Characters / Code Lyoko Villains

Code Lyoko Main Character Index
Lyoko Warriors | Villains | Kadic Academy | Lyoko Warriors' Families

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XANA

Instant evil, just add symbol.

XANA (X.A.N.A.)

"NOT LOGICAL! NOT LOGICAL!"

Voiced by: Mathieu Moreau (French), David Gasman (English), Alexei Mayén (Latin American Spanish), Pablo Sevilla (European Spanish)

This malevolent A.I. is the main antagonist. Created by Franz Hopper to counter "Project Carthage", he rebelled against his creator and was sealed in the Supercomputer some 10 years before the start of the series. His true motivations are unknown, but he is hostile to humanity, and to the Lyoko Warriors in particular. He regularly attacks the real world through the Lyoko Towers. Being a program, he has no definite shape and manifests through the ever-present logo (or Eye of XANA) and the monsters on the Lyoko Sectors. He tries to escape the Supercomputer throughout Season 2 so that the heroes can no longer defeat him by cutting the juice, and after doing so he attempts to conquer the world in Season 4 by creating an army of robots.

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• Adaptational Heroism:
  • He's still an antagonist in the novels, but he eventually has a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Also in the novels, he was once Aelita's childhood friend, who was simply corrupted by a virus left over from Project Carthage. The XANA in the show and its sequel has none of these redeemable qualities, with no hint whatsoever that his turn to evil was anything other than his own free will.
• Adaptational Wimp: Played with in the novels. On the one hand, XANA's planning abilities take a severe nose-dive, and being deprived of a proper virtual world limits what he can do. On the other, he displays more advanced versions of his powers, like possessing Odd, who should be immune, thanks to Eva; materializing an entire army of robots when he does get back to Lyoko; and implementing the Lyoko Warrior's powers in the real world.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: XANA started off as a relatively simple A.I., but gradually became more intelligent and malicious as time went on. Indeed, it turned on his creator and tried to kill him and his daughter the moment it became possible.
• Ambiguous Gender:
  • "He" is a computer program, so he doesn't really have a gender to begin with, but the show usually uses "him" or "it". The sequel series sticks with "it".
  • The novels flip between "him"/"it" (and "her" when possessing Eva), but settle on "him" when his very male human form appears.
  • In the Code Lyoko DS: Fall of XANA game, Jérémie refers to XANA as "Her" and "She."
• Arch-Enemy: To the Lyoko Warriors and Franz Hopper. More personally, he seems to really hate Jérémie and Aelita.
• The Bad Guy Wins: He partially succeeds in the season 1 finale by preventing Aelita's escape from the Supercomputer. Seasons 2 and 3 end with him fully reaching his goals (respectively escaping the Supercomputer and destroying Lyoko). It isn't until Season 4 where he's finally brought down, albeit at the cost of Franz Hopper's life. And even then, in both the novels and Evolution he manages to come back!
• Batman Gambit: From Season 2 onwards, as he grows to have a greater understanding of humanity, several of his schemes depend on taking advantage of the heroes' generosity, love for one another, and other emotions.
• Benevolent A.I.: According to YTV's Vortex block's host Paula (Code Lyoko was a show on this block and during commercial breaks Paula would often share bits of trivia), XANA was "once a good computer program until an evil virus corrupted it." She said this piece of information in the middle of season one, before season two aired. Which rings true in the novels.
• Berserk Button: According to Jérémie, him activating a tower truly enrages XANA, as the program will often go out of its way to hijack it. Also applies to Jérémie in general, despite showing occasional signs of respect for his intelligence XANA really hates the boy's guts for his interference.
• Big Bad: He is the only villain in the entire series (if one doesn't count Evolution or the novels).
• Bond Villain Stupidity: There are many, many moments in which XANA or one of its specters has the kids at his mercy, and even when there is quite literally nothing stopping him from offing one of them, he instead decides to attack someone else or mess with the Supercomputer, leaving enough time for the others to defeat him.
• Born Unlucky: Due to how Season 1 overuses Just in Time, XANA always gets taken down seconds before he would have won. One particularly unlucky instance is "Satellite", where he's defeated in the milliseconds between his hacked satellite firing and the moment its laser would have killed Odd and Yumi.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Judging by the song he used to hypnotize all of Kadic in "Killer Music" titled: "Glad When You're Bad", and some of XANA-William's dialogue choices, XANA seems to know that he's evil by human standards and is quite unapologetic about it.
• Character Development: Ironically for a never-seen character, he gets lots of it throughout the series. His goals shift along with time according to the situation, his schemes become more complex, and his power increasing allow for varied and subtler tactics. As the series progress, he goes from something in the vein of a Generic Doomsday Villain in season 1 to a brilliant Chessmaster in the latter seasons.
• The Chessmaster: Not as much initially, but as the series progresses, he starts developing more complex schemes.
• The Corruption: In the novels, it's revealed he was once a Benevolent A.I., but was corrupted by the remnants of Project Carthage's programming.
• The Cracker: He has access to any computer network in the world and can manipulate electricity.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Lyoko Warriors are attempting to destroy his Replikas' supercomputers in order to cut down his resources? He has long-since infected hundreds of them all over the world.
• Dark Is Evil: Him, his specters, and some of his minions, most notably William, are heavily associated with darkness and the color black. At the end of Season 2 his escape from the Supercomputer is represented by a giant vortex of dark energy going towards the sky.
• Deadpan Snarker: Overlapping with Silent Snarker, because he rarely speaks as himself, but XANA occasionally proves to have a wicked sense of humor. When Odd fights one of his polymorphic clones and tells it to change into a wimp, XANA just has it turn into Odd; at another point, when Aelita accidentally devirtualizes Odd while fighting the possessed William, he sarcastically compliments her aim.
• Determinator: It does not matter how many times his attacks fail — the next episode, XANA will come knocking with a different one.
• Digital Abomination: XANA is a malicious AI intent on invading the real world who can warp reality and his own possessed creatures in the digital realm. He is almost never seen even in the digital realm in a physical form and almost never speaks, but he is a consistent threat.
• Enemy Mine: In "Marabounta" with the Lyoko Warriors to destroy the titular Marabounta.
• Expy: In the novels, he is eventually materialized, and looks exactly like William. What keeps this out of Identical Stranger territory is that William doesn't exist in the novels.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In season 1; due to his intelligence being based on pure logic, he is unable to understand why Jérémie would go into the scanners (something that is stated to terrify the young hacker) to save his friends. However, he is also notable for being one of the few villains to learn from it; in the latter seasons, several of his schemes take advantage of the heroes' generosity, emotions, and willingness to sacrifice themselves for their friends, and in Season 4, his plan to kill Franz Hopper once and for all relies on using the man's love for his daughter.
• Evil Is Bigger: In the second-to-last episode the closest true physical form XANA takes is that of a gigantic specter that dwarves every other character, almost reaching the roof of the factory. Thankfully, he only gets in this form as he's getting destroyed.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once: His goals may seem simplistic, but given that all he has to do is just reach that goal, it really doesn't matter how many times he's seemingly defeated. He just tries again and again until he reaches that one critical victory, which is shown very well in "The Key", where it turns out that if any one of his attacks in the season had succeeded earlier, he would be out in the network. He also succeeds in that episode, and it takes the remaining half of the series for the Lyoko Warriors to even try and mount a proper counter-attack against him.
• Evil Plan: Downplayed. Early on, other than "self-preservation" he doesn't seem to have an over-arching scheme; the trouble he causes in real life during the first season is meant to kill the kids who could shut him down whenever they wanted, which tends to cause a lot of collateral damage. Once Season 2 starts up, however, XANA does end up forming a long-term plan. He intends to subjugate the world via an army of robots, which he can't do while he's restricted to one supercomputer, and kill/disable the Lyoko Warriors since they're the only people who actually know about him. As seen in The Bad Guy Wins above, he comes very close to fulfilling this plan.
• Faceless Eye: His trademark symbol.
• Forgotten Childhood Friend: With Aelita, in the novels. When Franz Hopper created XANA, he wanted him to develop emotions, so he encouraged Aelita to visit and play with him. They ended up becoming best friends. In a twist, they both got amnesia and forgot about it; remembering his time with her and rekindling their relationship is actually one of the catalysts for XANA's Heel–Face Turn.
• Fun with Acronyms: Subverted. Despite his name being spelled in all-caps, and even occasionally having periods after each letter, his name doesn't actually stand for anything.
• Gender Lift: In Code Lyoko DS: Fall of XANA, Jérémie refers to XANA as "Her" and "She."
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: He doesn't even have a body to begin with. Averted in the novels, where he makes an actual physical appearance — as a teenage boy strongly resembling William.
• Honey Trap: Several of his plans (most notably "XANA's Kiss") have involved seduction, though given his lack of a body, it's usually through possession or polymorphic clone.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Justified; Franz made XANA and gave him the ability to evolve, before he learned that XANA was becoming too smart... but he was too late to stop XANA from rebelling. In a Season 4 episode revolving around an upgrade to William's clone, Jérémie reveals that XANA's original algorithms, if used on other A.I., could induce this in them.
• Invincible Villain: He doesn't get any real victories during the first two seasons aside from binding Aelita to him via stealing her memories at the end of Season 1, but thanks to the Enforced Cold War, the Lyoko Warriors were in no position to Cut the Juice and actually defeat him. He truly becomes this when he steals the Keys to Lyoko from Aelita, escaping the Supercomputer and infecting the entire global network. His newfound power makes his attacks deadlier than ever, and the Lyoko Warriors have no way to stop him until the Skidbladnir is created in Season 4... and even then the discovery that XANA's resources far surpass their own makes their intended strategy of destroying his supercomputers impractical. Even the program specifically designed to kill him requires more energy than the Supercomputer can supply, and it takes Franz Hopper sacrificing himself to finally launch it.
• Leaking Can of Evil: XANA may be stuck in the supercomputer for two seasons, it doesn't prevent him from causing havoc: it even gives him a stable energy source to practice it.
• Leitmotif: "XANA Attack". It gets remixed several times.
• Loophole Abuse: Season 2 sees him become strong enough to possess humans, but due to constant virtualizations, the Lyoko Warriors (Besides Jeremie and later William, the latter of whom technically stayed in the network rather than using the scanners consistently) are resistant, preventing XANA from just possessing them. He is able to figure out alternative methods however, such as a Hypno Trinket in the form of a computer chip disguised as a necklace, zombification, or using the Scyphozoa to implant viruses into the Lyoko Warriors to take control of them.
• Manipulative Bastard: Though he has issues understanding emotions, he is still smart enough to develop various schemes based on emotional manipulation. As the series progress, he gradually becomes better at it, eventually reaching Chessmaster levels.
• Master Computer: In Seasons 1-2, he's limited to Lyoko's and during Season 1, is sometimes referenced as the Supercomputer (This is inaccurate as he is actually a multi-agent system residing in the Supercomputer). He gets out by Season 3, and proceeds to become this for hundreds of such computers around the world.
• Meaningless Villain Victory:
  • XANA's success in destroying Lyoko in the end of season 3 ends up becoming this when they recreate it at the beginning of season 4.
  • While he did succeed in luring out and killing Franz Hopper, Hopper sacrificed himself to help the Lyoko Warriors launch the program that would ultimately destroy him as well, thus he failed at his ultimate plan for world domination.
• Near-Villain Victory: By the end of the series, XANA has successfully destroyed the Skidbladnir, and showed that with having hundreds of supercomputers all over the world, the Lyoko Warriors cannot manually destroy each one and hope to kill him. His robot army, likewise, is almost completely operational and is pretty much ready to be mobilized. As such, the program specifically made to kill him is the Lyoko Warriors' last and only hope of really stopping XANA, and with the sacrifice of Franz Hopper, it activates moments before XANA can kill Ulrich and Yumi personally through William to boot.
• Noble Demon: Tends to change a lot Depending on the Writer, but XANA will occasionally display noble behavior:
  • After teaming up with the Lyoko Warriors against the common threat in "Marabounta", they expect him to turn against them. His monsters instead politely bow to them before retreating without any fight. Jérémie doesn't get the same respect in the next episode, though.
  • Similarly, in "Ultimatum", when he attempts to blackmail the Lyoko Warriors into delivering Aelita to him by taking Odd and Yumi as hostages, he shows concern with keeping them alive and warm. He also doesn't kill them until it's become clear that Jérémie refused, despite having them at his mercy.
  • XANA doesn't go out of his way to kill bystanders; whenever his polymorphic specters encounter someone (i.e. Principal Delmas in "Double Take", Milly and Tamiya in "Opening Act") bumping into his plans, XANA merely scares them off or knocks them out (though, if they take a more active role, he will revoke this courtesy). He used to exhibit this same courtesy to Jérémie, like in "Final Mix", but that was before he grew to despise him.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Once his attacks start up, he does not pull his punches in either causing as much destruction as possible or fulfilling his objectives. The fact that he's The Voiceless means that he doesn't bother wasting his time with say, a Breaking Speech or a Motive Rant unless his plans specifically require them. And when he IS talking or having his minions speak, it's usually WHILE they're still doing their job, so he's clearly capable of multi-tasking. Later on, after the Lyoko Warriors have disabled a mere three out of hundreds of facilities controlled by XANA, he creates the Kolossus to stall their progress on destroying any more Replikas for good.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Seriously. The heroes are fighting an enemy trying his best to kill them who they never see, who rarely communicates with them. Still, he's obviously there, and it can clearly be terrifying at times. (Although, the one he did confront them personally, it was even scarier, and his more direct manifestations are nothing short of terrifying.)
• Pragmatic Villain: Such as in "Marabounta" where he teams up with the Lyoko Warriors to destroy the title Marabounta, not to save the Lyoko Warriors, but to save himself and Aelita, since XANA needs her memory to escape the Supercomputer. Also shown in "Hot Shower" where he destroys the piece of a comet he was going to use to destroy the factory and the Supercomputer, not out of pity, but because Aelita was devirtualized from Lyoko and he needed Aelita alive and on Lyoko to lure out Franz Hopper.
• Reality Warper: His capabilities with the towers are practically unlimited — he's shown himself capable of summoning blizzards, reversing gravity, creating sinkholes, possessing people/animals/inanimate objects, and in some cases outright ignoring physics (like making a teddy bear somehow grow to Kaiju proportions). And like Aelita, he can change the environment on Lyoko (such as summoning a sandstorm in the Desert Sector, or skewing gravity), although he doesn't do this often.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His symbol is a red eye on a black background, his pulsations in Lyoko are red, and his manifestations in the real world are black/dark-grey.
• Sadist: Downplayed, as he doesn't show it that much and is pragmatic enough to pick a quick win over drawn-out suffering, but there are occasions (most notably "Ghost Channel") where he laughs while inflicting pain on the heroes.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Supercomputer being the Can. Though it only truly imprisons him when you shut it down; when active, it still prevents him from escaping, but not from wreaking havoc. Unfortunately for the heroes, he gets out in the Season 2 finale.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Nobel (to maybe Godlike by Season 4).
• Snowballing Threat: In season 2, it is discovered that activating a return to the past doubles the supercomputers processing power—i.e. XANA's power. This means the Lyoko Warriors have been quadratically scaling XANA's power throughout the entire series, and they are forced to keep doing so until they can find a way to stop XANA.
• Soul Jar: His Replikas' supercomputers in season 4 serve as this to him. Beforehand, Lyoko's supercomputer acted as this.
• Stalker without a Crush: He follows the main gang for the purpose of learning vital information about them in order to manipulate their feelings and behavior to his advantage.
• Taught by Experience: At first, his attacks were for the most part, random disasters that never really served a greater purpose. Thanks to the fact that he got stronger and smarter from each usage of the Return to the Past, he began to learn from each of his mistakes, becoming a much deadlier manipulator and setting up clear goals for himself.
• Turned Against Their Masters: He's been trying to kill his creator for the better part of 10 years.
• Unseen Evil: Besides the Faceless Eye, he never uses any kind of Lyoko form, and the closest thing to a physical form that he has in the real world is as a massive billowing cloud of slimy, black smoke.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Has one toward the end of Season 1, in the episode "Ghost Channel", where the above quote comes from.
  • In the second-to-last episode of Season 4, through a Specter as proxy, he has one as he is getting destroyed for good. The phantom's body wildly contorts in what seems to be pain before turning briefly into a gigantic, screaming face.
• Villainous Rescue: He unexpectedly helps the heroes against the Marabounta in "Marabounta", purely out of self preservation, and saves William from the Digital Sea in "Final Round" after Lyoko's destruction in order to turn him into his Dragon.
• Virtual-Reality Warper: The virtual world of Lyoko can be warped by XANA at will. The malevolent program has been shown flipping the landscape by 90 degrees, generating dense fogs, submerging entire sectors under the Digital Sea, creating zero gravity zones, and turning portions of the world invisible.
• The Voiceless: With the exception of the parts in "Ghost Channel" where he impersonate Jérémie and "Franz Hopper" where he seemingly expresses himself through Hopper's clone, we never hear him talking. And even then, it's unclear if it is actually him talking.
• Xanatos Gambit
  • Any of his plans involving massive damages or witnesses in the first two seasons can be considered as such: even if the Lyoko Warriors successfully stop his attack, they are forced to use the Return to the Past to erase the event, making XANA stronger in the process.
  • Season 3 followed a similar method. Even if the Lyoko Warriors were able to stop his schemes to destroy Lyoko and the Supercomputer, their own efforts to find a way to counter XANA at his newfound power level stalled, meaning that no matter what, he still held the advantage, and ultimately was able to destroy Lyoko. Season 4 furthers this, as while Lyoko's destruction was temporary, XANA had been able to make significant progress on building his robot army, showcasing that he was getting closer and closer to his true goal even while his attacks on the Lyoko Warriors had mixed success.

XANA-William

Season 4 Avatar. ^{Click here to see his teleported appearance}

See his section (William Season 4 Avatar) here.

XANA-Aelita

Earth Season 2 appearance. ^{Click here to see her Lyoko Season 2 appearance}

^{Click here to see her Season 3 appearance}

^{Click here to see her Season 4 appearance}

See her section here.

Lyoko Monsters

Polite, efficient, deadly... for the most part.

Lyoko Monsters

The dozen or so models of virtual monsters that XANA uses to defend activated towers and other important locations on Lyoko:

• Guardians (Gardiens) — Not actually monsters, but force fields designed to trap a victim on Lyoko while XANA confused the heroes with tangentially-related real-world shenanigans. Used twice in Season 1 and shelved afterwards.
• Roachsters^note Season one only, Kankrelats from season two on (Kankrelats) — As close to The Goomba as you'll get from XANA, these mollusk-like critters have a basic design: legs, a laser cannon housing, an Eye of XANA on its carapace and little else. They often make up for their lack of individual strength with Zerg Rush tactics; their small size also allow them to hide and act as snipers. The first of two monsters to be fielded in the real world (in "False Start"). Quickly evolved into the Plucky Comic Relief among the monsters with their tendency for being Too Dumb to Live. However, even as late as the third and fourth seasons, they still occasionally devirtualize a Lyoko Warrior, particularly Yumi in one case (having popped out from behind a rock). Notably the only monster to have one and only one attack; they have a basic laser shot, but unlike all other monsters, they don't have some sort of special attack.
• Hornets (Frelions) — The Airborne Mooks of Lyoko, looking like giant wasps with ten wings. They fly around, shoot lasers from their stingers, drip acid at close range (only in Season One), and make the Lyoko Warriors suffer for not having a dedicated anti-air weapon.
• Bloks — Walking cubes slightly taller than one of the heroes, supported on six crustacean legs connected to an underslung base. The four side faces are marked with Eyes of XANA on white hemispheres — one is the actual weak point, while the other three fire lasers, ice rays, and rings of fire respectively. The ice rays can paralyze the targets or devirtualize them if they're low on Life Points. The fire rings are the least often used, though both Ulrich and Odd got devirtualized by them in "The Secret". Notably, they seem to be more intelligent than the other monsters; ambushing Lyoko Warriors by using their gripping legs to hide on the sides of cliffs, for example.
• Krabes — These four-legged, lanky six-eyed beasts deliver powerful laser attacks from both their eye arrays and underbellies. They sometimes also try to skewer the heroes with their pointy legs. Krabes are the first monster type to be deployed en masse ("The Chips Are Down", in which a line of several dozen guards the tower) and the second (and final) type to be deployed on Earth ("A Bad Turn").
• Megatanks (Mégatanks) — A deadly powerful area denial weapon, these things consist of an arc-laser emitter cocooned within two indestructible shell halves which expand and contract to allow firing, connected by hydraulics and flesh. Their attacks are powerful enough to destroy Towers with enough concentrated fire (as attempted during Aelita's first transfer out of Lyoko in "Code: Earth"), but can be resisted with a couple of the Lyoko Warriors' weapons. They also move very fast by closing their shell and rolling on themselves, not hesitating to crush any unlucky hero in their path. They don't seem to have brakes, though, and often go flying off the Sector if they start to charge.
• Tarantulas (Tarentules) — XANA's apparent first attempt at Min-Maxing its monsters: they have more Life Points than any other monster barring the Scyphozoa (as of its Season 2 rollout), the Eye of XANA weak point is small and located at the back of the head, and their mobility is largely sacrificed for high-speed firing of the laser cannon stubs on their arms. Their threat at first was immense, as a single one devirtualized every Lyoko Warrior in one go; later though, the team has learned to deal with them, and they aren't nearly as dangerous.
• Scyphozoa (la Méduse) — XANA's first Dragon, looking like a levitating giant jellyfish. It eschews direct attacking for wrapping its tentacles around Aelita and attempting to crack her Neuro-Vault open. Other notable targets include Yumi (to force a variant Friend-or-Idol Decision by making Aelita transfer her own materialization code to replace Yumi's deleted version), William (to make him the new Dragon), and the Skidbladnir (to sabotage its shield regeneration). It normally retreats when it is rendered unable to gain what it came for, only being destroyed once in "The Lake" when it is overloaded, but XANA just makes another.
• Creepers (Rampants) — Worm-like monstrosities that inhabit Sector 5 exclusively, where they Wall Crawl at will. The unique laser cannon in their mouth is more powerful on average than those of other monsters. Notable for being one of the few enemies that explodes in a large quantity of Ludicrous Gibs.
• Mantas — White-and-blue manta rays that "swim" through the air and shriek like hawks. As if XANA didn't have enough air superiority, these Giant Flyers hatch from the Celestial Dome surrounding Sector 5 and can deploy practically everywhere to shoot the regular lasers or poop deadly multi-terrain mines. William gains a black one as steed when under XANA's servitude.
• Kongres — Eel-like monsters that antagonize the heroes in the Digital Sea. Have More Teeth than the Osmond Family.
• Sharks (Rekins) — Shark-like monsters also native to the Digital Sea. Fire torpedoes instead of lasers.
• Kalamar — Only seen once in the Digital Sea, it attempted to drill through the Skid's hull.
• Kolossus (le Kolosse) — XANA's last-minute Giant Mook, appearing as a towering Lava Golem with a blade for a left arm. It foregos standard lasers to crush the Lyoko Warriors and the Skidbladnir with sheer physical power. It is harder to kill than most monsters, having two Eyes of XANA that must be hit simultaneously to destroy it, and is large enough that attacking its body anywhere else will not damage it.
• Video-game monsters — The Volcano Replika and other locales in the Code Lyoko video games give XANA several extra additions to its bestiary, from lanky Insekts to hardy Volcanoids to the first DS game's Final-Exam Boss Scorpion.

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• Artificial Stupidity: The monsters occasionally commit ridiculous mistakes, sometimes even shooting each other. This is lampshaded in "Marabounta", where Odd, while giving instructions to some of the Blocks XANA sent to help them against the Marabounta, mentions that "the only thing stupider than one Blok is two Bloks". In many respects this seems to be due to being somewhat literal-minded and overly obedient. They stick to their given goal or objective even when it's clear that isn't working. For example, when given the task of forming a firing line between the enemy and an activated tower, they do exactly that but are at a loss for what to do when the line is broken or when the enemy receive vehicle support that make them capable of going over the wall. Or as mentioned below, when ordered to search for and destroy the Lyoko Warriors, they continue to do so even if it prevents them from meeting a much worse fate like falling into the Digital Sea.
• Attack Its Weak Point: No matter how much life points they have, it is possible to kill them instantly if you manage to hit the part of their body marked with the Eye of XANA. The only known exceptions to this rule are the Kolossus (you need to hit on both of his two marks) and the Scyphozoa (who does react and fly away when hit, but doesn't die).
• Convulsive Seizures: Most monsters shake violently before dying. The Scyphozoa squirms in agony when it absorbs junk data, like when it took the memory from Aelita's clone.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Most of them explode upon dying, although the conflagration is harmless to others. The Kolossus is an exception, as it does not explode, instead collapsing as the lava parts of its body cool down to rock. Because of this, it is still capable of taking down a Lyoko Warrior as it dies, as Ulrich found out when the falling Kolossus fell on top of him.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • The Megatanks got hit with this during Season 4, only appearing in two episodes. This was probably due to their One-Hit Kill lasers being a Story-Breaker Power concerning the Replika plotline, which was displayed in Episode 73, where their firepower was enough that Jérémie had to reroute energy from the Supercomputer itself just to make sure that the Skidbladnir wouldn't be instantly destroyed.
  • The Hornets would also suffer from this during Season 4, only appearing in three episodes (79, 81, and 83), and were replaced by the Mantas whenever an aerial monster was needed.
  • The Scyphozoa is another that got hit with this in Season 4. After being a huge menace towards the Lyoko Warriors throughout Seasons 2 and 3, it ends up only making two appearances throughout the final season. Part of the issue is that its role as The Dragon for XANA got replaced by XANA-William.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Some of the monsters's weapon design clearly evokes... bodily processes. Mantas excrete their flying landmines through a visible orbicular hole in their rear end, Krabes fire their vertical lasers from between their legs, and Hornets can squirt liquid from their lower body stingers.
• Energy Weapon: All monsters, with the exception of the unique ones (Scyphozoa, Kalamar, Kolossus), primarily attack with Slow Laser. Apart from the Kankrelats, though, they all have unique methods of attack as well.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: Whenever they're wounded.
• Harmless Freezing: Zig-zagged. The Blok's ice beam can be fired in a continuous stream and freezes targets in place, either freezing limbs or the entire avatar. While the former only restricts movement, the latter will drain life points and if it hits a weak enough avatar, will cause devirtualization.
• Hit Points: Unlike the Lyoko Warriors, who all have 100 Lifepoints, the monsters all have varying amounts. Tarantulas have the most, while Kankrelats have the least.
• An Ice Person: Blocks are able to fire beams of ice at the warriors that can be used to immobilize them or cause instant devirtualization.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: They do gets some shot to the heroes, and even sometimes succeeds in devirtualizing them, but most of the time, they miss their target, especially when said target is Aelita.
• Implacable Man: The Scyphozoa stalks its victim relentlessly and cannot be destroyed, only temporarily incapacitated.
• The Juggernaut: The Kolossus is huge, powerful and pretty much unstoppable by conventional means. While most monsters are weak enough that other parts of their bodies can be damaged to either immobilize them or be sufficient in destroying them, the Kolossus' body is impervious to damage. Even a program that freezes its bottom half while it is half-submerged in a lake barely fazes it. The only way to kill it, which Ulrich figures out in the next to last episode, is to strike the Eyes of XANA on its face and arm simultaneously.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: It has happened for the monsters to keep firing on a hero about to fall in the Digital Sea — thus saving him or her from being stuck by timely devirtualization.
• Mecha-Mooks: Well, mecha-and-flesh mooks. Or just something completely different — XANA is surprisingly creative in design for an AI program.
• No Body Left Behind: They explode when killed and don't even leave a trace.
• One-Hit Kill: Megatanks can devirtualize the Lyoko Warriors with just one hit, and later the Kolossus is also shown to be able to do the same.
• Playing with Fire: Bloks can shoot fiery rings which usually cause a One-Hit Kill.
• Powers as Programs: Justified, since they literally are programs. XANA is able to manipulate them exactly in that fashion: downloading them, modifying them, copying them, etc.
• Rent-a-Zilla: The Kolossus is a giant Rock Monster bigger than anything else on Lyoko and capable of destroying anything in a single hit. As shown when it one-shots the Skidbladnir at the end of the series.
• Robo Cam: They apparently see through the XANA eye, with the exception of Tarantulas, who seem to see through the little red slits on their nose.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Bricks (except the Scyphozoa). Bloks seem to have some degree of intelligence, curiously enough, as they have been seen glancing at one another and emitting confused noises when a Lyoko Warrior evades them, and ambushing them from unexpected angles.
• The Speechless: They do not seem to have human intelligence, and do not speak beside shrieking, roaring or other unintelligible sounds.
• Super Drowning Skills: With the exception of the Kongres, the Sharks and the Kalamar. Justified though, since this is Lyoko, where falling in the Digital Sea equals being disintegrated for them. Landbound monsters can sink in ordinary bodies of water that you can find on the Ice Sector, but as they are designed to work in land, their performance in water tends to be disastrous.
• Top-Heavy Guy: The Kolossus has short, stubby legs compared to its massive upper body.
• We Have Reserves: XANA can create as many of them as he wants, so he has no qualm about sacrificing them if necessary.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Most of their names are normal words in French and English, just modified with these to make them look cool. Kankrelat, for example, is just the French word for "cockroach," except with all of the "Cs" replaced with "Ks". Justified since Odd's the one who named them and everyone just ran with it.

Specters

Will not disrupt household appliances.

Specters

Artificial smoke-beings created by XANA through an activated Lyoko Tower to cause havoc on Earth. At first they were only able to take control of inanimate objects or machines, but as XANA gained in power they started taking over animals or even humans. The possessed ones (often labeled as "XANAfied") can be recognized by the XANA symbol in their eyes. The Specters confer them some special powers, like Nigh-Invulnerability (they can still be knocked out if taken by surprise, and are vulnerable to electricity or EMP), Super-Strength, Wall Crawl, Shock and Awe... and others as the series progresses. Alternatively they can control many animals or people, but then fewer special powers are gained because XANA's energy is diluted.

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• Agony Beam: The electricity that Xanafied persons shoot at the heroes acts as this, rarely inflicting any significant damage.
• Body Snatcher: If they possess someone.
• Glamour Failure: If their victims reveal XANA's eye.
• Hulk Speak: Sometimes; some of them have been shown to be perfectly able to deliver real sentences, which they can use to fool the heroes or other characters. Most often, it just seems like XANA doesn't feel like wasting time to make them talk, only doing so if it is deemed necessary.
• Intangible Man: Part of what makes them so hard to fight in the real world is how often they pull this trick.
• Mind-Control Eyes: XANA's eye, to be specific.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Only EMPs and other electrical forces can actually damage them, and even then, it just knocks them out temporarily. So far, only Ulrich and William succeeded in permanently putting them down.
• Robo Cam: The vision of objects/creatures possessed by XANA is depicted as this, and in the earlier seasons, they often scan each human encountered to see if they match one of XANA's four targets (Jérémie, Ulrich, Odd or Yumi).
• Shock and Awe: They can use electricity, and don't hesitate in the slightest to do so by shocking their targets.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Monkey to Average-Joe, depending on the attack. Jim was notably talkative during both of his possessions, while others like Yolanda and Delmas merely grunted.
• Speed Echoes: Possessed humans occasionally display this when moving.
• Super-Strength: Barely anything can really stop them. If they don't phase through an obstacle, they utterly destroy it.
• Voice of the Legion: Everyone under their control gains a demonic, electric reverb.
• Walk on Water: On occasion.
• Wall Crawl: Nicholas and a delivery-boy displayed this ability once.
• Wetware Body: If they snag a biological host. They have a wide variety of choice: rats, wasps, wolves, humans... the list is as long as the number of living organisms on the planet.

Polymorphic Clones

One of many Earth appearances. ^{Click here to see his Odd appearance on Lyoko}

^{Click here to see his Ulrich appearance}

Polymorphic Clones

An advanced form of XANA's Specters, the Polymorphic Clones have no need for a host and can take a human shape by themselves. They can copy many appearances, most often of the Lyoko Warriors or some adult to sow division or attack by surprise. They have the same powers as a XANAfied human with the addition of shapeshifting. They solely appeared on Earth, with the exception of one going to Lyoko through a scanner by replacing Odd in the episode "Revelation". Jérémie mastered the technology in Season 4 to create a short-lived clone of himself, and then a replacement for William. Both of Jérémie's clones, however, have a strange programming flaw: their personalities are partially inverted compared to the originals. The Jérémie Clone is an insufferable Odd-like KidAnova, while the William Clone is dumb as a sack of bricks.

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• Agony Beam: As with humans possessed by XANA, the electricity that Xanafied persons shoot at the heroes acts as this, rarely inflicting any significant damage.
• Artificial Human: According to Clone William, a polymorphic specter is a "digitally generated polymorphic energy field controlled by a non-evolving, basic, behavioral program" that takes the form of a human being.
• Boss Banter: Usually avoided by the spectres as they fight the heroes, with the notable exception of the spectre that impersonated Jérémie in "Double Trouble", which mocks Jérémie (and Odd) as it attacks, giving the impression that it words are coming straight from XANA himself, a manifestation of his hatred of the heroes and Jérémie in particular.
• Characterization Marches On: The prototype Clone in season 1 couldn't shapeshift and was rather terrible at impersonating Yumi, blowing its cover rather quickly. By season 2, XANA seems to have perfected them, and they are more than capable to fool not only the civilians, but also sometimes the Lyoko Warriors themselves.
• Doppelgänger: Done frequently to deceive the Lyoko Warriors, often resulting in a Mirror Match.
• Glamour Failure: If you catch their Hellish Pupils.
• Foreshadowing: The Polymorphic Clones technically didn't appear until season 2, but season 1 had an episode where XANA did try something of a prototype by sending a Specter assuming the appearance of Yumi on Earth while the real Yumi was kept inside a Guardian.
• Hard Light: They are energy beings given a body. Specters can become solid or intangible at will.
• Hellish Pupils: Would you consider XANA's symbol to be anything less than this?
• Hulk Speak: Averted; like the humans possessed by XANA, most Polymorphic Clones that have been seen can articulate perfect sentences if needed, but they usually just growl while fighting.
• Intangible Man: They're usually solid, but can become intangible along with a blur of static, letting physical blows just go through them.
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: XANA's first perfected one went around making out with people on campus in an attempt to drive a wedge into the group. It worked on Aelita due to her lack of social skills at the time, but everyone else managed to figure out the trick after the initial shock.
• Machine Monotone: The specters sometimes speak like this, but usually manage to emote just enough to fool the heroes.
• Mark of the Beast: The Eye of XANA acts as this, usually appearing in the specter's eyes, but also occasionally on the forehead.
• Master of All: While possessed humans can be knocked out with some effort, a polymorphic specter is pretty much an unstoppable Implacable Man that keeps getting New Powers as the Plot Demands. They can even be sent into Lyoko, where they freely shapeshift into any avatar registered in the Supercomputer.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Barely anything can keep these things down for long. Electrical impulses seem to work the best, but even that's temporary. They can only be stopped if the tower powering them is shut down.
• Robo Cam: They display this whenever the scene shifts to their perspective, which showcases XANA's symbol within a red screen with streams of data in the corner of their sight.
• Shock and Awe: Along with Super-Strength, the most common power they manifest is the ability to fire lightning bolts from their hands or mouth.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Average-Joe (though William's is more of a Monkey).
• Speed Echoes: Like humans possessed by XANA, after being revealed, they generally manifest after-images while moving.
• Spot the Imposter: This comes up occasionally when the specters impersonate the Lyoko Warriors or someone they know. The heroes learn to do this as time goes on, mainly by looking into their eyes to see if they have XANA's Hellish Pupils or not.
• Super Smoke: Their true form is a cloud of black energy. They can turn back into it to fly and move through small passages, among other uses.
• Super-Strength: As with the humans possessed by XANA.
• Traitor Shot: If a specter is pretending to be a Lyoko Warrior or somebody else they know, this is bound to occur.
• Voice of the Legion: Just like the humans under XANA's control.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: What sets them apart from XANA's other specters. They do not need a body or medium to work otherwise and can change their appearance however they please.

The Scientist

A mysterious character who antagonized Waldo Schaeffer A.K.A Franz Hopper since at least the days of the Carthage Project.

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• All in the Manual: The very existence of this character isn't brought up directly in the original series. Rather the information given is from an interview with the headwriter Sophie Decroisette, who had also co-written the backstory with Jérôme Mouscadet between Season 1 and Season 2.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He is responsible for the downfall of Franz Hopper, making almost everything that happens in the series his fault. He is also alive at the time the original series takes place but remains "dormant" and thus never makes an appearance.
• Mad Scientist: Well, when he is an enemy of Franz Hopper and caused his downfall...more importantly, he clearly worked on Project Carthage for nefarious ends, which Hopper definitely wanted destroyed due to its ramifications.
• Mysterious Past: Besides being responsible for disgracing Franz during Project Carthage, literally nothing else is known about the character thanks to not appearing in the original series or Evolution. At best he is somewhat referenced in the novels, wherein coding for a "Dark Zone" was slipped into the original virtual world created for Project Carthage, and is thus responsible for its destructive capabilities...but as the main antagonist of the novels is Hannibal Mago, The Scientist never makes an appearance, nor is ever identified as a singular character.
• No Name Given: "The Scientist" is a speculative name, only identified by his job title from the above interview.
• Predecessor Villain: He is an enemy of Waldo Schaeffer A.K.A Franz Hopper and that is in present tense, due to him still being alive at the time the series takes place, just not very active.
• Unseen Evil: This character isn't seen in the series and Decroisette stated that the backstory where this character originated wasn't utilized in Code Lyoko: Evolution suggesting that this character is neither Tyron nor amongst the characters seen in a group photograph in the dossier on Waldo Schaeffer from the season 2 - 4 ending.

Hannibal Mago

The leader of the Green Phoenix, a criminal organization that benefitted from the work of Project Carthage, and the main antagonist of the novels.

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• Canon Foreigner: Was invented solely for the novels and does not exist in the show.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To XANA's original role in the TV Series. Hannibal is a human villain who is in control of a massive criminal enterprise, and has the cunning one would expect from a human being. He's also very expressive and clearly mad. Contrast to XANA, who had to evolve over the course of four seasons and due to rarely talking, could be seen as The Stoic (of course, whenever XANA does get a chance to express himself...). Notably, XANA was created to destroy Project Carthage, while Hannibal desires to utilize Carthage's destructive potential.
• Decomposite Character: Takes up the role from The Scientist as Franz Hopper's Archenemy, but instead of having any background in computers or quantum physics as one would expect from Project Carthage personnel, he was merely an ambitious soldier who tried taking advantage of Hopper and Anthea fleeing the project. He's notably never mentioned to have played any role in the "Dark Zone", which one can assume was still on the part of The Scientist.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He started off as a simple soldier born to poor farmers named Mark James Hollenback. He's now the head of an extremely dangerous terrorist/criminal empire.
• Knight of Cerebus: His very presence totally breaks the status quo that the Lyoko Warriors have relied on for so long, forcing the adults to actually get involved, and even out-eviling XANA (granted, a XANA with Adaptational Heroism; show!XANA might have stood a better chance).
• Opportunistic Bastard: He doesn't have any particular grand plan (ambitions notwithstanding), merely taking advantage of various opportunities to increase his power and influence, whether it be Carthage's collapse, or even trying to take advantage of its coding hidden within Lyoko. It's also said that he took over the Green Phoenix this way.
• Red Baron: Is known as "The Magician" to the Men in Black.
• Take Over the World: The goal of the Green Phoenix, and thus, Mago's goal.

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