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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 8049404" data-attributes="member: 79428">I'm doubtful how many people will be familiar with these examples, so I'll try to keep them brief as I can.The setting of the series Code Geass is one where the greatest national superpower, Britannia, is in the process of conquering the world under its ruler, Emperor Charles zi Brittania.Of the many characters affected by the actions of Britannia, three in particular stand-out:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lelouch vi Brittania aka "Zero". Exiled prince of Britannia. As a child he witnessed the political assassination of his mother, the former Empress Marianne, as well as the crippling and blinding of his younger sister, Nunnally. His father, the Emperor, sent Lelouch and his sister away to live with the family of the Prime Minister of Japan only a few short years before launching a successful conquest of Japan, after which a sympathetic noble family aided Lelouch and Nunnally in going into hiding so that the world at large would think they were dead. As an adult Lelouch is motivated by a desire to kill his father, discover who was behind the death of his mother, and make the world a safer place for his sister (at one point admitting that, back when he feared he'd never be able to accomplish these goals, he was increasingly contemplating suicide). As part of this he has usurped control of a Japanese anti-Britannian terrorist organization now known as the Order of the Black Knights under the masked persona of Zero. He possesses a power called Geass, which allows him to impose one undeniable order upon anyone who he looks into the eyes of, though he can only use this power on a given individual once (said Geass orders can range from very specific instructions, a command that the affected immediately commit suicide, and even "Be my slave").<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Are you just going to sit back and wait for someone else to defeat Britannia? Who?! You think if you wait long enough, some day the right chance will finally come? Don't be naive! If we don't stand up and do it ourselves, that some day will never come!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Those with power...fear us! Those without power...seek us!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"What do you do when there is an evil you cannot defeat by just means? Do you stain your hands with evil to destroy evil? Or do you remain steadfastly just and righteous even if it means surrendering to evil?”</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"So as not to waste the blood that has already been shed, we have no choice but to shed even more blood."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"It was not I who was wrong. It was the world!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Shut up! I did what I had to do. People lie to survive. No one is blameless!"</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Suzaku Kururugi. Son of the last Prime Minister of Japan before Britannian conquest and childhood friend of Lelouch. As an adult Suzaku joined the Britannian military as an "Honorary Britannian" and hopes that by advancing his career he'll eventually be able to reform Britannia from the inside and win back the rights of the conquered Japanese. Lelouch approaches Suzaku early on, hoping to win him over to his Order of the Black Knights without using a Geass command to force Suzaku's compliance. Instead, Suzaku chooses to fight as the greatest of the Black Knights' enemies. Suzaku's greatest secret is that he is the reason for the fall of Japan to Britannia; when he learned as a child that his father planned to fight Britannia to the last, even if it meant Japan was completely annihilated in the process, he took a knife and stabbed his father to death for the sake of preventing anymore loss of life. This decision has haunted himself ever since; he harbors an intense feeling that he deserves to die for what he did, and in fact his supposed bravery and heroics in combat are subconscious attempts to recklessly throw himself into a situation where he will be killed (realizing this, Lelouch eventually "curses" Suzaku with the Geass command "Live."). As the series progresses Suzaku's belief in his ability to achieve reform develops from naivety to a ruthless ambition to advance his career and political influence as quickly as possible, particularly after Lelouch unintentionally imposes a horrific Geass order upon his half-sister and Suzaku's beloved, Sub-Viceroy Euphemia li Britannia, that results in Lelouch being forced to mercy kill Euphemia just as Suzaku was approaching to subdue her and take her to safety.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Denying everything in our society is pointless! Once I make Britannia trust me, I'll have the power to change it!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"A soldier must always follow his orders! I made rules that I need and have to live by!"'</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"You have to gain society's approval to get the power to change it."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"A victory won through dishonesty is no victory at all."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"I prefer the logic of systems to individualist emotions."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Just want you to ask yourself: when you gain results the wrong way, what are you left with in the end? Only dark regret and a deep emptiness that have nowhere to go."</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Kallen Stadtfield aka Kallen Kozuki. Though technically a member of a lesser Brittanian noble family, Kallen is secretly the daughter of a Japanese maid that her nobleman father had an affair with. She passes as Britannian and goes by the name Stadtfield around them, but in her heart she is Kallen Kozuki. Her older brother Naoto could not pass for Britannian and ran away to join an anti-Britannian terrorist organization. After his death in battle at the age of twenty-four Kallen was inspired to secretly join the same terrorist organization herself. Once the mysterious Zero arrived on the scene and transformed the organization into the much more competent Order of the Black Knights her talent as a pilot was recognized, granting her access to the Black Knights' greatest weapon. Eventually she met Suzaku Kururugi on the battlefield, and over time the two developed an intense rivalry due to their awesome skill and opposing ideologies (Suzaku's being gradual reform of Britannian policies concerning Japan, and Kallen's being a radical revolution that would drive Britannia out and reestablish Japan as its own independent nation). Kallen eventually learned that Zero was in fact the exiled Britannian prince Lelouch:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lelouch: "Yes, I am Zero. The man who leads the Black Knights, who challenges the Holy Britannian Empire. The one who holds the entire world in his hand."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Kallen: "You used us? The Japanese people? You...you used me?"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lelouch: "And as a result Japan will be freed. Certainly you can't complain about that."</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Despite this shocking revelation, Kallen decided to keep Zero's true identity a secret and continue to follow him, believing that Lelouch could defeat Britannia and that she could defeat Suzaku Kururugi, who she believes to be a traitor to the Japanese people. In their final battle, Suzaku and Kallen share this short exchange:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Suzaku: "You could have tried to work within the system!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Kallen: "And what about the people who can't get into the system?! How are we supposed to tell people it's wrong?! Don't you dare look down on others, you egotistical punk!"</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Minutes later, Kallen Kozuki defeats Suzaku Kururugi once and for all.</li> </ul>I'm afraid I just spent about an hour and a half typing up a post no one's going to pay attention to, but from my perspective the alignments of the three characters mentioned are:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lelouch vi Britannia. Chaotic Neutral (with Evil tendencies). Though his ultimate goal is to defeat the oppressive empire that is conquering the world and allow the possibility for a more peaceful world to rise from the ashes, his methods are very much a paragon of the phrase "the ends justify the means". Throughout his campaign he repeatedly violates the free will of others via mind control (though interestingly he handicaps himself by giving specific orders instead of just always resorting to the "Be my slave" command, which he only puts to use to immediately turn a group of ace Britannian pilots into his tools of war), deceives enemies and allies alike, and ends up getting his girlfriend's father (a Britannian soldier) killed (and when she finds out about this uses Geass to command her to forget). On one occasion he even uses a ship full of allies as bait to distract Britannian forces, uses explosives he'd secretly had installed blow up the ship, and lies to his Black Knight underlings that their allies had chosen honorable suicide over defeat, inspiring the Black Knights to fight as hard as they could against the disarrayed Britannian forces.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Suzaku Kururugi. Lawful Neutral (with Good tendencies). Suzaku is interested in trying to minimize death and suffering as much as possible. Unfortunately, this had led him to side with the fascist empire conquering the world out of a naive belief that he can change it from within, both by rising in the ranks and by convincing the Britannians that he's "one of the good ones". His "I prefer the logic of systems to individualist emotions" quote puts the final nail in this coffin.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Kallen Kozuki. Chaotic Good. She sincerely fights for the good of the Japanese people as the front line soldier of a revolutionary organization despite having the option to pass as Britannian and live a life of privilege in a minor noble house. Kallen is determined, zealous, highly skilled, and despises everything Suzaku Kururugi stands for. Though she knows Lelouch is using the Black Knights for his own ends, she is unaware as to the full extent of his actions and willing to follow him if it leads to her goal of contributing to Japan's liberation. This determination eventually results in the ultimate defeat of Suzaku Kururugi, despite Suzaku benefiting from a superior machine and Lelouch's "Live" Geass, which he eventually came to use to his advantage by forcing himself into highly dangerous situations and forcing the "Live" Geass to enhance his mental and physical capabilities beyond their normal limits to try and cheat death.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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