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jackOK, lets talk about how Lelouch uses his Geass and what it can do. As of near-the-end-of-S1.
He can command someone to do something. That can be an immediate action. It can affect their mind in a ways that they couldn't voluntarily choose to do themself, like forgetting something. It can be an ongoing order, but if so it lasts weeks not years. That last is mostly the student he tested it on when he told her to mark a wall every day, are there other examples?
I assume he can't say "obey all my orders from now on" or he would have done that more often? Or maybe he could, but further orders would have to seem reasonable as orders he might obey from someone.
He seems to have some sense of how it works, e.g. right at the beginning, he was able to command the guards to die and seemed to know what he was doing. But needs to experiment to understand exactly how far.
People need to be able to see him for it to work. I don't know if he ever tried it over a video link? Modern science magic stories tend to assume that wouldn't make sense, but some stories focused on magic-as-magic take the view that if people think it should count then it should count. I assume not, but it'd be funny if it worked and he never thought to try it.
Lastly, there's a lot of stuff about Lelouch's military strategy and his ingenious use of his geass. But in fact, I notice that a lot of the series covers how he copes with pulling out impossible wins in sudden crisis situations that look lost. There's surprisingly little of him acting proactively to forward his *own* plans. Which is not unrealistic in an excellent but unpractised strategist, all leadership involves a LOT of dealing with crises, but might be a subtle mistake I only noticed in retrospect.
It does seem, even though he sensibly uses his geas sparingly, he could try to reach his goals much more directly. "Hello, guard. I'm a messenger bringing an urgent message for the Prince/Princess. Hello sibling, please assassinate your father for me. Thank you."
He can command someone to do something. That can be an immediate action. It can affect their mind in a ways that they couldn't voluntarily choose to do themself, like forgetting something. It can be an ongoing order, but if so it lasts weeks not years. That last is mostly the student he tested it on when he told her to mark a wall every day, are there other examples?
I assume he can't say "obey all my orders from now on" or he would have done that more often? Or maybe he could, but further orders would have to seem reasonable as orders he might obey from someone.
He seems to have some sense of how it works, e.g. right at the beginning, he was able to command the guards to die and seemed to know what he was doing. But needs to experiment to understand exactly how far.
People need to be able to see him for it to work. I don't know if he ever tried it over a video link? Modern science magic stories tend to assume that wouldn't make sense, but some stories focused on magic-as-magic take the view that if people think it should count then it should count. I assume not, but it'd be funny if it worked and he never thought to try it.
Lastly, there's a lot of stuff about Lelouch's military strategy and his ingenious use of his geass. But in fact, I notice that a lot of the series covers how he copes with pulling out impossible wins in sudden crisis situations that look lost. There's surprisingly little of him acting proactively to forward his *own* plans. Which is not unrealistic in an excellent but unpractised strategist, all leadership involves a LOT of dealing with crises, but might be a subtle mistake I only noticed in retrospect.
It does seem, even though he sensibly uses his geas sparingly, he could try to reach his goals much more directly. "Hello, guard. I'm a messenger bringing an urgent message for the Prince/Princess. Hello sibling, please assassinate your father for me. Thank you."
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Date: 2018-05-15 02:49 am (UTC)I think Lelouch being primarily good as a reactive, defensive strategist is an intentional choice rather than a mistake, with all the symbolism piled up around him and his allies as the black side of the chessboard and his opponents, particularly Suzaku, associated with white. (The way this echoes against the tendency of an awful lot of anime to make the hotheads with lots of will and fighting spirit the protagonists and the clever meticulous tacticians the antagonists is a thing I love.) One of the things this series is good at is very smart people making stupid mistakes that are not the same as the stupid mistakes less smart people would make, and I think what Lelouch does and doesn't think to test about the power of geass is indicative of his own emotional make-up and blindspots; your suggestions for more direct approaches are certainly more logical, but it works for me that the particular values of emotionally screwed-up Lelouch is make him very disinclined to think of plans where he has to trust other people doing some scales of emotionally important thing.
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Date: 2018-05-15 08:47 am (UTC)Alas :) I'm sorry that's frustrating; but I take it as a good sign that the questions raised in my mind are ones that continue to be relevant. I will get to S2 eventually and then all the "AT LAST I'VE BEEN BURSTING TO SAY THAT EVER SINCE YOU SAID..." can be let loose :)
I think Lelouch being primarily good as a reactive, defensive strategist is an intentional choice
That's most of what I mean -- that it's a mistake on his behalf, not on behalf of the show runner. With the possible exception that it seems like maybe his geass would allow him to be much more proactive which you'd expect him to realise, but there's lots of reasons that might not be plausible or he might no realise that and which likely are more obvious later on in the show.