I do not understand where the stripping cultures of their individuality argument came from, it was only said by Zero in a speech to terrorists. The Britannian settlement culture seems much closer to Japanese then Western culture like they were trying to adapt to the local setting. Also if everyone born a Number was discriminated against how come an Eleven was a high ranking knight of honor and later became viceroy of the area despite Japan only joining 7 years earlier. It seems much closer to the Japan's system where being born in a place does not make you a citizen but you can become one with full rights. The destruction of the ghetto was from the terrorists using human shields against a pursuing military; it was a dammed if you do dammed if you don’t for the military. Also Cornelia was by far the most brutal member of the family since she was the only one who went on offence. Still I do not think she was racist considering the fact she had an Eleven as her personal knight, she did not like the terrorists. Calling the empire a cancerous blight is a bit harsh

* Kallen is a JerkSue KarmaHoudini with a humongous dose of MoralDissonance. She has a hand in all the major disaster and deaths in the series, in the first episode she lead the Britannian military into a crowded area to use the people as human shields after stealing chemical weapons yet nobody blames her for the inevitable conclusion. Later she sets off a device causing massive landslides and the biggest casualty count at that time including the father of one of her best friends and barley shows any emotion over it. Later she tries to kill a man she knows she can not be killed and he releases a nuclear bomb because of it (granted she did not know about it before attacking him), yet she seems only concerned about Lelouch after it happened. She also showed no qualms about murdering her friends in cold blood if they might have made her as a terrorist. She tries to stab both Lelouch and Shirley in the back and they were only saved by lucky interruptions (in one of the cases it was planed). She is also a BloodKnight that seems to only be in it for the killing sure, she gave Japanese independence as her reason to fight but it was established during her DayInTheLimelight episode that she really does not like them either because they are weak especially her mother(even though she does gain some sympathy for her). The worst thing to happen to her in the series was being captured and her friend considered using EnhancedInterrogationTechniques on her but decided against it because it was to much like something her side would do, yet she still viciously beats him for even considering it after he lets her out. She was also taunted by a JerkAss which people act like is the worst thing to happen to somebody. She never gets punished and she gets a happy ending. Amazing what you notice re-watching the series

* In the first episode terrorist attack and steel biological weapons (which turned out to be CC) and then go into a heavily populated area to use civilians as human shields from the pursuing military. At the time the Britannians had 2 choices either allow the terrorist to escape with WMD that would cause the death of thousands or attack the people they were using as shields killing them to get to the bad guys. It was pretty much a catch 22 for Clovis at that point and obviously thought that attacking the people the terrorist were trying to hide behind was the lesser of 2 evils. Yet people act like the empire goes around committing slaughter on a whim and for fun. At the same time they tend to give a free pass to the terrorist that stole the weapons and drew the army there, and act like an attack that they provoked was justification for their actions later in the series

*** There actually is a bit more to that, Clovis was afraid that they would be able to hones the witch’s powers and use it against them, there was also the fact that losing here would hurt his plan to find out what happened to this dead siblings that were killed by the Japanese setting of the war in the first place. Also keeping something that powerful from the government might be considered treason which is punishable by death. Plus he did care about the people living in area eleven even having a public memorial for solders in that episode; yes he was at a party but the fact he took the time to honor them shows he views them as more then cannon fodder like some of his siblings, Clovis is a lot more complicated then you give him credit for.

** I think that it stems from the fact that asian cultures don't necessarily view gods in quite the same way as western cultures do and the show was made by those from an asian culture. In the West, where religions like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are big, we tend to view God as an all-powerful being who created the world. We also tend to think of God in the singular. In eastern culture, you have people talking about ancestors being gods, the emperors of some countries have been considered gods, and - as Lloyd points out in episode 2 of R1 - asian cultures sometimes believe that gods live in objects (such as [[{{Kannagi}} trees]]). I get the impression that the term god when used by asian cultures has a tendency to mean something more along the lines of a being superior to humans than an all-powerful being like those in the West think of. That being the case, Schneizel would be claiming to be a more powerful being than humans as opposed to all-powerful - and with the ability to basically wipe most of them out, that's arguably true.

** If this troper remembers correctly, Britannia settled the U.S, but there was no revolution, meaning that it essentially got annexed into the Britannian Empire when Britannia decided to [[PinkyAndTheBrain try to take over the world!]]

** This is fairly common, since the Writer and director don't know American or British culture than they just use Japanese culture and combine it with the British culture of the 1800's. OutlawStar and Gundam Wing did this as well

** God yes. I tried to watch this show, having been told to expect Manga/DeathNote with {{Gundams}}. What I got was two brats taking out their {{Wangst}} on each other and everything/everyone around them. Get a therapist, you two.

*** The DesignatedHero protagonist argument only goes so far. Plenty of straight [[TheRival antagonist]] AntiHero characters have been favored over the protagonist, regardless of whether or not the protagonist is boring. Some of the more notable examples have included [[Manga/InuYasha Sesshomaru]], [[Anime/YuGiOh Seto Kaiba]], and of course, [[MobileSuitGundam Char Aznable]]. CodeGeass simply flipped the script by having the protagonist be the ByronicHero, while at the same time serving as a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] by him having heroic motives and a more sympathetic characterization. And the other aforementioned characters received more than enough screentime to be portrayed and/or act more sympathetically, but just didn't. It certainly doesn't help things that [[CosmicPlaything the universe often has it in for Lelouch when he's trying to do the right thing]], or that the only other characters with any true vision and competence, namely Xing-ke and Kaguya, can be counted with one hand, with the rest impeding any hopes for world peace in one way or another. To put it another way, if not for Suzaku's [[SpannerInTheWorks troublesome interference]] or [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom Ohgi convincing the Black Knights to betray Lelouch based on suspicious evidence]], Lelouch would have never flown [[DespairEventHorizon off the deep end]] and resorted to a [[ThanatosGambit self-sacrificial gambit for world peace]] [[GenghisGambit that hinged on him creating even more destruction]], and leaving the world without his talents in case of another conflict, which is too likely, since it is impossible for humans to cease hating on the currently existing, and to focus all the hate on one person is [[FridgeLogic questionable at best]]. Add to that that many of the undeserving people, including Ohgi, Villetta, and Cornelia, got happy endings, and it's pretty clear why Lelouch gets a lot of enduring sympathy.