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For that matter, the death of Rolo himself was quite the Tear Jerker, even for many who'd previously despised him.
Alas, Poor Villain: Mao's death scene is pretty sweet and touching, and some consider it a bona fide Tear Jerker. Lelouch's death is an even bigger example, though that at least partially depends on whether or not you consider him a "villain."
Since Lelouche was deliberately trying to make the entire world see him as a villain, several characters who had been close to him and then hated him for the terrible things he did have this reaction to his death when they realize what his real goal was. At the very least Nunnally did, and Kallen's narration in the epilogue suggests she realized it in the end as well.
Clovis was a good brother and son. His mother had a mental breakdown after his death.
In Nightmare of Nunnally, Marianne peacefully accepts Charles' decision and her own death, prompting Nunnally to tear up.
Anti-Hero or Villain Protagonist: The debates over whether or not uniting the world against him was worth all the atrocities he committed to get there rages to this day.
Dark Is Not Evil or Dark Is Evil: Perhaps it's unintentional, but Lelouch tends to invoke this trope. He seems to be a dark figure overall: he has black hair, purple eyes, wears dark-colored clothing, leads a double life, consorts with a witch, and gets compared to a demon on several separate occasions. And yet, he wants to make the world a better place and manages to remain a good person for quite some time, until all the terrible, horrible things he goes through start catching up to him. Meanwhile, Mao and Schneizel, his two Evil Counterparts are albino and blond, respectively; and both play white against him in chess.
Ambiguously Gay: LOTS of characters, to varying degrees, which include Lelouch, Suzaku, Rolo, Gino, Lloyd, Milly, Nina, Schenizel and Kanon.
Angst Aversion / Hype Aversion: Tell someone this show is one of the saddest and most depressing they'll ever see and they'll definitely think twice about watching it. Tell them it spawned one of the most horrifying Broken Bases in history and they'll start running very fast in the other direction.
Ass Pull: Both seasons had a few of these, arguably, though the first one had less. Most notably, that Lelouch's mother was alive and was also apparently evil.
Nunnally gives us a couple of these in quick succession near the end of the series: she had been seemingly unambiguously Killed Off for Real by the not-a-nuke, but several episodes later she reappears, completely alive and completely without explanation for her survival. And then, she reveals that she's not actually blind and apparently just hadn't opened her eyes for years. What?
Nunnally was blinded by the emperor's geass, which was shown to be potent enough to suppress a permanent geass. Lelouch also comments on Nunnally's willpower being strong enough to break their farther's geass
Author Appeal: Someone on the staff may have some kind of bondage fetish as imprisoned characters in various types of bondage wear appear several times during both series.
Also, the animation from some of the TV episodes could get sloppy at times. Facial expressions didn't look the way they were supposed to or characters were off-model. In particular, episode 20 of R2 was one of the worse offenders. The DVD release cleaned up most of it.
Breather Boss: Viceroy Calares, who's about as incompetent as Clovis, is Lelouch's first enemy in R2, and decidedly less difficult to defeat than most others before or since.
Broken Base: Any theme/character/THING in this series will have at least one huge group loving it and another totally loathing it! By the end of the series, the pro-Lelouch vs. anti-Lelouch halves of the fandom were so divided that, in spite of the end revealing that everything Lelouch did was to bring about a genuine peace people chose for themselves, as well as democracy, freedom, and happiness for all his friends at the cost of the world hating his memory forever, one side was still acting like he was worse than forty Hitlers. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.
Contemplate Our Navels: In the very last episode, everyone goes through the "Why we fight" speech. And I mean everyone. And they all do it at the same time.
Contested Sequel: R2 can be seen as these to fans. And let's not get into the ending.
Crazy Awesome: Some of Lelouch's plans as Zero are as insane as they spectacularly awesome. Collapsing the Tokyo Settlement's construction base to destroy Cornelia's forces along with a chunk of the city and erupting Mount Fuji to take down a flagship and an army are just 2 examples.
Creator's Pet: Ohgi and Villetta. For those who despise him, Rolo counts too. He was very well liked among female staff members on the show and he ended up dying easier than he probably deserved to because of it.
Deconstruction Fic: The fandom is quite fond of tearing down the epilogue of R2 by showing the realistic political consequences of the power vacuum Lelouch left in his wake.
Designated Hero: Suzaku often falls into this, chiefly in R2 where he, like Lelouch, is very clearly straying from the path of heroism.
Die for Our Ship: A good part of the fandom hate Rolo got came specifically from people who thought he killed Shirley only out of romantic jealousy, believing him to be a Depraved Homosexual. Fandom homophobia ahoy!
Rolo kind of has this attitude himself toward Nunnally, and in fact that was the reason he killed Shirley, to prevent her from interfering with his intention to kill Nunnally. It didn't have anything to do with Shirley personally; he never really gave a damn about her or her feelings for Lelouch either way.
Draco in Leather Pants: Nearly every character who's not The Scrappy tends to get these for fans. Lelouch, Suzaku, Cornelia, Mao, Schneizel, C. C. and Rolo in particular, which is ironic when half of these characters ALSO fall under the opposing Ron the Death Eater trope.
Mao, who appeared only for a short while, but left an impact due to how Crazy Awesome he was.
Evil Is Sexy: Lelouch, C.C, Mao, Cornelia, Schneizel, Clovis, Jeremiah, and The Kinghts of the round.
Esoteric Happy Ending: Depending on how cynical the audience wants to be, the damage to Japan and the world at large paints a rather pessimistic picture of the future when all is said and done. There's also a clear contrast between the tragedy of Lelouch's death and the happiness that follows it, which may be hard to swallow.
Not to mention the necessity of certain events and actions taken to get there.
Fan Dumb: Unfortunately, every popular anime has these. Just take a good look at the various communities. While certainly moderated well, heaven forbid if you get into Ship-to-Ship Combat or characterization/plot interpretation territory.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite Word of God saying their relationship was merely one of mutual respect or perhaps surrogate mother and son, Lelouch and C.C. still get an incredible amount of shipping. It probably doesn't help matters that they were shown being awfully close in the series and official art.
Here's a fun fact for you: Over on Live Journal, the Suzaku/Lelouch community has almost twice as many members as the Lelouch/C.C., Lelouch/Kallen and Lelouch/Shirley communities combined.
Fashion Victim Villain: Lelouch's Emperor outfit is awesome, but his Nice Hat just makes him look weird, leading to much snickering from the fanbase.
The actual outfits are actually pretty snazzy. They're just... really detailed. With eyes all over them. Suzaku's outfit has skin-tight bare shoulders, for instance.
Funny Aneurysm Moment: Villetta said she will kill Shirley a thousand times after she forced her to wear a seriously skimpy bikini for the swim club. Guess what happens in episode 13 of R2?
Also, Lelouch's extremely fake-looking sword, which Suzaku as Zero uses to impale him in the finale.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Polish fans view Monica as one of them (Mostly because her surname is Polish, sort of). Though her biggest fanbase is made up by Spanish-speaking people apparently (the only stories on fanfiction.net about her is written in Spanish), reasons unknown.
Ho Yay/Les Yay: A LOT in this series. Between Lelouch and Suzaku (often shown in OFFICIAL artwork), Rolo for Lelouch, Gino for Suzaku, Milly for Shirley, C.C. and Kallen in the CD dramas, artwork, and manga, Nina for Euphy, Cornelia for Euphy, Cornelia possibly for Nonnette in the game Lost Colors, Marrianne and C.C., Alice for Nunnally in Nightmare Of Nunnally and even Schniezel and his aid, Kanon which is also supported by official artwork. Did I get them all despite leaving out Tianzi and Kaguya?
Oh, I did. V.V. going all Yandere for his brother Charles.
Also present in Ace Combat Zero, during the last level (which is coincidentally named "Zero", Pixy (Lowenthal) shoots down PJ (Bosch). It looks like that Lowenthal is destined to kill Bosch.
During the Gulle's first taste of battle, Villetta says it's impossible for Elevens to have created such a powerful war machine, dismissing the notion that the Japanese are capable of creating hi-tech weapons.
"Zero, you son of a bitch!"
Hate Dumb: Suzaku has a massive one, despite his and Lelouch's actions often being comparable in moral standing, many treat Suzaku as if he is a Complete Monster even when the events at hand aren't even really his fault.
Given the show's Broken Base, expect this for many of the major characters. See Base Breaker for more.
Ho Yay Shipping: Memetic Mutation aside, CLAMPonly did the character designs. And yet many in the show's fanbase love to dig into this trope, as there are certainly enough opportunities to do so.
To start with, Lelouch and Suzaku are rather ... obsessed with each other in what's more properly described as Foe Yay.
Then there's Schneizel and his absurdly feminine and outright Yaoi Fangirl teasing assistant Kanon who shows up in R2.
Kaguya, who makes fans invoke Les Yay towards any woman she speaks to, but especially the Tianzi.
And then there's Kallen and C.C., who seemed to have an almost Lovely Angels dynamic early in R2 (which is expanded upon further in radio dramas, official artworks, and the manga adaptation.)
Gino and Milly invoke this with how touchy feely they are with their respective friends (Suzaku, Shirley). Shirley even describes Milly (somewhat correctly) as a Dirty Old Man on the inside.
Big Badass Cornelia tends to be much more sweet touchy-touchy with her younger sister Euphemia.
Rolo claims he sees Lelouch as his older brother, but seemingly acts as though he's in love with him, to the point where some viewers saw his killing Shirley as a case of Murder the Hypotenuse.
CLAMP has continued to provide fuel for this through their artbooks. And it sure doesn't help matters that their Code Geass illustration are highly reminiscent of their X illustrations, which are just crammed full of Ho Yay!
Diethard's admiration of Zero and desire to document him and turn him into a legend occasionally comes off like this (especially his reaction to Zero's return).
Idiot Plot: Some argue that Schneizel's plan in the later period of R2 amounted to this, somewhat understandably since it did require that the leadership of the Black Knights accept the word of their own enemy rather than giving Zero a chance to offer his own explanation. Others have noted that, untrustworthy source though he may be, Schneizel was in fact completely telling them the truth, so calling them "idiots" is a bit harsh. Particularly since Ohgi rushes in to back Schneizel up halfway through the debriefing.
Schneizel completely telling the truth? To paraphrase the words of Suzaku from part of Schneizel's recording of the meeting between Suzaku himself and Lelouch that was skipped, that is a lie. In addition to cutting out that part which would have revealed that Lelouch lied in his admission to Geassing Euphie on purpose, Schneizel obfuscated the part that Lelouch not warning about FLEIJA was a setup on part of Schneizel and Kanon, the two having Lelouch arrested and making it look like Suzaku lured him, thus making him sound like he couldn't be trusted when he warned Lelouch about FLEIJA. (Not to mention that there was no former precedent of a weapon of mass destruction.) And don't get me started on Ohgi and Villetta, who had until just earlier been working for Britannia, and quite possibly knew of Lelouch's Geass limits as she had been working to keep surveillance for him over a year, so she had quite possibly been keeping tabs on them. That they had been so easily trusting the words of a standing, and formidably manipulative Britannian prince as well as a Britannian agent over those of an ex-Britannian prince who it should have been assumed might rebelling for some reason, while instead balking at the latter for his status, makes them seem like hypocrites.
Schneizel missed telling the Black Knights a key piece of information that would have made his argument 10 times more convincing: Nunnally is Lelouch's full blooded sister that he absolutely adores. Given how irrational Zero was acting whenever Nunnally was concerned, it would have made Schneizel's claim that Zero is Lelouch MUCH MUCH more convincing than the brief audio recording and the other flimsy evidence he brought to the table. Oh and how about the part about Lelouch being exiled and thus REALLY hating his father the Emperor (all they say he was a "former Prince"). That would have been good too. The only thing that really supported Schneizel's argument was the sudden and unexplained defections of Gao Hai, Jeremiah, and Guilford.
Schneizel neglecting to explain those things can be handwaved as an annoying use of the Law of Conservation of Detail. The one that cannot be handwaved is the fact that none of the Black Knights realized that if Zero had used his geass on them, they wouldn't have been able to rebel.
And even so, it is a wonder that Lelouch didn't call the Black Knights and Schneizel on this. "If I am so untrustworthy how come you are still able to distrust me? It's not like I haven't had ample opportunity to Geass you into eternal obedience." Then again the situation was specifically right after the FLEIJA explosion and Lelouch was in process of solidifying his DeathSeeker-ness.
Depends on nature of the impanted order. We don't learn that an order like "obey me forever" is even technically possible until later (and we don't know how much ability to act independently it left to the Britannian mooks). On the contrary, all the prior events suggested otherwise. More importantly, Schneizel never directly accused Lelouch of Geassing the leadership of Black Knights (their faces certainly weren't on the files he gave to them), although he tried to sow suspicion about this. Anyway, while in principle the prior events sufficiently set the stage for Black Knights turning on Lelouch (by, you know, making Lelouch look like an unpredictable madman who issues increasingly evil orders with no clear justifications, in their eyes, never mind giving him a lot of actual sceletons in the closet), the turn itself and Schneizel's exact argumentation were too rushed and poorly done.
Some of the Black Knights were growing suspicious of Zero, particularly when he disappeared in the Battle of Tokyo, and the massacre of the Geass Order (while they didn't know the details, they knew Zero ordered an operation kept secret from the majority). Todoh's decision was also influenced by Asahina sending him evidence about the Geass Order attack.
Still though, why trust Ohgi with leadership afterwards after his own dereliction of duty? Moreover, why count on being able to hang on to Japan, assuming they were to actually get it back, not to mention the deal technically went against the Black Knights being a military front for protecting the UFN from Britannia and liberating other nations, as it constituted a ceasefire?
Informed Wrongness: Lelouch. Not a saint by any stretch, but the punishment he suffered was less bad karma than bad luck. And even though he did a lot of good for the world by the point the UFN was formed, the narrative sees fit to punish him by fake killing his sister and have his subordinates betray him, to the point where he sacrifices himself for world peace, all the while characters who were more at fault, if not responsible for any of his problems, reaped the rewards instead.
Iron Woobie: Guilford got separated from Cornelia, geassed by Zero into defecting to the Black Knights, and almost got himself killed. He only gets to cry after he is reunited with his princess.
Lelouch himself, considering how much he puts up with, even if he does give in.
Jerkass Woobie: Several; Lelouch, C.C, Suzaku, Kallen, Jeremiah, Emperor Charles, Marianne, Mao and Rolo.
Mary Tzu: An unfortunate side effect of the encroaching Hollywood Tactics as the series progresses is that the brilliant strategists of the series become this. Somehow, various characters are able to correctly predict the plans of their enemies no matter how convoluted they are, or how little information they have on those plans--Lelouch and Li Xinkge, especially, have a blatant exchange in the second season. Face it, any supposedly military geniuses in the series are this.
Misaimed Fandom: "Lelouch brainwashing and killing innocent people is awesome! Wait? Why did he order his own death?" And on the opposing team, (even after the intention and results of the Zero Requiem were revealed): "Hooray! Lelouch the tyrant is dead!"
Rolo crossed this by shooting Shirley Fenette because she mentioned wanting to reunite Lelouch and Nunnally, the one thing Rolo did not want. Even now the fandom is divided whether or not his Heroic Sacrifice redeemed Rolo.
Schniezel crosses this when he leads Nina to believe that building FLEIJA would fulfill Euphemia's wishes, which directly leads to Nina's crossing when she does build the damn thing!
Nightmare Fuel: You get loads of both onscreen and Fridge variety horror with this show.
For starters, Mao's smiling, happy-as-can-be delivery of "I'll make you compact!". With a chainsaw.
And then, if you want something more subtle, try the disturbing little detail that almost everyone under control of the Geass, if specifically ordered to kill someone(even themselves!), will have deranged smiles plastered across their faces. The one exception, Princess Euphemia, arguably does something even more disturbing by having that same gentle smile she always does... While gunning down the people she had been trying to help.
Euphemia's Geass is by far the most nightmare-inducing in the entire franchise, due to how it is presented. When most people are geassed they do what they are commanded with a minimum of fuss - maybe they blink once or whatever and there's a flicker of recognition that they don't necessarily wish to do what they're "ordered" to do, but nobody really resists. What Euphie is ordered to do, however, runs so contrary to her deepest, most primal mental impulses that she spends a good minute writhing in pain, trying to force herself to ignore the command and is fully cognizant of the geass rewiring her mind. (This is assisted by great animation and voicework in both languages.) You can see and hear the girl pathetically trying to fight it and her mind bending ever further as Lelouch realizes just what the fuck he did... and then, with a practically audible "snap", it is done and she is broken, and you know what must come next. There's a lot of agreement that the show lost some people at this point due to how effectively terrifying this scene was.
Lelouch does say in the final minutes of the episode that she resisted because such a savage act was completely against her nature.
There's also the squirm-worthy Mind Rape scene in the the second episode of R2, which comes unpleasantly close to resembling a real rape.
Schniezel's declaration of his plans for world domination and godhood. There's just something about how his expression and tone change not a flicker while he's speaking of ordering the deaths of millions that makes the viewer realize something: This man is flat-out fucking insane. Somehow, despite the obvious(and awesome) displays of mental instability by Lelouch and others , this comes off as truly disquieting.
Euphemia treads the line on occasion. Horribly deconstructed in the end, as her biggest and kindest plan (which would've made her a 100% Purity Sue, had it worked) is one of the things that gets everything worse for everyone in the cast, and got her killed.
Almost everyone who knew Marianne seems to think she was tremendously wonderful and has sworn loyalty to her; those who weren't thrilled appear to be horribly wrong. However, this is massively subverted in the end..
Also, how Lelouch views Nunnally.
Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Shirley. The likely source of her status as The Scrappy. Being one of the girlier characters in the show as well as one of the only female characters who isn't a Badass and/or Plucky Girl did not go over so well with the fandom.
It is true, however, that Shirley actually made Lelouch genuinely happy, and as such, had she lived and managed to maintain a relationship with him, it's easy to imagine her succeeding in saving him from the despair he would be consigned to not long after her death and the chain of subsequent events that included Nunnally's apparent demise and the Black Knights betrayal. Her death is often considered the first step towards Lelouch's eventual demise.
Replacement Scrappy: Rolo was one of these for Lelouch for replacing Nunnally. And he could be considered one of these for much of the fanbase who like Nunnally better, too.
Many of the people who found Shirley annoying seemingly came around to how sympathetic she was after she died. Guess you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone sometimes.
Ron the Death Eater: The Black Knights, Lelouch, Suzaku, Shirley, C. C. and even Rolo.
The Scrappy: Too many to count and it changes almost on a per-episode basis. In particular, Nina, Suzaku (for some), either Rolo or Shirley (depending on who you ask), and Ohgi.
Snark Bait: The numerous over-the-top moments, especially during R2, make it a very entertaining MST piece, at least for some. This is something of a sensitive subject.
Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Lelouch sums up the show's lesson perfectly; "The only ones who should kill are those who are prepared to be killed." Basically, if you kill for a cause, whatever it may be, you had better be prepared to face the consequences. A certain boy with a notebook should really have learned this lesson.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The recent streaming releases of the show (notably Netflix) had that one episode with the Pizza Hut sponsorship on C.C.'s pizza box removed.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Due to the pacing problems in R2, several interesting plot lines were either dealt with too quickly or outright dismissed a few episodes after being brought up. The worst is probably the subplot involving Marianne's death. She's revealed to be inside Anya and is killed in the very next episode, even though her murder had been one of Lelouch's main motivations since the very beginning of the first season. What's more, Empress Marianne herself was part of an arguably "evil" plan and abandoned her children to build a new world for them, which flies in the face of her previous portrayal as admirable and near-perfect. This really should have been better explained.
Also, the "Euphinator incident" is despised by many, mainly because they feel that having Euphie having her plan actually put into action and horribly collapse would have been alot more interesting than having an absurd Diabolus Ex Machina crush it before it starts and cause Euphie to be killed, as having it happen and fail with Euphie still alive would give her some VERY interesting Character Development to go through, potentially pushing her away for near Purity Sue status and to becoming someone who, while not dark and cynical, would be alot less cheeful and optimistic, and forced to look at things more realistically. That's preferable to being Stuffed Into the Fridge, in any case.
True Art Is Angsty: The story's cripplingly depressing at times but it's still one of the most popular anime in Japan and/or the world.
Unfortunate Implications: Dorothea, the only black member of the Knights of the Round, is killed so quickly.
When he accidentally Geassed Euphemia to commit genocide. It's not so much the fact that he did it as the primary reason it happened. Worst Rhetorical Request Blunder ever! Admittedly, naming an action that would be entirely contrary to nature of the victim in conversation as an example of what Geass can compel is a reasonable way of impressing how powerful it is, so it's reasonable that Lelouch would use such an example.
And let's not forget that before giving this example Lelouch's eye causes him pain three times over the course of the episode. Once right before stating the example... Not once does he ask CC's advice after the first one, he makes NO effort to stop Euphemia while the two are still in the room together. He freaks out and lets her run away after she tries fighting the command for almost 30 seconds.
Lelouch didn't simply let Euphemia run away; He DID chase her, but, as we were shown before, he has such a poor stamina that he couldn't keep up to her.
Not only that, but he doesn't learn the lesson that he should not overuse his Geass, or use it frivolously, which he arguably should have started thinking after seeing what Geass had done to Mao. He continues to Geass people for petty reasons, such as to get away more quickly during a school chase or to vent his spleen on some thugs. For crying out loud, man.
Really, C.C.? After all Mao's been through, did you really think that after walking out on him he'd just let it go?
What Happened to the Mouse??: Played straight at the beginning of R2 but subverted later on when it tells everyone what happened to nearly every character after the black rebellion.
Woolseyism: The "conversation" between Schneizel and Lelouch, where Lelouch recorded his part in advance, made much more sense in the dub. The original included Lelouch predicting his opponent's words perfectly, at one point correctly anticipating being interrupted. In the dub, the interruption was removed entirely, and Lelouch's lines were made much more vague and believable. Read the transcript here. Major spoilers, of course.
YMMV • 
Radar • 
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Heartwarming • 
Awesome) • 
Fridge • 
Characters • 
Fanfic Recs • 
Nightmare Fuel • 
Shout Out • 
Plot • 
Tear Jerker • 
Headscratchers • 
Trivia • WMG • 
Recap • 
Ho Yay • 
Image Links • 
Memes • 
Haiku • Laconic • 
Source • Setting