Characters / Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha - Fate Testarossa

Main Character Index | Nanoha | Nanoha Takamachi | Fate Testarossa | A's | StrikerS | StrikerS Riot Force 6 | StrikerS Antagonists | StrikerS Others | StrikerS Sound Stage X | ViVid | ViVid Strike! | Force | A's Portable | Reflection | Detonation

Fate Testarossa-Harlaown (originally Fate Testarossa) — Ace of the Navy, Golden Flash

Voiced by: Nana Mizuki (Japanese), Jennifer Alyx (English)

Voiced by: Kevin J. England (Bardiche)

"She has such beautiful, kind eyes... Yet, for some reason, she really looks... incredibly sad."
— Nanoha

First introduced as Nanoha's rival, Fate is the daughter of the Mad Scientist Precia Testarossa, who constantly yearned for her approval. Unfortunately for her, Precia had snapped, constantly abused Fate both physically and emotionally, and thoughtlessly threw her into dangerous and painful situations. When outside, Fate was usually assisted by her familiar Arf and armed with her sentient poleaxe, the Intelligent Device known as Bardiche. She first met (and fought) Nanoha Takamachi over the Jewel Seeds, which Fate had been ordered to capture. Considering herself unfit to be friends with such a pure-hearted and kind girl as Nanoha, Fate rejected her attempts at negotiation, determined to win back her mother's affection. Ultimately, she pushed herself far beyond her limits in a desperate gambit to obtain all the remaining Jewel Seeds at once, though Nanoha intervened when it became evident that Fate would not emerge unscathed. Shortly afterwards, Precia revealed Fate's origin: an imperfect clone of Precia's deceased biological daughter, Alicia. Precia cruelly destroyed Fate's fragile hopes and denounced her as both a daughter and a person. With her identity, memories, and motivation shattered, Fate fell into despair. However, with the encouragement of Arf, Bardiche, and Nanoha, she decided to face Precia one last time and reaffirm her feelings as real, even if she herself is artificial. Despite Fate's efforts, Precia died in the collapse of The Garden, effectively committing suicide in front of Fate. Afterward, Fate was taken in by Lindy Harlaown, and for several months she awaited trial as a material witness, keeping in constant contact with her new friend, Nanoha.

The trial concluded quickly, and Fate quickly joined Nanoha in both everyday school life and the sudden battle against the Wolkenritter. During this time, she begins to develop her Fragile Speedster fighting style, with Bardiche upgraded to use a revolver-type magic cartridge system. She established a close bond with Signum based on mutual respect and helped Nanoha defeat the Book of Darkness, thus freeing Hayate and her knights. She is also officially adopted into the Harlaown family, changing her name to Fate Testarossa-Harlaown.

A decade later, Fate is an Enforcer, an elite agent of the Time-Space Administrative Bureau. Known throughout the multiverse as "The Ace of the Navy", Fate investigates various incidents, but takes a particular interest in cases involving children, even taking in two as wards of her own: Erio Mondial, a clone created with the very technology her mother helped develop, and Caro Ru Lushe, a young summoner with immense power, who was thrown out of her tribe and sent to a high-security special-protection building. Both she and her wards joined Hayate's Riot Force 6, where Fate is the captain of the Lightning squad along with her two wards and her lieutenant Signum. During the climax of the JS Incident, she encountered Jail Scaglietti, the man who started the project which ultimately led to her creation: Project Fate. Fighting him, Fate is forced to recognize the traits she and her mother have in common, namely having her kids fight for her, but after some quick encouragement from Erio and Caro, Fate turns the tables and sends Jail to his namesake. She also co-adopts Vivio alongside Nanoha, and the three are shown to be living happily together as the Takamachi family.

Currently, Fate and Teana Lanster are the two Enforcers of Hayate's Special Duty Section 6 and are investigating the Bible of the Silver Cross Incident, also known as the Eclipse Incident.

Her relationship with Nanoha was the subject of much debate...until Word of Gay came from the series creator and her voice actress, clarifying that she and Nanoha are indeed a couple.

---

#-D

• 24-Hour Armor: In the first season Fate almost constantly wore her Barrier Jacket even outside of combat and only ever dematerialized her gloves and cape when not fighting. This is used to show how single-minded she was in capturing Jewel Seeds and the fact that, at the time, she was a little better than a Child Soldier. It's not surprising that, after her Heel–Face Turn, Fate is shown wearing casual clothing.
• Academic Athlete: As shown in side-materials. She gets perfect marks in nearly every subject (except for Japanese language) in school and being so good at math that she helps Nanoha's older sister with her math homework. On the other end, even without using her powers, she's second to only resident Passionate Sports Girl Suzuka in terms of athletics.
• The Ace: She, Nanoha, and Hayate are the three top Aces of their generation. Fate, who is known as the "Ace of the Navy" is on par with Nanoha, the "Ace of Aces". Furthermore, she's an Enforcer, who are the elite agents of the TSAB, counting among both its top investigators and its most powerful or skilled mages.
• Action Mom: To her adopted children, Erio, Caro, and Vivio.
• Adaptation Name Change: Inverted. Since Precia never died in INNOCENT (and is mentally sound enough to raise a child), Fate was never adopted into the Harlaown family. As a result, her last name remains Testarossa throughout the entire run of the manga.
• Adoptive Name Change: She switches her last name from Testarossa to Testarossa-Harlaown after Lindy adopts her. Notably, she's the only adopted character in series who has been given both a birth and adoptive name (with the possible exception of Miyuki).
• Adoptive Peer Parent: To Vivio, Erio and Caro, whom she adopts at a young age, young enough so that Lindy has to be the one to officially become Erio's guardian. The small age difference ended up affecting how Caro views her. It's also mentioned in the final StikerS Sound Stage that she acted as Lutecia's legal guardian during the brief time between her arrest and Megane awakening from her coma.
• Angst Coma: The Reveal that she's a clone and her mother always hated her (combined with her exhaustion from her fight with Nanoha) proved too much for the poor girl to handle, and she collapsed on the spot. Fortunately, she managed to recover rather quickly.
• Artificial Family Member: She's actually a clone of Alicia, Precia's first daughter who died. Despite being abused by Precia because she didn't turned out exactly like Alicia, Fate still loved her mother and views Alicia as an older sister.
• Artificial Human: She is a clone created by Project Fate.
• Badass Adorable: Her Woobie status in season one puts her squarely in the "adorable" category, as does her softspoken, caring nature in the later seasons. In either case, the magical beam scythe takes care of the other part.
• Badass Cape: Her Barrier Jacket, except in Sonic Form.
• Badass Longcoat: Her Barrier Jacket's Impulse Form has one and an additional white cape.
• Battle Couple: Subverted. While she and Nanoha are a couple, their being in separate branches of the TSAB means that they're rarely in the same place at the same time while on active duty. Nanoha even points out during the first battle in StrikerS that it's been a long time since they've fought side by side.
• Beam Spam: Bardiche's first spoken words in the franchise were "Photon Lancer. Full Autofire." and Fate seems infatuated with this and Macross Missile Massacre attacks in the first series, but has outgrown it by A's.
• Berserk Button: As ViVid Life reveals, cheating on her will piss off the normally kind and soft-spoken Fate. When she thought that Nanoha was cheating on her with Einhart, Fate actually attacked Nanoha. The situation was Played for Laughs but it's still a notable reveal regarding Fate.
• Best Friends-in-Law: With both Amy (who she had already viewed as a Cool Big Sis prior to the latter's marriage to Chrono), and Suzuka (whose older sister is in a relationship with Nanoha's brother).
• Big Damn Heroes: She has a habit of saving Nanoha from deadly situations in the nick of time.
  • The first time, she helps Nanoha defeat Precia's mechas.
  • During the Alternate Universe manga retelling of the first season Fate rescues Nanoha after the latter falls off a building and almost falls on some debris from their mock battle (it should be noted that the both of them were low on mana so Nanoha was in risk of being seriously injured).
  • In the first episode of A's, she, along with Yuuno and Arf, save Nanoha just in time from Vita.
  • In the Movie 2nd A's, she can't save Nanoha from Vita because Signum interferes and defeats Fate as well, not to mention that Yuuno is Demoted to Extra. The rescue moment is delayed to Nanoha's fight against Reinforce Eins when she breaks out of her Lotus-Eater Machine and cuts down an attack that was going to impale Nanoha. In the original A's, there wasn't a rescue moment in that fight because Nanoha wasn't in danger.
  • In INNOCENT, Fate saves Nanoha from Vita again. It should be noted that Fate and Nanoha don't know each other at that time and continuity.
  • She intercepts DeVille's attack on Nanoha in Force.
  • And one more if you count the Kaleid Liner crossover special, where she isn't even properly befriended yet.
  • In Detonation at the request of Dearche she leaves the battle with Yuri to her and protects Nanoha from being slashed by Maxwell. The two then team up to blast him into pieces.
• Big Little Sister: To Alicia. In INNOCENT, Alicia doesn't appreciate it at all.
• Black Bra and Panties: It shows up in her Transformation Sequences, though she subverts the stereotype by lacking all of the associated character traits (she just wears them because black is her favorite color).
• Blank White Eyes: Sometimes used in ViVid, such as when Vivio transforms into Adult Mode.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The blonde to Hayate's brunette and Nanoha's redhead. In the StrikerS epilogue, she forms a second trio with Shario (brunette) and Teana (redhead).
• Blood Knight: Back in A's, it was her, not Nanoha that fits more towards this trope. Fate's rivalry with Signum is a major part of her characterization, and she really enjoys fighting her, so much that by the end of the conflict, one of the closure in the story is the relief on both side that they can have a friendly brawl with each other to their heart content. Supplementary manga also notes that Fate really hates to lose, and the ending of A's manga is an all out brawl between the Mid-Childan Mage and the Belkan Knights that essentially started because Fate and Signum want to fight each other that much. In a huge case of Characterization Marches On, Fate from StrikerS onward is a really calm person, and mostly portrayed to be the least confrontational of the three Ace, whereas Nanoha, while always shown to love magical combat, become closer to the Blood Knight she's known for, even taking over the rivalry with Signum in some ways. The final chapter of StrikerS manga is essentially the same situation as A's, just with Fate acting as the Only Sane Man this time around.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Fate was raised by her incredibly abusive mother (at least until she was adopted by Lindy), and from StrikerS onward she is driven to be as good a parent as possible to her three adopted children. While she normally does a good job, her desire to not repeat her mother's mistakes occasionally causes her to overcompensate and come across as My Beloved Smother.
• Breakout Character: Fate is the most popular character of the franchise.
• Bridal Carry: In chapter 14 of the manga retelling of the first season, Fate saves Nanoha this way when the latter falls off the top of a building and almost injures herself. Since they were both very low on mana this could have resulted in serious injury for both of them.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Unlike Nanoha, she didn't recognize Subaru from the events of the airport fire (not until Hayate reminded her, at least).
• But Now I Must Go: To Nanoha at the end of the first season, although it's made clear that they will see each other again. The third Sound Stage and the first episode of A's also show that they regularly exchanged video mail in the interim.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Tends to get a fair amount of teasing from her friends, especially in the Comic a la Carte one shots, as she is socially awkward and easily embarrassed.
  • In ViVid, during the team battle chapters. Erio deals a critical hit to her the moment she switches to Sonic Form, inducing heavy Clothing Damage. Then later, she suffers further Clothing Damage and is left with basically a few scraps left after Nanoha and Teana's Starlight Breaker collision.
• Call on Me: At the end of the first season, she promises to come to Nanoha's rescue if she's ever in danger. She makes good on that promise in the first episode of A's, which ends with her teleporting in with Yuuno to keep Nanoha from being turned into a bloody pulp by Vita.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: All of her children call her by name despite the three of them all having a good relationship with her, though Vivio uses "mama" as an honorific.
• Calling the Old Woman Out: Averted. Instead of denouncing her for her cruel acts - especially revealing her status as a Replacement Goldfish and deeming her worthless at that - Fate says that even if Precia doesn't consider her a daughter, she still brought her into the world, and is her mother. Precia brushes it off, though.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • During the first A's sound stage, Fate struggles with telling Nanoha that they could resolve the issue of who goes into the bath first by going in together, but gets interrupted by Amy and Miyuki's arrival and the subsequent decision to go to the public baths.
  • In the "Magical Cooking" short side story, Vivio lets her and Nanoha try her salt cookies with baked caviare and a whole bottle of brandy added as seasoning. Fate can't even swallow it and has to put significant effort to not spit it out, while wondering what to say when Vivio asks how it was. Luckily Nanoha has no such problem and simply says "It's terrible" with a smile on her face.
  • In the second StrikerS Sound Stage, she has difficulty talking to Erio and Caro about her concerns for them (specifically that they are hiding their problems from her), causing some unspoken tension between them.
• The Cape: Between The Trickster Hayate and Combat Pragmatist Nanoha, Fate is easily the most classically heroic one of the Three Aces and, possibly, the entire cast. Her post-A's combat attire even includes a long white cape.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Let's go, Bardiche."
  • Bardiche's catchphrase is "Get set."
• Character Exaggeration: Following the original series, she is, for the most part, a relatively calm individual who is sometimes insecure. In the Comics A La Carte one shots, she gets exaggeratedly depressed over the smallest things, such as Vivio delaying giving her a gift for Mother’s Day until Father’s Day, or choosing to take a bath alone.
• Char Clone: To Nanoha's Amuro. She even progresses from the first type to the second type in A's. Thankfully, she did not progress to the third type.
• Cheery Pink: Symbolically speaking, Fate exchanging her black hair ribbons for Nanoha's pink ones marked the point where her outlook on life started to improve. The movie lost this symbolism by making Nanoha's ribbons white.
• Chef of Iron: The A's manga reveals that Linith taught her how to cook in between combat lessons back when she was still alive.
• Child Prodigy: According to the manga, she was a math tutor to Nanoha's sixteen-year-old sister - at age nine.
• Childhood Friend Romance: With Nanoha.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: ViVid Life surprisingly reveals her to be a bit of one. When Fate and Vivio walk in on Nanoha and Einhart in a suggestive situation, Fate's response is to bind Nanoha despite the latter's insistence that the situation isn't what Fate thought it was. When Vivio and Fate ask Einhart about what happened and the latter gives a very vague answer that can be interpreted as something else, Fate takes this as Nanoha cheating on her and she gets rather upset to the point of actually attacking Nanoha to teach her a lesson. Played for Laughs, of course, but it still counts.
  Fate: "Nanoha... You have me and everything..."
• Clone Angst: From Precia's point of view, Fate is a failed clone of Alicia Testarossa as she doesn't have her "sister's" original personality. Because of this, Precia's treatment fluctuated from cold indifference to outright fury, a fact that Fate couldn't understand. Fortunately, after the events of the first two seasons she seems to have let go of this mindset.
• Clothing Damage:
  • In the original series, her Barrier Jacket gets torn up pretty badly in the final battle with Nanoha after she blocks a Divine Buster.
  • In the movie manga, it is instead caused by Precia using area magic on the entire field with no regard to whether or not Fate got caught up in the blast.
  • In ViVid, she goes Shin Sonic Form against Erio, but his speed allows him to keep up with her and he ends up shredding her outfit entirely, leaving just scraps covering anything important. And then Teana and Nanoha bombard the field with Starlight Breakers, leaving Fate in even fewer scraps of clothing than before.
• Code Name: Lightning 1 in Riot Force 6, and Riot 1 in Special Duty Section 6.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: In the original series, Fate seems unable to comprehend that Precia's abuse is not what parental affection is supposed to be like. It takes many years for Lindy to "decondition" her to accept real tenderness without tensing up (see Hates Being Touched below).
• Conveniently Seated: Invoked. Arisa mentioned in the A's manga that she was deliberately seated next Nanoha when she started attending school in order to help her acclimate.
• Cool Big Sis: Caro has stated that she's always viewed Fate as more of an older sister than a mother. The small age difference might have something to do with it.
• Cool Car: She owns a fairly cool-looking car in StrikerS. Unfortunately, it doesn't look anything like a Ferrari Testarossa.
• Costume Evolution: The movieverse seems to make a conscious effort so that, with each new installment, Fate's Barrier Jacket begins to more closely resemble the one she uses in StrikerS onward. In the first movie, her outfit is almost exactly the same as her Season 1/2 garb, then for the A's movie adaptation she gains her white cape and Minidress of Power when she decides to break out of the Lotus-Eater Machine.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Fate's Barrier Jacket is black and frequently includes a Dracula-esque high-collared black and red cape. Black is even stated to be her favorite color and she fights with an axe/scythe. While she was a Dark Magical Girl, after her Heel–Face Turn she became the nicest and most lawful member of the entire cast.
• Dark Magical Girl: Trope Codifier. Since the series covers over a decade and a half of time, it's able to explore the long term effects that such a role would have on a girl's psyche.
• Deflector Shield: She knows Defenser, Defenser Plus, Multi Defenser and Round Shield.
• Delusions of Parental Love: Fate seems completely incapable of comprehending that Precia does not see her as anything but a tool to achieve her goals, despite Precia's repeated verbal, emotional, and eventually physical abuse, which Fate dutifully blames on her own failures. This is because a) Fate is 9 years old, b) she has no other parental figure in her life, and c) she is actually a clone of Alicia Testarossa, Precia's late biological daughter, whom she had actually loved and whose memories she had implanted in Fate's head in an attempt to create a Replacement Goldfish. Even in adulthood, her view of Precia comes off as rather rose-tinted compared to reality.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: She has lost her cold attitude between the first and second season.
• Determinator: Fate will do anything, and if need be, go to any length, for the people she cares for most. In the first season, she stopped a jewel seed from activating using her bare hands. She also went out and tried to seal six (seven in the movie) jewel seeds at the same time despite being low on mana. All this so that she can make her mother happy. She only breaks down after Precia denounces her as her daughter and says she's nothing more than a doll that she used.
• Disappeared Dad: Her biological father doesn't get the slightest mention, and Clyde died years before she was adopted (or even born).
• Doting Parent: To Vivio in Comics A la Carte.
• The Dragon: An unusual example, but an example nonetheless in the first season since she's Precia's enforcer.
• Dramatic Thunder: Used at the beginning of her transformation sequence in the A's movie. Unlike most examples, it's strictly for Rule of Cool.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Arf tells Fate that seeing her sad and in pain from her quest for the Jewel Seeds is driving her insane with grief and begs her to stop once the TSAB comes into the picture. Fate's response is that she'll just have to repress her feelings to avoid upsetting Arf and try even harder to finish her mission.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: She gets these upon learning about her true origins.

E-K

• Easily Forgiven: Even after the horrible abuse she suffered under her original mother Fate never seems to hold any grudge against Precia, telling her daughter Vivio that Precia gave her life and Lindy is still raising her. She even agrees with Vivio's assessment that her relationship with Lindy and Precia is similar to Vivio's own relationship with her and Nanoha.
• Elemental Punch: Subverted. Her Thunder Arm is a defense spell that allows her to shield close-ranged attacks with her left arm.
• Emotionless Girl: Invoked when she was a child. While she clearly had emotions, she deliberately suppressed them as a defense mechanism to deal with her mother's abuse. This disappears during the Time Skip, though she remains as one of more reserved members of the cast.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Especially in the A's manga.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Bardiche is... a bardiche.
• Expository Hair Style Change: After she joined the TSAB, she doesn't wear Girlish Pigtails as her casual hairstyle anymore. A year after StrikerS, she drops them completely in her Barrier Jacket outfit, too.
• Expy: She's got the equivalent of a dead sister, in the first season she served as the hero's rival, she was the product of a project, and she had a Heel–Face Turn. In this sense, she's a Gender Flipped, kinder version of Shadow.
  • Take all of that, then add in the blonde hair and a form that lets her go Three Times Faster and she's a CHAR.
• Extreme Doormat: In the first season, as per her Love Martyr status.
• Fake Memories: A variant: Fate's memories of spending time together with a kinder, gentler Precia are clearly not her own, but of Alicia's. However, even after she learns of this, she still tried to save her mother because she still considered those memories to be part of her being.
• Fast as Lightning: Fate is a Fragile Speedster—the fastest canon character in the series so far, in fact—as well as the wielder of powerful lightning-based magic. Her Speed Stripes when going at Super-Speed even have lightning contrails woven into them.
• Fastest Thing Alive: While she is not explicitly acknowledged as such in-universe, she is consistently shown to have the firmest grasp on Super-Speed among all modern mages, to the point where, in Force, she seems able to move faster than her opponent who can Teleport Spam, and that's even before activating her Super Mode.
• Fee Fi Faux Pas: Fate does have a pretty good grasp on Japanese culture thanks to having lived there for most of her childhood and teenage years, though she does occasionally get things wrong. For instance, she was under the impression that you're supposed to go commando while wearing a kimono. She wouldn't find out that it was an archaic practice until she was in her twenties.
• Final First Hug: With Alicia near the end of A's.
• The Final Temptation: Undergoes this in A's.
• First-Name Basis: As oppose to a lot of other characters in the series Fate hardly ever uses Japanese Honorifics when talking to her friends or family. Though this may stem more from where she lived rather than rudeness on her part (of which she has none).
• Flawed Prototype: Technically speaking, she is one for Project F. She's among the first clones produced via the tech, but wasn't identical to her original, which was the project's goal.
• Forgets to Eat: In the first season it is shown that Fate was so single minded in her obsessing with capturing the Jewel Seeds that she even forgoes eating in order to search for more of them which naturally worries Arf. She gets better after her Heel–Face Turn.
• Fragile Speedster: Not noticeably so in normal combat despite being relatively weak in defensive magic, but her Sonic Drive Super Mode combined with Bardiche's Zanber Form turns her into a hypersonic One-Hit-Point Wonder. Fate is still alarmingly fast when in her Lightning Form, but her Sonic Form (and later Shin Sonic Form) weakens her defenses and increases her inherent speed. ^Furthermore During the events of A's, Signum even warns her that if she ever landed a solid hit on Fate while she was in Sonic Form, she would have almost certainly died. Just to drive her speed home: In Force, she fights DeVille of Hückebein, whose special skill is short-distance teleportation in combat, to a standstill. DeVille first thinks Fate can teleport as well, before realizing that no, she's just that fast. And she wasn't using her Sonic Form, either.
• Friendless Background: In the first season finale, she admits that she has no idea how to be friends with someone. In fact, prior to her encounters with Nanoha, Fate had never even met someone her own age.
• Friendly Enemy: Back when the two of them were enemies Fate and Signum had this type of relationship with each other. They both respected each other's strength and skill and openly complimented each other during their fights. However they are on the opposite sides so Signum thought a friendship was impossible, Fate's assertion of the opposite causing Signum to shed a Single Tear.
  • Friendly Rival: After they buried the hatchet and became friends their rivalry turned into this with Signum acting as a sort of mentor/Cool Big Sis figure in Fate's life (which includes some good-natured teasing and hair ruffling from the older woman). It's also noted In-Universe that Fate is one of the few people outside of the Yagami family that can make Signum openly relaxed.
• Friend to All Children: She has a habit of saving, adopting, and befriending (not in that way) orphaned children.
• Frilly Upgrade: In The Movie 2nd A's after breaking out of the Lotus-Eater Machine, she gains a white cape and a skirt within a skirt to better tie into her StrikerS outfit.
  "Living with the memories of the past in her heart, her cloak/Barrier Jacket is her snow-white wings for protecting her loved ones. It can be said that it is Fate's will to embrace the future given form."
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: The gentle touch to Nanoha's firm hand. Her desire to avoid repeating Precia's mistakes means that she's more likely to run to Vivio's aid rather than stand on the sidelines and give words of encouragement.
• "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: She gets off more or less scot-free for her part in the Jewel Seed Incident, though to be fair there was overwhelming evidence to prove that she was an unwilling accomplice. Even when she's technically on probation during A's, Graham tells her that he wouldn't restrict her in any way so long as she never betrayed the people who believed in her (something he already knew she'd never even considered doing).
• Girlish Pigtails: Five months after the "Book of Darkness Incident", she wears her hair straight outside of combat. A year after StrikerS, she ultimately replaces her two pigtails for a ponytail.
• Girly Bruiser: Fate is a very feminine girl. slightly more so than Nanoha. She can also kick ass faster than her enemies can react.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Fate does this in Episode 5 Season 1, appearing as a black silhouette with Alucard-style glowing yellow circles.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Fate's base magical color is golden, which is said to be rare among mages. She's also one of the strongest TSAB mages and considered by many to be the fastest, hence her other title "Golden Flash."
• Gone Horribly Right: Jail made her all that she could be via genetic engineering for Precia. She eventually proceeds to beat the crap out of several of Jail's favored daughters and the man himself.
• Good Parents: The idea of being a bad parent for Erio and Caro terrifies her, and she went through a lot of effort to avoid that: imitating Lindy, asking Momoko and Leti for advice, and reading a lot of books. Given her history with Precia, her worries make a lot of sense. Erio and Caro's speech in episode 24 of StrikerS made it clear that she succeeded.
• Grilling the Newbie: Receives this treatment when she transfers to Nanoha's class.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Even during her tenure as a Dark Magical Girl, she was depicted to be kind and innocent. She then grows up to become the most good character in the series.
• Happily Adopted: The first^* Possibly second, since it's never specified if Miyuki's status as Kyouya and Nanoha's cousin was carried over from Triangle Heart 3 of many in the franchise. Fate's adoption into the Harlaown family had a major role in healing the emotional scars from Precia's abuse (second in importance to her friendship with Nanoha), and formed the backbone of her character arc from the third Sound Stage onward, starting with her becoming comfortable enough to accept Lindy's offer to adopt her in A's, to overcoming the New Parent Nomenclature Problem in Reflection, to adopting several children of her own in StrikerS.
• Hates Being Touched: Due to having been neglected for most of her childhood and subjected to physical abuse for about half of that time, Fate is notably uncomfortable with physical displays of parental affection (something that both Linith and Lindy discovered). The movies change this a bit, as she is shown to enjoy when Lindy caresses her face but recoils when the Precia created from the Book of Darkness tries to do the same thing, showing that Fate has finally come to accept Lindy as her mother over Precia.
• Heal the Cutie: Fate was introduced in the first season as a broken Love Martyr towards her incredibly abusive mother, and gets even more broken when she finds out that she's a clone and her mother has hated her since the moment she was born. Fortunately, she manages to get unbroken after Nanoha befriends her and Lindy adopts her. By the time of StrikerS ten years later, her emotional scars have all but healed.
• Healing Hands: She performs a healing spell on Lindy in Reflection after Lindy saved her from Levi's Coup de Grâce. Whether or not she knows this spell in canon is unknown.
• Heel–Face Turn: During the Grand Finale of the first season.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: Her hairstyle during Force is basically a hybrid of her mothers', resembling pre-insanity Precia from the front with Lindy's pigtail in the back.
• Heroes Love Dogs: One of the most heroic characters in the franchise following her Heel–Face Turn, and she has a wolf familiar.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: It's not a coincidence that the single most heroic character in the franchise has a BFS. It also reflects her Heel–Face Turn, since she previously specialized in a far more "villainous" weapon.
• Heroic BSoD: Winds up with her finding that she's a placeholder while Precia tries to revive her daughter. She gets pushed over the cliff after Precia admits that she has always completely hated Fate despite Fate's unwavering dedication to her "mother" up till then.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Whatever you make of Nanoha and Fate, they pretty much are life partners after StrikerS.
  • Not so heterosexual◊ anymore.
• Homosexual Reproduction: In INNOCENTS chapter 15, she is heavily implied to be one of Vivio's biological mothers in the INNOCENT continuity judging from Einhart's reaction when she had to stop Vivio from letting it slip that Fate is her mother in addition to Vivio also nearly letting it slip that Nanoha is her mother as well later on in the same chapter.
• Honor Before Reason: Fate helps free Signum from a monster's clutches rather than take the opportunity to capture her. Even Signum tells her she shouldn't have done that, albeit largely because Fate cost her a Linker Core by destroying the monster.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Aside from her Power Limiter, she changes to her (Shin) Sonic Form when she gets serious.
• I Am Not My Father: The biggest reason why she puts so much effort into being a good mother for Erio and Caro is because she doesn't want to turn out like Precia.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: She spent the entire first season trying to earn the love of her psychotic mother. While she never does earn Precia's affection, she does end up with a new family, three adoring children, and a lover/wife/whatever her relationship with Nanoha is.
• Improbable Age: A combat mage at age 9 and an Enforcer at age 12. Then again, Linith suggests that Precia should not be sending her out into combat until she is physically mature.
• In Love with Your Carnage: She describes Nanoha's swordsmanship display in INNOCENT as "very beautiful", complete with a starry-eyed expression.
• Incompletely Trained: The training that Precia had Linith give her was rushed, and, as a result, very fragmentary, which is why the absolute novice Nanoha is able to catch up with her so fast. Fate's training was only properly rounded up between the first and second seasons.
• Interspecies Adoption: According to the first movie DVD booklets anyways, where Lindy's home planet is listed as Firstraum.
• Interspecies Romance: She's a Mid-Childan and Nanoha is an Earthling.
• Ironic Nickname: Her Evil Knockoff Levi calls her "Original" because she mispronounces her name as "Hate". Considering that Fate herself is the clone of Alicia, the latter is actually the real original.
• Irony: Despite being about 10 years her Junior to Signum and having to retake her Enforcer Exam three times because she was worried about Nanoha's Near-Death Experience (something Signum light-heartedly teased her about during one of the Sound Stages) Fate managed to shoot up the ranks of the TSAB and, by the time of Riot Force 6's operation, became her rival's superior officer.
• Jack of All Trades: Fate is well versed in all forms of magical combat; able to use powerful ranged spells and fight in close range. This is in contrast with Nanoha, who excels in ranged combat, and Hayate, who can only use nuke-level spells. This makes her one of the best Enforcers in the TSAB, as the position requires a mage to have a wide array of skills to fit any possible situation.
• Kamehame Hadouken: Plasma Smasher and Trident Smasher are cast from her palm.
• Knight of Cerebus: In the original series, Fate heralds the start of the plot getting serious and Nanoha facing setbacks and failure on her quest for the Jewel Seeds.

L-R

• Lady of War: Fate is typically soft-spoken, caring, and occasionally seems a little lost, but thoroughly competent in combat.
• The Lancer: To Nanoha in the franchise as a whole. When they work for Hayate, both can be considered as her lancers, but Fate fits The Smart Girl role better.
• Last of Her Kind: She is the final living member of the Testarossa bloodline following her mother's death. Given her adoption into the Harlaown family and none of her adopted children inheriting her surname, the family line is effectively extinguished post-A's.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: She's an antagonist in season 1, but just look at any poster or cover of later seasons, and you know that she's a hero now.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Chrono during A's. Then they became actual brother and sister.
• Light-Hearted Rematch: Engages in some sparring matches with Signum in between the time of A's and StrikerS, which she admits to have only won two out of ten matches.
• Limit Break: Jet Zanber in A's Portable, which deals 45% basic damage in the second game, that is average.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Played for Drama. She was named after the project responsible for her creation. It's a sign that her mother doesn't view her as being human enough to have a proper name.
• Longer-Than-Life Sentence: Had she actually been found guilty following her arrest, her incarceration would have been several hundred years long. Fortunately, she got a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card.
• Loss of Identity: Finding out that her beloved mother hated her and that her memories aren't actually hers pretty much shattered Fate's sense of self. She mentions in her talk with Nanoha at the end of the first season that she finally has a chance to discover who she really is.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Just like Raising Heart being obsessed with making things explode, Fate's care for Nanoha went from being simple if somewhat implicit friendship to perverted obsession in the manga omakes. She pretty much declared herself as Nanoha's wife and would do anything she could to spend some alone time with Nanoha and ultimately get her in bed. Sadly for her, Nanoha has no idea what she wants.
• Love Martyr: Towards her first mother, Precia. Even after being rejected by her, continues to love her because she brought her into the world, and to Fate, is still her mother even if she doesn't acknowledge her as a daughter.
  • To incredibly awkward levels in the In-Character Commentary of the movie; as she's defending her mother as Precia is whipping her. "She never gave wounds that magic couldn't heal." This is actually a painful bit of Truth in Television, seeing as it's not uncommon for abuse victims to sugarcoat or outright defend the behavior of their abusers.
• Luminescent Blush: Gets this fairly often, especially in ViVid.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: She is the beautiful but innocent daughter of Precia Testarossa, an equally beautiful Mad Scientist. Cloistered away from the world, she was raised by Precia for the sole purpose of hunting down the Jewel Seeds so Precia can resurrect her real daughter, Alicia. She wants her mother's approval and loves her mother dearly no matter how abusive her mother is. She eventually becomes friends with Nanoha and pulls a Heel–Face Turn, though she still considers Precia her mother.
• Married to the Job: Her job as Enforcer requires her to travel around space most of the time. In the Megami Sound Stages, she laments the fact that she can't spend as much time as she wants with her adopted children Erio and Caro, and in ViVid she was away so often that she was the last person to hear about her other adopted daughter Vivio's Adult Form (Nanoha kinda forgot to mention that little detail to her). In the 2nd Mother's Day one-shot, when Vivio teases Fate about how often she is absent from her life (prompting Fate to the angst that Vivio will no longer consider her one of her mothers).
• Martial Pacifist: According to Shari, she greatly enjoys mock battles, but doesn't like actual combat.
• Military Brat: Downplayed. Lindy was an admiral by the time she adopted Fate, although she entered semi-retirement to spend time raising her.
• Minor Living Alone: Spent most of the first season living in an apartment with Arf during her hunt for the Jewel Seeds while Precia stayed at the Garden of Time. Considering Precia's treatment of her, this was probably for the best.
• Misery Builds Character: Fate was horrifically abused by Precia as a child, leaving her with a strong empathy toward others' pain. Both her chosen career path and domestic life were shaped by a desire to make sure that no one ever suffers as she did.
• Mistaken Nationality: Suzuka initially thought that she was Italian due to her last name in the A's manga. Nanoha's response was "Sure, Let's Go with That".
• More Powered Protégé: She was taught by Chrono between the first two seasons, whose natural aptitude for magic is mediocre, at best, but his past training and field experience more than make up for it.
• A Mother to Her Men: Taken literally in StrikerS, as her subordinates are also her adoptive children.
• Ms. Fanservice: She wears the most Stripperific suit (especially her sonic form) among the heroes and also tends to be the victim of severe Clothing Damage more often than the others.
• My Beloved Smother: In contrast to her usual soft-spoken self, many people note that Erio, Caro and Vivio. are actually pretty spoiled by her, despite being very capable children. Considering her upbringing and their similar origins, this is actually pretty justified.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: She acted this way for her mother, Precia, even after Precia told her she had despised her since the day she was born. In her case, there was a strong overlap with Love Martyr.
• New Parent Nomenclature Problem: According to supplementary material, it took a while before she could comfortably call Lindy "mother" instead of just "Lindy". Reflection (taking place about six months after her adoption) has this as a minor subplot, and she manages to make the switch after Lindy saves her from Levi's Coup de Grâce.
• New Transfer Student: Briefly in A's. This seems to be just for the sake of playing with the trope in magical girl shows but the school setting was rarely used in that season.
• Nice Girl: Fate is probably the single nicest person in the entire franchise and is seemingly incapable of being rude. She never even teases her friends. In Reflection, Amitie even requests her as an interrogator for this very reason.
• Noble Top Enforcer: She served as The Dragon to her Big Bad mother because she still loved her despite all the abuse she suffered and she hoped that collecting all the Jewel Seeds like her mother wanted would have her return to the kind person that she once was. Even before her Heel–Face Turn, she was shown to be a genuinely kind girl who just happened to be following the orders of an insane and abusive parent.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: Gives one in episode 12, mostly to herself, as she recovers from the Break the Cutie treatment that Precia had inflicted on her.
  Fate: "That's right... you've always been by my side too, Bardiche. I can't just let things with you end like this, right...?"
  Bardiche: "Yes, sir."
  Fate: "I'm not sure if I can pull this off, but let's give our best together, okay?"
  Bardiche: "Recovery."
  Fate:" Nothing has even begun between us yet... That's why, in order to start anew as my true self, I'm done with the way I've been up to now."
• Non-Indicative Name: Her surname means "redhead" in Italian, but she's blonde. Also, her car doesn't look like a Ferrari Testarossa.
• Nurture over Nature: Invoked. She tries to emulate Lindy's parenting style as much as possible, because the idea of ending up like Preica terrifies her.
• Official Couple: With Nanoha in the series' main canonical/primary continuity, post-A's. Heavily implied to be the case between Nanoha and Fate in the Innocent/S continuity as well.
• Oh, Crap!: Her reaction to Nanoha's Starlight Breaker.
• One-Woman Army: Oh, so much. When she becomes an adult, in StrikerS, she defeats Tre, Sette and Scaglietti in one battle, and in Force, she fights Cypha and DeVille without getting injured, but she injures them (well, they can regenerate).
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Fate is a very calm and caring person in both her personal and professional lives and as an Enforcer she is has a very calm demeanour most of the time. However, when it comes to Jail Scaglietti she is more than a little on edge and seems to take him very personally. This is best shown in episode 17 of StrikerS when she confronts Tre and Deed she tells them that Scaglietti is the worst kind of person and, when Tre tells her that she is basically one of his daughters, Fate angrily tells her to shut up.
• Oppose What You Suffered: Fate is a failed mad science experiment who survived rather horrific parental abuse as a child. Upon growing up, she makes it her life's mission to save abused and ostracized children, especially those whom most people wouldn't even consider human.
• Over-Enthusiastic Parents: To Vivio in Comics A la Carte, ViVid and ViVid Life.
• Parental Substitute: Played With regarding Fate's relationship with Arf. When they first meet and Fate saved her life by turning Arf into a familiar, Arf found out about mothers and wondered if Fate technically counted as her mother. While Fate does show a maternal side to Arf, their relationship seems closer to sisters than anything.
• Pen Pals: She and Nanoha regularly exchanged video mail during the six months between the first two seasons since she wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone in real-time until her trial concluded. This allowed her to comfortably join Nanoha's circle of friends when they finally reunite, since Arisa and Suzuka would watch and record videos alongside Nanoha (though the ones they saw omitted any mention of magic).
• Pet the Dog: Sound Stage 2, which deals with her backstory, set while she was still an antagonist, shows that she made Arf into a familiar solely to save her life, and set the contract open so that Arf can live the way she wants to, without having to worry about herself disappearing when it's fulfilled.
  • The very first thing the audience ever sees her do (before she's even properly introduced), is pet Arf during the opening.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: Subverted - while she's an indirect product of Jail's illegal research and the one in charge of Jail's capture, she doesn't treat him any differently than she would every other criminal.
• Power Stereotype Flip: She has lightning magic and is the Fastest Thing Alive, yet she is calm, motherly, and something of a Shrinking Violet.
• Practically Different Generations: There is a 27-year gap between Fate and her "older sister" Alicia. To put it in perspective, had Alicia not died as a child she would be the same age as Fate's adoptive mother Lindy. Technically Fate's a clone of Alicia, but they're considered siblings anyway.
• Prince Charming: Is this for Nanoha. Originally the voice actors of the two joked about how Fate is Nanoha's prince in an interview - It fits well with her Cape attitude and habit of saving Nanoha from deadly situations. Finally in INNOCENT Arisa teases them by outright saying she's a Prince Charming to Nanoha. Nanoha is blushingly embarrassed. In the audio commentary session for The Movie 1st, where Vivio, Teana, Subaru, Erio, and Caro are talking about all the events, there is also the comment on how Fate comes into Nanoha's rescue from one of Precia's mechas in a very princely fashion.
• Purple Is Powerful: Many of her spells as well as Fate herself are surrounded by purple sparks. Think about it. Purple? Sparks? Makes you wonder if these sparks represent Precia in any way. Additionally, when Fate is about to perform her most powerful spell Plasma Zanber Breaker, purple flashes of lightning fall from the sky and charge the Zanber.
• The Quiet One:
  • Bardiche rarely talks, and even when he does it's usually no more than two words at a time. The Forwards lampshade that Bardiche is a really quiet Device. However, Teana thinks his silence is one of his greatest things. Doing things through action and not words, protecting his master as her weapon at all times.
  • Fate herself also counts as this to a degree. While she does engage in conversations with other people she is by far the most soft-spoken of all of the protagonists.
• Recurring Element: She's the first "girl with sad eyes" found throughout the franchise.
• Red Baron: She is known in the TSAB as "The Ace of the Navy" and the "Golden Flash"^note Kin no Senkou.
• Related in the Adaptation: Inverted and downplayed. Fate is never adopted into the Harlaown family in the INNOCENT continuity since Precia is both alive and sane, but the family bond still exists due to Precia and Lindy being Heterosexual Life-Partners who are raising their kids side by side.
• Replacement Goldfish: Precia created her to act as a replacement for her dead daughter Alicia.
• Required Secondary Powers: Inverted. Just like Nanoha, she's bad in English but became very good in math due to her Mid-Childan magic.
• Reverse Shrapnel: Photon/Plasma Lancer.
• Right Handed Mirror: On two levels:
  • Firstly, she is a right-handed Dark Magical Girl to the left-handed Nanoha.
  • Secondly, she is an imperfect clone of Precia's late left-handed daughter. In fact, Fate's handedness was one of the things that made Precia realize that she is not Alicia and reject her.

S-Y

• Save the Villain: Saves Signum from a desert monster, and in StrikerS, while it is not her primary goal, saves the lives of Scaglietti and several of his defeated cyborgs by stopping the self-destruct sequence.
  • And of course the first season when she tries to save her mother Precia. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) she doesn't succeed.
• Say My Name:
  • Last episode of Season 1, with Nanoha. Awww...
  • This comes up again at the end of the first episode in season 2. Nanoha is about to be killed by Vita, and she calls out Fate's name. And Fate appears.
  • And in episode 3 of A's, Nanoha and Fate are both hesitant and unable to look at each other, until they say each other's name, as they had promised to do the next time they met, back in season 1.
• Sesquipedalian Smith: Inversion taken to the next level when she changes her name to Fate Testarossa-Harlaown.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed: The concept of Fate's Sonic Form is to devote her magic usage to speed and power at the cost of her defense. Since Barrier Jackets take up mana to maintain, she removes parts of her barrier jacket in order to achieve the desired effect. Various enemies have noted that her defense after Sonic Form is so thin, one glancing strike from her opponent can kill her.
• Shed the Family Name: Subverted. Despite all of the abuse Precia piled upon her, she opts for a compound name when she's adopted by Lindy.
• Ship Tease: With Nanoha, both in the main continuity and in INNOCENT. Fate and Nanoha are later confirmed by Masaki Tsuzuki, Nana Mizuki, and Yukari Tamura to be a couple.
• Shock and Awe: She specializes in lightning magic.
• Shrinking Violet: She's very shy and reserved due to the abuse she suffered in her early childhood.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Played for Drama. Her inability to be a proper Replacement Goldfish for Alicia is what caused Precia to reject her and turn abusive.
• Signature Hair Decs: She ties up her pigtails with black ribbons, something that serves to distinguish her from the blue ribbon wearing Alicia. She swaps them with Nanoha's pink ones as a sign of friendship at the end of the first season (white in the movie continuity), and continues to wear those throughout the second season. After changing her hairstyle, she switched over to a single black bow (blue in the movie continuity).
• Signature Move:
  • Unlike Nanoha, Fate has not really a particular spell which she uses frequently, with the exception of her Photon Lancer and Plasma Lancer, but these spells are very ordinary and less memorable. Her Smasher spells are used very rarely, and her Plasma Zanber Breaker was used only once. Thanks to Bardiche's Scythe/Haken/Crescent Form, the closest example would be Arc/Haken/Crescent Saber, which can be considered as Fate's most "iconic" spell, and in contrast to her Smasher spells, these Saber spells have the least differences to each other.
  • On the other hand, Thunder Rage and its variations seem to be the signature spell of her family, since not only Fate knows these spells, but also Precia and Erio.
• The Smart Girl: As an Enforcer, her main job is investigating cases. The role is given to her whenever Hayate is The Leader in any The Team constellation.
  • In Force, she is one of the five girls who fight and save Thoma; the other four are Nanoha, Isis, Subaru and Lily. Fate attacks only twice, but she doesn't target him, but the Bible of the Silver Cross and damages it, which is a major turn during the battle. She is the only one to do such a smart move.
• Socially Awkward Hero: She rarely loses her cool when risking her life in battle but is very easily flustered in social situations thanks to having been raised in a lonely and abusive household before being adopted by Lindy. She gets better with this in her adulthood, though she still has moments of awkwardness.
• Spirited Competitor: Likes sparring with Signum and Nanoha, although Shari implies that she stopped sparring with Nanoha for some time after she was injured (possibly for fear of her overexerting herself).
• Stripperiffic: Her regular outfit in season one, quite possibly even more so than her Barrier Jacket. This also applies to her True Sonic Form in the Third season.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Initially seems unfeeling, but after becoming friends with Nanoha, shows a kinder, gentler and often somewhat shy side.
• Super Cop: She takes this even further than most Enforcers, seeing as she's also a Super-Soldier.
• Super Prototype: Taking Precia's issues with the result aside; her magical capabilities are hinted to be equal to or have exceeded that of her original. In fact, attempts to replicate the result Fate was couldn't be done.
• Super-Soldier: An unintentional case as she was meant to be just a clone of Alicia.
• Super-Speed: Her best asset, which is enhanced by her Sonic Form at the cost of her defense. By Force, she has become so fast she's able to keep up with a guy whose ability is to teleport, with said guy actually mistaking her fast movement as teleportation too. The kicker, that time she has not yet activated Sonic Form.
• Superpower Lottery: Like Nanoha, Fate registers as an AAA rank mage when her magical capabilities were measured, and that she's slightly more powerful than Nanoha. This, however, was not the intention of Precia, who simply wanted to bring her dead daughter back to life.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Bardiche.
  • The "Axe of Flash" Bardiche's default combat mode is, well, a bardiche. It's called Device Form in the original series, Axe Form in The Movie 1st, Assault Form in A's, and Bullova Form in The Movie 2nd A's.
  • BFS: Bardiche's Zanber form, with Jet Zanber putting even more emphasis on the "B". Riot Zanber Calamity is the combination of the two Riot Blades, resembling a larger Zanber Form. In FORCE, we have Riot Zanber II.
  • Bardiche's Sealing Form in the original series, and Glaive Form (or Grave Form^note Listening to Bardiche carefully, he really says "Grave Form") in the movie, all look like spears.
  • Dual Wielding: Bardiche's Riot Zanber Stinger. And one of the forms of Riot Blade II.
  • Laser Blade: Actually, all of Bardiche's blades are this, except his default combat mode. The form which traditionally fits this trope is the single Riot Blade. Also one of the forms of Riot Blade II.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: Regardless of the form it's in, Bardiche uses a six-shot revolver cylinder for the cartridge system.
  • Sinister Scythe: Bardiche's Scythe Form, later upgraded to Haken Form (or Crescent Form in the movie).
• Sword Beam: The Blade Impulse is a classical sword beam, performed with Bardiche's Zanber Form. Arc/Haken/Crescent Saber is the scythe variant, throwing the energy blade from Bardiche's Scythe/Haken/Crescent Form.
• Symbolically Broken Object: Bardiche breaking marked the beginning of her Heroic BSoD (and was a direct consequence of it due to her dropping him when the shock settled in). Conversely, her jumpstarting his self-repair function was the beginning of her path to recovery.
• Tears of Joy:
  • She choked up while trying to thank everyone for helping her celebrate the anniversary of Arf's familiar contract in the first season's last Sound Stage.
  • She starts crying after Lindy explains her reasons for rescuing her in Reflection, marking the moment that she overcomes the New Parent Nomenclature Problem.
• Temporal Theme Naming: Fate is the idea that time is immutable. Coincidentally, this gives her Family Theme Naming with Chrono after she's adopted.
• Third Time's The Charm: It took Fate three tries to pass her Enforcer exam. It is implied that some of her difficulty came from taking the test during the period in which Nanoha was recovering from her wounds (thus causing Fate emotional distress), and it is pointed out that as the pass rate is 15%, and Chrono also failed the test once, this is still fairly good, especially considering Fate passed "with flying colors" the third time.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: After the first whipping scene.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Near the end of the first season she finds out that she's actually a clone of Precia's real daughter. She doesn't take it well.
• Too Many Belts: Her Barrier Jacket for the first two seasons.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Being befriended by Nanoha and adopted by Lindy did wonders for her emotional well-being. She spends almost the entire first half of StrikerS smiling (barring when she's in combat).
• Tragic Dream: All she ever wanted in the first season was for her mother to smile at her. Precia's introductory scene made it very clear why this was impossible.
• Troubled Abuser: Defied. Due to all the physical and mental abuse she received at Precia's hands, she makes a conscious effort to break the cycle of abuse and be as good a parent as possible for her adoptive children.
• Tyke-Bomb: After realizing that she wasn't a perfect clone, Precia raised her for the sole purpose of hunting down the Jewel Seeds. Nanoha manages to defuse her by blowing her up.
• The Unfavorite: A weird version; her sister is clearly the favorite of their mother because Fate is a clone of her 'sister' Alicia, and Fate is hated because she was "too" different from (and some ways, like magical aptitude, actually better than) the original. Averted later on when Lindy adopts her and loves her just as much as she loves Chrono.
  • Nanoha INNOCENT averts it entirely, where Precia is shown to be a Doting Parent to both her and Alicia.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Fate was never adopted into the Harlaown family in INNOCENT due to Precia being alive and sane. Of course, it's downplayed due to Precia and Lindy raising their children side by side.
• Vehicular Theme Naming: After the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa.
• Vocal Evolution: Bardiche's voice is much higher in The Movie 1st and sounds much less Machine Monotone. In The Movie 2nd A's, his voice is deeper and more monotone, but not as deep as in the TV series.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Spark Smasher and Thunder Smasher are fired by striking Bardiche's Device Form onto/through the magic circle muzzle.
• Wave Motion Sword: Her most powerful spell, Plasma Zanber Breaker, Fate's equivalent to Nanoha's Starlight Breaker and Hayate's Ragnarök.
• Weak, but Skilled: Played with. Fate can pack as much raw firepower as Nanoha or Hayate, and in the first season, actually registers as being above Nanoha in magical potential. However, she chooses to use a skillset that is meant for efficiency and speed to be able to tackle much more varied situations in a much shorter time. Also, her early magical training was mandated to be at a bare minimum so she could be sent out to the field earlier, meaning she did not get all the required education to refine her skills further. This resulted in Fate being so used to using weak but more efficient spells that it's easy to forget that she also has a breaker level magic in her arsenal. Also, the fact that she rarely uses defensive magic resulted in her use of hit-and-run tactics in close combat and devoting her magic to increase her already impressive speed and power at the cost of her defense.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Gal: In the first season, she desperately wants Precia's approval, despite it clearly being a lost cause. When Precia tells her how she really feels, it breaks her.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Nanoha certainly thought so.
• When She Smiles:
  • The sight of her smile at the end of the first season brought Arf to tears. You can hardly blame her, given the hell she had to watch Fate go through.
  • In the A's manga, Arisa mused that she was jealous of how close Fate was with Nanoha, but her smile made it really hard to feel that way.
• Yandere: In the manga omakes, if anybody even gives a passing glance at Nanoha, Fate will immediately give them a warm smile while a dark aura surrounds her. She even threatened to chop Yuuno's head off if he tries to hit on Nanoha and expressed her disappointment at not being in charge of Subaru and Teana's mock battle because she wanted an excuse to beat Subaru to a pulp.
• Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: Her lightning-elemental spells are golden and the sparks are purple. In The Movie 2nd A's, when she breaks out from the Lotus-Eater Machine, the sparks are sky blue like Alicia's magic color.
• You're Not My Father: "You're Not My Father and Mother". While this is averted with Precia, whom Fate still considers her mother even after she tossed her aside and called her a failed clone of Alicia, this is played straight with Jail, who as the one who started the blueprint that became Project Fate, is the closest thing Fate has to a biological father. When Tre tells Fate that she is basically one of the Doctors daughters Fate angrily tells her to shut up.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Part of her initial depression, even before her Clone Angst.
• Younger Mentor, Older Disciple: Fate takes on Teana as an apprentice at the end of StrikerS. Chronologically, she is three years younger than Teana due to her status as a clone, though her legal and mental age are older.