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Sep. 26th, 2011 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regretsThis is an essay on Suzaku in Aather. If nothing makes sense it’s because I only recently woke up, so that is bound to influence things.
From the Beginning to … Now-ish Overview
At the beginning of the game, it’s important to note that Suzaku knew little about his motivations in canon. But the big thing about his character arc in Geass is his inability to feel happiness. For the most part, he feels guilty, he doesn’t believe he deserves anything, and due to killing his father, he denies himself anything good in life. He joins the military, loses his connection to his family, and believes that he has to work to change the world through the system provided. That system, as everyone knows, comes around because he killed his father. The people in Japan are unable to fight as hard anymore because Suzaku saw the need, as a ten-year-old, to kill his father so that there wouldn’t be fields full of dead bodies.
Not all of this was known, but Suzaku inherently has a sense of justice and way of handling things. In Aather, this played out with him arriving and needing to help and then needing to enact and influence his own sense of justice: on one hand, he tried doing this on Seishirou (which ended with them regularly having sex, so obviously, that didn’t go off so well) and another on Mukuro (which led to his fingers being broken and the construction of the unusual Ruby-Peridot relationship, with Ruby’s original members still disliking Suzaku and Suzaku being incredibly wary of the team to not even trying to play if he gets paired off with them during a game). All of these things, with the exception of wanting to Help Everyone has stayed and continued to influence him. His relationship with Seishirou has made him somewhat bothered by the other sociopaths because he knows they can control themselves—they just don’t, in his eyes, and he isn’t very amused by it. This started the strong bond and need to protect Peridot. And it began his straying from protecting all to protecting a specific team.
What cemented this was what happened during Three’s game in early April (this might be the incorrect time because the months blur together for me). In that game, Suzaku ended up using Sugata as a shield to protect himself from arrows, thus showing that his Geass is intact and that he would do something like that. Around the same time, Lelouch showed up, he got the memory of killing his father, and he started believing that he was the kind of person who would do awful things if he was justified. And he was. The thing with Mukuro proved that he was more than willing to take matters into his own hands. Furthermore, he saw himself as someone who would betray someone he cared about just because he was angry, would kill someone he cared about to bring a certain end, and that he generally was someone who arrogantly lived his life out being a terrible person.
Anyone who knows Geass will know that while some of this is accurate, it’s probably more accurate to say Lelouch is more terrible on these fronts. Suzaku wasn’t—and, for that matter, still isn’t on such a vast scale—aware of the things that Lelouch was capable of. When Lelouch showed up, it was around that same time he asked Beauty to book him. She told him he had a reason to live. Vanille intervened and Suzaku and Peridot came to an understanding. Suzaku and Lelouch worked things out to an extent, with Suzaku realizing that all his good feelings in the past toward Lelouch are positive ones. He didn’t have the Euphy thing yet beyond a brief memory, so he didn’t have the same attachment. Peridot’s acceptance of him and Lelouch’s grudging acceptance of him led to him being afraid to expand outside of Peridot. A lot of this had to do with feeling like a burden. If he approached any other team, it was for a specific reason—to spread warnings, for example—but he didn’t believe himself to be someone who deserved another team’s trust like Peridot. They were fully aware of his flaws and problems, so they could deal with the fact that he was an awful person.
Since then, Nunnally has arrived, Shirley has arrived, Rolo has arrived, and all of these different factors complicate how he handles things in the game. Suzaku is a liar, so he doesn’t tell any of them the right thing. When it comes to Nunnally, Suzaku will be the least surprised about her autonomy, especially with the memory he just got; actually, and I need to discuss it below, he will just assume it from now on because of that memory. He assumes it in the memory, but with a little bit of condescension (IE with the “do you understand what just happened” question). Rolo … isn’t someone that Suzaku understands. He isn’t built into Suzaku’s understanding of Lelouch and Nunnally, so he honestly isn’t capable of recognizing him as being built into that identity. A lot of it is that he know Rolo isn’t a great person, so he’s confused about that. Trying to ask Suzaku what he thinks of Rolo would be hard, because he’d come up blank. And Shirley is like the Ashford entity, but Suzaku knew enough to do damage control because Ashford blurred into other things (the Zero stuff). Suzaku loves her a lot, but that sort of thing is complicated still. As it is, Nunnally is favored because she’s Nunnally, and because he thought she was dead. It’s hard to be a self-loathing person talking to someone you think you killed. The fact that he didn’t tell her was disrespectful, but he didn’t want to make her deal with that.
Now, apart from these arrivals, his relationship was severely shaken up with Lelouch because they realized that Euphy was dead and it was ninety-nine percent Lelouch’s fault. This destroyed things because in a lot of ways, the status quo was that Lelouch wasn’t as bad as Suzaku; Suzaku was selfish and hypocritical and Lelouch helped build up this image where Suzaku was the demon and Lelouch was the one losing all his loved ones to Suzaku. Suzaku took took took and tortured and was generally an awful human being, and he was awful to Lelouch. Sure, Lelouch killed a lot of people, but there was a war going on and that happens. He was even able to accept that, because of how much he hated himself. Suzaku’s actions were not for a greater good, in his eyes, and were for his own selfish purposes. So then the Euphy thing came out, and knowing how Lelouch still tried to use it against him, how he—twice-over—turned down the SAZ, how he believed his way was the right way all along. How while Suzaku’s mistakes are clearly evident, Lelouch had to be aware of his, and still saw it through the selfish scope.
That seriously damaged things. Suzaku is more than willing to hate himself, but to basically beg and plead while Lelouch had to be aware of his own mistakes is something that Suzaku doesn’t understand. He was hurting people and causing people to get hurt and generally causing lots and lots of people to die without coming up with a different solution for that. It wasn’t okay. It isn’t okay. He told Lelouch to hate himself, because why should he get to have happiness when he’s just as bad as Suzaku? But Suzaku doesn’t entirely believe that Lelouch deserves anything good and he also believes that if Lelouch is able to see things from the scope he did, then he’s unlikely to alter his behavior. It’s not just that he was awful, but a lot of it is in the self-perception of his behavior and taking responsibility. In both canon and in Aather, Suzaku doesn’t feel that Lelouch does that.
Apart from this, Suzaku fell hard for Beatrice, and he idealizes her, but that gets another subheading.
So I think it will go: being a knight, to understand his politics and motivations in Aather compared to canon, Beatrice, Nunnally, sociopaths in general, and his current emotions and feelings in regard to his memory (and Feelings For Lelouch). Not all of these sections will be as large.
Being a Knight in Aather … for Peridot / Canon Motivations and How They Tie in
Suzaku does, even somewhat unconsciously, see himself as a part of Peridot’s infrastructure. It’s actually super similar to how he perceived himself at Ashford. He was never properly a part of things there because he didn’t go to school a lot and he was often off fighting things for the military. But when he was there, he’d do anything for the people he cares about. Even if not all of Peridot agrees that he is their knight, Suzaku sees himself as their knight. So when Peridot chooses Peridot over him, some part of him is lost and confused. Honestly, if Peridot permanently ICly turned their back on Suzaku, I don’t know if I could play him. It is that ingrained in his identity at this point that he associates with the team, because he is not lying when he says they are the reason that he lives. Without them, he might continue trying to commit suicide or finding a way to be booked or turned into one of the things in the woods. In this way, the Peridot connection is ten times stronger than the Ashford one. No one at Ashford, even in season two, knew how awful of a person he was. In some way, Suzaku was always lying to the others there; there’s no need to lie to Peridot (… even if he does, but in his case, it’s more omitting truth from people not Lelouch and Beatrice because he doesn’t want to burden them with how terrible he is).
The biggest thing is, as a result of all this, Suzaku’s motivations in canon will never be realized in Aather. His motivations in canon are that he wants to change things from the inside. He doesn’t want to see another person killed, and he needs to do it through the just way rather than taking matters into his own hands because he thinks he’s too arrogant to have judgement there. Which is fair, because his judgement skills are pretty poor. He fights against Zero largely because Zero is hypocritically trying to help everyone and fight against the Empire of Britannia while killing just as many people along the way. Suzaku wants to save everyone, which is what Euphy wants, so that’s why they start gravitating toward one another.
Now, don’t get confused. Suzaku does want to save everyone in Aather, but he doesn’t think a law system works for Aather and he also doesn’t think the knights can police things. He tried proposing it months ago, and it was turned down. They don’t want that, and he doesn’t think anyone should be arrogant enough to propose that the knights try to assert their dominion over other people. They already get enough to eat, all the clothes they want, and freedom to act as they choose (well, those on Sterling; from what I understand, Maleficent is a little better at keeping her knights under control). They can’t tell other people how to behave and Aather works in such a way that being political doesn’t help. In a lot of ways, his behavior towards Aather is bizarrely close to his end-canon motivations with Lelouch, with everyone being under one umbrella equally dealing with the situation of the world. But it’s not so bizarre because obviously, he comes toward making that happy. Only in Aather, the only mass atrocities that should happen are the deaths of most of the personae. Law doesn’t work, though, so he can’t change things from within; otherwise, he’d go to Onyx, and he is aware of the fact that it’s an option if he needs more power and knowledge, but it’s not on the table. He loves Beauty too much, and even if he doesn’t think of himself as her knight anymore—and he doesn’t, because he is Peridot’s knight—he still would never betray someone who believed in him that strongly.
As it is, he does largely trust the other knights to take care of the matter where everyone needs to be protected. With a few major exceptions on teams (Nunnally and Shirley, as well as a couple other scattered people he’s growing to like a lot), he doesn’t think he can control or suggest how people should behave, and he can’t force them to recognize him as a knight and savior. In games, it’s one thing, and he’s been topped enough by various teams (especially Kunzite and Amethyst) to recognize that maybe he shouldn’t be so self-loathing in games and how he takes on the brunt of bad things. Which doesn’t change his self-sacrificing attitude, but he’s less likely to volunteer for mortal wounds, for example. But on a whole, Suzaku doesn’t see himself as someone who has a right to force his protection on people. He’ll do it, obviously, if someone is in trouble, but he won’t offer his services around the clock. No one should have to deal with him, and he repents by being as good to Peridot as he possibly can. … Even when Peridot tells him to go the fuck away.
Now, with Peridot, he was severely hurt when they took Lelouch’s side because he realized that Lelouch wasn’t exactly going to tell them why Suzaku was mad, because he doesn’t think that Lelouch really gets why he deserves to be tossed around like a rag doll. If he tries to explain it himself, that’s selfishly taking the power from Lelouch, but if he leaves Lelouch to explain it … well, everyone knows the likelihood of success there. That said, he was surprised when Lelouch got around telling them and still told them to forgive Suzaku and still be his friend—well, not surprised that he got around telling them, but the aftermath. Suzaku is shocked that he would do this, but honestly, incredibly grateful. Fortunately, he has a really hard time staying mad at Lelouch when he talks to him face to face and his memory just reinforced that after the truth or dare game.
Suzaku isn’t actually going to try and get the rest of Peridot to forgive him. If they do, great; if they don’t, that’s fine, too. But he can’t explain himself without telling what Lelouch won’t tell them, so it puts him in a position of either just moving forward or being stagnant and unable to do his duty of protecting the team. He can’t selfishly do that, so he has to move forward.
Beatrice
I’ve covered this elsewhere, but outside of Lelouch, and possibly even more than him, Beatrice is Suzaku’s most important person in Aather. If you subtract canonmates, this is a definite. The two of them slowly grew closer over time, with Suzaku understanding a lot of the way she projects herself not necessarily correlating with her actual motivations. The fact that she isn’t really proud of the life she comes from before really is something he gets, and the fact that someone took advantage of her love was kind of the final nail in the coffin; when she explained to him what Battler did to her, Suzaku started loving her there, and since then, it’s only grown. He has joked with her about the way she presents herself, but he knows that isn’t really her, and he’s curbed it a bit.
The biggest thing is this: unlike Lelouch, Beatrice came very early on to decide to be someone different for Peridot and to protect them and to atone. She didn’t explain away her actions, so this made Suzaku see her as someone who, while committing a lot of atrocities, she’s someone acceptable. If you know Geass canon, Suzaku is seen at peace when he and Lelouch are talking about how they’re going to take responsibility for their past actions and make themselves out to be greater demons than Euphy. He doesn’t have this memory yet, but it’s very telling about how Suzaku approaches repenting. Only when someone accepts that they’re a monster can they change; though Lelouch warned him, yes, it was done with the emphasis actually being still placed on what other people have done to him. Beatrice has been terribly screwed over, but she takes responsibility for herself.
Now, this might not actually be accurate to Beatrice’s character arc in canon or in Aather. A lot of this is how Suzaku perceives her and thus how I understand her through that lens. Suzaku loves her a lot, but she has been through hell and she doesn’t deserve someone like that. Does that mean he’s without his impulses? Hardly. In her heart game, he told her time and time again that he loved her and that he would do anything to ensure that she understood that someone appreciated her just the way she is. Of course, he did this to her self-conscious construct and not the true heart, so it didn’t have the same effect (and to that end, I purposely kept him from going to her true heart because he’d want her to feel more at ease with herself). And of course, after fighting Lelouch, he tried to warn her against him. This ended badly, of course, because Beatrice doesn’t want to lose Lelouch. It made Suzaku realize he’ll just never be good enough for her. For that matter, he doesn’t resent Lelouch for having her instead; that isn’t how Suzaku functions. He does resent that Lelouch might not be honest with her and might hurt her. Suzaku doesn’t see people as a matter of being owned the way … Lelouch seems to. And finally, Suzaku kissed her back in the truth or dare game, which further complicated matters. Beatrice told him to go kiss someone else, and he considered telling her he didn’t want to. But he didn’t, because he won’t tell her how he feels, but he suspects she’s getting the picture.
And if she isn’t, that’s for the best!
Nunnally
In a lot of ways, Suzaku is very, very close to knowing how to handle Nunnally, and then not getting it at all. He understands that Nunnally is someone who doesn’t want people to behave a certain way for her, and the memory he just got confirms that. But in a lot of ways, they are clearly willing to act even in spite of that. Prior to this memory of her reveal of being alive, Suzaku was under the impression that she was an innocent who was involved in things because of Lelouch’s ambitions. He didn’t know her beyond childhood circumstances and being cute with her, thus putting her into the uncomfortable “we do things for her without her consent.” But he realized that Nunnally and Euphy wouldn’t want terrible atrocities committed in their names; he was close, but then neither he nor Lelouch got up and went to tell Nunnally (or anyone else, for that matter) about what they realized or what they’ve done.
A lot of this is bound to change, so I’m … not going to write a lot here. But in a lot of ways, Suzaku is quick to recognize on multiple occasions in canon that Nunnally is fully aware of how to play the political machinations game. He is going to talk to her, but it’s going to be after he sorts out his knowledge about things. He has no idea what is going on between her and Lelouch in Aather because no one in this cast communicates correctly.
Sociopaths in General
Suzaku doesn’t get along with sociopaths. A lot of the way he does and perceives life is through the scope of someone taking responsibility for their actions, and he doesn’t believe pretty much any of the sociopaths he’s come across in Aather are willing to take responsibility for their actions, and they just see other people as entertainment. This riles him up, because in a lot of ways, he’s perceiving them as just deciding not to understand that what they’re doing is wrong, and he doesn’t think that’s acceptable. People get upset for a reason. You can’t try and destroy things just because you think that what you’re doing is more interesting. And a lot of the time, he pushes to see if they have an understanding of the moral code, and in his eyes, most do and just don’t care.
Now, writing this, I realize that makes him kind of a dick, but he runs into so many people and the conversations never go well. They aren’t willing to face up to their mistakes because they think their way of going about things is fine. He doesn’t agree with anyone who sees other people or other things on a basis of how “interesting” they are; you aren’t meant to judge other people, and you shouldn’t go around doing things that “interest” you.
Now, this is only half-way hypocritical because Suzaku does a lot of awful things when he shuts off his emotions. He does have a switch. When the switch is hit, he can be terrible, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t fully conscious of what he’s doing; he just does things because he thinks he’s justified, but he realizes that his justifications are terrible. They don’t even justify beyond the matter of interesting or being terrible, and he doesn’t think that’s acceptable. He will never be okay with that, and as a result, he’ll never be okay with sociopaths. He might, in a lot of ways, be worse than them, but in his eyes, that isn’t the case. At least he is lending himself awareness, and he thinks a lot of the people he runs into don’t or just don’t make an effort to do so.
(On that note, I want to apologize because I’ve tried moving him past this, but they are on such completely different spectrums of behavior that he won’t change. So if and when he ends up coming across our lol feelings group, it almost always goes really poorly. I can’t imagine it’s fun to play off him when he’s being a self-righteous shit.)
Feelings / The Current Situation / Euphy / … Lelouch …
That said, in his memories from the second season, Suzaku scares himself. It isn’t that he is incapable of recognizing that he can be a scary person who essentially shuts down. That isn’t really the concern; he is aware that this is a distinct possibility and he knows that he’s bound to do it at any moment, because he can go cold and carry something out. But for Suzaku, cold is just ignoring his own selfish concerns, his own inhibitions, and feeling disconnected; he’s never unaware of his morality, he doesn’t berserk or anything. He’s fully conscious of himself.
In the memory of Nunnally’s reveal of being alive, he is acting this way. He’s cold to Lelouch despite them obviously working together as a political unit. He doesn’t see a need for weaknesses and believes that no matter what, they have to continue forward because there’s no turning back. Continue forward toward what? He doesn’t know, but in the memory, he understands that it has to do with this requiem and that whatever they’re doing is enough to make Nunnally be pissed off at them and the world isn’t very happy. He’s shut down and disconnected. Yes, he’s working with Lelouch, and Suzaku all along has been conscious of the fact that Lelouch and him would be better together than separate. This is also his first memory of CC, really, where he addresses her as Lelouch’s accomplice; it’s used in such a way that implies that she’s the one meant to make him feel better and continue forward, not him. He’s too cold and disconnected to do that.
Obviously, Suzaku doesn’t know what they are trying to accomplish, but he imagines it’s through pretty bad means. He told Lelouch that there’s always another way, but he can tell that he’s abandoned that much in this memory if he is that disconnected. Not even counting the Nunnally is alive stuff, and the relief behind that, Suzaku has a hard time feeling the same relief because he’s so isolated from allowing himself to feel anything. So much of how he handles himself is based on a construction of behavior; unlike his earlier behavior in canon where he pretends to be happy, it’s much easier to shut down because he doesn’t have anyone (except Arthur). Lelouch is right there, and the only reason the self he is in his memory is helping him is to achieve some really messed up end. He has no choice but to continue with that construction, and more than anything, it comes as second-nature. His conversation with Nunnally wasn’t forced, unlike Lelouch’s. It wasn’t done in a manner of trying to dress himself up (and it’s obvious to Suzaku in the memory that Lelouch is acting because he goes and throws him around a little).
Now, this doesn’t make him feel bad for Lelouch because obviously, they are both committing atrocities. But it makes him exceedingly uncomfortable. He knows that the Euphy death broke him. He knows he feels responsible for that, and he knows he needs to do anything possible to fix the world he’s in. And what he’s doing with Lelouch probably ties into that. But unlike in canon, some part of him is rebelling against that. He loves Euphy more than anything. And to realize how messed up he is, he is wondering how he is going to go back to the world having the knowledge that he is this terrible and just continue it. Because the difference between himself in Aather and himself in canon is a self-awareness from a different angle. Suzaku looks at his actions in Aather and in canon and goes, “This is wrong. Why am I doing this? Why am I so messed up?” In canon, he deviates and provides a new construction for himself, but he is alone through it all. He isn’t in Aather, and he is confused.
The long and short of it is that he won’t shut down. He started to, but then Lelouch showed him kindness and selflessness through ensuring that he didn’t lose Peridot. Now, as we know, it wasn’t like Lelouch turned over a new leaf and decided to attempt honesty. In no way was that what was done. But he did think for Suzaku outside of himself, and it meant something. And in a lot of ways, Suzaku is … aware that what they’re doing is so bad that he needs to shut down—that weaknesses aren’t going to be acceptable in the long run.
In a lot of ways, he’s determined to work with Lelouch, but he’s still going to impress upon the fact that they need to do things differently. He wants to be a different, better person than the self in his memories, and Lelouch needs to do that, too. And in Aather, their behavior in their memories isn’t really going to be acceptable. Suzaku does get that he needs to go home, especially if Nunnally is alive, and also, because he’s honestly afraid. If he and Lelouch are working together … it could be disastrous. Plus, Lelouch’s clothes are those of someone in extreme, extreme power. This is a problem! But at the same time, he can understand why it’s important not to show weakness, so he’s conflicted.
And also, there is the weight of the fact that he’s Zero. He’s accepted this after the last memory, but he doesn’t know why. Is his alliance with Lelouch temporary? Or is he acting as Zero for Lelouch? There’s a whole lot of confusion tied in to that identity, as well. But he is aware, at least, that he is only working with Lelouch because of achieving some better ends, and that makes him uncomfortable because that’s a real examination of how far he’s gone. And if being Zero ties into that, then it makes sense. Only obviously, he has the wrong idea. He wants to change that, though, because he doesn’t want to be the person who only works with Lelouch because it’s the only means he has left.
Conclusion
… That was a lot of words …
From the Beginning to … Now-ish Overview
At the beginning of the game, it’s important to note that Suzaku knew little about his motivations in canon. But the big thing about his character arc in Geass is his inability to feel happiness. For the most part, he feels guilty, he doesn’t believe he deserves anything, and due to killing his father, he denies himself anything good in life. He joins the military, loses his connection to his family, and believes that he has to work to change the world through the system provided. That system, as everyone knows, comes around because he killed his father. The people in Japan are unable to fight as hard anymore because Suzaku saw the need, as a ten-year-old, to kill his father so that there wouldn’t be fields full of dead bodies.
Not all of this was known, but Suzaku inherently has a sense of justice and way of handling things. In Aather, this played out with him arriving and needing to help and then needing to enact and influence his own sense of justice: on one hand, he tried doing this on Seishirou (which ended with them regularly having sex, so obviously, that didn’t go off so well) and another on Mukuro (which led to his fingers being broken and the construction of the unusual Ruby-Peridot relationship, with Ruby’s original members still disliking Suzaku and Suzaku being incredibly wary of the team to not even trying to play if he gets paired off with them during a game). All of these things, with the exception of wanting to Help Everyone has stayed and continued to influence him. His relationship with Seishirou has made him somewhat bothered by the other sociopaths because he knows they can control themselves—they just don’t, in his eyes, and he isn’t very amused by it. This started the strong bond and need to protect Peridot. And it began his straying from protecting all to protecting a specific team.
What cemented this was what happened during Three’s game in early April (this might be the incorrect time because the months blur together for me). In that game, Suzaku ended up using Sugata as a shield to protect himself from arrows, thus showing that his Geass is intact and that he would do something like that. Around the same time, Lelouch showed up, he got the memory of killing his father, and he started believing that he was the kind of person who would do awful things if he was justified. And he was. The thing with Mukuro proved that he was more than willing to take matters into his own hands. Furthermore, he saw himself as someone who would betray someone he cared about just because he was angry, would kill someone he cared about to bring a certain end, and that he generally was someone who arrogantly lived his life out being a terrible person.
Anyone who knows Geass will know that while some of this is accurate, it’s probably more accurate to say Lelouch is more terrible on these fronts. Suzaku wasn’t—and, for that matter, still isn’t on such a vast scale—aware of the things that Lelouch was capable of. When Lelouch showed up, it was around that same time he asked Beauty to book him. She told him he had a reason to live. Vanille intervened and Suzaku and Peridot came to an understanding. Suzaku and Lelouch worked things out to an extent, with Suzaku realizing that all his good feelings in the past toward Lelouch are positive ones. He didn’t have the Euphy thing yet beyond a brief memory, so he didn’t have the same attachment. Peridot’s acceptance of him and Lelouch’s grudging acceptance of him led to him being afraid to expand outside of Peridot. A lot of this had to do with feeling like a burden. If he approached any other team, it was for a specific reason—to spread warnings, for example—but he didn’t believe himself to be someone who deserved another team’s trust like Peridot. They were fully aware of his flaws and problems, so they could deal with the fact that he was an awful person.
Since then, Nunnally has arrived, Shirley has arrived, Rolo has arrived, and all of these different factors complicate how he handles things in the game. Suzaku is a liar, so he doesn’t tell any of them the right thing. When it comes to Nunnally, Suzaku will be the least surprised about her autonomy, especially with the memory he just got; actually, and I need to discuss it below, he will just assume it from now on because of that memory. He assumes it in the memory, but with a little bit of condescension (IE with the “do you understand what just happened” question). Rolo … isn’t someone that Suzaku understands. He isn’t built into Suzaku’s understanding of Lelouch and Nunnally, so he honestly isn’t capable of recognizing him as being built into that identity. A lot of it is that he know Rolo isn’t a great person, so he’s confused about that. Trying to ask Suzaku what he thinks of Rolo would be hard, because he’d come up blank. And Shirley is like the Ashford entity, but Suzaku knew enough to do damage control because Ashford blurred into other things (the Zero stuff). Suzaku loves her a lot, but that sort of thing is complicated still. As it is, Nunnally is favored because she’s Nunnally, and because he thought she was dead. It’s hard to be a self-loathing person talking to someone you think you killed. The fact that he didn’t tell her was disrespectful, but he didn’t want to make her deal with that.
Now, apart from these arrivals, his relationship was severely shaken up with Lelouch because they realized that Euphy was dead and it was ninety-nine percent Lelouch’s fault. This destroyed things because in a lot of ways, the status quo was that Lelouch wasn’t as bad as Suzaku; Suzaku was selfish and hypocritical and Lelouch helped build up this image where Suzaku was the demon and Lelouch was the one losing all his loved ones to Suzaku. Suzaku took took took and tortured and was generally an awful human being, and he was awful to Lelouch. Sure, Lelouch killed a lot of people, but there was a war going on and that happens. He was even able to accept that, because of how much he hated himself. Suzaku’s actions were not for a greater good, in his eyes, and were for his own selfish purposes. So then the Euphy thing came out, and knowing how Lelouch still tried to use it against him, how he—twice-over—turned down the SAZ, how he believed his way was the right way all along. How while Suzaku’s mistakes are clearly evident, Lelouch had to be aware of his, and still saw it through the selfish scope.
That seriously damaged things. Suzaku is more than willing to hate himself, but to basically beg and plead while Lelouch had to be aware of his own mistakes is something that Suzaku doesn’t understand. He was hurting people and causing people to get hurt and generally causing lots and lots of people to die without coming up with a different solution for that. It wasn’t okay. It isn’t okay. He told Lelouch to hate himself, because why should he get to have happiness when he’s just as bad as Suzaku? But Suzaku doesn’t entirely believe that Lelouch deserves anything good and he also believes that if Lelouch is able to see things from the scope he did, then he’s unlikely to alter his behavior. It’s not just that he was awful, but a lot of it is in the self-perception of his behavior and taking responsibility. In both canon and in Aather, Suzaku doesn’t feel that Lelouch does that.
Apart from this, Suzaku fell hard for Beatrice, and he idealizes her, but that gets another subheading.
So I think it will go: being a knight, to understand his politics and motivations in Aather compared to canon, Beatrice, Nunnally, sociopaths in general, and his current emotions and feelings in regard to his memory (and Feelings For Lelouch). Not all of these sections will be as large.
Being a Knight in Aather … for Peridot / Canon Motivations and How They Tie in
Suzaku does, even somewhat unconsciously, see himself as a part of Peridot’s infrastructure. It’s actually super similar to how he perceived himself at Ashford. He was never properly a part of things there because he didn’t go to school a lot and he was often off fighting things for the military. But when he was there, he’d do anything for the people he cares about. Even if not all of Peridot agrees that he is their knight, Suzaku sees himself as their knight. So when Peridot chooses Peridot over him, some part of him is lost and confused. Honestly, if Peridot permanently ICly turned their back on Suzaku, I don’t know if I could play him. It is that ingrained in his identity at this point that he associates with the team, because he is not lying when he says they are the reason that he lives. Without them, he might continue trying to commit suicide or finding a way to be booked or turned into one of the things in the woods. In this way, the Peridot connection is ten times stronger than the Ashford one. No one at Ashford, even in season two, knew how awful of a person he was. In some way, Suzaku was always lying to the others there; there’s no need to lie to Peridot (… even if he does, but in his case, it’s more omitting truth from people not Lelouch and Beatrice because he doesn’t want to burden them with how terrible he is).
The biggest thing is, as a result of all this, Suzaku’s motivations in canon will never be realized in Aather. His motivations in canon are that he wants to change things from the inside. He doesn’t want to see another person killed, and he needs to do it through the just way rather than taking matters into his own hands because he thinks he’s too arrogant to have judgement there. Which is fair, because his judgement skills are pretty poor. He fights against Zero largely because Zero is hypocritically trying to help everyone and fight against the Empire of Britannia while killing just as many people along the way. Suzaku wants to save everyone, which is what Euphy wants, so that’s why they start gravitating toward one another.
Now, don’t get confused. Suzaku does want to save everyone in Aather, but he doesn’t think a law system works for Aather and he also doesn’t think the knights can police things. He tried proposing it months ago, and it was turned down. They don’t want that, and he doesn’t think anyone should be arrogant enough to propose that the knights try to assert their dominion over other people. They already get enough to eat, all the clothes they want, and freedom to act as they choose (well, those on Sterling; from what I understand, Maleficent is a little better at keeping her knights under control). They can’t tell other people how to behave and Aather works in such a way that being political doesn’t help. In a lot of ways, his behavior towards Aather is bizarrely close to his end-canon motivations with Lelouch, with everyone being under one umbrella equally dealing with the situation of the world. But it’s not so bizarre because obviously, he comes toward making that happy. Only in Aather, the only mass atrocities that should happen are the deaths of most of the personae. Law doesn’t work, though, so he can’t change things from within; otherwise, he’d go to Onyx, and he is aware of the fact that it’s an option if he needs more power and knowledge, but it’s not on the table. He loves Beauty too much, and even if he doesn’t think of himself as her knight anymore—and he doesn’t, because he is Peridot’s knight—he still would never betray someone who believed in him that strongly.
As it is, he does largely trust the other knights to take care of the matter where everyone needs to be protected. With a few major exceptions on teams (Nunnally and Shirley, as well as a couple other scattered people he’s growing to like a lot), he doesn’t think he can control or suggest how people should behave, and he can’t force them to recognize him as a knight and savior. In games, it’s one thing, and he’s been topped enough by various teams (especially Kunzite and Amethyst) to recognize that maybe he shouldn’t be so self-loathing in games and how he takes on the brunt of bad things. Which doesn’t change his self-sacrificing attitude, but he’s less likely to volunteer for mortal wounds, for example. But on a whole, Suzaku doesn’t see himself as someone who has a right to force his protection on people. He’ll do it, obviously, if someone is in trouble, but he won’t offer his services around the clock. No one should have to deal with him, and he repents by being as good to Peridot as he possibly can. … Even when Peridot tells him to go the fuck away.
Now, with Peridot, he was severely hurt when they took Lelouch’s side because he realized that Lelouch wasn’t exactly going to tell them why Suzaku was mad, because he doesn’t think that Lelouch really gets why he deserves to be tossed around like a rag doll. If he tries to explain it himself, that’s selfishly taking the power from Lelouch, but if he leaves Lelouch to explain it … well, everyone knows the likelihood of success there. That said, he was surprised when Lelouch got around telling them and still told them to forgive Suzaku and still be his friend—well, not surprised that he got around telling them, but the aftermath. Suzaku is shocked that he would do this, but honestly, incredibly grateful. Fortunately, he has a really hard time staying mad at Lelouch when he talks to him face to face and his memory just reinforced that after the truth or dare game.
Suzaku isn’t actually going to try and get the rest of Peridot to forgive him. If they do, great; if they don’t, that’s fine, too. But he can’t explain himself without telling what Lelouch won’t tell them, so it puts him in a position of either just moving forward or being stagnant and unable to do his duty of protecting the team. He can’t selfishly do that, so he has to move forward.
Beatrice
I’ve covered this elsewhere, but outside of Lelouch, and possibly even more than him, Beatrice is Suzaku’s most important person in Aather. If you subtract canonmates, this is a definite. The two of them slowly grew closer over time, with Suzaku understanding a lot of the way she projects herself not necessarily correlating with her actual motivations. The fact that she isn’t really proud of the life she comes from before really is something he gets, and the fact that someone took advantage of her love was kind of the final nail in the coffin; when she explained to him what Battler did to her, Suzaku started loving her there, and since then, it’s only grown. He has joked with her about the way she presents herself, but he knows that isn’t really her, and he’s curbed it a bit.
The biggest thing is this: unlike Lelouch, Beatrice came very early on to decide to be someone different for Peridot and to protect them and to atone. She didn’t explain away her actions, so this made Suzaku see her as someone who, while committing a lot of atrocities, she’s someone acceptable. If you know Geass canon, Suzaku is seen at peace when he and Lelouch are talking about how they’re going to take responsibility for their past actions and make themselves out to be greater demons than Euphy. He doesn’t have this memory yet, but it’s very telling about how Suzaku approaches repenting. Only when someone accepts that they’re a monster can they change; though Lelouch warned him, yes, it was done with the emphasis actually being still placed on what other people have done to him. Beatrice has been terribly screwed over, but she takes responsibility for herself.
Now, this might not actually be accurate to Beatrice’s character arc in canon or in Aather. A lot of this is how Suzaku perceives her and thus how I understand her through that lens. Suzaku loves her a lot, but she has been through hell and she doesn’t deserve someone like that. Does that mean he’s without his impulses? Hardly. In her heart game, he told her time and time again that he loved her and that he would do anything to ensure that she understood that someone appreciated her just the way she is. Of course, he did this to her self-conscious construct and not the true heart, so it didn’t have the same effect (and to that end, I purposely kept him from going to her true heart because he’d want her to feel more at ease with herself). And of course, after fighting Lelouch, he tried to warn her against him. This ended badly, of course, because Beatrice doesn’t want to lose Lelouch. It made Suzaku realize he’ll just never be good enough for her. For that matter, he doesn’t resent Lelouch for having her instead; that isn’t how Suzaku functions. He does resent that Lelouch might not be honest with her and might hurt her. Suzaku doesn’t see people as a matter of being owned the way … Lelouch seems to. And finally, Suzaku kissed her back in the truth or dare game, which further complicated matters. Beatrice told him to go kiss someone else, and he considered telling her he didn’t want to. But he didn’t, because he won’t tell her how he feels, but he suspects she’s getting the picture.
And if she isn’t, that’s for the best!
Nunnally
In a lot of ways, Suzaku is very, very close to knowing how to handle Nunnally, and then not getting it at all. He understands that Nunnally is someone who doesn’t want people to behave a certain way for her, and the memory he just got confirms that. But in a lot of ways, they are clearly willing to act even in spite of that. Prior to this memory of her reveal of being alive, Suzaku was under the impression that she was an innocent who was involved in things because of Lelouch’s ambitions. He didn’t know her beyond childhood circumstances and being cute with her, thus putting her into the uncomfortable “we do things for her without her consent.” But he realized that Nunnally and Euphy wouldn’t want terrible atrocities committed in their names; he was close, but then neither he nor Lelouch got up and went to tell Nunnally (or anyone else, for that matter) about what they realized or what they’ve done.
A lot of this is bound to change, so I’m … not going to write a lot here. But in a lot of ways, Suzaku is quick to recognize on multiple occasions in canon that Nunnally is fully aware of how to play the political machinations game. He is going to talk to her, but it’s going to be after he sorts out his knowledge about things. He has no idea what is going on between her and Lelouch in Aather because no one in this cast communicates correctly.
Sociopaths in General
Suzaku doesn’t get along with sociopaths. A lot of the way he does and perceives life is through the scope of someone taking responsibility for their actions, and he doesn’t believe pretty much any of the sociopaths he’s come across in Aather are willing to take responsibility for their actions, and they just see other people as entertainment. This riles him up, because in a lot of ways, he’s perceiving them as just deciding not to understand that what they’re doing is wrong, and he doesn’t think that’s acceptable. People get upset for a reason. You can’t try and destroy things just because you think that what you’re doing is more interesting. And a lot of the time, he pushes to see if they have an understanding of the moral code, and in his eyes, most do and just don’t care.
Now, writing this, I realize that makes him kind of a dick, but he runs into so many people and the conversations never go well. They aren’t willing to face up to their mistakes because they think their way of going about things is fine. He doesn’t agree with anyone who sees other people or other things on a basis of how “interesting” they are; you aren’t meant to judge other people, and you shouldn’t go around doing things that “interest” you.
Now, this is only half-way hypocritical because Suzaku does a lot of awful things when he shuts off his emotions. He does have a switch. When the switch is hit, he can be terrible, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t fully conscious of what he’s doing; he just does things because he thinks he’s justified, but he realizes that his justifications are terrible. They don’t even justify beyond the matter of interesting or being terrible, and he doesn’t think that’s acceptable. He will never be okay with that, and as a result, he’ll never be okay with sociopaths. He might, in a lot of ways, be worse than them, but in his eyes, that isn’t the case. At least he is lending himself awareness, and he thinks a lot of the people he runs into don’t or just don’t make an effort to do so.
(On that note, I want to apologize because I’ve tried moving him past this, but they are on such completely different spectrums of behavior that he won’t change. So if and when he ends up coming across our lol feelings group, it almost always goes really poorly. I can’t imagine it’s fun to play off him when he’s being a self-righteous shit.)
Feelings / The Current Situation / Euphy / … Lelouch …
That said, in his memories from the second season, Suzaku scares himself. It isn’t that he is incapable of recognizing that he can be a scary person who essentially shuts down. That isn’t really the concern; he is aware that this is a distinct possibility and he knows that he’s bound to do it at any moment, because he can go cold and carry something out. But for Suzaku, cold is just ignoring his own selfish concerns, his own inhibitions, and feeling disconnected; he’s never unaware of his morality, he doesn’t berserk or anything. He’s fully conscious of himself.
In the memory of Nunnally’s reveal of being alive, he is acting this way. He’s cold to Lelouch despite them obviously working together as a political unit. He doesn’t see a need for weaknesses and believes that no matter what, they have to continue forward because there’s no turning back. Continue forward toward what? He doesn’t know, but in the memory, he understands that it has to do with this requiem and that whatever they’re doing is enough to make Nunnally be pissed off at them and the world isn’t very happy. He’s shut down and disconnected. Yes, he’s working with Lelouch, and Suzaku all along has been conscious of the fact that Lelouch and him would be better together than separate. This is also his first memory of CC, really, where he addresses her as Lelouch’s accomplice; it’s used in such a way that implies that she’s the one meant to make him feel better and continue forward, not him. He’s too cold and disconnected to do that.
Obviously, Suzaku doesn’t know what they are trying to accomplish, but he imagines it’s through pretty bad means. He told Lelouch that there’s always another way, but he can tell that he’s abandoned that much in this memory if he is that disconnected. Not even counting the Nunnally is alive stuff, and the relief behind that, Suzaku has a hard time feeling the same relief because he’s so isolated from allowing himself to feel anything. So much of how he handles himself is based on a construction of behavior; unlike his earlier behavior in canon where he pretends to be happy, it’s much easier to shut down because he doesn’t have anyone (except Arthur). Lelouch is right there, and the only reason the self he is in his memory is helping him is to achieve some really messed up end. He has no choice but to continue with that construction, and more than anything, it comes as second-nature. His conversation with Nunnally wasn’t forced, unlike Lelouch’s. It wasn’t done in a manner of trying to dress himself up (and it’s obvious to Suzaku in the memory that Lelouch is acting because he goes and throws him around a little).
Now, this doesn’t make him feel bad for Lelouch because obviously, they are both committing atrocities. But it makes him exceedingly uncomfortable. He knows that the Euphy death broke him. He knows he feels responsible for that, and he knows he needs to do anything possible to fix the world he’s in. And what he’s doing with Lelouch probably ties into that. But unlike in canon, some part of him is rebelling against that. He loves Euphy more than anything. And to realize how messed up he is, he is wondering how he is going to go back to the world having the knowledge that he is this terrible and just continue it. Because the difference between himself in Aather and himself in canon is a self-awareness from a different angle. Suzaku looks at his actions in Aather and in canon and goes, “This is wrong. Why am I doing this? Why am I so messed up?” In canon, he deviates and provides a new construction for himself, but he is alone through it all. He isn’t in Aather, and he is confused.
The long and short of it is that he won’t shut down. He started to, but then Lelouch showed him kindness and selflessness through ensuring that he didn’t lose Peridot. Now, as we know, it wasn’t like Lelouch turned over a new leaf and decided to attempt honesty. In no way was that what was done. But he did think for Suzaku outside of himself, and it meant something. And in a lot of ways, Suzaku is … aware that what they’re doing is so bad that he needs to shut down—that weaknesses aren’t going to be acceptable in the long run.
In a lot of ways, he’s determined to work with Lelouch, but he’s still going to impress upon the fact that they need to do things differently. He wants to be a different, better person than the self in his memories, and Lelouch needs to do that, too. And in Aather, their behavior in their memories isn’t really going to be acceptable. Suzaku does get that he needs to go home, especially if Nunnally is alive, and also, because he’s honestly afraid. If he and Lelouch are working together … it could be disastrous. Plus, Lelouch’s clothes are those of someone in extreme, extreme power. This is a problem! But at the same time, he can understand why it’s important not to show weakness, so he’s conflicted.
And also, there is the weight of the fact that he’s Zero. He’s accepted this after the last memory, but he doesn’t know why. Is his alliance with Lelouch temporary? Or is he acting as Zero for Lelouch? There’s a whole lot of confusion tied in to that identity, as well. But he is aware, at least, that he is only working with Lelouch because of achieving some better ends, and that makes him uncomfortable because that’s a real examination of how far he’s gone. And if being Zero ties into that, then it makes sense. Only obviously, he has the wrong idea. He wants to change that, though, because he doesn’t want to be the person who only works with Lelouch because it’s the only means he has left.
Conclusion
… That was a lot of words …
