I am still reading these posts of yours with interest; it is unfortunate, but I suppose inevitable, that you keep touching on points I often can't meaningfully see how to engage with in a spoiler-free manner.
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 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.