Code Geass metathinking based on a lot of conjecture and assumptions
Marianne Lamperouge.
A very French name (I mean, come on, they use it for the personification of their country), and she picked a similarly French name for her son Lelouch.
I want to play with this. We know little about the Lamperouge family other than the fact they were commoners in Britannia, but their French connections in a country that was booted out of its original homeland after suffering a humiliating defeat at French hands has to have gotten them a lot of flak (even if it happened about 200 years before canon, there didn't seem to be much love lost there), whether or not they were recent immigrants. It certainly makes the Emperor's choice to marry her infinitely more interesting in its political connotations -- not only was she not of the nobility, but she had that connection to their long-time rivals. This was undoubtedly a contributing factor to the slights she and her children received at court.
And this is completely leaving out any of the religion aspect -- assuming Christian history proceeded in this alternate timeline as it did in our world, we have that ideological split between the Protestant Britannians and the Catholic French, and though few characters in the series are at all religious (and the bit of that we do see seems to fall victim to the ol' Christianity is Catholic trope) I wouldn't doubt that the Britannia children would've had at least basic education in the Anglican faith, what with Dad being its Supreme Governor and all. But if the Lamperouge family were truly French Catholics, would Marianne have passed on any of the faith to her children? How would Charles have felt about that? What's the status of the Roman Catholic Church in the Empire in general -- is it allowed some tiny presence alongside the Anglican Communion, or are Britannian missionaries as staunch in their hammering-home of the One Right Way as their military and political counterparts are?
Damn. This series is SO RIPE for rich historical metafic (and the Japanese-English language barrier alone, I mean, really, there's a huge cultural aspect of things you could really delve into that it seems not many people do, though I'm sure the canon ignoring it helps there), and yet there's practically none of that. Sigh.
(On an unrelated note, I'm afraid I'm going to have this song stuck in my head all week. Gah.)
A very French name (I mean, come on, they use it for the personification of their country), and she picked a similarly French name for her son Lelouch.
I want to play with this. We know little about the Lamperouge family other than the fact they were commoners in Britannia, but their French connections in a country that was booted out of its original homeland after suffering a humiliating defeat at French hands has to have gotten them a lot of flak (even if it happened about 200 years before canon, there didn't seem to be much love lost there), whether or not they were recent immigrants. It certainly makes the Emperor's choice to marry her infinitely more interesting in its political connotations -- not only was she not of the nobility, but she had that connection to their long-time rivals. This was undoubtedly a contributing factor to the slights she and her children received at court.
And this is completely leaving out any of the religion aspect -- assuming Christian history proceeded in this alternate timeline as it did in our world, we have that ideological split between the Protestant Britannians and the Catholic French, and though few characters in the series are at all religious (and the bit of that we do see seems to fall victim to the ol' Christianity is Catholic trope) I wouldn't doubt that the Britannia children would've had at least basic education in the Anglican faith, what with Dad being its Supreme Governor and all. But if the Lamperouge family were truly French Catholics, would Marianne have passed on any of the faith to her children? How would Charles have felt about that? What's the status of the Roman Catholic Church in the Empire in general -- is it allowed some tiny presence alongside the Anglican Communion, or are Britannian missionaries as staunch in their hammering-home of the One Right Way as their military and political counterparts are?
Damn. This series is SO RIPE for rich historical metafic (and the Japanese-English language barrier alone, I mean, really, there's a huge cultural aspect of things you could really delve into that it seems not many people do, though I'm sure the canon ignoring it helps there), and yet there's practically none of that. Sigh.
(On an unrelated note, I'm afraid I'm going to have this song stuck in my head all week. Gah.)