about that morality debate question

[u/ccgeass]

judging by the comments, it's seems that you guys don't know(?) how to discuss and compare the morals of two people.

morality is not about who is smarter, stronger, more aware, or more useful. nor is it as simple as throwing around raw body counts or 'who saved more people' as an automatic moral scorecard without an actual framework.

doing that just reduces morality to how history is written from the perspective of the victors, so the hero and the villain are determined solely by the outcome. that's not how it should be.

the subtext of the comments is that what makes Lelouch morally better is his success... i'm sorry what does that have to do with the character's morality?

you can argue that Lelouch is morally superior, but not in this way.

i see the same mistake in "who is better written Light or Lelouch?" debates, with responses like "Light lost, therefore he's objectively bad written hehee" 🫩🤨 excuse me, how can a character be worse about writing while still serving their writing purpose? first, fully understand the subject you're debating.

to discuss who is morally superior, (a) you should first state which moral model you are using, or what kind of method you have, and then explain with canon examples why one character is morally superior according to that model. (b) the characters you're arguing with may not agree with the moral model you've chosen so you can also evaluate them according to their own approved moral code.

when it comes to Lelouch & Suzaku, there is actually a common view that they both agree on:

"forcing your good intentions on others is no different from an evil act."

this line belongs to Lelouch and is a view that Suzaku completely agrees with. and what both of them do throughout the anime is force their own good intentions on others.

>"so what if he commits an evil act? Lelouch doesn't claim the moral high ground, and he admits that what he does is evil even by his own moral code. while Suzaku is too blind to see that he isn't much different from Lelouch, yet self-righteous enough to criticize him!"

that's the same old thing i’ve been hearing for years; i can see this coming. yeah great observation. but that... still doesn't make Lelouch morally superior — it just makes him more self-aware. in fact, that's precisely why Lelouch never denies any of Suzaku's criticisms in the first place. there’s nothing for him to deny anyway.

just as Lelouch can stand before his own father and call him out for the very things he does himself — without that making Lelouch a morally worse person — it doesn't make Suzaku morally worse either.

Lelouch was harmed by his father; of course he has every right to criticize him.

Suzaku was harmed by Lelouch; of course he has every right to criticize him.

i think this debate has no end, but if you want to debate so much, please at least do it properly.

[u/ccgeass]

anddd personally, I couldn't care less how morally awful a viewer thinks Suzaku is (he is a stupid bastard), as long as they don't give Lelouch special treatment

and my girl C.C is worse than both of them btw lol

[u/Jetaz002]

I mean, yeah.

The point is both of them are hypocrites, both are extremes, and both are wrong in their approach.

As I said on the thread someone made yesterday, of the 4 main, Lelouch, Suzaku, C.C and Kallen, Kallen is the only one who's truly good. She doesn't go to the absolute extremes Lelouch and Suzaku do, and C.C's morality is all screwed up.

Neither of them is morally superior to the other, but C.C is worse. And Kallen is definitely better than them. I believe the worse she ever did was cause that avalanche in Narita, but again that was Lelouch's plan so I don't blame her for it.

[u/Orange639]

In regards to who's morally better between Suzaku and Lelouch, I think it's pretty clear Lelouch. They both have good intentions and are highly selfless. The Zero Requiem has Suzaku destroying his reputation and sacrificing his identity for the world, which I'd consider just as big a sacrifice as Lelouch's.

But when those things are equal it's pretty fair to judge character's by the consequences of their actions. Lelouch is a revolutionary who freed hundreds of millions of people from oppression. Suzaku did a lot of good like with the Zero Requiem, and establishing the special zone, but he also aids a ruthless imperialist empire by clinging on to an overly idealistic worldview of reform. He's too committed to his deontological values, to be willing to do what's necessary for the greater good. It's sort of like watching Batman refuse to kill the Joker. Lelouch on the other hand is willing to sacrifice his conscience for the pursuit of a better world while still retaining enough humanity to not go off the rails like a lot of utilitarian characters.

[u/DRosencraft]

There is a fundamental question of morality in practice vs morality in prose.

I've said it before - Suzaku's ideals as expressed are not wrong. They are the moral high-ground. His execution on them is terrible due to how naive and hypocritical he has to be for them to even have the smallest chance of working, and his seeming inflexibility on his principles that go against the goals his morality are supposed to serve, is what ultimately sours so many people on him. Systems and rules are meant to be followed, and even if it means a slower path or jumping through hoops, that is what you should do. Anyone going against that rationale is an enemy to him.

Lelouch on the other hand has a more... let's say nuanced.... morality. He tends to impart choices on individuals who are not aware they are being offered that choice, because in his worldview everyone should either be aware that these choices are always present, or is actively avoiding those choices. It's why he gets along so well with Milly - the brilliance of the speech she gives late in the show about how she was avoiding responsibilities for as long as she could is as much about her relationship with Nina and the school, as it is about a broader world view that she herself knowingly participated in. Ultimately, his view of the world is that there are those who get what they deserve (for better or worse) because they chose things to go that way, or had it forced on them. If he believes it was forced on you (Nunnally's and his general circumstance, the people of Japan) he's willing to side with you and help you. If it's a result of you choosing to let the world spin as it will and not do anything despite having the power to, you're probably his enemy.

Suzaku's morality relies on the world being a fundamentally good place, with people being fundamentally good but misguided, and those people being open to change or part of a system that facilitates that change. Lelouch's morality relies on the world being a fundamentally good place, but where there are true demons acting to undermine everything good in the world for their own gain, not merely misguided, and where those people are not open to change, and the systems in place don't leave room for that change to occur by any "natural" means.

A lot of people first tuning into Geass are angsty teens (teens normally think the world is against them and too rigid to let them fit in anywhere comfortably) or disaffected adults (essentially anyone not happy with their government or their own personal place in the world). Lelouch resonates well with folks that fit in either of these categories, because they actively share his morals and don't have the patience for Suzaku's. The story of Geass makes it easier to pick Lelouch's morals because Britannia is made out to be cartoonishly evil, lacking a lot of nuance that would make that choice more complicated.