Characters: Code Geass part 7

Characters: Code Geass Chinese Federation

The character sheet about the Chinese Federation characters of Code Geass.

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Li Xingke

Voiced by: Hikaru Midorikawa (JP), David Vincent (EN)

"The crimson sky has perished."

A minor officer within the Chinese Federal Military, Li Xingke swore his loyalty and life to the young Empress Tianzi after she saved him from being executed for showing mercy to a prisoner. Now he has dedicated his life to climbing the ladder of the Chinese Military to gain enough power to overthrow the de facto rulers of the Federation, the Eunuchs, and grant the Empress her greatest wish: to see the outside world. Considering the fact that he is said, and has mostly proven, to have both the strength of Suzaku and the intelligence of Lelouch, this is very likely. He succeeds with Zero's help.
Xingke eventually becomes a key member of the Order of the Black Knights after the establishment of the United Federation of Nations and leads the first attack on Area 11, sustaining serious injuries at the hands of Bismark Waldstein...

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Li Xingke embodies these tropes:

• The Ace
• Ace Pilot
• Bodyguard Crush: Fanon says he feels this way towards Tianzi.
• Chinese People
• David Vincent
• Early Bird Cameo: He first appears in season 1 episode 23. He had his back turned.
• Hikaru Midorikawa
• Ill Boy
• Incurable Cough Of Death: Blood and all. In the end, he doesn't die within the series, believe it or not. It's hinted he passed away after the Zero Requiem, but it's neither conformed nor jossed.
  • If you look closely at the Ohgi/Villetta wedding picture, the Empress is there, but no Xingke.
  • But the Shenhu Knightmare frame appears in the background of the meeting of Nunnally/Zero/Schneizel and Ohgi in the Epilogue, implying his presence.
  • He took the picture, dudes.
• Informed Ability: Very smart guy and a very good pilot? Yes. "As smart as Lelouch and as good a pilot as Suzaku?" Not even close.
  • OTOH, he did give Lelouch a run for his money during the battle of China, and was one of the only other people smart enough to not fall for Schneizel.
• I Owe You My Life: The canon core of his devotion to Tianzi, who saved him from execution when he was a teenager.
• Knight In Shining Armor: Chinese version!
• Lolicon: See Bodyguard Crush and Big Brother Complex entry. Or heck, anything Fanon has for him.
• Neutral Good: His loyalty to Tianzi is absolute, but he is just as adamant in his opposition to tyranny.
• Rescued From The Scrappy Heap: People believed he was a God Mode Sue for a while, but after the China arc he went Out Of Focus and it all sort of went away.
• Tall Dark And Handsome
• The White Prince

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Jiang Linhua aka Empress Tianzi

Voiced by: Tamaki Matsumoto (JP), Jessica Straus (EN)

"Someday, I want to see the outside world."

The Empress of China, who appears in R2. Technically speaking, the Tianzi ("Child of Heaven") is supposed to be the leader of the Chinese Federation and the heir to the old imperial tradition. In reality, the current Tianzi is a teenage girl kept away from her people by her council, the Eunuchs, who rule the country as they wish. However, not everything is lost: Tianzi has a protector in Li Xingke, and even if she's powerless at the moment, she's touchingly determined to do what she can.

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Tianzi embodies these tropes:

• Arranged Marriage: The Emperor tries to marry his eldest son Prince Odysseus off to her, which Lelouch and the Black Knights use to their advantage.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Li Xingke's ultimate goal is to repay Empress Tianzi's kindness by giving her enough power to rule over the Federation, instead of being just a puppet of the Eunuchs.
• Chinese Girl
• Dawson Casting - Averted for a change in anime voice casting, as the sweet little-girl who voiced Tianzi was nine years old at the time of recording, younger than herthirteen year old charater, mind. A stark contrast to the norm in which women in their mid-to-late twenties (if not early-forties, in the case of Miki Ito in Shuffle) voice young girls aged 12 to 17.)
• Distressed Damsel
• The Empress
• Heroic Albino: She's more like The Woobie than a heroine. She does as much good as a sheltered and shy thirteen year old can hope to do, though.
• The Ingenue: Go figure... Note well, though, that her whole plot line revolves around other characters effectively growing her out of it so she can be more like Nunnally and Kaguya.
• I Owe You My Life: The canon core of Xingke's devotion to her, who saved him from execution when he was a teenager.
• Jessica Strauss: Her voice actress in the English-language dub.
• Les Yay: Some people like to pair her up with her best friend, Kaguya.
• Lolicon: One of Lelouch's and Xingke's gambits involves stopping a wedding between Prince Odysseus and the thirteen-year-old Tianzi.
  • Seeing their Empress in trouble caused the downtrodden citizens of the Chinese Federation to spark a continent-wide revolt.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Tianzi might be the Empress of China, but otherwise she fits in very well as she's practically a prisioner in her palace.
• Moe: Aaaaawwww, Tianzi-chan! Can I take her home, Xingke? Pretty please?
  • Listen to her image song and tell me you don't wanna Squee.
• Neutral Good
• Older Than They Look: She's not eight years old, people. She's 13.
• Pinky Swear: How she and Xingke sealed The Promise of seeing the outside world.
• Precocious Crush: Some interpret her feelings for Xingke this way. Squick.
  • Understandable, though: he's the first person who was ever genuinely kind to her, so if she had a child-like crush on him it'd be no surprise. Besides, hey, it's LiXingke; almost any girl her age would fangirl him at least a bit. Can you blame her?
• Red Eyes Take Warning: Subverted, as she's a sweetheart. You might like to fear her overprotective guardian instead.
• Shrinking Violet: With good reason, as the world pretty much screws her over.
• Tamaki Matsumoto: Her seiyuu — who's actually a ten-year-old child actress.
• Tender Tears: Cries a lot. Considering her really shitty situation, we can't blame her.
• Token Loli
• Tomboy And Girly Girl: Sweeter, gentler counterpart to the also girly but more straightforward Kaguya
• White Haired Pretty Girl
• The Woobie: And how.

Characters: Code Geass Others

Mao

"C.C., I can't live without you!"

::"Let me into your mind!"

::"I know EVERYTHING..."

A Chinese orphan whom the immortal woman C.C. finds as a six-year-old boy and whom she "gifts" with theGeass power of telepathy. As happens with Geass, he loses control of it, forcing him to listen to everyone's thoughts constantly and involuntarily, without any possibility of blocking them — except by avoiding human contact altogether. Thus his telepathy has the tragic side effect of rendering him completely, permanently, and irrevocably dependent on C.C. for all of his social needs. For a time, as part of her "contract" with him, she takes care of him, lives with him in the wild, and helps shield him from the intruding thoughts of the world, during which time he falls completely in love with her. But eventually she abandons him for refusing to kill her as per the contract and his Geass drives him insane.
Now Mao's one desire is to find and keep his eternally beloved C.C. (see Yandere)— to hell with anyone else, especially anyone who gets in their way.

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Mao embodies these tropes:

• Abusive Parents: C.C. is not literally Mao's parent, at least not genetically. But he was orphaned as a young child, and when he was six, C.C. took him under her wing, and under her spell. For more details, see Wife Husbandry, below.
  • It's All There In The Manual that when he was with C.C. she would take him out in public, Geass and all, for various reasons; and as time went on and he got older do nothing (or almost nothing) to prevent him from using his power to commit increasingly twisted acts.
  • It's also somewhat suspicious that C.C. claims he has "never known the love of a parent." His parents/all his potential guardians can't literally have died when he was born because babies and toddlers can't raise themselves. One explanation could be that his biological parents (or his caretakers at the orphanage, or whoever) weren't the nicest people in the first place. Or C.C. could be exaggerating, or speaking out of ignorance.
• Accentuate The Negative: Basically the core of his various More Than Mind Control attempts. He doesn't lie, but he does focus on the worst possible interpretation, although he's merely reading their mind.
• Adult Child: More literally, a Teen Child. But he's incredibly childlike. How could he not be? He was raised by C.C..
• Alas Poor Villain: Apparently his death was enough to make some fans cry.
• All There In The Manual: Additional information about his backstory.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Anti Villain? Complete Monster? The Woobie? Jerk Ass Woobie, for those who'd rather Take A Third Option? No wonder he's a Base Breaker.
• Anime Hair
• Ax Crazy: Although maybe it should be CHAINSAW crazy!
• Back From The Dead
• Badass
• Badass Longcoat: And a great coat no less!
• Base Breaker: Welcome to Code Geass! Consider the Alternative Character Interpretations and borderline-argumentative viewpoints in this entry alone.
• Batman Gambit: With Shirley to kill Lelouch, although it just barely fails. Unfortunately for him, Lelouch responds with an even better Batman Gambit later on.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: His Geass. So so much!
• Berserk Button: He really wanted to know C.C's real name didn't he?
• Beware The Honest Ones: Well, he at least evokes it. Although a dangerous villain he's one of the most staunchly honest characters in a series where just about everyoneputs up a front of some sort and keeps secrets from one another at least to some degree. See also Will Not Tell A Lie and Villains Never Lie.
• Big Eyes Little Eyes: Well, his eyes are actually pretty wide, though they don't look that way in all shots. This becomes especially true when he interacts with C.C., though they're still small in comparison to Lelouch's or Suzaku's.
• Biggus Dickus: Err ... there's an injoke that he has one of these, thanks to the Visual Innuendo shot of him and his chainsaw.
• Bishounen: Hence his role as Draco In Leather Pants.
• Blessed With Suck: The series' Most Triumphant Example. Holy HELL is he Blessed With Suck!
• Book Dumb: Well, perhaps. Although he's a Teen Genius who manages to pose a serious threat to Lelouch, he's never been to school and possibly isn't even literate (note that C.C. specifically states that he couldn't read or write when she first found him; whether she ever did anything to correct that is never explained).
  • He was spending his time in a library though at one point so...
• Break The Cutie: In his flashback. Evidently he was just an innocent little boy until his Geass started getting to him. He's probably the most hopelessly and irreparably broken character in the entire story (well, at least until It Got Worse for the entire cast, though he still manages to be one of them anyway) See also Freudian Excuse andCry For The Devil.
  • He also inflicts plenty of Break The Cutie, very deliberately, to Shirley and (to a somewhat less extreme degree, but still very painful) Suzaku.
• Brutal Honesty: He tells the other characters exactly what he thinks all the time. See also Beware The Honest Ones, Will Not Tell A Lie and Villains Never Lie.
• Cats Are Mean: See Meaningful Name, below.
• Chainsaw Good: See Memetic Mutation.
• The Chessmaster: Although not as good as Lelouch, except at actually, you know, playing chess, where he easily defeats him twice.
  • Subverted, in that he was reading Lelouch's mind both times & was able to just break his strategies the moment Lelouch thought "And if I do this, then..." and effectively told him how to beat his move. However, Lelouch easliy beats Mao the moment his mind reading becomes a non-factor.
• Chess Motif
• Children Are Innocent: And apparently, so are Psychopathic Manchildren! He manages to twist this trope in odd ways: when he was still with C.C., he would actually killpeople whose evil impulses he sensed, because he worried they might try to hurt her, and he wanted to protect her. Um ... awwww?
• Chinese People: A subversion, in that he's Chinese but doesn't fit the trope description.
• Cloudcuckoolander: A particularly nasty example.
  • Even by the standards of a Cloudcuckoolander, his grip on reality is tenuous. He manages to convince himself C.C. loves him too much to be able to shoot him, when really she can't shoot him because he's already shot her.
    • Well since the alternative is to believe that C.C., staring at him with her finger on the trigger, somehow wasn't fast enough to stop him from taking a gun out of his pocket and shooting her arm, the only plausible implication is that C.C. did hesitate. After all, if she was able to coldly shoot someone who she had spent so much time with and who she later admitted she did love for no other reason than her selfish death wish, then she would be a Complete Monster.
• Cool Shades: Perhaps. See also Making A Spectacle Of Yourself and Sinister Shades, below.
• Crowning Moment Of Heartbreaking: The scene of him as a little boy, playing with C.C. There's also his death scene, more subjectively.
• Cry For The Devil: Poor, poor guy. Sure he's an Ax Crazy maniac. But all because of circumstances beyond his control!
• Cute Shotaro Boy: When young, though supplementary materials reveal he was more Troubled But Cute.
• Deal With The Devil: His acceptance of Geass, given what it ultimately turns him into....
• Death By Irony: He gets shot by C.C. with a silenced pistol. After Lelouch uses his Geass to silence him.
• Death Trap: Makes at least a few.
• The Determinator: In his quest to reunite with C.C. and make her his own. Forever.
• Disappeared Dad: He was orphaned as a young child.
• Disney Death: The first time. The second time, he's Killed Off For Real via Instant Death Bullet. Maybe.
• Doom Magnet: But mostly of his own deliberate do(om)ing.
• Draco In Leather Pants: Mao embodies several tropes commonly associated with being a DILP. Badass? Check. Bishounen? Check. Cry For The Devil? Check. Jerkass Woobie? Check. Stalker With A Crush? Check. White Haired Pretty Boy? Check. But oh, God, the sheer number of people who turn him into a total Moe teddy bear just because of his childishness and Freudian Excuse or actually enjoy watching him torture Shirley just because they don't like her! See also: Base Breaker above, and Jerk Ass Woobie and Misaimed Fandom below.
  • Also, in Mao's eyes, C.C. could be an in-universe Draco In Leather Pants, since he sees her as far better than she really is (this becomes abundantly clear in the light novels). Then again, his appearance forces C.C. to actually face her mistakes, arguably making her more considerate in an possible case of Love Redeems.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: See also Base Breaker and Draco In Leather Pants above, and Misaimed Fandom and especially One Scene Wonder below.
• Evil Albino: Complete with the white hair and the pink eyes! See Red Eyes Take Warning and White Haired Pretty Boy, below.
  • See the Red Eyes Take Warning note, though; it's possible they actually got his eye color right and invoked Red Pink Eyes Take Warning deliberately.
• Evil Counterpart: At the time of his appearance, he's the closest thing Lelouch has to one. Several of his interactions with Lelouch are also very similar to those thatSchneizel goes on to have with Lelouch in R2 (when he's his Evil Counterpart!).
• Evil Is Sexy: Well, he doesn't have much in the way of obvious sex appeal (except for, you know, what whole Biggus Dickus thing). But he is, after all, a White Haired Pretty Boy with Impossibly Cool Clothes and nice long fingers and oh my God just look at his beautiful, beautiful face!!
  • There's also his voice, which at least in English sounds even sexier than Lelouch's.
• Ezra Weisz: His VA in the English-language dub.
• Fanboy: For C.C.
• Fate Worse Than Death: MAO! NEVER SPEAK AGAIN! Thankfully, C.C. kills him right after this.
• Feigning Intelligence: He isn't; he actually is very intelligent. But on the other hand, his Wicked Cultured manner of speaking, as well as his status as a White Haired Pretty Boy, most of which are classy and cool, give him an air of sophistication and self-satisfaction that he doesn't actually possess. So while he seems like a very high-functioning Smug Snake in his early interactions with Shirley and the like, he's really just an insane (and deeply hurt) Psychopathic Manchild, and accordingly. See Hidden Depths.
• Flashback: To his Freudian Excuse. One of the things that keeps him from being a Complete Monster.
• Flaw Exploitation: He both uses this against Lelouch and company and takes it from Lelouch.
• Foreshadowing: The state of his Geass, and his many reveals, turn out to be important later on in the show ( especially the ultimately uncontrollable nature of Geass, Suzaku's being a Death Seeker, and the true nature of C.C.'s contract).
• Freudian Excuse: An exceptionally good one.
• Freud Was Right: See Biggus Dickus above, and Wife Husbandry and Visual Innuendo below.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Implied. Given his isolation, he couldn't exactly go bargain-shopping for a bomb of the exact specifications he wanted.
• Good Eyes Evil Eyes: You can tell just by looking at him that he's a villain.
• Hannibal Lecture: He delivers quite a few of these.
• Harmful To Minors: Once he reached the age when his Geass got out of control, he had to hear the thoughts of everyone around him, no matter how mature or gross they were. It did not bode well for his psyche.
• Headphones Equal Isolation
• Hidden Depths: Wouldn't you know that the Smug Snake was all along just a poor boy who couldn't bear the world around him and only wanted to be with the one person who truly made him happy.
  • See also Feigning Intelligence, above, for more of the same.
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel: He brings it to a series that had had relatively little before he came along.
• Hormone Addled Teenager: Sort of....
• I Love You Because I Cant Control You: Part of what turns him into a Yandere for C.C. is that he doesn't have to hear her every thought, unlike with just about everyone else.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Just look at his picture.
  • Granted, he does shed those after they get shot full of holes and becomes something of a Rummage Sale Reject.
• I'm Taking Him Home With Me: Some fans undeniably feel this way about him. Just check anywhere there's fan media of him lying around.
• Instant Death Bullet: A rare example for a fairly major character in the series. Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not he's actually dead though, with slight justification from his earlier uncanny impossible survival and C.C.'s cryptic comment.
• Instant Expert: At chess. (If you believe him that he's never played it before.) A mostly Justified Trope, in that he defeats Lelouch simply by reading his mind. (Whether reading the mind of a chess expert could really allow anyone to play * better* than said expert is another matter — after all, Chess Is Not Poker — but that's another trope for another day. Then again, he had the advantage of playing white.)
  • Consider the possibility that most good chess players automatically work out what strategies the opponent might best use against any considered move and Mao doesn't even need to know how to play, he could just wait for Lelouch's mind to supply him with the best strategy.
• Insufferable Genius: Not merely insufferable, but deeply repellant.
• Irony: It's a very strange moral track, given their respective roles in the show, when Lelouch The Hero is a deeply conflicted, shady figure, and Mao is innocent andhonest.
  • There's also the fact that nobody screwed him over more than C.C.... and yet he treats her like an angel and Shirley, of all people, as a bad guy!
    • He only used Shirley in order to attack Lelouch though...
• It Got Worse: You'd think losing your family would be a bad enough trauma for any childhood. Then he meets C.C. Oh boy.
  • Later, he also provides plenty of It Got Worse.
• Its All About Me: And C.C...
• Jerk Ass Facade: He is undeniably putting on one of these when dealing with his opponents, as he becomes very different when he's alone with C.C.
• Jerk Ass Woobie: He's too much of an asshole to be fully pitied, but his Freudian Excuse is quite well-done.
• Karmic Death: He thinks that the deaths of Shirley and Lelouch would be this, owing to his misunderstanding of her situation and his desire to protect C.C. from her contract with Lelouch. Ironically he himself never truly gets one. The first time around it's subverted as he doesn't die; and when his time to die finally does come, it's made into a Mercy Kill because at that point his Freudian Excuse has been fleshed out and he's arguably shown to be as much a victim as a villain!
• Kick Them While They Are Down: With Shirley, of course. He also ends up on the receiving end of this from Lelouch.
• Kids Are Cruel: As are Psychopathic Manchildren. His torment of other characters always manifests itself in fairly childish ways.
  • As an actual child, though, he was apparently pretty nice... until his Geass started making his life hell.
• Killed Off For Real: See also Instant Bullet Death, above.
• Knight In Shining Armor: Seems to fancy himself as one for C.C.
• Let Them Die Happy: C.C. arranges this for him, more or less.
• Light Is Not Good: White hair, light-colored clothing, Telepathy in a world where the Dark Is Not Evil protagonist relies on keeping himself shrouded in mystery and a borderline Knight Templar.In addition, episode 14 features a chess game between him and Tall Dark And Handsome Lelouch. Predictably enough, Mao plays white, whereas Lelouch plays black. (Note: Choosing white in this case was also a very practical decision. In chess, white always plays first, and between sufficiently strong opponents, white has a small but statistically significant advantage (although for the vast majority of players, the advantage is extremely small). Thus if Light Lelouch is even half as good a player as we're told he is, getting white is important.)
  • But see Chess Motif above: he practically looks like the show's white king!
• Love Makes You Evil: Everything he does, including all his evil deeds, lead back to his feelings for C.C.
• Love Martyr: How some fans see him. A very, very touchy Alternative Character Interpretation of him that depends on how much you buy into his Freudian Excuse. On the one hand, it's honestly very sad that his only option for love is the one made him that way in the first place and abandoned him so thoughtlessly (whatever her motivations were) that it starts to look a bit "How Could You". Since he's no angel himself, however, the amount of actual sympathy that he's awarded for his pursuit of C.C. variesamong fans, with some treating it as a completely legitimate One True Pairing and others as a Complete Monster.
• Mad Love: For C.C. Played for heavy, heavy drama and comes with a side order of Squick.
  • He possibly sees Lelouch's and Shirley's relationship as this as well, given some of the things he says to Shirley ("He's a bad, bad man.... And you like it!")
• Making A Spectacle Of Yourself
• Man In White: At least when he's wearing his Impossibly Cool Clothes....
• Manipulative Bastard: Naturally.
• Mayfly December Romance: Mao is supposed to be around 17 while C.C. is Really Seven Hundred Years Old, and has known him since he was six.
• Meaningful Name: Possibly. For some, Mao is not a name that brings to mind the warm fuzzies.
  • It's also the Chinese word for "cat"; make of that what you will.
• Memetic Mutation: Mao loves his◊ chainsaw◊. =D
  • Also, his Sarcastic Clapping.
  • "Let's go to Australia!"
• Memetic Sex God: How some fans see him.
• Memory Gambit: Lelouch's leads to his downfall.
• Mercy Kill: C.C. does this to him. Complete with Let Them Die Happy and a rare instance in Code Geass where a non-mook gets an Instant Death Bullet.
• A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Read: An extreme example.
• Mind Rape: His specialty, which he inflicts upon Shirley and Suzaku to devastating effect.
• Misaimed Fandom: He has a pretty major Draco In Leather Pants problem on one side of the equation, forgetting that even with his Freudian Excuse, he's still an Jerkass, although see Jerkass Facade and Alternative Character Interpretation. But some get carried away in the other direction and treat him as a true Complete Monster or else a useless disgusting freak who "stole air time". The reality lies somewhere in the middle.
  • Also, his relationship with C.C. is unhealthy to say the least: he's insanely obsessed with someone who practically raised him.
    • Although C.C.'s Love Confession can be seen as the payoff in this regard, with fans treating them as a legitimate pairing complete with a whole host of fanmedia.
  • Additionally, some fans who don't like Shirley see Mao as an awesome Anti Villain at the very least, due to the terrible More Than Mind Control he inflicted on her, which they treat as a well-deserved What The Hell, Hero? speech. While there are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Shirley (and like Mao), his claim that Shirley took advantage of Lelouch's sympathy for her is not only exaggerated, but also a Moral Event Horizon.
• Missing Mom: He was orphaned as a young child. From the age of six, he was raised by C.C. Then she , too, abandoned him.
• Moral Event Horizon: His More Than Mind Control of Shirley. Even if you think he's The Woobie, you cannot ignore this.
  • However, it might be negated seeing as Lelouch makes Shirley forget all of it afterwards. As horrible as it was, the damange wasn't permanent.
• Moral Myopia: He seems to have this mindset when dealing with Shirley and Lelouch, although he's more concerned with getting to C.C. than actually caring about the world. Taken to extremes, thanks to his childishness as he berates the characters for doing (or thinking, or remembering doing or thinking) things that he sees as bad... even though he needs to Mind Rape them to do it. (And he's also probably murdered several people.)
• More Than Mind Control: His Geass gives him the ability to do this.
• Near Villain Victory: Mao successfully More Than Mind Control's Shirley into killing Lelouch for him, while he has his only escape covered with his own gun. Not only that, but they're all in a secluded area and Mao is immune to Lelouch's Geass at the moment. Only Shirley's Heroic BSOD foils it, but then Mao simply retreats and primes his shotgun, ready to kill them "the old boring way". In the end, Lelouch is only spared a Blast Out by the timely and unexpected arrival of C.C. who is able to divert Mao without him detecting her.
• Nietzsche Wannabe
• No One Should Survive That: If people remember one thing about him, it's probably the time he comes back for Lelouch after being riddled with bullets in the previous episode.
• Not Good With People: NOT AT ALL! It makes sense, though, in that owing to his Geass he really can't interact with them normally at all; and that for years he's been raised away from them by C.C., a very self-centered person in her own right who probably never cared what his relations to them were.
• One Scene Wonder: Consider how long this entry is. Then consider that Mao only appears in the anime for a few episodes.
  • To say nothing of all those fanclubs he has scattered over popular websites. And the sheer amount of fanmade media of him. And the memes associated with him. And his status as an Ensemble Darkhorse and a Draco In Leather Pants. And his own fanlisting. And his appearance in URBAN DICTIONARY. And then there are all those fan girls who still demand more of him, and at least one critic has compared him with Lelouch and found Lelouch wanting. Scroll down (maybe not an official critic per se, but still). In fact, one of his fans has now written a Perspective Flip version of Code Geass with Mao as the protagonist, the aptly named Code Geass Mao Of The Deliverance.
  • Mao's also something of an in-universe One Scene Wonder. After his death, he still gets mentioned on several occasions, because he serves as the show's Most Triumphant Example of how destructive the Geass "gift" can be to its recipient.
• Paranoia Fuel: Here's a guy who can read your mind. In fact, he if he wants to, he can dig through your mind right down to your subconscious. And see any thoughts, including ones you never wanted anyone to know. And given his immature sense of morality, get the idea from them that you're a bad, bad person who needs to die! Scared yet? You can't feel him reading your mind. So you have no way of knowing how much he saw until he confronts you.
• Parental Abandonment: He was orphaned as a young child, no older than six. Then C.C. — his only possible human contact in the world — abandoned him.
• Personality Powers: According to supplementary materials his mind-reading is an extension of his uncommonly good perception of people.
• Power Incontinence
• Psychic Powers
• Psychopathic Manchild
• Psychotic Smirk: Apparently his default expression. Which he wears very, very well.
• Pure Is Not Good: So pure, innocent, and utterly unsullied by the world that he's willing to Mind Rape people who may have done or thought of bad things, and destroy them; all with no apparent idea he's doing anything wrong. See also Children Are Innocent, Light Is Not Good, and Moral Myopia.
• Red Eyes Take Warning: More like pink eyes — he's an Evil Albino — but they have a red hue from his Geass.
  • As a matter of fact, you do get to see his eye without Geass very briefly as he dies. It's actually blue. Makes you wonder....
• Red Oni Blue Oni: He could be considered the red to Lelouch's blue.
• The Reveal: Not surprising, given the nature of his power and his personality. Most especially, he reveals that Shirley attempted to kill Viletta to protect Lelouch and Suzaku is a Death Seeker who murdered his own father, the latter a fact that had thus far only been very subtly hinted at.
• Sadistic Choice: He presents several. Sometimes his victims manage to Take A Third Option.
• Sarcastic Clapping: Reached Memetic Mutation status.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Well, Shirley seems to think so, anyway....
• Selective Obliviousness: He's so perceptive he can read people's minds, and yet he completely ignores or argues against any attempts C.C. makes to distance herself from him. To wit:
  Mao (* is holding the gun he used to shoot C.C.* ): I knew you couldn't pull the trigger! That's cause you really love me, C.C.!
  C.C.: You're wrong; I was just using you right from the start!
  Mao: What are you saying? You shouldn't tell lies like that, you really shouldn't! Lies are very, very wicked!
  • Well since C.C. herself gives a Love Confession to him before his death and in R2 we learn the real reason she left Mao in the first place, they were ''both'' telling the truth.
  • He also only managed to notice that Shirley kissed Lelouch after confessing to him that Zero had killed her father. He presumably could have read her mind to learn the whole story, but didn't get his head around it.
    • He didn't care what the whole story was, all he wanted was to use Shirley in order to kill Lelouch to end his contract with C.C.
• Shut Up Hannibal: Lelouch used his Geass power to inflict a permanent one — soon before Mao's death at C.C.'s hands.
• Single Target Sexuality: For C.C. Justified in that he has no other options outside of her.
• Sinister Shades
• Smart People Play Chess: Borderline case, as he at least claims he's never played chess before, and he defeats Lelouch at chess only because he can read Lelouch's mind. See also Instant Expert, above.
• Smug Snake: Played completely straight — until we learn his Freudian Excuse. Then he also takes on aspects of The Woobie, at least for some.
• Squick: His More Than Mind Control of Shirley. Then, his attempted chainsaw-assisted dismemberment of C.C.
  • Or even the nature of his relationship with C.C. in the first place. Think about it: she practically raised him, and he's in love with her. He's essentially in love with hisfoster mother! And then there's that whole Wife Husbandry thing....
    • Not really considering the fact the C.C. is Doomed To Fail by this standard. Think about it: She's Really Seven Hundred Years Old, so anybody she fancies is going to be impossibly younger than her anyway.
• Stalker With A Crush: He relentlessly searches for her while listening to her voice constantly in his headphones.
• Stalking Is Love: Seems to think so. And so is listening to your love interest on your headphones. And so is attempting to mutilate said love interest! Although some fanswill be quick to agree (believe it or not)!
• Stepford Smiler: He could be, on some levels. When he first confronts Shirley he looks extremely cool, confident, and self-satisfied. It's only after that it becomes clear just how screwed-up and miserable he really is. See also Hidden Depths and Feigning Intelligence, above. Although, in an unusual variation, he doesn't seem to play this part deliberately.
• Takeshi Kusao: His seiyuu.
• Tear Jerker: His death! For some.
• Teen Genius: In this series, that's almost a given. (He gets outsmarted by Lelouch, but who doesn't?)
• Telepathy: His Geass power.
• TV Genius: Possibly — see Gadgeteer Genius above.
• Ubermensch: Seems to see himself that way.
• The Unfettered
• Unhappy Medium: Very, very unhappy. And became one when he was only about six years old.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: To C.C. Except whereas he really was a kid, she was already Really Seven Hundred Years Old.
• Used To Be A Sweet Kid: Implied. All There In The Manual: Oh, he's so perceptive of other people! Oh, he's so innocent! Oh, he likes playing with little puppies!
• Villains Never Lie
• Visual Innuendo: A famous — and ridiculous — one involving his shadow and the shadow of his chainsaw. See also Biggus Dickus and Memetic Mutation, above.
• What An Idiot: If your power only works to radius X, and you need your power because you're in the midst of a battle against The Chessmaster, then for heaven's sakedon't use a bomb that not only forces you outside radius X but lets your enemy know you must be outside radius X. Duh. Next time, use a smaller bomb and hide it inside the hollow shell of the bigger "bomb," thus tricking your enemy into thinking you went outside radius X when in fact you didn't.
• What The Hell, Hero?: He gives Lelouch one of these. Actually, a cruel version of this is a core aspect of each his Mind Rapes. See Moral Myopia above, for further details.
• White Haired Pretty Boy
• Wife Husbandry: C.C. met him when he was six and made him dependent on her for all his social needs, causing him to develop a Precocious Crush on her which later becomes full fledged love. See Yandere.
  • There's also the statement by C.C. that she became his "best friend and lover". Fans have already used this line to it's full potential.
• Will Not Tell A Lie: Probably. Because "Lies are very, very wicked!" Also, he's so used to relying on his mind-reading skills, which tend to render lies pointless. Not that he won't bend the truth, mind you, or practice Selective Obliviousness to an insane degree. He's not quite right in the head, after all.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Technically. It's what the power allows him to do that drove him mad, not the power in and of itself.
• The Woobie: In flashbacks. Otherwise, Your Milage May Vary to the point that he might be a Base Breaker.
• Worthy Opponent: One reason why he was met with so much fanfare was that some fans of the show were glad at the time of his appearance to see another Geass user who could beat Lelouch up.
• Yandere: Obsessively fixated on C.C.
• Younger Than They Look: He's only seventeen. Looks like he's in his twenties (for those of you keeping track, this all means he's a seventeen-year-old who looks like a twenty-one-year-old but who acts like a six-year-old!).
  • If he puts on a nice conservative school uniform rather than that crazy getup he usually wears, he actually does look more his age (of course the picture isn't really official).

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Rai

The Player Character of the Visual Novel Lost Colors, Rai is a mysterious young man who enters the story (approximately around Episode 8) when Milly finds him wandering around Tokyo with amnesia and takes him to Ashford Academy. He quickly learns that he has a Geass power of his own, effectively identical to Lelouch's except that Rai's is auditory rather than visual. From there, he meets the central cast, and can choose whether to become Zero's right-hand man in the Black Knights, or Suzaku's partner in the Britannian military (or, in a PSP-exclusive storyline, he can revive the Japan Liberation Front and oppose both the Black Knights and Britannia).
Eventually Rai learns exactly why he had amnesia: he comes from an unspecified time in the past, where he became leader of a small nation thanks to his charisma, leadership, and his Geass. After accidentally Geassing his people (including his mother and sister) into charging into battle and dying, he sealed himself away in the ruin at Kaminejima, eventually being awoken by V.V..

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Rai embodies these tropes:

• AFGNCAAP: Averted; while the player can name the character (Rai being the default and "canon" name), he's got a set physical appearance, personality, and backstory.
• Attractive Bent Gender: See him dress up as a girl.
• Bishonen
• Charlie Dog: Part Japanese and part Britannian
• Compelling Voice: A more literal version than Lelouch.
• Continuity Cameo: Rai, or at least someone looking a lot like him, appears in R2's second School Festival Episode.
• Dead Little Sister: And mother, while we're at it.
• Easy Amnesia
• Even The Guys Want Him
• Gary Stu: Sit down, we'll be here a while.
  • Black Hole Sue: He stops short of taking over as Zero, but just barely; C.C.'s ending for the Blue Moon Festival has her forming a contract with Rai, with absolutely no mention of Lelouch, suggesting that they "split up".
  • Copy Cat Sue: Can be considered one for much the same reasons as Xingke (the awesome parts of Lelouch and Suzaku rolled into one person); made worse since he lacks any drawbacks like Xingke's Incurable Cough Of Death or his going Out Of Focus. Unless you get his Bad Endings, but still, uh.
  • Fixer Sue: Rai can actually stop the Euphinator tragedy even after it's already begun. (And many people actually do like that development)
  • God Mode Sue: Really, with a Gary Stu entry this extensive, is it any surprise?
  • Relationship Sue: You can end up in a romance with just about anybody in the main cast thanks to the PS 2-exclusive Blue Moon Festival; furthermore, you can actually break up canon love interests by romancing Euphemia, Shirley, Kaguya, Kallen, and C.C. This one's a little more understandable: the game does have Dating Sim element, so having the main kid romance others IS a given.
• My Greatest Failure: Just like Lelouch, an unintentional Geass command caused everything to go to hell for him.
• Power Incontinence: The reason he destroyed his nation.
• Sealed Good In A Can
• Super Prototype: The Gekka Pre-Production Test Type, Rai's Humongous Mecha on Japanese story routes, obviously. The Britannian equivalent, the Lancelot Club, is believed by Fanon to be the prototype for the Vincent from R2.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Rai is pretty much halfway between Lelouch and Suzaku in terms of personality and abilities. Of course, this creates some problems (seeGary Stu, above).
• The Beautiful People: You only see his face in the official strategy guide, but yup, he qualifies.
• White Haired Pretty Boy

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    Miscellaneous 

Tropes embodied by other miscellaneous characters:

• Amazon Brigade: The entirely female Irregulars.
• Ambiguously Jewish: The number of Jewish-sounding last names is noteworthy (i.e., Gino Weinberg, Bismarck Waldstein, etc.). It's not played completely straight since most of them don't have any other such traits worth speaking of.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Usually (but not always) played straight — especially within the Britannian royal family, but elsewhere as well.
• Badass Normal: Everyone who isn't a Geass user, Code Holder or generic background character really. Any exceptions are blatantly obvious.
• The Beautiful People: Most of the cast! Good luck weeding out any characters who aren't beautiful, cute, handsome, hot, etc.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Applicable to just about everyone (see The Beautiful People above). Even when characters get grievously injured or do something that should make them completely gross and icky they never lose their good looks.
• Big Ol Eyebrows: Kyoushiroh Todoh.
• Big Screwed Up Family: The entire royal family of Britannia.
• Blessed With Suck: Practically any Geass power eventually develops certain drawbacks for its respective user, typically in the form of the user becoming unable to turn it off.
• Blond Guys Are Evil: Averted with Gino Weinberg and Prince Odysseus eu Britannia.
• Blue Eyes: Prince Clovis la Britannia. Gilbert G.P. Guilford. Various members of the royal family. Various Britannians. The occasional Eleven — including Kallen's mother (Mrs. Kozuki).
• Break The Cutie: Kallen's mother (Mrs. Kozuki), and too many minor characters to count.
  • Nina Einstein deserves mention, she starts off as a harmless kind of mousy girl even with her huge flaws, then rather quickly shifts to mousy panicky racist, then with the death of her idol, goes completely over the end. First she tries to nuke (literally) her school, even pushes the trigger, but fails due to poor design. In S2, she finally perfects the device, it gets used and while she didn't pull the trigger this time (she was willing to), she ends up being directly responsible for at least 35 MILLION dead.
• Bridge Bunnies: The Black Knights got some after acquiring their Cool Ship.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Gino Weinberg, the Knight the Third, acts like a complete clown whenever he's not fighting. Kanon Maldini is an ex Villainous Crossdresser who couldn't find a stable workplace for this very reason despite his competence, until he met Schneizel.
• Chess Motifs: Pawns: just about all of the Black Knights (except Kallen).
• Chinese People: The Chinese Federation.
• Chivalrous Pervert: The sixth Picture Drama suggests Prince Clovis la Britannia was one. Just look at the swimsuits he designed. Lampshaded when Cornelia doesn't want to let Euphemia wear one of them.
• The Danza: Nagisa Chiba is played by Saeko Chiba.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Black Knights.
• Dark Skinned Blond: In Nightmare Of Nunnally, Dalque, who comes from an unknown conquered area.
• Disney Death: Sayoko and Guilford.
• Dojikko: Kallen's mother (Mrs. Kozuki) is a tragic example. Her clutziness could be a result of her addiction to an in-universe drug called Refrain.
• Dropped A Bridge On Him: Most of the Knights of Rounds — except Anya Alstreim, Gino Weinberg, and Miss Not-Appearing in a Speaking Role This Series Nonette. Particularly Dorothea Ernst aka Knight the Fourth, with all the Unfortunate Implications it brings, and Bismarck Waldstein aka Knight the First, who gets utterly WTFPWNED by Suzaku just as he was becoming a genuinely interesting character. Cornelia was THIS close to get a bridge on her, but she managed to dodge it somehow and survived after being shot by Schneizel.
  • Minor character Governor Calares got a skyscraper dropped on him.
• Dull Surprise: Crown Prince Odysseus' default expression. No wonder he was nicknamed "Prince Valium"
• Ensemble Darkhorse: While not actually a character, Lelouch's AWESOME hat he has as Emperor has developed quite a fan following.
  • Urabe went from "that ratty-looking member of the Holy Swords" to Darkhorse when he displayed incredible levels of Bad Ass and pulled a Heroic Sacrifice early in R2.
• Expy: Miss Romeyer, Nunnally's caretaker in R2. Clearly, an expy of Miss Rottenmaier from the novel Heidi, in particular the extremely popular anime adaptation Alpen No Shoujo Heidi.
• Extreme Doormat: Kallen hates her biological mother (Mrs. Kozuki), thinking she was this for her Britannian father. Turns out she was one for Kallen. After learning this, Kallen has a change of heart.
• Five Man Band: Tohdoh (The Hero) and the 4 Holy Blades (Asahina=The Lancer, Chiba=The Chick, Senba=The Big Guy, Urabe=The Smart Guy)
• Hidden Depths: No one in this series is quite who they seem to be at first. Many characters play the trope deliberately, though not all do.
• Hot Mom: Kallen's mom, Mrs. Kouzuki.
• Idiot Ball: Various characters throughout the series but Sayoko and Anya take it to Ralph Wiggum level during the Cupid day episode.
• Karma Houdini: Almost every character in the wedding photo, including Cornelia, most of the Black Knights who followed Ohgi into betraying Lelouch in favor of Schneizel, and of course, the happy couple, Ohgi and Villetta. Compare and contrast to Lelouch and Suzaku who both paid the ultimate atonement in order to bring about the peace that everyone else among the living enjoys.
• Improbable Age: Where to start? It might almost be easier to list counterexamples.
• Lady Of War: For the Black Knights: Nagisa Chiba (Todoh's girlfriend).
• The Libby: Katherina Sforza from the Nightmare Of Nunnally manga. But after throwing Nunnally off her wheelchair for refusing to endure her bullying, Katherina finds herself on the wrong side of Nunnally's classmate Alice whose Geass-like ability grants her Super Speed. Alice punishes Katherina and her Girl Posse by stealing their skirts -- out in the open.
• Light Is Not Good: The Britannian military especiall the higher ups.
• Missing Mom: V.V. and Charles's Start Of Darkness took place when their mother, courtesy of other nobles, got a carriage dropped on her and in front of the not-older-than-10 twins, as revenge for having her kids appointed as heirs to The Empire. Yikes.
• Moral Event Horizon: Several people on both sides cross it. Distubingly often.
• Morality Pet: For Lelouch, the Ashford students, but especially those on the Studen Council (and of course Nunnally most of all, at least in theory...).
• Purple Eyes: Diethard Reid. Most of the royal family. Many Britannians. The occasional Eleven.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Valkyrie Unit accompanying Luciano. Or rather, they would have been one, if they didn't have the misfortune of facing Kallen.
• The Quisling: Along with Nina, Lloyd, and Cécile, Sayoko pretends to be this under Lelouch direction; they assisted Lelouch's Zero Requiem to achieve world piece, but as Lelouch would be eventually hated as the most tyrannical ruler in history, Lelouch has them defect to the Black Knights after they've accomplished their tasks to preserve their name after the war.
• Rapunzel Hair: Several females in the series have quite long hair that goes down to their hips.
• Red Baron: Todoh is sometimes referred to as "Todoh of miracles"
• Sacrificial Lamb: Clovis was there just to get killed.
  • Nonnette, who only appeared in a couple of still shots during R2, though it arguably works out in her favour as she was one of the few Knights of the Round that weren't killed off. This is probably because she was more relevant to Lost Colors than the anime.
• Seppuku: Suzaku's father, to public knowledge, did this out of protest for the war. Suzaku actually just happened to stab him rather convieniently. Urabe did this to save Lelouch from Rolo. With a Mecha.
• Sibling Team: The Glaston Knights, composed of Andreas Darlton's adopted sons.
• Six Student Clique: Lelouch=The Head, Suzaku=The Muscle, Rivalz=The Quirk, Shirley and Kallen=The Pretty Ones, Nina=The Smart One, Millay=The Wild One.
• Smug Snake: In a show full of magnificent bastards, Diethard Reid serves this role.
• Sole Survivor: Claudio Darlton of the Glaston Knights.
• Spanner In The Works: Arthur, a cat, very nearly manages to expose Lelouch as Zero simply by getting its head stuck inside his helmet and carrying it around Ashford. In addition, if it weren't for Arthur, most likely Suzaku would've been killed by Tamaki in the Season One finale.
• The Three Faces Of Eve: Zero's "Three Courtly Ladies"; C.C (his mentor but thought of as his mistress), Kallen (dresses seductively but acts more like the obedient daughter) and Kaguya (the child who styles herself as his "wife")
• Token Evil Teammate: Diethard for the Black Knights and Luciano for the Knight of Rounds.
• Tsundere: Arthur the cat.
• Unwitting Pawn: The Order of the Black Knight in general, who first ended up in Lelouch's hand before becoming Schneizel's pawns. Some Troopers even guessed that Lelouch expected Schneizel to use schemes to get them to be the 2nd prince pawns and act based on that, so in the end black Knights will always be Lelouch's pawn, directly or indirectly.
• Villainous Crossdresser: Kanon Maldini, according to supplementary materials.
• What Happened To The Mouse: Brittania siblings.
• The Woobie: Many.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: An adult subversion/deconstruction of this trope would be Kallen's birth mother. Mrs. Kouzuki got the looks and the devotion, but ended up real screwed. In the end of R2, we see that she's getting better. Hooray!
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Almost everyone — although not necessarily blue. (Characters who are fullblooded Japanese are sometimes exempt. Or mostly exempt.)
  • It's amusing to note that the show's resident White Haired Pretty Boy and White Haired Pretty Girl are both Chinese People and don't fall in line with common assumptions about those tropes.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: For the core Black Knights before they joined up with Zero. One wonders what they were planning to do with a huge canister of poison gas, even if Kallen protested using it in a civilian area.