#zero requiem

Some more Code Geass fanart!

I’m hoping I can finish this cause I’d love to have it on my wall lol but knowing myself. It’s really a 50/50 of that happening 😅

I’m not kidding when I say this show has me in a chokehold currently! It’s all I can think about!

⊱ ─ CLIO’S FANART

28.09.2018

I made a joke to my roommate this morning that the Zero Requiem scene is basically a consummation of marriage. Then I compared that scene to all the medieval theology about marriage I've been reading lately and realized I can totally argue it is. While there are some clear (hetero)sexist elements of medieval marriage traditions, for my purposes, I'm going to interpret them in a slightly broader and more egalitarian sense.

In the 11th century, a monk named Gratian decided to synthesize all of existing church law into one text known as the Decretum. He takes it upon himself to settle the debate about what constitutes a marriage: whether it's just an exchange of vows or both an exchange of vows and a consummation. Gratian argues marriage requires both an exchange of vows and a consummation. According to him, marriage is both a spiritual and physical union and these elements are equally important. I would argue that these are both key elements of the Zero Requiem. Aside from the plan Suzaku and Lelouch make before the Zero Requiem scene, the words they exchange in the scene itself function as vows. After Lelouch instructs Suzaku to live on as Zero, Suzaku "solemnly accepts" Lelouch's words, literally vowing to commit his life to Lelouch's plan (2:56-3:22). As for the consummation of it all, Suzaku's stabbing of Lelouch both represents the consummation of their plan and the traditional marital consummation symbolized by penetration (2:40, sorry).

Another key aspect of medieval marriage is both spouses being subsumed into the same legal identity. They cease to be separate individuals, and at least in the eyes of the state, become one flesh. As of this scene, both Lelouch and Suzaku have been Zero. In taking on Lelouch's former identity and discarding his former identity as Kururugi Suzaku, Suzaku makes himself and Lelouch inseparable from one another. They are united in having both been Zero.

Finally, the primary purpose of marriage in medieval times was considered to be the creation of new life - which technically refers to procreation, but we can interpret it in a more metaphorical sense. As Lelouch dies, he tells Nunnally that the ultimate goal of the ZR plan was to destroy the world in order to create it anew (4:17-4:25, my apologies yet again). When we learn from Kallen that Lelouch's plan has succeeded, we learn that Lelouch and Suzaku have achieved the goals of their marriage ceremony.