Code Geass The Prepared Rebellion / Tropes A to I

Tropes A to I for Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion.

A-C

• Absence of Evidence: Lelouch thinks that the sudden lack of Refrain being smuggled in by the Chinese Federation despite the profit the High Eunuchs get from the drug means that the Federation is planning an invasion of Japan and don't want a workforce of addicts.
• Abusive Parents:
  • When Lelouch accused him of being complicit in Marianne's murder, Charles lost his temper and beat his son to a pulp, then erased the memories of the onlookers before sending him and Nunnally to Japan, and what happened after that needs no repeating.
  • Milly's mother Melisande, besides being emotionally neglectful and trying to force her daughter into a political marriage, has apparently slapped her for talking back to her at least once. To put it into perspective, during a conversation in chapter 53, Lelouch tells Kallen that Melisande would make Kallen's stepmother, no paragon of virtue herself, a saint of maternal kindness and wifely fidelity in comparison.
• Ace Custom: Instead of a personal Knightmare, Dorothea Ernst's Exeter is a Gloucester heavily modified to carry heavy weaponry and specced for greatly enhanced speed.
• Ace Pilot:
  • Kallen and Suzaku, as in canon. While far below their level, Lelouch put himself through enough simulation training to become a more than adequate pilot, and compensates for his slower reaction times with his ability to predict what his opponent will do. This allowed him to utterly trounce Tetsuya's betrayal attempt in Saitama, keep Cornelia's Knight at bay while Kallen fought her, and play a defensive battle against Suzaku and his Lancelot until Kallen and C.C. came to his rescue in Narita.
  • Nonette is described as having been one of the test pilots for the original Knightmare Frames and having only been bested in single combat by Marianne the Flash. When Augur explains this to Kallen, she basically says that Knight of Nine pretty much wrote the book on KMF combat.
• Achievements in Ignorance: A group of thugs Lelouch Geassed to never bully again inadvertently find a loophole in that seeking revenge isn't "bullying". Lelouch is rather surprised that a bunch of morons managed to unintentionally find a loophole in his Geass, which bound minds far more powerful than theirs effortlessly.
• A-Cup Angst:
  • Marianne laments that her current body – Anya's – isn't and likely never will be as voluptuous as her original one.
  • In one of the lemons, C.C. is "more than slightly jealous" of Sayoko's large breasts, and wonders how a Japanese woman like her got blessed with such a voluptuous figure.
  • Kaguya couldn't help but enviously remark on Aegis' hourglass figure in her form-fitting outfit.
• Adaptational Backstory Change:
  • Downplayed. In canon, the source Nina's xenophobia is implied to be due to a traumatic experience while "visiting" the ghettos, here it is the actual mental disorder that a phobia is.
  • In canon, Refrain was manufactured by the Britannians as form of controlling the conquered populace despite officially being illegal. In this fic, it's instead a product of the Chinese, due to Britannian officials being more pragmatic and understanding that a heavily addicted population was not a productive one.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In canon, Lelouch was good with a gun and had plenty of courage, but his physical prowess was pitiful and he couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. Here, he's a lot more athletic and can actually hold his own in hand-to-hand combat as long as he isn't facing a true pro. Specifically, he's secretly learning aikido and kenjutsu from Sayoko, and less covertly has taken up fencing, as it wouldn't look good for an upper-class Britannian teenager to openly practice Japanese/"Eleven" martial arts.
  • A milder example occurs with Kallen who rather than just being an Ace Pilot like canon, is also named is third in command of the Black Knights as the Red Queen.
  • Euphemia is more of a Badass Bureaucrat than the Princess Classic that she was in canon. She's also well-versed in Britannian military doctrine and weaponry despite disliking combat as a result of accompanying her sister in her campaigns around the world and basically being surrounded by Cornelia's Royal Guard and other personnel since she was a preteen. This fic also explains her canonical working knowledge of how to pilot a Knightmare Frame as Darlton's mostly failed attempt to bridge the growing gap between the li Britannia sisters by teaching Euphemia more about Cornelia's line of work.
  • Being the heiress of the Ashford Foundation makes Milly a juicy target for kidnapping and even assassination, which is why her Properly Paranoid grandfather had her attend hostage survival courses, the best small arms training the money could buy, and very likely why he has someone like Ninja Maid Sayoko on the payroll in the first place. The former didn't help much when Milly went against her training and pulled off a Take Me Instead to save Nina's life during the Lake Kawaguchi Incident, whose xenophobia kept provoking their Japanese captors. The second point, however, made Milly rather formidable with pistols and an above-average marksman. Milly becomes a straighter example of this trope after getting her People Puppets Geass from C.C.. She's also, thanks to Marianne's combat data that was supposed to be her dowry ironically enough, a capable Knightmare pilot, though she's really just above average at 75.34% synchronization rate with a 77% synchro rate with the data just making the cutoff point.
  • In canon, C.C.'s fighting ability when out of a Knightmare was featured only twice. First, when she needed to intimidate a random criminal for information on Mao's whereabouts in the main series, and second in Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally where it's revealed that she fought in The Hundred Years War against the French. Here, she's an Old Soldier who spent centuries occasionally learning a new form of combat, citing that people have so many ways to fight and kill each other that it took that long for her to get bored with it.
• Adaptational Curves:
  • Thanks to being more willing to exercise than he was in canon, Lelouch has developed an athlete's physique. A Downplayed Trope as it's not really obvious under his usual clothes, but C.C. was sure to notice when she caught sight of him coming out of the shower in a Modesty Towel.
  • Sayoko is described as bustier than C.C., whereas it was the other way around in canon according to the official chart. (Why yes, of course there's an official bust size comparison chart for the show.◊)
• Adaptational Heroism: Lelouch's motives are more selfless than they were in the series. While he still wants revenge on Britannia, he's also doing what he does to repay the Japanese for how well they treated him and Nunnally during their exile unlike canon. Moreover, while he's still fairly ruthless and willing to use underhanded tactics, his methods are a good deal less questionable. For example, because he's less willing to sacrifice people than his canonical self, no member of the JLF was onboard their ship at Port Yokosuka when he blew it up.
• Adaptational Sexuality:
  • In canon C.C. was indicated to be a heterosexual (e.g. her implied feelings for Lelouch by the series' end and glimpses of her past having only shown male lovers). In this story, she has Immortality Bisexuality in full effect.
  • Kallen had a Single-Target Sexuality towards Lelouch with no implication that she was attracted to either men or women before or afterward (or alternatively, may have been attracted to men but was too focused on her resistance-related activities to concern herself with romance until she found herself developing feelings for Lelouch). Here she is a closeted bisexual, though not a good one according to C.C..
  • Milly was at the most Ambiguously Bi due to her canonical crush on Lelouch as well as some teasing comments towards Shirley. The story makes her a very promiscious, though ethical, pansexual.
• Adaptational Villainy: Joseph Fenette is a willing participant of Code-R's research team, capable of arranging human experimentation procedures on kidnapped subjects in the same conversation he later complains about his daughter still carrying a torch for some pretty boy she calls "Lulu."
  • It must be noted this is actually a Downplayed example because Shirley's father may not have been the innocent casualty of the Battle of Narita that she and Lelouch thought he was in canon. The official novelization claims that Joseph was indeed working in the Code-R project – as a senior researcher to boot, thus making him a Reluctant Mad Scientist at best – something that the anime only hinted at. This was most likely done because portraying him as an obvious Asshole Victim would detract from the moral problematics related to Zero's actions costing innocent lives.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head:
  • Charles does this to his wife Marianne in Anya's petite body, apparently just to be a smartass.
  • After a while, Lelouch got used to stroke C.C.'s head "on autopilot" when they're in close proximity in a secure enough location such as his bedroom. The fact she actually likes the gentle gesture is kinda embarrassing for her.
• Age-Gap Romance:
  • 17-year-old Lelouch and 24-year-old Sayoko. Although the power dynamics between them are a case study of its own as seen in the Unequal Pairing entry.
  • Lelouch and C.C. are an extreme example of this, but they make it work.
  • 29-year-old Lloyd and 18-year-old Milly on paper. Actually a Subversion because neither has any romantic feelings for their betrothed whatsoever.
• Aggressive Submissive:
  • C.C. was surprised to discover that she herself of all people is this with her boyfriend. Sayoko made a sly remark about it, prompting C.C. to give the Ninja Maid a look and point out the hypocrisy.
    C.C.: Like you're any better. Once Lelouch gets his hands on you, you may as well fly a white flag.
    Sayoko: [shuts up and blushes]
  • C.C. outright calls Kallen "the very definition of a battle virgin" because of the discrepancy between her Hot-Blooded Ace Pilot/Action Girl self and the teenage girl who just can't find it in herself to fight off the Skinship Grope she and Milly subject her to.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
  • When he's sent to recruit Zero for the JLF, Urabe Defies this and makes sure his men only have a single small bottle of the offered high quality and hard-to-come-by sake to avoid this trope. This didn't make him a popular man among his subordinates, but everybody complied without further fuss.
  • Nunnally remembers a Noodle Incident where Rivalz added too much alcohol to one dish and got the entire Student Council drunk. That's the reason why Lelouch forbid Rivalz from going anywhere near to his kitchen ever again.
• All Love Is Unrequited:
  • Her Day in the Limelight reveals that Nunnally likes her brother in a more than platonic way, but realizes that he doesn't like her the same way, and even secretly supports the idea of him having a harem.
  • C.C. apparently first started breaking through her Emotion Suppression with Charles, who was devoted to Marianne to the point of only sleeping with his other consorts with significant reluctance. She herself notes the irony.
  • Rivalz likes Milly as in the series. Even Lelouch internally winced when she barely reacted to the news that Rivalz wasn't going to be able to accompany the group in their trip to Lake Kawaguchi due to a makeup test.
• Allohistorical Allusion: When remarking on Zero's oratory skills, Urabe was reminded of an European masterful orator that "would have taken over an entire member-state of the EU had there not been safeguards in place to stop him" about twenty five years ago. Given that Code Geass' Alternative Calendar starts in the 55 B.C., it follows that Urabe was most likely talking about Adolf Hitler.
• The Alternet:
  • Britannia has its own equivalent of The Internet, but each Area is an almost isolated network not intrinsically connected to each other. This was purposely done for easier control of the information available to the "Numbers", keep the average citizens from realizing that how they treat their conquered peoples is wrong, and to make it as hard as possible for rebel groups to coordinate efforts across international borders.
  • They have a international network called the "Interlink" for military use only. The terminals are located in secure rooms within certain governmental building, and only people with high enough clearance can access them. Jeremiah uses the Interlink to track down former members of Queen Marianne's Royal Guard and other personnel that worked the Aries Palace, only to discover that all of them except for Cornelia and himself died under mysterious circumstances.
• Always Someone Better:
  • Nonette is described as being better than Cornelia at everything, though with similar weaknesses.
  • As much of a Lady Casanova as Milly may be, she's got nothing on a post-Defrost C.C.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Reuben Ashford is uniquely capable to make a blushing mess out of his granddaughter Milly while remaining classy about it.
• Amazon Chaser: Charles zi Britannia fell in Love at First Sight with Marianne after she effortlessly defeated five other test pilots.
• Ambiguous Gender: Valefar, one of V.V.'s contracts, tends to wear gender-ambiguous clothing, and are naturally gender-fluid to the point that even when doing the mind meld that granted them their Geass, V.V. couldn't be sure if they were male or female. When they appear in the story proper in front of Kadzuki, they are dressed In the Hood with the only visible aspect being a gunmetal face concealing helmet, and using a voice synthesizer. When they bring up the Directorate Agent Vassago and her Geass that makes men fall in love with her, they state it won't work on them since they don't identify as male.
• And Then What?: One of Zero's reasons for not joining the JLF is they have no plans for what to do after liberating Japan. Or how to keep it liberated afterwards, for that matter.
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • Milly yells at Lelouch when she finds out he commanded the rebels during the battle in the Shinjuku Ghetto, terrified at the thought of losing her childhood friend.
  • Later on, Lelouch gives Milly and Nina an off-screen "epic-level tongue-lashing" for doing pretty much everything one must not do in a Hostage Situation during the Lake Kawaguchi Incident.
• Animal Motifs: C.C. is frequently compared to a cat.
• The Anticipator: Lelouch proves adept at predicting his enemies' maneuvers. This and his utter Combat Pragmatism are the main reasons why he can keep up with superior pilots in battle.
• Anti-Role Model: Milly thinks of her mother Melisande as everything she doesn't want to be, which is a big part of why she tries to be sweet to everyone. Similarly, she thinks poorly of her father Roderick the Henpecked Husband and instead looks up to her grandfather as her actual father figure.
• Apologetic Attacker: Sayoko, when she had to leave Milly with strangulation marks and a black eye, among other wounds, for Deliberate Injury Gambit.
• Archnemesis Dad:
  • What Lelouch thinks of Emperor Charles.
  • There's no lost love between Milly and her parents, especially with her mother due to everything Melisande represents.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: While mostly relieved, one part of Milly was rather offended that Lloyd's sole interest in an Arranged Marriage to her was getting his hands on the Ganymede prototype and Marianne's uncensored combat data.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • When Cornelia and Euphemia were about to basically order a nationwide search for Lelouch and Nunnally after Jeremiah showed them sufficiently solid evidence of their half-siblings' possible survival, Lloyd Asplund (of all people) asked them "What if Prince Lelouch has no desire to be found?" This made them realize that, if Lelouch and Nunnally are indeed alive, the fact he never tried to contact the Royal Family most likely indicates he's actively hiding from them – and given who their father is, it wasn't hard for them to guess the reason – meaning that any overt attempt to look for them would only push Lelouch to go deeper underground.
  • Augur follows up her slap across Asahina's face by stopping Chiba's defense of him in its tracks by simply asking her what she would've done if someone had just insulted Todoh just like Asahina insulted Zero, making Chiba realize that her likely response would've been even more violent than that.
• Arms Dealer: The Ashford family tried to become a defense contractor in the backstory by developing the Ganymede Knightmare Frame prototype for the Britannian military, but Queen Marianne's death put a sudden end to it. Reuben Ashford tries again by offering Cornelia to build and operate a Knightmare factory for her in Area 11, a business proposal that came like a godsend for the Lady of War due to the logistic nightmare of trying to import enough units to resupply her troops in a military conflict as active as subduing La Résistance. This is in fact yet another plan of Lelouch's for a yet unrevealed goal.
• Aroused by Their Voice: Zero's voice has sent shudders down Kallen's spine in a way that wouldn't be out of place in a Lemon, like the time he spoke of victory "with an almost loving caress, as if he was intimately familiar with winning" or especially when he commands her directly in battle. This is probably either because Kallen has come to associate his voice with the thrill of combat and triumph, this trope, or a combination of both.
• Artistic License – History: In-Universe. Major Sentaro Kadzuki seemed to forget two important historical facts when he named his resistance group the "Neo Shinsengumi": First, it's an inadequate name because the original Shinsengumi was a ruthless pro-shogunate Secret Police from the Bakumatsu period, meaning that their job was to stomp out revolutionaries and protect the status quo. Second, it's ultimately an Unfortunate Name because The Shinsengumi was wiped out alongside The Remnants of the Tokugawa Shogunate when they tried to establish their own separatist state in Hokkaido. Third, it's also a grammatical nightmare, as it's a fusion of Japanese and Latin that translates to "New Newly Selected Group", something that Lelouch even lampshades it when he first hears their name. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize Kadzuki likely picked out the name on purpose because, a) The Shinsengumi is the object of a lot of Hollywood History and Historical Hero Upgrade, meaning that most of the "Neo Shinsengumi" has to be more familiar with the fiction than the reality of their namesake, and b) Kadzuki's ultimate goal is to seize control of the Six Houses and take the position of highest military leader of Japan off Zero's cold, dead hands – that is, to make himself the equivalent of a modern day shogun.
• Ascended Fanboy: Milly sure wasn't going to pass up a perfect justification to don Impossibly Cool Clothes after becoming one of Zero's Enigmatic Minions.
  Lelouch: You really want to… no, no need to even ask. Of course you want to dress up and walk around as if you were in a spy flick or super sentai show.
  Milly: [beaming] You know me so well.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: A discussed variation. When Suzaku says that he's being ostracized by soldiers of the same rank, Lelouch tells him that it's because of all the "soft" authority he's built up with his almost unnatural rise in the ranks. The basic premise is that if two officers of equal rank are given their commission the same day, most people would flock to the one who has reputation and acclaim from combat experience rather than the Ensign Newbie. This means that even if Suzaku has no interest in bucking the pecking order, that doesn't mean the others don't suspect him out of sheer paranoia. Kallen asks immediately afterward what would happen if two people of near equal accolades such as Zero and Tōdō were in that scenario, with Lelouch responding that there would be a split between the civilian guerillas who would choose Zero as the "Hero of the People" along with his victories over Cornelia, and those who came from the Military who would choose Tōdō for his "Miracle at Itsukushima". And all that would depend on if Tōdō thought about overthrowing Zero, and even if he weren't, some of his more fanatical followers would most likely try to.
• The Atoner: Cheryl decides to swear loyalty to Zero partly so she has an opportunity to make up for her involvement with Code-R.
• Audience Participation: The author considered making Euphemia a Love Interest for Lelouch, but didn't know whether the half-sibling angle would alienate the audience. So, an opinion poll was held. It turned out the majority vote was A-OK with it.
• Aura Vision: Sayoko's Geass power after making a contract with C.C. Used to great effect in her first meeting with Kaguya Sumeragi.
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Kadzuki is apparently trying to invoke this by dressing his troops like The Shinsengumi.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Halo Luminous is a powerful defense system, but Nonette is slowed to a crawl when using it because it uses power needed for the Landspinners, and blocking the Radiant Wave Surger takes so much power that she's reduced to less than half an hour's operational time. Cornelia would later note, after Lloyd removes it from the Knightmare much to Nonette's fury, that it would be more practical on a larger vehicle like a Command G-1, which has sufficient space to add a secondary generator to support it.
  • Most of Lloyd's Knightmare designs are set up to optimize the power of the machines without any thought to whether or not the average pilot would be capable of handling such power. As such, only a Knight of Round level pilot can actually use them. When Reuben Ashford makes his own Seventh Generation Knightmare, he acknowledges the limitations brought about by the human factor and powered it down to allow a larger percentage of humanity to be theoretically capable of using it.
  • Milly occasionally uses the Ganymede for school events, but the old generator is a lot less capable than modern ones, so firing it up is highly costly. The only reason she can keep justifying it is that it draws enough people to the events to cover the price.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Lelouch figured out how Todoh achieved his miracle solely by gaining access to the Britannian AARs of the Battle of Itsukushima and deducing his tactics from what the Britannian saw of them from the results.
• Awful Truth: Lelouch explains to Villetta exactly why her dreams of becoming a Noble are doomed from the start. It's part of the reason she decides to throw in her lot with him.
  Lelouch: Jeremiah tells me that you aspire to become true nobility, Villetta. An admirable goal, although you will either not obtain it or wish you hadn't once you get it.
  Villetta: What? How so?
  Lelouch: I am by far more familiar with the nobility than you are. And they do not like commoners – even Knights – trying to claw their way up to their level, even if their ancestors did the exact same thing. All noble families would move to block a Patent of Nobility sponsored by anyone other than [The Emperor]. Moreover, even if by some miracle you accomplish a feat that makes the Emperor elevate you to the Nobility, the rank will be low on the scale, such as Baroness, and you will be snubbed, taunted and belittled by all of the other Nobles. Even your descendants, if you manage to attract a Noble husband, will be sneered at as second-class new Nobles, for at least a couple of generations.
• Badass Army: The Order of the Black Knights is shaping up to become one.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Euphemia's great work at getting rid of corruption in Area 11 as their new Sub-Viceroy has earned her the epithet of "Archenemy of Avarice." Lelouch has taken full advantage of this by setting up criminals in a way they will be soon dealt with by Euphemia... right after making a tidy profit out of their criminal activities, that is. As C.C. once put it, "the man has standards."
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Reuben Ashford and Lelouch about Milly's mother:
  Reuben: I "convinced" her that it was in her best interests not to go against my wishes… if she valued her two most treasured items.
  Lelouch: Her life and liberty?
  Reuben: No, her check book and connections.
• Balanced Harem:
  • Very much Invoked. As soon as Milly Ashford saw her chance to enter Lelouch's innermost circle of confidants, she did everything in her power to be as relevant as C.C. and Sayoko to his plans, and as fast as possible. Not even two days after she got the Internal Reveal, she secured her position and relevance by accepting a Geass contract with C.C., interweaving the Ashford Foundation a lot closer with Lelouch's operations, taking an active role as an intelligence asset of sorts by placing herself in the confidence of the li Britannia sisters (even if that meant hurting herself for a Deliberate Injury Gambit), and she made it abundantly clear to Lelouch that business and pleasure are indeed to be mixed in their case. Heck, she even demanded her own Enigmatic Minion costume and Code Name. To his credit, Lelouch saw the last one coming and ordered the outfit made before she even asked.
  • Lelouch himself discusses it to Kallen, stating that each of his harem members, herself included, is so unique that he loves them all equally because they can't be compared to the others. He even states that the only reason that Milly is the Top Wife candidate is that she is the only one between her and Kallen that actually did her nobility lectures while Kallen fought tooth and nail against them until her stepmother just gave up.
• Bastard Bastard: This story posits that Rolo is the bastard son of an unspecified member of the Royal Family, which is where his naturally violet eyes come from. Something of Subversion because he isn't bitter about it, he's "just" an utterly ruthless Tyke-Bomb at the service of the Geass Order.
• Battle Cry: Todoh chose "For General Katase!" when he and the Four Holy Swords attacked Cornelia and her Royal Guards at the start of the Battle of Port Yokosuka.
• Battle Harem:
  • Aegis (Sayoko), Augur (C.C.) and "Red Queen" (Kallen) to Zero (Lelouch), who are all a lot more capable than him in a fight. Played With in the redhead's case as they've yet to have a Relationship Upgrade, but there's enough romantic and sexual tension between them to qualify. They also double as his Praetorian Guard from a third-party point of view.
  • Incognito (Milly Ashford) joins them in Chapter 32. While far below the above three's level in a straight fight, her skill with a gun and her People Puppets Geass power makes her a very dangerous opponent in most situations.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Lelouch enters a Britannian military base by acting as a Drill Sergeant Nasty to a soldier he found daydreaming while on gate duty. In an effort not to be reported, the guard easily lets him in and deletes all records of his passing.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • One of the major reasons why C.C. worked with Charles and Marianne for a time was because they treated her kindly and managed to get some feeling out of her. Of course, Charles' betrayal soured her on their plot, so she cut ties with them. She quickly transferred her loyalties to Lelouch, who went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to her.
  • The characters themselves don't know it, but the Kururugi Family giving genuine Sacred Hospitality to the exiled vi Britannia siblings saved possibly thousands of Japanese lives in the first months of Lelouch's rebellion alone by making him far less ruthless than in canon.
• Been There, Shaped History: C.C. lived for a while with Leonardo da Vinci and commented on his rivalry with fellow Renaissance Man Michelangelo Buonarroti. She was also the lover of Elizabeth I and was in First-Name Basis terms with George Washington.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Elizabeth I had a Geass power called "Ward of Absolute Charisma," and George Washington the "Geass of Absolute Intuition ", both courtesy of C.C.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Subverted. If her To the Pain threat is to be trusted, after experiencing torture centuries ago, C.C. decided to become a Torture Technician herself, but got very tired of the trade after fifteen years or so. Geass Order agent Desmond pissed her off so badly that she decided to dust off such a specific set of skills unless he started talking.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Reuben Ashford had the high school history curriculum modified across whole Area 11 to skim over the "Second Pacific War" (i.e. Britannian invasion of the Japan), and had history books redacted (particularly those in Ashford Academy itself) all in order to make it as hard as possible for people to recognize Lelouch and Nunnally as royalty. This was only possible thanks to Britannia's own corrupt government and venal Minister of Education, and their already tight control over the Area Intraweb and Written by the Winners policies.
• Berserk Button:
  • Insulting late Empress Marianne around Lady Nonette is a surefire way to get the Knight of Nine mad at you. And by "mad" we mean in the getting-challenged-to-a-duel-of-honor-where-you-will-be-maimed-even-if-you-manage-to-survive kinda way.
  • Nonette warns Dorothea to never insult Marianne in Cornelia's presence. While Nonette may or may not give the offending party the chance to take it back or else, Cornelia most definitely won't and she's even likely to strike first and ask for a retraction never.
  • Never insult or harm Zero/Lelouch in front of C.C. or Sayoko. Tetsuya got Impaled with Extreme Prejudice for injuring Zero while C.C. gave a slap and "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Asahina for calling Zero a "circus performer".
  • Everything about V.V., Clovis, and Code-R as far as C.C. is concerned.
  • According to C.C., V.V. hates passive-aggressive behavior more than just about anything else.
• Best Served Cold: Marianne wants V.V. killed in the same way he killed her: gunned down from behind and left to slowly bleed out.
• The Bet:
  • C.C. and Sayoko make a wager on whether Kallen is developing a crush on Zero. Sayoko wins and she gets first dibs on Lelouch for one night.
  • The Knight of Nine makes Prince Schneizel agree to make the Bedivere into her personal Knightmare if she can get the unwieldy Super Prototype to perform. Nonette manages to do it and people agree that she has been insufferably chirpy ever since.
  • A plot-relevant one occurs right before Zero's intervention in the Lake Kawaguchi Incident. In order to prove that her estimations on Zero's character and capabilities were right on the money, Kaguya Sumeragi bet that he was about to step in and defuse that gigantic disaster in the making in a significant manner. Should she lose, she'd have relented to marry the grandson of the Head of the Yoshida Clan – way too good a prospect for him to pass up due to the additional influence he would gain over the Six Houses' decisions with Kaguya as his in-law. Her victory meant that Hiroyosi Yoshino, who just happened to be the most recalcitrant of her peers among the leaders of the Houses, had to step down from his position in favor of his chosen successor – someone not only more agreeable to Kaguya's initiatives, but also one who now owed an implicit debt to her for his ascension to the leadership of his Clan.
• Better the Devil You Know: Why Zero orders that they not kill Cornelia (though humbling her is another story) during the Battle of Port Yokosuka. Considering that Luciano Bradley the "Vampire of Britannia" or Schneizel are the likeliest choices for her replacement, Cornelia is definitely the better option, with tactics that they know that they can counter.
• Betty and Veronica: Kallen is conflicted over her simultaneous attraction to the seemingly conformist but full of Hidden Depths Lelouch Lamperouge and the charismatic Zero who tries to hide everything about himself outside his role as Rebel Leader but lets her see glimpses of his more vulnerable side. Of course, Kallen doesn't know that in reality, this is a different Love Triangle trope.
• Beware the Honest Ones: The Nobility in Area 11 find it impossible to predict Euphemia's actions as she roots out corruption throughout the Area because they've never dealt with someone who couldn't be bribed or blackmailed. That she can't be bought has convinced them she's already been bought by someone else.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Don't piss off Euphemia, as Cornelia learned the hard way. See Calling the Old Man Out and Cool and Unusual Punishment below.
  Guilford: Remind me to never irritate Princess Euphemia; she has the same vindictive streak as her siblings underneath that gentle countenance.
  Darlton: [snorts] You realise this only now?
• Beware the Quiet Ones:
  • Nina may be shy and introverted, but in private she can be jealous, a bit possessive; and if Milly's to be believed, at times dominating in bed. Later on when C.C. decides to seduce her, Lelouch cautions that quiet doesn't mean harmless.
  • Nunnally has some vindictive glee at the thought of Lelouch taking arrogant and racist nobles down a peg, and dislikes the girls at Ashford who like Lelouch only for his looks.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Despite his eccentricities, Lloyd is quite The Profiler thanks to his observational skills, his disimpassioned intellect used to take apart a person's behavior like it was a piece of machinery until their motivations and issues became obvious, and his reputation as an Knightmare-obsessed oddball lulls people into lowering their guard and saying more than they should around him.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Multiple chapters reveal that the Britannian government, to put it mildly, distrusts its own citizenry, with the OSI bugging nearly every computer with a Britannan OS.
• The Big Damn Kiss: A Double Subversion. Lelouch and Milly Ashford's first kiss started gentle and heartfelt, but it quickly grew in intensity until only the need to breathe made them stop.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family:
  • The Britannian Royal Family natch, though it is mentioned that they're somewhat better than the previous generation which caused the Emblem of Blood.
  • While not as bad, the Ashfords have their fair share of issues. Roderick Ashford didn't inherit one bit of his father's talents and became the Henpecked Husband to The Vamp and Social Climber of his wife Melisande, and neither could be bothered to raise their daughter Milly themselves who didn't really meet them until she was five (and instantly hated them). Probably a good thing, though, given that Milly grew up thinking of her grandfather as her actual parental figure instead and thought of her actual parents as anti-role models.
• Big "WHAT?!": Kallen's reaction when C.C. in her Celesta persona told her that Lelouch was indeed attracted to her and that the only reason she didn't realize is because he's very subtle about it whenever he interacts with the redhead. This is notable because other big reveals during that conversation like Sayoko and C.C. becoming his lovers and the plan to get him to take Milly as his first wife and Kallen herself as the second didn't elicit nearly as vocal a reaction.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Suzaku thinks the world is supposed to operate on Black-and-White Morality, with an inner voice (taking the form of Tohdo) lampshading that he outright refuses to see the shades of grey. As the story goes on, Suzaku shows worsening signs of mental instability, seemingly caused by people he views as "wrong" accomplishing what he cannot.
• Black Site: Code-R successive facilities run the gamut.
  • The first site was a known military research facility under General Bartley, supposedly working on chemical weapons in secret. As in canon, they had to move out after the Kozuki Cell bought the cover story and stole a large canister of "poison gas" with the intention of revealing Prince Clovis' crimes against the The Laws and Customs of War, and accidentally rescued C.C. and kick-started the plot.
  • The second was more of the "underground site in the middle of nowhere" variant, hidden near the JLF headquarters in the Narita mountains. Beta Site had to be abandoned after General Katase's Heroic Sacrifice via Self-Destruct Mechanism caused a cave-in that destroyed half of the lab and made the rest likely to follow suit.
  • The third one follows the Hidden in Plain Sight principle. The tertiary site is a three-level facility located underneath a fish storage warehouse all the way in Fukuoka, Kyushu Island. C.C. obtained its location from a captured Tyke-Bomb from the Geass Order, and Lelouch had it raided without involving the Black Knights – probably because they would've opposed repurposing Code-R research in any way or form. It was a partial victory for him because most of Code-R's senior personnel and about half of the "samples" were relocated in a hurry after the would-be assassin's absence was noticed.
  • The fourth one is designed "Quadra Site", and so far it has been revealed that is located in Mount Gassan – in the real world, this is a remote location in the Yamagata prefecture that becomes inaccessible for long periods of the year due to heavy winter snowfall, but it's known as a ski destination during the summer – and that General Bartley was especially cautious in keeping any information about it in a need-to-know basis.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • The Baroness of Gold Peak was one of the people V.V. gave a Geass to. Her power was empathy with plants which drove her insane when someone mowed the lawn and she couldn't turn it off.
  • Rolo is an example of why this isn't necessarily a bad thing. His Geass stops his heart whenever he activates it, but this problematic limitation forced him to train himself into a well-rounded Professional Killer that only depended on his Geass for critical and otherwise unavoidable obstacles. On the other hand, Desmond's Geass has a similar incapacitating effect over a large area but with much more harmless drawbacks, which allowed him to use his powers pretty much with impunity. However, he was easily taken down that one time they didn't work because he was totally unused to dealing with opponents who could actually fight back.
  • Valefar's Geass, the Ward of Absolute Slowness, causes them to become lethargic and physically weak if they use it for more than five minutes.
  • Another contract of his had the ability to absorb all the memories of a target simply by touching them once, though she could only keep one set at a time, and using it caused headaches that could lead to a fatal aneurysm. Unfortunately, she suffered Power Incontinence within two years, faster than V.V.'s other contracts, and the power evolved into a Ward type that affected everyone in an area around her. The sudden influx of the memories of numerous assassins and Geass Directorate staff drove her mad and she killed a number of people before being gunned down.
  • Gusion's Ward of Absolute Terror has an escalating side-effect that interferes with his ability to feel emotions, Vassago's Ward of Absolute Feminine Captivation apparently killed her sex-drive long ago (thus eliminating the obvious use for such a power, which is presumably something that she wanted at one point given the Personality Powers aspect of Geass abilities), Glasya-Labolas' Ward of Absolute Sensation lets him manipulate the nervous systems of others to cause either mind-breaking pain or mind-numbing pleasure (or both at once) but renders him completely numb while in use, and Eligos's Ward of Absolute Intoxication lets him manipulate the level of drunkenness for those in his radius but gives him increasingly worsening hangover symptoms the longer he uses it.
• Blindfolded Trip: Zero's standard practice for unvetted guests to one of his secret facilities. He had Urabe and his escorts ride a large camper van with blacked-out windows when they visited the Black Knight headquarters, and Diethard had to agree to be blindfolded before being taken to Zero for his admission interview.
• Blind Seer: Nunnally, if the "Sightless Seer" title of her interlude chapter is any hint.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Leave it to Lelouch to make sure the Black Knights' Knightmare Frames look stylish. Even the Knight of Nine had some silent words of praise for the paintjob of his Ace Custom in the Battle of Port Yokosuka.
• Bodyguard Babes:
  • Aegis (Sayoko) to Zero. A bit of an accidental case because her outfit was designed with her unusual fighting style in mind and to conceal her identity, but it ended out showing off her figure a little too well as Kaguya enviously noted.
  • While not nominally her role within the Black Knights when out of a Knightmare, Kallen's protectiveness of Zero is such that she assumes bodyguard duties unless she assigned to something else. This is especially evident after Zero suffered two attempts on his life from Tetsuya. The "Babe" part gets highlighted whenever Kallen is in her "Red Queen" ensemble, which is pretty shape-hugging because it doubles as a pilot suit.
  • Averted with C.C. whose "Augur" outfit completely conceals her gender.
• Bodyguard Crush: Sayoko is intimate with Lelouch and also protects him as Aegis whenever he is Zero.
• Book Burning: On top of the typical reasons for this trope, Britannia also had common books burned just because they were written in the original languages of the people of an Area. This policy forces the "Numbers" to learn the language of their conquerors if they want to read anything at all, slowly but surely pushing their native languages into obsolescence. This is especially true for younger generations who attend schools following Britannian educational policies.
• Book Dumb: Played With. Kallen was really surprised when Tamaki made a reference to Robinson Crusoe. He dryly reminded her that he can read, it's just that Japanese translations of classical books are really hard to come by since the invasion. Said intentional unavailability of study material in their native language is one of the many ways Britannia forces their culture onto the people of the Areas.
• Boomerang Bigot: Dorothea Ernst hates the low-ranking members of nobility despite being a mere baroness herself. Zero theorizes her zealous hatred of non-Britannians stems from the fact she's a minority and thus considered a second-class citizen.
• The Bore: Invoked as part of a Batman Gambit. Lelouch wanted to use his Geass on Kallen in order to get all the intel he needed on her and her resistance group, but at the time he was yet to iron out the kinks of his power and he was particularly worried that the telltale memory loss could make her suspicious of his Secret Identity. To prevent this, right after he deactivated his Geass, he pretended he was droning on about the changes in school regulations in the time Kallen was absent from Ashford Academy, knowing that a Fiery Redhead like her wouldn't find it too odd for herself to have zoned out during a boring talk like that.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Desmond's Geass lets him just put everyone in a target area to sleep, walk in, kill his target, and leave (it helps that the area only has to be in his line of sight, not in a radius around him like Rolo's Geass). It's only when dealing with someone like C.C. who's immune to his power, or someone with enough Heroic Willpower to resist it like Sayoko, that he has trouble. Problem is, his power is so convenient that he grew too dependent on his Geass, and was caught badly flat-footed when he needed to improvise against them.
  • According to Euphemia, every knightmare developer except Lloyd Asplund tends to focus on power capacity and effiency when creating a new machine as operation time is one of the biggest limiting factors for any knightmare frame.
• Bothering by the Book:
  • Jeremiah was at the receiving end of this trope when he was assigned as interim Viceroy of Area 11 following Clovis' death, getting buried under stacks of paperwork just so he could assume office. When asked, he was told that this is very much an Invoked Trope as a way to "quietly discourage anyone [but a member of the Imperial Family or an Imperial General] from attempting to gain the position" (The paperwork to transition the Viceroyalty from Jeremiah to Princess Cornelia consisted of a few signatures and initials on a single sheet of paper). Villetta made the mistake of laughing at his misfortune, and Jeremiah saw fit to appoint her as interim Sub-Viceroy, earning her her own mountain of paperwork to deal with.
  • While preparing for their final operations as the JLF (though under Zero's command), Senba constantly asks for clarification to make sure he's doing things right. C.C. calls him out on it, citing that not only are they supposed to do things like the JLF to make it seem like their work, but any soldier with as much experience as him knows damn well how to his job.
• Brainless Beauty: Marianne has First Princess Guinevere de Britannia pegged as one.
• Brains and Bondage: Nina, if C.C.'s hinted plans to "discipline" her are any indication. Confirmed in her eponymous Spin-Off.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Being less of the Unscrupulous Hero that he was in canon, Lelouch's usage of his Hypnotic Eyes stays in a grayer moral area in this story. He's still treats his Geass as a weapon, but now he has something of a moral code in how he wields it.
  • For example, Lelouch uses his Geass in lieu of a Magically-Binding Contract of Employment. That is, he's got a bunch of people of a diverse array of professions – including but not limited to engineers, gunsmiths, black market middlemen, a former Code-R researcher and even a movie costume maker – working for him for a fair pay. The "magically binding" part comes in their inability to talk about it to anyone uninvolved and then forgetting it all when Lelouch releases them form his service. He describes it as a job contract with an actually unbreakable non-disclosure clause.
  • If the hiring of Doctor Silver is any indication, Lelouch actually asks before using his Geass in this manner. Then again, this particular example does involve An Offer You Can't Refuse of the non-supernatural kind.
  • He also experiments with implanting a Trigger Phrase on a person at lot earlier than in the series. This not only allows him to turn people into his Manchurian Agents like in canon, but also serves to circumvent the It Only Works Once aspect of his Geass by using his one and only absolute order on any given person to make them to follow his subsequent commands upon the invocation of a Trigger Phrase. He tested both methods first on Villetta Nu to make her his unwitting spy, but the open-ended wording of the original Geass command basically made her his long-term slave, and even more creepily, let her know of her helpless situation if he wants to. This example remains in a moral gray area only because Lelouch undoes the hypnosis once Villetta agrees to join his cause on her own volition and after ordering her nothing worse than revealing the intel he wanted and using his control over her as a sort of sales pitch to sell her on the idea that his insane plan to destroy Britannia is not impossible.
  • Lelouch also has very pragmatic reasons to not abuse of his Geass. C.C. warned him from the start that, the more he uses his power, the greater the chance of becoming a "Runaway Geass", meaning that he won't be able to shut it off. His Magically-Binding Contract and Trigger Phrase tricks help him to get things done without having to Geass new people every time.
  • Probably the biggest point of contention, ethically speaking, is that any code of conduct that this version of Lelouch may abide by or not remains entirely self-imposed, as neither C.C. nor Sayoko has any moral qualms in how Lelouch uses his Geass. So far, only Milly Ashford has voiced her reservations on the matter, but said misgivings are easily outweighed by her concerns for the consequences that using his Geass too much will have on him rather than because of him.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Dorothea's family does this at each stage of their knife combat training, having a superior opponent Curbstomp Battle them in order to break them down so they cam learn from the ground up again with fewer flaws in their skills. It may have backfired in her case though.
  • Downplayed, Lelouch had Kallen fight Nonette in part so she'd learn not to underestimate her opponents before she faced a superior foe and lost.
• Bridal Carry: Aegis, and then Ohgi, to Kallen's mother because the latter couldn't stand up due to the aftereffects of her latest usage of Refrain.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: The general consensus about Lelouch Lamperouge in Ashford Academy. Nina is particularly bothered by this because she can easily recognize the signs of a fellow genius-level IQ student, and simply can't wrap her head around the idea of someone like him downplaying his intelligence and being satisfied with mediocre scores.
• Bring It: Kallen in her over-the-hill Glasgow to Suzaku in his Lancelot. Bonus badass points for challenging him in this manner when her Knightmare had only one arm left.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Implied to be the reason why Tetsuya soils himself on his way to his trial. Although Sayoko going full-on Drives Like Crazy while carrying the guy on the hands of her Knightmare might have had something to do with it too.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Cornelia to Euphemia, due to the former's plans to re-enact the Shinjuku Massacre in Saitama just to draw Zero out. Doubly so because Cornelia's attempts to keep Operation Snake Pit hidden from Euphemia weren't just coddling but outright illegal, given their positions as Viceroy and Sub-Viceroy of Area 11.
  • Shirley feels this way towards her father after discovering he's performing human experimentation as part of Code-R's research team. She still seeks help from Lelouch to try and get her father out of that mess, however. The pedestal becomes even more broken when she lesrns just how high in the organization Joseph really is.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • Suzaku's Black-and-White Morality/borderline Black-and-White Insanity is a veritable magnet for these because nothing subtler seems to get through his thick skull.
    • Zero warns Suzaku that his flawed ideals will only lead him to despair, and that once he gets to that point, he should seek him out if he really wants to change the world.
    • During their first official meeting, C.C. tells Suzaku that his ideals are idiotic and his attempt to change the system will see him either dead or corrupted by said system.
    • When Suzaku brings it up later, Lloyd bluntly tells him that his schoolmate didn't let him defend his ideals in order to make him think about them and figure out why she says they're idiotic.
    • Lelouch likewise bluntly tells Suzaku that his beliefs are naive to the point of childishness, citing that the world doesn't run on Black-and-White Morality like he thinks, but is filled with grey.
  • The Knight of Nine says it as it is:
  Nonette: Stop treating [Euphemia] like a mushroom.
  Cornelia: Huh?
  Nonette: Stop keeping her in the dark and feeding her shit.
• But I Would Really Enjoy It: Milly mightily struggled with herself to not try to seduce Euphemia when talking to her after the Lake Kawaguchi Hotel Hostage Situation. She even had to make a mental list enumerating the reasons why it'd be a very bad idea, like getting in trouble with Lelouch for making a move on his second-favorite sister and Cornelia surely trying to kill her for it.
• Call-Back: When he rescued Suzaku from his Kangaroo Court, Zero claimed to have killed Clovis on live TV when it was C.C. who actually pulled the trigger. Later on and right after the Battle of Saitama, "Augur" claimed to have commanded the Yamato Alliance to victory in a transmission sent to Cornelia's mobile command center just to twist the knife and make her believe "[Zero] did not deem [her] worth his time", when in fact it was Lelouch who directed the operation from a hijacked Sutherland.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Euphemia gives a glorious lecture to Cornelia after the Battle of Saitama, both for planning a massacre just to lure Zero out and her unacceptable smothering of her. She even had the Brass Balls to (politely) blackmail Cornelia to back off by threatening her to let the Homeland know that she conducted major military operations on Area 11 while conspiring to keep the Sub-Viceroy – Euphemia herself – out of the loop, which is a serious enough offence according to Imperial Law that could cost Cornelia her position as Viceroy at the very least. While irked beyond belief by this, a part of Cornelia couldn't help but be proud of her little sister's decisiveness, which spoke well of her ability to survive in their Social Darwinist high society when outside of her aegis of protection.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • Shirley just can't confess her incredibly obvious romantic feelings for Lelouch, something Milly mercilessly teased her about in the series. She's been more successful at asking him out than in canon, but something in Lelouch's (or rather Zero's) busy schedule has gotten in the way at every opportunity.
  • It turns out that the above makes Millicent one hell of a Hypocrite, at least as far as this fic is concerned. Milly has loved Lelouch since they were kids, but she's never been able to gather the courage to confess after she realized how serious her feelings are due to several factors, like his apparent disinterest in romance (until "Celesta" and Sayoko entered the picture, that is), a strong fear of rejection, consideration for Shirley's feelings, and that the Properly Paranoid prince in hiding could misconstrue her advances for an attempt to manipulate him. It got the point that she opted for dating someone else instead of confronting her fears, but her unresolved issues put a strain on the new relationship until everything fell apart.
  • Sayoko kept her feelings for Lelouch hidden for three years. Plenty Justified in her case because she realized she loved a guy seven years younger that way when he was barely fourteen year old. She intended to keep her Dark Secret to herself until he was of age at the very least, but C.C. had other plans.
• Can Only Move the Eyes: Milly Ashford's People Puppets Geass power doesn't affect the target's face, nor their ability to speak.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Double Subverted. Milly has no problem with flirting and playfully trying to get a reaction out of the guy she's in love with, but the moment the usually dour and sarcastic Lelouch flirts back, even if just gently smiling at her when she isn't expecting it, can make her light up like a tomato.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: A single bottle of beer is enough to make Shirley's father pass out for an entire day. This is how he loses a bag full of Code-R documents. In his drunken state, he left it in the kitchen unattended, allowing Shirley to discover its contents and later take it to Lelouch.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You:
  • Zero warns his followers before the Battle of Port Yokosuka that killing Cornelia is not a good idea since the likely replacement is the "Vampire of Britannia" Luciano Bradley, or even Schneizel himself. Neither of them would have any issue slaughtering Japanese civilians to get to the Black Knights, and their tactics would be nigh impossible for the Black Knights to counter as they are. Dorothea, on the other hand...
  • Charles can't take V.V.'s Code just yet because most of the Geass Order practically worships him, and sorting out that mess would mean more problems that it's worth. At least, until the moment all Thought Elevators are connected.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Zero and Augur occasionally Invoke this dynamic. Notably, the same chapter where Zero secured Diethard's recruitment into the Black Knights with a Dare to Be Badass Rousing Speech, Augur enforced discipline by scathingly dressing down three of the Four Holy Swords for basically behaving like petulant children instead the professional soldiers turned resistance fighters they supposedly are.
• Cargo Ship:invoked
  • Referenced In-Universe. Lloyd wrote a section titled "Devicer Conduct and Proper Veneration Etiquette of the Lancelot" in the Frame's operational manual. It's the only part of it that Suzaku skipped.
  • Kallen gets teased because of how much she likes her Guren Nishiki.
    Zero: Enjoying yourself, Q-1?
    Kallen: The Guren is a masterpiece.
    Suginami: It's love.
    Kallen: [splutters intelligibly]
• The Casanova:
  • Subverted and Discussed. After becoming lovers, Sayoko becomes dead certain that Lelouch easily "could have enthralled the entire school's population of females had he wanted to." Instead, he intended to remain faithful to his first lover (C.C.) and took a lot of convincing from her part for him to take a second one (Sayoko).
  • C.C.'s centuries-long string of female lovers would make her an ultimate version of this trope, but by the start of the story she's just too world-weary to care. Double Subverted later on once her feelings for Lelouch brings some joie de vivre back into her life and she starts casual and not-so-casual intimate relationships with Nina and Sayoko, and becomes a major-league tease for Milly and especially Kallen.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Zero when ordering Kallen to come and save his bacon because the JLF's Gyoko System left him isolated with only the Lancelot for company.
  Zero: Well, kindly arrive at my position as fast as you are able to, Q-1. It would seem Kururugi is determined to defeat me. He is approaching my position as I speak.
  Kallen: On my way!
• Catharsis Factor: A curious In-Universe Invoked example happens when Zero told the upper echelon of the Black Knights about Clovis' private think-tank. Lelouch knew that learning about the atrocities committed in Code-R would make them livid, so he preprogrammed a Knightmare training scenario into their simulators where they could destroy Clovis' G-1 Mobile Base over and over again to vent off their anger. He even included transmissions of the late Viceroy begging for mercy to enhance the experience.
• The Chains of Commanding:
  • Ever since being promoted to General before the Battle of Narita, Todoh has noted how heavy his epaulets feel.
  • Lelouch is also painfully aware of what it means to lead an army. See his speech under the We Have Reserves entry.
  • Zero tells Ohgi that opposite is also true. In his words, "to command men in battle, and to command well in battle, is one of the most addictive feelings to exist for humankind [...] the thrill of a successful battle is the sweetest, most exhilarating sensation that can be felt, rivalled only by sex" and that he shouldn't feel ashamed for feeling it. Zero also warns him that "that feeling turns to ash in your mouth at the news of every injury, every death, suffered by those under your command", which rounds his lesson to Ohgi by telling him to try to be the very damn best leader he possibly can because both the rewards and the penalties of leadership are very high.
    Zero: It is a glorious, yet painful thing.
• Changing of the Guard: As an Old Soldier, Mamoru Takagahara wants this to happen to him, but he can't leave his position of leadership within La Résistance in good conscience without finding a worthy successor first. He eventually decided on Zero to take up his mantle, but the reasons for his choice are complex to say the least (see Unscrupulous Hero entry).
• Chekhov's Classroom: Played cleverly with the Britannian Victory Memorial Center at Tokyo Tower in Chapter 11, where the fact that the exhibit grossly misrepresented Seppuku ends up becoming relevant seventeen chapters later. Lelouch takes advantage that Britannians and Cornelia in particular don't really understand Japanese culture to make them believe the JLF detonated themselves and their tanker at Port Yokosuka and caught them completely off-guard in the ensuing counter-ambush.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Early on a prototype Knightmare designated as the Bedivere – a predecessor project to the Lancelot that served as proof-of-concept of many of the new technologies implemented in the latter – was mentioned as another of Lloyd's designs that look great on paper but that no pilot can actually get to move, much less perform well enough to be sent into battle. That is, until a Knight of Round tried and took it with her to Area 11.
  • Sayoko stores the footage of his Geass-enabled interrogation of Kallen instead of destroying it like Lelouch instructed her to. Likely because she thought it could come in handy if Kallen ever finds out about his Geass and they will need to prove he spent his one usage on her for something relatively harmless.
  • Tetsuya's old Type-94 Nambu pistol is a literal one. Later used to shoot at Zero during the meeting where the merge of the Yamato Alliance into the Order of the Black Knights was arranged.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • This trope may as well be Sayoko's actual job description for Lelouch. Pro tip: pay attention if she doesn't make an appearance in a while or he explicitly says he has her attending an unspecified something elsewhere at the moment, chances are that her return will be a big All According to Plan moment.
  • Major Sentaro Kadzuki was mentioned as early as Chapter 24, but didn't make an appearance until the interlude following Chapter 28.
• Chekhov's Hobby: Marianne mentions that C.C. "has forgotten more about swords and pistols than a Geass Order agent like Rolo has learned in his entire life." Sure enough, later on during the meeting with the leaders of the Six Houses of Kyoto, C.C. proved to be an incredibly skilled fencer.
• Chick Magnet: Deconstructed with Lelouch, who remarks on all the stuff he has to put up with because of this trope. To name a few, he has to maintain an exhausting "Ice Prince" persona so most girls will keep their distance (although more than a few like him more for it), some guys blame him for their lack of success with the opposite sex including one that directly snapped at him because Shirley turned him down, he and Celesta (C.C.) can't openly date because his fangirls are likely to get nasty with her if they find out, and he can't even be too outgoing around his friends because Shirley outright passes out if he's too nice to her and something like smiling a little to brightly at Milly is enough to get her significant other jealous.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Milly and Kaguya hope for this with Lelouch. Milly's wish came true in Chapter 31.
• Childhood Friends:
  • Milly with Lelouch and Nunnally, unlike canon where she (oddly enough) met them for the first time when they joined Ashford Academy.
  • Kaguya became good friends with Lelouch and Nunnally during their stay in the Kururugi Shrine, unlike canon where she only sorta met Lelouch.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: In this fic's Backstory, the reason why Kaguya became the head of the Sumeragi Family despite her young age was because her predecessor – Masatake Sumeragi, her grandfather – committed suicide in despair at the state of his country fell into around a year after the invasion. She was about to be made into a political Trophy Wife when the leader of the Six Houses of Kyoto, recognizing her great potential as a political player, stepped in and candidly presented her with the only two options ahead of her: "to become a puppet or a puppeteer". She chose the latter and Taizo Kirihara secretly took her under his wing. By the time she was fifteen, she became one of, if not the most capable, adaptable, and astute of the heads of the Houses second only to Kirihara himself, and is by far the best at getting a read on and predicting Zero.
• Child Soldiers: Only two of the Demons that V.V. sends to Japan to deal with Valefar are older than teenagers, and they have explicitly been Demons or training to become them since childhood.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Major Kadzuki to a T. He was a member of the JLF and a sympathizer of Kusakabe's ideals, but he neither followed him nor stopped him from attempting his Senseless Sacrifice at Lake Kawaguchi, all in order to become the de facto leader of the most nationalist elements within the JLF, whom he then took under his banner to found his own resistance group after the majority of the JLF joined the Black Knights. Then he nominally put himself and his "Neo Shinsengumi" under the orders of half of the leaders of the Six Houses who dislike Zero for support, fully intended to not only mooching his resources, but also in wait to eventually discover their secret headquarters and take them over through military action. Then Kadzuki wants to force the Black Knights to bargain with them for funding and get close enough to kill Zero because he knows that he never will be the one and true military leader of Japan as long as the masked man lives.
• Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome: C.C. kept the pistol she used to kill Clovis, but this is somewhat Justified because holding onto the murder weapon doesn't really make much of a difference in this case. After all, Zero already publicly confessed to regicide and Britannian authorities most certainly will have his head on a spike for it if they get the chance in order to save face, regardless who they think the triggerman was. As "Augur", C.C. briefly handed the gun to Kallen prior to the Black Knights' intervention in Lake Kawaguchi. It's not totally clear why she did it, but it's possible that she and Zero noticed Kallen had some qualms over fighting Kusakabe and they thought that having that tangible reminder of his commitment to the cause in her hands would help Kallen to overcome her hesitation.
• Clark Kenting:
  • Lelouch Lampshades just how badly Kallen maintains her Secret Identity, comparing her meek and sickly act to "trying to disguise a Doberman as a Poodle," and marvels that nobody at Ashford Academy noticed that something was amiss with her so far.
  • Deconstructed soon after. Lelouch Exploits the flimsiness of her cover to explain away his Geass-obtained knowledge. He (as Zero) told Kallen that he figured out who she was thanks to her statistically rare phenotype, which allegedly allowed him to track down girls around her age with natural blue eyes and red hair and came up with a very short list of names in both the Settlement and especially the Ghettos, and eventually came across her dual identity (made even easier because they're both called Kallen to boot).
  • Kind of Reconstruction around the time the Black Knights become a thing. Zero sees the possibility of someone recognizing Kallen like he supposedly did as the security risk that it is, so he provides her with her own identity-concealing disguise in the same style of Aegis, Augur and his own. Although, being already a familiar face among La Résistance, Kallen only needs to go by her "Red Queen" persona when there's a chance of Britannian forces catching sight of her as Zero's Ace Pilot.
  • It's later revealed that he's had Deithard prepare for the possibility of her cover being blown.
• Closet Key:
  • C.C. to Sayoko. Played With in that the latter seems just too committed to her relationship with Lelouch to consider C.C. a true Love Interest. Nevertheless, both women do get along swimmingly as Friends with Benefits.
  • In the fic's Backstory, a 14-year-old Milly discovered that she also likes women when she returned the advances of one of her house maids.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Lelouch considers himself this to Milly and his actual job as the vice-president of Ashford Academy Student Council. For this purpose, he even installed a hidden camera in the student council office connected to a monitor in his room that he aptly labeled as the "Milly Madness Detection System." The narration even calls him "Milly's leash-holder" and the entire Student Council looks at him for help when she proposes something outlandish.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet:
  • Lelouch, by virtue of being Too Clever by Half. He understands, on an intellectual level, that women find him attractive because of his looks, interesting because of his mind, or consider him someone they can ally themselves with because of what they stand to gain from it thanks to him being a Magnificent Bastard. However, he has a hard time wrapping his head around the concept that some of them may simply like like him. A half-amused, half-exasperated C.C. in particular had to go into a sarcasm-saturated You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! rant just so he could start to see why she might want to blur the line between business and pleasure in their partnership.
    C.C.: Let me see. A handsome, honourable and strong man saves me from the clutches of an evil prince; directs a rag-tag crew of misfits to victory over vastly numerically superior forces; captures said evil prince and allows me to exact my vengeance against him; then offering me sanctuary at his own home. No, I cannot think of a single reason whatsoever why I might feel indebted, attracted and grateful to you in any way.
  • Same history with Sayoko later on. C.C. had to give Lelouch a paint-by-numbers explanation about the Ninja Maid's reason to swear loyalty to him with an oath that would also make her his concubine in all but name, instead of one of many others that leave out such a requirement.
    Lelouch: (thinks to himself for a while) She likes me?
    C.C.: (Sarcastic Clapping) Bingo! Give the man a coconut.
• Code Name: A must for Zero's Enigmatic Minions. C.C., Sayoko, Milly Ashford, and (occasionally) Kallen go by Augur, Aegis, Incognito, and the Red Queen, respectively.
• Cold Sniper: C.C. when piloting her Knightmare fitted for long-range combat. She's also very apt at making cold-headed, split-second decisions, like targeting the Lancelot's Sand Panels during the Battle of Narita instead of the unit itself because Suzaku couldn't protect them with the Blaze Luminous.
• Color-Coded Characters: Zero's Enigmatic Minions: Aegis (black), Augur (gray), Incognito (white), and the Red Queen.
• Combat Stilettos: Averted. The narration helpfully notes that the thigh-high boots of Kallen's "Red Queen" ensemble don't have high heels.
• Comically Small Demand: Zero's only demand for conquering Britannia is to be left alone afterwards. Sayoko, C.C., and Kaguya all find it rather amusing that he thinks he has a chance of being allowed to fade into obscurity if his revolution succeeds.
• Compressed Hair: Averted due to Surprisingly Realistic Outcome. Unlike canon, C.C. has to tie her hair in a tight bun for it to fit under her mask.
• The Consigliere: Augur's official role to Zero in the Order of the Black Knights.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Lelouch cites how the EU had their latest line of Knightmares, the Alexander, fitted with a Self-Destruct Mechanism as an example of how they treat soldiers like trash. This is a direct reference to Code Geass: Akito the Exiled.
  • At one point, it was revealed that Pendragon was attacked by the "Wings of Talleyrand" terrorist group, with the assault thwarted by Marrybell mel Britannia and her Glinda Knights taskforce. This is an event straight from Code Geass: Oz the Reflection.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Every time Shirley has successfully asked Lelouch out, something came up to cancel their date: hospital visits, the event was cancelled, and family emergencies among them.
  • The only reason Agent Desmond of the Geass Order didn't cause mass injuries, and even a couple of deaths as collateral damage of putting everyone at Ashford Academy under Forced Sleep with his Geass, is because coincidentally no one was in danger of accidentally hurting themselves by suddenly falling unconscious during mundane actions like using the stairs or cooking in that particular moment. Shirley herself was spared from drowning during club activities only because she had just gotten out of the pool when it happened.
  • Milly is spared from Desmond's Geass because C.C. at the time was using her Code to scan the blonde's nervous system for foreplay-related reasons. Not even C.C. knew she could make people temporarily immune to Geass like that.
• Conveniently Common Kink: After first meeting her, Sayoko and C.C. deduce that Kaguya likely has a cuckqueen fetish the 16-year-old isn't entirely aware of just yet. Kaguya knows that the idea of her crush Zero sharing his bed with other women doesn't bother her as much as it probably should and becomes positively intrigued when "Aegis" reveals that he's taken her and "Augur" as his mistresses. If they pinned her kink right, this not only would make it easier for Kaguya to accept Lelouch's current love life if the two of them ever get a Relationship Upgrade, but instead make their potential relationship significantly more attractive to her than it would be otherwise. Heck, C.C. outright advises Lelouch to Exploit this in order to make the Head of the Sumeragi Family into an unshakeable and powerful ally.
  C.C.: Marry her, make her yours and keep having sex with women in front of her and she'll be your devoted woman for all your days.
• Converse with the Unconscious: Apparently a regular thing for Professional Killer Agent Desmond, as a result of his predilection to deliver a Pre-Mortem One-Liner to his unconscious victims.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment:
  • How did Zero punish Tamaki for sleeping on the job and allowing the guy who released Tetsuya escape? He let Kallen have a word with him. That is, Zero let the Fiery Redhead who's also "a martial artist beyond a black belt" have a word with the guy who could have captured Tetsuya's accomplice right after her leader/crush got shot had he just guarded a door like he was supposed to, and all this mere minutes after the incident took place and with all her Anger Born of Worry yet to be worked out of her system. Yeah... that ended well.
  • Euphemia took revenge on Cornelia for dropping tons of paperwork on her desk... by doing exactly the same to her at a time the latter could do nothing but comply.
    Cornelia: You, sister dear, are an evil, conniving woman. I do hope you are aware of that?
    Euphemia: I learned from the best, sister dear.
  • The former members of the Yamato Alliance that repeatedly stole supplies from the Black Knights and sold them in the black market were Robinsonaded in order to Make an Example of Them – that is, they were left in a Deserted Island with enough a food to last them three months if and only if they're smart and disciplined enough to ration it. Considering the kind of proclivities that got them in that mess in the first place, the future doesn't bode them well.
• Cool Car: Desmond "borrows" a Ford Mustang Galpin Fisker Rocket from a obnoxious Code-R staff member to get to Ashford Academy and assassinate Lelouch. Likely the only reason the Metallicar Syndrome applies here is because he got caught before the distinctive muscle car managed to draw any unwanted attention.
• Cool Old Guy: Mamoru Takagahara is this in spades – a 60-year-old martial artist turned resistant fighter, former kobudo teacher to Kallen and Naoto Kozuki, handy in a Knightmare, survivor of the destruction of the Imperial Dragons faction at Cornelia's hands and then becoming one of the most respected members of the Yamato Alliance in just a few days after joining (a Noodle Incident was hinted to be involved though), and always shifting between affable and wise old man, no-nonsense but fair officer and scary Drill Sergeant Nasty depending on what's required of him.
• Corrupt Quartermaster:
  • These were rather common under Clovis' reign. Zero tends to use them to get equipment then points Sub-Viceroy Euphemia in their direction.
  • The Black Knights had one of their own in the form of a Yamato Alliance council member who stole small amounts of their equipment and supplies, and sold them on the black market. He was effectively removed and left on a deserted island that not even Brittanian Air Force went near, thus only having enough supplies for three months if properly rationed and the clothes on his and his cronies backs.
• Covert Pervert:
  • Nina Einstein, more obvious here than in canon because of her Secret Relationship with Milly. There's also the Brains and Bondage thing she's got going with C.C. after their break-up.
  • A bit of Dirty Mind-Reading revealed to C.C. that Kaguya Sumeragi is what she calls "one hell of a perverted girl", which says a lot coming from Seen It All 700-year-old immortal. See Conveniently Common Kink above for details.
  • C.C. observes this is the case for Kallen, who doesn't fend off "Celesta's" advances as strongly as she knows the trained fighter easily could. When thinking about asking her about how to deal with her feelings for both Lelouch and Zero, she can't help but think how good she is with her hands. She's also masturbated to Lelouch a couple (dozen) times.
• Crazy Jealous Guy:
  • Like in canon, V.V. is jealous of Marianne's relationship with Charles to the point of breaking his contract of never lying to one another. That same jealousy extends to their children.
  • Discussed and Subverted in Lelouch's case. A little after their Relationship Upgrade, and after realizing that C.C. considers social mores more like guidelines than rules, Lelouch just in case asks her to not answer the door naked. C.C. teasingly asks him if he's getting possessive already, and he retorts that "last [he] checked [they] are lovers, so is it a bad thing to not want other men to see [her] body?" This proved to be just the right amount of possessiveness in C.C.'s book and she warned him to leave immediately to see to his business or she would "drag [him to the bedroom] and jump [him] for saying such a thing."
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • The Kyoto Houses and Todoh are a bit surprised that Zero created his persona as a symbol in such a way that, if he fell, someone else could become Zero in his stead.
  • He's also prepared for the possibility of Kallen's identity being made public.
• Creator Cameo: Namedrop variant. One of the nicknames of Sayoko's heirloom sword is Senkensha-ō or "Seer King."
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Defied with the Knights of Round, who have to not only be master Knightmare pilots, but also highly skilled in other areas.
  • Lelouch notes that Rakshata's Knightmares tend to be focused on close quarters combat with little ranged weaponry.
  • Desmond's over-reliance on his Geass causes him to struggle when dealing with any significant resistance.
  • Rolo, as Naberius, is an incredible assassin especially trained in quick "get in, get out" missions. However, that came at the cost of neglecting his skills in long term infiltrations to the point he can't understand why he can't go around killing everybody. Vassago even has to say that she's going to have Rolo's handlers and trainers investigated due to this.
• Cruel to Be Kind:
  • Kallen is allowed to vent her frustrations at Tamaki's screw-ups because it helps break him of bad (and potentially lethal) habits.
  • Lelouch reluctantly allows Suzaku to suffer from racially-motivated bullying at Ashford Academy so that he can see for himself that there are serious problems in Britannian society.
  • Reuben Ashford by inaction. He let Melisande get as far as she did with her plans to force Milly into a loveless marriage because nothing subtler seemed to work in getting his granddaughter together with the man she actually loves.
• Crush Blush: It's frequent for Kallen to get these when she's nearby Zero.
• Cuddle Bug: C.C. is quite fond of being physically close to people so she shares Lelouch's bed even when they aren't having sex, simply to snuggle.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Knightmare fight between Zero and a critically untrained member of the Yamato Alliance that went rogue on him. In fact, Lelouch barely considered it a fight and instead took advantage of the opportunity to acquire actual battle experience on a Knightmare Frame, which he admits it's a whole other kettle of fish compared to simulation training.
  • Mamoru Takagahara and the Guren Mark One versus Dorothea Ernst and her Exeter. Dorothea used every weapon she carried, and yet was so outclassed that she could not land a single hit. If not for the Neo Shinsengumi interrupting the battle, she doubtless would have been killed by the Sleeping Dragon of Kanto.
• Custom Uniform: Downplayed. Uniforms in the Order of the Black Knights are all the same except for the red-rimmed berets worn by their founding members in lieu of their trademark red hachimaki from their time as the Kozuki Cell, subtly setting them apart from later recruits who wear gray-rimmed ones instead.
• Cutting Corners: One of the many poor decisions Clovis took as the Viceroy of Area 11 was hiring the lowest bidder to make "the various small, but vital, things that are absolutely necessary for soldiers on campaign." Notably, Lelouch easily got one pilot to dismount his Knightmare and put himself within his Geass' range by signalling that his radio broke down, something that the Knight had no trouble believing.

D-F

• Dare to Be Badass: Zero gives a very personal Rousing Speech to Diethard before asking him if he really wants to join the Black Knights, making the disaffected producer realize Zero was everything he expected him to be and much, much more.
  Zero: As it so happens, I am reorganising the Black Knights for when the remaining loyal JLF troops join us, and the post of Head of Information Management is open. Unlike your current post, where you use words to deceive the public, I want you to use the greatest weapon a journalist has, the truth, and prove that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. I want you to show the public what Britannia has lied to them about over the years. Every rotten secret, every instance of corruption, every backroom deal, every time the old boy's network swept something or someone under the carpet… I want you to make Britannia fear the truth more than it could ever fear mere man. And additionally, I promise you this, Mr. Reid; when I and my Black Knights topple Britannia and cleave Charles zi Britannia's head from his shoulders, you will be there, every step of the way, to record history as it was, not how people imagined it to be or wish for it to have been. The truth, and nothing else, is what I ask and demand from you, Mr. Reid. [...] My only question is… can you deliver?
• Dark Lady And Black Knight: A Gender-Inverted Trope with Lelouch and Sayoko, in addition to the canonical Zero and Kallen.
• Dark Secret: Nunnally doesn't speak a word about how deep her Big Brother Attraction actually runs. Even the audience wasn't privy of this until her Day in the Limelight.
• David Versus Goliath: Kallen in her battered, outdated and one-armed Glasgow challenged the Lancelot after barricading the two of them at the foot of the old Tokyo City Hall in proper Duel to the Death/Last Stand style. Subverted because it was all a trap. Kallen ejected the moment the Lancelot got close at the same time Lelouch executed his plan to herd and then bury the Super Prototype under a skyscraper's worth of debris.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Interludes as a general rule. Often the Point of View goes to antagonists, such as the Emperor, V.V., Marianne-in-Anya's-body, or Major Kadzuki and his backers in the Six Houses. Others are narrated by Nunnally or the Ashford family.
  • Nina gets a Hotter and Sexier Spin-Off named Nina of the Submission. Its plot is about Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• D-Cup Distress:
  • Sayoko rather disliked her breast size – noted as unusually large for a Japanese woman – because they got in way of her training. That is, until sex entered the equation.
  • Cheryl Silver has F-cup breasts and has long gotten used to people ogling at her. Being seen like a sex object has never stopped bothering her, though, but she's got years of practice acting like it doesn't.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Kewell Soresi is dead before Cornelia assumes the office of Viceroy instead of being KIA in the Battle of Narita. Or rather, he was secretly captured for human experimentation by Code-R personnel similarly to Jeremiah's fate in canon.
  • C.C.'s former contractor Mao died as early as the Battle of Shinjuku. See Death by Irony below for details.
• Death by Irony: Being a Rational Fic, many characters are smarter and more competent than their canonical counterparts. This, however, backfired big time on C.C.'s former contractor Mao, who was able to track her down months in advance compared to canon and ended up following her to Shinjuku and getting caught and killed in the crossfire for his troubles.
  • Most of the old Aries Villa guards were killed by something they either abhorred, disliked, or had morals against, courtesy of V.V.
• Decapitated Army: Hiring an assassin or suborning enemy officers to kill an enemy commander that could pose a problem in a campaign is a tried and true Britannian tactic before a big battle. Zero remarks on the hypocrisy of Britannia baying for his blood for killing Clovis by saying that he simply took a page from their book of tactics.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Zero defeating Cornelia the "Goddess of Victory" in the Battle of Saitama truly gave the world a pause. It helped to convince the Yamato Alliance to reorganize themselves under Zero's command, prompted the JLF to send him an invitation to join them, made Charles and Marianne readjust their plans and send two Knights of Round to Area 11, and attracted V.V.'s attention who decided to send Rolo to kill Lelouch and capture C.C. and, if possible, Nunnally.
• Déjà Vu: Euphemia can't shake off the strong sensation that she's met Zero prior to their first conversation in Lake Kawaguchi, possibly someone from Imperial Court based on his mannerisms and inner knowledge of the Britannian upper-class. It took Milly all her self-control to not react when Euphemia told her about it.
• Delicate and Sickly: Nunnally frequently suffers from fevers that defy diagnosis.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Chapter 32 has a tad more complex example than the usual for this trope. Milly allowed herself to be strategically injured by Sayoko – barehanded strangulation marks, a black eye, and a few minor injuries – in order to pass off the attempt on Lelouch and Nunnally's lives as one against herself. Besides Bluffing the Authorities, this gambit fulfilled several other objectives: 1) Reinforces the idea in Cornelia's mind that someone is taking out all of Marianne's allies one by one, while letting her know that the conspirators are still around and may move against Jeremiah and Cornelia herself in the future. 2) Provides a perfect justification to ramp up security in the campus without looking suspicious. 3) Sets a Batman Gambit with Euphemia who already felt protective of Milly after the Lake Kawaguchi Incident, allowing them to get closer without drawing too much attention to it 4) The rekindled friendship between both girls gives Reuben Ashford an inconspicuous way of communication to the Viceroy with the intention of becoming the first Knightmare manufacturer in Area 11, a business proposal that isn't just attractive for Cornelia given the huge strategic and logistic advantage of resupplying her troops locally, but a defense contract like that promises to be stupidly profitable for the Ashfords given the expected high demand of Knightmares intended to crush La Résistance and that fact that Area 11 is already the top Sakuradite-producing country in the world.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • C.C. is Really 700 Years Old and has lived in and outlived much more misogynistic times and cultures than present-day Britannia. That's the reason why she doesn't mind at all taking advantage of the "Worthy Reward" Law whereas Kallen thinks that a statute that legalizes polygamy is a sexist anachronism.
  • Sayoko is descendant and current heiress of a long lineage of shinobi that served their masters as spies, bodyguards, assassins and at times even as sex partners or concubines. As such, the idea of Lelouch marrying someone else while she remains The Mistress fits comfortably within the mores of her tradition. On the other hand, Lelouch almost flipped out when he was told that Sayoko had "to give her body to [him]" as part of her sworn duties, but C.C. was quick to make him understand that the only reason that's the case is because Sayoko loves him and chose her Loyalty Oath accordingly.
  • A Downplayed Trope compared to above, but the vi Britannia siblings' Blue Blood upbringing also shows at times, particularly on the subject of marriage.
    • Nunnally amuses herself pairing her brother to several girls at the same time in her mind, which makes a lot of sense once you consider that Nunnally grew up knowing that marriages are polygamous by design for Britannian Princes and above.
    • For his part, Lelouch nonchalantly discusses with C.C. and Sayoko the possibility of a politically-motivated marriage between Zero and Kaguya, where he was more concerned over the fact that marrying himself to the head of the prominent Sumeragi family would effectively preclude any chance of fading into obscurity once his work as Zero is done. Given his rational personality and his background as former Britannian Nobility, it's no surprise that Lelouch is comfortable with, or at least inured to, the idea of an Arranged Marriage.
  • Depending on how you see it, Kallen is either a Straight or Downplayed example regarding "Celesta's" past. When C.C. told her that Lelouch "took care of" the man who kidnapped and abused her, the Action Girl felt nothing but approval of his actions despite involving him literally getting away with murder.
• Democracy Is Bad: Considering the European Universe's democracy is in practice lead by plutocrats and oligarchs with zero trust in the military, it isn't surprising that Lelouch has this mindset. It's actually noticeable when he meets the Yamato Alliance for the first time. He believes that even if the American Revolution had succeeded, the democracy following it would've failed after George Washington.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The name "Neo Shinsengumi" is this; since "Shinsengumi" translates to "New Selected Group", "Neo Shinsengumi" means "New New Selected Group".
• Depraved Homosexual: Prior to C.C. getting her Geass, she was a slavegirl to a digusting fat noble who had orgies with his male servents and other like-minded men. C.C. was pratically unloved by anyone at the noble's estate, as he had her beaten and the other females at his estate shunned her. She was also uncomfortable at the idea of sex until she got her Code, as she witnessed the noble's sexcapades with every nauseating detail.
• Destination Defenestration: C.C. throws Desmond out the window of the Student Council's clubhouse during a fight with him.
• Determined Defeatist: In his heart of hearts, Mamoru knows that Britannia will never leave Japan alone because their Sakuradite is just that much of a critical resource in global economy and for the balance of power between nations. Even though he never stopped fighting as an important name in La Résistance, it wasn't until he saw with his own eyes what Zero was capable of that he started to feel hope again.
• Didn't See That Coming: Desmond had A Simple Plan to kill Lelouch: Go to Ashford Academy. Put everyone to sleep with his Geass. Kill the sleeping Lelouch. He didn't expect anyone to be immune to his Geass, much less a Code Bearer like V.V.
• Did You Just Have Sex?:
  • The entire student council noticed that Lelouch looked sleep-deprived one morning but in a seemingly good enough mood to flirt back at Milly with a smile that left even a tease like her with a Luminescent Blush. Nobody connected the dots, however, because this happened right after the Shinjuku Massacre and they all thought that Lelouch was still shaken by the experience and putting on a good face for their benefit.
  • Milly apparently had a much easier time figuring out that Sayoko was getting laid. Although knowing just who was the Ninja Maid's sole object of her affections left Milly's with rather conflicting feelings.
• Dirty Cop: The corruption in the Knightpolice in Area 11 was already apparent to Cornelia, what with how a Refrain dealer group managed to get one of their Knightmares, but the regular police is apparently just as bad.
• Discontinuity Nod:
  • Lelouch grants the title of the Knight of Zero to Kallen "Red Queen" Kozuki/Stadtfeld this time around.
  • A powerful Geass-user targets Ashford Academy after the Battle of Port Yokosuka, just not Mao. He even makes the same critical mistake: trusting too much in his Geass.
  • Lelouch has a feeling that C.C. could have been "as inscrutable as a doll" had she wanted to keep her goal and motivations to herself. This describes her canon self to a T for a good chunk of the first season of the anime.
• Discriminate and Switch: Nonette expresses some surprise when she learns that the Red Queen really is a "girl" after hearing her voice over the external speakers. When Kallen gets frustrated at the apparent sexism and accuses Nonette of being a Female Misogynist, she clarifies that she was surprised by her young age, not her gender.
• Distinction Without a Difference: C.C. insists she and Sayoko aren't Lelouch's harem because two women are "only a threesome." Apparently, there's a higher minimum membership requirement or something.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Defied. C.C. kept Milly Ashford from going into battle completely topless because it was a "tantalising distraction" for her.
• Dominatrix: In contrast to her being an Aggressive Submissive to Lelouch, C.C. is very much a domme in her relationship with Nina, as revealed in "Nina of the Submission". And she definitely dresses and acts the part.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Apparently Nonette has a habit of calling Emperor Charles "Charlie" in private, which annoys him.
• Don't Ask: Discussed and Deconstructed when Lelouch and C.C. considered the possibility of justifying the latter's presence at his place to Sayoko like this before dropping the idea. Lelouch warned C.C. that, while Sayoko would let her stay without making questions if he vouches for her, the Ninja Maid would also keep a vigilant eye on her just in case she needs to be quickly deal with if C.C. proves herself to be unworthy of his trust.
• Do Wrong, Right: After finding evidence that V.V. indeed helped Clovis to keep her imprisoned, C.C. entertains the idea of putting him inside a coffin, encase the whole thing in cement, and then throw the immortal into the Titanic Canyon. Lelouch chastises her for it… because cement would surely crack under deep oceanic pressures. He proposes instead to have resident scientist Rakshata modify the blueprints of the containment capsule that was used on her into something that can also function as a deep-sea probe that doesn't need to resurface. C.C. laughed approvingly at his corrections.
• Dragged into Drag: Suzaku is very afraid this could happen to him as a member of the Ashford Academy's Student Council and with Milly at the helm. This is the opposite to canon where he was used to cross-dress for laughs in the army, which could be a subtle hint that his pre-A.S.E.E.C. time in the military was a lot less lighthearted than in the series.
• The Dragon: Sergeant Minazuki to Major Kadzuki after he started his "Neo Shinsengumi" splinter cell. If the JLF's rumor mill had it right about them, she's also his Dark Mistress.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Shirley bemoans that she just can't confess her feelings to Lelouch and enviously remarks how "Milly could do it easily" if she were in her shoes, unaware that her seemingly self-assured friend is facing the same problem as her, if not worse, and is just better at hiding it under a flirty facade.
  • Milly is looking for a way to "[insert] herself into Lelouch's three-way relationship with [C.C.] and Sayoko" after finding out about it, unaware of "Celesta" (C.C.) trying to bring about that exact outcome.
  • Cornelia wants to get rid of Zero as soon as possible so she can focus her efforts on finding Lelouch and Nunnally.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Kaguya's grandfather killed himself around a year after the Britannian invasion in despair at the state his country fell into. That's the reason why the 16-year-old girl became the head of the Sumeragi family in the first place.
  • Lelouch mentions that the team leader of the weapons developer that produced a prototype Powered Armor he is interested in (see related entry) committed suicide after betting everything he had on the project when Britannian High Command finally pulled the plug on it.
• Drives Like Crazy: Done totally and ashamedly on purpose. Lelouch instructed Sayoko to carry Tetsuya to his trial in her Knightmare's hands instead of just letting her execute him then and there as she wanted to. She made do by working out some of her grievances against the traitor by giving him a non-stop rollercoaster of a ride that contributed to his Potty Failure.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The mind reader Mao is disposed of by the Shinjuku Resistance unintentionally when they ambush an enemy Knightmare. However this didn't entirely remove his importance from the story, as his body was recovered by Code-R personnel and they are planning on using his unusual brain tissue for their experiments.
• Dual Wielding: Mamoru takes advantage of improved dexterity of a Guren to translate his nitoryu swordsmanship style to Knightmare combat.
• Dude Magnet: Shirley's "Britannian Homeland-sized" crush on Lelouch left quite a few guys disappointed at Ashford Academy. Even her poor attempts to keep it hidden doesn't deter all her suitors, necessitating her to shoot down at least one person a week, often more, who asked her out.
• Duel of Seduction: Milly and Celesta (C.C.) have tried to out-flirt each of other for fun. The one time they Almost Kissed in front of Rivalz, the poor, poor guy passed out with a Nosebleed.
• Due to the Dead:
  • Lelouch took no pleasure in his half-brother's death and even took a moment to gently close Clovis' eyes before he and C.C. retreated from Shinjuku.
  • Zero investigated the ultimate fate of Kallen's brother after his capture by Britannian authorities through their computer network, managing to track down the location of his remains and gave the information to Kallen and Ohgi so they could bury him according to his wishes. Zero also discovered that Earl Stadtfeld, Kallen and Naoto's father, had already made secret and not-quite-legal arrangements to have his son's body shipped to him at the Britannian Homeland for burial. Kallen didn't know what to make of this revelation.
• Easily Forgiven: At the onset of the invasion of Japan, Colonel Todoh cornered Lelouch and held a gun against the then 10-year-old prince's head in order to get whatever intel the kid had about Britannia's plans. In the present, Lelouch holds no ill will whatsoever toward Todoh for this and he's convinced that he wouldn't have shot him regardless the outcome. Neither Sayoko, Cornelia nor Jeremiah are nearly as forgiving about it.
• Easy Logistics:
  • Averted. Zero places his work gathering funds for the rebellion at the same level of importance than actually fighting it. It's even a point of pride for him that the Black Knights are better equipped than most of Britannian military divisions sans for their elite forces.
  • A similar Aversion allows Lelouch to Spot the Thread about the Neo Shinsengumi and their backing during the Battle of Port Yokosuka. This is because he realized that "anyone with the slightest tactical acumen" wouldn't have ordered such a wasteful deployment, in both materiel and personnel, for no gain other than intel gathering if they had not know from the start they can afford it.
• Emotion Suppression: C.C.'s emotional capacity was damaged when the Nun betrayed her and forced her Code onto her. Although she's had numerous female lovers who managed to arouse feelings in her (much to her surprise the first time), before she started breaking through it after meeting Charles and later fully managed to do so with Lelouch, she was completely uninterested in men that way for centuries.
• Enigmatic Minion:
  • Aegis (Sayoko) and Augur (C.C.) to Zero, who similarly to him wear identity-concealing outfits and masks with built-in voice scramblers when working with La Résistance.
  • Kallen in her "Red Queen" ensemble is this for the Britannian military too, as the identity of Zero's Ace Pilot isn't known outside of the Black Knights and the Six Houses. Played With because she's just too Hot-Blooded and fond of Trash Talking to quite pull off "enigmatic" about anything other than her identity.
  • "Incognito" (Milly Ashford). Played With a bit in that she's also a Perky Female Minion.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Milly was surprised that Lelouch actually answered her flirting in kind, something he almost never does, much less so in front of the rest of the student council. She chalked it up to Shinjuku being enough of a close call for Lelouch to reevaluate his priorities – which, while correct, doesn't account for a far more mundane explanation: he got laid just the night before.
  • Nunnally guesses that her brother got all mysterious on her right after Zero killed Clovis because he's making preparations for the two of them to disappear again. Given that the Rebel Leader seems to have a bone to pick with the members of the Royal Family, she doesn't think it's too unlikely for Zero to target her and her brother is he ever learns about them.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Milly's mother pressuring her own daughter to either play Honey Trap on Lelouch or accept an Arranged Marriage to Lloyd, all in order to gain status in the Imperial Court, tells you everything you need to know about her.
    Melisande: [on the phone] Your infantile infatuation blinds you, daughter. He is a man, easily controlled by his desires. Very well then. If you will not listen to reason, I shall continue the negotiations with the Asplund Family. Good Day. [hangs up]
  • Nonette is introduced complimenting her subordinates and chewing out Dorothea for disparaging them and insulting Marianne.
• Ethical Slut:
  • While far from a Hormone-Addled Teenager – sex is, at most, a tertiary motivator for him – Lelouch's still plenty liberated despite his relatively young age and the fact that he just recently became sexually active. He has strong morals in regards to intimacy and was, for example, initially reluctant to sleep with Sayoko partly because he feared doing so might be taking advantage of her and her Undying Loyalty to him.
  • C.C. is another example, although being Really 700 Years Old makes her mores a mild case Blue-and-Orange Morality. It's usually Lelouch who reins her in – to however small extent – when her disregard for social conventions goes too far.
  • Milly is the Lady Casanova of Ashford Academy who admits to have seduced about half of the girls in her own year, but she doesn't cheat if she's in an exclusive relationship.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Charles once had to look through the memories of a noble so deviant and depraved he couldn't eat for the rest of the day. Lelouch upon learning this wondered exactly how bad it had to have been to do so, and resolves to learn the noble's name so he can avoid him. Charles is also a bit disturbed by Marianne's Mood-Swinger tendencies.
  • A nobleman Zero manipulates and then turns in was apparently so nasty that Cornelia had her own Knights try to arrest him instead of the police, which Ohgi mentally lampshades as meaning that his debaucheries and crimes must have been severe.
  • Clovis was a real nasty customer who ordered a massacre to cover up his own actions, but even he apparently found the Black King's continued criminal operations intolerable, as he was the only criminal he seriously tried to track down and have executed, but to no avail, apparently due to corruption in the task force.
  • Vassago is one of the Demons of the Geass Directorate, and will always make sure her target is terminated, but she makes it a point to avoid unnecessary civilian deaths as much as possible.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Neither C.C. nor Milly can get enough of the Skinship Grope they frequently subject Kallen to. The former once even said that, if it wasn't for the fact that Lelouch needs Kallen to be his Ace Pilot, she would've loved to try and make the redhead her sub.
• Everyone Can See It: A particularly bittersweet example happened during the Lake Kawaguchi Incident. After identifying Milly as a valuable hostage, two JLF soldiers roughly asked her what was the deal with the odd expression she was making as they escorted her to their superior. Milly admitted that she was thinking about a friend of hers that surely was going to be angry at her for putting herself in unnecessary danger, which was all the clue her captors needed to assume she was talking about her boyfriend^note reasonable assumption; the people one thinks of during a life-or-death situation tend to be the really important ones. When Milly denied this, the soldiers then hit jackpot when they immediately deduced that she wanted her friend to be her boyfriend but he's got someone else already^note a good educated guess too; if a brave, gorgeous and filthy rich heiress can't get the guy she wants, the most likely explanation is that he's already taken.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Except for the true scumbags, none of the revolutionaries tolerate Refrain users or dealers.
  • Cheryl Silver is a scientist who always believed ethics laws regarding scientific research were too stringent but she grows disgusted by her coworkers in Code-R, declaring that their actions are "butchery disguised as science". Not helping is the fact most of the "experiments" would be unnecessary if the scientists took better care of their test subjects. The fact that she has standards and was already planning to abandon Code-R saves her as when Zero attacks the facility, she is spared and given a "choice".
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Area 11 Nobility has trouble comprehending that Euphemia genuinely hates corruption because they've never had to deal with someone that they can't bribe. Thus, they believe that someone else simply bribed her first.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Arguably, Tetsuya is Tamaki with his negative traits exaggerated and none of his redeemable qualities.
  • Same thing with Milly and her mother. Melisande is what you get if you take Milly's aptitudes – like her drive, force of personality, beauty, cunning and occasional ruthlessness – and grant them to a person who only cares about herself and values wealth and status about all else. It says a lot that Lelouch decided that he would have to "eliminate" Melisande in one way or another for Nunnally's safety at the tender age of 13.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • V.V. didn't stop at having Marianne assassinated and instead had every one of her employees killed as well. According to Jeremiah, Cornelia and himself are the only two left. To add an extra layer of spitefulness to things, he had their deaths involve something that they abhorred, disliked, or were morally opposed to, like a teetotaller who died of alcohol poisoning.
  • When C.C. forced Desmond to release his Geass, he made sure that the people under its effects suffered severe pain and nausea similar to a nasty Hangover Sensitivity. It ultimately backfires on him however as it allows Lelouch and Milly to play off the attack as the effects of a terrorist attack using non-lethal chemical weapons, furthering their own goals in the process.
  • The above gets Played With in a way. Causing petty complications and delays after his capture by Lelouch's allies sounds like this trope, but it makes a lot of sense once you consider that his stalling allowed his employer to realize he failed and order Code-R's senior personnel and half of the longest-surviving test subjects to be evacuated before the Black Knights to get to them. Of course, given his twisted personality, it's very possible that Desmond didn't do it out of duty but as a final "screw you" against his captors.
• Evil Laugh: Both C.C. and Sayoko have noticed that Lelouch lets out a distinctive little laugh when he's plotting something particularly vindictive and/or humiliating on someone.
• Evil Pays Better: It has been noted that Code-R pays their researchers handsomely. Cheryl Silver laments not thinking of this as a red flag before signing up.
• Evil Twin: Averted. Both zi Britannia brothers are major bad news for the world as a whole, just in slightly different ways.
• Exact Words:
  • Upon being threatened with an honor duel, Dorothea worries that Nonette will declare the conditions to be first blood then cut off a limb.
  • C.C. tells Kallen a very abridged but technically true version of what happened with her and Clovis, though with the wording implying that the unnamed noble that Lelouch "took care of" kidnapped her and was looking to get into her pants, not experiment on her to try and become immortal. She also says that the noble was very close to Prince Clovis; which is true, since Clovis was obviously very close to himself. Similarly, when asked when/how she became sterile, C.C. tells Kallen that it happened a long time ago and that it was "ancient history to some". Given that taking Code was what did it, the story is ancient history to pretty much everyone.
  • Lelouch uses his Geass to get Kallen's mother to fight off her Refrain addiction, disguising the supernatural elements as the work of "[an] acquaintance [of his who] has never failed to hypnotise someone."
  • C.C. told Lelouch he was the only man she plans to seduce. So far, she's been good to her word.
  • Zero handed Kallen a device disguised as a small hairclip and told her that she just had to smash it on something to activate an alarm on his helmet. What he didn't tell her was that it was in fact a hidden microphone and destroying it would activate a "lost signal" kind of alarm.
  • When asked her nationality by the Six Houses of Kyoto, C.C. remarks that she thinks she's French but hasn't been there in a very long time (read: 700 years).
  • When the aquatic Portman Knightmare was first rolled out, the Bloom family was contracted, through their company Waterflower Heavy Industries, to handle its production, being given a contract that would last either ten years or until the Portland was obsolete. Thanks to almost no other nation in the world having had the naval strength to challenge Britannia on the open water since the Knightmare was first developed, the Portland is technically still not obsolete despite it being a Fourth Generation Frame, and the Blooms are only now just beginning to develop the Portman II (which they also have the right to do if the Portland was replaced before the end of the contract), because all Fourth Generation machines in the military are being phased out. Part of the reason such a contract was allowed was because it wasn't expected that the Fourth Generation Knightmares would become obsolete so quickly.
  • There's extensive pressure on female Noble family heads in Britannia to get married and have children/heirs to maintain the family, but as Milly points out to Euphie, that only applies to Nobility, and the Ashfords are currently not Nobles, giving Millie plenty of time to focus on her career and helping Lelouch before she has to worry about that. And since law states that the Ashfords have two generations to reclaim their title, she's got time to reclaim it, estimating that she'll be in her late twenties to early thirties by the point where marriage and heirs will be a serious concern.
  • When the punks Lelouch used his Geass on to tell them to never bully anyone again reappear looking for payback, he's briefly puzzled until he realizes that they don't consider revenge "bullying". He's rather surprised that a group of morons like them unwittingly stumbled upon a loophole in his Geass, which binds minds far more powerful than theirs completely and utterly.
• Exotic Extended Marriage:
  • Britannian noblemen, as well as male commoners with enough money and/or status, are allowed to take multiple wives under the "Worthy Reward" Law, although only very few actually exercise this privilege. This is because two stipulations: Firstly, for one to qualify as a wife and not just a mistress (also recognized by the law) one needs to be either fully Britannian or royalty/nobility in their country of origin. C.C. acknowledges that this provision makes sense on a political and national security level as it prevents foreign powers from flooding the nobility with their people. Secondly, Top Wife privileges do exist, including a sort of veto power over who becomes a wife and who is a mistress after her. Only a foolish man or the Britannian Emperor who uniquely doesn't have a Top Wife (and is actually legally required to take two wives at the minimum to ensure there will be a heir to the throne) would dare ignore her. Personally, Charles thinks that not having a Top Wife is stupid, and admits that Marianne basically unoficially filled the position in his mind.
  • For a specific example, C.C. is planning on taking full advantage of the "Worthy Reward" law to someday make official the ever growing Polyamory centered on Lelouch. For now C.C.'s plan consists in making Milly the Top Wife and Kallen the second one – while taking care of keeping her Japanese ancestry under wraps with a few well placed bribes – and getting Sayoko and herself formally recognized as his mistresses because neither of them are Britannian. While Kaguya as the heir to the Japanese throne is considered worthy enough to be a wife under the relevant laws, Shirley's middle class status would render her but a mistress, though C.C doubts she'd mind. Shirley's mother on the other hand...
    • To expand upon it, like most Britainnian laws, the Worthy Reward Law is filled with prejudices and the cutoff point between mistress and wife is the wife's family having a certain degree of wealth. Milly, as the heiress to the disenfranchised but still wealthy Ashford Foundation (which is slowly making a comback), Kallen as the heiress to the Stadtfelt Earldom and Kaguya as heiress to the Chrysanthemum Throne, whose royal lineage is still recognized despite Japan's conquest, would qualify as wives. Meanwhile, Sayoko, C.C. and Shirley; a Honorary Britannian servant, Frenchwoman with no known background and an upper-middle class Britannian commoner repectively, would all be mistresses.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Said word by word by Todoh when he met Zero in person for the first time.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: While discussing the attack by the Neo Shinsengumi, Zero talks about how odd it is they'd waste so much equipment and personnel. Tamaki casually remarks that they must have known they could replace their losses, only to realize that means they're far more well funded than the Black Knights assumed.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • In Chapter 32, after realizing she can't escape from Zero and his henchwomen, Cheryl decides that if she's going to die, she'll die on her feet.
  • In Chapter 33, when the three members of Kyoto who supported Kadzuki are sentenced to death, only Munakata accepts the offer to commit seppuku, stating he wants to die with at least some honor and dignity.
• Fainting: It's almost a Running Gag that Shirley will faint from a Luminescent Blush and High-Pressure Emotion if Lelouch is just a bit too nice to her. He complains that he actually has a hard time interacting with her because of this and he and their friends have become quite adept at casually catching her before she hits the floor.
• False Flag Operation: After absorbing the JLF, Zero plans a final operation under JLF colors before fully integrating the remaining soldiers into the Black Knights. Specifically, he rigs up a ship loaded with Sakuradite so that it can be controlled remotely and lure Britannian troops in before detonating it, playing into Cornelia's propaganda-fueled misconceptions about Japanese "kamikaze".
• False Reassurance: Lelouch reassures Clovis that he does believe he isn't responsible for his mother's death, but he still deserves to die for his crimes. Likewise, he won't kill Clovis, but C.C. will.
• Fangirl
  • C.C. remembers that Cornelia was this to Marianne as a kid/teen, following the retired Ace Pilot around "like a lovestruck puppy."
  • As in canon, Lelouch has them by the dozen in Ashford Academy. Nunnally dislikes them, particularly the scheming ones that try to get closer to him through her. For her part, C.C. has opted for keeping her relationship with him a secret just so she wouldn't have to deal with their silly antagonism.
  • While a Downplayed example so far, Villetta Nu is this to Zero in stark contrast to canon. After switching sides, Villetta has now the proper context to understand why Zero acts like he does and is privy to part of the impressive behind-the-scenes work required to pull off his "miracles", with time becoming more and more admiring of his Magnificent Bastardy.
• Fantastic Caste System: Besides the oppression of the "Numbers", the Nobility whose holdings are in the various Areas are looked down in comparison to Homeland Nobility. Not only can Area Nobility not rise above the Margrave ranking, not that many even reach that point, but a member of the Homeland Nobility counts as being three steps above their rank in comparison to an Area Noble.
• Fantastic Drug: In addition to Refrain, which is confirmed by Rakshata Chawla to have been deliberately designed to be as addictive as possible, the genius has engineered, on Zero's request, a drug designed to help counter Refrain addiction, called "Enact". Given how easy it was to make, it's assumed that Brittania has a version of its own that they purposefully deny to non-Brittanian addicts, or they were told not to try making such a drug.
• Fat Bastard: Diethard's Pointy-Haired Boss is described by him as an "overweight, obnoxious, arrogant, vainglorious fool."
• Fate Worse than Death: Milly considers her father's marriage to her mother this to the point that she considers Roderick being killed with Melisande a blessing. The fact that Reuben feels the same is rather telling.
• Feel No Pain: C.C.'s Code interferes with her sense of pain, which proved useful during the times she was "killed".
• Fired Teacher: Ohgi used to be a high school teacher until the annexation replaced the educational system with a pro-Britannian one. Zero finds his background useful because Ohgi's Workplace-Acquired Abilities makes him a level-headed and very patient person capable of getting rowdy resistance fighters to do their jobs with little to no conflict. This is big part of the reason why Zero keeps Ohgi high within the hierarchy of the Black Knights.
• First-Name Basis: Kallen insists on her schoolmates calling her by her first name. Not because she's actually close to any of them, but instead because she hates being reminded of her Britannian heritage whenever someone calls her "Miss Stadtfeld."
• First-Person Smartass: Nunnally is this if pushed enough, as seen in her Day in the Limelight:
  Fangirl #1: [Lelouch]'s so cool and distant!
  Nunnally: [thinking] That's because he wants nothing to do with you.
  Fangirl #2: He's so smart! I bet he knows so much!
  Nunnally: [thinking] Of course he's smart! He's my brother!
  Fangirl #3: I wonder what he looks like naked.
  Nunnally: [thinking] You'll never know, you perverted wench!
• First Time Feeling: C.C. experiencing sexual attraction toward a guy basically for the first time in her long immortal life hits her like a hormone-loaded freight train, and Lelouch treating her to an accidental peep show while assuming that she would think nothing of his half-naked body certainly didn't help matters. It's only thanks to Lelouch's trademark obliviousness and him giving her the perfect excuse to leave the room that C.C. didn't make a fool of herself then and there.
• Flat "What":
  • Charles's reaction to the news that Cornelia was forced into a draw.
  • Also Guilford's response to hearing they're being resupplied with the near worthless Liverpools and Yorks rather than the Sutherlands and Gloucesters Cornelia ordered.
  • Millicent when C.C. nonchalantly admitted that she used her Code to "tweak" Kallen's nervous system a bit just to make the redhead's large breasts more "sensitive" than they were before.
• Flawed Prototype: The Bedivere due to it being what Lloyd calls "bleeding edge" technology aka being a great leap into the unknown and filled with experimental technology. After it's first battle, Nonette pays Lloyd to fix it's various problems.
• Flaw Exploitation: Zero's Port Yokosuka ambush works by taking advantage of Cornelia's racism towards Numbers, as her propaganda-distorted image of Japanese culture – and more specifically what Seppuku and "kamikaze" attacks are really about – keeps her from realizing until too late that their tanker being detonated as the Britannian Navy boarded it was a trap and not a Taking You with Me tactic.
• Foil:
  • Milly Ashford and Sayoko Shinozaki. The former in an affluent Britannian heiress, exuberant and assertive as they come while hiding her inner ruthlessness, and with enough leadership skills and charisma to remain as the unopposed Student Council President of Ashford Academy. The latter is an "Eleven" maid working for the former's family, quiet and dutiful to a fault while hiding her frankly terrifying martial skill as a Ninja descendant, and nominally hired as a bodyguard while not bringing any attention to herself. Two important things they have in common is that both ladies have been pinning after Lelouch for years and neither can bring herself to spit it out, and that they got together with him in exactly the same manner: C.C. grew too damn tired of seeing them deny themselves of what they so obviously wanted, and decided to become a rather aggressive version of a Shipper on Deck for them.
• Forced Sleep: The power of Desmond's Geass. He can designate a sizable area and make everyone there fall unconscious (or other states of consciousness, but he uses sleep for obvious reasons). As a drawback, he can randomly lose either sight in one eye or hearing in one ear while his Geass is active.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The design of Augur's outfit is reminiscent of a medieval knight's armor. Get C.C. a sword and she will prove that there's a reason for it.
  • Despite being caked in grease and dirt, Tetsuya's Type-92 Nanbu still fires reliably at Zero's Knightmare. Not long after, Tetsuya is able to shoot Zero himself, his terrible aim being the only thing that saved the latter's life.
  • Some time after Rolo is sent to kill Lelouch, a Geass user arrives in Japan with a Geass in their left eye. A later chapter shows a different Geass assassin had replaced him though still following the same mission.
  • Nunnally's remark about how "[her brother] has spoilt [her] for other boys" takes a very different meaning when her Day in the Limelight reveals that her feelings for Lelouch are explicitly romantic.
• For Want Of A Nail: Oh boy, where do we even start?
  • Probably the most important and far-reaching change is Lelouch learning a different set of lessons from witnessing the aftermath of the Gunma Massacre.
    • Lelouch hated the feeling of being barely strong enough to carry his sister through the Corpse Land, motivating him to request physical and martial training from Sayoko later on. While Lelouch remains an Insufferable Genius, as a no-nonsense mentor Sayoko curbed down much of his conceit and truly drove home the lesson that all the brain power in the world won't help him at all if an enemy can simply kick him in the side of the head and be done with it.
    • Incidentally, Sayoko taking Lelouch as a student of sorts helped to make them closer than in the series. This paved the way for the Ninja Maid to fall in love with him despite the age gap, and later becoming one of his most loyal supporters and a lot earlier than in canon.
    • Lelouch also came to despise senseless loss of life, making Zero's image as a protector of the innocent much less of the manufactured reputation that it was in canon. Most notably, both the Battle of Shinjuku and Saitama had significantly lower civilian casualties because Lelouch devoted part of his forces to evacuate the residents before Britannian military could find them.
    • The tragedy also prompted Lelouch to implement actual plans against Britannia way before he met C.C. in Shinjuku. For example, he's been acquiring funds to fuel his rebellion since he was 13-14 by using his gambling earnings as startup capital.
  • Another important change in the backstory is that their Japanese hosts/captors offered Lelouch and Nunnally real Sacred Hospitality until the invasion and beyond, unlike canon where they were treated with poorly hidden contempt, and sometimes not even that, except for Suzaku and not even he was any different at first. This changed Lelouch's opinion of Japanese people and that's likely why he offers them more than the Pragmatic Villainy treatment he gave them in canon.
    • It's possible that the above was the result of Lelouch arriving to Japan so beaten up that he had to be hospitalized. This probably snapped the grown-ups out of their animosity towards the Britannian Royal Family and allowed them to see the exiled prince and princess for what they really were: children without a home to call their own.
    • Lelouch being an actual guest in the Kururugi Shrine created the opportunity for him and Kaguya to actually meet instead of the Forgotten First Meeting thing they had in canon. And just like it didn't take long for her canonical counterpart to fall for Zero, her 8-year-old self got a mad childish crush on Lelouch.
  • The other big divergence from canon is Charles finding out about Code-R and giving Clovis his tacit blessing, per V.V.'s advice, to continue his inhuman experiments on C.C. Later on, the prince made the stupid mistake of telling C.C. about it as he never expected her to escape, prompting her to abandon Charles' cause, cut ties with Marianne and transfer her loyalties to Lelouch the moment she learned about his plans to destroy his father's Britannia.
  • As seen in her Freudian Excuse entry below, Cornelia didn't take well the realization that the Emperor is all too willing to use his children as tools, even sending the son and daughter of his favorite consort Marianne as political hostages, and she became extremely protective of Euphemia as result. Furthermore, Cornelia's becoming her little sister's legal guardian and dragging her around the world with her completely changed Euphemia's growing environment throughout her teens, in turn becoming less of the Princess Classic and figurehead that she was in canon and more of a Silk Hiding Steel Badass Bureaucrat.
  • Mao is killed off during the Battle of Shinjuku.
  • Kallen is questioned away from prying eyes, minimizing her suspicions of Lelouch.
  • Jeremiah and Villetta side with Lelouch, Gottwald because he's Marianne's son, and Nu from the promise of a Grand Duchy.
  • Kewell is blamed for Project Orange instead of Jeremiah. He's assumed dead, but was in fact captured by Code-R personnel for human experimentation.
  • The li Britannia sisters learn Lelouch may be alive from Jeremiah, killing any chance for Suzaku to be with Euphie. Euphie realizing that Suzaku has mental health issues from watching him pilot drove a stake in the corpse's heart.
  • During the Lake Kawaguchi Incident, Milly jumps in to save Nina (her girlfriend) by revealing her identity as the heiress to the Ashford Foundation to their captors, and right before Euphemia could do the same. It also helped that Euphemia took her personal maid with her to the convention centre instead of her bodyguards, who ironically did a better job at protecting the princess than the trained professionals in canon by desperately clinging to her and covering her mouth, which prevented Euphemia from drawing the terrorists' attention to her.
  • Thwarting Euphemia's Take Me Instead moment also precluded Nina from becoming obsessed with the princess.
  • General Katase pulls a Heroic Sacrifice so Todoh and a majority of the JLF can escape.
  • Shirley's father survives Narita, which leads to Shirley getting her hands on some Code-R documents she later gives to Lelouch in hopes that he could help her father.
  • Lelouch reveals himself to all the Kyoto Group leadership, including Kaguya.
  • Euphemia considers making Jeremiah or Villetta her Knight of Honor instead of Suzaku. Considering that Jeremiah told Cornelia that he would politely refuse if asked, Villetta is the most likely candidate. She eventually does give her the position.
• Four-Star Badass: Before performing his Heroic Sacrifice, General Katase promotes Todoh to General.
• Freak Out: Lelouch was involved in a car accident a few years prior to the start of the story. He got out of it with nothing worse than a broken leg that healed completely, but at the time Nunnally fell into a bout of hysteria so severe at the idea of him dying that the doctors were forced to sedate her. The incident and the conversation that followed it made it patently obvious for the two of them that Lelouch is his sister's Living Emotional Crutch and that Nunnally is entirely too capable of willing herself to die if anything were to happen to him. Incidentally, one of the reasons why Lelouch pushed himself so hard to get himself in shape and learn martial arts from Sayoko in this continuity is because he wanted to give Nunnally some peace of mind whenever he leaves the safety of Ashford Academy and their bodyguard's protection.
• Freudian Excuse: Cornelia's controlling streak of her little sister has its roots on Lelouch and Nunnally's apparent deaths. She's afraid that one day the Emperor will use Euphemia as a pawn, like marrying her off for political gain or even as a hostage like he did with Marianne's children, or that someone else in the Imperial Court could try to manipulate her into their plots. To prevent this, Cornelia has dragged Euphemia with her to her every big deployment around the world and keeps her effectively isolated from the rest of the Nobility, counting on her exemplary and critically important work for the Empire as a tacit deterrent for their father, as not even him would risk compromising the effectiveness of his most successful Chief General by making a move against Euphemia.
• Freudian Slip: When Lelouch expressed his incredulity that "an attractive green haired woman" spent over thirty years in the Imperial Court looking the same age without catching people's attention, C.C.'s thoughts zeroed in on the admission that he did find her attractive.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: No one on the Britannian side in Area 11 actually likes Dorothea Ernst. Even Cornelia, who has no lost love for the "Elevens", can't stand the Knight of Four's rampant bigotry.
• Friends with Benefits:
  • How the relationship between Lelouch and C.C. started. It remained as such for a very short while, as it didn't take them long to become emotionally invested in each other.
  • Many of her actions imply that C.C. wishes to do this with the rest of Lelouch's harem. Sayoko is actually her first successful foray into this as Sayoko isn't bisexual by natural inclination but is more than willing and at times takes the initiative in bedding C.C.
• Frontline General: Zero and Cornelia. Deconstructed in the Battle of Narita where the two of them were very close to be captured by the enemy because of it.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Subverted. Milly Ashford very nearly went into a firefight completely topless until C.C. sarcastically advised her to at least put on a bra.
• Functional Addict: Kallen's mother seems to have a better handle on her Refrain addiction than in canon. This allowed her to remain a lot more cognizant than her canonical self when she started her rehab. This in turn made it feasible for Lelouch to use his Geass on her to get her to fight off her addiction for good, and gave Kallen and her mother the chance to reconcile for real at long last.

G-I

• Gas Leak Cover-Up: The mass unconsciousness incident in Ashford Academy was covered up to the public as a gas leak. Lelouch and co. passed it off to Cornelia and the government as a non-lethal chemical attack by an Professional Killer intended on assassinating Milly and Make It Look Like an Accident, who not just failed in both accounts, but also got shot dead in self-defense by the Ashford heiress herself. The actual truth is that Agent Desmond of the Geass Order rendered the whole school unconscious with his Geass in order to take out Lelouch and Nunnally without witnesses nor resistance, but got stopped cold by C.C., Sayoko, and Milly (plus Lelouch's Crazy-Prepared-ness), only to then make everyone suffer a nasty hangover out of sheer pettiness.
• Gatling Good: Dorothea Ernst's Ace Custom Gloucester, the Exeter, comes with its own Knightmare-sized Gatling Gun and Ammunition Backpack for More Dakka. Not that it helped her much in the Battle of Yokosuka after Mamoru skillfully damaged its internal mechanisms before she could do anything relevant with the weapon.
• Genius Ditz: Tamaki comes off as not particularly bright in many ways, but he's a skilled and resourceful mechanic and has an interest in classical literature.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot:
  • During the Welcome Party for Arthur the cat, Milly and Celesta (C.C.) tried to out-flirt each other, a situation that soon devolved into what we can call an Almost Kiss Les Yay version of a Game of Chicken. Rivalz ended up fainting with a Nosebleed at the sight before Milly pulled back first. The timing is suspect, though, and C.C.'s antics might have been the proverbial straw on that broke the camel's back and got Nina to break up with Milly, which in turn may or may not been C.C.'s intention all along given her plans for Milly to become Lelouch's Top Wife.
  • C.C. managed to look through the hidden camera Lelouch uses to keep an eye on Milly's mischief-prone plotting in the Student Council room right when she and Nina are having sex. Lelouch privately agrees with C.C. that it's hot, but he destroyed the footage at once despite her protests.
  • Also Invoked. C.C. and Sayoko have noticed that this trope is a sure-fire way to get Lelouch in the mood, so they don't hesitate in "putting on a show for him."
• Girls Have Cooties: The relationship between Lelouch and Kaguya in a nutshell when they were 10 and 8, respectively. Suzaku remembers that the only times Lelouch ever voluntarily exercised was when his besotted cousin chased him around the Kururugi Shrine.
• Giver of Lame Names: It's noted that Clovis, while a skilled artist, was abysmal at coming up with good names for things, like naming a theme park after himself.
• Glad He's On Our Side: After the explosion of the cargo ship in Chapter 28, Kallen offers a silent thanks to any deity listening that Zero is not her enemy.
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex:
  • After the events in the Shinjuku Ghetto, Lelouch is so happy to be alive, and C.C. is so happy to be free, that they make love not long after returning to Ashford Academy. C.C. later refers to it as a delayed reaction to the psychological stress of combat.
  • After Zero was shot by Tetsuya from the Yamato Alliance, he, C.C. and Sayoko ended having their first threesome when they got back home. Interestingly, C.C. most likely put forward the idea as a way to reassure Sayoko given how badly she was blaming herself for failing to prevent the incident from happening in the first place.
• The Glomp: To his chagrin, both Euphemia and Kaguya were fond of doing this to Lelouch when they were kids. Kaguya did again when he revealed his true face under Zero's mask.
• Glorified Sperm Donor: Milly actually refers to her father Roderick as such on the eve of the assassination of him and his wife, since she hated him the first time that she saw him and Melisande, as neither of them had any real interaction with her at all for years after she was born, leaving her to her grandfather and the servants. Her opinion of her mother is even lower.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Black Knights' success is such that Charles sends two Knights of Round to Area Eleven to deal with them.
• Going Postal: Diethard has honestly considered killing his Pointy-Haired Boss and the rest of his coworkers at his soul-destroying job in Hi-TV – one consisting in feeding the masses with irrelevant news and propaganda – before turning the gun on himself. One of the reasons why he took his chances with Zero despite the risks is because he estimates that one more year as a cog in Britannia's Propaganda Machine will be enough to make him snap.
• Gold Digger: Milly's mother is one by proxy, expecting her daughter to sleep her way to getting a new title for the family. She categorically refuses to accept Milly's explanations that Lelouch is too smart to fall for something like that and has absolutely no intention of revealing himself to the public as the long-lost eleventh prince of the royal family.
• Good Is Not Soft: Even with his Adaptational Heroism, Lelouch is still quite ruthless towards his enemies.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Sayoko's lines tend to be peppered with Japanese words, which makes sense considering she's a descendant of actual shinobi and faithfully observes their rites and duties as a retainer of her chosen master/"Goshujin-sama" Lelouch.
• Green Around the Gills: Kallen gets green in the face after getting too close for comfort to one of Tetsuya's flunkies, because the man's poor hygiene makes her nauseous. Then fully Played for Laughs when Zero places a comforting hand on her shoulder, giving her a Luminescent Blush and "making for an interesting contrast between the green and the red."
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • A Downplayed Trope as nothing bad has come out of it yet, but Zero's displays of trust in Augur and Aegis make Kallen jealous, which might have something to do with the fact she knows they're female. Zero's objective praises of Kallen's Ace Pilot skills go a long way to help her to keep this under control.
  • Also Downplayed with Milly, who didn't take the realization that Lelouch and Sayoko were, at the very least, sleeping together all that well. Her genuine vicarious happiness over the fact that Lelouch was opening up to someone other than Nunnally helped Milly to take the edge off her jealousy over the same.
• Groin Attack:
  • Tetsuya puts a knife on a Britannian pilot's crotch to force him to give him his Knightmare's access code.
  • May God have mercy upon Tamaki's balls because Kallen certainly didn't after he fell asleep while on duty and let the accomplice of the guy who shot Zero escape by the access point he was supposed to be guarding.
• Guns Akimbo: Lelouch made an effort to compensate for the usual issues of the style by providing his Enigmatic Minion "Incognito" with custom guns designed to be shot like this. For example, the pair includes compensators to minimize muzzle rise when shooting one-handed, and limited self-loading capabilities so the shooter won't have to let go of one gun in order to reload the other. Still deconstructed a bit because Incognito is only ambidextrous as far as guns are concerned, and only after years of practice.
• Gunship Rescue: Defied with a vengeance. One of the first things the Britannian military learned about Zero is that he seems to abhor enemy air support, resulting in their air forces totalling most of the casualties after each battle against him. It gets to the point Cornelia requested unmanned drones from the homeland to stop losing people like this.
• Hacked by a Pirate: While messing around with the Administration Building's network, Lelouch changed all the screensavers to Zero's mask. Justified, because his objective was to sow confusion rather than collect information. Since he had no need to go undetected, and conspicuousness would only help his objectives, going the whole nine yards was actually smart.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Dorothea is very easily riled up, as Mamoru lampshades.
• Hangover Sensitivity:
  • Cornelia can't take being hungover very well. That's why she avoids drinking in the first place unless the situation really calls for it.
  • While not due to alcohol per se, Lelouch woke up from the effects of Desmond's Geass feeling, in his own words, as if he's been "force-fed my own bodyweight in cheap rotgut and then thrown into the ocean in the midst of a bloody hurricane." Actually, this applies to relatively small number of people present in Ashford Academy during the attack, which is why Lelouch played Gas Leak Cover-Up card to explain away their symptoms.
• Happily Married: Seeing Charles and Marianne interact in the intermissions tends to make you forget they're an Unholy Matrimony of world-ending proportions.
• Happy-Ending Massage: Discussed. Milly once gave Shirley and Nunnally a somewhat suggestive account of how good Lelouch's massages are, about how "[she] leaves very satisfied every time" and that Shirley should try them because the whole experience is "almost orgasmic" – naturally prompting the girl to pass out. An embarrassed but incredulous Nunnally then asked her if her brother really gave her a massage, and Milly admitted it was just a light massage over her clothes to help her relax and that she simply spiced up her retelling just to mess with Shirley.
• Harem Seeker: By proxy. C.C. picked up a hobby of identifying women with serious crushes on Lelouch and then improving their chances to get together with him. At the same time. And no, she doesn't see anything wrong with that except perhaps giving herself a handicap to keep things interesting. This is strongly hinted to be a Deconstruction, though. C.C.'s Relationship Upgrade with Lelouch made her painfully aware of what she considers her inadequacies as his significant other, like her inability to grow old with him or bear his children, compelling her to look for someone who can give him what she can't, right up to the point of overcompensation and thus this trope.
• Has a Type: Being less of the Celibate Hero that he was in canon, it's pretty clear that intelligent women are Lelouch's type. On the flip side, holding snobbish or racist worldviews are total deal breakers.
• Hate at First Sight: Milly was raised by her grandfather and nursemaid instead of her parents, and actually didn't meet them as such until she was five and immediately hated them. She's now 18 and her opinion of them has only gotten worse.
• Hates Being Alone: Cheryl Silver has a bad case of this, to the point she's learned to maintain an uneasy distance from people lusting after her – distant enough so they won't think she's interested, close enough so she won't feel isolated – rather than just putting them in their place or just walking away. She even admits it in Chapter 45 when Augur threatens to lock her up alone. This is also the reason why she chose to actively work for Zero instead of just cooperating and accepting imprisonment.
• Hate Sink:
  • Tetsuya, big time. Unwarranted self-importance, check. Obsessed with glory at the expense of all else, check. Refrain dealer, check. Tries to kill Lelouch and gets run through and killed by Sayoko for his troubles, checkmate.
  • Dorothea also seems to qualify. Nonette and Cornelia don't go out of their ways to cause her trouble, but they have no issue with her doing something stupid enough to win her a Darwin Award.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Kallen, unconvincingly, states that she does not show any form of bi-curiosity, and has trouble tearing her eyes away from C.C.'s Supermodel Strut.
  "With that, she sashayed out of the room, an extra sway in her hips that Kallen found she had a hard time ignoring."
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: As far as Geass powers go, Sayoko Shinozaki's seems kind of lackluster. However the ability to accurately discern what a person is actually feeling comes in real handy when you want to make sure potential allies will react to the bombshells you drop on them in ways benefit your master the most, as Sayoko did with both Kaguya and Euphemia.
• Henpecked Husband: Apparently, Milly's mother Melisande grabbed her husband Roderick by the balls during their first date and never let go afterward, Lelouch even expressing the opinion that killing him would be a Mercy Kill, since his wife has crushed every independent though he's had since their vows.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Subverted. Cornelia thought this was the case with Euphemia, but after Jeremiah told them that Lelouch might be alive and in hiding somewhere in Area 11, she estimates there's about a "snowball's chance in hell" Euphemia will get over him now.
• Hero Antagonist: Despite her personality quirks, Nonette Enneagram's characterization here makes her more conventionally heroic than most characters on Lelouch's side. She would be close to a quintessential Cool Big Sis were not for the fact she loyally fights for the Britannian Empire as the Knight of Nine.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Two members of Cornelia's Royal Guard sacrificed themselves to push her Knightmare out of the trap Zero laid for her in Saitama, dooming them to be buried under the weight of a demolished building.
  • General Katase and some of the JLF detonate their base at Narita to allow the rest of his men to escape.
• Heroic Willpower: Sayoko is able to use a meditative technique to resist Desmond's Geass.
• Hidden Depths: Tamaki, much to Kallen's surprise, is familiar with Robinson Crusoe and regrets that Japanese literature is so hard to come by under the Britannian occupation. He is also a natural mechanic, as Zero tells Rakshata. This is also something of an Invoked Trope, as Zero took his time assigning Tamaki to several roles and tasks within the organization until finally finding something where he excelled at.
• Hidden in Plain Sight:
  • C.C. decided to enroll as a student at Ashford Academy partly for this reason. After all, who would expect a fugitive on the run from several secret organizations to hide out at a high school for the Britannian elite?
  • Code-R set up shop in an underground facility with a fish warehouse on the surface.
• Hidden Supplies:
  • Lelouch has them anywhere he thinks he could need them, which by his Crazy-Prepared standards means any place he visits with any regularity. Circumstances proved him Properly Paranoid when an assassin on V.V.'s orders attacked Ashford Academy and the pistols he strapped to the underneath side of a couple of drawers in the Student Council office helped C.C. and Milly and counter the threat.
  • Parodied with Lloyd, who installed a refrigerated secret compartment into his desk for his pudding.
• Historical In-Joke:
  • The reason why Elizabeth I almost died without giving birth to a heir in Code Geass' Alternate History (unlike Real Life where she was the last monarch of The House of Tudor) is because a certain green haired woman was just that good at "[warming] her bed."
  • C.C. sulked when Lelouch said that he thought George Washington's dream of a democratic country that he wanted to call "United States of America" wouldn't have worked, just like it happened to the EU and the Chinese Federation. And yes, C.C. sulked about it – you see, she was rather fond of "Young George", as she calls him.
• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Averted. An Allohistorical Allusion suggests that Code Geass' Alternate History did have its own version of Hitler, but he never amassed too much power because Europe was already a political union by then and there were many legal safeguards in place to prevent just that from happening. At the present day of the story (2017 a.t.b., 1962 A.D.), he's mostly remembered for his oratory skills.
• Hollywood Hacking: Regularly Averted:
  • Lelouch is only able to wreak havoc on the Area 11 Government Building's network because he geassed Clovis into telling him about a secret backdoor that he, as the Viceroy, gave the order to install.
  • Similarly Averted later on when Lelouch simply paid off a greedy sysadmin for a couple of restricted files instead of wasting time and effort hacking into the system. He did haggle down the price by a 30%, though. No sense in spending more money than necessary either.
  • It didn't take long for Lelouch to realize that Ninja Maid/Stealth Expert Sayoko is one of the best hacking tools there is. Any computer she can get physical access to – and with her training, you'd be hard-pressed to find one out of her reach in Area 11 – is as good as hacked and stays hacked for as long as the spy devices he asked her to install remain undetected.
• Honesty Is the Best Policy:
  • When C.C. asks Lelouch how they should justify her presence at his place to his maid, she's very surprised that his first suggestion is a full disclosure of his actions in Shinjuku and the nature of their contract. At her request he starts listing more discreet alternatives, but none of them involves lying to Sayoko at all, even the blatant "this woman's (C.C.'s) identity is none of your concern" approach. The fact that Lelouch trusts Sayoko to the point he considers lying to her counterproductive is the first big clue for C.C. and the audience of how close they are.
  • Also Discussed. One of the reasons why Milly never worked up the nerve to confess to Lelouch is because she's afraid he could mistake her interest for a Honey Trap (see below). Her grandfather argues that if she's totally honest and blunt about it, Lelouch's ought to realize she's serious.
  • In Chapter 31, C.C. simply approached Milly and bluntly told Lelouch's Childhood Friend that he wanted a Relationship Upgrade with her, but not without warning her that the offer came as a "package deal" because Lelouch, Sayoko and "Celesta" herself were already a Polyamory and that Milly would have to accept his other two's committed lovers in his life if she wanted to join in. Being this Millicent Ashford, the proviso served more as an enticement rather than the opposite. The latter doubles as a Batman Gambit because C.C. knew beforehand that would be the case.
• Honey Trap:
  • Milly's mother advises her to seduce Lelouch and then convince him to reveal himself to the Emperor in order to curry imperial favor for the Ashford family. Milly's tried to warn her for years just how much of a bad idea even attempting to manipulate a genius like him really is, but Melisande remains firm in her belief that "he is a man, [thus] easily controlled by his desires."
  • This is also one of the reasons Milly gives to herself for not making a move on Lelouch since they were kids despite her feelings for him. She believes that someone as Properly Paranoid as Lelouch would mistake her advances for this trope, something that could at very least put some distance between them, if not outright prompt him to disappear with Nunnally in tow.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Suzaku disregards any tactic he sees as dirty or underhanded.
  • Downplayed by Cornelia who still uses "dirty" tactics in combat, doesn't like dealing with political intrigue and the like thus keeps away from the race for throne.
  • The more diehard members of the JLF like Kusakabe and his men refuse to relinquish their made-in-Japan pre-invasion radios, despite being at least seven years behind the times and the Six Houses providing them with up-to-date replacements, for absolutely no gain other than appeasing their own Patriotic Fervor.
  • There's an Exploited Subversion in the Battle of Port Yokosuka. Zero takes advantage that Cornelia truly believes Britannian propaganda saying that samurai and modern Japanese combatants modeling themselves after them will commit suicide rather than admit defeat, in order to make her think the last of the JLF detonated themselves and their tanker and caught her and her troops off-guard for a counterattack.
  • Half of the leaders of the Six Houses of Kyoto are secretly supporting Zero's potential replacement as the military leader of La Résistance because they can't stand the fact Zero's not Japanese. Their stance is especially stupid because they know for certain that Zero couldn't possibly have stronger reasons to hate Charles' Britannia and the Emperor himself.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager:
  • Defied. Lelouch bemoans the fact that, despite all his intellect, he's still very much a 17-year-old guy. For example, he's capable of explaining away the objective reasons for his attraction to Kallen, even identifying the Oedipus Complex implicit in it, but that doesn't make him any less attracted to her. Being conscious of it, however, allows him to make sure Zero and Lelouch Lamperouge are behaving with the due propriety he thinks they should as her commander and her schoolmate, respectively.
  • Rivalz is a straighter example. Lelouch used to roll his eyes at Rivalz's stated goal to "get a girlfriend and spectacularly lose his virginity before he turns eighteen," but that stopped after his Relationship Upgrade with C.C. convinced Lelouch that Rivalz did have a point there.
• Horrifying the Horror: Rolo is "a cold-hearted assassin who had killed more people than you could shake a stick at". He freely admits that V.V. scares the crap out of him.
• How We Got Here: Nina of the Submission begins months into the non-standard relationship between the eponymous character and her Domme – specifically when Nina is about to accept signing an official Master-Slave Contract under C.C.. The prologue also reveals that Nina has also bottomed for Milly and Sayoko at C.C.'s prompting, something that Nina herself is still somewhat surprised about given that the former is the ex she broke up with in less than amiable terms, and the latter is Japanese and thus should be a trigger for her phobias.
• Humiliation Conga: Melisande Ashford receives one at the hands of her father-in-law, her daughter, and Lelouch, resulting in her being disinherited, exiled, and assassinated in rapid succession.
• Hypocrite: Suzaku criticizes the Neo Shinsengumi for killing themselves rather than surrendering, citing that they died for nothing. As Suzaku is a Death Seeker, he really has no room to talk.
• Iconic Outfit: Subverted. Unlike canon, C.C. gets rid her iconic straitjacket/prisoner jumpsuit the first chance she gets, instead of wearing a remainder of her confinement for a minute longer than necessary.
• I DO NOT Want to Know: Kallen's reaction after arriving to the Student Council office and find a passed out Rivalz, Suzaku with a Nosebleed, Shirley and Nina blushing bright red, Milly and "Celesta" trying to out-flirt each other, and Lelouch looking the same as always... except for the fact that they were all dressed as cats.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Rivalz gives Lelouch a speech to this effect when the exiled prince and Milly begin a relationship.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: C.C. usage of her Geass involved making people loving her as if she were a family member or friend. Never at one point did she use her Geass for romance, given she was turned off at the idea of sexual relationships until after gaining her Code.
• The Immodest Orgasm: C.C. can get pretty loud in bed. In Chapter 26, Sayoko is thankful that Nunnally is fast asleep so she doesn't have to hear C.C.'s throaty moans and screams of pleasure.
• Immortal Immaturity: Discussed by Lelouch and Charles. Both separately came to the conclusion that V.V. obtaining his Code at such a young age, eleven, had an adverse effect on his psyche. Lelouch notes he acts more like his visible age and theorizes the reason most Code Bearers are adults is because they are mentally developed enough to handle the Code. Charles meanwhile notes that after sixty years of immortality, V.V.'s competency has been slipping, and wonders if its a side effect of having sixty years worth of experience in an eleven-year-old's brain, even concluding it would explain why V.V. acts like a yandere towards Marianne and her children.
• Immortality Bisexuality: C.C. relied on homosexual encounters for companionship during her long life after her contractor told her that due to her Geass, she would never find true love. Enter Lelouch.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: C.C. believes that she is incapable of having children as a result of her Code, but given that Lelouch is the first man she's slept with since becoming immortal, it's unknown if she actually is or not.
• Improbable Aiming Skills; Lelouch's accuracy with ranged weaponry is such that he actually does better when he disables his Knightmare's auto-targeting and calculates the firing solutions in his head.
• Improbably High I.Q.: Played With. Out of curiosity, C.C. one day asked Lelouch exactly how smart he is. The answer is: he really isn't sure. His results vary a lot depending on the kind of IQ Testing used. He's ranked above 160 at the lowest, while others place him above the 200 mark without providing any reliable precision pass that point.
• Inappropriately Close Comrades:
  • Mutually Defied by Zero and Kallen, who do their very best to keep things professional and not act on their attraction to each other, unaware that the other is struggling with exactly the same problem.
  • Rumor had it in the JLF that Major Kadzuki and Sergeant Minazuki are lovers. As of Chapter 33, this has been confirmed.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • Apparently Marianne was 100% straight, and not interested in C.C. that way at all.
  • Similarly, Shirley admitted to Lelouch that she was bothered by "Celesta's" flirting – specifically, Shirley doesn't mind that Celesta likes girls, she just was uncomfortable when their clubmate flirted with her – and he promised to pass that on to her, solving the issue without any fuss.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Agent Desmond doesn't react well when someone question his sense of entitlement or the superiority of his cause as the extension of V.V.'s will. C.C. quickly picks up on this and has a field day pushing his buttons and provoking him into making critical mistakes during their fight.
• Initiation Ceremony: Ashford Academy's Student Council has a simple one: each new member has to play a game of chess against Lelouch, their future position in the council decided by how long they last against him – or rather, what he gleans about them and their capabilities from the way they play.
• Insatiable Newlyweds:
  • While not marriage per se, this applies to Sayoko, C.C. and Lelouch after their respective Relationship Upgrades with him, to the point they likely wouldn't see the outside of his bedroom were not for how busy they're with the rebellion and keeping up with their cover stories. Fairly Justified as both girls are making up for a lot of lost time – Sayoko who has spent at least three years pining after him while remaining painfully aware of how inappropriate her feelings were, and C.C. who just recently overcame her Code-induced Emotion Suppression and rediscovered sexual attraction with Lelouch after centuries of indifference toward men.
  • One can't help but wonder how Milly would be like after pining after the guy for almost thrice the time Sayoko did if they ever get together. Likely not a hypothetical question for long after their Relationship Upgrade in Chapter 32.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Sayoko coined the "Red Queen" moniker for Kallen. Pretty (in)famous by the time of the Battle of Narita.
  • Kallen calls Euphemia "Pinkie" or "Pinkie Princess."
  • Lelouch calls V.V. the "immortal midget", something that amuses C.C. a lot.
• Insistent Terminology: C.C. refers to Sayoko and herself as Lelouch's mistresses, which doesn't make too much sense given that he's neither married nor in an official relationship with anyone else. This turns out to be Foreshadowing, as C.C. is planning on convincing Lelouch to marry Milly and Kallen under the "Worthy Reward" Act, which explicitly excludes non-Britannians like Sayoko and C.C. herself from participating as anything other than, you guessed it, mistresses.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • The tense relationship between canon!Lelouch and their hosts/captors at the Kururugi Shrine taught him the lesson to not rely on anybody other than himself, which incidentally would prompt him to learn to cook. Here, Lelouch and Nunnally got along well enough with their hosts, yet he still became an excellent cook. Why? Cooking is Reuben Ashford's preferred hobby and Lelouch picked it up from him instead.
  • This time around Jeremiah didn't come up with the plan to falsely prosecute Suzaku for the murder of Prince Clovis. However, pinning the crime on someone who was both a Honorary Britannian and the son of Japan's last Prime Minister was such an obvious and effective way to further the Pureblood Faction's agenda that another member simply put it forward instead.
  • In canon, Lelouch made it appear like General Katase committed a Heroic Sacrifice/Senseless Sacrifice by detonating the liquid Sakuradite in his ship instead of being captured by Cornelia at Port Yokosuka. Here, Katase and his men actually blew themselves up with a Self-Destruct Mechanism built into the JLF main headquarters in Narita as their final act of defiance against Cornelia's forces.
  • Nina still becomes very obsessed with the object of her affections despite never meeting Euphemia like in canon. That's because said Love Interest isn't the princess this time around, but rather "Celesta", C.C.'s cover identity in Ashford Academy.
• Insufferable Genius: Lelouch, of course. Nunnally puts it in a rather amusing way:
  Nunnally: [narrating] Sometimes Lelouch forgot that people weren't as smart as he was and completely dominated them in the negotiations rather than leave them some semblance of pride.
  It certainly made playing Monopoly with him interesting.
• Interrupted Intimacy: C.C.'s seduction of Milly Ashford is cut short by Desmond's attempted assassination of Lelouch. The former was not happy with the interruption, to put it mildly.
• In the Name of the Moon: When challenged by Nonette to a one-on-one duel, Kallen gives her an introduction speech prepared by Zero to solidify her identity as the Red Queen.
  Kallen: I am the Red Queen! Ace of the Black Knights, the one who defeated the Witch of Britannia in single combat at Narita! I am the Commander of Zero's personal guard, the Obsidian Knights, and you may call me the Knight of Zero of Japan! I accept your challenge! May the best pilot win, as I intend to!
• Intimate Hair Brushing: A variant. C.C. is really protective of her long hair, even calling it "a woman's pride and joy". It's pretty telling of her trust and closeness to Lelouch when she asks him to style it in the squat chignon bun she wears in order to put on the helmet of her "Augur" outfit.
• Intimate Psychotherapy:
  • Sayoko wasn't handling the aftermath of Tetsuya's murder attempt against Zero too well, feeling guilty for allowing the traitor to wound him before she thoroughly neutralized the threat. Realizing this, C.C. tried to convince her to have sex with Lelouch as Sayoko intended to that night before the incident, and when that failed because she didn't "feel worthy" of sharing his bed, C.C. instead talked her and then him into having a threesome where they later made Sayoko the focus. This is fairly Justified because Sayoko was already psychologically prepared for combat and mostly she just needed an external factor to snap her out of her funk, together with the tangible reassurance that Lelouch came out fine from the attack.
  • Implied with Nina in the How We Got Here prologue of her Hotter and Sexier Spin-Off. Hard to picture how she could have agreed to have sex with a Japanese woman like Sayoko, much less being dominated by her, otherwise.
• Irony:
  • Princess Euphemia remained safer during this story's version of the Lake Kawaguchi Incident than in canon because she didn't bring her bodyguards with her to the convention centre. Her entourage consisted in only a single personal maid who ironically did better job protecting the princess by desperately clinging onto her when Euphemia attempted a Take Me Instead to save Nina's life for the few seconds that it took Milly to do it herself. This allowed them to go through the whole incident undetected and unharmed.
  • While the character remains mostly Out of Focus, it seems Nina Einstein has so far avoided the worst parts of her Psycho Lesbian canonical self by entering a non-standard relationship with someone who is, on paper, a total Fetishized Abuser (Celesta Crossfield, aka C.C.) – one who not only sleeps with other women, but also with the guy who indirectly ruined Nina's previous relationship. The biggest irony in all this is that Nina comes off as better adjusted and all around happier because her domme is actually well equipped to handle both Nina's submissive nature, and her jealous and obsessive streaks thanks to her centuries-long relationship experience with other women.
  • Cheryl Silver seems to have a pretty good deal in life. She's brilliant and hard-working enough to earn herself a PhD in biological sciences, has a body to die for, and a rather dorky personality with cute quirks like her reluctance to being alone. She'd be a borderline Parody Sue were not for the sheer irony of how having all three at once makes her miserable: She has a hard time getting taken seriously as a scientist because people pay more attention to her hourglass figure than her brain, she doesn't have the interest nor the personality to take advantage of her looks, she's too smart to not notice when someone is just trying to get into her pants, yet too afraid of social isolation to completely tell people off away from her, and cursed with enough self-awareness to realize all this.
  • Viletta is well aware of the irony that turning into a sleeper agent against her country has helped her gain a foothold into gaining a nobility title much quicker than with dedicated service and distinction.
• I Shall Taunt You: Cornelia is used to face overly prideful men in the battlefield and has learned that a good taunt or two is often all it takes for them to challenge her to a straight fight where they have little chance of winning. During the Battle of Narita, Cornelia found it "most irritating" when this tactic totally failed on Zero, who matter-of-factly admitted she's a better pilot than him and stepped aside for his "Red Queen" to deal with the princess.
• It Amused Me: Valefor is such a troll that the other demons acknowledge that, while the actionable information about him is most definitely a trap, he will still be somewhere close by for them to get, if only to watch them struggle against it.
• It Gets Easier: Milly vomits some time after shooting a guard in the Fukoka Code-R facility, and expresses concern about it to C.C. But the green-haired immortal says it's perfectly normal for someone to feel nauseous after their first kill, and reveals that she did the same thing after having to kill a sentry to escape a castle. She goes on to say that every kill after the first becomes easier and easier to do.
• It Has Been an Honor: The last words between General Katase and the newly-promoted General Todoh, right before the former went to prepare for his Last Stand against Cornelia and the latter took most of the JLF away with him to fight another day. Also the next-to-last words exchanged between Katase and his men before detonating the Self-Destruct Mechanism of the JLF headquarters in Narita.
• It Is Beyond Saving: Lelouch concludes that there is no possibility of Britannia ever being reformed or changed, and decides to conquer the homeland himself, and put Euphemia on the throne so she can remake Britannia from the ground up. When Euphemia asks what would happen if she refused to play along (according to Sayoko), Lelouch would simply split Britannia into several separate dukedoms, play the leaders against each other, and let Britannia burn into nothing (and that's if Marrybell also doesn't play along).
• It's All About Me:
  • Milly's mother is only truly concerned with regaining the family's nobility and even once tried to sell out Lelouch and Nunnally to Britannia before Sayoko thoroughly dissuaded her.
  • Kadzuki wants to become the dominant power in Japan, even seeming to prioritize this over actually freeing the nation.
• It Will Never Catch On: After meeting with Kaguya, Lelouch and C.C. have a discussion about George Washington and his plans for a republic in America. Lelouch is certain it never would've worked, citing the E.U. as an example as to why. Despite its claims to democracy, it's a corrupt society where people can only vote for members of a single ruling class and the same political dynasty has been in power for twenty years. Likewise, he writes off the Chinese Federation as a communist hellhole where 80% of the population lives in poverty worse than the Japanese in Area 11. While Lelouch is a monarchist, he's in favor of reforming Britannia into a constitutional monarchy. C.C. thinks it would've worked and Lelouch consigns that maybe a man like Washington could've made it work.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • In her heart of hearts, Nunnally knows she loves Lelouch as a woman and is keenly aware that her brother only loves her as a sibling. Still she actually enjoys shipping him with other girls that she knows like him for more than just looks, like with Shirley (or even a harem).
  • C.C. likes the harem she's helping Lelouch build, sure, but she's also doing so to repay Lelouch for helping her break through her Emotion Suppression, and because she thinks that he deserves women that can give him children, and she doesn't want to give him immortality because she doesn't want him to outlive everyone he loves.
  • Played With in Milly's case. One part of her felt happy for Lelouch for finally lowering his barriers and letting someone other than Nunnally into his heart after finding out that he got together with "Celesta Crossfield" (C.C.'s cover identity) and Sayoko. Another part of her, in her own words, "burned with jealousy that other women had moved in on [him]."
  • When Rivalz learns that Lelouch and Milly are together, while he's disappointed to have missed his chance, his reaction is fairly positive overall, just giving Lelouch an If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... speech and asking for a single punch to the face to get it all out of his system.

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