CODE GEASS 2x21 "The Ragnarök Connection" FIRST TIME ANIME REACTION! Kodo Giasu S02E21 

I've always loved how Lelouch goes from having nothing to lose to being Emperor of nearly half the world in the span of a single episode! Love the reaction and ALL HAIL LELOUCH!!!

I am not the author of this explanation, I just took it from someone else's comment under another video. So: The exact mechanics of Charles & Marianne's plan & goal are poorly explained IMO so i thought id try to lay it out in a more understandable way (as i understand it): First - What the Collective Unconscious actually is: The collective unconscious is the idea that all human beings are part of one giant being, with each individual person's soul being a fragment split off from this larger entity. This larger entity, sometimes called "God", is effectively a hive mind made up from all of humanity, past, present and future. Again, an individual human is a fragment temporarily split off from this larger being acting on its own for a while, before eventually rejoining it after death. The collective unconscious is still very much an unknown in Code Geass, but it is the source of the power of Geass, which is also why Lelouches power, while not able to control God, at least could influence it enough to take action to stop Charles & Marianne's plan. Second - What Charles & Marianne wanted to achieve: Charles & Marianne blame "lies, deception & masks" as the root of all human evil & suffering. Therefore, their goal is to permanantly destroy the divisions between humans and the collective unconscious, effectively turning all of humanity into one giant hive-mind forever. In their new world - Charles feelings are Nunally's feelings are Lelouches feelings etc, the same for thoughts, emotions, memories and experiences. Even the souls of the dead become part of that new hive mind. The idea here is simple: If everyone is part of the same being we can all understand each other implicitly, and therefore no-one would ever fight, lie or cheat again. Lies & masks itself would become a moot point, because everyone knows everything and knows what your really like/really think underneath it all. Third - Why Lelouche rejected them: Lelouche's lays out a variety of points for why he refuses, from personal grudge ("you abandoned us!") to grand philosophy ("you want a world without change, how stagnant!") which i could unpack but, ultimately, the real beef he's got is what he lays out at the end: Nunally's kind nature, appreciation for the world and the fact that kindness itself becomes meaningless in this "new world". The idea being that if people all start being nice to each other because they literally feel each others suffering and pain and it hurts them just as much as others then that's not really "kindness" its just self interest. True kindness is that displayed towards someone when you DON'T explicitly benefit from it. "The 'gentler world' that Nunally wanted is one where kindness is shown to everyone - *even strangers*". He is deeply offended by the idea of a world where kindness (like that displayed by his beloved sister) loses its meaning. Ultimately you can boil it down to this: Lelouche, despite all of the horrible things that happen in Code Geass, wholeheartedly believes in the goodness of humanity and its potential to move forward to a better tomorrow. Charles does not, AT ALL. Charles believes cycles of violence and hate are the inevitable lot of humanity, while Lelouche believes that people, when given the chance, CAN make a change for the better. So that's what Lelouche means when he says "Don't stop the march of time!". Let humanity have a chance to move forward and make a better tomorrow, without trapping us in some pseduo-spiritual hive-mind limbo for all eternity, a closed and completed world without change.

"Know Thyself" - Is an Ancient Greek expression that was originally found inscribed in Apollo's Temple of Delphi, and is actually attributed to (I believe) 13 different people, the most famous of which is probably Plato. Now, *this* was the episode I was warning you guys would get crazy esoteric. Unfortunately for us, the whole God/Collective Unconscious/Sword of Akasha thing isn't... really explained. Even in side materials it's just sort just hand-waived as "a thing that happened", so it's mainly up to interpretation. From what we *do* know, the giant Jupiter looking thing is the "Collective Unconscious", basically a unified mental state of common experience that all humans share (it's derived from 16th-ish century philosophy, which definitely isn't my strong suit, lol), and Charles' plan was to sort of "inject" the consciousness of all humans into it, effectively making all of humanity, both living and dead, into one collective consciousness ala the Borg. As for how Lelouch stopped it... I'll have to let other comments cover it, because I barely understand it myself. I know it has something to do with Lelouch fully evolving his Geass (which is independent of the whole God issue) but I have no idea what effect that would've had on the Sword of Akasha.

From my understanding what happened there was Lelouch asking the Collective Unconscious (which is the “desire” of mankind, something within all men, like “in the end all men seek happiness” as an example, a shared desire of all of mankind) to not stop the “march of time” (in other words do not block time on a certain moment, no further development allowed, you would not be capable of hurting others but at the same time the happiness you would receive would be forced upon you and not something you worked for). And since mankind already advanced toward that future by itself Lelouch forcing his Geass on it didn’t change its “desire for the future” but simply strengthened it, “forcing” the desire of mankind to eliminate every threat to said future (sword of Akasha, Charles and Marianne who still wanted to stop time no matter what). This is my interpretation and still i would have liked more details on that scene.

I can't believe you guys didn't include the meaning of Nunnally's smile. That was such a good line

This episode is so great because we spend the whole series expecting Charles to be the final boss, and then they're like "nah, he's dead, Schneizel's the real final boss now" The whole switching of the sides of the leadership is also such a cool concept, so which side in the war are the "good" and "bad" guys is super blurred. We are inclined to take Lelouch's side because we know him and he's the main character, and Schneizel is also a bit crazy, but the Black Knights certainly aren't bad people, so it creates that gray area It's also pretty cool to see how Lelouch only has three allies left because they are the only people he can truly trust to stick with him: CC obviously, Suzaku because they share the same vision and plan at this point in time, and Jeremiah because of his undying loyalty to Marianne's lineage

ALL HAIL LELOUCH! ALL HAIL LELOUCH!

Jeff: "I don't know,I haven't been immortal so I don't know" ... Blake:"you win this one Jeff,you win this one..."

The reason Lelouch's geass went into both of his eyes was since he wasn't ordering the collective consciousness, but he used his geass to ask a question. But it is up to you to find out what you think it means.

did you catch the dark humor of "knight of ZERO" ?

Important note: Lelouch used a geass months after Charles was defeated, showing that Lelouch doesn't have a code since the anime established that everyone who gets the code loses the geass. Remember that the anime also already established that there is no such thing as "activating codes", they are always active. Indeed, Lelouch did not geass god, he requested something from god, to not stop the forward march of time, and god replied by erasing Charles and Marianne. As for the nature of god in this series, that's a bit fuzzy and undoubtedly deliberately so. That way they don't upset any of the viewers on such a touchy subject. Also, mandatory ALL HAIL LELOUCH!

I think the other commenters have covered it sufficiently, so I'll just say that C.C. herself said (before sending Suzaku in) that the collective unconsciousness can be considered as God. When Marianne and Charles are killed, they are effectively rejected by the collective unconsciousness, and are removed from the physical world and C's world, so that they can no longer influence either. The third movie, Lelouch of the Resurrection, comes back to this briefly if you guys decide to watch it.

After Suzaku fired the Fleja warhead he said “fuck it” and now it’s all about the ends lol. I definitely thought it was good character building when you see Suzaku questioning his beliefs and now to be just like Lelouch

I’ve definitely have been a part of a group project where at least one person didn’t do their part. That’d relatable

Well, about the movies. There are 3 sets of movies. One is 2 movies that are just a retelling of the anime, one for each season. Another one is 5 "movies", it's a spinoff story with 5 long ova episodes. And the last one is a reimagining of the series, 3 movies "retell" the story of the anime, changing it slightly to allow for sequels, 1 movie that is a sequel to that, and we know of another Code Geass project that is being worked on which appears to be another sequel but there's barely any information out right now. Other than that there are a few ova and special episodes that don't really matter from what I've watched and heard about. But if blake wants something similar to the school festivals, there's this manga collection of 5 volumes that he can probably just read online. they are anthologies of a bunch of little comedic and wholesome (maybe a bit ecchi at times) stories of Code Geass characters. I think it's called something like "Code Geass Anthology for boys". I only read the first volume but it was kinda cute. Anyway, great video, as always. Can't wait for the next one

Jeff definitely called it that V2 killed Lady Marian. The both of you guys have thrown some theories that were correct. Do you guys think you would enjoy the show more if you didn’t try and guess what would happen or trying to guess what will happen?

Lol Blake was prepared for people to correct him about the circle of life😂

Yeah Akito the Exiled is a good little ova series where the protagonist is not Lelouch. We get something new. 2019 movie is about to be worth it for you guys

Once you finish this season, you definitely need to watch Akito the Exiled and then the Ressurection movie. Also the creators specifically said a lot of the show is open to interpretation, as they wanted to create a conversation around the anime; rather than simply giving answers.

If Blake had Lelouch’s Geass he would kill his project mates that didn’t do their part 😂

That whole scene was so dope that I didn’t care if it made sense or not 😂

I’m pretty sure there’s a little ova at the school and Lelouch plays as the mad hatter or something like that. Definitely some weird alive in wonderland vibes from the pictures.

They all were trying to do the same thing in a way but obviously they are 3 very different people. Lelouch is an exiled prince, Euphemia is a princess and sub viceroy, and Suzaku is the son of the last prime minister of a stolen nation. Kinda sucks they couldn’t work all together right at the start. If Lelouch never Geassed Euphemia it would be interesting to see if her plan would’ve worked out.

Lol at first Blake didn’t like the school stuff and now he is hungry for the school episodes 😂

I forget why but when I was watching this as y’all were uploading these reacts like twice a week I stopped watching in the last episode. Here I am to finish watching your guys reaction. I’m sure it’ll be juicy

He used geass to ASK the collective unconsious, and in the instant voted and the majority vote was against charles with the basics

There's no sourced "proper" answer to what Lelouch did / what the Ragnarok Connection was going to do; as far as I know, every answer to it is based on interpretations But, if you want more explanations for the more mythical aspects of the show, you should watch Akito the Exiled also It's a great side-story that takes place between R1 and 2, and is spread into 5 OVA movies (but, as much as I love the dub in CG, Akito has a pretty atrocious dub, so I'd recommend sub for that one, but ultimately it's your choice lol) Akito the Exiled is also actually canon too :^)

Tbh I’m still confused about what really happened in the Sword of Akasha but I do love hearing what y’all thought about what really happened. Jeff saying that what if Lelouch just requested instead of actually using his Geass on God or collective unconscious of mankind was interesting but since Lelouchs second eye had received the Geass I don’t think that makes sense.

i kinda took it as him uniting the collective unconcious to fight against the sword of akasha which is god

Remember that when somebody fully opens their geass they have the ability to take the immortality code from someone; Something to think about now that he has both eyes with geass.

If Charles world became a thing living forever with everyone else would definitely feel weird but I don’t if it would be torture. The whole concept of stopping time and being able to reconnect with everyone is weird. Although we would get Harambe back so I think it’s worth all the suffering of living forever.

Can you guys react to Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood? It's a good show and it has a lot of things that you guys can discuss about.

Jeff are you sure you’re not immortal? 🤨 maybe have Blake help you test if you aren’t 😂

There are communal baths in the movie ;)

Schneizel main villian arc incoming

Idk who said the thingy Blake

Blake really wants Nina dead jeez 😬

Let's go!!

My understanding is this: Lelouch's Geass works by manipulating the consciousness. C's World is "the consciousness of mankind." In this show's world, what people call God is actually the "collective unconscious", not a being as what we're familiar with. He used his Geass on this God, the collective unconscious, because it can work on the consciousness of mankind. He did not need to "defeat God" because he only needs to request it, which by the way is the same as commanding with his Geass. If he uses his Geass to request to someone "Please, I'd like to request that you make me a cup of tea," that is the same as commanding. So, yes, I believe he Geass'd the God.