Let's Chat Characters

[Skiiran Lord offline]

Please don't begin pulling pun-phrases on me. I was wrong, let's end it there.

I think we've pretty much beaten debating about Jeremie as a character to death with a pointy cushion. Let's try something else.

[LadyLucy offline]

Jeremie's a nerd, but a cool nerd. He's sweet, caring, shy, and willing to sacrifice himself for his friends.

AGREED!!!
We need to start a "I love Jeremie" fan club...or something like that...he's just so adorable...

[Mewberries151]

Please don't begin pulling pun-phrases on me. I was wrong, let's end it there.

I think we've pretty much beaten debating about Jeremie as a character to death with a pointy cushion. Let's try something else.

Aww, I was just joking with you though. ^_^ I even winked to let you know. No hard feelings? It's all in good CL-debating fun after all.

In any case, might I then nominate Aelita as the topic for the next character debate? ^^

[Skiiran Lord offline]

Agreed. I'll type up some long thing later, but in the mean time here's a list of words taht represent what Aelita's like:
innocent
slow to anger
happy
loving/caring

That should get you talking.

[Skysong offline]

Aelita isn't innocent- Aelita is naive. There's a difference. If she had grown up on Earth, I could easily see her as a party girl to rival Sissi. She likes to have fun. While she is a sweet girl, I can see her getting in trouble, because she's rather impulsive. I don't think she would ever do anything intentionally bad, though- taking risks might be her thing.

However, she does always put others first- messiah complex, anyone?

[mooshie offline]

well if we were to view this from a metaphorical standpoint, the writers might intend for her to be sort of a "Christ"
not to offend any christian people though, kind of like gallahad, in the holy grail novels

[oddsgrlfriend offline]

I see Aelita as a young girl who is getting by as well as she can. She has suffered alot and has many challenges her way but her BFFs will help her through. She is loyal, trustworthy, kind, and has a tounge to rival Odd's when it comes to Sissi.

[Carth]

That just made me think of TB3's awesome essay from the day-to-day thread. Yeah...if you think of it, CL does have religious themes in it.

(On another note, would XANA count in discussion as a character? Or was he taken care of in LTT?)

[Skorpigeist offline]

That just made me think of TB3's awesome essay from the day-to-day thread. Yeah...if you think of it, CL does have religious themes in it.

(On another note, would XANA count in discussion as a character? Or was he taken care of in LTT?)

Well Xana would count as a character, because like all the others it has motivations, thoughts, logic (granted it is covered in the tech talk threads), and even a psyche to some degree. Xana does have intelligence so I think it should be talked about here at some point.

[Skiiran Lord offline]

Techniccally, is XANA even Sapient or Sentient?

[Carth]

Yay! Words to look up!

Sapient-possessing of wisdom and discernment

Sentient-Conscious or aware, Experiencing sensation or feeling, Possessing human-like intelligence.

To tell the truth...it's open for discussion. XANA is definitely aware of himself and the world, since he's trying to make it all go boom.

But XANA himself is definitely NOT human, or even-human like, in physical (duh), mental, and emotional aspects. He began sentience, I think, with a COMPLETELY clean slate-no memory at all, or at least very little. Humans begin life not knowing of the outside world, yet retaining emotion and instinct. But, much like a human child, XANA learns from experience (The posessions nonwithstanding), and uses knowledge to his advantage-like the understanding of human emotions. XANA has none of his own (or so we think)(and its not that he doesn't choose to show them, he has NONE. Everything he does is based on simple task), yet as he comes to comprehend ours, he understands that they can be used to his advantage, and TAA DAA! XANA's Kiss.

But here's another point. What about us, exactly, drove XANA to try and make us all explode? We don't smell that bad, do we?

[LadyLucy offline]

Neither...X.A.N.A. is evil....

[animenologist offline]

Always enjoy discussion. Since I joined in a bit late, I hope you guys don't mind if I run through all the characters brought up so far (Jeremie, Aelita, and XANA).

First Jeremie. Lets start with the basics, he's the most intelligent member of the group, and I believe that qualifies him as a nerd by most textbook definitions (which I consider a compliment more than an insult). Because of his great knowledge and skill (and possibly his lack of prowess in fighting), he is placed in charge of manning the supercomputer and being the team's eye in the sky, and scout. Because of this, he is possibly the 2nd most important character concerning their trips to Lyoko, since with the exception of Aelita, none of the gang can do it adequately or with his consistency. On top of his normal routine of virtualizing his friends, and being their look out, he also has the large task of solving whichever major problem the gang has for the season. In season 1 it was finding a materialization program for Aelita, for season 2 it was the anti-virus, which can very taxing on him, mentally and emotionally.

Socially speaking, he never leaves his room and for the most part a workaholic. Only leaves his room for food, class, and to hang out with his friends to talk (mostly with Aelita), though work usually never strays far from his mind, and sometimes has a way of creeping into his conversations. He's very stubborn when it comes to Aelita, that her life is always placed as priority (despite possible immediate dangers). Though from his point of view, its not unreasonable to be worried. After all, for the first 2 seasons, the entire point of their missions is to save her while keeping everyone else safe. Stopping XANA was mostly considered after she was brought to safety, because it could have been done simply at the flip of a switch. So stopping XANA was a secondary concern to him, since saving Aelita directly solves stopping XANA, as well as saving a life. As well as being stubborn, he also has self-confidence issues concerning his usefulness and competence. Should things go awry because of him or his ability seems insufficient, he's quick to put himself down. Examples include Marabounta, Just in Time, and The Girl of the Dreams.

A little while back, there was a discussion between myself, MB151, and TaskForceLyoko, concerning position of leadership within the gang. I still at this point consider that Jeremie is the unspoken leader of the group. Primarily because of his authority of the supercomputer, where no one can get virtualized without him without getting vehicles or a lookout. Because of his vantage point and the power of the supercomputer, he is also able to keep an eye out on the real world as well. He is able to keep track of and send his friends off on missions outside Lyoko as well as inside, like in Zero Gravity Zone, Revelation, Satellite, or setting up excursions like in A Fine Mess, Exploration, and The Key. He basically organizes the mission, sends them where they need to be, and reminds them of their objectives. Thats why I consider him to be the leader of the group.

Next is Aelita. From what we saw of her, in Season 1 she was basically a calm, patient, almost logic-driven entity. All discussions, arguments, and debates were solved quietly, peacefully, and rationally on her part. In Season 2, after the initial shock of her uneasiness to living on Earth and getting to know personally more about her friends, other than Jeremie, she became more emotionally driven, and almost as stubborn as Jeremie. A lot of times she stopped using calm patience to get her point across and resorts to screaming, pleading, acting out alone, or the silent treatment (and the usual moping) whenever conflict occurs. Of the gang, she is probably the most important, plot wise, since she was a resident of Lyoko, the daughter of its creator, and the only one capable of deactivating towers.

After living on Earth, she has become more receptive to outside ideas, thoughts, and actions. A lot of times, her actions mimic Odd in many respects, including somewhat risky manaeuvers and tactics, where she places herself in line of fire so that they can pull of a plan, like in New Order. It is probably no coincidence that her greatest vehicle prowess is Odd's Overboard, or that she asked Odd to teach her techno. In fact, A Bad Turn is directly preceeded by Temptation, where Odd shows Aelita the joys of playing to the opponents follies, by having them crash in to trees which she reproduced very well in A Bad Turn, and one of the maneuvers she commonly used in A Bad Turn was first demonstrated earlier in Common Interest, I believe, the episode before Temptation (where he would halt the board, point it upward, and use restart it for quick upward propulsion).

One facet about Aelita's personality that has been maintained between Seasons is her feelings of duty to prevent lost lives, and her martyr complex. For her, its almost like she feels like its all for her to bear, like in The Key where she stated stopping XANA is her job. Because of this, she will always perform actions that puts her life before others, sometimes recklessly without regard for the other consequences. Examples include Ultimatum and Missing Link. Though some of her actions are much more risky and bull-headed in Season 2 compared to Season 1, since she is more prone to acting out of emotion than logical thought, due to her time spent on Earth. I believe she has self-confidence issues similar to Jeremie's, except hers stem from her belief of not being of human worth. Many of her actions are justified saying that she is not human, does not have a life on Earth like the others, that it would be better for her to take the bullet than her friends. With The Key, I thought that further pointed towards that direction, since one of her major points as she was lashing out was that she lost a life because of her father and because of that, she was worthless, that she was nobody, that her life had a bit more meaning as an artificial intelligence than some mad scientist's experiment.

I'll do XANA later, because I need to be going. But heres some of my thoughts.

[Carth]

I completely agree.

I think that, at some point, something like this (that I did NOT draw) will happen:

http://www.deviantart.com/view/27249248/

or the sequel:

http://www.deviantart.com/view/30149037/

[oddsgrlfriend offline]

THOSE ARE GREAT! And I can see that happening only alittle more...nicer.

[animenologist offline]

I said I would, so here is my thoughts on XANA.

From what was given to us, XANA was an anti-military weapon to combat Project Carthage, but due to unknown reasons, turned against Franz Hopper after the first virtualization. During his betrayel, he stole Aelita's memory fragment but for some reason didn't imprison her. What we can guess is that after Hopper's imprisonment, XANA was shortly placed in a sort of idle mode for 10 years until the supercomputer was discovered by Jeremie and his friends, otherwise, it brings into question why he wasn't rampaging the world for 10 years.

What I find intriguing is the complete lack of motivation behind XANA. Other than some basic history, and an idea of how he operates, we don't know what drives XANA. We don't know why he betrayed Hopper, why for Season 1 he tried to kill Aelita, and only decided to escape in Season 2. The only thing resembling a long distance goal was by Aelita to "take over the world", which while a stock in terms of seems simplistic, especially with no given motivation for why. While this would normally make a villain seem shallow, it works for XANA as an evil entity with an overshadowing prescence. For 2 seasons, we know nothing about what makes him tick, all we know is he is out there waiting to strike out, his influence becoming more encompassing, his power growing stronger, and his plans more complex. We only see him communicate to the team 2 or 3 times, in Ghost Channel, Franz Hopper, and possibly XANA's Kiss. We've never even seen XANA's virtual (actual) form, if he has a form. And that what makes him so well-done as an antagonist, his unknown nature as its constantly lashes out into our world with a vendetta against us and humanity, like a 6-12 year old version of most of the Old Ones from Call of Cthulhu.

Now doing a little psychological analysis (if you can say that about a computer program) , it would seem that during Season 1, prior to Code: Earth, I would think XANA already saw himself as already at the high point of his existence, he was possibly the world's greatest weapon, able to bring a countries infrastructure to its knees, hacking any network or computer system not created by Hopper within hours, even minutes, and perform things normal scientific progress has only begun to understand. It was through this that he considered Aelita an obstical to be destroyed and the kids to be killed and that a successful attack is fulfillment of its purpose. With the events of Code: Earth, he began to realize his mortality and knew that if he was going to survive, he would need to free himself of the weakness that residing in the supercomputer gives him. At the same time, his attacks seem less based on wanton destruction, but seem to come closer to his percieved goal of world domination. Many of his season 1 attacks seemed a bit random in nature, almost reckless as he seemed to aim several attacks at the factoy complexr which would have been damaging to himself (Cruel Dilemma, Just in Time, Routine). Now all of his attacks in Season 2 were concentrated attacks on the kids, or use of baiting to get Aelita in his clutches, as well as many of his plans having extra layers of thought and complexity on top of it (Cold War, A Great Day, and Attack of the Zombies). As a villain, XANA continued to evolve, while keeping an air about as an evil unkown and ever-watching prescence.

Anyways, thats some of my thoughts on XANA.

[LadyLucy offline]

hehehe....I like the second drawing...Jeremie's pose and expression makes me laugh.

[Pika53 offline]

animenologist wrote:

From what was given to us, XANA was an anti-military weapon to combat Project Carthage, but due to unknown reasons, turned against Franz Hopper after the first virtualization. During his betrayel, he stole Aelita's memory fragment but for some reason didn't imprison her. What we can guess is that after Hopper's imprisonment, XANA was shortly placed in a sort of idle mode for 10 years until the supercomputer was discovered by Jeremie and his friends, otherwise, it brings into question why he wasn't rampaging the world for 10 years.

What I find intriguing is the complete lack of motivation behind XANA. Other than some basic history, and an idea of how he operates, we don't know what drives XANA. We don't know why he betrayed Hopper, why for Season 1 he tried to kill Aelita, and only decided to escape in Season 2. The only thing resembling a long distance goal was by Aelita to "take over the world", which while a stock in terms of seems simplistic, especially with no given motivation for why. While this would normally make a villain seem shallow, it works for XANA as an evil entity with an overshadowing prescence. For 2 seasons, we know nothing about what makes him tick, all we know is he is out there waiting to strike out, his influence becoming more encompassing, his power growing stronger, and his plans more complex. We only see him communicate to the team 2 or 3 times, in Ghost Channel, Franz Hopper, and possibly XANA's Kiss. We've never even seen XANA's virtual (actual) form, if he has a form. And that what makes him so well-done as an antagonist, his unknown nature as its constantly lashes out into our world with a vendetta against us and humanity, like a 6-12 year old version of most of the Old Ones from Call of Cthulhu.

Now doing a little psychological analysis (if you can say that about a computer program) , it would seem that during Season 1, prior to Code: Earth, I would think XANA already saw himself as already at the high point of his existence, he was possibly the world's greatest weapon, able to bring a countries infrastructure to its knees, hacking any network or computer system not created by Hopper within hours, even minutes, and perform things normal scientific progress has only begun to understand. It was through this that he considered Aelita an obstical to be destroyed and the kids to be killed and that a successful attack is fulfillment of its purpose. With the events of Code: Earth, he began to realize his mortality and knew that if he was going to survive, he would need to free himself of the weakness that residing in the supercomputer gives him. At the same time, his attacks seem less based on wanton destruction, but seem to come closer to his percieved goal of world domination. Many of his season 1 attacks seemed a bit random in nature, almost reckless as he seemed to aim several attacks at the factoy complexr which would have been damaging to himself (Cruel Dilemma, Just in Time, Routine). Now all of his attacks in Season 2 were concentrated attacks on the kids, or use of baiting to get Aelita in his clutches, as well as many of his plans having extra layers of thought and complexity on top of it (Cold War, A Great Day, and Attack of the Zombies). As a villain, XANA continued to evolve, while keeping an air about as an evil unkown and ever-watching prescence.

Anyways, thats some of my thoughts on XANA.

Nicely written and I compleately agree with you. The thought of Xana, as you described it, makes total sense and in a way casues him to stand out more as a character and a villain.

[LadyLucy offline]

I think X.A.N.A. is a much cooler villian than some of the other anime villians...he's more mysterious, creepy, and he isn't stupid-evil. It's sort of like Sauron from Lord of the Rings...the less you know about him, the more scary he becomes, just by imagination. PLus his symbol is stolen from the Lyoko towers, which confuses everyone...

[YDV offline]

I said I would, so here is my thoughts on XANA.

From what was given to us, XANA was an anti-military weapon to combat Project Carthage, but due to unknown reasons, turned against Franz Hopper after the first virtualization. During his betrayel, he stole Aelita's memory fragment but for some reason didn't imprison her. What we can guess is that after Hopper's imprisonment, XANA was shortly placed in a sort of idle mode for 10 years until the supercomputer was discovered by Jeremie and his friends, otherwise, it brings into question why he wasn't rampaging the world for 10 years.

What I find intriguing is the complete lack of motivation behind XANA. Other than some basic history, and an idea of how he operates, we don't know what drives XANA. We don't know why he betrayed Hopper, why for Season 1 he tried to kill Aelita, and only decided to escape in Season 2. The only thing resembling a long distance goal was by Aelita to "take over the world", which while a stock in terms of seems simplistic, especially with no given motivation for why. While this would normally make a villain seem shallow, it works for XANA as an evil entity with an overshadowing prescence. For 2 seasons, we know nothing about what makes him tick, all we know is he is out there waiting to strike out, his influence becoming more encompassing, his power growing stronger, and his plans more complex. We only see him communicate to the team 2 or 3 times, in Ghost Channel, Franz Hopper, and possibly XANA's Kiss. We've never even seen XANA's virtual (actual) form, if he has a form. And that what makes him so well-done as an antagonist, his unknown nature as its constantly lashes out into our world with a vendetta against us and humanity, like a 6-12 year old version of most of the Old Ones from Call of Cthulhu.

Now doing a little psychological analysis (if you can say that about a computer program) , it would seem that during Season 1, prior to Code: Earth, I would think XANA already saw himself as already at the high point of his existence, he was possibly the world's greatest weapon, able to bring a countries infrastructure to its knees, hacking any network or computer system not created by Hopper within hours, even minutes, and perform things normal scientific progress has only begun to understand. It was through this that he considered Aelita an obstical to be destroyed and the kids to be killed and that a successful attack is fulfillment of its purpose. With the events of Code: Earth, he began to realize his mortality and knew that if he was going to survive, he would need to free himself of the weakness that residing in the supercomputer gives him. At the same time, his attacks seem less based on wanton destruction, but seem to come closer to his percieved goal of world domination. Many of his season 1 attacks seemed a bit random in nature, almost reckless as he seemed to aim several attacks at the factoy complexr which would have been damaging to himself (Cruel Dilemma, Just in Time, Routine). Now all of his attacks in Season 2 were concentrated attacks on the kids, or use of baiting to get Aelita in his clutches, as well as many of his plans having extra layers of thought and complexity on top of it (Cold War, A Great Day, and Attack of the Zombies). As a villain, XANA continued to evolve, while keeping an air about as an evil unkown and ever-watching prescence.

Anyways, thats some of my thoughts on XANA.

...It was 12 years. Not ten. xD; (1994+12=2006?)

Yeah. *cough* Otherwise, bravo! I completely agree. I seem to recall something like this comming up in LTT 1 before... (Back to being computer psychologists, are we? xD)

[MY85 offline]

...It was 12 years. Not ten. xD; (1994+12=2006?)

Ten stands for the years that passed after Jeremie activated the supercomputer. 12 would mean the time where XANA could finally get off the computer.

From what was given to us, XANA was an anti-military weapon to combat Project Carthage, but due to unknown reasons, turned against Franz Hopper after the first virtualization.

Maybe XANA was triggered by someone else that later lost control or interest about it.

[animenologist offline]

...It was 12 years. Not ten. xD; (1994+12=2006?)

Well, if you really want to get technical, Code Lyoko first premiered in April 2004 in America. Going by that date, XANA has been idle for 9 years, 8 months. If we go by the premiere date in France, it was first shown in September 2003. That would make XANA idle for about 9 years, 3 months. And then we remember that at the time of The Trap, which is episode #14 in Season 1, marks the 1 year anniversery of the rediscovery of Lyoko by Jeremie and his friends. So depending on the time length between Teddygozilla and The Trap, XANA could have been idle between maybe 8.5- 9 years. But that would be considered being too picky .

[Skysong offline]

XANA wins at villainy, just because if you get possessed by him, you get the symbol on your forehead.

Ok, people... what do you think of Sissi?

[Taelia offline]

She's very bratty and acts like an infant, but that's actually a cry for acceptance. She wants Ulrich, and constantly annoys him to no end. She feels that he's hers and only hers. He consistently rejects her and pours the proverbial cold water down her pants so she's just shut her trap.

In "Ultimatum", she was a great help to Team Lyoko and a heroine in her own right. She was a great help in the fight against XANA.

[Skipperdee offline]

Sissi doesn't quite know how to make friends. My guess is that she has had her father wrapped around her little finger from a very young age, to the point where she gets what she wants, pretty much when she wants it. This has given her a complex of sorts where she believes she deserves a lot. So now Sissi comes to school with this overly confident attitude and people roll their eyes at her and call her spoiled and bratty and annoying. She is at first taken aback, but then learns to retaliate in the same fashion, making herself even less popular. She retaliates again, and it turns into a vicious cycle.

Now Sissi has virtually no friends and she believes the only way to get "in" with the school crowd is to hang around well liked people. Enter Ulrich and the gang. They, too, however, ignore her because they only know her as bratty, annoying Sissi who'll snitch on you to her father if you cross your eyes at her. Sissi develops a habit of sticking to the group like glue and when they tell her to buzz off, she yells and whines and is a general pain in the neck to have around so they ignore her and try to get her to leave. These constant rejections chip away at Sissi's self esteem, but she puts on a brave, falsely confident face to try and convince her peers (and maybe herself) that their remarks aren't getting to her.

Her strong personality now attracts the attention of two other "outcasts", Herb and Nicholas, and they begin following her around. Sissi isn't terribly pleased with this, as Nicholas and Herb aren't popular as she'd hoped her friends would be, but she figures some attention is better than none, and the two boys form her "posse".

Sissi's internal feelings of inferiority lead her down the path of other bullies, and she begins taunting and picking on younger children (Milly and Tamiya in particular) to raise her spirits. This makes her even less popular with Ulrich and co., the ultimate defenders of mankind, which kills Sissi, as she has developed a huge crush on Ulrich. Still harboring the idea that she should have whatever she wants, she seeks his attention even more, yet he brushes her off and focuses on Yumi, causing a very jealous Sissi.

Notice that Sissi doesn't share a room? She doesn't have any girl friends, and she obviously can't talk to Herb or Nicholas about "girl things". They just wouldn't understand. She also doesn't appear to have a mother, and it's got to be tough to grow up and go through your teenage years without a female outlet who's either been through it or is going through it with you. While Sissi isn't exactly making herself a welcome addition to any group, neither is any other girl really, really trying to reach out to her and trying to befriend her, so she's pretty much alone.

What's a girl to do? Her crush essentially hates her and wishes she would fall off the planet, or at least leave him alone for 5 minutes. Her friends are losers and probably only hang out with her because she protects them (sort of) from other people. But when opportunities present themselves to help The Gang, she takes advantage. She's not a complete idiot. Any chance that she gets where they have to hang out with her and possibly be civil to her, she will take. She's actually quite helpful, as illustrated in The Trap (I think) when Ulrich had a broken arm in the elevator and she set it for him or whatever she did.

Or at least this is how it all plays out in my mind. Anyway, I like Sissi. I think she's good at heart, but has a hard time expressing it because she's kept it under wraps for so long. She genuinely cares for people (she was crying when she told Yumi that Odd, Milly and Tamiya were stuck in the building in Just in Time, even though she is mean to the 3 of them all the time.) She's a little misunderstood and she can do some annoying things, but she is a good person, even if she doesn't always act like it.