Your Goat is Washed ✦ C.C. Think Piece

YOUR GOAT IS WASHED ✦ MARI C.C.

A THINK PIECE

Your Goat Is Washed

On C.C., Real Evil, and How We Love Flawed Characters

Mari C.C.

@crinternet_ ✦ @marictwo

[2026]

"She’s French why’s she rendezvousing with Germans."

— [ Mari during his breakdown]

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YOUR GOAT IS WASHED ✦ MARI C.C.

Table of Contents

The Spiral........................3

Fictional Evil vs Real Evil .......8

C.C.'s Amorality and What It's

Built On.......................1 2

How We Love Flawed Characters 15

She Is Still My Goat.......1 8

Citations................ 19

"The philosophers have

only interpreted the

world. The point,

however, is to change it."

— Karl Marx, Theses on

Feuerbach (1845)

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INTRODUCTION

The Spiral

This all started in my politics class.

I know. Incredibly ironic, isn't it?

I had mentioned to a few friends how I had noticed — or rather,

remembered — that Jeremiah Gottwald was a racist imperialist whose

character arc never actually addressed or resolved that fact. He goes

from Britannian loyalist with explicitly racist beliefs to devoted

servant of Lelouch, and the show just... moves on. Nobody addresses it.

The main cast is apparently fine with it. Simple observation really.

The kind of thing you say in a discord server and immediately move on

from.

And then I said — and I quote —

"not my queen C.C. tho "

Grave mistake.

That was how I found out. My goat is washed.

In the Lelouch of the Re:surrection picture drama, C.C. casually

reveals that she knows how to operate a submarine. More than that — she

was, at some point in her very long life, feared as the "Wolf of the

Deep Sea." During World War II.¹ The implication hangs in the air like

smoke. She was not a bystander. She was operational.

Now. How do I know this points specifically to Nazi Germany and not

some other wartime faction?

Let me walk you through it.

Nazi Germany had a deep and deliberate fixation on wolves. From the

earliest days of the war, Adolf Hitler drew heavily from Germanic

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folklore and pagan legend to supplement Nazi pageantry — werewolves

being a particularly central figure, their mythology repurposed to

represent, in the regime's own warped framing, "German strength and

purity against interlopers."² the wolf was not incidental imagery. It

was ideological infrastructure. Additionally, wolf naming conventions

were standard practice for Nazi submarine operations. Most notably the

Wolfpack — the name given to three separate wolfpacks of German U-boats

operational from 1941 onward. The "Wolf of the Deep Sea." A submarine.

A wolfpack. World War II. All signs point in one direction.

My goat is washed.

I could not wrap my mind around it. It felt absurd, unnecessary, and

frankly almost offensive in its casualness — this offhand line dropped

into a picture drama like it was nothing. Of all the things C.C. could

have been doing during World War II, of all the ways Sunrise could have

illustrated her centuries of survival and moral ambiguity, they chose

this. She was not merely alive during the Holocaust. She was not merely

a bystander to the systematic killing of millions. She was active. She

was operational. She had a callsign.

My mind turned this over for hours.

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YOUR GOAT IS WASHED ✦ MARI C.C.

Here is primary source evidence of that process, documented in real

time:

— Monday 1^stof June at 15:37pm

[ 0:00 ] "I just, I just, my, I'm just, I just, I just can't

take it, she didn't, she didn't, she — bro, I don't know why

they had to make it German, bro, I — she didn't, she didn't

have to be, she couldn't be a French ship, it had to be a

German ship, what are you doing Sunrise, what are you doing,

it's like they hate me, it's like they hate me or something,

bro, my blood pressure, I can't take this."

[ 0:00] "That's what I'm saying too, bro. It's undeniable,

if we look at the evidence, if we look at the proof — and

the fact that she's most likely French. Let's say, if we

look at all the factors that were involved, we could

reasonably deduce, reasonably estimate, and come to an

educated guess that she hijacked that ship and she was doing

shenanigans with that ship. There is no way she was put

there by an institution like the Nazis, bro. No way. That's

my thesis."

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YOUR GOAT IS WASHED ✦ MARI C.C.

Clearly Socialist Lover Mari C.C. did not have the strength for such

heartbreak.

But why did it hurt so badly? She had done some genuinely terrible

things across the course of the show — she is an immortal chasing her

own death, for God's sake. Atrocities had occurred in that narrative.

Morally compromised decisions had been made by every major character.

And none of it had affected me quite like this one offhand line buried

in a picture drama that most people had never even seen.

I was genuinely close to tears. A deep sinking feeling had settled in

my chest. It felt like something was over.

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YOUR GOAT IS WASHED ✦ MARI C.C.

And then one of my friends said something that made it all click into

place:

Nothing in Britannia doesn't exist IRL but Britannia itself is

fictionalized. Suggesting C.C. was there at very real historical

atrocities feels gross because those have real weight and real victims.

— @newtype_spacenoid, on the distinction between fictional and real evil

There it was.

That was the argument.

That was why it hurt differently.

And that was the question this think piece is actually trying to answer

— not just my goat is washed, but why does it matter that she is? What

is the difference between fictional evil and real evil, and what do we

do when the character we love exists at the intersection of both?

And What the actual fuck am I going to do now?

✦ ✦ ✦

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YOUR GOAT IS WASHED ✦ MARI C.C.

PART ONE

Fictional Evil vs Real Evil

Before I start, I think it is crucial to make a distinction. What is

fictional evil, what is real evil, and what is the difference between

them?

Fictional evil refers to the representation of malice, corruption, and

harm within storytelling — often used as a narrative tool to drive the

plot forward.

Real evil — also known as moral evil — refers to "profoundly immoral

behaviour, and it is related to acts that cause unnecessary pain and

suffering to others."³

The difference between the two is that one is authored and designed,

while the other just is.

Fictional evil is designed to get a particular emotion out of you. It

is designed to portray a message, or to explore a plot point. This

particular quality does not exist in evil in real life contexts —

because our lives, and the lives of millions, are not stories. We are

not TV shows. We are not characters. We just are.

Thus, both can carry the same moral weight on paper, while clearly

having far, far different impacts on us.

There is a desensitisation gap — a quality seen in almost all fictional

works. As mentioned, fiction is designed to elicit a reaction. Thus,

every aspect of the story, and the evil that manifests within the

narrative, is anchored and meticulously designed to achieve its goal.

It is intentional. It is predictable. And we can see that because it is

a story.

Dark fiction like Code Geass is specially constructed with intention —

the Icarian tale of a boy trying to change the world by waging war

against a tyrannical empire. It is intentionally dramatic, not only to

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drive a moral but also for entertainment. We must remember that stories

are equally designed to entertain you as they are to inform you. From

the overly evil Britannia, to the weight of Narita, to the incredibly

tragic Zero Requiem — all of it is heavily exaggerated and dramatized

to keep you watching, because at the end of the day it is a business.

This does not exist in real evil. Because once again, this is not a

story, and our lives are not entertainment.

Thus, there is a kind of safety you find in dark fiction that you do

not find in real life tragedies. You are aware, and you are compliant,

because you know it is a constructed moral environment. You know your

emotions and reactions are being intentionally guided and manipulated

by the author — not by yourself.

Real evil has no author.

The actions the Nazis took in World War II, the ideology of fascism,

and the weight of the Holocaust are not intentionally designed plot

points. They are not entertainment. Hitler is not a villain you are

supposed to learn from and root against. He is not a character.

This will sound like I am comparing Lelouch to Hitler — bear with me.

He is not Lelouch. Lelouch is a carefully, intentionally designed

morally grey figure whose crimes are engineered to produce reflection.

Hitler is not designed. He just is. And what he is, is evil in a way

only reality can produce. There is no message. There is no arc. There

is no designed moral weight. What there is millions of real people dead

— real families, real descendants, and real ongoing consequences from

his atrocities that actively shape the world we live in today. The

chapter of Lelouch's story closes with a dramatic ending and a final

line. The Holocaust does not have a final end. It is not a book you can

close, because there is no book. Only reality.

And that is what makes it so uncomfortable.

That is the difference between fictional evil and real evil.

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Britannia's atrocities are designed evil. The massacre in the Shinjuku

Ghetto is designed evil. They are authored, controlled, and distributed

across the narrative with intention.

The Holocaust is an undesigned evil. It was not constructed as a

narrative, it serves no story purpose, and its weight cannot be shelved

or repurposed. That is not to say the Holocaust was not preventable —

it is to say that the Holocaust is something shaped entirely by

reality.

So then. How does this relate back to C.C.?

Code Geass, Season 1, Episode 11 — the Battle for Narita. Lelouch

causes the indiscriminate deaths of around eighty people. This receives

an entire episode dedicated to it, with specifically named victims —

most prominently Shirley's father — which is used to drive the

narrative forward. Shirley confronts Lelouch. He is forced to reckon

with the real human cost of his war. The weight of the landslide is

distributed — it is felt by the characters, the music drives the

atmosphere into the audience, and the narrative processes and explores

the darkness it has created.

C.C.'s line does not do any of that.

It is an offhand line portrayed as a joke. Lelouch does not even

register her involvement in World War II — he replies with *"Then say

it from the beginning!"*⁴ It is a throwaway. It has no real narrative

value except to create a comedic atmosphere. And yet it made me cry.

Because the weight is not in its design. It is in its context. The

history attributed to that line carries enormous real-life weight, and

it attached her — a fictional woman with fictional flaws and fictional

merit — to real history with real victims. And that is the problem.

That is why it felt so bad.

This imbalance — low narrative weight, extremely high real-life weight

— creates an incredibly uncomfortable effect. Sunrise borrowed

something they had no right to borrow and did absolutely nothing with

it. It does not deepen C.C.'s character arc. It does not add additional

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characterisation. It does not give more context to her immortality or

her amoral nature.

It just made her washed.

They took the weight of real suffering that millions of real people

carry every single day of their lives, and used it as a minor detail in

a picture drama for a comedy beat. And through this incredibly lazy

attempt at shock factor, they made my goat washed.

My friend explains this beautifully later in their message:

It feels like a bad/edgy move on Sunrise's part — taking a purely

fictional character with purely fictional flaws and being like: hey,

also she was there at a place where real human beings died.

✦ ✦ ✦

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YOUR GOAT IS WASHED ✦ MARI C.C.

PART TWO

C.C.'s Amorality and What It's Built On

Okay. My goat is washed. What now?

Through Sunrise's incredibly lazy writing, C.C.'s merit as a character

has been dampened. So, what now?

Well — as you can see from the primary evidence listed earlier —

initially I tried to blindly defend her. Protect her from the

allegations.

C.C. is a woman. She is a woman with bright green hair who looks

eighteen. And the Nazis supposedly gave her a commanding role on a

warship. The Nazis — who were notoriously misogynistic and dehumanising

to women and girls. Who taught young girls in the Hitler Youth that their

role in life was to repopulate the Aryan race. The same Nazis who awarded

medals to women who bore more than four children and forcibly castrated

disabled women.

It is illogical. But that is the thing with fictional evil — it is not

real, and thus it does not need to follow logic. And so I built C.C. a

case. I built her a case of plausible deniability. That she hijacked the

ship. That she was doing shenanigans.

This think piece is written one day after I found out.

I cannot defend her.

My argument still stands — technically. I did not drop it because the

evidence against her was mounting. I dropped it because I am her number

one fan.

What does it mean to be the number one fan of a fictional character? To

be in love with an immortal girl? It means I must hold her accountable.

If I truly love her, I must be able to see the nuance within her

character — the good, the bad, the ugly, and the morally reprehensible.

Because true love and adoration exist within nuance. To blindly defend

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her is just comfort-seeking. And I do not want to be comfortable. I want

all of her.

We all want our favourite characters to be just like us — to hold the

same values and ideology as us. Perhaps as a way to live vicariously

through them, or to explore parts of ourselves we could never access

alone. We want our favourites to be clean because we see them as

representatives of ourselves. Because it brings us comfort and security.

Because of that desensitisation gap I spoke of earlier. To add darkness,

to add weight — it muddies the waters and ruins the dream.

The impulse to blindly defend a character you love is innately human and

understandable. And I think it deserves to be examined. Because at some

point, a character who only reflects you back to yourself is just a

mirror. And so, if they have done something immoral — what does that say

about you?

I considered two avenues.

Either C.C. did this herself. Or Sunrise made her do this.

To accept that C.C. did this herself is to acknowledge that there is a

space of empty evil within her. As I defined earlier, this reveal makes

no meaningful contribution to her character whatsoever. There is just an

empty evil residing within her — the choice to be complicit in something

so immoral was simply a part of who she is. She just is. Something about

that frightens me, and it strikes me with a specific grief I am not sure

I can fully explain. Because to keep being her number one supporter, I

would have to rework my entire understanding of her to accommodate

something so obscene.

And I am not sure I am ready to do that yet.

To accept that Sunrise made C.C. do this is to acknowledge that C.C. is

not real. She is a concept. This is true — as much as I would not like to

admit it, because that hurts. Because I am in love with her, and the

person I love is ultimately a corporate decision. I am not naïve. I know

it is true. But it is something I do not want to come to terms with,

because it dampens the passion I feel towards her. She feels real. She

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feels like a massive, active part of my life. But if Sunrise wants to

make her a Nazi, there is nothing I can do about it. Because she is not

real. I am in love with something designed to entertain me and compel me

to spend money.

I don't know what it means to love a character whose immortality makes

her complicit in genocide. I don't have a clean answer for that.

I don't know what this really means for me.

I guess that is why I am writing this.

✦ ✦ ✦

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PART THREE

How We Love Flawed Characters

The mature move, in theory, is to understand what has been done, to

recognise the weight behind it, and to condemn it clearly. To admit —

Sunrise made this decision, C.C. is a concept, I can love the concept

of the immortal witch and reject the decision. Closed case.

And I think there is genuine merit to that instinct. Separating a

character from a writing decision is not inherently a cop-out.

Sometimes it is simply the most intellectually honest thing you can do.

Though I think it becomes dangerous the moment it slides into

woobification — the fan tendency to soften, excuse, and ultimately

erase the weight of a character's actions in order to keep them clean

and comfortable. That is what I did yesterday. To say Sunrise made her

do it and use that as a reason to simply not engage with what was done

— that is cowardice. Because whether you like it or not, the weight is

still there regardless of who authored it. And when that weight is not

fictional but very much real — when it is not Narita but the Holocaust

— I think there is a permanent level of seriousness you are now

obligated to bring to that character.

You cannot look away.

You cannot file it under bad writing decisions and keep moving.

Exhibit A: Griffith.

Griffith from Berserk commits an act so morally reprehensible, so

deliberately cruel, that the fandom has spent literal decades deciding

how to hold him. Some separate. Some excuse. Some condemn. But what

remains constant is that nobody who truly reckons with his actions

walks away with their relationship to him unchanged. And I believe that

is correct. That is what moral weight is supposed to do. It is supposed

to change something.

It is different with C.C. because it is real.

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I previously defended her. I defended everything she did. I was on her

side. I cheered for the Ragnarok connection. I cannot be on her side

for this — the consequences are not fictional casualties, they are

real. I cannot defend her. Not when the result is the Holocaust.

Because I am a real person.

A real person who can see, and can hear, and can recognise, and can

empathise.

That reality does not switch off because a character is fictional.

But then — what makes this hard is that C.C. is still the same girl to

me.

The girl whose wish is simply to be loved. The same girl who would

break her shell just to hear her name spoken with care for once. The

same girl who would say "that's exactly why I am C.C." The same girl

who, at the very end, finally learns how to live again.

So where is the line?

In a way, it could work. In a way, it kind of has to. If she is living

now — if she is drifting on that cart, or travelling the world with

Lelouch as immortals — then the weight of her actions in World War II

is something she must eventually carry. She is no longer a ghost

passing through history chasing death. She is a person with weight. And

people with weight are held accountable for what that weight contains.

That line, as hazy and thoughtless as it was, inadvertently added a

layer of consequence to her ending that was not there before. She does

not get to move forward clean. And in a way that is better — because

none of us do.

Which means she's human.

However.

What I cannot forgive — what I cannot get over — is the sheer laziness

of it all.

C.C. is a mask. The immortal witch — the sarcastic, detached,

unknowable figure she presents to the world — is a mask she built to

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cope with the existential dread of immortality. A distance she placed

between herself and reality so she would not have to feel the pain of

losing anyone important to her again. Even her very name is a carefully

constructed ruse to protect herself. She is not empty.

It is a survival strategy. And she has spent centuries paying the price

for it.

She would not be complicit in genocide.

I genuinely believe that. I believe it the same way I believe she meant

it when she whispered her real name. Because the mask exists to set

distance rather than to entirely erase — her time with Lelouch

ultimately proves this. Underneath it is someone who wanted,

desperately, to be seen as a person rather than a symbol. Someone who

chose death because living had become unbearable. That is not someone

who joins a fascist regime. That is not who she is.

But Sunrise carelessly made her. For a joke. A joke that does not even

land.

And in doing so they did not just make a lazy writing decision — they

betrayed her. They betrayed her on an ontological level. They took a

character whose entire arc is about the performance of cruelty as self-

protection, and made her genuinely cruel. Uncharacteristically cruel.

Without purpose, without narrative, and without meaningful consequence.

They collapsed the distinction between the mask and the person

underneath it, carelessly, and moved on.

Like it was nothing.

And that is something I cannot forgive. Not the darkness itself —

because I meant it when I said I want all of her. But this darkness

does not belong to her. It was put there by people who were not paying

attention to who she actually is.

It could have just been a French ship. The joke would have literally

landed the same.

Fuck you, Sunrise.

✦ ✦ ✦

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CLOSING

She Is Still My Goat

I cannot deny that I am still head over heels in love with C.C. from

Code Geass.

And I genuinely do not know what that says about me. Because I am a

libertarian socialist. But I love her. I love her so much. And so I

just have to carry this. She is still a large, active part of my life —

and this darkness will remain forever attached to her. But I think that

is good. Because it allows for nuanced, mature literary discussion. It

allows for exactly this.

I have not written a media analysis since Year 11 English Literature,

two years ago.

Look at what she makes me do.

If you are reading this and going through something similar with your

own favourite character — you just have to be an adult about it.

Empathise. Listen to other people's perspectives and come to a

reasonable conclusion. Do not dismiss. Do not look away. Engage. Sit

with the discomfort. Because the discomfort means you care, and caring

— even about something fictional, even about something complicated,

even about something that makes you feel a little bit ridiculous — is

never the wrong instinct.

My goat is still washed.

But She is still my goat.

✦ ✦ ✦

Thank you to @newtype_spacenoid / Billie, and all the other incredible people in

C's world who talked to me about this and helped me put my feelings into writing.

Especially you, Junipei — dead dove don't read 凉

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Citations

¹ mononoke-no-ko, Lelouch of the Resurrection Picture Drama — Reference

Translation, Tumblr, 2019. https://mononoke-no-

ko.tumblr.com/post/189537637494/lelouch-of-the-resurrection-picture-

² Lorraine Boissoneault, "The Nazi Werewolves Who Terrorized Allied

Soldiers at the End of WWII", Smithsonian Magazine.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nazi-werewolves-who-terrorized-

allied-soldiers-end-wwii-180970522/

³ Evil, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil

⁴ mononoke-no-ko, Lelouch of the Resurrection Picture Drama — Reference

Translation, Tumblr, 2019. https://mononoke-no-

ko.tumblr.com/post/189537637494/lelouch-of-the-resurrection-picture-

✦ ✦ ✦

Written as a part of the LuLuC Cultural Revolution.

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