Code Geass/Characters/Others

Mao

Voiced by: Takeshi Kusao (Japanese), Ezra Weisz (English)

"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 the Geass 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. Feeling he is becoming too dependent and obsessed with her and hoping he will become self-reliant, 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.

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..
All There in the Manual: Additional information about his backstory.
Anime Hair
Anti-Villain: Type II.
Ax Crazy: Although maybe it should be CHAINSAW crazy!
Back From the Dead
Badass
Badass Longcoat: And a great coat no less!
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 everyone puts 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
Blessed with Suck: Very.
Blue and Orange Morality: He seems to have his own definition of right and wrong that revolves around C.C. Given his upbringing and legitimate insanity, it should come as no surprise, leading him to take Refuge in Audacity more than once. What perhaps illustrates this best of all is the fact that almost no other character ever tries to argue that what he's doing could be wrong, likely seeing it would be a pointless exercise.
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 Flash Back. 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 and Cry 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.
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 kill people 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.
Cursed with Awesome: He can read minds, but unlike Lelouch he can't his Geass ability off, so it sounds like people are always talking to him in his mind, which drives him a bit crazy.
Cute Kitten: See Meaningful Name, below.
Cry for the Devil: Poor, poor guy. Sure he's an Ax Crazy maniac. But all because of circumstances beyond his control!
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.
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 that Schneizel goes on to have with Lelouch in R2 (when he's his Evil Counterpart!).
Fan Boy: 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.
Flash Back: 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.
Gadgeteer Genius: Implied. Given his isolation, he couldn't exactly go bargain-shopping for a bomb of the exact specifications he wanted.
Fridge Brilliance: Related to One-Scene Wonder, below. Mao is mentioned afterwards, both in-universe and out, as an example of how Geass can consume an unwary user. However, when Charles and Marianne's Assimilation Plot is explained to Lelouch, who rejects it, Mao becomes a perfect example of why a world where no one can lie would be a dystopia for everyone. After all, in the side materials, it's revealed that Mao once used his geass to reveal the secrets of everyone in a small village, causing everyone to turn on each other and wipe out the settlement. After facing Mao, Lelouch would never allow that kind of power to be granted on a worldwide scale!
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.
Hormone-Addled Teenager: Sort of....
I Love You Because I Can't 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.
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 and honest.
- 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.
It's All About Me: And C.C...
Jerkass 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.
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 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 Death Bullet, 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.
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 a name that brings to mind strong negative feelings.
- It's also the Chinese word for "cat"; make of that what you will.
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.
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 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.
Motor Mouth
Eucatastrophe: 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.
Obliviously Evil
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 poster boy of how destructive the Geass "gift" can be to its recipient. See Fridge Brilliance, above.
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.
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 fans will 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.
Talkative Loon: By necessity, since he can only use his Geass to his advantage if he can talk to his victims.
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 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.
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.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
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).

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..

Rai embodies these tropes:

Attractive Bent Gender: See him dress up as a girl.
Bishonen
But Not Too Foreign: Part Japanese and part Britannian
Chick Magnet
Compelling Voice: A more literal version than Lelouch, but not quite as strong as his.
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
Expy: Of Lelouch.
Featureless Protagonist: 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.
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.
- This may actually be Canon; The Guren was the prototype for the Gekka, which then became the template for the Akatsuki, and the Pre-Production Test Type is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It stands to reason the the Club is similar, since The Vincent is specifically stated to be the MP version of the Lancelot, with the Club and the Sutherland Club models acting as "Test Types". Due to appearing in a spin off game, it could be considered Word of Dante.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Rai is pretty much halfway between Lelouch and Suzaku in terms of personality and abilities.
White-Haired Pretty Boy

Miscellaneous

Tropes embodied by other miscellaneous characters:

Alpha Bitch: 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.
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.
- Don't forget about Ohgi's Star of David and his "Jew 'Fro".
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.
Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Applicable to just about everyone. Even when characters get grievously injured or do something that should make them completely gross and icky they never lose their good looks.
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 Prince Odysseus eu Britannia.
Blue Eyes: Various members of the royal family, 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.
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.
- Apparently averted in the last chapter, where it was mentioned that she had a lighter skin colour before she was used as a guinea pig by the Irregulars. For a group drawn from conquered Numbers, the girls all look rather Britannian...
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"
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 / Five-Bad Band: So many to choose from. Examples:
- The Black Knights' 5 higest ranking members.
- Toudou and The 4 Holy Blades.
- The Knights of Rounds
- The Zero Requiem conspirators
- The Brittanian Anti-Lelouch movement (Schneizel, Kanon, Cornelia, Nunnally and Diethard)
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 The Ditz level during the Cupid day episode.
Improbable Age: Where to start? It might almost be easier to list counterexamples.^[context?]
Lady of War: For the Black Knights: Nagisa Chiba (Todoh's girlfriend).
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.
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 peace, 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 Oni, Blue Oni: Again, a lot of examples.^[context?]
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.
Sobriquet: Todoh is sometimes referred to as "Todoh of miracles"
Sole Survivor: Claudio Darlton of the Glaston Knights.
- The Shen Hu, the only knightmare owned by a major character that survived to the end of the series.
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.
Yamato Nadeshiko: An adult 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.

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