Code Geass C’s World Explained
As I have hinted to previously Code Geass has been inspired by World War II. The man himself — Lelouch chose Zero as a code name for himself. Zero being a reference to the airplane Zero — a Japanese aircraft which was considered to be the best fighter plane in the beginning of World War II and served as a hero symbol in Japan just as masked Lelouch did in the anime. F.L.E.I.J.A. is an obvious reference to nukes. The landing scenes at the begging of the first episode sure resemble the Pacific landings. Even the Orange insinuation stems from the war plan Orange which was the code name for US’s military’s invasion plan in the Pacific. Similarities are endless. It’s fair to say that Code Geass is in some way inspired by the Great War numero due.
So where does that leave us? World War II marks a line in the sand before it international politics and relations between different groups in general were best described by the phrase “might makes right”. If you wandered in foreign lands you assumed a very real possibility to be dealt with in any way powers to be in that place decided to. In other worlds human rights didn’t exist, nor did the so often repeated “rules based world”. If you were a king, there was no expectation for you to hold your army from invading your neighbor, except in to some degree in some countries with the same monotheistic religion, as an example, Christians don’t invade other Christians (until they do).
What Code Geass chose to do is look at how to overcome the “might makes right” phase. A phase in human history that has existed as long as man has. It’s the default state of life. The central duo is trying to solve the same problem albeit from a first person perspective:
Lelouch: Is it good to be strong?
Kururugi: Is it bad to be weak? Back then when I was 10 the world seamed like such a terribly sad place, a world without any hope at all.
Lelouch: Starvation.
Kururugi: Disease.
Lelouch: Filth, decay.
Kururugi: Racism.
Lelouch: Constant war and terrorism.
Kururugi: Living in an never ending cycle of hate.
Lelouch: Rats running in a wheel.
Kururugi: The cycle must be broken. Somebody has to do it.
Lelouch and Suzaku are against a world where power is the highest ideal and they have their dynamic way of moving forward towards their goal. It’s the most realistic way presented in the show and it’s something I have already looked at in an essay of mine. Then there’s the way of Schneizel the flower of enlightenment himself and his solution could be best describe as rational insanity. But I want to focus on Charlie and his way is most mystical. The man has a conflicting personality to say the least. There’s a certain Jekyll and Hyde aspect to it.
Charlie the Paradoxical
From one side he’s a tyrannical emperor who just digs power, he loves a world were the strong trample the weak. In the first real appearance of the emperor he gave a speech where he presented his moral views:
“All men are not created equal… Every human is inherently different. That is why people discriminate against each other. Inequality isn’t wrong equality is.”
It’s not just that he accepts it as it is, he prefers such a world and thinks it to be a good world. His belief is reflected both in his internal and external politics. Internally he promotes discrimination against anyone whose not of Britannian descend, externally he doesn’t mind invading weaker states for his benefit. Charlie the emperor is a vivid fan of “might makes right” sort of world.
There’s an other side to Charles which is entirely divorced from the presented personality, from the persona, from the emperor Charles. The other is of the little, poor Charlie wanting a blissful world. To promote some sympathy towards his other side, let’s take a step back and put ourselves into Charlies position. Here we are in his early years, all your youth you have lived as a prince, every need met, every desire satisfied, a potential life of pure bliss, but there is this one problem. Everybody wants to be the king, your brothers, uncles etc. Everybody is fighting for just one position. Since it’s a zero sum game, there’s no holding back and any means are justified, which leads to plotting and scheming and killing. The game for the throne eventually leads to the death of Charlies mother and so his bubble of a blissful world is popped. To get back to the world of bliss he in his high wisdom decides to try to straight up change human nature. He makes a vow to his brother and C2 to create a world without lies.
How does a world without lies look like and how could you conceivably try to bring about such a world? Well, Charles has a plan, it’s something to wrap your head around. He’s going to create the Thought Elevator which he’s going to use to get to the C’s World. There he’s going to combine the codes of C2 and V2. And then the Sword of Akasha will slay God. Oh, and this whole plan is called the Ragnarok Connection…
C’s World
It’s a little cryptic. So, let’s unpack it here and we can start with the most important piece — the C’s world. Let’s see what C2 has to say about it:
Suzaku: C’s world?
C2: In current terminology it’s the collective unconscious — a collective of peoples minds and memories. The sea of transmigration, the great consciousness, some refer to it as god.
…
C2: It’s people, their masks are collective unconscious, windows that open into their minds and memories, and the minds of people are…
In a nutshell C2 states that C’s World is the collective unconscious and that in turn is a place where peoples minds and memories are connected together. We can contrast her explanation with the version Carl Jung gave, Jung being the psychiatrist who came up with the idea of the collective unconscious in the first place. Jung observed that myths and religions all over the world follow the same underlying themes, as the brightest example — the heroes myth. It’s a myth that exists in every culture even if those cultures have never met, the myth can have different details and appearance but the underlying theme is the same. Joseph Campbell wrote a whole book dedicated to this myth called “Hero With a Thousand Faces” and in it he gives numerous examples of heroes myths of cultures nether you nor I have heard of and all of them have one. There is one question that came to me, Jung and many so others: how can different people in different environments come up with essentially the same stories and images? By definition it can’t be anything external since the environments are different. More over you can find cultures that were isolated and still had myths with essentially the same plot, so that excludes cultural sharing as an explanation.
There is only one source left — the man himself. Jung reasoned that there has to be something in a human mind that leads people to create and even more importantly act out certain behaviors. That’s why he came up with the idea of the collective unconscious which he defined as a par of our mind which contains collection of primordial symbols and patterns of behavior. Since we’re not consciously aware of what it is, it’s something we’re unconscious of therefor the unconscious part in the collective unconscious. The collective part comes from the fact that it’s the same in everyone. Therefore collective unconscious has nothing to do with our minds and memories being connected together, what in fact is connected, is our potential for an “instinctual” knowledge of the world as seen from within which can creates an appearance of unseen connectedness.
Now that we better understand where Charlie is trying to get to. The next step is to figure out how exactly will the collective unconscious help him try to create a world without lies? Charlie is a man with a plan, a plan with the name of the Ragnarok Connection. The word Ragnarok comes from Norse mythology and in essence it’s Norse equivalent of the apocalypse. It’s a prophesy of a day when the existing Norse Gods will battle it out, many disaster will happen and many gods will perish. After the catastrophes are over some gods will come back and two humans will repopulate the Earth. It’s obvious that the details of the Ragnarok do not fit Code Geass circumstances but if you look at it metaphorically then there might be some reason in the madness. In polytheist religions, gods are sort of moral judges, juries and executioners and if some of these gods would disappear and others take their place then that would symbolize a change in the fundamental morality and that’s exactly what Charlie is trying to accomplish.
What Charlie in essence is trying to do is change human nature at the deepest level. Charlie is playing the role of the highest being, he thinks that he knows better how humans should be like. Everyone’s rather cryptic about the sort of human Charlie is trying to bring about. He himself states that he wants a world without lies, a world where you will be reunited with the dead people and that’s about it… The best clue is provided by none other than Lelouch. He said that he wants a world with a future while Charlie is seeking the past. Presumably that means that if Charlies world is brought about then humans would be incapable of conceptualizing future. Now, what in us enables us to conceive of the future? It’s the same part that enables us to lie, it’s the same part that enables us to say “I”, it’s the “me” part, it’s the ego. Ego is the part of ourselves that we’re aware of. Jung summed it up perfectly by saying that ego is pretty much the focal point of consciousness. No ego, no self-awareness, without self-awareness there’s no conceptualizing yourself as existing in the flow of time and without that there’s no future. If you really were to take out the ego, then we would really revert back to the state of an animal. Without this part of ourselves we would revert back to our instinctual natures we would be very much like a pack of chimps.
That was the world Lelouch rejected, so did Suzaku and C2. They wanted a world with a future, even though it came at the cost of struggle and suffering. Deep down Charlie is a spoiled brat who’s unable nether to understand nor accept human nature. He grew up in an environment where there was a certain lack of challenge. His son — Lelouch is the opposite he grew up with challenges around him. He learned to overcome them and it’s quit clear that he’s enjoying the struggle. The way Charlie went about facing the tragedy of life is surely false. In the end he spent too much time in the wonderland of the unconscious and was destroyed by it.
