The Gods is one of the many and most common used terms for C's World, a collection of human consciousness living and dead and supposedly where people go after death, throughout the Code Geass Universe. The world is visually represented many ways at different points, though all are consistent. Common images are children with the Geass symbol on their foreheads, two round planet-like objects with round runes being connected by light, white masks with red circular runes with one eye, feathers, a broken pendulum clock, a cloud of skulls or faces that appear to be in agony, aimlessly wandering black humanoid figures, and a planet-like orb that looks similar to Jupiter. As a setting, it is shown as a blank white space, an area of endless sky and rippling reflective solid but water-like ground, as a platform underneath the Jupiter-like sphere (or a black and grey sun-like structure when corrupted). Due to their belief that humans are by nature unequal and this cannot be fixed any other way, Charles zi Britannia, Marianne vi Britannia, C.C. and V.V. formed a contract with each other to activate the Ragnarök Connection via the Sword of Akasha to destroy the Gods. In Code Geass Akito The Exiled, the Dimensional Supervisor viewed certain humans as threats as they demand Gene Smilas kill Shin Hyuga Shaing for his "corrupt Geass". They also believe that the Geass is a power that most if not all humans are undeserving of and was willing to let humanity go extinct.
Originally, references to the Gods were considered some sort of metaphor or vague religious allusion. However it is later revealed that there is a sort of God that is C's World as a collective of every human's consciousness.
Charles intended to use the Sword of Akasha to trigger Ragnarök, that would destroy the Gods and once destroyed, every human that has ever existed, living or dead, will be united and exist as one mind, thereby creating what Charles deemed as true equality, as he saw ordinary human equality as impossible. Lelouch, realizing that such a world would be stagnant and without a future, rejects this plan in favor of accepting reality. He then uses his fully-evolved Geass to give the Gods the request to deactivate and destroy Ragnarök, therefore causing the Gods to turn against his parents and dissolve them into nothing.
It is also revealed that the afterlife is another way to access the C's World because it is the place where everyone will inevitably go when they die, this is something that C.C. noted when killing Mao. Following his death, Lelouch was able to influence the World of C in order to say goodbye to Suzaku, Rivalz, Nunnally, Nina, and Kallen and will them various messages. Also after dying, Euphemia, Rolo and Shirley are seen, who were in the C's World helping C.C. escape from the various human consciences (in the timeline of the movies C.C. faced human consciences alone) and guiding her through the C's World so that she could complete Lelouch's resurrection.
Despite this turn of events that occurred during the failure of the Ragnarök Connection, it appears that the C's World can still influence and be influenced but it is later revealed that access to the C's World was cut off, initially it was only the damage caused due to Lelouch's request cutting off the flow, which affected the transfer of Codes. Further complication is caused by Ar's attempt at gathering the various human consciousnesses accumulating with nowhere to go, and eventually this caused a black sphere to form around him from all of their lingering emotions and will that created a barrier. This caused many Thought Elevators to be blocked off or damaged, the most damaged were the ones that Charles used, their damage was such that not even C.C. could access the C's World even using his Code of Immortality except in the Aramu Gates in the Kingdom of Zilkhstan that he used to bring Lelouch from the C's World, thus completing the resurrection of L.L.
Shamna tried to access and manipulate the C's World but failed, that's why she tried to use Nunnally as a makeshift gate and pseudo-Code since she is a proper candidate as a conduit due to her connection to Lelouch and Charles who both have strong connections to C's World. This connection apparently makes her close enough to use as a second Code, which Shamna needs as two Codes are much better at manipulating C's World than one, especially one as corrupted as Shamna's.
Trivia[]
- C.C. refers to this entity/entities as multiple things seeming to reference different religious and philosophical ideologies, saying it has been referred to as God, the Sea of Transmigration, and the Great Consciousness or Collective Unconscious.
- The Sea of Transmigration is a term used in describing the cycle of reincarnation.
- The Collective Unconscious is a concept of psychologist Carl Jung who proposed the idea that among humans individual consciousnesses, there is a collective unconscious that all humans share, which is where the thought archetypes common in nearly all cultures (The Wise Old Man, the Great Mother, the Tree of Life, etc.) comes from.
- Carl Jung also had other connected theories including the Persona (the figurative mask you wear to present yourself differently to different people) and the Shadow (the negative and generally suppressed parts of the human psyche), both of which are represented in C's World in the strange masks and the wandering shadow people. Held in this light, the Ragnarok Connection would be Charles' attempt to in essence destroy Personas and leave people with only the Collective Unconscious.
- In the library Charles manifests in C's World, the books there are labelled Akasha, Paranormal Phenomena, Kollektives Unbewusstes ("Collective Unconscious" in German, Jung's native tongue), Ragnarok, and Encyclopedia Britannia (a play on Encyclopedia Britannica), all of which relate to his personal goals in C's World.