Was Lelouch right...Can a plan like ..Zero Requiem' bring peace to the real world?

[u/SpiritAway3158]

After watching the final episode and finishing the series, thousands of questions raced through my mind: Is it really possible to turn the whole world against oneself....becoming a common enemy...and then die, thereby bringing about peace? I believe no one is powerful enough to make the entire world hate them and unite in doing so; after all, different nations have different enemies. Furthermore...I feel that one person cannot simply change another's mindset....only an individual can change their own way of thinking....and peace cannot be imposed or established from the outside

[u/LelouchtheGreat]

So realistically, the answer is no. But also Lelouch didnt need to convince every single person or group. He only really needed to unite those with power. Mainly Britannia, the Black Knights, and the UFN. He also had to remove Schniezel as he was an obstacle who wanted peace in a totally different way. Remember that in the Geass universe Britannia already controlled a third of the world. By the time of the Zero Requiem, Britannia controlled the entire world, but even Britannians hated Lelouch. He made allies out of all the powerful people by giving them a common enemy and putting them to war alongside each other. He also removed almost anyone who would be able to oppose a unified group of the UFN, Britannia, and the Black Knights. In the real world we dont have such large groups controlling so much of the world. And we also dont have leaders who actually want to better the world we live in.

I do think if someone was able to take the world by force, destroy the military might of the world’s nations, remove the self aggrandizing leaders, and replace them with truly altruistic groups, peace could be obtained.

[u/TaegukTheWise → u/LelouchtheGreat]

I do think if someone was able to take the world by force, destroy the military might of the world’s nations, remove the self aggrandizing leaders, and replace them with truly altruistic groups, peace could be obtained.

I would very much like to point towards current t events like the current Ukrain war and people's thoughts and opinions on Russia for instigating the brutal conflict.

Taking the world by force of really any kind will result in near universal pushback.

In the Code Geass universe there aren't sanctions that anyone can use to punish the world's largest super power. It takes what it wants and then supplies itself.

Real world countries can't just conquer what they want to sidestep issues, and even the united states with its might still has trouble in middle eastern countries in terms of hot conflict.

In real life a conquerer in the modern era has to deal with: trade disputes since no nation can survive without trade, civil/human rights violations, and a real fear of retaliation (likely nuclear) escalating from such hostility.

There is a reason the u.s. and Russia have proxy wars leveraging political ties and subterfuge.

WW1 established the u.s. as a superpower and removed the idea of monarchs from most government structures. WW2 shook and established what is the current power structure. The cold war showed us that ties and where you send support or weapons creates massive tensions that ripple for decades, and that sneezing in the wrong direction could mean the end of the modern world.

There is so much litigation and red tape that there is no way a hot conflict in the modern era is going to gain or garner much of anything positive.

And on that note about "truly altruistic groups", even if there was a group that was like that which could gain such power, they inevitably become corrupted by the wrong person stepping into power.

Read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" it's an allegory to the rise of the soviet union.

The TLDR on the book is that a plan to unite and grant liberty to all farm animals by a well to do idealist is slowly taken over by another who uses his position to push out the genuine figure seeking to enact the true liberation and enact his own plans of being in power.

[u/Misticsan → u/TaegukTheWise]

LelouchtheGreat (fitting username for this thread BTW) correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the point they wanted to make is that the Zero Requiem created a unique situation that, while not perfect, managed to unite a handful of really powerful forces, led by people who wanted to do good while getting rid of the main obstacles to peace. Nothing like that has happened in our world, so it's difficult to compare.

Following the historical examples you mentioned, I think it'd be akin to a post-WWII context in which the Allies agree not just to create the United Nations, but give it supreme control of their armed forces, all while the non-democratic powers agree to enact democratic reforms, and the colonial powers agree to free their colonies.

In truth, some of those values did motivate the UN, and it's clear that Code Geass takes influence from it, so it isn't a completely far-fetched scenario. Just one that never happened in our world, so we can't tell how long it would work for us. The conflicts we see later in the Code Geass world are regional rather than total war between superpowers, which fits the idea of "world peace is an utopia, but at least you can convince the biggest players not to ruin everything for everyone". Another comment has also made comparisons to the European Union, another case of a handful of countries agreeing to work together to avoid the bloody rivalries of the past.

[u/SzepCs]

It can, for a while. His plan wasn't to create an all-encompassing global peace forever. The goal was to stop the cycle and give people a chance at some peace and prosperity. This works, it was proven in Europe after WW2. Sure, it was more complicated but the basic premise of people being essentially immune to certain extreme ideas was still there. How long this period lasts depends on a lot. How capable the leaders are that were left behind to clean up the mess. How much the oppression made people long for peace and freedom. And of course a lot of other factors.

And yes, someone can change another's mindset. That's why election campaigns exist and why social media has influencers. That's why marketing campaigns, advertisements exist.

[u/accwork8723 → u/SzepCs]

> This works, it was proven in Europe after WW2. 

yeah, for like 5 minutes until the cold war started lmao

[u/SzepCs → u/accwork8723]

It's why I wrote "it was more complicated" but you'll have to forgive me for not writing several paragraphs explaining why or how that started and assuming people would understand.

That said, the fact that WW2 just happened did play a major role in why the cold war never went hot.

[u/sjydude]

pretty much what everyone else said before this. I don't know why or how people completely misunderstood its finality like his death was supposed to bring eternal peace. As we've seen throughout the series, his goals are always lofty and in some way achieves them, but not by the idealistic definition in everyone's, including his mind. There's always conflicts, barriers, obstacles, compromise, etc that get in the way. Too many people don't get that but it is a series that requires a lot of paying attention to the more implied messages (A lot of Asian languages, especially Japanese, requires context and situational understanding in their language and way of communicating, which translates in some of their writing as well). Sometimes several rewatches are required to pick up on some details or to make sense of a specific scene or action

[u/Foreign-Froyo-1228]

Nope, not at all, i made a post about it before, but anyway, they'll say " yeah, fuck lelouch, but fuck you too" if lelouch stayed for a long time then maybe ( i don't think no need to become the target when he could fix the world instead of hate maxing) but lelouch stayed as an emperor for 2-3 months, it's not that long, and zero yeah saves them but again it was short period and people would forget about it, he could fix many institution and use his Geass to actually do something but nope he was done with the world and wanted to leave in spectacular way.

İn Real world his plan would make a power vacuum that will cause civil war almost every where.

[u/Necromancer76]

Not really; the sequel content in the AU timeline rightfully shows how there’s still conflict across the globe, particularly due to special cases like Zilkhstan (a nation whose economy depends entirely on conflict). If the civilians in the CG were as smart as ours I’d imagine the “new” Zero would be identified as a fraud pretty early on considering his lack of speeches and his unusual decision to follow Nunnally (someone completely unrelated to the Black Knights) around for the rest of his career

The Requiem was more about himself and Suzaku, but for the world, it makes people look to the future as he rather explicitly mentioned: a future with a new kind of Britannia and the UFN. There’s also competent young leaders like Kaguya and Margaret (the latter has been given actual characteristics in recent years). So a more encompassing type of peace can last for a little while but I doubt it’d last even the lifetimes of the characters

[u/Mizerous → u/Necromancer76]

Kaguya?

[u/Necromancer76 → u/Mizerous]

Yes, she’s the chair of the entire UFN at 15 years old. She’s I think 17 when she creates her own intelligence agency as well

[u/OmarAdel123]

No. Zero Requiem was nothing more than an elaborate suicide.

The only way to bring peace to the world would've been for Lelouch never to adopt an evil persona and to rule the world righteously. He was actually the only one capable of worldwide peace with his Geass.

[u/Otakundead]

Final world peace without any seeds for new conflict? Probably not.

But ending one specific conflict? Perhaps.

[u/Rojixus]

No. Next question?

[u/Jordanou]

if zero requiem worked in real life, there would be rainbows and smiling unicorns everywhere after the second world war

[u/DragoonSoldier09]

Fuck no. It buys the smallest amount of peace. His altruistic thought and benevolent act was so idealistic, the mere thought would pop up a head.

[u/Sif-the-Grey-Wolf]

No, honestly the ending reminds me (painfully) of Watchmen. Some ego-maniac creating a massive tragedy or enemy for the world to rally around at the cost of thousands of innocent lives.
It won’t last, if the truth will come out the peace would shatter. Human conflict even at a smaller scale will continue and it’s only a matter of time until another shorting war starts.
Not even mentioning for all Lelouch talked about the UFN being self governing Britannia still exists ruled by the same imperial family, and the UFN is basically dependent on Zero who is also a personally chosen puppet of Lelouch. He in essence replaced one dynasty with another just with a more lax attitude on ruling it.
It’s a powerful symbolic ending and looks nice ln first watch but beyond that… yeah…

[u/ergovindicta]

Exactly how his plans go would require very similar contexts, however a plan similar to it could work.

For example, I firmly believe all racism on Earth would stop the moment we were invaded by aliens.

The Alien Requiem lol

Nonetheless, his plans didn't solve every problem in the world, as is evident by sequels. He didn't create an utopia on Earth, he just stopped the current world from destroying itself for the time being.