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The cast of Code Geass R2—Lelouch in the center; clockwise from bottom left: Kallen, C.C., Xing-ke, Nunnally, Gino, Suzaku, Anya, Rolo.

"What do you do when there is an evil you cannot defeat by just means? Do you stain your hands with evil to destroy evil, or do you remain steadfastly just and righteous even if it means surrendering to evil? [...] In my case, I commit evil in order to destroy the greater evil!"
Lelouch vi Britannia

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is a two-season anime television series that aired from 2006 to 2008; it takes place in an Alternate History timeline where the British Empire won the Revolutionary War, but lost a later European conflict against Napoleon (who went on to conquer the British Isles and forced the Empire into fleeing to America). The British-controlled America evolved into the Holy Britannian Empire, which eventually gained control of over a third of the world. Seven years before the beginning of the show's main story, Britannia launched an invasion of Japan to secure that country's stocks of a rare mineral that makes a new power source possible. Britannia's army of powerful Humongous Mecha—the "Knightmares"—ended the conflict in short order. After the victory, Britannia stripped Japan of its autonomy, its national identity, and even its name. The Empire refers to conquered countries by a numerical designation based on when it conquered the territory; in this case, Japan became "Area 11", and Britannians began referring to Japanese citizens as "Elevens".

In the present day, two childhood friends run into each other by chance after years of separation: Suzaku Kururugi and Lelouch Lamperouge. Suzaku is a career soldier of Japanese origin who hates bloodshed; having joined the ranks of the Britannian military, he hopes to gain enough authority to change the system from within and return a number of once-lost rights back to Area 11. Lelouch is an exiled Britannian prince in hiding; he wishes to crush Britannia from the outside to both avenge his assassinated mother and create a safe future for his disabled sister, but he has become disillusioned by the inability to act without reprisal from Britannia's police and military forces.

All of this changes when Lelouch encounters a Mysterious Waif called C.C. (pronounced as "See Two"), a refugee from a top-secret Britannian research project. She offers Lelouch a Faustian deal (which he accepts) that grants him "The Power Of The King", otherwise known as a "Geass". Lelouch's Geass manifests as a Magical Eye which allows him to issue a single absolute command to any individual—up to and including suicide—that the affected individual must follow to the best of their abilities.

Combined with his already-remarkable intelligence, the Geass gives Lelouch the chance to finally make his move against Britannia. He assumes the guise of a mysterious masked freedom fighter called "Zero", makes contact with a ragtag group of Japanese freedom fighters, and soon molds the group into his own personal army, which he calls "The Black Knights". In the meantime, Suzaku receives an amazing opportunity of his own: the Britannian Empire hand-picks him to become the test pilot of its newest Knightmare prototype, the Lancelot—and his decision to pilot that Knightmare puts Suzaku on a direct crash course with Lelouch as two friends, unaware of each other's identity, both fight in their own way to reform a corrupt empire.

Code Geass began airing in October 2006 and became a runaway success—it spawned a merchandising juggernaut and won numerous industry awards. As the brainchild of Goro Taniguchi and Ichiro Okouchi, Geass brought their style and flair for the dramatic to the Real Robot Genre. The series also received a good bit of early word-of-mouth when CLAMP was announced as the show's character designers.

The show's second season, Code Geass R2, aired on Japanese television from April to September 2008. The reception to R2 was... varied. Critically, it was still well received, and won a number of awards. Some fans viewed certain scenes as distilled awesome or charmingly exaggerated, while others viewed them through a more cynical light; these clashes of opinion resulted in everyone creating tons of memes.

Bandai Entertainment originally licensed both seasons of Geass and the first three manga in America until its closure in 2012. The show also ran in its entirety on [adult swim]. Funimation rescued the license (and grabbed the license for Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, to boot) in 2013; it released the show on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 4, 2016. It is also up for streaming on their site with the first four episodes released on August 23, 2016.

11 years after the show premiered, a trio of Compilation Movies were released, retelling the series in an Alternate Reality setting, meant to awaken interest in the show, leading to change the relationships, motivations and even fate of various characters of the show, according to the director. . The first movie (Initiation) released on October 21, 2017. The second (Transgression) was released on February 10, 2018 and the third (Glorification) movie was released on May 26, 2018. Following them Sunrise released a sequel film, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection on February 9, 2019. Re;surrection takes place one year after the Zero Requiem.

For side stories, spin-offs, and various other adaptations related to this anime, see the Franchise page.


The Code Geass franchise contains examples of the following tropes:

    open/close all folders 

    #-B 
  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
    • No, not the mecha — during Kallen and Suzaku's final battle, there's a clip in which the surrounding scenery seems to be made up of cel-shaded 3D graphics. Also, flags in the wind and trains.
    • Nunnally's garden during Operation Pacific Ambush.
    • During the big showdown with Emperor Wakamoto there is a massive tower of shimmering CGI. This makes sense when you think about the circumstances and who's involved.
  • The '60s: Converted to the AD/CE calendar, the main bulk of the series takes place in a much more advanced version of the same time period as Mad Men.
  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Milly twice mobilizes the entire student body to a specific task with nothing but a PA announcement. Milly being part of the (former) noble family Ashford (as in Ashford Academy) does give at least some reasoning behind it. And the fact that she promised a kiss from a student council member, and all the student council members are Bishōnen and bishoujo. Then again, her last act as student council president was to organize an event where a person snatching another's hat would designate those two as an official couple ... and not, apparently, just for the duration of the game.
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: So spacious that Mao manages to use it to hide, not just himself, but Nunnally and a bomb ... which is suspended about 30 feet above Nunnally from a long rope.
  • Adaptational Heroism: The movie series retelling the story paints the Black Knights, particularly Ohgi, in a more favorable light when it comes to them turning against Lelouch. In the original series, after hearing an edited version of Lelouch's confession to Euphemia's death and the massacre around her death, all of the Black Knights (aside from Kallen), led by Ohgi, instantly turn on Lelouch and stand back to watch him get gunned down by Schneizel's soldiers without letting him explain himself. In the movies, they at least ask him to tell his side of the story, but Schneizel's men step in to kill him, and Lelouch is forced to run, leaving the Black Knights to work with Schneizel, and after it is all said and done, Ohgi feels really guilty for what happened.
  • Adaptation Distillation: The Lelouch of the Rebellion manga covers the first half of R2 in the course of about a single volume, and several less-than-well accepted points of the story have been changed.
  • Adopt-a-Servant: Inverted. Kallen's biological mother works as a maid so that she can stay close to her.
  • Aerith and Bob: In this anime, characters with names like Jeremiah and Shirley play alongside characters with names like Lelouch and Villetta. Counts doubly for Schneizel, which is not only not a name but manages to sound like a German foodstuff, though it may be just the German name "Schneider" mistranslated through Japanese Ranguage. Note that if the name sounds really weird, there's a strong chance the character is a child of Emperor Charles.
  • Aggressive Negotiations:
    • When C.C. is searching for Mao, she pins a guy to a wall by his throat with her foot.
    • During the negotiations for Brittania to join the UFN, the other representatives don't want to give Suzaku and Lelouch everything they wanted. They respond by bringing in a Knightmare and kidnapping the delegates.
  • Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The Avalon, the Emperor's Great Britannia, the Ikaruga (which is submersible as well), and several other flying airships which are either passenger transports or cargo ships.
  • Airstrip One: All the conquered territories of the Holy Britannian Empire. Japan is now "Area 11". Currently provides the page image.
  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • When Mao dies, we know that he only became this way because of what C.C. did to him.
    • General Darlton, one of the more tolerant and heroic Britannians, is immediately executed by Lelouch after completing a Geass command to betray Cornelia. He snaps out of it just long enough to see what he was forced to do.
  • The Alliance: The United Federation of Nations, the group that forms from the remnants of the EU and the Chinese Federation to oppose the Britannian Empire.
  • All Nations Are Superpowers: The world of Code Geass is divided between the Holy Britannian Empire, the Europia Union and the Chinese Federation. Neutral nations like Japan tends to be conquered by the Britannians.
  • All There in the Manual: The Red Tracks light novels give more details on some characters who don't have more background details then what's provided by Sunrise, such as Kallen and Inoue's backgrounds.
  • All There in the Stinger: One of the most debated examples in anime, in which the final episode has, according to contested fan theories, a Stinger which suggests that perhaps Lelouch may be Not Quite Dead. There are a huge amount of creator statements which all repeat that he was killed. The creators have stated in interviews (e.g. Animage 10 and 11, Continue Vol.42, etc), tweets by the director (translation), the official guide book, ..., that Lelouch is dead and he is listed among the dead in the Death List for R2. C.C. even explicitly says Lelouch is dead in the new epilogue (from 2009). Then it was announced that he was confirmed to be the main character in the sequel which is officially named "Lelouch of the Re;surrection", which ultimately reversed the official statements by having Lelouch still be alive when the movie's plot begins, albeit in an almost catatonic state as a result of his soul being lost.
  • Alternate History: And it can get pretty out there. For example, The American Revolution failed because Benjamin Franklin sided with Great Britain. Then Napoléon Bonaparte conquered Europe, including England, so Britannia rebuilt its empire on the other side of the Atlantic. It is indicated that such changes are due specifically to the presence of Geass. In addition, the existence of Sakuradite can be used to Hand Wave some of the technology and history changes.
    • The series is even taking place in an alternate history; if you look up the information about the timeline of Code Geass, you'll see that it takes place in what would be the 1960s by real-world reckoning. That's right, they got flip-phones about half a century earlier than we did.
    • The waters are muddied further with the implication that the current Britannian regime is very fond of historical revisionism... and because we spend most of the series from the viewpoints of people at least brought up in the Britannian system, that's where most of our info comes from.
  • Ambiguously Jewish: Ohgi has stereotypically Jewish, dark curly hair on top of very light skin, and wears a Star of David looking symbol reminiscent of that worn by Jews in Nazi Germany. Nina Einstein, meanwhile, shares her name and in some ways, historical role with the real life Albert Einstein, as well as having stereotypically Jewish features (light skin, dark, curly hair, waifish figure, etc.) and personality.
  • Amnesiac Lover: Villetta Nu, in a way. She ends up loving Ohgi because of her amnesia rather than in spite of it.
  • Amnesiacs are Innocent:
    • Amnesiac C. C. only seems to be this initially but she is in fact being submissive combined with Fish out of Temporal Water.
    • When Villetta Nu loses her memories, she spontaneously becomes a demure, sweet-natured Nice Girl without a single violent bone in her body. She snaps right back to a cold-blooded killer when she gets her memories back, though her lingering memories of having been cared for by Ohgi change her permanently.
  • And I Must Scream: Not in the way you would think. While in a particularly bad mood Lelouch Geasses one man to bark like a dog and another to dance like an idiot. It sounds funny but then you realize they'll be doing exactly that until they die, unless they get un-geassed or have a geass canceller hit them which removes it.
  • Anime Hair: Not every last character, but a fair few. Sometimes taken to such an extreme it even gets lampshaded in the DVD commentary.
  • Anti-Magic: Jeremia's Geass Canceler. It does, as the name says, cancel the effects of any Geass.
  • Anyone Can Die: Perhaps less so than in other series, but several important characters still experience this throughout both seasons.
  • Arc Words:
    • "The only ones who should kill are those prepared to be killed." Lelouch holds true to this statement: after all the lives he took in his quest to give Nunnally a gentler world, he allows himself to die as part of the Zero Requiem.
    • Subverted; Zero says something about "orange" during the Suzaku rescue, the implication being that it's the code name for a collaboration between himself and Jeremiah. When C.C. asks Lelouch what "orange" means later, he admits there IS no deeper meaning; he simply chose an arbitrary word and allowed everyone's innate imagination to assign meaning to it.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: When Marianne tries to justify her and Charles sending Lelouch and Nunnally to Japan, Lelouch responds with a harsh "Then why didn't you stop the war between Japan and Britannia?!"
  • Artificial Limbs: We say Edo-period Japan, but that Renya kid has some sort of robot arm. Then again, this is all Alternate History.
  • Artistic License: You can't remove and replace contact lenses that easily. But it looks awesome, and besides, Lelouch is the type who would practice that until he got it right.
  • Artistic License – Chess: The way chess is portrayed makes nearly no sense according to the rules, but serves as a metaphor for how Lelouch and his opponents think. One of the more Egregious examples is when Schneizel tests Zero during a chess game by moving his own king deliberately into check, forcing Lelouch to actually move away from the free win because his pride won't allow him to accept victory on those terms. Lelouch should have simply pointed out that under the rules of chess you are literally not allowed to deliberately check your own king and forced Schneizel to take the move back and make a legal one instead. Of course, the entire point of the scene was to find out if Lelouch would just take a free win handed to him or not.
  • Artistic License – Geology: When the F.L.E.I.J.A. bomb is deployed, leaving at least a 1300 meter-deep crater, the now exposed terrain is completely uniform. No geological layers at all. Though considering the forces involved, it can be imagined that an uniform crust would have melted on the sides of the crater, consisting of all the matter vaporized in the explosion.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Numerous Britannian names are non-descript or based off on words that aren't generally used for real-life names (unless you want to take into account the Alternate History angle). This could be said about Nunnally, Schneizel, Euphemia (which means "well-spoken" in Greek, but is the root word for "euphemism" — she at least has that going for her), Rivalz, Rolo, and so forth.
  • Asshole Victim: Several of them, especially the military men that appear the first episode and another group from the Season 2 premiere, who both fall victim to Lelouch's "Die" command, both groups were willing to gun down civilians ruthlessly and was even implied to enjoy doing so.
  • Assimilation Plot: What the Ragnarok Connection, the Emperor's and Marianne's ultimate plan, aimed to achieve. It's pretty similar to Neon Genesis Evangelion's Instrumentality, but with a different set of symbols.
  • Athletically Challenged: Lelouch's smarts are offset by his complete lack of physical ability. He's utterly winded after trying and failing to dig a two-foot hole and gets outrun by his classmate Kallen while she's in a Goofy Suit.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning: Lelouch is crowned Emperor of Britannia in Season 2. It is a truly epic moment, complete with a declaration of his rulership on global television, amidst his followers chanting ALL HAIL LELOUCH!! and a Dark Reprise of the Empire of Britannia's Leitmotif swelling in the background.
  • Babies Ever After: Ohgi and Villeta. And a wedding with many characters attending.
  • Badass Family: Played straight and subverted by the royal family of Britannia, the subversion being that they're fighting each other. Furthermore and as a side effect of their Social Darwinist philosophy, the Novelization states that "everyone in the royal family was obligated to learn how to pilot a Knightmare Frame," making this an Invoked Trope in straight-out warfare as well.
  • Badass Longcoat: Subverted with Ohgi in his Deputy Commander uniform, since throughout the series he's for the most part uninspiring. Played straight with Tohdoh and possibly Lelouch and Suzaku in their civilian disguises
  • Bad Guys Play Pool: Played with. Gino, Lloyd and Cecile play pool shortly after Suzaku nukes Tokyo. They are the bad guys, but Cecile and Lloyd clearly disapprove of Suzaku's behavior at this point and let it show. Gino is more apathetic, but he didn't approve, either.
  • Bastard Angst: Kallen. Because her biological father's wife could not bear children, Kallen was adopted into her noble father's household. Her biological mother got herself hired as a maid and eventually turned to drug use. This made their relationship extremely strained, although they make up by the finale.
  • Bathos: Based on comments made by the creators in audio commentaries and interviews, the creative staff had a ton of fun juxtaposing both the comedic and the serious, even during the same episode, plus generally bullying Lelouch.
  • Batman Gambit: Most of Lelouch's moves are this more than anything, and he screws up just as often as succeeding.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Subverted precisely one time in the entire series, where the otherwise Bishoujo-looking Nina learns about Princess Euphemia's death and has a mental breakdown, complete with the facial expression you'd expect in real life. It's absolutely horrifying.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Nina about Euphemia. She takes this to an Absurd Length. Also Rolo about Lelouch.
  • Becoming the Mask: Happens to Lelouch while disguised as Zero, and later Suzaku, who takes up the role for Lelouch at the end of the anime series.
  • Beehive Barrier: The Blaze Luminous shield system.
  • Berserk Button: If you want to live another day, do not mention Orange in front of Jeremiah Gottwald. Until he Heel Face Turns, that is. Then he takes it as a compliment.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Emperor Charles zi Britannia and his son, Prince Schneizel el Britannia. The former has an Assimilation Plot called the "Ragnarok", where all humans, living or dead, will become one being in an attempt to destroy all gods and unite all humans. The latter has an A God Am I mindset, with the plan to launch a Kill Sat called the Damocles that fires F.L.E.I.J.A. missiles, all to unite the world through fear.
  • Big-Breast Pride: Milly is extremely well endowed and very proud of it. Notably, a Toplessness from the Back shot of her standing up in the bath still displays considerable amount of Sideboob.
  • Big "NO!": Several times. In a show full of hams, it's to be expected.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: Look no further than the Britannian Royalty. In Lelouch's generation, all of his siblings have been involved in some kind of complicit plot (including sweet Nunnally), which is largely due to the influence of Emperor Charles, who is at best a manipulative and neglectful parent. However, the dysfunction goes even farther, with family members participating in the "Emblem of Blood" by backstabbing and assassinating each other to sit on the Britannian throne. When the scheming resulted in one noblewoman's grisly death, her twin sons, then Prince Charles and Prince V.V., swore to create a "world without lies" so this wouldn't happen again.
  • Big "SHUT UP!": "MAO! NEVER SPEAK AGAIN!" Many fansubbers translated this line as "SHUT UP!"
  • Big Sleep: In the Grand Finale Lelouch dies like this. While he's uttering his last words to Nunnally, a backwards Really Dead Montage plays in the background until it reaches their childhood at which point he finally expires with a slump. Cue Nunnally breaking down in tears as she just realized moments before that Lelouch was running a Thanatos Gambit for world peace, hence why everyone else is cheering at his killer.
  • Bittersweet Ending: In the end, Lelouch achieves his ultimate goal, making the world a better place for all his friends and loved ones...at the cost of his good name and his life.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: On the one hand, we have a violent Social Darwinist empire which horrifically oppresses its people and, in the opening episode, massacres a ghetto. On the heroes' side, we've got a Byronic Hero with many, many personality flaws and who will Shoot the Dog if necessary.
  • Black Knight: Lelouch's rebel group style themselves as The Black Knights, a name meant to evoke both a chess motif and this trope. It represents Lelouch's conceit of holding his group to a higher standard while being uncompromising in their opposition to Britannia, a sort of inversion of Britannia's own ideas about chivalry.
  • Black Screen of Death: The sadistic Cliffhanger end of season one.
  • Blatant Lies: The Tokyo Tower museum dedicated to furthering Britannian/Eleven cooperation.
  • Blessed with Suck: Practically every Geass power granted starts off sounding pretty cool... until it becomes uncontrollable and makes its user's life hell (unless it already had a terrible drawback to begin with). Examples:
    • Lelouch has the power to issue absolute orders, but it only works once and those orders can't be taken back. Once his Geass becomes permanently active near the end of the first season, he accidentally triggers a genocide. How... unfortunate. For the most part, though, his power is portrayed as positive, since he gets a contact to deal with the Power Incontinence in the following season.
    • Mao can read the thoughts of anyone within 500 meters. To be more precise, Mao reads the thoughts of everyone in 500 meters. This was bad enough when he could turn it on and off. Once it becomes permanently active, he has to read the thoughts of everyone within 500 meters. Unlike Lelouch, there's no easy way to fix the problem, isolating him and eventually driving him insane from being bombarded by random thoughts. He's obviously in so much pain, in fact, that it's hard to see how his power was ever a blessing in the first place!
    • Rolo has the power to stop perception of time. However, his heart stops along with everything else, putting the time limit at a few seconds and making it risky to use in quick succession. This is what eventually kills him, when he consciously overuses his Geass to save Lelouch.
    • Pre-immortality C.C. had a Geass which acted as a love-magnet, which was nice until she couldn't turn it off and people got increasingly obsessed with pleasing her. This made it impossible to tell where people's true feelings ended and the Geass-generated love-brainwashing began, causing C.C. to become jaded and cynical about love.
    • Suzaku may not have a Geass, but he does get a command from Lelouch to "live", forcing Suzaku to survive by whatever means necessary. For a Death Seeker like Suzaku, this is bad enough as it is. But it goes From Bad to Worse. Thanks to the "Live" Geass, he ends up nuking Tokyo and causing thirty-five million deaths when using the nuke was the only thing left to keep Kallen from killing him. Then it becomes Cursed with Awesome as he turns the command into a quasi-SEED mode. In the Grand Finale... well, let's say that he was given a Fate Worse than Death.
    • Lelouch's mother, Marianne, is also a case. Her Geass apparently never activates... until she's shot to death, locking her in the body of a young girl she was training... and on timeshare to boot. However, she mentions that she could have gone back at some point if she had wanted.
    • Elite Mook and Knight Of One, Bismarck Waldstien, has the power to see the future. It's permanently active, so that eye, while still usable, sees the future constantly. He has it clamped shut with some easy to remove clips.
    • In a subversion, practically the only person in the series who never seems to have a problem with his Geass is Emperor Charles, who has the ability to erase and re-write memories.
  • Bodyguard Crush:
    • Reciprocated, blossoming into a real relationship, between Princess Euphemia and her knight Suzaku.
    • Later, another between Kallen and Zero.
    • It's rife within the royal family. First Charles & Marianne then with Cornelia & Guilford.
  • Bookends:
    • "One should not kill unless they are ready to be killed themselves!" A phrase declaring both the start of Lelouch's career as Zero and its end, with Lelouch's own death.
    • Also the first episode of R2 shares many parallels with that of the first season. Lelouch goes through his daily life and beats a Britannian in chess before getting involved in a terrorist act. He then meets C.C. and, right before he's about to be gunned down, he gains the power of the Geass and orders the firing squad to kill themselves.
    • Additionally, the first and last openings were performed by FLOW, while the first and last endings were performed by ALI PROJECT.
    • The first season both begins and ends with Lelouch in a dark, enclosed place, with his back against the wall and blood on his face.
  • Bound and Gagged: Happens regularly in R2, though more the former than the latter.
  • Brains Evil, Brawn Good: Played with, in that stereotypical heroic character with Suzaku is actually an Anti-Villain working for the Big Bad, while Lelouch who behaves like a stereotypical villain is actually the show's Well-Intentioned Extremist Byronic Hero.
  • Break Her Heart to Save Her: Subverted. Before Milly's graduation event in R2, Lelouch considers doing this to Shirley, but he never really got round to it.
    Villetta: She's totally head over heels for you. She did shoot me to protect you.
    Lelouch: That's why I can't get her involved in this any further.
    • Played straight later with Kallen. In order to protect her from the blowback of his identity as Zero being revealed, Lelouch ultimately has to play along and insist that he was simply using her and the other Knights..
  • Breather Episode:
    • Episodes 5 and 12 of R2 are filled with Fanservice and contain almost no main plot advancement whatsoever, except for the mandatory cliffhangers at the end.
    • Episode 21 of the first season is full of light-hearted fluff, and is sandwiched between the high-powered action sequences of episode 20 and episode 22.
    • Episode 6 of the first season, where a cat accidentally steals Lelouch's Zero helmet, and due to some misinterpretations by Nunnally, causes the entire school to go looking for it. It's really lighthearted compared to the next episode, in which Lelouch suffers his first major defeat and is nearly captured/killed in the process.
  • Brick Joke:
    • Lelouch tests his Geass by telling a girl to once a day make a new mark on an unmarked brick of the building. Several times in the series, you see her walking to and marking the building, and during episode 5 of R2, you see the marks on the wall with the last mark being only half done. This is actually becomes a little less humorous when some minor lines in the supplementary material or within the show bring up that this girl is now living in Britannia and keeps getting up in the middle of the night and trying to walk out of her house. The Geass never wore off.
    • When Jeremiah is exonerated but demoted for the "orange" incident, he is told that he can either restart his career as a pilot or become an orange farmer. At the very end of the series, he settles down and starts an orange farm.
  • Broken Faceplate: This happens very dramatically in the season 1 finale. Suzaku shoots a bullet straight at Zero's forehead; the mask slowly cracks, falling into two pieces on the floor and finally revealing Lelouch's identity to both him and Kallen. Then his forehead starts bleeding...
  • Bulletproof Human Shield: Cornelia has no qualms about using one of her own subordinates as a Knightmare-flavoured shield should the need arise.

    C-D 
  • Call-Back:
    • A somewhat chilling one occurs in R2. In episode 10, Lelouch inspires his command staff to battle by declaring he will demonstrate to the Chinese Federation the difference between strategy and tactics. Six episodes later, Nina is discussing mounting the F.L.E.I.J.A. on the Lancelot, and Lloyd cautions her not to confuse a strategic weapon with a tactical one. This distinction comes up again in "Nunnally in Wonderland."
    • Another instance of a call back occurs with Lelouch's first two uses of his Geass in the first episode of either season: first, to order a group of soldiers to die; and second, to play the innocent to lure a knight out of their Knightmare, then order them to give it to Lelouch.
  • Call to Agriculture: Lord Jeremiah ends the series in an orange grove. Possibly also a reference the euphemism used when he was there threatened with a dishonorable discharge. It shows not only that he wanted new growth after the war, but also reminded him daily of his choice to join Lelouch.
  • Canon Foreigner: Castor and Pollux from the DS game; Rai from Lost Colors; Elle and her father from Suzaku of the Counterattack.
  • Caped Mecha: Cornelia and her honor guard.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Most Geass users have some kind of drawback, such as Lelouch's where he can only use his Geass on a person once. In Rolo's case, stopping time causes a lot of physical stress to his body, so he can usually only use it for a short amount of time. He then does a Heroic Sacrifice in order to save Lelouch from getting killed after the Black Knights find out what he did using his Geass ability, and how he apparently played them all for fools.
  • Casting Gag:
  • Catchphrase
  • Celibate Hero: Lelouch honestly doesn't seem that interested in women or sex. Possibly Mommy Issues given his fixation on avenging his mother and creating a better world for his sister. It is implied that, aside from these two, he does love C.C., Shirley and Kallen, as shown by refusing to let Kallen throw away her life for him and choosing to avenge Shirley's death. But, though each of those three have surprise-kissed him at least once, the only time Lelouch tries making a romantic or sexual advance of his own is when he's in the middle of a Heroic BSoD and is looking for anything that might comfort him. He makes this advance on Kallen, no less.
  • Chainsaw Good: Mao comes up with a hilariously disturbing solution on how to "ship C.C. to Australia". ("I'll make you compact!") Also, the Four Holy Swords' Knightmares have chainsaw katanas.
  • Characterization Marches On:
    • Nearly all of the Britannian Empire were purely evil, racist, and ruthless in the first season, but the second season gave it more shades of gray, with the main ones in charge (Emperor Charles, V.V, etc.) being the only truly evil ones, and they have understandable motivations. In the end, Luciano Bradley is the only Britannian left with absolutely no redeeming qualities. It's still a very dark shade of grey though since millions are dying in Britannia's conquests with no Britannian actually caring about how War Is Hell for the loser. They're mostly Punch Clock Villains but a world-conquering and enslaving one. But an example less related to morality would be how early on Cornelia remarks on Guilford having a number of mistresses but for most of the series he acts like he has a Bodyguard Crush on Cornelia.
    • During his speech at Clovis' funeral, Emperor Charles strongly implies that the Chinese Federation is run by Dirty Communists, roughly analogous to the People's Republic of China in real life. When we actually see the Chinese Federation, it's actually an imperial monarchy that acts more like a futuristic version of Han Dynasty China, with no indication that it has ever been ruled by a communist party. A few background features of the country suggest that it is in fact an alternate history version of Han Dynasty China that has ruled the region uninterrupted for centuries.
  • Char Clone:
    • Lelouch. He's an estranged son of an important political figure with a grudge towards a whole family of nobility, uses a fake name, wears a mask, has a younger sister, is handsome and charismatic, has no loyalty to anyone except himself, and no qualms about killing people who are nice to him in the past. In fact, if you take this perspective, Code Geass becomes Mobile Suit Gundam with the perspectives skewed, instead of following Amuro (Suzaku), you're following Char.
    • Kallen has Char's piloting ability and his penchant for red mecha.
    • Schneizel has Char's sociopathy, extreme plans to end conflict, and blonde hair.
  • Cherry Blossoms: The power source is called Sakuradite, is rose-colored and even produces rose-colored explosions. Rose- or pink-colored smokescreens are common, too.
  • Chess Motifs: Start with Zero's uniform — which could almost be a human-sized classic Staunton chess set king stuffed into a superhero cape. This was done intentionally - designer Kenji Teraoka revealed in an interview that the King and Queen from the show's eponymous chess set are modeled on Zero and C.C.. And the list goes on and on and on.
  • Childhood Friends: Suzaku and Lelouch. It's one of the major early driving factors for the show since Lelouch is so reluctant to see him as an enemy or use his geass on him..
  • A Child Shall Lead Them:
    • Jiang Luhua, the Tianzi, is only thirteen years old.
    • Kaguya Sumeragi — head of the influential Sumeragi House; High Chairman of the UFN; Japan's representative on said council — is only about fourteen by the events of R2.
    • Nunnally begins her rule of Britannia, the world's last remaining superpower, when she has just turned fifteen.
    • Lelouch himself is only seventeen (presumably he turned eighteen during the time skip). While not exactly a 'child' per se, he is very young to be leading a full-scale rebellion. And later ruling most of the world.
    • Subverted with V.V. Physically, he's a child, but after gaining immortality through a Geass contract, his growth was forever stunted, so chronologically, he's the same age as his brother, Emperor Charles. His possession of a Code meant that his existence had to be kept secret from the rest of the world, also meaning that Charles is effectively ruling in his place as Emperor-Regent. On the other hand, he's the leader of the Geass Directorate as well as the Order of Pluton.
    • By the end of Zero Requiem, this gets turned up to eleven, as the world is ruled literally by four teenage girls.
      • Kaguya Sumeragi (age: 15) is the chairwoman of the United Federation of Nations.
      • Nunnally (age: 15) is the head of state and representative of the Principality of Britannia.
      • Jiang Luhua (age: 13) is the current empress of the United States of China.
      • Margaret Walpole (age: 15) is the current president of the United Republic of Europia.
  • Cliffhanger: Almost every episode, albeit with widely varying levels of intensity. The first season finale ends with a cliffhanger that makes you want to blow something up with a bomb.
  • Close-Call Haircut: Lelouch receives one in episode 14 of Season 1 by Shirley.
  • Coincidental Broadcast: In episode eight of the first season, the Black Knights catching the hoteljacking incident on the news.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Excluding the first few episodes note , on maps the nations have been colored blue for Britannia, yellow for the Europia Union, and red for the Chinese Federation/UFN.
  • Compromising Call: Episode 1 has Lelouch trying to sneak his way out of a massacre where his long-lost best friend was just shot for refusing orders to kill him for knowing too much. Unfortunately for him, Shirley, who is at school, calls his cell phone in hopes of reaching him, alerting the soldiers to his location, resulting in him almost getting executed.
  • Contemplate Our Navels: In the very last episode, everyone goes through the "Why we fight" speech. And I mean everyone. And they all do it at the same time.
  • Cool vs. Awesome:
    • The second battle for Japan in R2 between the United Federation of Nations vs the Holy Britannian Empire. Both sides get moments where they shine, and most of the major characters play some role in it.
    • Their second battle at the end of R2. Major characters take a beating, and it shows as they can't fight or fly nearly as well after having taken extensive damage.
    • Kallen and Suzaku's final battle, where they finally get to beat the snot out of each other's Knightmares without holding back.
  • Crapsack World: The Britannian Emperor invades nations because of his "survival of the fittest" philosophy even if he doesn't believe in it. If he wins, you and others like you, will be relegated to ghettos where you will live in poverty. The ghetto is subject to army raids. If you want a better life, swallow your pride and head to the government building where you can sign a document that says you are now an honorary Britannian. You are now eligible for employment (the really demeaning ones). Life in the settlement is marked by racism. Britannians can beat you up in the street and no one, not even police, will help you. Being a Britannian in Area 11 is especially dangerous because of clashes between the army and the Black Knights. The Chinese Federation is no improvement. The only bastion of freedom and democracy in the world is the United Republic of Europia, and they're losing their war to Britannia; not to mention are revealed in Akito The Exiled to be rather like real-world America is, corrupted by capitalism and still having a lot of racism and a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. It's also suggested that Australia is a completely neutral territory (think Switzerland during the Second World War, but it doesn't play a role in the story, so its internal status is unknown.
  • Crapsack World, Escapist Sanctuary: There is a drug known as Refrain that induces hallucinatory flashbacks to pleasant experiences. Needless to say, for the conquered Japanese living under Britannian rule, use and addiction to the drug is extremely common despite it being officially illegal, since the Britannians created it as a means of controlling the conquered populace.
  • Crash-Into Hello: How Princess Euphemia first meets Suzaku. Except it's a vertical crash: Euphie falls / jumps onto Suzaku from a window.
  • Crazy People Play Chess: Lelouch vs. Mao. Lelouch may (or may not) be mad depending on your point of view, but Mao is nutty enough that he rigs a bomb to detonate if Lelouch loses.
  • Creator's Culture Carryover: Despite the fact that Japan is under Britannian rule, it still seems very Japanese in its customs. Even the schools.
  • Creepy Twins: Charles and V.V. It's later revealed that they were born fraternal twins, but thanks to V.V. becoming immortal through a Geass contract, he was "stuck" in the body of a 10-year-old boy, while Charles aged into the wig-wearing Emperor he is today. While they don't look like twins now, especially with the age gap between them, the way they treat their fellow humans like pawns in their plans is rather appalling.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: The mother of Emperor Charles and V.V. was killed by ambitious nobles by having a carriage fall on her. This is what motivated Charles and V.V. to create the Ragnarok Connection after they find their mother's corpse.
  • Crushing the Populace: Nations conquered by Britannia are called Areas. All cultural identity is extinguished and citizens are completely at the mercy of the soldiers who can kill them for sport without anyone batting an eye.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: The invasion of Japan was this for Britannia, with their Knightmare Frames making mincemeat of Japan's conventional forces, decisively defeating Japan in a single month. The Japanese only managed a single victory at Itsikushima under Todoh.
  • Darker and Edgier: Whenever V.V. is present, the show gets like this, becoming much more serious and intense, though it's already somewhat intense and serious to begin with, V.V. simply brings it to a new level.
  • Date Peepers: In episode 3 of the second season, Milly, Rolo, and Rivalz all spy on Shirley and Lelouch's "date" to find a present for Villeta, their Physical Education teacher. However, Lelouch spots them peeking from a nearby bush when he glances at a mirror in a wine shop. He also uses this opportunity to blackmail the Britannian spy ring observing him as well.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Episode 9 of the first season is primarily focused on Kallen and her struggles with being half Britannian and half Japanese, as well as her mother who's addicted to the drug Refrain.
  • Death Is Dramatic: At least with sufficiently major characters. Minor characters, especially those with no real ties to the main characters, tend to suffer fates offscreen with little to-do.
  • Decoy Getaway: C.C. sometimes dresses as Zero to aid Lelouch in his plans and/or to lend him plausible deniability. In the second season, Sayoko does the opposite (of sorts) by disguising herself as Lelouch (the Upper Clas Twit version).. As if to top them both, at the end of R2, Suzaku kills Lelouch at Lelouch's own request and takes up the Zero identity.
  • Defeat by Modesty:
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Applies to many characters who fight Lelouch, or those on his side who wonder if he's really as good as he claims to be (and they find out he is).
  • Deflector Shields: First introduced on the Lancelot's arm gauntlets. Later shown on a large scale with the Avalon.
  • Delayed Explosion: The F.L.E.I.J.A. weapon operates like this, taking over half a minute to fully detonate after it is deployed.
  • Deliberately Triggering the Trap: In episode 7, Cornelia tries to lure out Zero by attacking the Saitama Ghetto; Lelouch immediately recognizes it's a trap since it's an almost perfect recreation of Clovis's attack on Shinjuku Ghetto in the first couple of episodes. He still goes anyway because of his overconfidence.
  • Democracy Is Bad: Part of the reason why the E.U. seems to fall to Britannia.
  • Den of Iniquity: Babel Tower, a lucious high-rise built for the extremely wealthy to gamble and, it is implied, engage in human trafficking.
  • Despair Event Horizon: A couple of the characters have been warped by their misfortunes. Most notably, Suzaku after his Geass command to "Live" forces him to nuke the Tokyo Settlement. After spending the entire series up to that point being a shining example of Honor Before Reason, his (albeit unwitting) slaughter of nearly 35 million people causes him to completely abandon his ideals and agree with Lelouch that immoral means are often necessary in order to achieve one's ends.
  • Despair Speech: Lelouch near the end of Turn 20: "My name is Lelouch vi Britannia, I am the eldest son of Empress Marianne, the prince who was abandoned by his empire. If anyone wishes to stop me, let them try, if there is anyone who can go beyond my despair."
  • Destroy the Abusive Home: This is definitely Lelouch's motivation, having been born and raised in an aristocratic, totalitarian empire, which gets its kicks from invading other countries and subjugating them to their will.
  • Diabolus ex Machina: The death of Euphemia and the events leading up to it, since the whole tragedy happens due to a series of Million to One Chance plot contrivances caused by several characters saying/doing the worst possible thing at the worst possible time.
  • Dispel Magic: In the second season, Jeremiah Gottwald) gets the Geass Canceller, the power to completely negate Geass. Not only is he immune from such effects, but he can create spheres with huge radii that strip anyone caught in the bubble of any Geass effects they're currently affected by. For Lelouch's Geass, it even resets the "once per person" counter, allowing the victim to be Geassed again.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Lelouch plots revenge against most of his family members for the Britannian invasion of Japan. It doesn't stop there. His response to Rolo murdering Shirley is to wipe out the entire Geass Order. While there were undoubtedly some monsters in that number, he still has his minions slaughter kids. Tykebombs, yes, but kids. Rolo had killed an SIA man for touching the locket Lelouch gave him.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Poles living in the north Germanised sections of Poland during World War II will find the "Honorary Britannian" system familiar to the "Germanisation list" that many signed.
    • Lelouch calling out Charles on his refusal to end the global violence is reminiscent of how people still believe Emperor Hirohito could have averted Japan's involvement in World War II.
    • Ohgi is a member of a race considered inferior by a conquering empire who lives in a ghetto. He has dark, curly hair and is a member of a resistant movement who used to be a teacher before the war. He wears a yellow Star of David over his jacket. note 
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set: Zero is fond of this. Charles pulls this off once as well.
  • Don't Tell Mama: Sibling variation: Lelouch tries to keep his alter ego secret from his sister.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Nina says this to Milly in R2 when Milly tries to comfort her.
  • Downer Ending: Season one ends like this, since while Lelouch doesn't die, his rebellion,which he worked so hard to become a actual threat to Britannia, ends up blowing up in his face, due to hubris, arrogance and over reliying on geass.
  • The Dragon:
    • Bismarck, The Knight of One to Emperor Charles.
    • Kanon to Schneizel.
    • Guilford and Darlton were Co-Dragons to Cornelia.
    • Suzaku, The Knight of Zero to Emperor Lelouch.
  • Dramatic Sit-Down: Lelouch does this after the Euphinator incident. He goes to somewhere private and sits down and cries. He accidentally made his second-favorite sister commit genocide. He was forced to kill her and then he turned it into his political advantage.
  • Dueling Messiahs: Childhood best friends Lelouch Lamperouge and Suzaku Kururugi, both of whom agree on one thing - that the current regime, the Britannian empire, is horrible. However, their methods of changing it differ drastically - Lelouch has enough of a Dark and Troubled Past to want to overthrow his father the Emperor, and will settle for nothing less than the complete destruction of the monarchy (of which he is a part of - except, of course, for his beloved little sister and long-lost younger half-sister he still cares for). Suzaku, on the other hand, rejects an offer to join Lelouch more than once and enlists in the Britannian military (despite being Japanese) because he believes the Britannian empire can be changed from the inside. There is, of course, more than meets the eye.
  • Dying as Yourself: Euphemia. As she succumbs from gunshot wounds, the Geass that drove her into genocidal insanity wears off, and she appears to have no memory of the things she did while under Geass.
  • Dying Deal Upgrade: Downplayed, Lelouch is cornered by security personnel who are about to kill him and right before he's about to die, he's contacted telepathically by C.C. who offers him a deal if he wants to survive. He accepts, and is granted his geass, which he then uses to make the soldiers kill themselves.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Shirley to Lelouch in episode 13 of R2.
  • Dystopia: Britannia. It may seem clean, but it is an empire where Social Darwinism is treated as a religion, eugenics and racism are official policy, and conquered peoples have their cultures and even their name annihilated and stripped from them, replacing it with a mere number. If you won't join the Honorary Britannians (military volunteers), you may be exterminated. On the map, they even resembled Oceania from Nineteen Eighty-Four, occupying all of the Americas.

    E-G 
  • Easily Forgiven:
    • Villetta is easily forgiven by Ohgi for nearly killing him, which partly led to the Black Rebellion's failure. He even goes AWOL to see her, knowing she's threatened to kill him again. And when she comes in with the Geass "evidence" against Lelouch, none of the Black Knights question who she is or what Ohgi's been doing with her. They even accept her word point-blank.
    • Ohgi himself is easily forgiven by various characters for leading the Black Knights' betrayal of Lelouch. He is easily forgiven by Kallen for nearly having her gunned down for defending Lelouch, on the premise that she must be under Geass control for questioning him.
    • Cornelia is easily one of the nastiest Britannian commanders in the series, being so racist towards the Japanese that she outright massacres a bunch of them with the excuse of luring Zero out. Yet while she does go through some hardships, she ends the series free without ever having faced retribution for her crimes.
  • Elite Four: the Japanese Liberation Front have the Shi Seiken, or "Four Holy Swords", a group of four highly skilled Knightmare pilots: Nagisa Chiba, Shougo Asahina, Ryouga Senba, and Kousetsu Urabe. Tohdoh's "Four Holy Swords" are another example of Shitennō, though they aren't bad guys and they don't (all) die. In fact, they all survive the first season.... but only one of them lives until the end.
  • The Empire: Britannia.
  • The Ending Changes Everything: Not as much of an example as most others, as it doesn't cover the whole series, but The Reveal of what the Zero Requiem is entirely changes the context of the final arc and several key conversations.
  • Enemy Mine: Lelouch occasionally sides with the Britannians, such as when the hotel jacking takes place, or stopping the invasion by some of the former Japanese government officials.
  • Engineered Public Confession: The Chinese Eunuchs should REALLY have considered the possibility that their conversation with Zero could be recorded before they gleefully mouthed off about how "the people are ants" and that the much-beloved child empress is "just a puppet who can easily be replaced." Hilarity Ensues as the entire Chinese Federation simultaneously revolts in anger.
  • Eunuchs Are Evil: The High Eunuchs of the Chinese Federation, a Decadent Court who are heavily based on the Ten Attendants from Romance of the Three Kingdoms
  • Evil Brit: Aside from a few sympathetic named characters, most Britannians are portrayed as evil or at least uncaring. Britannia is an alternate-history country where the American Revolution failed and Napoleon conquered the British Isles. Britain and the United States have no equivalent country in this series.
  • Exact Words: Lelouch tells the geassed police to "Shoot Mao". He is back just fine and dandy in the next episode, and chides Lelouch because he told them to "Shoot Mao", not "Kill Mao".
    • Late in the second season, Lelouch exploits this by giving Schniezel the order to "obey Zero". Lelouch of course is Zero...until he's not. This means that once Lelouch completes his Thanatos Gambit, Schniezel is still nullified as a threat because he has to obey Suzaku, the new Zero.
  • Exotic Eye Designs: All Geass users have their pupils change into a bird-shaped sigil. Those that fall into the command of a Geass have their scleras highlighted with the color of the Geass itself.
  • Exploited Immunity: In one battle, C.C. (while fighting in Knightmare Frames) grabs her opponent and tackles them both into the ocean, attempting to crush them both with the water pressure. C.C. is immortal and can regenerate, so she has nothing to worry about.
  • Exposition of Immortality: C.C is said to have known Benjamin Franklin personally and various flashbacks have shown her being executed in different ways through the ages.
  • Expy: Several characters look like or have a personality similar to characters from the Gundam metaseries or from previous CLAMP works. Sometimes, these overlap.
    • Suzaku looks and fights like Syaoran from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-. Considering CLAMP did the character designs for both, it's not surprising.
    • Lelouch resembles TRC Kamui, especially in the CLAMP artwork.
    • The CLAMP lineart design for Nunnally is a direct recycle of ×××HOLiC's Kohane Tsuyuri.
    • Kallen has many similarities to Domon Kasshu. It doesn't help that Kallen's mother is voiced by Yuri Amano (who voiced Rain Mikamura in G-Gundam).
    • Euphemia and Suzaku also look almost exactly like Lacus and Kira. Very similar plot-wise too.
    • Lelouch and Kallen are, as previously mentioned, aspects of Char Aznable
    • The Britannian Royal family are the Zabi family, with Charles being both Degwin and Gihren (Nazi-esque dictator who gives passionate speeches), Schniezel splitting Kycilia's traits (pragmatism, tactical brilliance want the Gihren expy's place in the hierarchy) with Cornelia (ruthless and cold personality, with some Dozle thrown in given how she's a military commander who cares for her men), and Clovis being Garma (naive younger sibling who's in way over his head). Nunnally certainly shares personality traits with Mineva (used as a pawn).
    • In the mecha side, there's the Sutherland Sieg (a basic Knightmare Frame, retrofitted with parts from the Siegfried) which obviously is the series's scaled-down equivalent of the GP03 Dendrobium Orchis.
    • Also, the Lancelot, especially at the start of the series, is a lot like a Gundam, generally speaking, since they're white colored Super Prototypes whose pilot fell into the cockpit.
  • Extra-Long Episode: Season 1 finale of Code Geass (episodes 24-25) were originally aired back-to-back, and split up for reruns.
  • Face Death with Dignity: What Suzaku hoped to do and what Lelouch appears to have done at the end.
  • Faceless Goons:
    • Honorary Britannian soldiers fill this role.
    • After becoming Emperor, most of Lelouch's soldiers wear smooth masks that completely obscure their faces, and the series rather pointedly has them don those masks after Lelouch Geasses them.
  • Failure Gambit: The ending of the series is an example of this, as well as Thanatos Gambit and Zero-Approval Gambit, as Lelouch, now emperor of Britannia, intentionally makes himself the enemy of the world and then dies a martyr's death at the hands of Suzaku, who is disguised as Zero, the hero of the people. This plan—the "Zero Requiem"—results in most of the world's strife being blamed on the tyrannical Lelouch, and ultimately unites humanity, just as Lelouch had hoped to do.
  • Fake Memories: The Emperor gives these to Lelouch — and the whole damn school as well — with his geass, during the Time Skip. Long before this, he did it to Nunnally as well, which caused her blindness.
  • Faking Amnesia: In the second series of Code Geass, Lelouch adds this to part of his masquerade early on in order to throw off suspicion that he has regained his memories.
  • Fanservice:
    • Every female character is subjected to this. Especially Kallen.
    • Several of the male characters have their moments too: Suzaku's and Gino's Knightmare Frame-pilot outfits are really tight. Lelouch has at least one shower and Shirtless Scene.
  • Fantastic Drug: Refrain. It has the unusual effect of allowing a person to relive happy memories, which naturally makes it a smash hit in an imperial colony that lost the war for its independence relatively recently.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Quite a few. One example is Schneizel falling under Lelouch's Geass, forcing him to obey "Zero" for the rest of his life.
  • The Federation: The United Federation of Nations, created to rival Britannia.
  • Fictional Geneva Conventions: The "Tibet Convention" seems to be a treaty about, among other things, the humane treatment of POWs.
  • First Law of Metafictional Thermodynamics: The show attempts to defy this; many characters are added without the plot slowing down. As a result, the emotional gravity is lost when they turn out to be Chekhov's Gunman or Sacrificial Lion.
  • The Fog of Ages: CC complains of this, until Lelouch has a journey to the center of her mind and then Marianne returns all her memories.
  • Food Porn: In R2, the student council is preparing a meal for Lelouch and Rolo safe return from Zero's attack. We get close-up shots of the food that will make you wish you could join them to eat.
  • Foreign Ruling Class: The Britannian nobility rules over an underclass of conquered peoples in the different Areas.
  • Foreshadowing: Near constantly, leaning into Freeze-Frame Bonus, particularly in the first season.
    • In Narita, when C.C.'s attempt to Mind Rape Suzaku ends up resulting in her being mind raped, there is a flash of a woman in a blue dress and, as Lelouch notices, the Aries Villa. Turns out the woman was Marianne and C.C. has a stronger connection to her than Lelouch knows at this point.
    • The biggest might be near the end of Stage 19: The Thought Elevator (which itself ends up being very important to the plot come R2) activates and a blond child is shown smiling evilly as he does so. There is also a quick, but lingering focus on Lelouch's Geass eye which seems to activate in response to it. Lelouch then goes on to show in the next few episodes increasing pain in his left eye. This turns out to be warning signs about his Geass about to reach the permanent state; something that, by C.C.'s reaction when it happened, happened way too soon. The implication is that V.V. wanted Lelouch to develop his Geass faster for his own reasons, though it's unlikely he had anything to do personally with when it went down.
    • When the Black Knights attack Babel Tower, Kallen is knocked to the floor, and she stays there motionless for several seconds, before suddenly noticing Lelouch and Rolo running away, and seems confused about what happened. Once you find out about Rolo's Geass, it becomes clear that he had used it on her.
    • The start of the series introduced Clovis and Jeremiah, who blame the Elevens for Lelouch and Marianne’s death, hence justifying even further worse treatment of them. Once Lelouch/Zero shows himself, Clovis is murdered and Jeremiah is reported dead after being stripped of his position and honor through the Orange suspicions. In the near end, the rest of the Imperial Family who shared similar mindsets meet the same fate, being reduced to low-class soldiers and servants before being disintegrated by Schneizel’s FLIEJA weapon, casually written off as another statistic.
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: An Averted Trope because, while some of the reactions to fallen people are overly short, none of them are really forgotten. Possibly the most notable aversion is Euphemia.
  • Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Skirts cling more closely to contours than should be possible, particularly at the rear. Displayed by too many characters to count.
  • For Science!:
    • Lloyd Asplund lives by this trope, and doesn't care for much anything else. He even tells Nina in R2 that if she wants to perform science experiments, she must destroy her heart, or it'll just get in her way (which it does when the F.L.E.I.J.A. goes off).
    • Rakshata largely lives by this trope, but usually to build stuff to counter what Lloyd's created. Both of them are often shocked by a new item created by the other.
  • For Your Own Good: Charles and Marianne justify their actions throughout the series as being this, but Lelouch (correctly) doesn't buy it for a second.
  • Freak Out: Happens to both Suzaku and Nina after Euphemia's death. Suzaku manages to for the most part maintain his composure sans a burning desire to kill Zero, whereas Nina goes so insane that she attempts to build a nuclear bomb just in the hope Zero would get caught in the blast radius. The Nightmare Face she pulls upon learning of Euphie's death formerly provided the page image.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus:
    • A sharp-eyed viewer might notice that, in the train cars in Episode 4, all of the passengers have the red eyes associated with being under the control of Geass...which is how 'Zero' has the group left alone, in addition to the forward train car to himself.
    • In the beginning of R2, Lelouch is reading a book and has it open for less than a second before slamming it shut. Pausing reveals that he is reading from The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio 22, specifically.
    • The above is a call back to Lelouch reading at the start of season 1 in the motorcycle sidecar; a keen eye will note that he's reading Hamlet...
  • From Bad to Worse: Code Geass operates on a continuum in which everything is slightly worse than what came before it.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare:
    • Suzaku went from ordinary foot soldier to Ace Pilot extraordinaire named "The White Grim Reaper".
    • Lelouch went from Ordinary High-School Student (with an extraordinary backstory) to Rebel Leader and finally, Emperor of the world.
    • Jeremiah Gottwald started as a Butt-Monkey who's constant losses to Zero gets him demoted. Then he gets armed with anti-Geass and eventually becomes the second most powerful man in the world under Emperor Lelouch.
    • Emperor Charles is a cruel, manipulative man who is a neglectful parent to all of his children at best. Before that, he was a scared little kid who clung to his brother V.V. after they discover the grisly results of their mother's assassination by ambitious nobles.
    • Likewise, V.V., Charles's brother, turned into an immortal being after getting a Geass contract (somehow) and rose to prominence as Charles's strongest ally while also becoming a very skilled manipulator and leader of his own groups.
  • Fun with Acronyms: F.L.E.I.J.A. The "J" doesn't appear to stand for anything, and is just there to make the pronunciation approximate the mythological name "Freya". The other possibility is that the "J" is there to make it sound like "flayer". It does rather effectively to the outer skin of Knightmares that are destroyed when Schneizel is trying to get to the heart of the opposing force. That is Lelouch.
  • Future Spandex: The Black Knight pilots get to wear some form-fitting spandex-like suits, but many Britannians wear their dress uniforms when inside Knightmare Frames.
  • Gambit Pileup: Episode 20 of R2, what with the Emperor activating the Sword of Akasha, Schneizel starting his bid for the throne, and Lelouch gunning to take down the Emperor. It actually gets simpler after that.
  • Gambit Roulette: Guessing the exact time, place and replies of an upcoming conversation, when you don't even know that you'll be taken captive at the time you need to have it, and recording your half of it in advance is quite insane.
  • Geas: What is traditionally referred to as a geas is not what the series calls a geass. However, Lelouch's ability essentially allows him to put others under one.
  • Generican Empire: The United Federation of Nations, which is actually more of an alternate United Nations with military power than an actual empire.
  • Genius Thriller: One of the clearest examples of the genre. Lelouch spends most of his time trying to outsmart and outmaneuver the Britannian government.
  • Genre-Busting: It's a Humongous Mecha mixed with Alternate History, with fantasy elements and the experimentation of numerous tropes. And Fanservice.
  • "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: The Novelization specifies that Britannia has a law called the "Privilege of Exemption from Royalty" that allows a member of the royal family to be absolved to any and all prior crimes in exchange of losing all their birth rights. It sounds like a sweet one-time deal, but some have consider it a Fate Worse than Death and there is at least one precedent where a member of the royal family killed himself as soon as he was ordered to use the privilege so he wouldn't die a commoner. This law becomes relevant in the main story because this is how Euphemia planned to absolve Lelouch of his crimes as Zero thanks to the fact that the law can be used to pardon someone other than the royal that exerts the privilege, which is a loophole that has been exploited in the past by people who wanted to save their spouse or their knight from being sentenced for major crimes.
  • Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: Suzaku catching a falling woman in his Knightmare Frame. Kallen catching Zero. Rolo holding Lelouch. Played with a bit: the woman hadn't been falling for too long, and Suzaku boosted up to her height, then began to fall to catch her without much injury. She and her child would have probably been bruised though. Same with Kallen, since Zero was blown out of a ship, not falling.
  • Gratuitous English:
    • "Yes, my lord", "homeland", "fottage", "perpetrator", and "ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!!".
    • Never heard any better than in the Britannian anthem.
    • Lelouch is reading Hamret in the first episode.
    • From the third Title Sequence: "I continue to fight! I continue to fight!"
  • Green Rocks: Sakuradite, a power source which makes much of the technology work, and prompted Britannia's invasion of Japan.
  • Grey-and-Grey Morality: Suzaku and Kallen have some discussion about their beliefs and why they're fighting for their respective factions, with Suzaku seeing himself as stuck on his path while Kallen fights on behalf of all those without his options for advancement.

    H-K 
  • Handshake Refusal: Subverted upon her introduction, Rakshata Chawla radiates a rather arrogant Insufferable Genius aura and, when Zero offers her a handshake, it looks like she will refuse it for a moment. She decides to accept, however, in a symbolic move of acknowledging a fellow genius in the rebel leader. It is later shown that Rakshata is not actually that arrogant or smug, but she certainly acted the part when joining the rebellion.
  • Harmful to Minors: Lelouch and Nunnally witnessed their mother's murder at ages nine and six, respectively.
  • Hated Hometown: Due to a combination of traumatic childhood events and being forced to live in one of their imperial subjects, Lelouch hates the Holy Britannian Empire. When he gets his Geass, his immediate first impulse is to find a way to use it to destroy the empire for good.
  • Held Back in School: Millay Ashford deliberately held herself a back a year so she could be with her friends longer.
  • Heroic RRoD: Rolo Lamperouge's Geass briefly stops his heart whenever he uses it. His overuse of it to save Lelouch's life overtaxes his heart and kills him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Rolos spams his Geass to get Lelouch out of harm's way when the Black Knights turn on him. This is ultimately a death sentence, as the effort is way too much for his heart to take.
    • Lelouch himself in the last episode. His Zero Requiem Plan requires him to unite the world in their hatred of him, and then have himself killed by "Zero" (really Suzaku in disguise).
  • Hero-Tracking Failure: Suzaku has the ability to outrun automatic machine guns.
  • Hidden Depths: No one in this series is quite who they seem to be at first. With the possible exception of Rivalz, but then, considering he was Lelouch's 'Best Friend' before starting with the Black Knights, he has all the characterization of a flea.
  • Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Higher ranking Britannian soldiers wear bright colors decorated by crosses.
  • Hollywood Tactics:
    • The larger the battles in Code Geass, the more this trope rears its head. The smaller and earlier battles (such as the massacre of Shinjuku Ghetto) appear sensible for both Lelouch and the Britannian forces (at least when Clovis isn't giving orders), but by the time of Code Geass R2, everyone's armies eventually end up using Napoleonic massed-infantry tactics (or "line of battle" tactics from the Age of Sail in the case of naval/air-naval forces). Vehicles that would be better suited to a support fire role are lumped into tight formations with the rest of the Cannon Fodder.
    • Lelouch also enters the battlefield multiple times, even though he's not a skilled fighter. However, he does this because he believes that no commander can expect his men to follow if he doesn't risk himself.
    • Also justified when Rolo uses Lelouch's mech. He makes a comment akin to: "I didn't know the absolute defense field was so hard to calculate! My brother must be a genius!" And honestly, most of Lelouch's time on the battlefield is using that thing.
  • Hospital Surprise: Euphie gets to say goodbye to rescuer Suzaku before she dies. On the other hand, Cornelia somehow survives being shot up twice.
  • Hostage MacGuffin: Nunnally gets a role as a living MacGuffin. This is partially because she's the protagonist's little sister, partially because she's so sweet and seemingly helpless that most characters want to protect her, and partially because she's a princess.
  • Hostage Situation: An infamous example occurs during the eighth episode of R1. Colonel Kusakabe, with a handful of his men and a Raikou as support, takes an entire hotel full of people hostage and threatens to kill them if his demands are not met.
  • Hot Springs Episode: The Stage 3.25 Picture Drama features the female Ashford Academy characters bonding in the ridiculously large bath on the school, that functions as a hot spring.
  • Hufflepuff House: The EU, as well as most members of the UFN, much to the annoyance of some fans. Fortunately, the Akito the Exiled OVA set in Europe seems intended to rectify part of this.
  • Hypnotism Reversal: Lelouch deliberately uses his geass on himself using a mirror to bypass the abilities of a mind reader. He geass'd himself to forget about the trap he set so his mind reader opponent couldn't find out about it by reading his mind.
  • I Am Spartacus: Episode 8 of R2 has a Batman Gambit that involves a crowd of one million people dressing like Zero. Including a dog!
  • Icon of Rebellion: The corrupt Geass Symbol of the Black Knights.
  • Idealist vs. Pragmatist: Suzaku is a Idealist who refuses to kill civilians, let alone resort to terrorism, believing everything should be done through faith in the system. Lelouch is a Pragmatist who finds the Britannian aristocracy as too cut off from reality and that forcing them out is the only solution.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The majority of the series are titled Code Geass: [Protagonist] of the [...something].
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: So very, very much. Just look at the gravity-defying Zero outfit.
  • Incest Subtext: Has its own page.
  • Incoming Ham: Jeremiah Gottwald devours the scenery when he shows up in the first season's finale.
  • Informed Ability: Tohdoh's military skill. Battles led directly by him do not go so well. However, he does justify the apparent disparity by saying that his reputation is largely hype (it is also possible that he was a master of pre-Knightmare era tactics, but failed to adapt to the realities of Lensman Arms Race). Xingke at least makes good on the hype surrounding him.
  • Insistent Terminology: Done both ways. When called Elevens, characters of Japanese origin will angrily say "We're not Elevens, we're Japanese!" and during the scene that Nina makes at a ball in the Chinese Federation, Kallen tells her that she isn't Britannian, she's Japanese. Nina then rather hysterically says "No you're not! You're an Eleven!"
  • In Spite of a Nail: Despite the extensive background explanation for how the the universe of the series diverged from our own, this isn't too apparent when watching it, as so many features (like shopping malls, news stations, etc.) match the real world, and the Japanese resistance group uses the "red sun" flag, giving the obvious impression that it is a remnant of this world's Japan. Outside of Britannia, every country has its usual name. Although it's hinted that the "official" history of Britannia is mostly or entirely made up. According to official records, the first divergence is a Celtic superking uniting all clans and stopping the Romans from conquering England, the discovery of sakuradite near Stonehenge and Japan, Elizabeth I having a son, the American Revolution failing through the bribing of Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon founding the EU and conquering England, the remaining English establishing themselves in America and Elizabeth the third dying and leaving the throne to the duke of Britannia, giving rise to the nation of Britannia. Due to hints, many fans assume however that most of the early events were made up to make Britannia seem more legitimate (like linking the royal family to the Celtic superking). Some other fans place the point of divergence even further down the line, due to the incredible similarities with the real world.
  • Instant-Win Condition: The Final Battle of R2 - Lelouch's forces get obliterated, Suzaku gets beaten by Kallen, but once Lelouch seizes control of Damocles, his enemies have no choice but to surrender.
  • Inverted Trope: It's a predictably Troperiffic Humongous Mecha anime - except that the protagonist is The Chessmaster with the Evil Magic powers and his opposite is the Hot-Blooded Honor Before Reason Ace Pilot.
  • Invisible to Normals: Only those with Geass, Code, and possibly Jeremiah's Geass Canceller can see the Geass sigil in a person's eye as well as the red highlight surrounding a Geass-affected person's iris.
  • Ironic Echo:
    • Not an exact echo of a quote, but it was certainly ironic that the long-blind but now sighted Nunnally should end up begging Lelouch to open his eyes.
    • That whole scene where Nunnally is screaming in despair for the dead Lelouch while the world chants "all hail Zero" is incredibly poetic in its irony.
    • "We're friends, aren't we?". First said by Lelouch to Suzaku during the start of the Black Rebellion then said by Suzaku when he took Lelouch to the Emperor to be mind scrubbed.
    • Lelouch and Suzaku's shared monologue in episode 5 about why they want to solve the world's problems (war, terrorism, discrimination). Schneizel says something similar when he revealed he will use Damocles to subjugate the world.
  • Irony:
    • During his first battle using the Lancelot, Suzaku says to himself that he needs to finish the rebel forces off as fast as he can so he can find and save Lelouch and the girl that turns out to be C.C. Moments later, he spots a Nightmare Frame hiding in a partially destroyed building that he pegs as the head of the rebel forces and proceeds to attack it. It just so happens that Lelouch happens to be the one piloting said Nightmare Frame.
    • Three-quarters through season 1 of Code Geass when Suzaku is going to sacrifice himself to hold Lelouch/Zero in place for a massive missile strike, Lelouch whips out his Geass and commands Suzaku to 'live' thereby making a Heroic Sacrifice impossible. Exactly one season later in R2, while fighting (and losing to) Kallen the Geass activates causing Suzaku to fire the F.L.E.I.J.A. warhead, destroying most of Tokyo and supposedly killing Nunnally.
    • Also ironic is how the freedom fighter Lelouch, who reveres the human will, has the power of Mind Control that can crush it completely.
    • A case of Cosmic Irony occurs early on when nobody can figure out who Zero is, but Lelouch almost gets unmasked by a cat.
    • Lloyd Asplund, a possibly Asexual Celibate Eccentric Genius, is engaged to Milly Ashford, arguably the Ms. Fanservice in a cast choke-full of attractive female characters.
    • Two episodes after her declaration of The Power of Love and just one right after she finally requites her own love for Lelouch, Wrong Genre Savvy Shirley is killed by Rolo. Especially ironic in that she could have saved Lelouch from the path he would go down in the subsequent arc, and that her death was a catalyst for much of it.
    • Also Ironic that after the "Orange Incident" Jeremiah was told by Guilford that his options were to continue working as a grunt, or go work on an orange farm. His profession after Lelouch's death? He works on an Orange farm with Anya
    • On a smaller scale, the main antagonist of the story is the world's most powerful superpower, the Holy Britannian Empire, which, despite controlling over a third of the world at the start of the series...doesn't actually control Britain. It does appear to be based on the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire; similarly, the Holy Britannian Empire wasn't holy (it was anti-theistic, for example the Emperor denounces the Ten Commandments for Social Darwinism and planned to kill God) and wasn't Britannian (i.e. the British Isles), although it is an empire. note 
    • Lelouch's entire plan to save the world was based on an attempt to make it 'gentler' for his sister Nunnally. He cares about this plan so much he sacrifices his own life for it, but as he lies dying in front of her, she tells him that the only kind of world she ever wanted was one where they could live together.
    • Also, Suzaku killed his father to stop a war, but it really just started one.
    • Also ironic is that at the beginning of the series, Lelouch took on the title of Zero, to become a symbol of Justice against the Britannian emperor's tyranny, while Suzaku had joined the military hoping to change Britannia from within. At the end of the series, Suzaku and Lelouch had Their roles switched. Suzaku became Zero, as a symbol of Justice, never to live again as Suzaku Kururugi, while Lelouch became the Britannian Emperor, and gave his life in the process of changing the system from within.
    • While posing as his brother, Rolo notices that Lelouch only shows his real smile to family. This implies that prior to that, Lelouch only smiled for real to Nunnally, who for obvious reasons couldn't see it.
    • For most of the series, Lelouch goes with his plans not only to help Nunnally, but also to bring justice to his mother and calls his old man out for doing nothing to prevent her death. However, it's revealed that Marianne has been on Charles' side all along. After realizing this, Lelouch comes to hate his mother within just an episode, and makes her disappear along with Charles.
    • After manipulating Rolo into siding with him wholeheartedly, Lelouch acts very kind and gentle to him to make the boy trust him more and therefore easier to use. Rolo ends up believing all of that. He really thinks of himself as Lelouch's brother and even gets jealous of Nunnally for being his real sibling. Even after Lelouch flat out tells Rolo that he has been using him all along, he denies that by thinking that it's all just a lie, and ends up pulling a Heroic Sacrifice for Lelouch. However, as Lelouch - fakely or not - admits to have been lying and listing him in the list of the people he cares about, it may not be so ironic after all.
    • The series have its plot driven by the war between Lelouch and Suzaku, with the Black Knights on Lelouch's side. Near the end, the Black Knights betray Lelouch, while Suzaku joins his side.
    • The Britannian Imperial Family and nobility spend almost the entire season being on top of the world, practicing Cultural Erasure and using the Numbers as a punching bag for their own problems, the most notable being blaming Japan for their siblings deaths when they left them to die in the first place. Once Lelouch takes power and shows he was alive all this time, his first step is erasing Britannia’s culture and history and reducing the nobility to the bottom of the hierarchy, followed by two years of implied extreme abuse of the native citizens that even they want to see their Empire disappear from the world.
  • It Began with a Twist of Fate: Had Lelouch not decided to play the Heroic Bystander, he wouldn't have met C.C. and gained the powers he needed to initiate the rebellion.
  • It Gets Easier:
    • When Lelouch first has to take a life — that of his half-brother Clovis — he's so disturbed that he's vomiting in his shower for days afterwards. By the end of the series, he has a body count, and while it's clearly weighing on him, it's also become somewhat routine.
    • Suzaku's lingering trauma about the death of his father means that he's a Death Seeker who himself is deeply uncomfortable taking a life. At least, until Euphemia is killed, after which he's on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge from which no one is safe.
  • Kangaroo Court: For Suzaku after he's scapegoated for Clovis's murder. The Black Knights' mutiny against Lelouch also counts.
  • Keeping the Enemy Close:
    • Lelouch does this to Rolo during the Geass raid and the second Tokyo battle before he intends to dispose of him as payback for murdering Shirley, as well as Villetta by blackmailing her out of ratting him out. Unfortunately for the former, Rolo makes various other Black Knights suspicious by telling them he trusts him the most. Should've reined him in a bit more.
    • Earlier in the season, Villetta and Rolo are assigned to the OSI detail to watch over Lelouch in order to keep him from using his Geass or becoming Zero. Lelouch manages to flip the script on them both via blackmail of the former's relationship with Ohgi, and convincing the latter that he has no future with Britannia, respectively. (Unfortunately, he fails to keep an absolute leash on either.)
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: In the second season, Nina is having a My God, What Have I Done? moment after her Fantastic Nuke has just killed 35 million people. Suzaku, fresh from his own such moment and having taken it far worse (he fired the nuke), decides to congratulate her for making a weapon that will allow Britannia to win the war. This, however, is nothing compared to what both Charles and Schneizel do to Lelouch.
  • Kiss of Distraction: Ninja Maid Sayoko does this while disguised as Lelouch. To Shirley. Lelouch is not impressed when he finds out.
  • Knighting: In Episode 18, Suzaku is knighted by Princess Euphemia.

    L-M 
  • Lady and Knight:
    • Euphemia li Britannia and Suzaku Kururugi are a very literal example: she is a literal princess and he is soon knighted by her.
    • Lelouch and Kallen also make a gender-inverted Dark Lord and Black Knight by their roles, though it's not as literal (he's the leader of the rebellion and she's his bodyguard and ace pilot).
  • Lady-In-Waiting: Or rather a military variant thereof according to the Novelization. Being a Four-Star Badass/Warrior Princess who doesn't keep personal attendants, it became customary for a distinguished female army cadet to be assigned to serve Princess Cornelia in this manner. While the tasks involved are menial in nature, this is considered a huge honor only granted to the female cadet with the top grades in the intermediate training of military academy of the Area the princess is currently residing in. Marika Soresi, who later would join the Valkyrie Team, was appointed as such for the weeks preceding the Black Rebellion.
  • Large Ham: Lelouch, Charles, and Jeremiah (especially after being possibly brain damaged and cyborg'd, at which point he runs with it and never stops).
    • It's even Lampshaded in the anime. One of the soon to be Black Knights says about Zero, "I didn't know the genius strategist was such a ham."
    • Sayoko is this through her actions in R2, especially on Cupid Day. Lelouch points it out, even saying that trying to convince her not to overdo everything is more trouble than it's worth.
  • Laughing Mad: When Lelouch found out Suzaku is the pilot of Lancelot. And, LOLZaku.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Zero's early Paranoia Gambit involves threatening to reveal the existence of "Orange" to the public. Lelouch admits later that he chose the word completely at random, but for the audience, it's a nice nod to the visual indicator of someone under a Geass influence, the orange-rimmed eyes.
  • Legacy Character: The final move of the Zero Requiem is for Suzaku to become the second Zero by publically assassinating Lelouch.
  • Lensman Arms Race: After the end of the first season, the main Humongous Mecha of the series start to steadily grow more powerful in terms of their weaponry or equipment upgrades, as new technologies have been introduced and distributed among the warring factions. Although that said, older-generation models are still shown as mainstays among many of the factions even in R2
  • Let No Crisis Go to Waste: Lelouch accidentally orders Euphemia to commit genocide, and mere minutes later grabs the opportunity to use the incident to start a war.
  • Let's See YOU Do Better!: When one of the rebels complains to Lelouch about being cut off in episode 10 of Season 1, the rebel claims he should be the leader. Lelouch then pulls a gun on the rebel, then immediately offers it to him, and says that if anyone can do better than him, then they should shoot him right there and now and take charge. No one dares to do it.
  • Let Them Die Happy:
    • Before she died, Euphemia asked Suzaku if the people were happy with her creation of the SAZ. Needless to say, he didn't tell her that she killed them all while under the Geass's control.
    • Even though Lelouch has been treating Rolo throughout R2 as an in-universe Replacement Scrappy and recently tried to get him killed due to him murdering Shirley, Rolo narrowly saves Lelouch's life then proves he'd rather die protecting the only family he's ever known - even if that family started out as just another group he was supposed to infiltrate. As he dies from the overuse of his Geass, Lelouch assures him that he does care for him. That said, Lelouch taking the time to bury him and his words in the preview suggest it wasn't just this trope.
  • Lightning Bruiser: The signature role of (almost) every Knightmare Frame depicted in Code Geass; even the early model Glasgows tore through slower and more conventional armored vehicles during the invasion of Japan (as is seen in many early cold openings of the first season). New models — especially the Lancelot and Gurren in all their forms — trump older Knightmares by being even more of a Lightning Bruiser than they were.
  • Like Father, Like Son: Though their reasons are different, both Lelouch and Charles have the same goal: Destroy the world, and create a new one.
  • Living with the Villain: In Season 1, Suzaku goes to school with Lelouch and Kallen. In Season 2, Lelouch is under watch by Villetta and Rolo, who are posing as a teacher and his younger brother, respectively.
  • Loners Will Stay Alone: The Tyke Bomb (Rolo) is all too happy to be rescued from that state by his supposed target, whom he becomes an underling of.
  • Loophole Abuse: In episode 8 of R2, Zero accepts Nunnally's plans to restart the SAZ, and privately makes a deal with the Knights of the Round that he would be exiled instead of executed for his most recent terrorist actions. Suzaku agrees to the plan, and then after they announce Zero's exile, the Black Knights create a smokescreen in the area with 1 million Japanese, during which they all don Zero costumes. Since they were all Zero, Suzaku would have to be able to identify the real Zero (which he is forbidden to do), let them all go (and thus give Zero his army), or order another massacre (which would no doubt caused more rioting and rebellion in Area 11). Ultimately, Suzaku decides to let them leave, his reasoning being that the insurgents are better off gone.
  • Love Hungry: In C.C.'s backstory. CC, then a young slave, who is adorable but has never had a best friend, wishes that everyone would love her. It quickly becomes a Be Careful What You Wish For tale as she learns that if you force everyone to love you, then none of it will be genuine.
  • MacGuffin Super-Person: C.C. gets used as a living MacGuffin, as evidenced by the existence of a special canister designed to contain her. In Code Geass R2, she has this role because she has a special power that is needed in order for The Emperor's master plan to work.
  • Magic by Any Other Name: Geass is a Magical Eye that grants the user some form of Mind Control, which varies by user, and more are introduced as the series progresses. While it's ambiguous if it's truly Magic or Psychic?, some abilities don't really fit into neuroscience (Like Bismarck's Combat Clairvoyance and Shamna's Mental Time Travel).
  • Marry Them All: Kaguya has the bright idea to form a harem-like marriage arrangement between herself, Zero, Kallen, and C.C. They don't go for it.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Kallen is one of the more talented fighters in the show and has no problem doing physical labor, while Lelouch is arguably one of the weakest characters in the show and is shown to taken on more feminine hobbies; such as cooking and cleaning.
  • The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Played with. On the one hand, Lelouch's moonlighting as Zero has left very little room for a social life, let alone a dating life. However, the only people he ever shows any romantic interest in are in his capacity as Zero.
  • Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Appears in Another Century's Episode: R. A strange case in that it came to ACE first rather than initially being in a Super Robot Wars game.
  • Matron Chaperone: Alicia Lohmeyer's role seems to be less to protect Nunnally's virginity (Nunnally is blind and in a wheelchair and hasn't started dating yet) than to keep her from getting too far out of line politically. She appears to be a Shout-Out to Miss Rottenmeier from Heidi, Girl of the Alps.
  • Mayfly–December Romance: C.C. the Really 700 Years Old, deathless witch is romanced by seventeen/eighteen-year-old boys.
  • Meaningful Name: Almost every Britannian Knightmare Frame has a name that references Arthurian legend (though Arthur himself is ... a stray cat that Suzaku adopted). For specific names, please see Code Geass Character Sheet.
  • Meet Cute: A bunch, but perhaps the most obvious is the Crash-Into Hello / Rescue Romance when Princess Euphemia falls from her window onto Suzaku.
  • Memento MacGuffin: Suzaku's pocketwatch (more accurately, his late father's pocketwatch), which symbolizes his being stuck in the past. When he leaves it behind during the first season's finale (with the body of the woman he loved, shot dead by his best friend), it's supposed to signal the fans that the kid gloves are off.
    • He also keeps his pin(?) designating him as Euphemia's knight, holding it introspectively and brandishing it at others as a symbol from time to time (notably in R2 episode 17).
    • And Rolo's locket, which was given to him by Lelouch. It symbolizes... the er, "brotherly friendship" between him and Lelouch.
    • Also, Euphemia's quill pen, which he keeps with him and uses to write. His cat Arthur is shown running off with it in R2 episode 5. Boy, he sure does have a lot of stuff on him.
  • Memory Gambit: Lelouch, in episode 16. He's playing a rigged death game against Mao the mind reader, so he sets his plan in motion, then Geasses himself to forget about it to ensure that Mao can't learn what he's doing until it's too late.
  • Mercy Kill:
    • Done to Euphemia by Lelouch after he accidentally brainwashes her into killing all the Japanese.
    • C.C. to Mao, after Lelouch Geasses him to never speak again and he's in the midst of a psychotic break.
  • Midair Repair: Plus upgrade. Using missiles.
  • Mid-Season Twist
    • Season 1 - Zero is defeated for the first time by Cornelia.
    • Season 2 - Zero agrees to the SAZ plan.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: Kallen gets the Guren Mk. II, while Suzaku gets some wings for his Lancelot.
  • Mildly Military: The Imperial Military seems very casually organized, though this is likely justified by Britannia's highly-aristocratic society essentially making their military one big country club. They demonstrate a largely token meritocracy, as even a soldier as skilled and valuable as Suzaku can't rise any higher in the ranks because of his Japanese ancestry.
  • A Million Is a Statistic: Averted. When the F.L.E.I.J.A. is detonated over Tokyo, the series makes a point of acknowledging the true impact and toll of the death, and how it affects the characters and the decisions going forward. Played straight towards the end; after Pendragon is destroyed in an even larger explosion, the death toll is largely glanced over (save for a brief scene with Cornelia) with Lelouch of course being more concerned about Nunnally herself, and the Black Knights being interested more in how this could work to their advantage.
  • Million to One Chance: In R2 episode 24, Nina creates an anti-F.L.E.I.J.A. device that has an extremely slim margin of success, requiring key data to be input 19 seconds before detonation and only having a 0.04-second window of opportunity even if everything goes right. Lelouch and Suzaku manage to pull it off - mostly through strategy. Lelouch is a genius and so can input within 19 seconds, and Suzaku uses his "live" Geass, which forces him to fire the F.L.E.I.J.A. Eliminator with perfect timing.
  • Mind Rape: Mao's treatment of Shirley and C.C.'s distraction of Suzaku. The first was unforgivable, the second accidental: C.C. didn't control what he saw. Then there's the Emperor implanting Lelouch's fake memories, which bears a very uncomfortable resemblance to an actual rape scene, since Lelouch is being held to the floor by Suzaku while he screams, thrashes, and begs his father to stop. By episode 21 of R2, it is revealed that Charles had also done the same by using his Geass on Nunnally to cover-up Marianne's murder.
  • Modesty Towel:
    • "Imprisoned In Campus" has a towel-clad Kallen storming in on C.C. to complain about how their plan at the beginning of season 2 had her in a Playboy Bunny. Turned into a funny moment when she realizes C.C. is in the middle of a meeting with a few gentlemen from the Chinese Federation. In an oddly-effeminate (if understandable) moment she screams and runs behind a screen. Angrier than ever, she continues to complain to C.C. and almost has the towel fall off in the process.
    • Special edition DVD implied that the Aomori incident had Kallen and C.C. fleeing wearing only towels. Other media showed that the Black Knights were almost caught by Britannia while they were at a hot spring and they had to run away.
  • Mood Whiplash: To such a bizarre extreme that sometimes it seems almost as if the producers, writers, and characters have forgotten what horrors transpired in the previous episode. Occasionally gets a Lampshade Hanging.
  • Mook: Almost a given in an action series.
  • Morality Kitchen Sink: There are no genuinely, unquestionably good people, as even Euphemia decides what is best for her loved ones without consulting them and drags everyone along with her reckless actions without ever considering the consequences and repercussions. While Shirley is kind-hearted and sweet, she is only concerned about her own feelings and school life while all hell is breaking loose outside, she can come across as somewhat self-centered. At the same time, there is one genuinely, unquestionably evil person, Luciano Bradley. Every other character falls somewhere in between, with most of the "good guys" being flawed and somewhat hypocritical, and most of the "bad guys" being either fiercely nationalistic or a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
  • The Morality/Mortality Equation: Causes bad things to happen whenever Lelouch lowers his morals.
  • Moral Myopia: One of the key points of tension behind the plot is the treatment of underprivileged "numbers" as second-class citizens by native Britannians, as well as the very exceptionalist and Social Darwinian worldview of Britannian society in general.
  • More than Mind Control:
    • Schneizel to Nina. Schneizel to Nunnally. Schneizel to everyone. Lelouch manages some moments of his own, too.
    • Mao's treatment of Shirley counts as this as well. It doesn't work completely, though.
  • Move in the Frozen Time: Rolo isn't affected by his own time freezing Geass, of course. It's actually an area effect paralysis instead of actually freezing time. And when Gottwald is equipped with a Geass canceler it automatically activates when Rolo tries using his power.
  • Mukokuseki: There is basically zero differentiation between the facial structures of Asians and Caucasians, although Asians tend to have natural hair colors and Caucasians are more likely to have more colorful hair. Lelouch and Suzaku in particular are, to the viewer anyway, able to easily pass off as the other's race. Taken to its extreme in Kallen, who is half-Britannian, half-Japanese, yet she can pass both as a full Britannian and full Japanese.
  • Multilayer Façade: Lelouch has three or four identities: Lelouch Vi Britannia, Lelouch Lamperouge, Zero, and the king of geass. The second series adds another identity, since there are two different Lelouch Lamperouge identities depending on who he says his real sibling is. People who are close to him, like Nunnally, Suzaku, and Milly might know two of the identities, but C.C. is the only other person who knows all of them. In the last five episodes, he complicates it further by pretending that Lelouch Vi Britannia is a monster. Complicated further: Yes, Julius Kingsley is Lelouch under the Emperor's geass.
  • Mundane Utility: The Absurdly Powerful Student Council in Ashford pulls out an old Humongous Mecha to... make a giant pizza. Though on second thought, that could very well have been an intended feature in the original design.
  • Must Make Amends: What Nina Einstein tries to do in Code Geass R2, after the bomb she built under Schneizel's orders completely obliterates a good part of Tokyo.
  • The Mutiny: R2, episode 19. The Black Knights mutiny against Zero/Lelouch.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Several characters display this trope, but most notably Nina in R2 after her F.L.E.I.J.A. destroys a good portion of the Tokyo Settlement, as well as millions of lives.

    N-Q 
  • Named Weapons: Most characters with personal Knightmares have a custom Knightmare with a unique name. Though curiously not Cornelia, who just has a Gloucester. There are technically names for each weapon used in the series, but most of them are generic names and don't have attention drawn to them. However Bismarck is rather proud of his humongous sword Excalibur.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Schneizel el Britannia. Not to be confused with a smorgasboard of traditional German dishes.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Emperor Charles's speeches before large crowds instantly call up images of Hitler or Goebbels addressing similar audiences. The fact that these speeches are mostly about Social Darwinism, and that the 'hail' in 'All hail Britannia!' is actually pronounced much closer to German 'heil' than to English 'hail' by the Japanese voice actors, also helps (althouth that could also be just their awesome English skills speaking).
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In episode 22, Lelouch jokingly tells Euphy about his Geass power. Then he finds out his joke about ordering her to kill all Japanese causes her to do exactly that, as he then was unable to control his Geass anymore like Mao. She orders the Britannians to slaughter all the Japanese, and seems to be doing it herself as well.
  • Nipple and Dimed:
  • No Blood for Phlebotinum: Britannia conquered Japan to gain control of the majority of the world's Sakuradite.
  • Noodle Incident: Some of these (including that baby bird) are covered in the supplementary audio- and picture-dramas.
    • Whatever happened at Aomori with Kallen and C.C. Slightly un-noodled by a postcard in the Zero Requiem DVD.
    • Toudou's "Miracle at Utsushima".
    • "That one time that chick ran away..." "Don't bring up old stories now!" while chasing a cat in episode 6.
    • We never get to learn why exactly Rakshata has such a grudge against Lloyd, nor why she insists on referring to him as "the earl of Pudding".
  • Noodle People: Most of the characters, due to the CLAMP character designs. Reinforced by Takahiro Kimura, whose style also has those traits as he adapted the character designs for animation.
  • No Romantic Resolution:
    • Well, Lelouch is dead at the end after all. The closest he got to a resolved romance arc ended with a dead Shirley and/or his farewell kiss to Kallen, neither of which counts as much of one.
    • There's also C.C.: near the end, Kallen asks her if she's in love with Lelouch. She replies "I don't know" but it's relatively obvious that the answer is "Yes".
  • Nostalgia Filter: A rare in-universe example. The drug "Refrain" causes hallucinogenic flashbacks to pleasant past experiences.
  • Not Quite Dead:
    • Used only a bit (once in the first season, 2-3 times in the latter half of the second season). But nonetheless it has become somewhat of a meme, so much that someone made a small comic about Euphemia coming back from the dead after the end of the series.
    • The count could easily be increased, depending on what definition you use. Season 1: C.C. (a bunch of times, but it was expected after the first), Suzaku (in episode 1, saved by his father's watch), Villetta (shot by Shirley) and Mao. Season 2: Villetta and Ohgi (Ohgi was wounded by kunai and then both of them jumped off a cliff into a shallow river full of rocks; neither is even scratched with no explanation provided), Nunnally and Sayoko (they survived thanks to a decoy shuttle, but the audience was still initially misled), Orange (returned after sinking into the ocean), Cornelia, Guilford (with no explanation too), Suzaku (briefly believed to be dead during the final episode of R2; never visibly shown to exit the Lancelot Albion before its final explosion, so how did he get out is left unexplained). That's at least nine potential instances.
  • Not What It Looks Like:
    • Shirley keeps catching Lelouch in what look like romantic encounters with Kallen.
    • Kallen keeps finding Zero (who is also Lelouch) with C.C.
    • Pretty much all the Black Knights assume C.C. is Zero's mistress.
    • A more convoluted example: In an incident not long after Suzaku starts school at Ashford, he's attacked by Arthur the cat and falls on top of Shirley. In closeup, it looks like a highly suggestive embrace. For a second or two, they look as if they're about to kiss, whether deliberately or not. But as soon as the camera pulls back to a medium shot, the situation looks more innocent: Suzaku's hands are not on Shirley's chest; one is on her arm and the other is in Arthur's mouth — Arthur is biting him. And on second viewing it's clear the whole scene is a Red Herring: Shirley's eyes are shiny and romantic not because she's being embraced by Suzaku but rather because they've been talking about Lelouch, with whom she's in love.
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Sakuradite is explosive enough that for most of the series it stands in for any kind of uranium or plutonium-based weapons. However, it's shown early in Season 1 that Nina has a hobby doing pioneering research into nuclear fission. The writers play this off as her being a token Child Prodigy that will remain in the background, only going back to her for Fanservice from time to time. Later you find out that her research overlaps with what Lloyd is doing on the Lancelot project so she winds up mattering to the story in a more meaningful way. This is something of a reveal for the viewers, who are going to presume that the practical harem Lelouch has set up with the student council girls means that they're just going to be bystanders for the entire story. This is a good way for a writer to take advantage of the viewer's expectations and pays off in an unexpected way when she interrupts the season-finale's climactic battle by attempting to blow up the entire Tokyo settlement with a home-made atom bomb, in an attempt to kill Zero for killing Princess Euphemia. Suddenly a bunch of what seemed like pointless Fanservice turns out to have all been there to help set up important story elements.
    • When she finally pushes the button her nuke fails to detonate (she is a high school student, after all). Lloyd verifies the idea as being grounded in real science, so instead of chiding her for her behavior the Britannians give her nuke project government grant money so she can research her theoretical super-bomb. Although the fans are divided on this element of the show, you can neutrally say that this is an excellent example of the writers making sure that the character turns out to be more important to the story than just a token geeky kid who sits in the background like in most series.
    • When season two rolls around she finishes another prototype nuke which, thanks to the government backing her research, actually works this time. This helps her turn out not to have just been a token nerdy kid all along. This lets the atom bomb fall into place as season two's MacGuffin. The show's various superpowers start trying to use Mutually Assured Destruction to finally stop Zero and his now global anti-geass anti-tyrant revolution. This actually sets up one of the best literary subversions of this trope, as season two's episode 18 finally depicts an atom bomb being used against millions of innocent people. Although the viewer would have been able to see this as just another A Million Is a Statistic moment, an off-screen Nunnaly apparently gets killed, too, forcing the audience to feel like they've suffered a loss instead of witnessed a plot device. This moment also marks a major Heel Realization for both Nina and Suzaku.
  • Oddly Named Sequel: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2. The creators say it stands for "Reconstruction" and "Revolution", the two major phases in the show.
  • Oh, Crap!: Loads and loads.
    • A prime example is when Lelouch and Suzaku took over Britannia. It's a global Oh Crap moment.
    • A more tragic one is when Lelouch finds out his Geass stays on permanently, right as he joked to Euphemia about ordering her to kill all the Japanese people, which she proceeds to do right away, ordering her troops to do the same. Being the Manipulative Bastard that he is, he utilizes the ensuing chaos to further his own agenda, albeit regretting it tremendously.
    • One example, close to a Villainous Breakdown, occurred when Cornelia utterly Out-Gambitted Lelouch in their first battle and demanded that all Knightmare Frame pilots in her own forces show their faces. He had a massive panic attack.
    • Around the end of the first season, the normally stoic and snarky Lloyd freaks right the hell out when Nina appears in a Ganymede, a nuclear-powered Sakuradite bomb strapped to its chassis.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Princess Euphemia is likely going to be forever remembered for slaughtering thousands of innocent Japanese under the influence of the Geass, never mind that she would never do such a thing of her own volition.
  • One Degree of Separation: Just how many main characters had connections to each other before the story started?
  • One-Man Army: Pretty much any of the Knights Of The Round for the Britannians, and the Four Holy Swords as well as Kallen for the Black Knights.
  • One Person, One Power: The Geass-bearers all have one power each. Some, like Lelouch, are more versatile than others.
  • One-Way Visor: On Zero's helmet, allowing for it to serve as his mask.
  • Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Outside Man, Inside Man:
    • Lelouch and Suzaku, although Lelouch had already "left" the empire before Suzaku joined it, and they became friends in the interim. It works more if you look at it from Suzaku's point of view after the events of the first season.
    • Rakshata and Lloyd might also be an example, considering how they used to work together and Lloyd likely never worked for anyone other than the empire.
  • Paranoia Gambit: Zero pretends to know Jeremiah Gottwald — giving him the "code name'' Orange — and then geasses him to help the former escape from the Britannian army. This works so well that Gottwald gets demoted all the way down to private due to suspicions that he had been conspiring with Zero.
  • Pendulum War: Particularly during R2, several battles often go back and forth until the winner is determined by either whoever got the most recent Knightmare upgrades or, failing that, whether or not Zero's latest plan was successful.
  • Picture Drama: Nine per season on the Japanese DVD volumes, and a couple more were released separately. While some provide ample Fanservice, they all provide plenty of canon character development, as do the drama CDs. Each season then got an extra bonus one with the BD release, bringing up the total to 20.
  • Please, Don't Leave Me: Lelouch has a moment of this in the second season. When Shirley's been shot through the stomach, she gives him a dying speech about how she'll always fall in love with him, even in the next life. Lelouch doesn't want her to go, so he tries using his Geass to keep her alive, at one point screaming "Don't die! You can't die! I order you not to die!" It doesn't work; Shirley knows she's done for, and his mind control effect does absolutely nothing.
  • Plot Hole: In the early episodes, C.C acts like she doesn't know who Charles is. In addition, a secret government group experiments on her and plans to hand her over to Charles. Considering we later learn C.C was once the head of the Geass Directorate, and she was once a close confidante of Charles and Marianne, this doesn't make sense.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Rivalz Cardemonde for the Student Council and Shinichiro Tamaki for the Black Knights. Clip here
  • Police Are Useless:
    • The police are an interesting case. While never shown to explicitly kick any dogs, they are generally included in Lelouch's "all Britannian authorities are corrupt and must be obliterated" mindset. This is implied in Lelouch and Suzaku's debate in an early episode about whether the Black Knights are heroes for Justice, or whether they are vigilantes who should just join the police force and work from within the system if they want to enact change (Lelouch comments that they'd simply be absorbed and corrupted by the system). They're not shown to protect or serve the Numbers in the Ghettos, and it's implied that they may have been involved in the smuggling of Refrain. The episode in which they gain the most (and any positive) coverage is when Lelouch geasses them into shooting Mao after Lelouch beats him using that tape trick.
    • Played straight when Suzaku orders the police to protect Shirley during a terrorist attack (Jeremiah going after Lelouch). Shirley ignores the police's safety to go after Lelouch. None of them were able catch-up with her and none of them were around when she's ended-up killed by Rolo.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Season 1 might have ended a bit more positively if Lelouch hadn't been so flippant to Suzaku about Euphemia's death, something Lelouch actually extremely torn up about, upon Suzaku discovering that Lelouch was Zero, the one responsible for her death. Averted in season 2 where even when Lelouch claims to have deliberately killed her to Suzaku, he doesn't believe it. But then played straight again when a recording of Lelouch saying that is edited and played to the Black Knights, making them think he really DID intend for that massacre to happen, causing them to betray him.
  • Power at a Price:
    • The whole series can be interpreted as a moral about the terrible ramifications of one man being given power above others. Almost invariably, Geass users end up having lost more than they have gained with their ability.
    • It's also Lelouch's quest to make something of his Geass despite the awful cost. He's partly successful, although even that is open to interpretation.
  • Power Incontinence: Played straight down to having Applied Phlebotinum to allieviate it, or try to. Mao's headphones seem to only help a little bit, perhaps more as a placebo than anything else. Lelouch's contact lens works perfectly, but he acquires it... too late.
  • The Power of Love: Episode 11 of R2. Lelouch, after consulting Shirley, delivers an epic, over the top declaration that the power of people's love will change the world. The English title is even called "Power of Passion".
  • Power Perversion Potential: Considering his gigantic unwanted harem and his mind control eye, Lelouch could get a lot of use out of this. And in the Visual Novel's PS2-only Blue Moon Path, the protagonist Rai DOES. On anyone from Nina and Kaguya to Suzaku, and Lelouch himself.
  • Powers in the First Episode: There is no indication that supernatural powers exist until the last few minutes of the first episode, when C.C. survives getting shot, makes a contract with Lelouch, and he orders the enemy soldiers to die.
  • Practically Different Generations: With an official 108 consorts for Charles zi Britannia, there are plenty of half-siblings and even full-blooded siblings with years if not decades sized age gaps. For example, Second Princess Cornelia is 27, while her younger sister Third Princess Euphemia is 16. Schneizel, the Second Prince of Britannia, is almost in his thirties, while his half-brother Lelouch is 17. Extra materials reveal that Clovis (24) has a younger full-blooded sister who is fourteen years old. The only ones with a reasonable age gap are Lelouch and Nunnally, born three years apart, something that is likely because their mother Marianne was the favored consort to Charles.
  • Pretty Little Headshots: When one character is shot in the head at point blank range, all you see is him falling to the ground, and it's clear that there's no exit wound. Might be explained by the fact that all or most of Code Geass's firearms (throughout its entire parallel history, no less) are actually some form of coilgun, which means that bullets are of a smaller caliber and that they travel slower than in real-life. It might make sense, since we see people getting shot multiple times with them and still getting up/recovering. This would also explain the odd, tinny pop the guns make when fired or when the bullets strike something metallic. Though there are several other times when characters are shot in their heads and blood is shown to spurt opposite the entry point. However, despite gratuitous amounts of blood, exit wounds are never really shown.
  • Prince Charmless: Odysseus, the heir to the throne of Britannia. Compared to the likes of Lelouch and Schniezel, he's dull, unambitious, and lacks anything resembling charisma. One thing that can be said about him is that he's nowhere near the evil bastard his father is.
  • Product Placement: Pizza Hut and, less memetically, the Japanese ISP BIGLOBE.
  • Psychic Radar: Mao is shown to be able to detect the presence of other minds and hear their thoughts if they're within 500 meters. It's utility is somewhat hampered by his inability to turn it off.
  • Punished for Sympathy: Narrowly avoided. Kallen, along with Lelouch, is threatened with execution by the Black Knights when they accuse her of being under the geass of their leader who they are now betraying when she tries stepping up to his defense. After noticing this is Schneizel's doing and that he has no way out, Lelouch lies to have her spared his fate.
  • Punny Name: Knightmare makes the mechas sound rather terrifying.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Purple eyes seem to run in the Britannian royal line, and my god are they powerful!
  • Pyrrhic Victory: The Battle of the Narita Mountains fits this for Cornelia and the Britannian forces. They took down the Japanese Liberation Front base and destroyed the new Knightmares that the JLF had acquired, but lost two-thirds of the Knightmare Frames that they were using in the battle, and Zero, the Black Knights and many of the most important JLF fighters escaped. All in all, the real winner was Lelouch.
  • Quit Your Whining:
    • Kallen does this to Lelouch during his Heroic BSoD brought about by the reopening of the SAZ. Played with in that she is exactly as unsure as he is.
    • Suzaku does this to Lelouch, with a mixture of Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!, when Lelouch finds out that Nunnally is alive, and begins to despair. Suzaku tells him to suck it up and remember Zero Requiem.
  • Quote Mine: When Schneizel secretly records the private conversation between Lelouch and Suzaku and uses Lelouch's Sarcastic Confession to deliberately giving Euphemia the order to kill the Japanese, sans Suzaku catching Lelouch in the lie, to turn the Black Knights to his side.

    R-S 
  • Rage Against the Heavens: The ultimate aim of the Emperor and V.V. is to kill the gods, calling them a threat to humanity. That's what the Sword of Akasha is for.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking:
    • Played straight with the Britannian Emperor, Cornelia, Guilford, and the Knights of the Round. Marianne, Lelouch and Nunnally's mother, is also implied to be one, as she was highly respected amongst many of the Britannians.
    • On the Black Knights side, Kallen, Tohdoh, the Four Holy Swords, Xingke, Gottwald/Orange after his Heel–Face Turn and joins Lelouch, and CC when she isn't fighting one of the main Britannian leaders/Knights.
    • Refreshingly averted with Zero himself. He is a skilled strategist and can turn the tide of battles, but does poorly when he's facing the enemy head-on, or trying to get away from them without some kind of help.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Tamaki gives a short one to Suzaku in Stage 5, after which he attacks Suzaku only to be quickly thrown to the ground.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Rolo sacrificed himself to save Lelouch. The Zero requiem: Lelouch saw death as the only fitting punishment for his sins, and as a twist on this trope, Suzaku, who is suicidal, receives redemption through staying alive.
  • Red Herring: Lelouch sends Rolo, a psychopathic assassin who is extremely possessive of him, on a rescue mission to save Nunnally. As might be guessed, Rolo has every intention of killing her, even thinking about it, but he never manages to reach her.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Suzaku and Lelouch. Kallen and C.C.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Lelouch's plans, reputation, and leadership of the Black Knights all seem to thrive on this ... which is why he is a Chessmaster.
  • Reincarnation Romance: Invoked by Shirley in her Last Words.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Happens to Shirley and Lelouch in episode 12 of R2. It doesn't last very long however...
  • The Remnant: How the last prime minister of Japan is treated.
  • Rescue Romance: Princess Euphemia manages a real one with her vertical Crash-Into Hello Meet Cute with Suzaku, but then tries to follow it up with a fake one in which she is being chased by enemies. He soon catches her in the lie, but it deepens their romance anyway. Turns into a reciprocated Bodyguard Crush when Euphie makes Suzaku her official knight.
  • La Résistance: The Black Knights. They successfully co-opt the Japanese Liberation Movement from a bunch of barely-functional cells and Terrorists Without a Cause, unifying all of the anti-Britannian forces into a coherent fighting force.
  • Rhetorical Request Blunder: Lelouch says that with his mind control powers, he could tell Euphemia something like "Kill all the Japanese." Bit of bad timing on that one, as Lelouch lost control of said powers at that exact moment.
  • Rival Science Teams: Lloyd & Cécile vs. Rakshata, the chief scientists of Britannia and the Black Knights respectively. Lloyd implies that their rivalry predates the current conflict.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • Lelouch in the first two episodes, after seeing both Suzaku and C.C. shot dead right in front of him, and almost being killed, himself. Judging by his reaction in Stage 3, it's not likely that he would have killed his half-brother in cold blood had it not been for that.
    • When Suzaku briefly goes crazy after Euphemia's death and blasts through squads of Knightmares roaring a Big "NO!" at the top of his lungs.
    • Lelouch does this towards the Britannian Geass research facility after Shirley's death. He orders everyone there killed, even though they're non-combatants.
  • Rollerblade Good: All Knightmares.
  • Royally Screwed Up: Britannia's Royal Family. Almost all of them have different mothers, and they're constantly squabbling with each other over power, affection, or just because. To say nothing of Emperor Charles' abusive tendencies toward both his wives and his children. And Empress Marianne's Assimilation Plot.
  • Rule of Cool: This applies whenever Lelouch uses geass to make miracles. Suzaku is often the embodiment of this.
  • Rule of Funny: A lot of the antics of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council don't make much sense except for this trope combined with generous helpings of fanservice.
  • Rule of Sexy: For example, the position the Guren forces its pilot to assume would be absolutely terrible for the lumbar. The result: this.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Plenty of it.
    • For example, the yellow cloth star that resistence fighter Kaname Ohgi wears on his chest bears a striking resemblance to the Star of David "yellow badges" that Jews were forced to wear under Nazi law. Quite appropriate for someone who believes he's fighting A Nazi by Any Other Name.
    • Masks, everywhere. What is the mask, and what is the truth? When is it okay to lie, and when is it not? Even though Lelouch is the obvious example, notice how many times Suzaku is "unmasked" (Stage 1, Stage 11, Stage 16, Stage 17...).
  • Russia Is Western: Russia is initially a part of the Europia Union, and later becomes a part of the Holy Britannian Empire (with St. Petersburg becoming the Empire's capital). The third bloc, which opposes both EU and Britannia, is the Asiatic Chinese Federation.
  • Sad Battle Music: During the Black Knight's betrayal of Lelouch.
  • Sanctuary of Solitude: C.C. can be found here during the final episode while she's mourning the death of Lelouch.
  • Sarcastic Confession: Lelouch alludes to his Geass in this sort of style while talking to Euphemia in Stage 22. Unfortunately for him, he just lost the ability to control it, and like Mao, his Geass from that point on was always on. So when he jokingly told her to kill Japanese people, she went and did exactly that.
  • "Save the World" Climax: It starts being about a fallen prince's vendetta against his country of origin and a terrorist group struggling for their country's independence, and ends up being about saving the world from one Assimilation Plot and two nigh-omnicidal well-intentioned extremists in quick succession.
  • Say My Name: The whole show lives off this trope, but the most iconic ones are of Lelouch and Suzaku screaming each others name at each other through the series. The most perfect example of this trope is the very ending of the first season, where it ends on a Cliffhanger between the two holding a gun at each other, and screaming the others name before it cuts to the credits.
  • School Festival: All of Stage 21 is dedicated to the annual school festival; about half of Turn 5 is as well.
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: Lelouch wears either his school uniform or his "superheroic" Zero outfit. He even wears his uniform when he makes his grand entrance to declare himself emperor, though he dumps both outfits after that in favour of white-and-gold imperial robes.
  • Screw Destiny: Lelouch seems to be a big believer in this, after what happened to both his mother and sister, as well as his father's apparent callousness attitude towards him.
  • Secret-Keeper: For the vast majority of season 1, only Lelouch and C.C. know who Zero is. Due to the events of the S1 finale, Kallen is let in on the secret (technically, so are a few other characters but due to reasons, they aren't sure if Zero is S2 is the same one as in S1.) Then all the higher ups of the Black Knights know who Zero is when they betray him after learning about some of his dirtier acts. However, they don't reveal his identity to the general public and say he died due to wounds from combat. Thus everyone mentioned above become keepers of a final secret; that Lelouch became a hated dictator to unite the world against him so they would find peace with each other. As only they knew who Zero was the whole time, when Suzaku appears dressed as Zero and assassinates Lelouch, they realize what his plan was all along. They keep silent and let Lelouch go down in history as one of the worst tyrants of all time as was his plan for peace. Additionally, for much of the series the only people who know that Lelouch and Nunnally are actually exiled Britannian royalty aside from their various relatives are Milly, whose family was closely connected to their mother, Suzaku, who was Lelouch's best friend following their banishment, and Taizo Kirihara, leader of Kyoto House who secretly supplies various Japanese resistance movements and only agreed to help Zero after Lelouch revealed who he was, and kept his identity a secret out of respect for his determination to destroy Britannia. The Black Knights and then the whole world learn who he really is in the final episodes of R2.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Lelouch becomes one when he Geasses the collective consciousness of mankind into using its power of pantheistic godhood to remove his parents from existence.
    • Suzaku killed his father, the Prime Minister of Japan, Genbu Kururugi, during Japan's war against Britannia. He did this in order to force Japan to surrender, thus ending the bloodshed of the war and preventing Japan's total destruction, since Genbu actually preferred to have Japan destroyed rather than under Britannian rule. It worked, but the character is so horribly torn by guilt that the incident gives him Trauma-Induced Amnesia for years.
  • Self-Parody: Several of the side materials, but especially in the Nunnally in Wonderland Picture Drama/OVA.
  • Serious Business:
    • There are luxurious underground gambling clubs for chess, frequented by millionaires, Mafia bosses and the like. Bring your own extremely expensive chessboard and bet a fortune.
    • Catching the cat who stole Zero's helmet is serious enough that the Student Council President mobilizes the school and offers a kiss from any Student Council member to whoever catches it. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend: Lelouch, regarding C.C. In Season One, episode five, when C.C. pops up unexpectedly at Lelouch's place, chatting away with Nunnally, she makes some cryptic remarks about a bond between her and Lelouch and a promise he made about their future together. Nunnally, not having any way of knowing about the Geass, makes the not altogether unreasonable assumption that C.C. is referring to secret wedding plans. When Lelouch tells Nunnally that C.C. is just joking, C.C. claims she never jokes.
    • Happens again in the Picture Drama Stage 9.75. Nunnally inquires once more about C.C. being Lelouch's girlfriend. Lelouch nervously denies it and tries to come up with many ridiculous excuses until Sayako comes in.
  • Shooting Superman: A bunch of guerillas, when faced with Princess Cornelia's personal Knightmare Frame, start firing on it with small arms. They have no effect, and Cornelia promptly kills them all.
  • Shout-Out: The basic setting of the franchise is a world of continuous warfare between 3 superpowers: a British-style Empire, a continental European Union, and a Chinese Federation (which is also an Empire despite the name). Except for some minor deviations, this is almost a picture-perfect recreation of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia from Nineteen Eighty-Four.
    • In Turn 5, C.C. cosplays as Chachamaru and Shirley as Mikuru.
    • Kallen's Hot-Blooded fighting style, suspiciously Shining Finger-like attack, and Black Knights hairstyle are a fairly obvious shout-out to Domon Kasshu.
    • In Stage 5, when Suzaku takes Euphie to the Ghetto there are two figures on the ground at the memorial site, one looks a lot like Ultraman, and the other Godzilla with a beak.
    • The opening scene of the first season shares several similarities with the opening scene of Neon Genesis Evangelion.note 
    • Lloyd's ''Congratulations!'' could be a reference to that one anime with a(n) (in)famous scene featuring that same word.
    • The Geass-mark is identical to the shape of the Gundam Deathscythe's antennae, though this may just be a coincidence... but then again. Both shows are made by Sunrise, so it may be intended.
    • The Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight-Elements Type bears quite close resemblance to the the Gunzan, which in its own show was repaired and named Gurren.
    • The sequence shown when Lancelot is equipped with the Float System is strangely similar to the sequence played when the X-105 Strike is equipped with its Aile Striker Pack. The overall design is more similar to that of the ZGMF-X 09 A Justice's back-mounted weapons platform. Similarly, the Float System mounted on the Guren Mk.2 is a mix between the Aile Striker Pack and the Force Silhouette.
    • One of the cosplayers at the festival in Stage 21 looks a lot like Remilia Scarlet with a darker color palette. It's rather easy to miss, as it's only on the screen for a few seconds.
    • Suzaku's lines to Lelouch about the latter betraying the world before it betrays him hearken back to one of the most famous quotes from Romance of the Three Kingdomsnote :
    Cao Cao: Better I betray the world than the world betray me!
    • Clovis' state funeral is a scream-out to Garma's from Mobile Suit Gundam, with Emperor Charles taking the place of Gihren Zabi in deliberately using Clovis' death to advance Imperial power and his Social Darwinist ideology, fists in the air, and "All Hail Britannia" in place of "Sieg Zeon."
  • Shower Scene:
    • Kallen gets one in episode 3, turning into a Shower of Awkward when Lelouch interrupts it to brings her a change of clothes and during the ensuing conversation, she accidentally causes the shower curtain to open and exposes herself to him. She is either seen as a Sexy Silhouette behind a yellow shower curtain or with convenient Scenery Censor or Shoulders-Up Nudity to avoid showing anything.
    • Lelouch has a Shower of Angst in episode 13 after Shirley's father's death really made him confront the consequences of his actions.
    • Milly also has a Shower of Angst in R2 episode 12, when she was in a depressed state for a while after Nina told her off.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!:
    • In season 1, Suzaku does this to Lelouch. In R2, Lelouch to Emperor Charles and more spoilery, Marianne.
    • In Stage 16. Lelouch to Mao ("NEVER SPEAK AGAIN!")
  • Sibling Murder: Lelouch does this twice.
    • The first major blow Lelouch deals to the Britannian Empire actually involves fratricide: he murders his own half-brother Prince Clovis, the current governor of Area 11 in episode 2.
    • After accidentally using his Geass abilities to send his half-sister Euphemia into a murderous rampage, the only way to stop her was to kill her.
  • Simple Solution Won't Work: Lelouch Lamperouge has the capacity to brainwash a person with a single Irrevocable Order (the titular "Geass") that cannot be resisted and his best friend Suzaku is a soldier of the Britannian military and pilot of the Super Prototype Humongous Mecha which has been the thorn in the side of Lelouch's resistance for a while now. Shortly after Lelouch figures this out, his confidante C.C. bluntly asks Lelouch why not just brainwash Suzaku and make him pilot for the resistance, but she follows up by wondering if it's Lelouch's pride, sentimentality, or distaste for robbing another person of their free will that fuels his reluctance; Lelouch responds that it's all three. note 
  • Slave Mooks: Mostly subverted, and only occasionally played straight, as Lelouch's Geass grants him the power to conceivably do this to anyone, but he actually rarely uses it like that, normally using his Geass as a piece of his broader strategy. Unfortunately, upon learning of this, the fear that he may do this, or has already done it to them causes the Black Knights to turn on him.
    • After becoming Emperor, Lelouch then uses his Geass to enthrall entire battalions of soldiers to serve as his obedient soldiers, with the dub even using the exact words "be my slaves".
  • Sleeps in the Nude:
    • When C.C. shows up unexpectedly at Lelouch's home and enters Pretty Freeloaders mode, she immediately takes over Lelouch's bed and casually starts stripping out of her outfit to go to sleep in front of him without a care. When he protests, she remarks "A gentleman would sleep on the floor."
    • Kallen is shown sleeping topless on her bed, with a Toplessness from the Back shot as she sleeps on her stomach.
  • Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: Although the two most important characters in the show are male, there are female heroes that manage to be just as cool and competent as them, or even moreso. There are also females in every major group and organization in the story (Ashford Academy; the Britannian royal family, the Britannian army, the Black Knights, three of the story's four engineers, etc.) whom everyone accepts and who seem to be equal to their male counterparts in plot importance and what they do, or sometimes even better.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Actually a pretty idealistic story overall, despite how utterly depressing it can be, especially if compared to the likes of Death Note.
  • Slow Clap: At Suzaku's knighting. Started by Lloyd, then the rest of the Britannian audience picks it up.
    • While Lloyd was the first to start clapping, it was really only after Andreas Darlton gave applause that the remaining Britannians joined in.
  • Slower Than a Snail: During the school festival in R2, C.C. gets stuck in a tub of tomatoes that Arthur then takes to bring to another part of the festival, so Lelouch and several of the other students chase after him. Lelouch, not being in very good shape, manages to get outrun by everyone else chasing after Arthur (despite getting a head start), but it doesn't get truly humiliating until Kallen in a chunky, full-body mascot costume and Milly in a VERY fancy dress both manage to speed past him.
  • Snow Means Love: The enigmatic conversation between C.C. and Lelouch over why snow is white. The beginning of the conversation takes place on a mountain top. While their relationship is not strictly romantic, this was a 'getting to know you' moment between them.
  • The Social Darwinist: Emperor Charles has this philosophy — using the notion that Might Makes Right in an attempt to justify his self-interest. It applies at its most ruthless to his children: if any are weak, he deigns that they deserve to die.
  • Spectacular Spinning: Spinzaku and the LULUCOPTER. Plus half the rest of the cast as well, plus it seems to be fairly common for Knightmare frames to spin and twirl as they fight.
  • Sphere of Destruction: What happens when you set off F.L.E.I.J.A.
  • Spoiler Cover: Code Geass R2 DVD covers:
    • The back of the third volume for shows Charles with a code mark on his hand, as well as a dying V.V..
    • The fourth volume shows pictures of Nunnally, who was assumed to be dead, including one with her eyes open, and also includes a Spoiler Title for Episode 22: Emperor Lelouch.
  • Spoiler Opening: Let's just say that if they wanted us to think C.C. and Suzaku's "deaths" in ep1 were going to stick, that opening utterly ruined it.
    • The second opening of R2 starts at episode 13, and besides most of the Holy Knights, it shows pretty much every main character in the series alive at that point except for Shirley.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Cornelia li Britannia, Villetta Nu, Milly Ashford and Marianne vi Britannia come to mind quickly, though even Euphie is close to the mark at 5 foot 7. Clearly Britannians breed for height along with bust and ham.
  • Status Quo Is God: The blatant aversion of this trope is one of the show's biggest selling points.
  • Stock Footage: The Geass sequence eats up a couple of seconds per episode.
  • Stolen Good, Returned Better: After Kallen and her Guren are captured by Britannia, they strap a crapload of high-tech upgrades onto it only for her to break out and steal it right back.
  • Straw Fan: Diethard fits this to a T. He joins The Black Knights only because he was pretty much Zero's #1 fan and like Kallen, he's fiercely loyal to Zero viewing him as a source of inspiration and admiration. From then on however, he's portrayed as the resident Token Evil Teammate with others distrusting him. Near the end he is killed by Lelouch/Zero himself after defecting to Schneizel when The Black Knights crumble, dying in shame.
  • Stripperiffic: Marika Soresi and Liliana Vergamon's combat uniforms have a Navel-Deep Neckline that is outrageously revealing with barely anything holding their breasts. Then you remember that they report directly to Luciano Bradly who has rape tendencies and it becomes less sexy and creepier.
  • Suggestive Collision: Kallen falls over Lelouch in a suggestive position, lampshading their uncertain relationship.
  • Super-Empowering: What Geass ultimately is. What exactly the super power is apparently depends on the reciever rather than the giver, as both Mao and Lelouch got theirs from C.C., but the former can read minds and the latter has a Compelling Voice.
  • Super-Fun Happy Thing of Doom: F.L.E.I.J.A. — a nuclear bomb, named for the Norse goddess of love and beauty.
  • Supernatural Aid: The plot of Code Geass is driven by this, with Lelouch's life being saved by a C.C who grants him with Geass as part of a vague contract in the first episode.
  • Superpower Lottery: The Geass powers obtained by a contract vary in their usefulness.
    • Lelouch's power takes the form of a Compelling Voice: by making eye contact with his target when activating his Geass, Lelouch can compel them to do almost anything, up to, and including, committing suicide.
    • Mao's Geass grants him telepathy, giving him the ability to read the thoughts of others. Unfortunately, abuse of this power has caused him to lost control over it: unless he focuses on a specific mind or stimulus, the thoughts of everyone around him threaten to overwhelm him.
    • Emperor Charles's power is the ability to rewrite a person's memories.
    • Rolo's Geass grants him the ability to temporarily stall others' perception of time, essentially freezing them in place and grant the illusion of him being able to stop time.
    • Bismark Waldstein's Geass grants him Combat Clairvoyance, allowing him to see an opponent's actions moments beforehand and react accordingly.
    • Two additional powers are shown in Lelouch of the Re;surrection: Swaile Qujappat's Geass allows him to alter the perception of his targets, forcing them to see allies as enemies and vice versa. Shamna's Geass grants her the ability to transfer her consciousness back in time by six hours upon dying, an ability she exploits by claiming to be able to divine the future.
    • Marianne happens to have just the right power while on the brink of death, transferring her soul into Anya's body.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: C.C. has striking gold eyes, and she's an immortal young woman who can grant a power known as 'Geass'.
  • Super Prototype:
    • Justified with the Lancelot. Cecile mentions that Lloyd spent their entire budget on the Knightmare, which is why the special unit seems to consist solely of the head scientist, his aide, and the pilot. They had to borrow the truck they haul the Lancelot around in.
    • The Shen-Hu was considered so high-spec that no one could pilot it.
  • Super-Reflexes:
    • Kallen, being a combat mech pilot, has incredible reflexes, which tend to act up even when she is playing an ill girl in school. In one episode, when Rivalz accidentally sends a champagne bottle cork right into her face, she notices it even before he does and deflects it with her hand.
    • Suzaku Kururugi has been shown to be able to dodge bullets from machine guns.
  • Sword of Damocles: ...The Damocles.
  • Sword/Shield Contrast: The second season debuts Lelouch's Ace Custom the Shinkiro, which is a Barrier Warrior Knightmare Frame that relies on his incredible mental abilities to provide a near impossible to pierce defense. This nicely contrasts him with Suzaku's Lancelot, which is an incredibly offensive Knightmare that has shown the ability to perform Curb-Stomp Battles and Big Damn Heroes moments since day one. By the end of the series, they are working together and prove the contrasts between their two KMF makes them a great team to the point they can charge straight headlong into the path of a nuclear bomb and successfully defuse it using their capabilities.

    T-Z 
  • Tagalong Reporter: Diethard is this for the Black Knights.
  • Take a Third Option: The Special Administrative Zone is a threat to Lelouch's power base, but he can't destroy it because it's the project of his beloved sister, Euphemia. The solution is to incorporate it into his plans.
  • Tanks for Nothing: Japanese tanks are no match for Britannian Humongous Mecha. Oh, the irony.
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That‎: Lelouch's penchant for prerecorded conversations, which is taken to its logical conclusion with his "dialogue" with Schneizel, which nigh anticipated what he would actually say. Subverted however in that said messages are designed to be as general and filled with deliberate pauses as possible, giving the illusion of a conversation. Neither are they intended to hold up for too long, serving more like distractions and feints as they're far from perfect.
  • Tear Jerker: In-universe- Prince Clovis's televised memorial service. According to Jeremiah and Diethard, who even invokes this trope by name.
  • Technicolor Eyes: Violet or purple eyes seem to be a somewhat common Britannian trait as Lelouch, Rolo, Euphemia, Cornelia, and Nunnally all have one or the other; C.C. and Villetta both have gold eyes, and Anti-Villain Suzaku has green eyes (which are very unusual but not impossible for a Japanese person).
  • Tempting Fate: "Don't worry Nina, there are a lot of Britannians at the convention center. It's not dangerous like the ghetto."
    • Happened twice in episode 10. First, a couple of JLF soldiers are musing that no one would invade their territory then Zero walks in and geasses them both. The second time was when Cornelia and Darlton were both thinking that the rebellion in Area 11 will finally end when they defeat the JLF. It then cuts to the Black Knights preparing for battle.
  • Thanatos Gambit: Lelouch uses the Zero Requiem to die for world peace — and win the gambit. This involved in part propping an image of himself as a monster in the eyes of the world.
  • Theme Naming: The Humongous Mecha used by the Knights of the Round: Lancelot, Gawain, Tristan, Mordred...
    • The code names that Zero gives the Black Knights are the first letter of a chess piece and a number. P-1, R-1, Q-1, etc.
  • They Died Because of You: In episode 16, Mao calls out Suzaku for the death of his own father, Genbu Kururugi.
    • Lelouch gets blamed for this by Shirley when her father is killed during one of Zero's missions. To make matters even worse for him, her father was a relatively upstanding person who wasn't an Asshole Victim, which shocks him even more when he learns about it.
    • At least, he doesn't seem to be an Asshole Victim. It's implied that he was one of the scientists performing human experimentation on Unwitting Test Subject C.C., as he was a scientist for Britannia who was in Narita 'on business' when the mountain was dropped. Clovis' science team was packed up and sent to Narita to avoid Cornelia discovering Geass... only to be crushed when the mountain was dropped.
  • "They Still Belong to Us" Lecture: Schneizel uses this trope against Lelouch.
  • Third-Act Misunderstanding: A lot of grief could have been avoided if Kanon hadn't deliberately set this off by interrupting Suzaku and Lelouch's private meeting in Turn 17.
  • Time Skip: The first seasons and second season are separated by a gap of one year. Then it happens two more times in one-month and two-month periods.
  • To Be Lawful or Good: Several characters are faced with this tough decision at times, usually Suzaku or Lelouch.
  • Token Enemy Minority: Diethard, the one full-blooded Britannian aristocrat (besides Lelouch) among the Black Knights.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Diethard is nominally on the side of the Black Knights, but only for his own amusement, and he has no compunctions whatsoever in defecting back to Britannia when he thinks Zero is beaten.
  • Token Good Teammate: Euphemia li Britannia and Andreas Darlton are this to Britannia in general. They both meet tragic ends.
  • Took a Level in Cynic: Lelouch acquires this at age eight, when his mother is murdered in what may be a court intrigue, about which his father the Emperor does nothing. When Lelouch calls him out on this, his response is to send the kid over to an enemy country as a hostage and bargaining chip. Not long after, he invades the country that is hosting his own child, in a very bloody war. No wonder the kid ends up the way he does.
  • Totally Radical: "You fellas know full well what this badass mother can do!"
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Pizza for CC; to a lesser extent, perhaps also pudding for Lloyd.
  • Transforming Mecha: R2 introduces the Tristan (robot-to-fighter jet) and the Shinkirō (robot-to-submersible fighter jet).
  • Trapped in Villainy: Played with in R2: after becoming The Emperor, Lelouch instructs his most faithful followers (particularly, Sayoko) to surrender to his enemies and to claim that they only obeyed him out of fear. But then again, he is not exactly a villain.
  • Trauma Conga Line: The universe of Code Geass LOVES to kick you when you are already down and crying.
  • Trope Overdosed: Dear God, even the summary is convoluted. Here's a little game for you: compile the content on this work page on a word processor, then compare it to all the Gundam universes and see which one has the bigger file size.
  • Try Not to Die: Among other times, Lelouch to C.C. in the first season finale, after she kisses him. Her response is "Hey, remember who you're talking to".
    • During the Black Rebellion Cornelia essentially ordered Guilford to come back alive after he covered for her.
  • Twice Shy: Milly invokes this during a special event which she designed specifically to bring Lelouch and Shirley together - sort of, anyway. Later, as she explains this reasoning, she also points out that the two of them are just so shy.
  • Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Between Lelouch and Suzaku, in Season One, episode five. A bit of a Homoerotic Subtext and Foe Romance Subtext as they each pontificate and allow the audience to the commonality and common purpose that, ironically, will divide them.
    • It's a running feature in the show. Like the dialogue shared by Bismarck and Kaguya when the UFN forces came to liberate Japan.
  • Tyrannicide: Lelouch Deconstructs this trope—and in a metaphorical sense, you could even say he Exaggerates it. One of his most consistent goals throughout the series is to assassinate the tyrannical Emperor of Britannia. When he eventually succeeds, he takes up the throne and deliberately fashions himself into an even worse tyrant, specifically to give all of humanity a single shared enemy to unite them, leading to a better world after his arranged assassination. In other words, he metaphorically destroys the role of Emperor itself.
  • Undying Loyalty: Jeremiah Gottwald, to Marianne as it turns out. As soon as he discovers that Zero is her son, he immediately swears fealty to him.
  • Unexplained Recovery: Guilford, who somehow survived his mecha getting caught in the F.L.E.I.J.A.
  • Un-Paused: Used extensively, as Rolo's Geass stops time (or close enough). Once unpaused, characters continue to fight in their mechas, monologue, or beg intermittently for Rolo to stop using his Geass.
  • Unwanted Harem: Lelouch is insanely popular with the girls at Ashford Academy; it gets even worse in R2, when Sayoko, in the process of running around disguised as Lelouch, manages to set him up with 108 dates within the span of 24 hours.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Ohgi and Villetta play into Schneizel's lies about Lelouch using the Black Knights, out of resentment for him having concealed his true identity. This sets in motion a catastrophic series of events that culminates in Schneizel having the world almost literally under the sword and, more indirectly, Suzaku accidentally nuking Tokyo.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Lelouch, Schneizel, Charles and Marianne all try to create their various ideas of a perfect world, and all are prepared to get their hands dirty.
  • Vestigial Empire: By 2018 a.t.b. all of the three world superpowers were on the verge of collapse. The United Republic of Europia was carved out by Britannia and is imploding, the Chinese Federation is beginning to dissolve due to political turmoil and by the events of Zero Requiem, even the Holy Britannian Empire was beginning to collapse under its own weight due to imperial overstretch, war debt and a depression.
  • Villainous Rescue: Schneizel's Avalon blocks a barrage of missiles heading toward Lelouch and Suzaku. Nearly an unintentional Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work, since his follow-up to fire the Gawain at our characters buys Lelouch enough time to figure a way out of the situation.
  • War Is Hell: Even with the cool giant robot battles and intense mind games that make for compelling drama, the series is unabashed in its depiction of war as one of the worst things anyone can live through, even if you're not a soldier: both Lelouch and Suzaku are marked by their experiences in Japan during Britannia's invasion and subsequent occupation of Japan, which sees the people of Japan not only swiftly defeated and demoralized, but forced to become second-class citizens in their own homeland. Things don't get much better once Lelouch and Suzaku enter the fray once again as teenagers. Mix in a willingness on all sides to enlist Child Soldiers, extremely questionable ethics, and stakes that keep getting raised (up to and including WMDs), and you have a case for why war is the absolute worst.
  • Was It Really Worth It?: One of the main goals of the Zero Requiem was to make all the major players (and the entire world) realize just how pointless war and violence really are. The whole first half of the final episode involves every character going through their motivations and discussing this question.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: Hadron Cannons and the upgraded radiation wave in R2.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: The various Japanese resistances don't always get along, to the point that Lelouch has to purge the ones that get in his way.
  • We Have Reserves: In the battle at the end of R2, Lelouch's strategy is essentially to keep throwing his troops at the Damocles until it runs out of tactical nukes.
  • Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: The rulers of the Britannian Empire are your average nobility — political-savvy and born wildly privileged in terms of money and influence. Barring some members of the family, they are all just normal humans. They all have under their command the Humongous Mechas known as Knightmares as well as a massive military army.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Series. The entire series deals with people whose plans are benevolent on paper, but cruel in practice. Prominent examples include Emperor Charles, V.V., and Marianne, who created the Ragnarok Connection in order to rid the world of lies and treachery, in turn creating a "gentler existence", and Lelouch, who tried and succeeded in creating world peace by turning himself into a villain so vile and horrific that it united everyone in trying to stop him.
  • Wham Episode: Episode 22 takes the Nice Job Breaking It, Hero trope and elevates it to a whole new level when Lelouch accidentally Geasses his sister into killing all the Japanese.
    • Starting with episode 13 of R2, basically every episode is a wham episode.
    • Episode 7 of the first season is perhaps the first instance of this trope, where Lelouch suffers his first major defeat due to fighting against an opponent who essentially uses his tactics against him.
  • Wham Line:
    • Mao's yells at Suzaku, "Get your hands off of me, father-killer!"
    • Although Euphy meant well by this, she delivers a speech version at the end of episode 21 when she proclaims to create a zone where 11's can go back to being Japanese and there's no distinction between them or Britannians. Lelouch does not take it well, as Euphy essentially neutered his operations as Zero and the Black Knights with that proclamation.
    • Shirley and Lelouch's exchange at the end of episode 12 leads to this.
    Shirley: Hey, Lulu... Zero fights for the weak, doesn't he?
    Lelouch: Y-yeah. That's what he says, anyway.
    Shirley: Then... why did he kill my father?
    • When C.C. , who has seemingly been talking to herself or an unseen person from time to time about Lelouch, finally reveals the identity of her mysterious conversation partner: "Marianne".
  • Wham Shot: After Mao appears to manipulate Shirley, the camera zooms in beneath his visor to reveal a Geass in his eye, explaining why he seems to know everything about her. As he is the only other character in the series shown to have a Geass by this point, it opens up all kinds of questions about how many others there are, what their powers can do and what C.C.'s motives for making these contracts might be.
  • What Happened to the Mouse??: Played straight at the beginning of R2 but subverted later on when it tells everyone what happened to nearly every character after the Black Rebellion; many of the rebels were captured and executed, while others escaped.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Lelouch delivers one to C.C. when she tells him about Mao; he's mad that she would burden a young child with Geass and then abandon him to his fate rather than trying to help him, or failing all else, putting him out of his misery.
    • Lelouch himself gets called on this from time to time by various characters or his subordinates who sometimes question his motives for taking certain actions, especially by Suzaku.
  • When It All Began: The invasion of Japan, and the attack on Lelouch's family.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: C.C.'s "one wish" that Lelouch was originally obliged to grant her by their contract was to finally die, which would make Lelouch bear the curse of immortality in her place. Implied that Mao already refused to do so because he was too attached to her, leading her to seek out another to do so..
  • The Whole World Is Watching: At the end of R2, Lelouch makes a worldwide announcement of his victory over his brother Schneizel and consequent domination of the entire world. In the epilogue, his public assassination is likewise broadcast to the entire world live.
  • Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Happens most every time characters get excited or scared.
  • Wishing for More Wishes: Lelouch can only use his Geass (which allows him to force someone to obey one order from him) once on a given person... but late in the second season, after declaring himself Emperor of Britannia, he gets around it by Geassing the assembled Britannian nobility to "always obey me!". It's implied that he hadn't done this before due to moral scruples which he is now abandoning.
  • World of Buxom: Try to count the number of named characters without large busts over the age of 15.
  • World of Ham: This series is one of the reasons the trope exists. How CAN one not be a LARGE HAM in a world where even the SCENERY is Chewing the Scenery?. And the MUSIC. And the HUMONGOUS MECHA. And the laws of PHYSICS. It is MANDATORY to be hammy in such circumstances! Anything more subtle, given the circumstances, would be a DULL SURPRISE!!!
  • World of Silence: The "World Without Lies" that Charles, V.V. and Marianne planned to create.
  • World of Technicolor Hair: The Japanese characters tend to have semi-realistic brown or black hair, while the Britannian characters (and characters of Britannian descent, like Kallen)have somewhat more outlandish hair colors and styles. For example, Euphemia's pink and Cornelia's purple show up in flashbacks to their childhood, indicating it's completely natural. Other characters with unnatural hair include C.C. (bright green), Anya (pink), Jeremiah (blue), Nina (dark green) and Lloyd (lavender).
  • The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: While Crown Prince Odysseus of Britannia is not as egotistical or racist as his father or some of his siblings, he is somewhat of a milquetoast Inadequate Inheritor compared to the more competent usurper Lelouch.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Lelouch and Schneizel are experts at it.
    • In episode 7 of R1, C.C. gives Lelouch a succinct description of the trope: "If you're so good, you should be able to set up the conditions however you want" (i.e. "create a win-win situation for yourself"). He takes the words to heart for his next plan: he and his new Black Knight Organization rescue Britannian citizens from a Japanese terrorist plot. Cornelia has no choice but to acknowledge the Black Knights (and let them leave in peace) in order to keep civil unrest from growing in the wake of Britannian deaths at the hands of "Elevens".
    • Rolo's conversion into Lelouch's ally also counts. See the trope page for details.
    • Schneizel is an interesting take on this: he will not fight if he can't be certain he'll win (note his chess match against Zero, where he forfeited with a florish, and his last big scene in the series, where he flees from a fight where he has only a chance — however high — of winning.
  • Yandere: Mao to C.C., Nina to Euphemia, Rolo to Lelouch, even V.V. to Charles.
    • Though Nina only becomes Yandere after Euphemia's death, so it's up to debate if she's playing the trope quite straight.
  • You Are a Credit to Your Race: "Honorary Britannians," those from conquered nations that have been granted citizenship. The title carries both implicit and explicit patronization.
  • You Cannot Kill An Idea: Zero's stance for fighting against injustice and tyranny, largely caused by the Britannian Empire, but also anyone who would manipulate people for their own gain, such as the eunuchs in the Chinese Federation. So when Lelouch finally takes over the world at the end, Zero once again shows up to fight against him, which is quite a shock to the Black Knights, as they discovered Lelouch was Zero, so wondered who this new Zero was.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It:
    • After Lelouch kills Emperor Charles, he claims that that makes him the new emperor. Of course, nobody goes along with that until he uses his Geass to change their minds for them.
    • Often applied to how the various immortals are created by people who believe that the way the code is transferred is by the death of the current holder. However, this is actually a misunderstanding because this isn't how immortals are created because the code is NOT transferred by the death of the former code bearer. Transferring the code doesn't directly kill the former code bearer, it merely renders him mortal again, and killing the former code bearer isn't a requisite for the transfer to happen. In the anime, the nun whose code C.C. has doesn't automatically drop dead because of the transfer, nor is C.C. at that point able to kill the nun (as she's severely injured by the nun), the nun commits suicide after regaining her mortality (hence the blood). The case of Charles and V.V. is even clearer. V.V. is still alive for quite a long while after Charles receives his code, showing that the transfer itself doesn't kill the previous bearer. Nor does Charles kill V.V., he simply succumbed to his injuries from his fight with Lelouch and Cornelia, showing that killing the former bearer isn't a requisite for the transfer.
    • Lelouch does this with Suzaku at the end, "cursing" him to live a life where he fights against injustice and tyranny as Zero. Suzaku gladly accepts the terms.
  • Young Conqueror: Lelouch vi Britannia, though it seems it is common in the Britannian royal dynasty: while Nunnaly's reign is more A Child Shall Lead Them, Euphie is revealed to be a very gentle but determined version of this trope, Schneizel, while slightly old, is still quite young, and Charles and VV are heavily implied to have been this in their youth.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The resistance groups that existed before Lelouch entered the scene as Zero were pretty squarely on the wrong side of this. In order to avoid terrorist implications, Lelouch debuts his Black Knights with the rescue of Britannian civilian hostages from a Japanese resistance/terrorist group.
  • Zero-Approval Gambit: The Zero Requiem requires everyone in the world (short of the handful of people needed to make it work) hating Lelouch's guts so that they will be united in their hatred of him and cheer when Zero kills him.

"All hail, Britannia!"
"All hail, Lelouche!"

 
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Code Geass

Seven years ago, the Holy Britannian Empire invaded Japan to secure the nation's stocks of a rare mineral that made a new energy source possible. During the war, Britannia introduced their Humongous Mecha, the Knightmare Frames, into combat that became instrumental in defeating the Japanese. Following its victory, Britannia renamed Japan to Area 11, stripping the nation of its autonomy, its national identity, and even its name.

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