Characters / Code Geass - Britannian Imperial Family

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Main Characters (Lelouch Lamperouge, Suzaku Kururugi) | Black Knights | Ashford Academy | Britannians (Britannian Imperial Family | Euro Britannia) | Chinese Federation | European Union | Others

Characters from the Brittanian Imperial Family in Code Geass (excluding the main characters) and Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, and the tropes they embody.

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Rulers

Emperor Charles zi Britannia

Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto (Japanese), Michael McConnohie (English)

"All men are not created equal!"

Ruler of the Britannian Empire and father to Lelouch and his siblings, Charles is introduced as a Social Darwinist who thinks that war is the best way to create social progress. It's eventually revealed that his true agenda is to use the Ragnarok Connection to create "a world without lies", a desire brought about by being raised in a royal family whose members killed and deceived each other for power. Ironically, Charles' actions only perpetuate the cycle of violence and result in Lelouch's campaign to destroy the empire his family built.

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• Abusive Parents: He pushes his kids to take dangerous jobs... and subtly encourages them to war with and kill one another to secure their position in the line of succession. Lelouch gets the worst of it, getting disowned, screamed at, and used as a political hostage when he gets angry at Charles for not giving a damn about the assassination of Lelouch's mother or the crippling of his little sister in the same incident. Nunnally's blindness was not the result of traumatic stress, but because Charles inflicted it upon her with his Geass, ostensibly to protect her by making people think she wasn't a threat. While he does favor Lelouch and Nunnally over his other children and kept his work on the Ragnarok Connection a secret until they were both ready to hear it, it still did not change how he treated them beforehand - in fact, hearing of the Ragnarok Connection only enrages Lelouch even further, since it was obvious that his own parents cared more about fulfilling their own ambitions than actually being parents.
• Adaptational Heroism: His Nightmare of Nunnally incarnation is a much more sympathetic character.
• Anime Hair: His wig. It's so preposterous, even by the standards of Code Geass, that it gets lampshaded in the DVD Commentary.
• Archnemesis Dad: His son Lelouch starts his titular rebellion primarily because of animosity with him. A rare example of an Archnemesis Dad paired up with an Evil Matriarch.
• Assimilation Plot: Charles ultimately seeks to create a "world without lies", which would mold every single human into one being with one mind, so there would never be any need for treachery again. This spawned from witnessing his mother getting crushed by a falling carriage by some very ambitious relatives in his family. It sounds like a good idea on paper, until Lelouch points out its flaws and the selfishness of such a plan.
• Badass Cape: He wears one as part of his outfit as Britannian Emperor and thus one of the most powerful men alive.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: His Assimlation Plot ends up succeeding but only for himself and Marianne once Lelouch Geasses God into rejecting being killed. Once the Thought Elevator collapses, it absorbs them into Cs' World along with the rest of the Collective Unconscious.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Forms one alongside Prince Schneizel in the second season. The two are Lelouch's biggest opponents, with Charles causing Lelouch to fall into a state of amnesia to keep him out of the way of stopping his plan to kill God, while Schneizel directly antagonizes Lelouch and his troops on the battlefield.
• Big Eyes, Little Eyes: Tiny eyes. As a kid, his eyes were rounder.
• Big Little Brother: Justified. V.V. is marginally older than him due to being his fraternal twin brother, but looks much younger because he gained the power of immortality at a young age through a Code like C.C.. Charles didn't have such a thing, so he ended up becoming an old man while V.V. stayed young.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: In no small part his doing due to encouraging conflict between his children. Though his generation is implied to be just as screwed up. V.V. was the only one he could trust and even that ultimately ended poorly.
• Creepy Twins: He and V.V. could fit the bill given their plans and demeanor but they don't look like twins anymore, as V.V. had become immortal by taking a Code when he was still a boy.
• Deader than Dead: Lelouch erases Charles and Marianne from existence in R2 episode 21 using God.
• Demoted to Extra: In Suzaku of the Counterattack, Lelouch finds him dead, and in Tales of an Alternate Shogunate, he's only mentioned once by Euphemia.
• Disappears into Light: He and his wife Marianne fade into purple sparkling lights when Lelouch erases both of them from existence.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Lelouch manages to overthrow Charles and halt the Assimilation Plot five episodes before the end of the series. Schneizel steps up to the plate to reveal himself as the final antagonist. Though it was pretty clear that Schneizel would be the bigger problem, since he had already ruined Lelouch's own plans.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: Charles does this to challenge Lelouch (as Zero) just as he's announcing his plan to join the UFN.
• The Dreaded: To Lelouch; he has what amounts to a panic attack when Charles is revealed to be immortal and though he always expressed the desire to use his Geass to question Charles on Marianne's murder when it comes down to it, he just kills him to avoid a real confrontation (and does it very carefully to avoid Charles's own Geass being used on him again). And, of course, as the Emperor of Britannia, quite a few people are shown to be wary of him and raising his ire.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Killed offscreen by Schneizel as a way to frame Lelouch in Suzaku Of The Counterattack.
  • This is what happened in his backstory, though he wasn't the victim - his mother was. Some of Charles' relatives decided to drop a carriage on his mother, crushing her, out of spite for having their claims to the throne superseded in favor of Charles and his twin brother V.V. Discovering their mother's corpse becomes the Start of Darkness for both Charles and V.V., who proceed to try create "a world without lies" from then on.
• The Emperor: The royal head of the Britannian Empire. The truth is that V.V. is the rightful Emperor due to being marginally older than Charles, but his youthful appearance and his Code created the necessity of keeping him a secret. Charles is technically his brother's regent.
• Establishing Character Moment: His speech at Clovis's funeral establishes both his large-than-life personality and also his social darwinism.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • He genuinely loved Marianne, and despite being Emperor and Bodyguard, he is very good friends with Bismarck. He was also very close to V.V., his older twin brother, though that love eventually runs short when he gets fed up with V.V.'s dishonesty, takes away his Code, and leaves him to die.
  • Subverted in that he claims to love Lelouch and Nunnally but for whatever supposed love he may have of them, he still doesn't care if they live or die as long as his plan succeeds and it doesn't change the trauma that he put them through. His response to being called out on being a horrible parent by his son is to put his hands around his neck in his final moments.
• Evil Counterpart: Of his son, Lelouch. Unlike Lelouch, who tries to do things himself, Charles leaves the duty of actually leading the empire to others and he sees all people as faceless pawns, despite his good intentions. Unlike Lelouch, who sacrificied himself by becoming into a target of hate to ensure world peace, Charles selfishly tried enforcing an Assimilation Plot on all of humanity because he never got over how his mother died thanks to treacherous family members who vied for the throne, and couldn't stand living with a constant reminder of it.
• Evil Eyebrows: They have a rather prominent arch, giving him the appearance of a manipulative, arrogant, and Darwinistic Britannian royal.
• Evil Laugh: Unleashes one while a Geassed Euphemia slaughters the Japanese presumably due to the irony of such an event.
• Evil Old Folks: He's an old man in his sixties, yet as ruling Emperor of Britannia, many characters' suffering were of his doing, whether directly or indirectly. He also serves as an Archnemesis Dad to Lelouch due to how his actions impacted him and his sister, Nunnally. Later, he's revealed to be in a Big Bad Duumvirate with V.V., his older fraternal twin brother, with the twist that V.V. physically resembles a young boy due to receiving a Code that made him youthfully immortal. However, as someone with direct ties to the Emperor, V.V. has done as much, if not worse, atrocities himself.
• Evil Overlord: From his military stand point, Large and in Charge presence, and the way he treats his subjects, he's this trope. He's actually an Emperor-Regent; his older twin brother, V.V., is the rightful heir, but his status as an immortal Code-bearer like C.C. automatically makes him a state secret, so Charles, as next in line, has to rule in his place.
• Evil Plan: Charles' plan for the Ragnarok Connection. Kill God which will cause instrumentality and "create a world without lies". It's an unusual example in that no one knew about it or moved against it until he put it into motion. Lelouch has about five seconds to think of a counter plan; the best thing he came up with was use his geass on God.
• Expy: Of Gihren Zabi. He's a tyrant who rules an empire built on Darwinian ideals, gives hammy speeches and proclaims a Master Race ideology he personally doesn't buy into for his own agenda. His speech at Clovis' memorial also takes after Gihren's infamous "Sieg Zeon" funeral speech.
• Fake Memories: Charles' Geass allows him to induce these; he used it on Lelouch to erase his memory of being Zero, and on Nunnally to modify her memories of being present at Marianne's murder, giving her psychosomatic blindness in the process. Note that it's not clear whether he actually intended to traumatise Nunnally to the point of blindness, but he doesn't seem to feel that bad about it if he didn't.
• Freudian Excuse: He grew up during the "Emblem of Blood", a time when treachery and assassination against family members was accepted and encouraged. When Charles and his twin brother V.V. were still not yet ten years old, they witnessed their mother being fatally crushed by a carriage - a plot that was designed by their own relatives to spite her for naming her two sons heirs to the Britannian empire. This motivated Charles and V.V. to start creating a world without lies. It is ultimately deconstructed when, instead of actually using his power as Emperor to put an end to the royal family's toxic practices that scarred him and his brother, he ends up perpetuating them by coming up with a convoluted plan to rid the world of all lies. This also leads to the Britannian Royal Family becoming a Big, Screwed-Up Family, kicking off a series of events where Charles is ultimately killed by one of his sons, Lelouch, who is motivated in part by Charles' god-awful treatment of him and his sister.
• Gonk: Played With: primarily because he is almost always portrayed with his unflattering wig, heavily-robed regalia and the Hitler Cam angles make him look more imposing and wide, one can get the impression of him being Adipose Rex. In truth, his body shape is pretty good for his age, and could even pass off as Silver Fox were it not for the ridiculous wig and Perpetual Frowner.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Squinting, evil-looking eyes.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Despite being The Emperor and absolute ruler of Britannia, he remains very distant for the first season until the very end and even in R2, he doesn't directly confront Lelouch until the final episodes. While he's very much an emotional problem to The Hero, Cornelia and then Schneizel are the ones usually confronting him.
• Harmful to Minors: Discovering his mother's corpse after spiteful nobles dropped a carriage on her traumatized him so much that he conspired with his older twin brother, V.V., to create a world without lies. When he shows his son, Lelouch, his own memories in the Sword of Akasha years later, a magical portrait shows him as a young boy clinging to V.V. in horrified grief, while the next portrait shows his mother whose head was crushed by the carriage that killed her.
• Hate Sink: It's hard not to hate him. He aggressively promotes social darwinism, lacks empathy for the wellbeing of his children and seems to enjoy delivering Kick the Dog remarks, even laughing at Euphemia being geassed into slaughtering innocent people. Double subverted once his true intentions come to light. Despite claiming to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist, the fact that he neglected and abused the very people he claimed to be working to save means his goals were ultimately self-serving.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He reveals the Assimilation Plot to his son, Lelouch, who he had secretly favored among the many children he had sired with his 108 wives, hoping he'll automatically be on board with it. Of course, Charles forgot that treating Lelouch and his sister like shit after their mother "died" and then essentially abandoning them would turn his children against him. Lelouch rips into both of his parents for caring about the Ragnarok Connection more than their own children before commanding the Gods to kill them.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Lelouch is hopelessly outclassed against Charles. First Charles geasses him into fake memories twice. The second time they meet in R2, Lelouch can't do anything against him because Charles has become immortal and Charles knows how to use C's World and gives Lelouch one hell of a Breaking Speech with it. It takes C.C. saving Lelouch for him to survive. Charles' death only comes into play because Lelouch made C's World kill him.
• Hypocrite:
  • He hates people lying to him, as shown when he fatally punishes V.V. for his constant acts of treachery. However, what he did to Nunnally was technically "lying" - he Geassed her into believing that Marianne, her mother, was brutally killed in front of her which caused her to go blind from psychological trauma. Not only that, he left the girl crippled from the waist down to make the whole thing believable. Ostensibly, it was to protect her from V.V. by making him think she wasn't a threat, but Lelouch got angry about it either way when he found out the truth.
  • Ironically his Geass power is all about creating lies, as it allows him to wipe the memory of those he targets and replace them with new ones. This ironic twist may be in keeping with the very nature of a Geass - for instance, Lelouch wants to liberate people, but his power is Mind Control - but it nonetheless means that Charles is engaging in very serious deception every single time he uses it.
  • Despite claiming to want to create a utopia, where everyone will come together and understand each other and seeing war as "favored by idiots", is a warmonger who started a war with other countries and pushes forward prejudice ideas.
• One True Love: He had 108 wives but it is clear that he loved Marianne the most. And he still does.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Subverted. Charles and V.V. are fraternal twin brothers, and have enough traits that allow them to be told apart - as children, V.V. had much shorter hair than Charles, and Charles had a much pointier chin. With V.V.'s acquirement of an immortality-granting Code, the gap in their physical similarities widened drastically; Charles now wears a 'sausage curl' wig, and looks old enough to be V.V.'s grandfather.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Everything he's done to distract the world from his secret Assimilation Plot, the Ragnarok Connection, not to mention what he did to Lelouch and Nunnally following Marianne's murder, in order to hide them away from V. V., yet still not caring whether they would be alive or dead in the end.
• I Have No Son!: He felt this way about Lelouch and pretty much all his children to an extent. As it turns out, Lelouch, Nunnally, and possibly Euphy and Clovis were the only ones he genuinely does care about.
• It's All About Me: Deconstructed. Lelouch accuses him and Marianne as this; despite their supposed favoritism and love towards Lelouch and Nunnally, they pretty much abandoned them in exile and focused on fulfilling their plans for the Ragnarok Connection, not even caring if their children were alive or dead. The final confrontation between father and son essentially boils down to Charles trying to justify his own behavior and actions with excuses that Lelouch angrily tears apart.
• I Was Quite a Looker: In flashbacks, Charles was much more handsome, if very stern-looking, and he had voluminous brown hair (implying Nunnally in fact got it from him; indeed, in his childhood, he comes off as a wimpier Gender Flip version of her). Today, he's a stouter old man in his sixties with a sausage curl wig.
• Kansas City Shuffle: All this time Lelouch thought his dad was interested in territory and other 'earthly' goals. His true goal is at a higher level and because no one has any idea, they can't oppose it.
• Kick the Dog: This event here shows the audience what a cold jerkass he is, and incidentally, is the moment that sours Lelouch against him in the first place.
  Young Lelouch: Hail Your Majesty! My mother the empress is dead.
  Charles: Old news. What of it?
• Knight Templar:
  • Like Lelouch, Charles uses reprehensible methods to achieve theoretically admirable goals, although his true plan is an Assimilation Plot that would deny humanity any true free will.
  • In Super Robot Wars Z2, Charles and V.V. aim to convert humanity into pure will, so they can survive the fate of the sorrowful future the BK warns of.
• Knight Templar Parent: Charles subjects his children to a lot of pain, intentionally or not, to achieve his goals, which he feels are his way of showing he cares. This is later deconstructed when after being informed of the Ragnarok Connection, Lelouch doesn't immediately side with his parents as was expected due to realizing that both his father and his mother cared more about the Ragnarok Connection more they did their own children, and verbally rips into his parents for it. He then uses his Geass on the Gods and commands them to kill his parents.
• Large and in Charge: Incredibly bulky in appearance especially compared to the Noodle People character designs of others.
• Large Ham: Charles does everything in over-the-top, almost operatic style—a trait that Lelouch definitely inherited. Being voiced by Norio Wakamoto in the Japanese dub helps.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: A zig-zagged case in regards to his son Schneizel. While both are Well-Intentioned Extremist characters, they seek different aspects: Schneizel seeks the present, and Charles seeks the past. Both their methods are morally bankrupt, but Charles at the least understands from experience what people have suffered from. Schneizel on the other hand lacks empathy, so his attempts at being a Well-Intentioned Extremist are marred by the fact he lacks the perspective of others. However, Charles' plan involves conquering enemy nations with the intent of gaining access to Thought Elevators, so he can in turn use the Sword of Akasha to kill God and initiate the Ragnarok Connection, which will reunite the dead with their loved ones and remove the concept of lying, at the cost of forcing humanity into stagnation. Schneizel meanwhile has a slightly less destructive plan where he threatens the entire world into obeying him under threat of death by nuclear warhead, and intends to rule the world through fear under the guise of creating a utopia, and has no issue with killing thousands to accomplish his goals.
• Like Father, Like Son: Between their skill at plans, deception, buckets of charisma, and well-intentioned goals with gruesome means, Charles and Lelouch have more in common than either would presumably care to admit. It's why V.V. sort of liked Lelouch.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: No indication of whether this is explicitly the case with Britannia in general, but given that his children come from a whole mess of royal consorts... this is the indication.
• Little Guy, Big Buddy: Emperor Chuck is a mountain compared to his older fraternal brother and co-conspirator, V.V., who is an immortal boy thanks to a Code he obtained when he was 10 years old.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Charles, for the father of social darwinism himself, Charles Darwin.
  • "zi" is pronounced the same as the letter Z (at least in American English). Z is the last letter of the English alphabet, reflecting the fact that he is the last genuine Emperor before the Britannian Empire is reformed.
• Missing Mom: Both Charles and V.V.'s Start of Darkness took place when their mother, courtesy of other nobles, got a carriage dropped on her and in front of the not-older-than-10 twins, apparently as revenge for having her kids appointed as heirs to The Empire. Yikes.
• Necromancer: In Nightmare of Nunnally, his Geass allows him to raise the dead. He does this with several of the Knights of the Round.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Charles uses his Geass power "The Dead" to turn skilled soldiers into the nearly unkillable undead Knights of the Round in Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: After killing V.V. and taking his "Code", he is immune to conventional harm as well as Geass.
• Not So Invincible After All: Don't think he ever considered the possibility of being erased from existence by what is essentially God.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lelouch calls him out as one, pointing out that despite claiming to be well-intentioned, he still subjected the children he cared most about to abuse and neglect and is selfishly attempting to force his evil plan of restricting humanity of their free will without consulting them.
• One True Love: He had 108 wives but it is clear that he loved Marianne the most. And he still does.
• Orcus on His Throne: The nobility only realized that he went missing because he wasn't in the throne room.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He outlives Clovis and Euphemia throughout the first season.
• Parental Abandonment: In Nightmare of Nunnally, both his parents were assassinated.
• The Patriarch: A classic example of the royal kind, a powerful, stern and imposing emperor to his many children.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Charles (to V. V.): "Brother, you have lied to me for the last time" as he takes his Code from V. V., leaving him to bleed to death.
• Pet the Dog: In a real blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, you can see portraits of his dead children Clovis and Euphemia when he's in the library room in C's world. This indicates that maybe, on some deep (reeaaallllydeep) level, he really did care about his kids. It's also implied that he doesn't really believe in social darwinism and truly wants the world to be a gentler place.
• Power Incontinence: Despite supposedly being a fully awakened Geass (active in both eyes), it's got a rather terrible performance record.^note  Though it's worthwhile noting that, unlike Lelouch's, his Geass is shown to be usable repeatedly on people, suggesting it just isn't as strong as his in that regard. On top of that, the exact rules and restrictions of his Geass aren't as well known as Lelouch's (only knowing it also requires eye contact to pull off). To date, it's been broken four times:
  • Lelouch breaks free from it the first time in Akito the Exiled, although it severely damages his mind and leaves him in an almost vegetable-like state.
  • Lelouch breaks free from it a second time, regaining all his memories and original persona. Albeit, this was largely C.C.'s handiwork.
  • Shirley is released from her Fake Memories by accident following Jeremiah's test of his Geass Canceller.
  • Nunnally breaks free from it by sheer willpower and regains her eyesight.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In response to Lelouch calling him out on not protecting Marianne well enough, he tells Lelouch that the only things he has are things he provided him with.
  Charles: "You are dead. You have always been dead to me, dead from the moment you were born. Who gave you the fine clothes you wear and comfortable home? The food you eat and your very life? All of those, I have given to you, in short you are not nothing to me because you have never existed."
• Royal Blood: He's the 98th Emperor of Britannia, and the throne was inherited from his family.
• Royal Harem: The man has 108 wives. Out of them all, Marianne is the only woman he ever loved.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Evil Plan he cooks behind the scenes is something he does on his own, with assistance from his royal brother and empress.
• Security Cling: When he was a young boy, he clung to his older twin brother, V.V., in horrified grief when they both discovered the corpse of their mother, its head crushed into bloody pulp by a carriage some spiteful nobles dropped on her. This would show up years later in the form of a magical portrait as he explains his past and motivations to his son, Lelouch.
• Smug Snake: Charles largely gets away with his plans because he has access to a great amount of resources. He's The Emperor of the largest superpower in the world, has one of the best Knightmare frame pilots as his attack dog and the Geass Order backing him up as well. He never considers the possibility of what might happen if Lelouch, one of the people he proclaims to be enacting his plan for, rejects it and undoes it, and when Lelouch does so Charles gets furious.
• The Social Darwinist: Charles seems to be this, such as the big speech he does early on about how the notion of "equality" causes stagnation in society. Subverted later when he tried to use Ragnarok to eliminate this, making him and Marianne very brutal Well Intentioned Extremists.
• Start of Darkness: He grew up in the "Emblem of Blood", a time when the members of the Royal Family murdered each other endlessly for claim to the throne. Witnessing the assassination of his mother, who was crushed by a falling carriage, was the last straw.
• Übermensch: Much like his rebellious son Lelouch, Charles acts like one despite his public darwinist views, rejecting the cutthroat society he grew up in and attempting replace it with his creed of total honesty. This led to the birth of the Ragnarok Connection, in which everyone on Earth would be absorbed into one being, eliminating the need for lies.
• Unreliable Narrator: When Charles explains the events surrounding Marianne's murder in Turn 21, Lelouch angrily accuses him of blaming everything on V.V. since he's dead.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: He hoped to achieve a word without lies through the Ragnarok Connection. However, it's deconstructed by Lelouch, who points out that the Ragnarok Connection was formed not for the good of their family or their subjects, but for themselves, since they believed in their grand plan so much that they essentially neglected their family while still believing only they knew what was best for everyone.
• Villainous Breakdown: Loses his shit when Lelouch rejects his Assimilation Plot and undoes it, which causes Charles to panic and resort to yelling at him and choking him.
  Charles: You clever fool! If you stop me, then Schneizel's world awaits you! Ultimately, good and ill will are just two sides of the same card. Even you, you're…!
• Villainous Friendship: He appears to have a great relationship with Bismarck, his Knight of One.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He's popular in the main land.
• Worthy Opponent: Is fully aware of the fact that Schneizel is planning to challenge and usurp him, and openly welcomes the attempt.

Empress Marianne vi Britannia

Voiced by: Asako Dodo (Japanese), Kari Wahlgren (English)

"Masks will vanish, then everyone can be exactly who they're supposed to be."

The Late Empress-Consort of Britannia, wife of Charles zi Britannia, and mother to Nunnally and Lelouch, she was first introduced as a Missing Mom killed by unknown assassins. It was due to this that caused her kids to be kicked out of the Britannian Empire, which in turn caused Lelouch to hate Britannia and begin his rebellion. To many people, she was known as Marianne the Flash, a powerful Action Mom and a nice person overall that everyone adores (providing they are not snobbish nobles).

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• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Going by their birthdates, Marianne had only just turned 19 when Lelouch was born.
• Abusive Parents: While not as obvious as Charles, Marianne is guilty of this trope herself. Even though she survived V.V.'s assassination attempt by possessing Anya, she never once checked up on Lelouch and Nunnally while they were in exile, putting the Ragnarok Connection first and foremost above the status of her own children. And when Lelouch finds her alive and well, Marianne attempts to emotionally manipulate him with the prospect of seeing his dead friends and loved ones, expecting him to side with his parents immediately once he saw their good intentions. But Lelouch turns the tables on her, stating that no matter how well-intentioned she was, she only cared about herself, her husband, and the Ragnarok Connection. What confirmed it was Marianne's displeased reaction to Lelouch's attempt to Geass God into opposing the Ragnarok Connection, running to her son in an attempt to discipline him while calling him a "foolish, ungrateful child" before being stopped by Suzaku.
• Ace Pilot: Being a former Knight and one of the first Knightmare Frame pilots qualifies.
• Affably Evil: She may have a gentle demeanor, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to forcibly merge all of humanity.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Despite being born a commoner, she qualifies. Lelouch thought his mother the Empress was a saint, but she is revealed to be a co-conspirator with her husband in his Assimilation Plot.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She seemed like a sweet and gentle mother and she was thought of as a saint by most people, but then it's revealed that was a facade and she supports her husband's Evil Plan to destroy and rewrite the world. When Lelouch openly refuses to side with them, Marianne runs to him with the intent of disciplining her son, calling him an "ungrateful child", before Suzaku stops her.
• Broken Pedestal: To Lelouch. He admired Marianne for being the ideal mother, and his plans were motivated by the desire of figuring out the cause of her death. But as it turns out, she survived (technically), and that she wants the same thing as Charles.
• Color-Coded Eyes: The trademark for Britannian royalty's cunning and persuasion. In her case, it indicates that she may not be as innocent of the happenings of the world as she let on.
• Cynicism Catalyst: In Nightmare of Nunnally she was idealistic and managed to convince Charles to abandon his plan until she got assassinated, which convinced her that she can't build a kind and gentle world with trust.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Lelouch remembers her fondly and her death is one of his main motivations. Subverted once she reveals her true colors.
• Deceptive Legacy: Half-averted. Her death served as motivation for her son Lelouch and she really was killed in the backstory, only to have cheated death via Soul Jar, and was revealed to be a co-conspirator with Emperor Charles in his Assimilation Plot.
• Disappears into Light: She and Charles disappear this way when Lelouch erases both of them from existence.
• Disposable Woman: Subverted, as it's a lot complicated than that. At first, it appeared that Marianne was Too Good for This Sinful Earth, and her death was only needed to stoke Lelouch's hatred of Britannia, and launch his quest for revenge against his father. However, it turns out that V.V., her brother-in-law, attempted to get rid of her because he was jealous of her closeness to his brother. The only reason why she survived at all was because Anya happened to be there, which gave Marianne a reason to use her Geass to possess her. While in Anya's body, she still supported her husband's ideals, even if she had to do so covertly. She eventually reunites with him in the Sword of Akasha in order to explain the Ragnarok Connection to Lelouch.
• The Dragon: She turns out to be the chief ally of Charles in regards to his true plan.
• Evil All Along: She successfully manages to fool Lelouch and basically everyone besides Charles, V.V., and C.C. into thinking her a saint who is universally beloved by every character who has ever met her, especially Jeremiah. However, she turns out to be equally as insane and hypocritical as her husband, not caring if Lelouch, Nunnally, or anyone at all died since their minds would be joined together after the Ragnarok Connection regardless.
• Evil Matriarch: Unlike most examples, she's fairly well-intentioned. She was Happily Married to Emperor Charles, despite the guy having 107 other wives, and out of all the children in the royal family, Lelouch and Nunnally were their favorites. It's because of this love that she was willing to side with Charles in creating the Ragnarok Connection, committing her fair share of atrocities which include possessing a young girl at the time of her death, and routinely messing with her mind to prevent her own cover from being blown. When both she and Charles reveal their plans to Lelouch, Lelouch rightly calls them out on their atrocious behavior, stating that even though everything they had done for him and Nunnally were out of good intentions, the fact remained that they still abandoned their beloved children, putting their plans first while not caring if said children were alive or dead, and trying to justify it with self-serving excuses. She's also a rare example of an Evil Matriarch married to an Archnemesis Dad.
• Face Doodling: At one point while in Anya's body she looked like she was about to doodle on Suzaku's face but he woke up before she could.
• Go Out with a Smile: In Nightmare of Nunnally, she takes her disintegration with more grace than in the main story.
• Grand Theft Me: Her Geass ability, which she used to transfer her soul to poor Anya.
• Hate Sink: Not as much as her husband, but she's still ultimately exposed as a self-centered hypocrite who neglected and abused her own children, despite citing them as the motive for her actions, and who reacts with fury at Lelouch for calling her out for this.
• Hidden Depths: For most of the series, she appeared as Lelouch's beloved, murdered mother. The truth is that she is working with his father to kill the Gods and recreate the world as they see fit, all for the sake of their favorite children.
• Hime Cut: She's Britannian, not Japanese, but the hairstyle is perfect (long hair, even bangs and sidelocks) and she otherwise fits as a graceful and benevolent empress.
• Hot Consort: One of Emperor Charles's 108 wives. It's very clear where Lelouch gets his good looks from.
• Informed Ability: She was supposedly excellent at piloting a Knightmare Frame, but has never been seen in one. At least, not as herself. Having possessed Anya for her whole life, it's entirely possible that Anya's skills have come from Marianne herself, but that's a bit unclear. Although, she directly controls Anya in Episode 20 of R2 and demonstrates her skill by challenging Bismarck. While thinking he's an insurgent, she goads him into attacking the Mordred's Float System so that she could have an excuse to leave the battle and land on the island.
• It's All About Me: Lelouch accuses her and Charles as this; despite their supposed favoritism and love towards Lelouch and Nunnally, they pretty much abandoned them in exile and focused on fulfilling their plans for the Ragnarok Connection, not even caring if their children were alive or dead. His suspicions were confirmed when Marianne first tries to emotionally manipulate him into siding with her, then tries to justify herself with self-serving excuses when called out, then calls Lelouch "ungrateful" and attempts to discipline him when he actively tries to stop her.
• Knight Templar Parent: She and her husband formed a plan to change the world for the better shortly after they met, and since Lelouch and his sister Nunnally were their favorites, they intended to let the kids in on it when they were old enough. However, they didn't bother taking into account how the kids would feel about forcibly changing the nature of all of humanity. And all this is before you throw in their Evil Plan to protect the kids which resulted in both kids being mentally and emotionally scarred, and drove Lelouch to try to kill his father in the first place. When Lelouch learns about the Ragnarok Connection, he deconstructs their supposed "love" for their children, stating that good intentions or not, she still abandoned Lelouch and Nunnally, putting her husband's plans first instead of bothering to check up on them, and then trying to justify herself with self-serving excuses when said children turn on her.
• Lady Macbeth: Turns out she happens to share her husband's viewpoint that the current world is beyond hope and supports his plan to destroy and rewrite the world.
• Little Miss Badass: She is inside of 15-year-old Anya Alstreim, after all. It's also implied that she was a very talented pilot in her younger years, so much that she was called "Marianne the Flash".
• Love Makes You Evil: Marianne's beloved children mean the world to her. So much that she will destroy and rewrite said world for them.
• Manipulative Bastard: So good at lying and manipulating, that she managed to fool everyone with her saintly facade even after her physical death. She's also very playful and almost child-like towards Lelouch during episode 21 of R2.
• May–December Romance: There are 25 years between her and Charles and they were definitely Happily Married.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Her former Knightmare frame, Ganymede, is named after a ordinary Greek youth whose beauty captured the attention of Zeus, who kidnapped him so Ganymede could become his lover. Marianne was a common-born woman who became Empress-Consort and 5th wife of Emperor Charles vi Britannia and was the only woman he truly loved out of his other 107 wives.
  • Marianne's name has its first component, "Marie", which means either "wished-for child" (being the favorite wife of Emperor Charles and the only woman he truly loved), "bitter" (her death being the source of Lelouch's hatred towards his seemingly abusive and uncaring father), or rebellion (being the reason why Lelouch rebelled against Britannia). Its second component, "Anne", means "favor" or "grace", which fits her motherly and benevolent personality which becomes an Ironic Name when she's revealed to be complicit in her husband's plans.
• Missing Mom: Marianne died eight years ago, at the hands of her own brother-in-law, V.V., out of jealousy. Turns out she managed to find a new home in the body of Anya Alstreim.
• Modest Royalty: Though she has been seen in a very fancy blue dress, the outfit she was wearing when she dies and thus is seen in as a "spirit" is more simple in style.
• Motherhood Is Superior: Shown to love her children far more than their father, who seems incapable of loving any of his children at all. The end of the series makes this clear that this isn't the case as she's as bad of a person and parent as Charles.
• Parental Abandonment: Lelouch accuses her and Charles of this in the climax, stating that good intentions or not, they still abandoned their "favorite" children and didn't care whether they were alive or dead because the Ragnarok Connection was more important.
• Plot-Triggering Death: It was her death that caused her kids to be kicked out of the Britannian Empire, which in turns caused Lelouch to hate Britannia and begin his rebellion. Subverted in that she was very much alive, just that her body was destroyed; she used her Geass to possess the body of a young girl, Anya Alstreim, and operate from there, meaning that Lelouch's revenge quest was technically All for Nothing.
• Posthumous Character: Finding out the truth behind her murder is one of Lelouch's biggest motives for attempting to overthrow the Britannian Empire though it's eventually revealed that she's Not Quite Dead, revealing that all of Lelouch's efforts had been All for Nothing.
• Rags to Royalty: A major plot point in the series.
  • She was born as a commoner to later become the 5th wife of the Emperor of Britannia. Certainly, this didn't help with the nobles... but later this is revealed to be false, as several nobles, including Jeremiah, admired and respected her. The only noble who hated her was V.V., Lelouch's uncle, who murdered her out of jealousy of the closeness she had with Charles as his wife.
  • Lelouch also believes that his father, Charles, hates him and his sister, Nunnally, because they're children of a common-born woman. This would explain why Charles abandoned them right after Marianne's assassination. It's also not true. Out of his 108 wives, Marianne is the only woman Charles truly loved despite her low-born heritage, and the children he had with her are his favorite children.
• Red Baron: Marianne "the Flash", gained from being an Ace Pilot who was also an extremely fast Lightning Bruiser in her mecha, Ganymede.
• Shadow Archetype: An Ace Pilot of low birth who uses her incredible skill with a Super Prototype to reach a position in the Knights of the Round, followed by teaming up with an Emperor and being granted a unique and special position simply due to her relationship to him? All of this also accurately describes Suzaku, except Suzaku manages to remain on the side of good despite all the less than good things he does, while Marianne is more of a Lady Macbeth. She can also be considered flat out an Evil Counterpart of Kallen (see her character page for details).
• Shipper on Deck: Ships Lelouch/C.C., even asking C.C herself directly if she fancied Lelouch. C.C just said "Uhm, He Is Not My Boyfriend".
• Showing Off the New Body: Shortly after she appears to Lelouch in "The Ragnarok Connection" of R2, she does a little twirl. Technically, it was her old body, because she had been stuck in Anya for seven years prior, but the effect is kinda the same.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Lelouch clearly takes after her far more than his father, inheriting her eye and hair colour and general good looks.
• Telepathy: Implied to have this ability; Marianne explains that when she lets her consciousness surface in her host, she could communicate with C.C. "through our hearts.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: More than being an Evil Matriarch, Marianne heartily believed that the Assimilation Plot was the best way for the world to exist.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Everyone (Nunnally, Lelouch, Jeremiah) was taken in by her act and would have done anything for her.
• Walking Spoiler: There's more to her death than meets the eye. Hell, she didn't even die, but pulled a Grand Theft Me to keep herself alive.
• Womanchild: She seems to have a rather childish sense of humour: Suzaku woke from a concussion to the sight of Marianne leaning over him with a felt pen, about to scribble on his face.

Children

Princess Euphemia li Britannia

Voiced by: Omi Minami (Japanese), Michelle Ruff (English)

"I never want to see people unhappy ever again!"

The Third Princess of Britannia, Euphemia is a rarity among the royal family: kind-hearted, plucky, innocent and sweet. She wants everyone to be happy. Yes, that includes even the Elevens — among them, the man she loves, Suzaku Kururugi.

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• Actual Pacifist: Despite being a Britannian noble, she wishes for peace for all and hates that the Japanese are oppressed by her family's empire. Because of this, she actually ends up being Lelouch's most formidable enemy. Her cheerful smile and strong will to help those in need end up completely and decisively derailing his plans at the end of R1, and it took a complete and utter Diabolus ex Machina for Lelouch not to end up completely succumbing to her plan.
• Affectionate Nickname: "Euphie", by default. Cornelia calls her this whenever they are alone and Lelouch and Nunnally call her by this name. Euphemia also insists that Suzaku address her by this when they are alone.
• All Loving Heroine: Even moreso than Shirley. She loves everyone and wants to help everyone and has a tendency to throw herself into dangerous situation for the sake of protecting others.
• Anime Hair: Although not as extreme as some in the series, including her own father Emperor Charles.
• Ascended Extra: While no way an extra, she does play a bigger part in the AU "Lelouch of the Rebellion" manga.
• Ax-Crazy: Not intentionally, but to horrifying effect. Lelouch, in his first bout of Power Incontinence, accidentally geasses her "to kill all the Japanese". More than any other character in Code Geass, she fights against the order — both when he first commands her, and again in the end. But she succeeds in shaking it off only when she herself is dying, after she's already led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people — mostly Japanese, but some Britannians as well — and utterly ruined her chance of bringing about peace between Britannia and the people of Japan.
• Badass Pacifist: She is one of the kindest and sweetest women in the world and would never hurt anyone of her own volition. She utterly defeated The Chessmaster Lelouch, simply by offering a better way and a path to equality between Britannians and Japanese, while being too good of a person for him to be willing to callously murder. Intentionally, anyway.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Not only she is one the most attractive characters in the setting, but she's also one of the nicest.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Part of her standard disguise. Lampshaded in the DVD Commentary, which someone says, "She's aggressively cute with the glasses."
• Beta Couple: With Suzaku Kururugi, whom she champions (a risky thing for her to do, given that he is an Eleven) and who becomes her official knight, both literally and figuratively. Suzaku / Euphemia sets up a nice contrast with Lelouch (for whom Suzaku is a foil) / Shirley (who is in many ways similar to Euphemia, or how Euphemia might have been if she had not grown up as royalty.)
• Big Eyes, Little Eyes: Huge eyes — second biggest, of the entire cast, after Shirley's.
• Birds of a Feather: With Suzaku — Their goals are the same, they have a very similar sense of humor, and they get serious about the same things. Not to mention a moment in the anime, where they're shown to say the same thing at the same time, only to both burst out chuckling.
• Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Although not literally a wedding dress, the pink-and-white dress Euphie wears in the episode "Bloodstained Euphie" looks similar enough to qualify for the tragic innocence aspect.
• Bodyguard Crush: On her knight, Suzaku Kururugi. It is thoroughly requited.
• Break the Cutie: The SAZ massacre breaks her completely. She's in tears and fatally injured at the end.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Lelouch admits that Euphemia was the closest thing he had to a First Love. On Euphie's part, she is rather quick to bring up with Nunnally an old argument about "who will marry Lelouch" they had when younger.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Is willing to jump into a missile zone to protect someone with her status. She does this often. Its in her intro episode.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Purple eyes are a trademark of the more cunning Britannian royal family members. In her case, she's not deceitful but she is caring and careful enough in her word choice that she can sway Lelouch to her side.
• Cute and Psycho: Under the influence of the Geass. She still acts as her sweet and polite self as she asks Japanese people to kill themselves and then starts killing everyone herself.
• Determinator: The first person to ever resist Geass. However, it is only for a few seconds, and she succumbs like anyone else with one notable exception.
• The Ditz: A mild example of airheaded or thoughtlessness. Though really, this is mainly in comparison to her to her The Chessmaster relatives.
• Dying as Yourself: In her dying moments, she manages to resist the Geass' compulsion to avoid attempting to murder Suzaku and goes out hoping the SAZ was a success.
• Establishing Character Moment: In her first appearance, she comes off as a ditz when she pretends that she was being chased by imaginary bad guys, but when she sees Suzaku being heckled by racist Britannian thugs, she immediately comes to his defense. Later, she uses her status to put to an end to a street brawl between Jeremiah Gottwald and four Britannian soldiers.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Nina certainly has a crush on her.
• Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry: The choker around her neck is pretty and suited for a princess.
• Fix Fic:
  • Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally seems to deliberately give her the opposite outcome of what happened in the main series... by making her The Empress of Britannia.
  • Some Code Geass video games such as "Lost Colors" allows the player to prevent the event altogether.
  • In Code Geass: Tales of an Alternate Shogunate, Lelouch entrusts Japan to her and Suzaku after Perry's defeat.
  • In Super Robot Wars Z2.2, if the player takes the ZEXUS route, Banjo Haran has faked Euphie's death.
• Foil:
  • She has no shortage of foils — for a few examples, see Tomboy and Girly Girl, below. But there's an interesting foil whom she barely even meets: Shirley Fenette, who not only has a strikingly similar personality but also has many analogous plot points. In many ways, Shirley is set up to be for "Lulu" what Euphemia is for Suzaku.
  • Kallen also serves as her foil in their brief interactions. Kallen's not a believer in what Euphie is doing, seeing her as just a useless royal puppet. This is one of few things that actually gets a rise out of the princess.
  • She serves this one greatly to Nunnally as well and Euphemia is what Nunnally could have become had she stayed in the royal family. Both have overprotective and ruthless elder siblings who are willing to go any lengths to protect them. Both are idealists who believes a system could be changed within which is proven when Nunnally decided to follow Euphemia's footsteps into recreating the SAZ. The only difference is that Euphemia died by Zero's hands while Nunnally was spared due to Zero exiling SAZ participants. Both have a good relationship with Suzaku but with Euphemia being his lover and Nunnally as a childhood friend. They both are siblings of Lelouch and the difference is that Lelouch is her half sister and Nunnally is his full sister. Both were Geassed to the extent (Euphemia massacring the Japanese and Nunnally giving Lelouch the key of Damocles) that resulted in their fates (Euphemia dying and Nunnally sparing). Euphemia serves as Suzaku's source of motivation and reason of living as much as Nunnally is to Lelouch and ironically their fate later changed both Lelouch and Suzaku's lives forever as they both went to the path of carnage which triggered Zero Requiem whom both want to change the world for the two.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Very wide, open eyes — second only to Shirley.
• Go Out with a Smile: She dies smiling at Suzaku, still believing that her SAZ plan was a success.
• Hero Antagonist: Genuinely a good person and wants good things for the world. Unfortunately this also puts her against Lelouch as Zero as she's also still on the side of Britannia at the same time and her efforts ultimately would destroy all his plans. If it wasn't for the Diabolus ex Machina of Lelouch's Geass going out of control, she would have won and stopped being an antagonist.
• Heroic Willpower: Manages to force herself not to follow Lelouch's Geass command and kill Suzaku (Japanese), though she was nearly dead at the time. She also before that managed to resist his command for a brief period of time.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Despite all her noble intentions in the past, her reputation was punctuated on a very bad note with the Massacre Princess Incident. Eventually undone when Cornelia gets audio of Lelouch confessing to controlling her with Geass.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: She is easily the most idealistic and pure-hearted character in the series. When Lelouch accidentally commands her through his Geass to kill all the Japanese, as it is so opposite to her nature, she is able to briefly struggle against it. Ultimately though it does overcome her, leading to tragedy.
• The Ingenue: Tied with Shirley as the most clear-cut example of innocence and gentleness. See also Wide-Eyed Idealist, below.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Euphemia's nickname is sometimes spelled "Euphie" and sometimes "Euphy." Nunnally even lampshades it, telling Suzaku she's not sure to have spelled it right.
• Internal Reformist: It's indicated a few times that she seeks to use her position as a princess, and Sub-Viceroy to improve the status of the common people, to include the Numbers. Unfortunately, with her actual power quite limited, she's unable to get that much actually done. She gets close with the Special Administrative Zone, but things don't go exactly according to plan.
• Ironic Nickname: Kallen calls her the "puppet princess", despite her status as Royals Who Actually Do Something. Then it's subverted when she accidentally becomes the Geass's (and to an extent, her father's and Lelouch's) puppet and it ends up costing her. So Kallen was right in a roundabout way.
• Kill the Cutie: Unlike the others members of the royal family, Euphie is sweet and innocent and just wishes for everyone to be happy. Tragically, she is accidentally forced by her own brother to slaughter hundreds of innocent people that she herself had gathered together for a plan to bring peace between the warring states before being shot by her own brother and dying in the front of her love interest. After that, she ends up being universally hated.
• Lady and Knight: As the noble princess of Britannia, she is the Bright Lady and Suzaku is her official White Knight.
• Let Them Die Happy: Before she dies, Suzaku lies to her saying that the SAZ is a success.
• The Lost Lenore: Losing her, and so tragically, seriously screws Suzaku up.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Euphemia of Chalcedon was an early Christian saint. Moreover, several European queens have also been named Euphemia. And etymologically, "Euphemia" (Greek: "good speech") is closely related to "euphemism."
  • Saint Euphemia was a martyr. And her martyrdom was REALLY ugly, according to her legend.
• Meet Cute: With Suzaku Kururugi. Not just their vertical Crash-Into Hello (when she falls on top of him while "escaping" imaginary villains), but the whole (date) sequence that follows, which is arguably the happiest and most unambiguously romantic sequence in the series.
• Mercy Kill: A regret-filled Lelouch does this after he accidentally Geassed into killing all the Japanese people.
• Morality Pet: Seeing Princess Cornelia teasing and tickling her is proof that the hard-edged soldier officer has a softer side.
• Ms. Fanservice: The dress she normally wears is pretty revealing, and we certainly can't forget the sequence where she wears nothing but Lelouch's coat.
• Nice Girl: Euphemia is a rarity among the Royal Family in that she genuinely cares about others. Heck, just read her page quote.
• Pink Means Feminine: She's almost always rocking her pink dress, and when she isn't, she has a white uniform with pink highlights.
• Plucky Girl: Somehow, even when things went bad — which of course just made the "worse" seem even worse.
• Politically-Active Princess: Tries to solve the conflict with the Japanese peacefully, impressing even Lelouch with her moves.
• Princess Classic: She stands out amongst her siblings by being one of the nicest and most compassionate royals in the series. Deconstructed, however, in that she proves to be painfully naive and out of her depths despite her best efforts and attempts to move into being more proactive.
• Princesses Rule: She's briefly the Viceroy for Area 11.
• Rebellious Princess: She's a princess who skives on her Sub-Viceroy duties and makes a point of defying convention by knighting Suzaku. She also wants to implement social reform.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Has pink hair and a sweet and pacifist personality to match. This is in comparison to the rest of her family, even her older sister has a much darker shade of it.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Unlike the rest of her family, the "something" is social reform instead of political schemes or military conquest.
• The Scapegoat: Lelouch is forced to make her one of these after accidentally geassing her by telling the Black Knights that the SAZ was a trap. Eventually, this gets reversed when Lelouch makes himself the Scapegoat for everything, vindicating her.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Cornelia; the peaceful diplomat and the cunning commander.
• Spanner in the Works: Her declaration of the Special Zone and her call to Zero to stop fighting and start helping causes him to absolutely flip his lid, because it derails his bigger plan.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In Nightmare of Nunnally, Tales of an Alternate Shogunate, and several video games the Princess Massacre either doesn't end in her death or doesn't occur at all.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's listed as being 5 foot 8 by official sources.
• Suicide Dare: After being accidentally geassed into committing genocide of the Japanese, she tells the Japanese people in the stadium, who had signed up for the Special Administrative Zone of Japan, to instead kill themselves. When they're not persuaded, she and her troops slaugther them instead.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Manages to convince Lelouch to lay down his arms, and if it weren't for a very ill-timed bout of Power Incontinence that would have been the end of the story.
• Technical Pacifist: Her Nightmare of Nunnally version isn't shy about ordering her knight into battle or barging in to put a stop to an unfair execution, knowing it would cause a fight and likely put her against the rest of Britannia.
• Token Good Teammate: Among the Britannian royals in season 1, she is the only pacifist.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: It was her naivete and goodwill that led her to do something that led to the political need to meet with the man who could control people's minds, which ultimately led to her death. Ironically, that same compassion leads to the man admitting his defeat, a claim none of her more ruthless or intelligent siblings can make.
• Tragic Dream: She hopes to bring about peace between Britannia and the Japanese people despite all the war and tragedy and racism between them. An accidental geass makes it all worse.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • The most prominent example is her massacre of the Japanese citizens in the Special Zone as a result of Lelouch's accidental Geass. By the time she's close enough to death for the command to no longer be able to affect her, she is completely unaware of her actions and spends her last moments asking Suzaku if the event went off successfully.
  • On a longer timescale, her standing up for Nina when she's about to be assaulted by Japanese Liberation Front soldiers at the hotel-jacking results in the latter forming an unhealthy obsession with her, which only worsens after she again calls her a personal friend and gives her emotional encouragement when Nina attempts to thank her. While all of these actions by themselves are perfectly benign, the fact that Nina is an extremely emotionally unstable person with working knowledge on how to develop their world's equivalent of a nuclear bomb results in Nina growing so obsessed with avenging Euphemia's death that she lets Schneizel manipulate her into helping build Damocles.
• Walking Spoiler: There's a reason that a good portion of her page is whited out.
• White Sheep: The only Actual Pacifist in the family.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Literally as well as figuratively: with the sole exception of Shirley, she has the largest eyes (and irises) of any major character in all of Code Geass. In the classic political sense, she is the most extreme Wide-Eyed Idealist on the show, probably followed by Nunnally. (Shirley is out of the running because of her wilful lack of interest in politics.)
• Wrong Genre Savvy: You know these shows in which the sweet, 16 years old, Rose-Haired pacifist princess and her Ace Pilot boyfriend with his Super Prototype mecha end the war? Code Geass is not that show.

Princess Cornelia li Britannia

Voiced by Junko Minagawa (Japanese), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (English)

"Guilford, don't treat me like those other women."

Twenty-seven-year old — twenty-eight by the second season — Second Princess of Britannia and Area 11's Governor after the death of her brother Clovis. The brilliant, courageous and widely-feared Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army, she is also strongwilled, xenophobic, and strict. Nevertheless, she harbors a deep and genuine soft spot for her little sister Euphemia.

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• A Nazi by Any Other Name: She's all-in on Britannia's Darwinistic Master Race rhetoric, openly viewing Japanese people and people of other ethnicities as inferior. She holds the former with a particular sense of contempt, treating them as spare bodies at best and as subhuman at worst (and most of the time). At several points she seems to go out of her way to see to murder as many Japanese people as she can.
• Ace Custom: Her Gloucester Knightmare Frame is unique for having a white cape and a set of horns on its head. Anyone who sees it instantly shits their pants.
• Ace Pilot: Amongst the best Britannia has to offer. She seems to be second only to Suzaku, and Schneizel says she's as good as Marianne "The Flash", though it's quite possible he's exaggerating.
• Adaptational Heroism: Her recap timeline self is much less of a fascistic Social Darwinist than her main series counterpart. She doesn't commit a mass genocide of a Japanese ghetto just to draw Zero out, and she's much more willing to understand Lelouch's reasonings for his actions and forgive him for them.
• Adaptational Wimp: The recap movies omit her on-screen military victories, particularly her first humiliating defeat of Lelouch; here, her defeat at Narita is the first time we see her fight.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Dark purple hair, pale skin and considerable height. Cornelia is rather reserved save for the affection she shows her sister, Euphemia. Schneizel can also get her blushing, but then he does that to all the ladies.
• Always Someone Better: While Cornelia is the best general Britannia has to offer, Lelouch outmaneuvers her in all engagements excluding their first, and in that one, it's implied he still might have won if the Yamato Alliance hadn't stopped listening to his directions. As for his other engagements with her, he's only forced to leave when a variable he had no way of adequately planning for (the Lancelot, Shirley, Suzaku being the Lancelot's pilot, and the Avalon having Hadron Cannons).
• Ambiguous Situation: In the finale, she either figured out what the truth behind the Zero Requiem was, and acted accordingly to help Lelouch and Suzaku fulfill it, or she was simply seizing the opportunity to help rescue the prisoners. The show doesn't make it clear. In Re;surrection, it's implied that she did catch on to the gambit, as she is rather amicable to Lelouch upon meeting him again despite having been one of his most stringent critics in the past.
• Antagonistic Governor: Governor of Area 11, racist mass murderer and one of Lelouch's greatest adversaries.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: She is one of the noble-officers conquering new Areas and oppressing people.
• Badass Cape: She wears one as part of her attire as Viceroy and her Knightmare Frame has one as well.
• Badass Normal: No Geass or Code. No Lancelot or Unique Knightmare. No need for either.
• Big Sister Instinct: Like how Lelouch is with Nunally, Cornelia is very protective over Euphemia. She does everything she can to keep her younger sister safe and she spends the entire second season, trying to clear Euphemia's name.
• Blue Blood: As the daughter of the current emperor, she is a princess.
• Character Development: She ordered a raid in a ghetto, causing several Japanese civilians to die at her soldiers' hands. By the finale, she's at a wedding between a Japanese man and a Britannian woman, and she doesn't seem to have that much of an issue with it. She also worked with the Japanese during Lelouch's reign and seems to be helping out the UFN along with Kallen after the series.
• The Chessmaster: She was the first enemy in the series to deliver Lelouch a defeat. If not for C.C.'s independent action, he would have been captured right then and there.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Blue-purple. This is the norm for the cunning members of the Britannian royal family and her case indicates her mental prowess for coming up with battle tactics, a field on which she can give Lelouch a run for his money.
• Cool Big Sis:
  • With Euphemia (and only Euphemia) her personality does a 180, becoming playful and kindly.
  • Later on, she acts as one to Nunnally, notably while the latter is in Schniezel's care. She quickly comforts Nunnally after the latter has had an upsetting confrontation with Lelouch, and when Schniezel reveals his true intentions, Cornelia is particularly disgusted with how Schniezel only sees Nunnally as a means to the end, showing clear concern for Nunnally's safety.
• Curtains Match the Window: Purple hair and eyes.
• Dark Action Girl: She's powerful, she's ruthless, and she's feared.
• Defiant to the End: In her second battle with Lelouch, when cornered by the Black Knights and no reinforcements coming, she orders her troops to retreat while intending to fight to the bitter end. Suzaku, however, arrives to save her.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Throughout much of the first season, she spearheads the Britannian forces ruling Japan, so she's the woman that Lelouch has to face in order to be considered a threat to the Empire. Once she's thoroughly defeated at the end of R1, she's quickly supplanted by Schneizel, Charles and V.V.
• Disney Death: Thought to have died Courtesy of her older brother and a machine gun.
• Easily Forgiven: Despite having a track record of war crimes and massacres that would make the Nazis blush, Lelouch nor anyone else sees fit to punish her and she's effectively let off at the end.
  • In Re;surrection, she becomes one of the commanders of the Black Knights, even though she brutally oppressed many of their countrymen.
• Enemy Mine: She's still upset with the resurrected and mentally recovered Lelouch for his involvement in the Euphinator incident when they met again in Re;surrection, but ultimately agreed to join forces with him and his crew in rescuing Nunnally from the Zilkhstan terrorists.
• Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced just after blowing up the stronghold of a resistance faction, then when she arrives to Area 11 she is all about proper protocol with Euphemia, then holds the incompetent bureaucrat at gunpoint and demands that they bring her Zero.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Deeply, deeply cares for her little sister. And likewise saddened when she dies.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Moves to stop the SAZ Massacre in episode 22 (Lelouch stops it first). She is especially disgusted with Schniezel's true intentions.
• Evil Virtues:
  • Unwilling to leave her bodyguard die, at a point rarely seen for a villain.
  • Her personal courage in battle is undeniable.
  • She orders Suzaku to not let her men know she has been seriously injured during the Black Rebellion, knowing that this will lower their morale.
• Fallen Princess: At the start of R2 she becomes a Rebellious Princess uncovering secrets about the Geass Cult. She gets captured by the Black Knights however, and nearly ends up being killed by Schneizel. While she does fight against Lelouch it's clear by the end she along with most of the other nobles no longer have any power or control..
  • By the time of events in the movie Resurrection she is no longer is a princess or general of Britannia, just a Black Knight officer.
• Faux Affably Evil: She can be polite and cordial, but underneath she's a ruthless and racist noblewoman who's fine with massacring civilians as a military tactic.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Despite living in a world where immortals and Geass users exist, she staunchly claims to disbelieve in the concept of an all-powerful deity. For what it's worth, her universe's version of "God" is humanity's collective unconscious, so she's partially right.
• Four-Star Badass: She's a very high-ranking commander of the Britannian forces and the highest one in the army. A strategist who nearly beats Lelouch (albeit while he was still overconfident from his early victories), and she leads her troops from the front lines. It's no surprise that she's one of their best fighters.
  • In Resurrection she has been demoted to a lieutenant-general of the Black Knights likely a result of Britannia losing power in the world. Still, she has a leadership position and commands several Black Knights with some amount of authority.
• Frontline General: Nearly always personally involved in the battles she commands.
• General Ripper: She values her subordinates, she is utterly ruthless and racist in facing Numbers. She has on at least one occasion razed a neighborhood full of civilians, and is noted to rather let hostages die than deal with the terrorists holding them. She comes out of this in the second season at least.
• The Heavy: For the first season, Charles is too removed to be more than a Greater-Scope Villain and she takes the role of Big Bad, fighting Lelouch to conquer Japan.
• Hidden Depths: Shows an impressive flair for battlefield repair and engineering when she manages to jury rig a Black Knight's Akatsuki (a machine that she shouldn't be familiar with) and souping it up with about 10 heavy cannons DURING a pitched battle.
• Hypocrite: Criticizes the JLF for having "forgotten basic human decency", in reference to the time when a rogue group of JLF members took a number of innocent civilians hostage in a hotel jacking... which they did one episode after she herself ordered the brutal slaughter of an entire Ghetto filled with mostly innocent civilians. Not to mention that one of her motivations for being so brutal against the Japanese is that they killed Clovis, Lelouch, and Nunnally, claiming the country is "drenched in [her] family's blood," completely ignoring the untold thousands if not millions of Japanese she personally along with the rest of Britannia spilled the blood of when conquering the country. One might also find her failure to account for said sins when viewing her brother Lelouch with contempt audacity, considering it was her nation's acts, which she was also complicit in no less, that set him down his present path, and that she made no real effort to consider his pain or motivations. He may have been responsible for the death of her sister, but still, it's a case of Never My Fault.
• Iron Lady: A rare royal variant with her strict control over the battlefield complete with a hidden gentle side.
• Karma Houdini: Cornelia has committed various atrocities in the name of Britannia, championing their ruthless, racist regimes. While she has lost and suffered in various ways throughout the show (Euphemia's death breaks her, she lost to Zero at the Black Rebellion, was imprisoned for a while, and was shot by Schneizel), she has faced no direct consequences or punishment for her actions as the Viceroy, nor does she show any repentance.
• Kick the Dog: This event here sets her up as the main villain after Clovis is dealt with. Namely, massacring an entire ghetto of civilians, even after they have surrendered and admitted to not supporting the JLF, only to lure Zero out in a recreation of the first episode massacre with Clovis.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": While normally stoic and ruthless, mention the late empress Marianne and watch her blush like a schoolgirl.
• Lack of Empathy: Has absolutely no remorse when it comes to massacring innocent civilians if they're Numbers.
• Lady of War: She is introduced destroying the stronghold of an enemy faction and establishing Area 18. She single-handedly wipes out Japanese resistance factions and isn't afraid to fight on the front lines against the Black Knights.
• More Despicable Minion: Somewhat. Charles and Schneizel both had plans that were more destructive than anything she carried out, but both were Well Intentioned Extremists who sought to put an end to the cycle of violence. Cornelia, although possessing some redeeming qualities of her one (her care for Euphie and her men) is still a virulent racist who commits several onscreen massacres, including overseeing the mass murder of a ghetto of innocent Japanese civilians simply based on bigotry.
• A Mother to Her Men: While she has little tolerance for failure or incompetence, she shows on multiple occasions that she's willing to go the extra mile and even risk her own life for her subordinates. She also doesn't feel a need to steal victories from them, allowing them to have their own glory.
• Noble Demon: Her courage, genuine desire to build stability in Area 11, and her relationship with her sister Euphemia are there even in her first appearances, as well as her ruthlessness and racism.
• No One Gets Left Behind: Refuses to abandon her injured men when retreating, even if it puts her own life at risk.
• Pet the Dog:
  • She's very much a villain, but she genuinely cares about Euphemia and Guilford.
  • She states her intention to avenge Clovis, implying that she cares for him to some degree. She also states to Euphemia when they're relaxing together in the garden that she wants to avenge Lelouch and Nunnaly as well, not knowing that they're alive.
  • She accepts Suzaku as a knight of Britannia in the final episode of season one.
• Politically-Active Princess: While she's better known for being a general, she's not governor of Area 11 for nothing.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Like much of Britannia, saying she isn't fond of "Elevens" is an understatement. Despite allowing Suzaku to fight under her, she makes it clear she isn't comfortable with him due to his race. It's implied this is in part due to her blaming them for the death of Clovis, as well as Lelouch and Nunnally.
• Pragmatic Villainy: As racist as she is, she is not an idiot about it, and she's willing to promote Elevens who prove themselves useful to her.
  • She also fights against the drug trade, not for any sort of moral or ethical purpose but because being high on drugs hurts the productivity of the conquered Japanese people.
• Princesses Prefer Pink: Cornelia prefers her pink-haired, often-pink-attired sister Euphemia to anyone or anything else in the world.
• Princesses Rule: Takes over as Viceroy of Area 11 after Prince Clovis's death and before turning it over to her sister Euphemia.
• Rebel Leader: She's the leader of the remaining rebels and Black Knights opposing Lelouch by the end of the second season.
• Rebellious Princess: In the first part of R2. She drops the mantle when siding with Schneizel, but picks it up again — and almost gets a bridge dropped on her courtesy of him. She dodges it, barely, and after getting better she joins La Résistance.
• Retired Monster: At the end of R2, she becomes this. While she has faced repercussions is some ways (i.e. deceased younger sibling that she cared about), she's not sorry about the horrible acts that she did, such as when she massacred innocent civilians and doubtless many other reprehensible acts committed under the banner of Britannia (including contemplating a Final Solution to the Area 11 problem). Even when she joined the Black Knights and Character Development kicked in, she didn't really pull a Heel–Face Turn. Now, she's just a regular civilian, demoted from her royalty status.
• Revenge: Her reason for siding with the Black Knights to take down the Geass Order in R2.
• Royal Blood: She's the Emperor's daughter.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: A viceroy and a military commander. She has personally dealt with the various rebellions factions in Area 11, and succeeded in subduing ever single one of them with the exception of the Black Knights. She states that she planned on cleaning up Area 11 before handing leadership of it to Euphemia.
• Sanity Slippage: Completely loses it when Euphemia dies and during the Black Rebellion when fighting Zero in episode 24.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Euphemia; a ruthless soldier to the peaceful diplomat
• Sociopathic Soldier: Frontline General of the Britannian forces and a violent racist with a disturbing Lack of Empathy towards those she views as inferior races (Japanese in particular).
• Statuesque Stunner: Quite beautiful and stands at 5'11", even taller than some of the men in the show.
• The Strategist: She defeats Lelouch in battle early on, which is no small feat.
• Taking the Bullet: A random soldier does this to save Cornelia from Tohdoh during the Black Rebellion, which is further evidence that she inspires genuine loyalty in her troops.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: A true Lady of War, Cornelia is the most tomboyish major character in season one of Code Geass. (Her closest rival would probably be Kallen in her warrior guise.) Cornelia is most commonly paired with Euphemia, who (along with Shirley) is at the show's extreme girly girl end of the spectrum. See this adorable pic from their childhood together◊.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Starts off arrogant, proud, and very racist. Through a series of defeats, humiliations and betrayals, by series end she is a bit more rational in thought and chilled out considerably.
  • This trope is much more explicit in Re;surrection where she barely holds a grudge against Lelouch, and not only fights with him to retrieve Nunnally but actively praises him as a strategist and her brother. Of course, the film is a sequel to the alternate timeline film trilogy, where she is already portrayed as much less of a jingoistic fascist than in the main series, so it helps that she doesn't have as high of a hill to climb.
• Tsundere: Tsun to her subordinated, dere to Euphie. At one point, Cornelia almost blushed when Schneizel was praising her.
• Tsurime Eyes: Which fit her strong-willed, calculating personality very well.
• Villainous Breakdown: Cornelia shuts down after Euphemia is killed by Zero near the end of R1. She stays in Euphie's room and refuses to come out even as Zero's forces come marching to the Tokyo settlement. She does get better when she returns to the fight although she is noticeably more unhinged during her fight with Zero.
• Villainous Princess: She is a ruthless general of Britannia and one of the main antagonists of Season One. She helps enforce the draconian rule of her family and orders massacres on those who do not comply with the regime. Her sisters are more benevolent by comparison.
• Villainous Valour: Zero fought her using a Knightmare 10 times more powerful than hers. And he relied on Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind to win. She also leads her troops from the very front of the front line, and never gives up.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Provided Lelouch with his first real challenge as a strategist. Especially after the incompetent Attack! Attack! Attack! nature of her predecessor Clovis. Hell, she would have beaten him if C.C. hadn't turned up to save the day (something Lelouch hadn't planned for and didn't expect). Still, Lelouch does wise up after this, and outmanoeuvres her in their subsequent clashes.
• Warrior Princess: She's the only female Britannian royal who has an active participation in combat. In fact, she's the Commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army, for good reason.
• We Have Reserves: When the Black Rebellion first began, a soldier under her command couldn't move his Knightmare Frame due to damage. When Tohdoh and the Black Knights start approaching, Cornelia uses the soldier as a shield, uncaring about his life in the process.
• Would Hurt a Child: Tried to kill V.V. while under the impression he was merely a child with a geass.

Prince Schneizel el Britannia

Voiced by: Norihiro Inoue (Japanese), Troy Baker (English)

"Mankind's history is war, peace is an illusion, to turn illusion into reality is an arduous task. It requires discipline."

Second son of Emperor Charles and the Prime Minister of Britannia. This blond man in his late twenties is one of the main antagonists of the series. While he comes across as an Anti-Villain due to his chivalrous demeanor, the true nature of his sinister and calculating personality is revealed when he assumes the role of Lelouch's principal nemesis in Season 2. What he lacks in typical Britannian royal theatrics, he makes up for in efficiency, cunning, and sheer ruthlessness. In Suzaku Of The Counterattack, Suzaku becomes his knight.

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• Adaptational Heroism: In Nightmare of Nunnally he actually supports Euphie and the rest in fighting against Charles. He's also Demoted to Extra so he's ambiguously more heroic than in canon. At the least, he definitely opposes Charles's plans and has no immediate interest in the throne as he arranges for Euphie to have the votes to be declared Emperor.
• All Germans Are Nazis: Let's see, he has a German-sounding last name, is part of an empire where Fantastic Racism and Social Darwinism are commonplace, and has blonde hair.
• Aloof Big Brother: Stoic as noted above and both Nunnally and Lelouch himself admit that Schneizel is the only one to beat Lelouch in Chess.
• Always Someone Better: Schneizel is the only character who can consistently outstrategize even Lelouch. Unfortunately for him, Lelouch thinks fast on his feet and the one "victory" he fully scores making the Black Knights betray "Zero" ends up biting his ass hard ultimately.
• Ambiguously Bi: In Turn 09, Kanon states he is Schneizel's assistant..."public and private." Admittedly Kanon said this with a semi-joking tone of voice, but they do seem rather close, especially in the official art. Also, during his wedding party, Schneizel's older brother states that he never expected to see Schneizel acting as an escort to just one woman.
• Ambiguously Evil: Despite being a member of the royal family he does seem like a good man. Turns out he's Lelouch's most dangerous and ruthless opponent.
• Ambition Is Evil:
  • What he believes. Ironically he has his own ambitions, but deliberately not being ambitious enough is what leads to his downfall.
    Lelouch: Schneizel, your willingness to let yourself be killed, is exactly what led you to be defeated.
  • It's more that his ambition IS to be ambitionless, or to have an "ambition" that isn't actually his own but is for the good of mankind. He clearly hates his father's system of doing things, and truly believes that ambition causes all the world's problems. So he lies to everyone, including himself about having ambitions, in an attempt to prove that he's a better person than the rest of his family.
• Amoral Attorney: Not in profession, but fits the archetype perfectly. Such as when he leads the Black Knights into betraying their leader, and shortly afterwards, argues his way into a rebellion against his father.
• Anti-Villain: Despite being one of the leaders of a racist evil empire, Schneizel is polite, well-spoken and doesn't display any racist tendencies himself. And he does want world peace, he just plans to enforce it by nuking any who start violence.
• Appeal to Force: He's got a huge payload of nukes and he's not afraid to use it.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: After Lelouch finishes off Charles and takes over Britannia, Schneizel reveals his goals to rule humanity by threatening them with a nuclear space ship.
• Ax-Crazy: He hides it remarkably well underneath a veneer of affability, sophistication, and apparent benevolence, but make no mistake: The man is an utter psychopath who treats everyone and everything as if they were chess pieces more so than Lelouch ever did. Without any qualms, he's willing to gun down his own siblings, lead his subordinates to their deaths with a smile, and even nuke entire cities full of tens of millions of people simply because they're inconveniences. And that's not even getting into the fact that his grand plan involved creating world peace by acting as the entire planet's judge, jury and executioner. Even Charles knew exactly what sort of man he was and tried to warn Lelouch of it in his last moments.
• Badass Bookworm: Word of God states he's the single smartest character and the biggest threat to Lelouch of anyone in the entire series. He knows just what to say to make ANYONE tick just the way he wants them to.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Uses the Damocles to wipe out the capital of Pendragon, a vast chunk of the Britannian population, and most of the Imperial family of which the whole world hates.
• Bad Samaritan: He seemingly takes Nina under his wing as a kind and friendly mentor to a lonely girl, in reality, he just wants her knowledge to create FLEIJA warheads.
• Bait the Dog: Spends a good 90% of the show doing nothing evil other than opposing Lelouch as a member of the Britannian royal family until he uses Nina to have FLEIJA constructed. It's all downhill from there.
• The Beautiful Elite: Schneizel is a very handsome young man and a member of Britannia's royal family.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With his father, Emperor Charles. While The Emperor is Lelouch's primary target and the cause of his amnesia, Schneizel is able to turn the Black Knights against Lelouch and constantly blocking his advance. In both the series proper and Suzaku of the Counterattack, Schneizel outlives Charles to become the final antagonist.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: He seems to take this in a calm manner for most of the show but it's later revealed he's disgusted with the way the whole world is run, including the parts under Britannian rule and even plotted to assassinate his own father.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: A somewhat atypical example. He's well respected around the world, but it becomes increasingly obvious he's up to no good.
• Boring, but Practical: The key element that separates Lelouch and Schneizel's skillsets despite the two being almost peerless strategists. Lelouch deliberately invokes theatrics and extravagant gestures and uses them to create a kind of aura of supernatural competence and untouchability (thanks in part to being actually supernatural in some areas) that he uses to place himself as a banner carrier/symbol to the oppressed, with the downside that when his human side is revealed people are quick to assume the worst for him having normal, human flaws. Schneizel, on the other hand, maintains the image of a kind and affable ruler that people can depend on in a day to day manner and uses straightforward tried and true tactics in all confrontations. He flawlessly assesses the skill levels and emotional states of all his pieces and uses them when appropriate, and plays cautiously without throwing out units he isn't ok with losing. Even when he gets the flashy looking FLEIJA missiles in the final battle, his desire to use them comes from the pragmatic and practical notion that he should dispense with intricate planning against an equal opponent and nuke Lelouch out of the sky before the battle even has a chance to get going. The downside to this is that it ultimately makes him very predictable and Lelouch makes ruthless use of this fact during the finale battle to trap him.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Kanon himself has stated that Schneizel has a preference for weird things and people (why he keeps Lloyd around, for one). However, efficiency comes first.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Long before he ever made his debut, Schneizel appears in the openings and is mentioned several times.
• The Chessmaster: Stated to be the only one consistently better than Lelouch and proves this several times.
• Consummate Liar: Of the Truth Twister sort. See also False Reassurance.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Has a knack for fooling most of the people he comes across into doing his bidding.
• Divide and Conquer: One of his many ruthless stratagems. Is implied to have quashed the EU rebellion in this fashion, by offering various nation members favorable terms for surrender, leading to the failure of the overall movement. Also the motive behind getting the Black Knights to turn on Zero.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Even though his father is the Emperor of Britannia, he's not very interested in actually ruling, with Schneizel being the one who actually runs things and who serves as Lelouch's toughest and most frustrating opponent even before Charles is dealt with. Emphasized by the fact that Lelouch has a much easier time thwarting the Ragnarok Connection once he figures out what Charles was planning than he does with Schneizel and Damocles.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He is first seen at Clovis' funeral.
• Establishing Character Moment: He's first introduced with his hand, showing a white glove prominently, which suggests a remoteness from the world. When he's finally shown, he looks bored with watching an expensive military project and his half-sister's knight being (apparently) destroyed and killed. In the next episode, he finally speaks and though he's polite, he keeps a calm, even tone throughout and is revealed to be the one behind the orders that nearly killed Suzaku; which despite his words suggest he is very ruthless and thus lying about him actually caring for Suzaku being in danger. This attitude continues throughout the episode, with him being polite even as he throws Suzaku under the proverbial bus despite being his half-sister's knight (again) while also dismissing Euphie's justified protest over Suzaku being tried and punished despite being under her command. In other words, Schneizel is introduced as liar and potential psychopath...and goes on to prove it throughout the series.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: In sharp contrast to the rest of his family - and most of Britannia for that matter - Schneizel is not in any way racist or prejudiced. As far as he sees it, everyone is to be measured - and disposed of - on merit alone, regardless of nationality, culture or skin color.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Unlike his dad, he does not react well to mind controlled Euphemia senselssly massacring Elevens. It's also one of the few times he's visibly disturbed.
  • Furthermore, after Zero's Engineered Public Confession of the High Eunuchs, he opposes their idea that leaders are figureheads and nations are dirt. And since the High Eunuchs lost the support of the Chinese people, they were no longer eligible for Britannian titles.
  • When Charles is revealed to have faked his disappearance during the UFN ceremony, Schneizel is appalled by his theatrics.
• Evil Counterpart: To Lelouch. The biggest difference, Lelouch points out, is that Schneizel is sheltered in a villainous royal family and lacks perspective on what the world is really like. Opposed to his Good Counterpart, who wishes greatly to destroy Britannia and knows the man on the street well enough to have more than just selfish reasons.
• Evil Mentor: To Nina. After she nearly bombed Ashford with her prototype FLEIJA, he took her under his wing and began emotionally manipulating her whilst simultaneously funding research on how to complete said prototype. He repeatedly uses her unhealthy attachment to Euphie as a means of convincing her to go further and further in morally questionable territory, and lied to her over the actual purpose of the FLEIJA, leading her to believe they would simply be for intimidation tactics rather than actually used as Nuke's. He then abandons her once she completes her research, and is content to let her be scapegoated as the sole person behind the death of thousands with the first FLEIJA as he uses the ones she made without their limiters in his attempt to conquer the world.
• The Evils of Free Will: His Damocles plan, in a nutshell. He believes if given a choice, humanity will continue to war and destroy itself.
• False Reassurance: A master of these as part of his manipulations. Particularly when manipulating Nina and even the Black Knights during the final arc. A good example is claiming that he never lost a chess match against Lelouch; leaving out that, aside from the one match at the Chinese Federation, he hasn't had a chess match against Lelouch in years (not since he was nine) as well as all the times their matches ended in a draw, including the Chinese Federation match.
• Fatal Flaw: An absolute inability to accept defeat. He only plays games he knows he can win, and would much rather pull a "sophisticated" equivalent of a Rage Quit if loss is even a small possibility. This flaw is precisely what results in his most humiliating and humbling defeat.
• Fate Worse than Death: His ultimate fate. He was mind controlled into obeying his arch enemy (or more specifically Zero), but we don't know whether he's completely mindless or just encouraged. Granted, this could cure his lack of ambition, since he now has something to fight for. Maybe.
• Faux Affably Evil: He wears the mask of a kind, affable ruler, polite to all of his subjects, and even towards his foes. In truth, Schneizel is a sociopath who can and will manipulate everyone around him to further his goals, and even nuking and killing millions means absolutely nothing to him.
• Final Boss: He has the honor of being Lelouch's final opponent.
• Foil: To Lelouch, in practically every way. Lelouch dresses in black and purple while Schneizel dresses in white and gold. Lelouch is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold while Schneizel wears a Mask of Sanity that hides his sociopathy. Lelouch leads a shadowy resistance movement while Schneizel is the Prime Minister of Britannia. As Zero, Lelouch has to rely on grandiouse spectacle to lead while Schneizel simply acts like a traditional leader to acquire followers. Finally, Lelouch and Schneizel both want ot tear down Britannia's darwinist society, but Lelouch wants to do so democratically while Schneizel wants to hold the world hostage with Damocles.
• Germanic Efficiency: Compared to other Britannian royals, he doesn't indulge in theatrics during battle, instead going for efficiency, cunning, and sheer ruthlessness.
• A God Am I: Who commands a floating battle station with has orbital nuclear capability. It's implied in later versions that he's just rolling with it as long as he achieves his goals.
• The Heavy: In Season 2 (taking up the role from Cornelia in Season 1). Despite the fact that Charles holds the title of Emperor, Schneizel directly oversees the administration of the Holy Britannian Empire and commands its military as Britannia's Prime Minister. Therefore, throughout the second season, it is primarily he whom Lelouch must match wits with in his war against the forces of Britannia.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Gets Geassed to 'serve Zero' by Lelouch.
• Hope Crusher: One of his methods in easily dealing with opponents. It is also part of his overall goal for the world, believing that hopes and dreams are excuses for selfish ambitions that cause humanity’s problems.
  “Everyone knows, don’t they, people are driven by their own desires. The fire the dwells within the human soul cannot be denied. Hope and dreams are just words for aimless fiction.”
• Humans Are Bastards: His subscription to this philosophy is what compels him to use the Damocles to hold the entire world hostage for fear of being nuked off the map. Lelouch theorizes that he gained this mindset as a result of being born a royal and never really seeing humans do anything altruistic without having some ulterior motive.
• Humiliation Conga: Got a really spectacular one in the Grand Finale. See the main page for details.
• Karma Houdini: Despite being Geassed to serve "Zero" for the rest of his life, it doesn't change the fact that not once is he truly made to pay for his numerous war crimes, including nuking a fully populated city without warning - his own homeland no less. By Re;surrection, he still enjoys a position of power and authority as a Britannian diplomat.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: A master at this, too. The dick. Lelouch was already close to the Despair Event Horizon with the apparent death of Nunnally, and while he was in his private quarters, his big brother took the opportunity to convert the Black Knights to his own side. As if that weren't bad enough, he also hid away Nunnally, who he had secretly saved, and later uses her against him...long after Lelouch can't back out of being the "Demon Emperor".
• Lack of Empathy: When he nukes Pendragon he doesn't care at all he killed millions of people.
• Large and in Charge: At a staggering 201 cm, he's taller than his father Charles and is the leader of the opposition faction against Lelouch.
• Lesser of Two Evils: Successfully presents himself as one of these to turn the Black Knights against Lelouch, and later cooperate in taking down the latter.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Pulls this on the Black Knights and Lelouch by getting the former to betray their leader.
• Light Is Not Good: Dresses exclusively in white and as the rest of the examples prove he is not a good person.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Zig-zagged in comparison to Charles - both have sympathetic motivations for their schemes (kill 'God' via the Ragnarok Connection for Charles and intimidate the world into a global peace via FLEIJA for Schneizel). Although Schneizel, due to his sociopathy, has no concern with sacrificing millions to achieve this goal, his plan would grant humanity more autonomy than Charles' Assimilation Plot.
• Manipulative Bastard: He tricks the Black Knights into turning against Lelouch so that he could weaken them and make it easier to destroy his enemies. Not to mention how he continuously manipulated Nina throughout R2.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Schneizel kind of fits the "evil German" stereotype, once he's revealed to be a ruthless killer. Also, the Real Life British Royal family is German. They changed their name to Windsor during WW1, but until then it was Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
  • His name has "sch" in it, it resembles the word schnitzel and he's blonder than blond. Most people will think of him as German, if for no other reason (insert Johan Liebert comparison) than stereotypes.
• Metaphorically True: Namely, the stuff he says about Lelouch when he presents to the Black Knights.
• Mirror Character: To Lelouch particularly at the very end of the anime, where both are Knight Templars willing to die for their ideals, and whose plans to bring about world peace both involve the slaughter and subjugation of millions.
• More than Mind Control: His preferred approach to people who can be useful to him, including Nina and even Nunnally.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Despite being huge and imposing in person, he's a schemer non-combatant through and through. Unlike Cornelia, Schneizel prefers to sit back and watch rather than go up on the front lines. It doesn't mean he's any less dangerous.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: See Boring, but Practical. Schneizel never indulges in grandiosity or spectacle when in battle, taking an extremely methodical approach. This is why he doesn't immediately throw nukes at everyone until he's in the best position for it.
• Nuke 'em: His solution to world peace is a floating fortress armed with nukes.
• Oh, Crap!: Just before Lelouch uses his Geass on him, Schneizel has this look on his face as he realizes what Lelouch's true plan is.
• Overlord Jr.: He's the de facto head of Charles' military and oversees his campaigns while his father is busy with other matters. Of all his siblings, Schneizel is the most like-minded to their father.
• Playing the Victim Card: His remark that he himself could be under the Geass command of Lelouch when meeting with the Black Knights.
• Privileged Rival: As the functionally second most powerful person in Britannia, he is able to fund some of the most advanced battlefront tech via the Camelot department, and later, a ton of high-yield nukes.
• Quote Mine: Schneizel pulls this one on Lelouch and his Sarcastic Confession to Suzaku of deliberately geassing Euphie and then killing her, and uses it to implicate him in front of the Black Knights, leaving out the rest of the conversation, including Suzaku calling out Lelouch for lying. With a little extra suspicious yet cursory evidence, it's incredibly effective.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Subverted. He certainly pretends to be such, but the reality is that he sees people as mere pawns and even "toys" for him to manipulate and use until they are not of use anymore.
• Red Herring: Set up as a suspect for killing Marianne. It turns out to be V.V.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Lelouch's Red. He's calm, understated in how he rules and leads people. Not to mention has a serious Lack of Empathy Lelouch is more prone to dramatics and making choices based on emotions. He also does everything he does out of caring for the world.
• Royally Screwed Up: At least, screwed up enough to directly or indirectly nuke the entirety of the Britannian nobility near the end of the series, including the brothers and sisters that were not Cornelia, Nunnally, or Lelouch...
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: A military commander and political leader.
• Shadow Archetype: He's essentially the person Lelouch would have become if he was not exiled, as without his exposure to suffering in Japan, Lelouch would probably never have developed empathy for others besides his mom and Nunnally.
• A Sinister Clue: His chess match with Zero in China hints that his true character is that of a Dirty Coward and not quite the brilliant strategist he's made out to be: The moment it appears as if he'll lose, or even be caught in a three-move repetition (typically resulting in a draw), he effectively throws the match as bait, having pre-prepared character exposes to lecture his opponent whether they take it or not. It reveals that he will only play a challenge to completion if he's absolutely certain he'll win. During the final battle, after Lelouch sneaks aboard Damocles, Schneizel immediately books it and sets it to self-destruct simply because Lelouch has a small window for potential victory. He's the sort who would much rather Rage Quit in a blaze of glory than ever suffer a defeat, which turns out to be the Fatal Flaw very much results in his grandest and most humiliating defeat.
• Self-Made Orphan: It's implied he was going to try this, but Lelouch beat him to it. In the spinoff manga Suzaku of the Counterattack, he actually does the deed and pins it on Lelouch.
• Smart People Play Chess: The only one that can beat Lelouch at chess.
• The Social Expert: One could argue he's even better at it than Lelouch. At least until Lelouch plays him.
• The Sociopath: The guy has no problem nuking several million people and his siblings!
• The Starscream: It's heavily implied he would have had Charles killed at some point if Lelouch hadn't gotten to their dad first.
• The Stoic: He never raises his voice, and doesn't really emote much past "bored and disinterested with the world". All this serves to higlight just how much he's hiding what a murderous lunatic he actually is.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: Runs in the blood, more than he would care to admit. His Damocles plan boils down that peace throughout the world is worth the sacrifice of "the few" to the FLEIJA to force everyone to bow under him.
• Übermensch: Schneizel dreams of a peaceful world which he will enact by threatening humanity into submission with his arsenal of FLEIJA warheads, which he will decide when to fire.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: He's willing to destroy entire cities or countries if that's what it takes to make the world submit to his rule and live in harmony.
• Villains Never Lie: Invokes this when tricking the Black Knights into turning on Lelouch as Zero. In truth, Schneizel barely ever tells the truth.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Schneizel is adept at getting people on his side. He is well-liked amongst Britannian nations and with a few choice words is able to turn the Black Knights on Lelouch, effectively eliminating all the progress his brother had made in almost two seasons of work.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He sees human ambition as the source of all conflict, so his plan is to scare the entire world into giving up violence using nukes.
• Xanatos Gambit: The guy never plays games where he loses. Lelouch exploits this to defeat him in the end.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: In the time it took Lelouch to travel (by boat) to the Chinese Federation, Schneizel had already conceived of, and put into action a plan that would not only recapture Lelouch, but also end the conflict between Britannia and the Chinese Federation. All without shedding a single drop of blood. Even Lelouch is amazed by Schneizel's efficiency.

Prince Clovis la Britannia

Voiced by: Nobuo Tobita (Japanese), Sam Riegel (English)

"I was just speaking to Clovis. He is at peace now. He's sitting on a beach".

Prince of Britannia and governor of Area 11 prior to the start of Code Geass. He was the first of Lelouch's relatives that he encounters (and kills) after acquiring the Geass.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: If not from Lelouch, he was at the very least dearly loved and missed by the rest of his family. Cornelia in particular took his death rather hard and swore bloody revenge on Zero.
• Antagonistic Governor: Governor of Area 11 and Starter Villain of the series.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Nice, uhm... swimsuit designs, man.
• General Failure: His grasp of military matters is lacking, to say the least.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He was very kind to his siblings, loved his mother and was a talented artist who painted and even designed lingerie and swimsuits. He also dabbled in architecture.
  • For added emphasis, Cornelia, during the conversation from when he decides to become Viceroy from one of the Sound Dramas, notes that he is too kind for the job.
  • During their childhood, Clovis would often challenge Lelouch to chess matches, even though he'd always lose. Clovis didn't mind since he enjoyed the time he got to spend with his younger brother.
• Irony:
  • By R2, it's a popular In-Universe conspiracy theory that Zero was actually Clovis all along. In fairness, it's easy to see why this would be: Clovis' death coincided with Zero's grand debut; and Clovis, like Lelouch, was a charismatic orator with a penchant for exaggerated gestures and a flair for the dramatic.
  • His hatred of the Japanese people was because he believed they killed Lelouch and Nunnally. Years later, he runs into Lelouch, only for Lelouch to kill him, and create a revolution for the Japanese people.
• Karmic Death: He orders the destruction of the Shinjuku ghetto and its inhabitants, to leave no one alive. He then gets killed off by Lelouch not long after.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: The real reason why he hated the Elevens/Japanese (as well as his Start of Darkness) so much was because he blamed them for Lelouch and Nunnally's "deaths" when Japan was destroyed.
• Large Ham: He certainly had the hand gestures down.
• Meaningful Name:
  • He shares his name with several Frankish kings.
  • The "Clove" was the first British trade ship to make port in Japan.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Lelouch felt this a few episodes after he killed Clovis. Yes, Lelouch, you just killed your brother and you'll have to live with it.
• Nerves of Steel: Surprisingly. When held at gunpoint by a masked terrorist making demands of him, he reacts to the situation with mockery, giving way to irritation once his assailant gets cryptic. It's not until the mask comes off and he realises with whom he's dealing that Clovis starts to panic.
• Nice Guy: Used to be one. Despite taking his rivalry with Lelouch rather seriously, he was always described as a kind and gentle person. After he learned of the "deaths" of Lelouch and Nunnally, he became severely depressed and blamed Japan for it.
• Oh, Crap!: When he learns the identity of the person who led the insurgence against his massacre of Shinjuku — none other than his thought-to-be-dead brother Lelouch. Notable in that he is also overjoyed, given his love for him.
• Reluctant Ruler: Deconstructed. He's a painter, not a warrior or politician, and he wanted nothing to do with that sort of work, even though that made his family seriously look down on him. But then, his younger brother Lelouch, who he secretly admired, was (supposedly) killed in the invasion of Japan, and Clovis thought he should accept the role of Viceroy to honor him. Advised by his older brother and sister that "a soft heart is not a virtue", he attempts to become the sort of ruthless Viceroy the other Britannians would want him to be, under the mistaken belief that Lelouch would want that, too. By the time we see him in the beginning of the series, several years later, he's completely fallen into that to the point where Lelouch wants nothing more than to kill him - and does, in the first few episodes.
• Sacrificial Lamb: A rare villainous example - given his set-up as a major antagonist back in Episode 1, who actually expected him to go out as quickly as he did?
• Shadow Archetype: Despite only appearing for a few episodes, Clovis serves as this to Lelouch ironically enough.
• Smug Snake: It's shown he has a very poor grasp of battle plans but is (over-)confident he can crush his enemy's forces simply by sending waves and waves of men. Needless to say, he has quite the freak out when Lelouch defeats his forces and goes for him.
• Spared by the Adaptation. Subverted in Nightmare of Nunnally. She spares him when she attacks his HQ in the beginning and urges him to leave... but then Lelouch catches up to Clovis and kills him anyway.
• Starter Villain: For Lelouch as a strategist, he was a mere warm up.
• Start of Darkness: Became Viceroy of Area 11 in hopes of making it a fitting memorial to his thought to be dead siblings. Fell into depression and despair, and subsequently became ruthless towards the Elevens.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: As noted above, he was a very kind person at one point. But despair at losing Lelouch and Nunnally drove him to become far more vindictive, racist and ruthless towards the Elevens, seeing them as little more than barbarians who took away his little brother and sister.

Prince Odysseus Eu Britannia

Voiced by: Jin Yamanoi (Japanese), Peter Emshwiller (English)

First Prince of the royal family. He seems to be a rather kind man, but is utterly outclassed by the hypercompetent nature of most other royal children.

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• Arranged Marriage: He was to be married to the Empress of the Chinese Federation but the Black Knights put a stop to that. He doesn't mind either way.
• Black Sheep: By no means a complete screw-up, but he's completely inadequate when compared to his more active siblings. Lelouch even calls him a ridiculously ordinary man.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Not so much that he's actively evil and moreso that he's complicitly evil, but he's glad that to learn that Lelouch and Nunnally are alive.
• Everybody Has Standards: He's shocked when Lelouch reveals that he killed their father in a Klingon Promotion, and asks him to step down, believing it to be some sort of juvenile prank.
• Extreme Doormat: He's indecisive and has to either be prodded into making decisions or have the decisions made for him.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: The first clue that he's not in the same league as Lelouch, Schneizel, or even Nunnally is that he lacks the trademark purple eyes his siblings have.
• Ironic Name: You wouldn't expect a man named "Odysseus" to be so guileless.
• Irony: After Lelouch becomes Emperor, he makes Odysseus join the military as a foot soldier.
• Kick the Dog: After Lelouch declares himself as Emperor via Klingon Promotion, Guinevere orders the royal guard to execute him for it. Odysseus, who has been politely asking him to step down, doesn't do anything to stop Guinevere's order.
• May–December Romance: He was to be married to Empress Tianzi, who is no older than 13 at the time. He doesn't have any qualms about it and doesn't have any qualms when it gets cancelled.
• Non-Action Guy: Claims he's not very good at fighting when talking to Tianzi. After Lelouch declares himself as Emperor, he makes Odysseus join the military as a mook.
• Pet the Dog: He's fine with the Arranged Marriage being put to a halt as long as Tianzi is unharmed, despite barely knowing her.
• Spoiled Brat: Downplayed. His position as the first prince implies that he's pampered quite a bit, hence his obliviousness and incompetence at doing things himself. He seems to be close to Guinevere and Carine.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He greatly resembles his father, Emperor Charles.
• Token Good Teammate: Downplayed. Though he seems to be a Nice Guy, is a Non-Action Guy, and is overshadowed by his other siblings, he's still complicit in the crimes of the Britannian Empire because of his inaction. As Charles's firstborn son, he's likely lived his entire life pampered and privileged, believing that the world is the way it is just because. Lelouch presumably sees through it.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Along with sisters, Guinevere and Carine, we don't see him after Lelouch's coronation, nor do we learn his fate after the bombing of Pendragon.

Princess Guinevere du Britannia

Voiced by: Junko Asami (Japanese), Kari Wahlgren (English)

1st princess in line for the throne, and the eldest sister in the royal family. Rarely seen in the series, but carries the usual attitude of Britannians.

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• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • She seem's to care for each Carine considering that they're Those Two Guys, as well as Odysseus.
  • Upon learning Lelouch killed their father, Guinevere attempts to retaliate using the royal guard, citing that he killed the Emperor. Whether or not she actually cares about her father or just wants to keep her noble status or both isn't clear.
• Everybody Has Standards: She's surprised to learn that Lelouch, her brother, is alive. Her reaction to his survival is neutral until he reveals he killed their father and claims the throne for himself, after which she orders the guards to kill him.
• Foil: To Cornelia. Cornelia actively serves Britannia in the military while Guinevere seems to relish in her position as First Princess.
• Humiliation Conga: Once Lelouch Geasses her, she and Carine are the first to swear their loyalty to him. The last we see of her is acting as a maid and cleaning the castle.
• Kick the Dog: She orders the royal guard to execute her own half-brother, Lelouch, when he reveals he killed their father and has taken the throne.
• Non-Action Guy: She has no military or governmental role.
• Out of Focus: She's the member of the Britannian Royal Family to receive the least overall focus, with even her older brother Odysseus having more appearances due to his role in the arranged marriage to Tianzi.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: She is seen purchasing buildings whenever she feels like it.
• Those Two Guys: Usually always seen with Carine and at least in the same scene.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After Lelouch takes over as emperor, we don't see her again nor learn of her fate after the destruction of the Pendragon.

Princess Carine ne Britannia

Voiced by: Emi Motoi (Japanese), Kate Higgins (English)

The 5th princess in line for the throne, and third oldest out of the royal siblings. A Bratty Half-Pint who carries the typical Britannian arrogance. While largely a bit character in the original anime, she plays a slightly larger role in Code Geass: Oz the Reflection.

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• Ascended Extra: While originally just one of Those Two Guys with Guinevere, she gets more focus in the Oz manga, and manages to actually survive the bombing of Pendragon.
• The Cameo: Carine can be seen when Lelouch and Nunnally leave for Japan at the beginning of the first compilation movie.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • She and Guinevere seem to care for each other considering that they're Those Two Guys, as well as Odysseus.
  • She seems to care for Lelouch and Nunnally (or at least used to), as she's present when they leave for Japan, though she does appear to be irritated, whether at just being there or them having to leave is unknown.
  • She's close enough to Marrybell that she almost begs her to just give the Lancelot Trial to a group of invading terrorists rather than risk letting them kill her.
• Foil: To Nunnally and Euphemia. Carine is an openly racist Royal Brat who enjoys bloodshed amongst other non-Britannian groups, whereas Euphemia is a Politically-Active Princess and both she and Nunnally want peace.
• Hidden Depths: The Oz manga manages to flesh her out somewhat, namely showing she does care about her siblings, and was able to inspire loyalty in someone enough for them to become her Knight of Honor.
• Humiliation Conga: Once Lelouch Geasses her, she and Guinevere are the first to swear their loyalty to him. She's then forced to act as a maid and clean the castle, and would have died in the bombing of Pendragon were it not for Dasko, but still lost her memories in the process.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Whether due to trauma or a residual effect of the FLEIJA, Carine lost all of her memories when Dasko saved her from Pendragon's destruction.
• Pet the Dog: In The Awakening Path, Carine seems saddened when Lelouch and Nunnally depart for Japan. This doubles as a Continuity Nod to the Oz manga, where it's demonstrated she does care about her siblings to an extent.
• Those Two Guys: Has this dynamic with Guinevere in the anime. Averted in the Oz manga, where she appears more often on her own.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Averted. After Lelouch takes over as emperor, we don't see her again nor learn of her fate after the destruction of the Pendragon in the anime. The Oz manga however reveals that her personal knight, Dasko la Clermont, saved her before the destruction of Pendragon, although she was rendered an amnesiac.

Princess Marrybell mel Britannia

Voiced by: Maaya Uchida (Picture Drama)

Marrybell mel Britannia is 88th in line to the throne of the Britannian Empire, and the founder and leader of the anti-terrorism organization "Glinda Knights" within the Britannian military. She is childhood friends with Oldrin Zevon and attended military academy with her.

Marrybell's single-handed establishment of the Glinda Knights was triggered by the loss of her mother and younger sister in a terrorist attack when she was young. Although usually misunderstood as having just a lovely appearance and a gentle demeanor, she is a sharp and able person who possesses situational assessment and strategy-designing abilities and keeps others at a distance.

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• All for Nothing: After encountering Jeremiah and having the Geass placed on her by Charles broken, Marrybell starts suffering nightmares over the night her mother and sister died. When Oiagros confronts her and reveals to her that it was actually V.V. who killed her family, not terrorists, she nearly breaks down upon realizing that all her ruthless behavior in fighting terrorists, even driving away her friends in the Glinda Knights, was all for nothing.
• Beware of the Nice Ones: Following the death of her mother and sister, Marrybell became ruthless and bloodthirsty. The only reason she's so nice is because of the influence of the people around her. Left on her own however...
• Bodyguard Crush: The bodyguard, in this case, is Oldrin. Though it seems to go beyond being a crush if this scene is something to go by here, or this scene here make what you will of them.
• The Cameo: She briefly appears in the first compilation film as one of the members of the royal family watching Lelouch and Nunnally leave for Japan, and is later shown amidst a photo of the royal family in the present day.
• Cool Ship: Has her own ship, the Granberry as shown here◊.
• Covert Pervert: Heavily implied to be this; Marrybell does wear rather erotic underwear, and there's also the custom KMF uniforms she and the other female members wear. There's also her strange habit of ending up in Oldrin's bed on nights when she has nightmares.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her mother and sister were killed in a terrorist attack. Suspiciously similar to how Lelouch lost his mother, actually. It's later revealed that V.V. bombed her home when she was a child and she was the only survivor.
• Disney Villain Death: Though she can't really be called a villain per say, she falls to her death together with Orpheus in the finale.
• Distaff Counterpart: She's effectively a female version of Lelouch, down to having nigh-identical backstories. Both lost their family to who they believed to be terrorists at a young age when they were really killed by V.V., confront Charles over failing to protect them despite still being kids, had said events ultimately shape their lives going forward as they attempted to avenge their deaths and create a better world, and entered contracts to gain Geass to aid their quests. The main points of divergence being that whereas Lelouch still had Nunnally and was forced into exile, Marrybell lost her sister and had her memories sealed away by Charles. This in turn led Lelouch to become Zero, while Marrybell regained her royal status and starting hunting terrorists. It's because of their similar backgrounds and Marrybell regaining her memory that, when Lelouch becomes Emperor and enacts the Zero Requiem, Marrybell willingly allies with him and helps him enact it.
• Hide Your Lesbians: Apparently only Toto knows about her... affection for Oldrin.
• Humongous Mecha: The large and terrifying Elphaba is her last Knightmare, taking some vibes from the Devil Gundam.
• Inter-Class Romance: Marrybell is a princess, Oldrin is regular noble.
• Magical Eye: Possesses a Geass, and to further her similarity to Lelouch, it allows her to control others, but in a way that’s harsher than his. The difference being it permanently forces others to completely obey any and all her commands by default, much like how Lelouch eventually used his Geass when he became Emperor. The drawback being those under it have their personalities and egos completely destroyed, essentially becoming mindless dolls that will only carry out the specific commands she gives them, and nothing else.
• More than Mind Control: Unlike the OTHER members of royalty she WILLINGLY signs on with Lelouch and becomes a Key Figure in the Zero Requiem.
• Mythology Gag: Her personal Knightmare, the Lancelot Trial, serves as one to the original concept art for Suzaku's Lancelot, as it was originally envisioned as being red in color.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: As she becomes more ruthless in her quest to stop terrorism, many of her friends begin to become allienated from her, starting with her lover Oldrin defecting to the Stars of Madrid, and eventually culminating in the rest of the Glinda Knights all but abandoning her once Oldrin rejoins them. While she chalks it up to her accepting Geass meaning she'd be isolated, upon learning from Oiagros the truth about the night her family died, she nearly breaks down realizing she drove her friends away for nothing.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After officially becoming Viceroy of Area 24/Spain, Marrybell becomes much more ruthless in cracking down on terrorism, which puts her at odds with Oldrin due to the latter sympathizing with the plight of the conquered areas, of which the terrorists are largely comprised of. As such, when Oldrin defects and joins the Stars of Madrid resistance group, Marrybell replaces her with Lyre (actually Orpheus) without a second thought. This only begins to be undone once Jeremiah accidentally removes the Geass Charles put on her and Oiagros reveals the truth to her about the night her family died.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: She willingly joins Lelouch in the Zero Requiem, and, as part of it, is put in charge of the Damocles after Lelouch takes control of it, making her into an enemy of the world. As a result, she's killed in a Murder-Suicide with Orpheus, the latter having done so to spare Oldrin from having to kill the woman she loved. The only ones aware she was apart of the Zero Requiem being Lelouch himself, and her knight Oiagros.

Princess Laila la Britannia

The younger sister of Clovis la Britannia. Appears in the mobile game Code Geass: Maelstrom of Libra.

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• Black Bra and Panties: Though with some of her outfits she doesn't seem to wear a bra.
• Canon Immigrant: While she debuts in a mobile game, she makes a brief appearance during the first compilation movie when Lelouch and Nunnally leave for Japan, Clovis stopping her from going to them. She later is shown with the rest of the royal family in a photo in the present.
• Marilyn Maneuver: Laila is shown doing this pose here◊.
• Vapor Wear: She doesn't seem to be wearing a bra.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It's never clarified what became of her during the series proper. While the compilation movies show her as part of the portrait depicting the, at the time, still living members sans Lelouch and Nunnally, it's never clarified if she was still in Pendragon or not. If she was, then it runs the risk of becoming Uncertain Doom due to Schneizel using a FLEIJA on it.

Other Relatives

V.V.

Voiced by: Kazato Tomizawa (TV series), Hidenosuke Kawashiro (movies) (Japanese), Cindy Robinson (English)

"The most splendid relationship in the world is that of loyal siblings."

V.V. (pronounced V2) is a mysterious boy with blond hair longer than his body. He has gained the power of immortality through a Geass contract like C.C. He can grant Geass contracts like her, having given both the Emperor and Rolo Lamperouge their Geass abilities, among others in the Geass Order.

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• Abusive Parents: His contractors in the Geass Order, with his brother Charles being an exception, are essentially his "children" in spirit, with Clara Lefranc and Toto Thompson even calling him as their "father" in Oz The Reflection. Said children of his were subjected to cruel experimentation under his watch to test the effects of their Geass and he has no qualm or care whether they live or die. He ordered that Orpheus and Euliya be hunted down and killed after they escaped the Order in Orpheus's backstory, which resulted in Euliya's death, personally shot and killed Toto Thompson near the end of the first half of the Oz The Reflection series for defying him when she tried to protect the Zevon Twins from the awful truth, didn't care at all that Clara was killed by Orpheus, and called Rolo a worthless failure to his face.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the Compilation Movie, he foresaw Jeremiah's defection, considering it to be worth it because it still confirmed that Lelouch was Zero.
• Adapted Out: He doesn't exist in the Nightmare of Nunnally series as Charles is shown to be an only child in his flashbacks in that continuity as opposed to the main series, where he was V.V.'s younger twin brother. As a result, the culprit responsible for Marianne's murder in the spin-off series is someone else entirely.
• The Ageless: Thanks to taking up a Code, he would always remain a ten-year-old boy.
• Alliterative Name: If those are indeed his initials. Extra materials subvert it; his true name is "Victor zi Britannia".
• Asshole Victim: Charles kills him because he lied to him again and to take his Code, but it's difficult to feel sorry for him.
• Berserk Button: Seeing Marianne getting cozy with his brother really riles him up.
• Big Bad: He has a more antagonistic role in Oz the Reflection and it's sequel O2 and is indirectly responsible for the deaths of Marrybell's family and the death of Euliya, Orpheus' lover. He is also the producer of Geass users with the likes of Toto Thompson, Clare Lefranc, Orpheus Zevon, and Rolo Haliburton A.K.A Nebiros.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He fancies himself to be the ultimate manipulator and thinks he can pulls the strings, even on his brother. He was wrong.
• Big Brother Instinct: A flashback as he dies reveals he took on the Code in Charles's place specifically so his younger brother need not be burdened with immortality. He also, though in a horribly twisted manner, thought he was protecting Charles by killing Marianne.
• Break Them by Talking: Tries subduing Cornelia with words. It does not work.
• The Chessmaster: Quite possibly the most calculatingly malicious character in the series.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Purple is the trademark eye color of cunning Britannia royalty.
• Complete Immortality: Similarly to C.C., V.V. is immortal thanks to possessing a Code, which was how he remained forever ten-years-old while his younger twin brother, Charles, grew up to become an old man. This immortality also allows him to survive the most grievous of injuries, including Cornelia embedding a knife deep in his forehead. This is later averted when Charles punishes V.V. for his constant lying by taking his immortality away, leaving him to die of his wounds.
• Create Your Own Hero: If he hadn't killed Marianne, Lelouch likely would have never become so opposed to Britannia and ultimately the Ragnarok Connection.
• Creepy Child: Although not technically a child, he's one of the creepiest characters in the series.
• Creepy Twins: He and Charles are fraternal twin brothers, though they don't look like it due to V.V.'s immortality rendering him a child while Charles is an old man. However, the way they treat their fellow humans like pawns in their plans is appalling.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Losing a parent - it's implied that when they were young, V.V. and Charles discovered that some ambitious relatives dropped a carriage on their mother, crushing her to death, just because they weren't happy with the boys being named heirs to the Britannian throne. In "The Ragnarok Connection", one magical portrait shows an image of a young V.V. and Charles looking horrified, and another shows an image of the corpse of the twins' mother, its head reduced to bloody pulp.
• Didn't See That Coming: He wasn't expecting Marianne to have a Geass like himself or his brother... or the fact that someone else would've been watching, like Anya Alstreim, who became the prime target of Marianne's possession and is the sole reason she survived at all.
• Enfant Terrible: Subverted. Chronologically, he should be a man in his 60's. But he got his Code at an early age so his brother, Charles, wouldn't take up the burden, so his physical growth was forever stunted. That said, while V.V. looks like a child, his personality is just as manipulative and cruel as Charles'.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • His mother, who was killed when some treacherous nobles dropped a carriage on her for naming her twin sons heirs to the throne, crushing her to death. This is what caused V.V. and Charles to create a "world without lies".
  • All the sick, twisted things he does are essentially out of his brotherly devotion to Charles and their ultimate goal. It's just that not even Charles always approves.
• Evil Counterpart: Like Lelouch and Rolo, he will go to extremes out of love for his sibling, even if they don't approve.
• Evil Uncle: V.V. has no problem harming and attempting to kill Charles's children, who are all his blood-related nieces and nephews. He kidnapped his niece, Nunnally, and tried to have his nephew, Lelouch, assassinated because he believed they were taking his brother Charles away from him and their Assimilation Plot. It's also revealed that he was the one who had Marrybell's mother killed, and was also responsible for her sister's demise as well.
• Foil: To Marianne. V.V., as Emperor Charles' twin brother, is royalty and has much closer ties to him than Marianne, a commoner who became Empress by marriage. However, despite V.V.'s beliefs, Marianne stayed faithful to Charles' Assimilation Plot; while V.V. himself broke his vows of honesty by doing shady things behind Charles's back, which ironically was out of love and loyalty towards his brother... which eventually got him killed by Charles himself when he got fed up with his treachery. Marianne, on the other hand, was returned to her old body after her stint of possessing Anya Alstreim was over, just in time to reveal the truth to her son together with her husband.
• Freudian Excuse: He and his brother, Charles, grew up during the "Emblem of Blood", a time where royal family members would betray and kill each other to sit on the Britannian throne. When they saw their mother get crushed by a falling carriage because of their relatives' scheming, they vowed to create a "world without lies".
• Green-Eyed Monster: Really hates Marianne as he believed that she was leading Charles astray from their plans, which motivated him to try murder her in cold blood and cover it up with a terrorist alibi. It's implied this envious hatred might not just be directed at her as he kidnapped his niece, tried to send an assassin after his nephew, came into confict with his other niece, and ended up provoking her into throwing a knife at his head.
• Harmful to Minors: It's implied in "The Ragnarok Connection" that V.V. and Charles witnessed their mother get crushed by a carriage that some ambitious nobles dropped on her out of spite; as an adult Charles explains his motives in creating his "world without lies", one picture shows the younger selves of V.V. and his brother staring at something in horror... and another picture shows a woman whose head was crushed by a fallen carriage.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In more ways than one. Sending Marianne's admirer, Jeremiah, to assassinate Lelouch backfired, resulting in Jeremiah committing an about face and leading Lelouch to his doorstep, but not in the way V.V. anticipated at all, leading to the latter's defeat. V.V., still recovering from his internal injuries, made the mistake of seeking refuge in the presence of his brother Charles, who he had not bothered to inform that he had sent an assassin after Lelouch. Charles, still seething from V. V.'s earlier lies in violation of their pledge and contract to liberate the world from them, has had the last straw. Since Charles had a fully evolved Geass, you can probably guess what happens next...
• Horrible Judge of Character: A villainous example. First, he fails to anticipate that spending a year as Lelouch's "brother" might encourage Rolo to defect. Then, he sends Jeremiah after Lelouch despite knowing that he already has a reason to defect- his Undying Loyalty to Marianne and her children. He even thought his own brother would be too distracted by Marianne to carry out the Ragnarok Connection, when Charles apparently never lost sight of it. Making his attempt to kill Marianne more pointless than it already was.
• Karmic Death: The best example in the series by a longshot, for all the crap that he caused. He caused the events of Code Geass by secretly murdering Marianne in cold blood (or he thought so) and lying about it to Charles, breaking his promise of honesty. Ultimately, his treachery in the name of the Assimilation Plot gets him killed when Charles strips V.V. of his immortality and leaves his brother to die.
• Knight of Cerebus: Whenever he gets involved, things always get worse.
• Kubrick Stare: Thanks to constantly having an expression of half-lidded apathy, V.V. is capable of doing this whenever he gets into a scheming mood, especially when he pairs it up with a devious smirk...
• Little Big Brother: He's actually Charles' older brother, but because he got a Code at a very young age, he looks like a prepubescent boy.
• Little Guy, Big Buddy: With his twin brother Emperor Charles, who has grown into a large man while he stayed in a child's body due to his Code.
• Manipulative Bastard: Kidnapped his niece, Nunnally, and then informed C.C. about it in order to lure Lelouch (and, more importantly from his point of view, C.C.) away from the Battle of Tokyo at a critical moment, then also revealed the truth about Geass and Euphemia's death to Suzaku in order to have him come kill Lelouch. Also quite possibly had something to do with Villetta showing up, with memories returned, at a crucial moment and shooting Ohgi, thus causing further chaos in the Black Knights' temporary headquarters and command structure.
• Meaningful Name: The fact that his name is referred to as initials like C.C., except in his case, it's V.V. This serves as Foreshadowing that he is also an immortal Code bearer, but unlike C.C., who helps the protagonist numerous times, V.V. is manipulative, possessive, and jealous.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When you send out an assassin, make sure he has no unrequited loyalties to the matriarch of the target. You just might have a Heel–Face Turn in the works. And had V.V. not murdered Marianne, Lelouch may have never stumbled upon his parents' Ragnarok Connection plan or, if he did, would have supported it as he would have remained a prince instead of experiencing what he did to turn him against Britannia.
• Older Than They Look: He looks even younger than Nunnally, but really he's Emperor Charles' twin brother.
• Only Known by Initials: Much like C.C., his real name is never revealed, though it's assumed his title would include "Britannia". Extra materials reveal his real name is Victor zi Britannia.
• Pet the Dog: During the raid on the Order, he takes Lelouch on himself to buy his men time to escape. Also, in his final moments, he shows genuine affection toward Charles, stating that he took on the burden of immortality for his sake.
• Purple Is Powerful: V.V. wears purple clothes, and he's very high up in the Britannian hierarchy, being the leader of both Pluton and the Geass Order, and having close ties to the Emperor himself who is his younger twin brother and regent of Britannia.
• Royal Blood: As Charles' older twin brother, he's technically the rightful Emperor of Britannia, though him possessing a Code means his existence must be kept secret from the masses. This means that Charles is effectively ruling in his place as regent.
• The Sociopath: By far the most ruthlessly calculating character in the series, and that's saying something.
• The Unreveal: It's never said in any canon how he got his Code. All that can be said for certain is that he was very much so a child when he did.
• Villain Ball: Sends Jeremiah, a prime risk for a Heel–Face Turn, after Lelouch with no back-up to insure that he obeys orders. This is after one assassin has already defected to Lelouch.
• Yandere: Non-sexual type. When he felt his brother lost focus on their Ragnarok Connection plan, he murdered his wife (or at least, thought he did) to get him back on track and pay attention to V.V. This would ultimately backfire on so many levels.

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