Suzaku holding a sword foreshadows Lelouch’s death,

Lelouch’s death by sword penetration is foreshadowed from day one by the fact that the series is by Sunrise. Don’t kid yourself.

(re: Nunnaly by Lelouch’s side) I wonder what this means.

There’s a disconnect for me, here. Nunnally wasn’t actually by Marianne’s body when she died, she was placed there after the fact. Furthermore, Marianne didn’t CODE RESURRECT, she geassed a convenient bystander. You say that she lives on through her geass and that Lelouch lives on through his code/ideologies, and while I agree with the latter part, I don’t see Lelouch ever getting a code. Charles grabs him, but can Charles pass on the code? It seems like this part of your post relies on a wobbly understanding of wobblier yet metaphysics.

Also, Lelouch most importantly lives on in the memories of those around the scene of his death (Karen, the black knights, Suzaku, Nunnally) whereas the only people who witness Marianne’s death are Anya (memory wipe) and V2 (dead, dead, dead). (Anya regains her memories, I believe, but I’d argue that this is inconsequential because she only knew Marianne as the queen—they weren’t buddies or lovers or anything.)

It’s nice to see you bring more “original” reasons to the table as for why Lelouch is still alive (the shops of the horse cart were seriously an embarrassment) but I’m not convinced.

Curiously (to me), you didn’t address a number of problems with him being alive:

1. Suzaku cried

This might be explained by “he’s never going to be able to chill with his buddy again,” but if he’s becoming Zero he can probably do whatever he wants in secret, like going out and meeting his friend (a parallel can be drawn to Jonathan leaving Saul’s castle to meet David in secret). I guess another possible explanation is that he really wants to kill Lelouch for real, and knows Lelouch will resurrect, and is pissed about that. But then the impaling wouldn’t have been so lovey-dovey.

2. C2 cried

Presumably, because the one guy who treated her with love and care (I was about to say “loved her” but then I remembered Mao and his “BUT YOU WON’T FIT IN CARRY-ON!!”) in all her memory (I think it’s safe to phrase it like that—she may have been loved at some point, but she does not remember it) is dying. There are some other possible reasons for her tears:

1. she can’t die because Lelouch already has a code now (from Charles?) – but as you said, this is unlikely, she wants a good life before no life.
2. she’s crying for all the people whom she knows love Lelouch and are about to lose him (she respects Karen et al’s love for Lelouch). This seems -almost- plausible to me, since she’s kind of a good person, but the whole prayer thing doesn’t interface well.
3. the last—and only decently reasonable alternate reason for her tears, as I see it—is that they are tears of happiness. She’s immortal, Lelouch is immortal, they love each other. This would be a fulfillment of Lelouch’s promise in Episode 25 of season 1 (“I’ll become the warlock to your witch”). If this is the way things are, then I’m super-happy for both parties. I’m skeptical, though, because her face as she cried was not the face of someone who’s ecstatic.

I suppose that both of the above problems (Suzaku’s tears, C2′s tears) can be answered with a simple “they didn’t know about Lelouch having received Charles’ code,” but that’s baloney. They’re far more likely to know than we are, after all. C2′s in touch with these kinds of things and can sense pretty much whenever Lelouch so much as uses his geass—there’s no way, as far as I can tell, that she could not know about it. As for Suzaku… he was Lelouch’s best friend. The only one he could confide in. He knew everything about the grand plan. And Lelouch said that this was a “punishment” for Suzaku. It wouldn’t be a punishment if Suzaku weren’t bearing the weight of killing and becoming the hero (another blog made a really good note about this, I forget which, but it was something like “Lelouch became the sacrifice Suzaku always wanted to be”).

3. If Lelouch received a code from Charles, it’s just as likely that Lelouch passed that code onto Suzaku.

Another thing with Suzaku becoming Zero—Lelouch mentions “forever” in his sentence for Suzaku. This can be literal or figurative. Figurative is “you will live out your life under the curse of my geass.” Literal is “you are immortal forever.” We know that his “live” geass defies reality as we know it. Maybe it’ll make Suzaku live, literally, forever?

But it can’t be that, because Suzaku could just have Jeremiah ungeass him if he wants.

BUT there’s still the possibility that it could have been literal… because Lelouch could have passed Charles’ code onto Suzaku! It’s just as likely as Charles giving V2′s to Lelouch. One might even argue that it’s more likely, because while you’re drawing a lot of implications out of midair for that Episode 21 scene, Lelouch actually says something about Suzaku living forever.

Of course, if Lelouch is passing a code onto Suzaku, he’s not going to be reborn.

4. Is rebirth via code at-will?

We see C2 bite the bullet a few times, and she always comes back. This is the immortality granted by the code. She’s always back, fully regenerated, within minutes of dying. Consider this: Lelouch is killed by Suzaku. The crowd goes wild. The crowd rushes the hostages. The crowd surrounds Lelouch’s corpse. He’s not going to just stand up and walk away. Also, people would see to his burial. He would need Zero-esque smoke and mirrors to up and vanish (pink smoke bombs, Knightmares busting out of the pavement, etc.). I think it’s safe to assume that he’s there, dead, corpse-like.

Does he resurrect later? Can he choose when or when not to?

I personally don’t think that’s how the code immortality works. This belief of mine is based on the fact that not once in the series did someone in possession of a code time-delay their resurrection. If there’s a more reliable source that shows otherwise—like, an interview with the creators that goes along the lines of “lol we don’t define our metaphysics well for a REASON, didn’t you know? teehee~”—I will kneel before the irrefutable proof. And by irrefutable, I mean that Problems 1-3 will still be problems.

That’s it for my major qualms with him being alive, I think. One more little note, since you so thoroughly enjoyed saying “x in scene a is like y in scene b, get it? get it?” in this post: Suzaku, who stands at the top of the ramp down which Lelouch’s corpse falls, takes Lelouch’s place, “becomes” him in a sense by becoming Zero. Lelouch, who stands at the top of the stairs down which Marianne’s corpse falls, takes nothing from Marianne but her hair, eyes, and aptitude for maniacal laughter.

I’d make a witty tl;dr note, but then you’d think I was imitating you.

P.S. my question for you in IM that I didn’t get to ask was something like, “you _do_ realize that I haven’t even said anything critical about your post, right?” You kept slamming my negative reaction to your post before I even had one. And I still don’t have one… your post is well-thought out and heavy on the “going to the text” technique which is key to good discourse. I applaud it. But applause is different from agreement. I think you base too much on the idea that Charles gave a code to Lelouch… which, as I noted, is just as likely as Lelouch then passing it on to Suzaku. Or to Nunnally, even.

First of all, I don’t care that Lelouch is driving the cart. This is done very often in many anime I have watched. Kanon did it by having a fox (Makoto) walk through a forest in the ending. Sola did it by leaving cans of tomato juice on a picnic table. Higurashi Matsuri ends with a cg of Hanyuu sitting on a porch. It doesn’t mean anything.

This previous comment was to good not to quote. Amen. It’s the anime thing, you know? Tons of shows do it, and it never means anything.

One day I’m in DotQ‘s admin panel by chance and I see a new comment in moderation. This is pretty infrequent (as noted here, I’m even more unpopular now than I was half a year ago so it’s like, negative comments time), so I’m curious and I investigate. Lo and behold, it’s a pingback! On the Night Switch page! From… Sixten?!

And I’m like, “whoa!” I’m like, “since when did people I insult acknowledge me?!” I’m like, “doesn’t this guy suck Jason’s cock nightly? Surely he must know to avoid me! How come I’m not IP banned on his site yet? Is there something wrong with his brain? Clearly Jason hasn’t scrambled it enough! Anal penetrations moar plzplzplz!!”

When I was over my initial squeeing, I actually read the post.

(Some more serious and respectful comments on his post can be found in a post on Dreams of the Quill that I’m writing at the same time as I’m writing this. Seriously. This post isn’t my official response to Sixten’s post, it’s just classic notdotq-style vitriol and idiocy.)

Upon reading, I immediately become livid. The guy begins his post by not knowing who I am (“he (she?)”), which is unacceptable. He also misspells my handle—”LoliKitsune” instead of “lolikitsune.” He then goes on to namefag me (“I suspect Flak and LoliKit are the same person”), as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. On second thought, I suppose it is natural, for him. After all, it’s his idol Jason who was kind enough to namefag Pete Zaitcev.

Sidenote: I don’t portray myself as a loli kitsune. What’s in a name?

Would not a troll by any other name be as odorous?

Sixten concludes the introduction of his post with a demonstration of his illogic. He “decided it was time to read it” after Flak (I), whom he suspected was lolikitsune (me), posted an idiotic comment on his blog whoring Night Switch. I certainly wouldn’t read anything whored in an idiotic comment by someone who (appears to be) spamming in the name of (important side note: the different handles exist for compartmentalizing of online life and internet spheres, not for tricking people into thinking I’m legion). Even if it had to do with Jason Miao. Never. Wouldn’t happen.

Unless, you know, I was trying to get trolling fodder.

Anyway. After this introduction, Sixten launches into a synopsis of various aspects of Night Switch. He describes the background of the story as he sees it (he’s neither too wrong nor too correct for the summary to be full of idiocy or full of spoilers, respectively), and then has a paragraph for three of the characters in the story, complete with ILLUSTRATIONS.

Yeah right.

There is no way this guy has enough time on his hands to read all of Night Switch, draw pictures, AND blog about it in under twenty hours. That’s right—I made my comment less than twenty hours before this blog post went live. There are two possibilities here: he’s either a liar or a NEET. In the first scenario, he’s actually been reading Night Switch for some time, and the illustrations have been sitting on his computer waiting for the day I would foolishly waltz into his blog and comment. In the second scenario, he actually does have that kind of time on his hands.

But I digress.

(Some of the information in his character descriptions is less than accurate—this is addressed in the aforementioned “official response” on Dreams of the Quill.)

Oddly enough, Sixten’s three selected characters don’t have a 100% overlap with the story’s three main characters. He chose to highlight JTFish’s Pedantic Dachshund character instead of the story’s hero, Amtrak worker and religious fanatic Joe. Well, good on him for ignoring the boring characters I guess. The Geass-toting dog is definitely more interesting than the Tetris-obsessed, people-hating Joe.

Here’s where it gets REALLY good, though: after these summaries of plot and character, Sixten analyzes the story a bit. Here’re some choice quotes:

“Unlike Miao Diary, which is mostly styled after fluff anime, Night Switch borrows plot points from more serious and dramatic shows such as Nanoha and Code Geass.” (emphasis mine)

That’s right. He said it. Well, I can only hope for one thing: that he’s only seen two episodes of Code Geass. Any more than that, and he’s just laughing his ass off at me here. Code Geass? Serious? It’s like he’s calling Night Switch a slapstick routine. (Speaking of which, Suzaku slapped Lelouch’s stick in Episode 24 of R2. That was hot.)

“As LoliKitsune pointed out, Night Switch is better than Miao Diary – it’s not a self-insert, wish-fulfillment, mo√© vehicle like that story featuring Jasmine.”

Here he uses a masterful trolling technique known to inspire Troll’s Remorse in lesser trolls. He turns my own cruelty against me in an attempt to make me regret my callous remarks. Thankfully I’m not susceptible, and I stand by my claims that Miao Diary is nothing more than a more modern Megatokyo (read: horse excrement). But still, it’s the thought that counts, as they say. Sixten really tried to drive it into me here.

“It’s as well-written as Jason’s scripts for Heart’s Content”

A nail in the metaphorical coffin, here he compares the quality of my product to the quality of Jason’s. I’ve read AoMM on and off for three years now (on when I wasn’t banned, off when I was) and I have never thought anything special of Jason’s command of the English language. Now, you might say I’m not one to talk. I’m a high school graduate. My writing is far from what I would call “good.” I don’t grammar well. My active vocabulary is often inadequate. But you don’t need to be a good writer to tell a bad one, and I can tell Jason is bad. Horrendously so.

Actually, if my writing is at the level of his, it might be time for me to pull my Megatokyo move.

/me strips, then reaches for lighter fluid and matches

“f Miao Diary is a strawberry marshmallow, Night Switch is a meal of rice, meat, and vegetables. Read it today for a balanced diet.”

What
the
fuck
is
a
strawberry marshmallow?!

Sigh.

Sixten is a formidable opponent. He even made a cover for Night Switch, pictured below. And of course, it lacks Joe. Poor Joe. Never gets any love. I think that’s why he turned to Jesus.

(That’s right, bitch, I hotlinked that.)

Majime na Lolikit
Sixten, you rock. <3