zero requiem as consummation of marriage PART TWO: i am so normal about shakespearean tragedy
To recap my previous post about the Zero Requiem, I argued that according to the medieval Christian theological definition of marriage, the Zero Requiem scene basically constitutes a marriage. In this post, I'm going to focus specifically on the consummation aspect of marriage, and how in several Shakespearean tragedies, lovers who cannot be together in life come together in death in a manner that is symbolic of a marital consummation.
I've written a very normal amount about Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (A&C) for my English degree, so we're going to begin there. Hamlet is probably the other obvious starting point - see, Lelouch reading Hamlet in the first episode in the sidecar of Rivalz's motorcycle - but Antony and Cleopatra most explicitly articulates the themes I'll be exploring within the Zero Requiem. Romeo and Juliet is also significant, especially when we consider it in relation to Hamlet.
For anyone who may be unfamiliar with A&C, this play dramatizes the historical situationship affair between the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and the Roman general Marc Antony, which ends with their suicides and the collapse of the Roman Republic. Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide for two primary reasons: to avoid further shame after the defeat of their forces by future Roman emperor Octavian and to be united with one another in death as they could not be in life. Notably, while they were alive, one of the main reasons people rejected the relationship between them was because they saw Rome and Egypt as too diametrically opposed: while Rome is linked to duty and masculinity, Egypt is connected to indulgence and femininity. Despite this, Antony abandons his previous commitment to Rome to join forces with Cleopatra. As the play progresses and both Antony and Cleopatra embody the values associated with both Rome and Egypt, it becomes apparent that these Rome/Egypt dichotomies are false and have served to keep them apart more than they have offered meaningful insight into the setting.
This dichotomy doesn't perfectly map onto Code Geass. The Black Knights and the Britannian Empire are still diametrically opposed, but their dichotomy is more framed in terms of order/stagnation compared to chaos/progress. If we look closely at Lelouch and Suzaku's motivations, though, we see that they're a lot more motivated by their relationships and past experiences than any loftier ideological commitments that are placed in opposition to one another. Similarly, Antony and Cleopatra are driven primarily by their passion for one another than they are by any uniquely Roman or Egyptian values.
Across narratives, though, these characters' lives are complicated by a political environment whose value system prevents them from attaining the union they hope to. As a result, in A&C, Cleopatra decides that she and Antony will have to be united in death if they cannot be in life. Cleopatra explicitly frames their joint suicides as a marriage (5.2.342), and in the same breath, states that their suicides will allow them to transcend the artificial binaries that kept them apart from one another in life (5.2.344-345).
Now, obviously, Suzaku does not physically die in Code Geass. A key difference between A&C and Code Geass is that while both partners die in A&C, only one dies in CG. This is where Hamlet comes in. At the very end of Hamlet (5.2.381-384), as Hamlet dies, he begs Horatio to live to tell his story. Horatio wants to die when he realizes that Hamlet has been mortally wounded. He wants to drink poison, yet Hamlet does not allow him to, because Horatio must continue to exist to continue his legacy.
Now, if this trope of one person wanting to die when they realize the person dearest to them is dead sounds familiar, that's because it is. Romeo and Juliet predates Hamlet by at least five years. However, in Romeo and Juliet, both partners successfully kill themselves. Notably, Romeo uses poison to end his life and Juliet uses a dagger to end hers - each traditionally considered a weapon of the other gender. I would argue that their transcendence of gender norms as they die is reflective of how their suicide more generally allows them to transcend the feud between their families, another artificial boundary that kept them separate from one another. Furthermore - and say it with me - Juliet stabbing herself with a dagger to kill herself uses the same imagery of penetration necessary for a traditional marital consummation. Even on a more basic level, though, any dissolution of boundaries in which two become one can be interpreted at least symbolically as a consummation of marriage.
The Zero Requiem scene incorporates so many elements from all three plays: death as dissolution of boundaries and unity of identities, penetration with a weapon as consummation of doomed marriage, and the spiritual death of living only as a vessel for a lost love's legacy with no will to live on your own. Even though Suzaku does not physically stop breathing in this scene, his gravestone is shown. He has faked his physical death to undergo the spiritual death of becoming Zero, uniting his identity with Lelouch's, and carrying on Lelouch's legacy even though he wishes to die himself. Though Suzaku and Lelouch are united in both having been Zero and, at last, overcoming their differences to work toward a common goal, their union must necessarily be tainted with tragedy because of the world in which they live - not unlike the Shakespeare characters their story clearly echoes.
