It is a sad and dangerous fact that the more intelligent a person is, the more capable of deluding themselves they happen to be. This seems a contradictory notion. After all, surely great intelligence must include the capacity for great reasoning skills. Surely a smart person is capable of seeing a contradiction within their own belief system versus reality and correct it accordingly. Surely intelligence must mean being capable of working through a problem, gathering the facts and engaging in rational behaviour. Surely.
Surely not.
Anyone who really believes an increasing intelligence brings increasingly rational behaviour knows less about human nature than your average house plant. Human beings are not rational. We are all of us - to every man and woman - specifically irrational beings with our very own biases built into us by a combination of genetics, society and events during our developmental period that we may not even remember once we are adults. We all engage in acts of self delusion every single day. This is not always a bad thing, mind. We all ignore the obvious fact that “someday I will die and nobody knows for certain what happens next.” This keeps us sane. It keeps us productive. Dwell on that sort of thing for too long and the next thing anyone would know they’re curled up in the corner sobbing. There are rare instances when denial of the obvious is a good thing for the human psyche.
Unfortunately the human brain is not very good at distinguishing what it is good to be able to ignore rationally versus that which it is not. People regularly call foul on political opponents for minor infractions, while feverishly defending political allies for major ones. Data that stands contrary to deeply held beliefs are ignored, the source mocked and torn down or nitpicked into oblivion while less strong data from a clearly biased source that backs those same beliefs up is embraced with open arms. We all do it. We can’t help it. It’s human nature.
And since we all do it, then it just makes sense that the smartest of us are that much better. A smart person can think of three times the rationalisations of a less smart person in about the same time. An intelligent person tends to be better at solving problems and this skill goes right down to the unconscious level, which means that when presented with certain facts and figures that should scream at them “you are wrong” then sometimes that otherwise rational person will unconsciously think “how do I reconcile these beliefs with this information?” And then, being smart, they will have a greater chance of engaging in self delusion.
Or they might change their mind if this particular genius is wise enough to know they are a fool.
Intelligence is a double-edged sword. It can lead a person to realising the universe in a deeper way than previously thought possible. It allows people to work together to solve problems that might otherwise seem insurmountable. But for all those advantages it can also offer a person a better pair of blinkers. Lend them an air of unwarranted arrogance. It simply depends on the person.
Which makes a certain Lelouch vi Britannia such an interesting person. Not only is he a highly intelligent young man but in his own way he is wise enough to know he is a fool. His mind works at a furious pace. He thinks about what he is doing. Thinks about what he’s thinking. Thinks about what others around him are probably thinking, and what they might think he’s thinking about what they’re thinking. This should protect him from the psychological traps already mentioned. Sometimes it did. Other times his arrogance won out.
But it would not be arrogance that led to his greatest mistake. No. It would not be self denial. It would not be a delusion. It would not even be deliberately ignoring a contradiction in his observations of the world. It would occur because he had made a reasonable assumption that happened to be false due to incomplete data. It would occur when he would least expect such a life-changing event. It would occur, and the boy who would deceive the world would accidentally pull off the greatest deception ever recorded… upon himself.
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Morning had risen and with great reluctance so had Lelouch. He blinked in the morning light, rubbed the sleep away, and while he was at it threw a few silent curses in the general direction of the lump occupying space on the bed. His bed.
Another day. Another step closer to seeing his plans fulfilled. He rubbed at his head and chuckled over yesterday’s affair. That idiot Mao didn’t stand a chance once he’d figured out the limitations of his Geass. Not to mention his various obsessions and psychological quirks, oh yes, it was so much fun taking him apart after that humiliating chess game and - more importantly - what he’d done to Shirley.
How many minds had he left broken like that? How many people did he take advantage of, by peering into their very souls and dragging out all of their insecurities? Each sentence uttered would be like a carefully designed psychological wrecking ball, tailor made to do as much damage as possible on each successive strike.
For all the people he had killed so far, none of them had been quite so satisfying to see go. The sight of those police officers gunning the fool down where he stood, Geassed specifically to shoot to kill. Whatever his mind-reading powers may have said on the issue, he wasn’t nearly fast enough to dodge the hell-rain of bullets that fell upon him.
And as thanks for rescuing her from the clutches of her old “friend,” C.C. had the wisdom and kindness to forgo ordering in another pizza tonight in lieu of taking an early night. So very kind of her to leave him those spare credits for use on a future date.
Fine. Let her be that way. Someday, somehow he would prise her secrets out through those tight lips. Even if he already figured them all out there would be something rather satisfying in making her talk. Oh yes, that got him to smile a bit around his toothbrush. (Though looking at his reflection, this did not make him appear particularly dignified. Then again it is rather difficult to appear dignified while brushing one’s teeth.) He might not be able to Geass her, but C.C. was sure to have some sort of lever that he could pull. It would be so immensely satisfying seeing that bed-stealing witch -
Walk into the bathroom behind him, bleary eyed and yawning. Lelouch suddenly felt a whole lot more awake, and spat into the sink so he could talk a little bit more coherently than he might otherwise.
“Can I help you with something, witch? In case you didn’t notice, the room is occupied!”
“The sink, maybe,” C.C. said, “but not the shower.”
To his surprise, the green-haired witch shrugged off the bathrobe she was wearing (where did she find that, anyway?) to reveal her pale, soft skin. Reminding him once again that for all of their verbal sparring and whatever you could call their relationship she was still unmistakably a woman.
Now. Just stay calm. She’s doing it deliberately to rile you up. She knows by now that you won’t stare at her naked body. Her soon to be dripping wet naked curvaceous beautiful body. Damn these hormones anyway.
“Aren’t you concerned?” Careful now Lelouch, keep your eyes focused on your face. “After all, you are stripping down to shower in the same room as a teenage boy.”
“I see no reason to worry,” C.C. replied. “After all, in all of our time here you haven’t made a single real attempt at lustful behaviour. I feel quite certain by now that you will keep your eyes averted and your libido in check.”
“Oh? You assume I’m not simply hiding that lustful behaviour too well for you to notice.”
“Men are not nearly as good at hiding their wandering glances as they might believe,” the witch replied. “All truth told? You stare too long and lose yourselves in some fantasy or other, failing to realise it is written all over your face. I see no reason to worry.”
That was the problem trying to play a battle of wits with someone who probably had experience best measurable in lifetimes. They were inevitably rather expert in the study of human nature - or at least, much better at it than they might otherwise be. On more equal footing Lelouch supposed he could run rings around her, probably. Who knows how smart she really was back when she was his age? How much of it was experience, and how much of it was intelligence?
“Hmph. I suppose that is one thing no man could properly understand. Just what it means to be a woman!” Lelouch chuckled. He could hear C.C. step into the shower and switch it on, so he rose his voice a little to ensure she heard him. “And I’m sure the reverse is also true! Our experiences can only teach us about that which we have opportunity to experience. Is it any wonder there are such divisions in gender, race, age, nationality and so on?”
“I suppose not,” C.C. called back over the water cascading over her no doubt enticing, naked, wet figure. Begone hormones, there is no place for you here! “But it is surprising how often otherwise decent men will succumb to their lustful drives. How frequently they forget their empathy, and stare at a beautiful woman like a piece of meat.”
“Then I repeat my earlier question: Are you not worried that I might try something? I doubt you went in there without a stitch on. After all, a naked woman might well be the best opportunity to push me into succumbing to my lustful drives!”
“Hm, no. I doubt that is true at all,” C.C. replied. “After all, you’re obviously not interested so much in the fairer sex as you are in the rougher one.”
Lelouch chuckled around his toothbrush. “Now that was rather transparent of you! Try a little harder the next time you intend to provoke a reaction, why don’t you?”
“It’s such a shame you and Suzaku are on opposite sides. You’d make such a cute couple.”
“Transparent as glass, witch! But I’ll play your little game, because it amuses me. I am not some lustful fool that chases, and do forgive my latin, every cute piece of tail that passes me by! This does not mean by any stretch that I find men more physically appealing than women. Even if I did, stripping down in the same room as any man is hardly a particularly ladylike behaviour.”
“Ah, but a witch cannot be a lady!”
“True enough, but it distracts from the main point. Knowing that I am a straight young man, do you not think that there is some mild risk to yourself in this situation?”
“Not at all. You may be many things, Lelouch. A pervert is not one of them.”
“What if suddenly I were to become a pervert?”
A question asked at precisely the wrong moment in time. Lelouch had been looking into the mirror throughout the conversation, concentrating upon his own face in an effort to avoid noticing the inevitable outline of the very female figure showering behind him through the curtain. He should have left, but his pride insisted that he would not be so easily chased from this bathroom, and so he led himself directly into something terrible.
There’s a little trick to a Geass. It had happened to Mao, and for some unknown reason it happened now to Lelouch a fair bit earlier than it should have. When a Geass is used enough then its user would inevitably lose complete control over it, and it would trigger on a permanent basis regardless of their own desires.
Whereas Mao’s Geass let him read the minds of anyone close enough, Lelouch’s let him instill a single command into the mind of anyone with whom he made direct eye contact. A command that would be followed unto death, altering the mind and even the personality of whomever took the command. He used to be able to activate it and deactivate it at will, and had no reason to assume that would ever change. But now… Now things had changed rather drastically. Now his Geass would be permanently active. Now anything he said to anyone face to face would be obeyed without question, but only in the case of the first command given.
And at the very moment it had done so, he had uttered the last portion of that sentence. Specifically the last three words. “Become a pervert.” The very idea burned into his mind. The notion wormed its way through his thoughts and performed an overhaul on his entire personality. His outlooks. His goals. His motivation. His drive. All changed in the blink of an eye and the utterance of three words. A brilliant, sharp and manipulative mind suddenly turned around on its heel towards one simple goal.
Get laid. Get laid often.
As this became true his gaze in the mirror shifted a little bit so that he could properly inspect the figure in the shower curtain. The same woman he had been avoiding looking directly at within the reflection. What had it been earlier? Men are obvious with their lustful glares? Interesting… Time to learn more…
“If that were to happen,” C.C. said, apparently oblivious to what had just happened, “then you would suddenly remember that other ability I have. Suzaku did not seem particularly fond of it, and I doubt you would either.”
“I suppose not,” Lelouch conceded. “Though, I must admit to some curiosity on this subject. Among my many interests are analysis of body language, and your earlier remark led me to realise there are whole untapped areas of which I know little but your average woman knows all too well!”
“And they shall remain mysteries to you, for you are a man. Would you mind passing the towel?”
It would have been easy for him to sneak a peek at the naked figure, but no! No, Lelouch was a schemer and a planner even now. This aspect of him had not changed in the slightest bit. The temptation gnawed at every fibre of his being, but though he was a pervert he was also a patient one. Still a schemer. Still a planner. This alone was why he turned his head and covered his eyes while C.C. took the towel and wrapped herself in it.
“You see? The perfect gentleman,” C.C. remarked. “Now, you had better hurry up or you might even still be late for school. An impressive feat considering where you live.”
By this point Lelouch wasn’t listening to her. He had risked a peek between his fingers, seen that she was walking out of the room and took the opportunity to appreciate her walking away. A shame that she was immune to his Geass. But… perhaps she would not be immune to his other charms?
- Lelouch realises what's happened to him, and that his Geass is permanently active now.
- Lelouch doesn't notice until he meets someone he hasn't Geassed before.
- Someone else picks up on his odd behaviour, and decides to investigate.
- At the next meeting of the Black Knights...
- Something else
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