[Question] Do you consider Lelouch from Code Geass evil?

[Lelouch Le Brittania]

A lot of people do, and many more think he's a hero. Personally Lelouch is one of the few anime characters I've seen who transcends good and bad, straddling the moral boundaries of good and evil. On one hand he's killed hundreds of thousands of people, brainwashed people, lied to everyone, and more. Yet Lelouch was always contrite, unlike Light Yagami who had no compunction nor contrition, and unlike Light Lelouch knew that he deserved to be punished and willingly

[SPOILER] accepted death as per the zero recquiem [/SPOILER]

Lelouch was devastate by his own crimes but continued only because he realized he was enmeshed in a quagmire that he couldn't escape from so easily.

Personally I think Lelouch is one of the best if not the best anime protagonists in blurring the delineation between hero and villain. Lelouch always have that vibe that made him too complex to appraise in 2 dimensional morality

 

[Mari Makinami]

Lelouch is the best. All Hail Lelouch!

Spoiler

Itachi still soloes doe :Sparks:

 

[Urda]

Undefined. He was selfish. He forced the word to peace instead of them figuring it out themselves.

 

[Venomous Cobra]

You can't compare light to lelouch, light aimed to be a god, worldly feelings as such would have only made him just like your everyday biased killer. Lelouch had different plans and objectives, and in some instances he even wanted to give up on them, making him nothing but a human wanting to make the world better, now look at light, when was the last time he even thought the slightest about giving up? lol never.

And no, he isn't the best that burled from evil to good and vice versa, lelouch was good to begin with and he stayed good till the end, he could've done things his way but he was smart enough to know that the anger of humanity would take him down regardless of posseing both geasses thus sacrificing himself for temporary peace.

 

[Lelouch Le Brittania]

You can't compare light to lelouch, light aimed to be a god, worldly feelings as such would have only made him just like your everyday biased killer. Lelouch had different plans and objectives, and in some instances he even wanted to give up on them, making him nothing but a human wanting to make the world better, now look at light, when was the last time he even thought the slightest about giving up? lol never.

And no, he isn't the best the burled from evil to good and vice versa, lelouch was good to begin with and he stayed good till the end, he could've done things his way but he was smart enough to know that the anger of humanity would take him down regardless of posseing both geasses

I love Lelouch more than the next guy does but Lelouch in no way was good from beginning to end. The plethora of people he's killed, deceived, brainwashed, even Lelouch himself admitted he can't be forgiven for his crimes. Sure, he felt repentant and had no pretense of moral authority, but in the end of the day Code Geass is a story of redemption, a catharsis of a world steeped in sin purging away the past and seeking a future anew. Lelouch killing himself symbolized the salvation for humanity as the bearer of evil was killed

 

[Venomous Cobra]

I love Lelouch more than the next guy does but Lelouch in no way was good from beginning to end. The plethora of people he's killed, deceived, brainwashed, even Lelouch himself admitted he can't be forgiven for his crimes. Sure, he felt repentant and had no pretense of moral authority, but in the end of the day Code Geass is a story of redemption, a catharsis of a world steeped in sin purging away the past and seeking a future anew. Lelouch killing himself symbolized the salvation for humanity as the bearer of evil was killed

Yes but those evil deeds were just promoted from his selfish thoughts and ideology, this doesn;t make it any less evil but it makes more understandable in contrast to your everyday "evil" villain and thus watchers/readers would relate to him more shifting the moral point of view from against him to with him, and as we both know the meaning of the word evil can be very subjective and so those who judge get the last call of what he is, in the world of CG, sure you are absolute right, but to us, readers/watchers, I think he was portrayed as a regular human with selfish thoughts therefore making his evil side way too inferior in comparison to his heroic side.


Long story short though: he was evil, but not evil enough to go back and forth between the good and the bad side

 

[dms_kakashi]

A lot of people do, and many more think he's a hero. Personally Lelouch is one of the few anime characters I've seen who transcends good and bad, straddling the moral boundaries of good and evil. On one hand he's killed hundreds of thousands of people, brainwashed people, lied to everyone, and more. Yet Lelouch was always contrite, unlike Light Yagami who had no compunction nor contrition, and unlike Light Lelouch knew that he deserved to be punished and willingly

[SPOILER] accepted death as per the zero recquiem [/SPOILER]

Lelouch was devastate by his own crimes but continued only because he realized he was enmeshed in a quagmire that he couldn't escape from so easily.

Lelouch is the best anime protagonists in blurring the delineation between hero and villain. Lelouch always have that vibe that made him too complex to appraise in 2 dimensional morality

corrected that for u

 

[WoldOfFingo]

I forgot a bit , but did lelouch actually killed innocent civillians (intentional) ?
I know he slaughtered a lot of Britannia's forces but it was war so that' how it goes

 

[Ryu Kishi]

He became the evil the world needed in order to unit the people

 

[MangaArtist007]

Lelouch was the best - though I would say selfish hero, not selfless hero

 

[Natsu Shazneel]

I think Lelouch was like Batmen. A hero the city needed not deserved.

 

[Scooby Doo]

I don't think so. Unlike Light, Lelouch didn't get too obsessed with power. He started his mission to make the world a better place, and when he did, he knew what to do -and he did it. CG is my fav anime

I think Lelouch was like Batmen. A hero the city needed not deserved.

Interesting, I just bought this special edition comic today

You must be registered for see images

 

[System001]

Lelouch is the best. All Hail Lelouch!

Spoiler

Itachi still soloes doe :Sparks:

Lelouch neg diffs Itachi.
Remove yourself from existence for blaspheming against the one and only King - Lord Lelouch.

 

[Narushima]

Lelouch as he was in the first anime (R1) is probably the quintessential resistance leader if I ever saw one in the anime genre.

There have been many a ethnic resistance leader in the history of our real world, e.g. William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (the heroes of the film brave heart), or Michael Collins and all the other IRA leaders after him... And there probably are many more historical names I am not aware of related to my own little Island, Britain.

And I say that an Englishman myself (I can trace my ancestry on both sides quite a bit back and as far as I am aware, I do not have any Irish, Scottish or Welsh ancestry, it is all English) - that the English have historically more or less destroyed the neighbouring inhabitants of their own island.

And the result of historical English hegemony on this island are clear, aren't they? Where are the Welsh, Irish and the Scottish now? The uncomfortable truth is that those peoples are dead. Their essence, that is, their language, culture and way of life was displaced by ours. And all that is left of them is a hollow shell, for they are only superficially distinguishable from the English.

In fact, I would venture to say that "Britannia" as portrayed in Code Geass R1 was not only characteristic of the English-British empires in their various historical forms but real world empires in general.

And there may be something intrinsic to all this - perhaps even more important than economic might to the life of an empire (especially pre-modern ones) is prowess in warfare, and that requires extraordinary and constant coordination on the part of the warring peoples, which is a difficult condition to fulfil without a great degree of homogeneity on the part of the peoples. Within group cooperation and between group competition and hostility seem to be two sides of the same coin.

Hence why historical empires always involved an unequal relationship between the hegemonic ruling group and the subordinated ruled.

Unfortunately Code Geass (it still remains one of my all time favourite animes but) became increasingly irrational toward the end, especially in R2. Not just the character of Lelouch but many if not all the characters and even the story in general. But Lelouch in R1 was indeed a great character that exemplified the resistance-guerrilla leader very well.

Light Yagami, by contrast, like all utopians, was more stupid than anything else (despite how he may have been portrayed in the anime). Yagami failed to understand the nature of the world (i.e. that injustice is inseparable from life itself) at a very basic level. On the other hand, that may be a typical life-history of utopian ideologues when they acquire power. But I am rambling now.