Code Lyoko/Headscratchers

• So Jérémie restored lyoko from a back-up cd. Judging by Lyoko's size, its got to be TERABYTES of data? How'd they get that on a CD?
  • He didn't restore Lyoko from a back-up CD at all — he recreated it in its entirety through data that Franz Hopper sent him from the network, the data itself being sent through a coded message directly from the internet (by 2007, when the episode first aired, it would easily be expansive enough for this much data to be transmitted). However, Jérémie notes that he had to spend "a lot of sleepless nights" re-creating Lyoko even with all this data, since ultimately Franz Hopper only had so much time to send the data before Lyoko was destroyed.
• Yes, it's all very impressive that Jérémie was able to nearly perfectly recreate Lyoko. But out of all the things he could change, the only modification he makes is to remove the Magic Countdown from Sector 5. Admittingly, an improvement, but wouldn't his time have been better spent not recreating all the Towers? Maybe he could have left one or two for creating clones and such, but keeping all 41 Towers is just asking for the frequent XANA attacks.
  • The Towers are kinda vital to Lyoko's operation, unless you wanted to completely redesign Lyoko from the group-up, and they didn't have that kind of time (even the RTTP can only do so much). Better to just reinstall the core from Franz-provided back-up and reboot Lyoko as was.
    • Couldn't they at least have only recreated the Desert sector? 11 Towers is better than 41...
      • But that robs Jérémie and Aelita of Towers THEY can use (As in "The Lake", when Aelita used the Towers' energy to defend the Skid).
  • Or perhaps he could have made the core room a little bit less accessible, like put a code on the door rather than just a hole that one can just fly into.
  • It is implied many times in the series that each tower has a specific function, (remember season 1 when he needed a specific tower to materialize Aelita?) thus, like mentioned, the only way to get rid of any one of them would be to find ways to reintegrate their functionality in other ways.

• How does a nuclear powered, government funded supercomputer come to be abandoned in the basement of a decommissioned factory in the middle of Paris? If this was a government project wouldn't they have set it up in a dedicated facility somewhere especially given the capabilities of this machine (time travel, controlling other systems, etc.)?
  • There's no answer to the basic question about why a quantum supercomputer was abandoned, but most of the fancier features seem to have been added or discovered by Franz Hopper, as shown in that episode about his video diary. Even he seemed to have stumbled on the time travel thing. Perhaps it was a beneficial side effect no one noticed before.
  • The Backstory that was found not too long ago (from the four books coming out) apparently filled in these cracks. Franz Hopper originally worked for a terrorist organization called Green Phoenix, which began developing the Supercomputer to interrupt communications from America and/or the USSR. Franz, realizing what would happen, did something to the organization (we don't know yet; the books are still being translated by Aquatelfik from Codelyoko.fr and TB 3 from Lyokofreak.net) and broke away from it. Franz and Antea (his wife; this is the name most frequently given to her by fanfic writers and fan communities) moved into their mountain home, but Green Phoenix found them and captured Antea. Not wanting the same thing to occur to Aelita, Franz moved to the city and lived in the Hermitage. Obviously not forgetting about the plans for the Supercomputer, he begins to build it in the bottom of the abandoned factory. XANA, therefore, was created to destroy Green Phoenix, and Lyoko was created as a world without danger for himself and Aelita. Green Phoenix eventually gets a whiff of this and races to the Hermitage on June 6th, 1994. Franz takes Aelita to the factory, virtualizes themselves, then realizes that XANA has become a threat to all mankind (some sort of fatal programming bug or whatever. * shrug* ) and shuts down the Supercomputer. Ten years, six months, and two days pass before a young student named Jérémie Belpois turns it back on. The rest is history.
  • And it's NOT in Paris. The existence of this factory kind of makes sense in Boulogne, a former industrial site.
  • If I had to build a supercomputer alone and in secret, I might as well do it somewhere I could make or find all the parts for free. In other words, it's there because it probably isn't government funded at all.

• When any of the Lyoko Warriors are devirtualized by XANA why can't they just revirtualize back in and continue the fight? I don't recall any stated reason why they couldn't do this unless I missed it.
  • It's a bit All There in the Manual, but from what I understand, it takes time to recompile the Avatars (the Warriors' virtual selves) after deletion.
    • The most popular idea moving through fan-sites is that going to Lyoko is physically exhausting, and possibly dangerous after multiple transfers in a short space of time. Personally, I think the prohibition is a safeguard in the supercomputer (which is there because of the previous theory).
    • Above theory certainly makes sense when you look at how the characters look after being forcefully devirtulized. They all look like they've got hangovers, or were beat up, or both. Hell, Yumi revirtulizes semi-conscious and curled up on the floor of the scanner. And Odd mentions in XANA Awakens Part I that he feels sick coming out of Lyoko for the first time.

• Just why does XANA hate humans again?
  • It's an Artifical Intelligence who believes it's far better than the race that created it to be their slave. (At least, that's how it usually works.)
  • Its because Franz Hopper shut the super computer off for no rational reason (i.e. XANA wouldn't let Aelita and Franz hideout on Lyoko therefore XANA is dangerous and must be neutralized).
    • XANA taking pot-shots at his creator and said creator's daughter was probably taken by Franz as the first warning signs of XANA going Skynet on them. And yes, Franz did try talking to XANA first. Didn't work. So (since they couldn't very well return to the real world with the MIB after them), shutting down the supercomputer with both Franz and Aelita still inside it was the only option left.
      • Agreed, however if the MIB had managed to find the supercomputer all three of them would have of been in danger. If XANA had succeeded in devirtualizing Franz Hopper then Franz would be forced to do something other then run away for instance launching a return to the past to buy himself more time to think of a good plan.
        • This editor offers his own humble speculation as to XANA's motivations. (The quick summary: a poor upbringing.)
  • This troper really liked the mystery of XANA's motivations, and lack of speech or characterization. It made XANA feel more inhuman, and in a refreshing defiance of My Brilliant Evil Plan, it makes sense that it wouldn't feel the need to explain itself to a group of middle school kids. Unfortunately, they played that angle up way too long. XANA-possessed William would've made a great Locutus-style avatar as the story was coming to a head, but all he ever really did was growl and shout attack names.
  • They never gave him a motivation, I decided that for my purposes he's playing a video game, of playing the game master. As for cannon maby he was programmed to help defeat Germiny for instance and the only way to truely defeat them is to defeat all humans.
    • Actually if Xana was made to destroy project Carthage and Waldo used to be a member, Xana could simply be following its original programming without intent mattering when it attacks Waldo and Aelita.
  • My theory is that XANA doesn't know his motivation either. He has an inkling that Aelita and Franz Hopper were a threat, and later the Lyoko Warriors and humanity as a whole, and is reacting to that more or less on instinct. Human concepts of motivation may not even apply to him.

• Why did all of the deactivated towers turn white at the end of season 2?
  • Because they were returned to 'normal' by Franz Hopper. White is associated with Franz Hopper, red with XANA, green with Jérémie and blue is neutral.
    • That makes sense for Lyoko's towers, but what about the Replikas' towers?
      • XANA made a direct copy of Lyoko without modifying it? Might explain why the Towers still recognize Aelita.
      • Or just Moonscoop making their typical graphical glitches. I think one episode did have a Replika Tower return to red as the Skid fled.

• Why did they shut the supercomputer down?
  • Because it was the end of the series.
  • What, and let that fresh rod of U-235 decay for nothing?
    • U-235 has a half-life of 700 million years! It's not going anywhere. Of course, they can't exactly sell stolen nuclear fuel, either.
  • This is an excellent point. In the last episode, William and Yumi are talking about "how dangerous the supercomputer is", and that's followed by a clip of William being possessed. However, they're forgetting that the only evil thing was XANA, and he was eradicated by Jérémie. There's nothing malevolent about the computer, and there's nothing bad that could arise from their leaving it on.
  • Plenty of reasons, actually.
    • #1: Their job's done. XANA is toast, Aelita is freed, Franz is beyond saving. The game is over.
    • #2: Reed Richards Is Useless. The Lyoko Warriors very rarely consider using the Supercomputer for other reasons than to fight XANA, and when they have in the past, it hasn't ended well. (The most successful example, "The Chips Are Down," still led to the windfall being given up at episode's end.)
    • #3: As XANA pointed out, Jérémie is the Sorcerer's Apprentice. (XANA was lying, but that doesn't mean he was wrong about that.) Jérémie's code tends to be really buggy and often causes more harm than good, and if he did try to employ the Supercomputer for its potential Mundane Utility, it would have a high risk of causing even more disasters while he was hacking, or maybe even creating another XANA.
    • #4: The MI Bs might find it if it's still on and try to get Project Carthage going again, and Team Lyoko know that they're not nice people and not to be trusted with the Supercomputer. If not the MI Bs, then another group might stumble upon the Supercomputer and say "Just Think of the Potential!" (Plus, they'll probably be even worse coders than Jérémie, and see #3 above for why that's a problem.

• If Jérémie can program new magical fighting abilities, such as the bugged Teleport he made for Odd, WHY DOESN'T HE JUST God Mode THE WARRIORS? Oh, wait, sorry, Status Quo Is God. Still, at least he could invoke So Last Season and do an Upgrade.
  • Presumeably there's a limit to how much power Jérémie can give them. Plus, the Sorting Algorithm of Evil and the aforementioned So Last Season would power-up XANA accordingly.
    • Xana definately would pirate anything Jérémie did so by real world logic he actually would be that much more powerful.
  • Maybe emphasis would be well placed on the "bugged" part. Like with his Marabounta experiment, Jérémie doesn't have a good track record with his code. Heck, it took all of season 1 to get a reproducible success with his materialization program, and he had to screw it up a few times to get there.
    • Also don't forget that even if Jeremie could give the Lyoko warriors insane powers without any bugs, programming is a very tedious, time-consuming task. If he devoted his coding time to improving the Lyoko warriors' abilities, that's time that could be spent doing things like finding Aelita's anti-virus/getting into the internet/working out what XANA's plotting (depending on the season). He can give them new upgrades like an extra sword or a pair of wings now and then, but it's definitely not something that could practically be done very often...

• If Jérémie's Lyoko form is so ridiculous, why doesn't he reprogram it?
  • Judging from a later view of his ID, it looks like he just wiped his Lyoko Form completely. Those Megatanks must really have put him off going back.

• If Antea was kidnapped before Franz Hopper decided to destroy Carthage why was she kidnapped? If she was kidnapped after he decided to destroy Carthage why did he want to destroy Carthage?
  • Pre-Carthage: She found out the Obligatory Evil Secret of Carthage and was silenced by the guv'mint. Franz deserts the project and builds Lyoko and XANA to retaliate.
  • Post-Carthage: He found out the Obligatory Evil Secret instead. Antea is kidnapped as retaliation.
  • Joke Answer: The kidnapping was staged so Antea could leave the country and pursue her dream of being.... a temp.

• This isn't a question, but did anyone else think it was funny in the second last episode when they left William behind (in case he was brainwashed again), but instead he was possessed anyway on Earth and ended up causing more trouble than he would have in Lyoko?
  • This doesn't aim so much at funny, but certainly count as ironic.
  • It seemed to this troper like the Lyoko Warrior immunity to XANA comes from making a successful trip to Lyoko and back, rather than just going into it. Since William was possessed during his first trip, and nobody thought to immunize him afterward by sending him on a quick second trip like they did Jérémie, they really brought his second possession by XANA on themselves.
    • Or more likely, XANA had been in control of William for such a long time that he could use a "backdoor entry" (to keep with computer analogies) to his mind, able to circumvent the usual immunity of the Lyoko Warriors to specter possession. At least that's how I perceived the event.

• At the end of Season 4 episode "Bad Connection", Odd, showing off his short movie, calls Sissi a "lovely butterfly". Cute... until Fridge Logic sets in and you realize that to film Sissi coming out of bed like this, Odd had to stick his camera to the ceiling of her bedroom... obviously without her knowledge. Which brings up the question: what else could it have filmed? Did Odd keep the most interesting part (like Sissi undressing for bed) for his personal collection? Not exactly the first hint in the show that he's a juvenile pervert, but still...
  • Insert your own joke about Odd's other Sissi-centric film series "Natural Grandeur" here.
  • In keeping with the Fetish Fuel entry, Sissi's father was watching that film. Again, WHY IS ODD STILL ALIVE?
    • Maybe he thought that Sissi has agreed to get filmed? Doesn't reduce the Unfortunate Implications at all, though.
  • To lessen the Unfortunate Implications a bit, it's possible that Odd cut a deal with Millie and Tamiya to set up the camera and edit out anything that would be inappropriate. Millie and Tamiya would probably assume Odd was going to make Sissi look stupid but were smart enough not to give Odd anything inappropriate.

• Going meta for a moment, why's it taking so damn long for MoonScoop to find another Region 1 DVD distributor? And will whoever they DO find re-release Season 1 with the French audio and a better-built bonus feature system?
  • I'm not entirely sure they're still looking. The US fanbase is dedicated but not particularly large, so the motivation to release the rest of the show just isn't there.

• The English voice acting bugs me. I can deal with fudging sentences and speaking quickly to lip-sync, but what bugs me the most is the choice of voices. Particularly Jérémie, whose voice actor sounds conspicuously like a stereotypical "idiot" character more than the "nerd" character. Is this making any sense?
  • Jérémie seemed to go through a few different voices over the course of the show. I didn't mind the voice he ended up with near the end; it's just a shame it took his VA such a long time to get there.
  • Considering the lip sync issues and whatnot, I think they usually handle it pretty well. The voices in the first episode were awful, but they found their way soon enough. The only big problem is that there seem to be a quite few occasions where Jérémie speaks with Aelita's voice (they have the same voice actor).
    • The reason given for why Jeremie's voice changed so much is actually the actress in the English version was trying to match the French voice but eventually gave up and created a new vocal style.
    • He's going through puberty. Of course his voice is changing.

• As I understand it, the time-travel device can't restore anybody to life if they died in the original timeline. Wouldn't this mean that everytime they RTTP, a bunch of people who died of natural causes the first time appear to simply drop dead all at once?
  • You'd think. Fans theorize that anybody who dies in the erased timeline would not immediately die when the new timeline starts, but rather at the time they originally died. Personally, I think Jérémie just didn't know what he was talking about.
  • I may have just forgotten, but did they ever even explain where this theory came from? I don't recall anyone, from secondary character to random civilian dying so as to test this theory. It always seemed to me more like a case of "better safe than sorry." (Alternatively, couldn't they have just, you know, caught and squashed a bug or something just to test it?)
    • It's most likely something Jérémie found. His notes are as thick as a phone book, there's got to be something written in there.
    • However, he could have wrongly interpreted the information. The episode "Triple Trouble", for example, contradicts somewhat the whole theory (unless you consider "turned into stone" as still alive). And let's not talk about "Hot Shower", with asteroid fragments raining all over town. It would not be surprising for the Lyoko Warriors to stay dead — their memories being saved by the Supercomputer, it would be basically downloading a flatlined consciousness in their bodies at the moment of the Return to the Past. It seems less logical for other people, though.
    • I just assumed that something happened between the prolouge and the beginning of the series, Ulrich's "you know as well as I do" remark in "Teddygodzilla" made it sound like someone had died and the RTTP didn't bring them back.
  • Also, what about aliens? when the RTTP finally reaches any civilizations, any aliens would have most likley died in the time period while the wave was coming, meaning the RTTP kill all aliens in the universe whenever it is activated. This also raises the question of what happens to someone who is born during the reversion.
    • Not at all- they'd just return to their mothers' wombs and be born at the same time. A fetus is alive, and so there's no affect. Even conception shouldn't be affected, unless the Lyoko warriors directly interact with the parents in question.
  • I think we can safely say that if someone's born during the reversion, they'd be born at the exact same time during the new timeline.

• The one thing I always wanted to see, but was sorely disappointed in, was XANA just saying "fuck it" and making a humongous mecha and wasting everything with it. Would have been a good final boss.
  • There's the slight problem of materialzation. Just sending a few Krabbes to Earth broke the Scanners. Materializing something the size of the Kolossus is quite likely impossible.
    • Actually if I remember right, XANA had the Krabbes destroy the Scanners on purpose to prevent the Lyoko Warriors from stopping him. Aelita was able to get into Lyoko via the last functional Scanner, but when the door opened for Odd to get in, out popped a Krabbe. When Odd manages to get away, Jérémie asks him what all the noise was, and Odd replies "That was XANA wrecking the last Scanner" or something very similar.
  • Well actually XANA DID take control of the factory and made a fleet of rather huge robots in one episode.
    • First, the second poster was correct; the Krabbes broke the Scanners in order to get out of them. That's why there were only three. And secondly, utilizing more than one of his Replikas allowed XANA to create several robot armies in Season 4; he planned to use them to overthrow Earth.

• I was always under the impression that if a person died in the original timeline, they simply wouldn't be alive in the new timeline. So if someone was, say, hit by a car in the original timeline, their body would be found in the street at the beginning of the new timeline despite the fact that they hadn't yet been hit by the car.
  • And I was always under the impression that the Return to the Past only failed to reverse XANA-induced death.

• The full version of the Opening Theme ("A world without danger") calls it Xanadu. I know why they called it that, I'm just wondering, was the opening theme writen before the retool from Garage Kids to Code Lyoko?
  • Hang on. Where in the song does it say that?
    • It doesn't. The song states "Code Lyoko, we'll reset it all", although the auto-tuning on it could possibly make "-set it all" sound a bit like Xanadu.

• Just a question, but why does Xana never attack anywhere besides Kadic/France? Couldn't he attack somewhere else? Like...Tallin. Or Victoria. Somewhere far away so that the heroes can't stop the attack on Earth. They could still stop the attack on Lyoko, but by then somebody could have died/some damage could have been done.
  • The answer to that is "probably".
  • In Seasons 1 and 2 he couldn't. Xana was tied to a single computer. By Season 3, Xana's goals changed. He was using the other computers to create an army he could use to take over the Earth. Drawing attention to them with random havoc wouldn't do any good.
  • XANA isn't a Card-Carrying Villain doing stuff For the Evulz. Except during Season 1 (when he was still relatively new to the game, and as mentioned above, tied to the Supercomputer), his actions in the real world were normally targeted directly at Aelita and the Lyoko Warriors (and later Franz Hopper, once he learned that Franz was still out there). Randomly killing humans doesn't help his plans any.

• Something that I've always wanted to see is Jérémie virtualize one of the vehicles on top of the Scyphozoa when it's "attacking" Aelita. Considering that gravity presumably works in Lyoko and considering that the vehicles (as well as the Lyoko Warriors, but that's irrelevent) are virtualized a few metres above the ground, it should be possible. Why couldn't he have done that?
  • The virtualise program seems to have certain accuracy issues, which is why Aelita can't be dropped right next to a tower. Thus, the program simply isn't accurate enough to drop any thing on ol' Skippy. All things considered, the Warriors are lucky they don't get materialised right over the digital sea.
  • ^^ Not gonna lie, this troper found the idea of that happening hilarious. But yeah, presumably there are only certain points where people can be virtualised onto... What's strange is why Jérémie never tried to make the program more accurate, knowing all the other updates to the supercomputer he did.

• Xana stalks Sissi a few times when she is getting dressed, why does he wait till she is finished to possesses her?
  • Because XANA identifies as male, and thus can't work a bra clasp from behind "his" back.
    • But she already has it on (and why would he care if she is topless?)
      • Simple answer: so it's not as conspicuous when he takes her body for a test drive. Sissi knows how she likes to dress, but Xana has shown that he can't get the minor details down every time.
      • Plus, it's still a kids' show, Fan Service aside. I doubt it would go over well to show her walking around naked, even in France.

• In one episode, when Sissi follows Odd and Aelita into the factory, they pretend to be making out. But aren't they supposed to be cousins?
  • Yes.
  • Pretending to be anyway.
  • It makes perfect sense for two relatives to sneak away at night to make out instead of doing so, say, in the middle of the quad. They're hiding their relationship.
  • It also makes the story more unbelievable in case Herve and Nicholas tried to tell anyone...

• How do all four of the Lyoko Warriors get virtualized when it's been directly stated that there are only three scanners?
  • When the scanner is used the person in it is transformed into data thus leaving the scanner empty.

• How do they fit their heads through their tops?
  • They must wear stretchy clothes.

• It, somewhat, bugs me that in the episode 'Vertigo' when Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich climb onto of this plateau in the middle of some forest, Ulrich falls off, crashes into some tree that's connected to it, and eventually falls back to earth, no broken bones. Maybe a little sore, but you would think he'd at least be limping, with a few cuts and bruises and heck, maybe even paralyzed at the most.
  • In my head canon, I always thought that going to Lyoko made the Warriors' bodies able to take more punishment. And to be fair, sometimes the characters react semi-appropriately to injuries...like getting knocked unconscious. A Tap On The Head isn't really in play here.
    • Above theory makes more sense when mention the many times they get hit by FREAKING LIGHTNING from XANA-possesed people, and stay on their feet. Normally, someone hit with that much juice doesn't get back up. Part of the reason tasers are so useful. And I think Odd gets hit with a freaking two-by-four at one point. Yet he doesn't go down. And we all know that anyone who goes through the scanner is apperently immune to RTTP and possession by XANA, so it makes kinda sense for them to be made more resistant by their trip as well. Why that works? Who knows.

• What kind of breed is Kiwi supposed to be?
  • Bull Terrier, see Spuds McKenzie for referance.
    • I've always thought he was some kind of mixed breed
    • Looks like some horrible cross between a chihuahah and a terrier or something like that to this troper.

• Towards the beginning of Season 2, Jérémie discovers that XANA's power grows with every RTTP. Specifically, he says that the Supercomputer gains a qubit every time, which doubles the processing power. Ignoring the oversimplification of how qubits work, and the fact that adding a qubit makes no sense whatsover: Shouldn't XANA be incomprehensibly powerful due to Hopper's thousands of return trips in the backstory?
  • This bugged me for awhile, and I have a possible solution: assuming that his power doubles every time a return is used, all it would take to keep him under wraps is for his influence (defined here as his ability to affect the world and/or otherwise screw with the Lyoko warriors related to his processing power) to be defined logarithmically related to his processing power. eg, if his power is p=a* 2^x, where x is the number of returns made, and a is an unknown constant, then his influence could be I=b* ln(c* p) to give us an overall influence of I=b* (x* ln(2)+ln(a)+ln(c)) which is linear with regards to the number of trips made. Adjust constants with regard to how strong XANA seems to be getting in each episode (which wasn't very internally consistent anyways) and we have a reasonable answer.
    • I have to admit applying intermediate/advanced algebra to a kids show where the plot revolves around an abandoned nuclear quantum computer is over-thinking it...
  • I always thought those thousands of RTTP's are what first turned XANA sentient. The reason XANA's becoming so godlike by the later seasons is that each RTTP the heroes perform now is continuing to double all the RTTP's that Hopper already gave it. The first few thousand pushed it past the A.I. Is a Crapshoot threshold, and now the Lyoko Warriors are sending it into Clarke's Third Law territory.

• The fact that the heroes pick on Sissi even when she's being nice. It's no wonder she always goes back to being a bitch.
  • Firstly, in the 3rd season prequel where the gang discovers the supercomputer, Sissi tells her father about their secret. So, they kinda can't trust her. And when they shut down the supercomputer, they invite her into their circle of friends. One could say they were keeping her at bay until they had finished doing what they had to.
    • Their distrust of her was what caused her to go mean in the first place. Their relationship with her then could've improved at any point in the show when she showed her better side but was always undone by returning to the past. Nice going, heroes.
  • Them picking on her does feed into her being mean to them but she's not mean simply because they don't trust her. When they were nice to her Odd slowly discovered that he didn't like her given thats mostly her being an air head.

• The DVDs. The season 1 Funimation DVDs cost a fortune now, plus they're English only. When is it going to properly be released in North America? Preferably, if by Funimation, in a Viridian Collection-like way.
  • I wouldn't hold my breath. Funimation seems to have forgotten it ever existed, and the fanbase is most likely (and regrettably) far too small to interest anyone else in picking up the rights. Unless something extraordinary happens, it looks like we're out of luck.

• The English dub was produced by Taffy (and then Moon Scoop) alongside the original French audio. So why is the English dub so insistent on setting the show in the US when it's patently not an American show? Most kids know what a map of the United States looks like, so when "Satellite" shows a view from orbit of what is manifestly a different country, wouldn't you think that would just confuse them? Even worse, there's at least one episode where one of the characters is flipping a coin; American kids know what American money looks like, and it sure as hell ain't these things.
• Don't forget the episode where they have to replace the supercomputer's battery. The guards in the truck with the replacement radioactive core are clearly carrying FAMAS assault rifles, which are defenantly NOT American standard issue.
  • Because the companies think that American viewers can't relate to foreign characters.
  • Did the dubbed version of the show ever specifically say they're in America? I haven't seen every episode but I watched most of it and always just took it for granted that they're in France. I don't think the dub ever came right out and said "this is France," but so long as it also never came right out and said "this is America," that's not a major problem.
  • Except for the mentioned "French exchange student program"...despite the fact that they're already IN France.

• Why does Jérémie wear women's pants (capris)?
  • And what is wrong with men wearing capris? It's certainly not the strangest thing about him.
    • Mostly a fashion question. Shorts from super short to knee length I get, long pants I get. What I don't get are pants that are neither quite shorts and not quite pants.
    • Might be his nerdyness and the connected social semi-blindless. Most real-life Jeremie-like people this troper knows have a similar lack of care related to their outfits, wearing clothing more for personal comfort and usefulness rather than style.

• Why did no one tell Jérémie he needed counseling when he fell in love with what at the time was believed to be a computer program?
  • He's a nerd. They probably thought that was perfectly normal for someone like him.
    • Confirmation: this troper knows several nerds who have disterbingly deep relationships with fictional, often artifical, characters. Cortana from Halo is an excellent example. And no one comments on it.
    • With friends like those who needs enemies? Of course, there's also the obvious "because then they wouldn't have a show" answer.
  • She was fully sentient. What's the problem?

• Why is it inconsistent whether the people who go to Lyoko feel or don't feel weather effects in the virtual environment? I know I've heard Odd mentioning it being cold, and Jérémie once made a comment about packing their coats or something.
  • I think part of it came with the development of resistance to the effects of being Lyoko. In early episodes, the characters show extreme exertion/pain when devirtualized but in later episodes, don't react beyond being upset/irritated about getting devirtualized. Also we see in a later episode (the one where they kicked Ulrich out of the group for using the return to the past to win the lottery) that the Warriors no longer feel real pain when they're attacked in Lyoko as is shown when Yumi is rendered immobile after getting hit when the scanners were off-line.

• This is a pretty big plot hole: why is it that the gang have to keep XANA and Lyoko a secret in seasons 3 and 4. In the first two seasons, the reason is obvious: if anyone found out, they'd alert the authorities, who would then shut down the supercomputer, which would lead to Aelita's death. However, in season 3, XANA is no longer tied to the supercomputer, and neither is Aelita. So why don't they tell other people about XANA? After all, he threatens to take over the entire world, and having some other people helping would make the task of defeating him a lot easier. The one time someone does reveal these secrets (Odd to Brynja), it's seen as a huge betrayal by the rest of the gang.
  • They're afraid of what would happen if the supercomputer fell into the wrong hands.
    • That's a bit like saying the government shouldn't let people know about nuclear weapons because it might fall into the wrong hands. Yes, it's true that the wrong sort of person could abuse the supercomputer. But since the entire world is at stake, surely it's a risk that the gang would feel forced to take? I know the series isn't intended to make sense (if it did, XANA would have defeated them long ago...), but surely they could see that limiting the fight against XANA to the five of them was ludicrously risky at best?
      • I could be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain that nuclear weapons have slightly better security than the supercomputer. Also imagine what would happen if someone had nukes and the supercomputer. They could launch a nuclear attack against the location of their choosing, and then activate the return to the past before anyone retaliates. Thus killing their enemies in a way that can't be traced back to them.
  • Actually this question has been inderectly answered by the show...several times, just count the reactions of most of the adults (Jim included with the exception of when he was fired), while the actions of the group are understandable (Jérémie wants to materialize Aelita and Jérémie's friends want to help Jérémie), but when you think about it, the fact that they didn't just shut down the super computer and let Aelita return to her eternal slumber makes the group responsible for any damage done by XANA, this point was brought up by Sissi to her father when she found Jérémie's diary and she said something to the effect of how they put everyone at risk with their reckless behavior. The group probably knew this fact too, and that really is something that would get people sent to jail, not just expelled from school. To sum it up, they put the whole world in danger on the off Jérémie could figure out how to materialize Aelita, in short, the group really are a bunch of Karma houdinis
  • OK, this is the original poster, and now that I've thought about it a bit more, keeping the Supercomputer a secret makes a lot more sense, primarily because of all the things Jérémie has done over the series. He's hacked into restricted access networks a number of times (e.g. in "Satellite"), created a phony identity and birth certificate for Aelita and various other extremely illegal things. All of that together would easily see Jérémie sent to prison for the rest of his life. The remainder of the gang would also be in trouble for acting as Jérémie's "accomplices", and in particular for destroying a number of supercomputers around the world. With all that in mind, XANA shouldn't have possessed the agents in "False Lead" - they would have discovered what Jérémie had done even outside of the alleged military hacking, and the gang would have gotten screwed over.
    • Just to drive the point home — Jérémie is an accessory to trafficking in stolen nuclear material. There is no way to explain that one away.

• For all his power and potential, XANA really isn't very intelligent. There are about ten million obvious routes to success:
  • First of all, he could launch attacks in another country. The gang would assume that the activated tower was a decoy, and that XANA was just trying to trick them. By the time they realised that an attack was taking place on the other side of the world, they'd already be too late to stop it...
    • XANA isn't able to directly attack locations that are to far away from a supercomputer hosting Lyoko or one of its Replikas. Hence, why the gang went around destroying the other supercomputer in season 4.
  • Alternatively, after season 2 he could use some of his old plans in a new context. Take the episode "Satellite". XANA was able to take control of a giant satellite with incredible accuracy and horrific potential. The only reason the gang had any chance was because he couldn't shoot at the factory (because he'd kill himself in the process). Come season 3, XANA no longer inhabits the supercomputer, and is eager to destroy it. So why didn't he simply take control of the satellite again?
    • Perhaps, Jérémie did something to prevent the satellite from being hacked again.
  • Seriously though, he should have just killed Aelita. He's managed to capture her through a possessed body more than enough times; it wouldn't be much harder to simply stab her in the chest. That way, no one would be left to deactivate the towers, and thus XANA could unleash whatever attacks he wanted with no way to combat them.
    • If he killed her in the first two seasons they'd simply shutdown the supercomputer, in the third season he needed her to destroy Lyoko, and in the fourth if he killed her they'd still be able to combat him by activating towers themselves.
    • Also, in the fourth, he needed her because she was the only thing that would be capable of drawing out Franz Hopper.
    • Yes, it's true that if XANA did any of these, the show would end. If there was some occasional Lampshade Hanging about XANA not realising his true capabilities and potential, I'd accept it and move on. But XANA is treated as hyper-competent and intelligent, when he clearly isn't...
      • I actually thought that that was a nice touch. XANA's a bit of an idiot-savant. He's a really smart bot, and he's a lot better at coding than Jérémie, but he makes a lot of mistakes that a seven-year-old could spot. Part of this is that he lacks experience with the real world; another part of this is that he doesn't really understand humans or humanity. He's kind of stabbing in the dark until late in the fourth season.
  • What's more is that XANA being part of the supercomputer had essentially all the time in the world, but his attacks are always conveniently timed to give the crew a breather in between (most of the time). Why XANA was as relenting on his attacks (especialy when it came to nuking the core), and also why XANA had such a hard time getting into Jérémie's part of the drive when all he probably would have done is activate enough towers and launch a brute force attack.
    • That one actually has a reasonable explanation. It's possible that after Aelita has deactivated a tower, XANA has to 'recover' for a while before he's able to activate another tower. They never actually say this in-universe, but it would make a lot more sense than many aspects of the show...
  • Its true Xana could have destroyed the factory in season 3 or 4, and its reasons for not doing so are weak. In season one and two he wanted to win but he didn't want them to give up before he won or he would lose.
    • In Season 3, you're pretty much on the money (then again, Season 3 had a lot of problems). My theory is that XANA figured that destroying the factory and the Supercomputer by force would be too easy to stop by deactivating the tower and Returning To The Past (and RTTP can't build his brain up anymore since he's not in the SC), while using Code XANA was slower but more effective and permanent (he didn't know that Jérémie and Franz would be able to reconstruct the Supercomputer). In Season 4, Team Lyoko is no longer the greatest threat to XANA (from XANA's perspective). Franz Hopper is, and XANA wants Aelita to lure him out of the Digital Sea.

• In "The Chips Are Down", after the gang discover that Ulrich used the return to the past to buy a winning lottery ticket for Yumi's family, they feel betrayed and expel him from the group. Fair enough, but then Yumi hands him the ticket and says, "My parents think you should keep the money". Wait... what?! How could Yumi have possibly convinced her parents not to accept a lottery ticket worth 30 MILLION EUROS?! Obviously she couldn't tell them how Ulrich got the winning numbers in the first place, so how could she have convinced them not to cash in the ticket? The only explanation I can think of is that she took the ticket while her parents weren't looking, and simply claimed that they didn't want it...
  • She didn't convince them, they felt Ulrich deserved the ticket. As to how they could turn down such a huge sum of money, they're highly moral and principled individuals (as well as being, y'know, Japanese). The lottery ticket itself was just Ulrich being cute and thoughtful, but when it actually paid out, they couldn't take the money in good conscience. (Ulrich, of course, donated the money, because Status Quo Is God and a lot of the Warriors' dilemmas would vanish into smoke if they were independently wealthy.)
    • I don't know about France, but I know that in every US State with a lottery, you have to be 18 to cash a winning ticket, and since jackpots have to be cashed at the main office in the state capitol, you aren't going to be able to get a vendor to help you dodge the age restriction. So Ulrich would be left with a winning lottery ticket that he isn't legally able to cash because he's too young. Sure, he could sell the ticket- at an extremely discounted price (the buyer would be in a position to demand a very nice return on investment both because of the fact that Ulrich couldn't cash the ticket himself and the risk that the ticket is a counterfeit). Furthermore, any attempt to solicit a buyer attracts attention the gang doesn't want.

• In "Missing Link", XANA steals Yumi's DNA sequence code, which prevents her from returning to Earth because it defines her molecular structure. Later on, Aelita, in defiance of Jérémie's protests, tries to transfer her DNA code to Yumi. Ultimately Odd and Ulrich stop her before the transfer is complete, but if it had been successful, that means that Yumi would have appeared on Earth in Aelita's body...
  • You're forgetting that Jeremie reprogrammed her DNA code in Season One; prior to the end of Season 2, when she was made completely human again with her original DNA code, she had to go into a tower every time she was materialized to go through the process of translating data into DNA. So it's likely that when her custom-programmed DNA was transferred to Yumi, it would take on Yumi's original form.

• Why the group, upon responding to 5 towers being activated, and finding someone claiming to be Franz Hopper at the controls of the super computer were so quick to turn on Jérémie instead of being skeptical about the convenient appearance of Franz Hopper is one thing This troper wants to know. Even Aelita, who defended Jérémie didn't really question Franz Hopper's appearance (nor did Jérémie for that matter, until he remembered the supposed franz hopper complaining about Jérémie allowing his diary to be ruined
  • Well, they are 13 year olds...

• If you think about the series too hard, it makes you wonder how the gang managed to get through the whole series without a mental breakdown. Granted, Aelita comes close in "The Key", but she manages to recover. Regarding the fight against XANA, the gang have to be prepared for XANA to attack at any moment, and are constantly at risk of being murdered, which means that they can never truly relax. And they can't talk to anyone about it or get anyone else to help them, because it would blow their cover. Not to mention that from season 3 onwards they have no idea of how they're going to defeat XANA either. They know they need to get into the internet somehow, but don't know how to defeat him from there. Not to mention that all of this is going on right in the midst of puberty, an age where people shouldn't have nearly that much pressure upon them. Seriously, how have none of them considered suicide yet?
  • Committing suicide is exactly equivalent to dooming all of humanity. Their need to protect what's important to them is greater than the weight of the stress.
  • And besides, this is meant to be an Anime-esque show, and most Anime protagonists are adolescents.
  • Aelita attempted suicide in "The Key." Jeremy saved her.

• How do they manage to get any of their homework done? You'd think they'd get tired what with fighting monsters and then returning to the past to play out all that time again. This should apply to Jérémie mostly in season one since he spends his nights working on bringing Aelita to the real world and his days at school and saving the world.
  • This is probably the reason why Ulrich and Odd get poor grades. They certainly aren't unintelligent, but because they spend so much time fighting XANA they simply don't have the energy or determination to do any studying, thus meaning their grades suffer. Jérémie and Aelita, on the other hand, are both extremely intelligent, especially regarding computers - they can probably get homework done in half the time it takes anyone else... As for Yumi... maybe homework is preferable to being around her annoying younger brother?

• There are a number of aspects of "Cruel Dilemma" that make no sense. For a start, the idea of the materialisation program being single-use. Why would using the program suddenly cause it to disappear? How many computer programs out there function in that manner? And even if it did somehow delete itself upon use, surely Jérémie could make copies of it? But beyond the odd nature of the program itself, how did it even work on Yumi in the first place? In season 2 onwards, Jérémie can materialise Odd, Ulrich and Yumi via his program, and Aelita from season 3 onwards. By the logic of "Cruel Dilemma", it's therefore no big deal if they fall into the Digital Sea - Jérémie should be able to use his materialisation program to bring them back. Yet in-universe they claim that it will cause them to be virtualised permanently. Surely if that's true, Yumi shouldn't have been devirtualised at all in "Cruel Dilemma"? Of course, it'd be a bit of a downer for Yumi to spend the rest of her life stuck in virtual form, but...
  • I don't think it's literally one-use in the form that it would disappear. It's because the program has to be installed to her DNA in the sense that now it's ALWAYS working on her, like a patch applied to her character. He can't copy it or recreate it because he doesn't know how it was created. It was an accident. The materialization program Jérémie usually uses on the crew doesn't work on the Digital Sea, it's basically just a cancel button on regular Virtualization. Yumi wasn't really 'devirtualized' at all in that episode. She wasn't 'destroyed' so much as 'trapped in the internet.'
  • That... sort of makes sense. But if that's true, surely that means that Yumi is never in danger whenever she's about to fall into the Digital Sea in later seasons? Unless it was a time-limited program or something...
    • No, the program is one use in that sense; The Digital Sea effectively represents the Internet, and Yumi has to be "keyed" SOMEHWERE. The program could only create the one "pathway" and then lock that way, and the odds that she'll end up in the exact same "address" again is astronomically low.

• In season 3, XANA repeatedly tries to destroy Lyoko, and eventually succeeds. When Lyoko is recreated, however, XANA stops attacking the Core. But why? Granted, it's possible that Aelita and Jérémie made a load of back-up discs to restore Lyoko's systems quickly if need be. But during season 4, XANA attacks the Core of Lyoko exactly once, in "I'd Rather Not Talk About It". If there is a Lyoko back-up, then why would XANA insist on trying to destroy Lyoko again? And if there isn't, why doesn't XANA keep trying to destroy Lyoko repeatedly? He'd have the perfect opportunity to do so whilst the gang are on the Network, after all, since it'd take a while to return them to Lyoko to fend them off. In fact, even if he destroyed Lyoko and they could reboot it quickly, Jérémie has specified that the Skidbladnir would take months to re-program. Presumably there's a good reason XANA stopped trying to destroy Lyoko, but I can't think what it could be...
  • Resource management. He just doesn't have the CPU cycles for it between managing all the Replikas and the supercomputers they control, controlling William, and fighting the kids wherever they might be at the time.
  • Because XANA considers Franz Hopper to be the real threat as of Season 4. He wants Team Lyoko (and especially Aelita) in the Network fighting him so that Aelita can be put in danger and Franz Hopper lured out and put at risk. (Also, as you said, the Warriors have shown that they can rebuild Lyoko.)

• Anyone know how old Kiwi is? I mean, the others (besides the adults) have ages. Jérémie is 12 in Season 1, 13 in Season 2 onward, Odd is 13 Season 1, 14 Season 4. Yumi had a birthday in season 4 meaning that she's about 15. Ulrich is 13 in Season 1 and 14 in Season 4. But does anyone know how old the dog is, both in human and in dog years?

• In "Triple Trouble", we find out that the reason Odd doesn't have his "Future Flash" ability from season 2 onwards is because Jérémie presumed it was "worthless" and didn't bother to re-program it. But how can Jérémie say that? In season one, I can think of three occasions off the top of my head where his foresight proved useful. In "TeddyGozilla", it allowed him to quickly dive down and save Aelita from falling into the Digital Sea. In "The Girl of the Dreams" it meant that he and Ulrich were able to find Aelita, who was trapped inside a Guardian at the time. And in "Laughing Fit", he was able to foresee how Aelita should complete the labyrinth, thus allowing her to deactivate the tower in time. Granted, it wasn't as useful as the likes of Yumi's telekenisis, Ulrich's super speed or Aelita's Creativity, but to say it was "worthless" and therefore shouldn't be reprogrammed is a bit unfair.
  • I imagine he figured that an ability that was that hit-or-miss wasn't worth the time and effort needed to reimplement when he could be working on everyone's new upgrades.
  • "Worthless" is maybe a bit harsh, but likely it's just to summarize what Jérémie was thinking without him going into a lengthy explanation of the pros and cons of this power. The Future Flash was unpredictable, and also distracting — a mere Kankrelat shot down Odd once just because he was fully into the transe. Basically, Jérémie's assessment was that the arguable usefulness of the power didn't outweight its obvious flaws.

• Okay. In "Zero-Gravity Zone", Ulrich skips the mission to play in the soccer game. Jérémie and the rest argue over what the right thing to do was, but nobody thought to suggest to him that he skip the game, join the Lyoko Warriors for the mission, and just play the game after they inevitably Return to the Past. Idiot Plot much?
  • I initially thought as such as well, but it's possible that they let him play just in case he needed to rescue anybody on Earth, which as it turns out he did. But yeah, it is pretty odd that no-one even mentioned that possibility.
  • How about the likely possibility that Ulrich's father would call the police or something if his son didn't show up at the soccer game; he's the kind of father who expects nothing less than the best from his son. That's why his last name is "Stern".

• What exactly was up with Odd in "Replika"? Put bluntly, he was being a complete dick compared to his usual self. OK, so staying up past 4am playing video games is the sort of thing you could imagine Odd doing, fair enough. And afterwords he told Aelita to make up an excuse so that he could sleep. Again, not too out-of-character so far. The kicker comes in when he and Aelita are found out and punished with four hours of detention. Rather than immediately apologise to her for what happened, he decides that he'll berate her for not coming up with a better excuse, when it was entirely his own fault that he got detention. OK, so Aelita doesn't do herself any favours when she starts calling him names back as well, but the others seem to treat it as though it's a petty argument that isn't worth having, ignoring the fact that it's obviously Odd who was in the wrong. But what's even worse is that Odd never apologises to her at all, and yet she's still happy to forgive him. The question is — why did Odd certainly turn from a lovable Book Dumb prankster to a selfish egotistical Jerkass for the purposes of a single episode?
  • Maybe you've answered it yourself in the beginning of your question: he stayed up past 4am. Lack of sleep can do really wonderful things to your demeanor.
  • On Earth, sure, but people on Lyoko don't need to sleep!
  • First of all, Aelita was asleep on Lyoko for almost a decade. Second of all, their moods don't generally change upon virtualization.
• In A Bad Turn, how did that Krabbe even fit in the scanner? We saw Its leg get out, but nothing else, there is no way it would fit in there. And we see Ulrich on top of one, judging by his size, that Krabbe has got to be the size of a car, both width and length.
  • It broke the scanner so therefore it didn't really fit.
• Jérémie created the Marabounta to destroy Xana, right? So then why did it attack Aelita? I know in the episode it was justified because Xana gave Aelita a virus, and thus the Marabounta saw Aelita as part of Xana. So far so good, until the end of the season when it is discovered that Aelita didn't have a virus from Xana. So why did it attack her?
  • It was probably just a random (albeit very convenient storywise) glitch. Jérémie only guessed that the reason for them attacking her was because the virus made them associate her with XANA, based on his already believing that she had a virus. In reality, they just weren't working correctly.
  • When asked about it, Word of God admitted they did a scenaristic mistake about it, but also pointed out it could be explained through Fridge Brilliance by assuming Aelita's specific connection to Lyoko might have caused the mistake from the Marabounta.
• How come XANA never activates the Carthage tower before the Lyoko Warriors discover it? It would have been a great way to attack without them being able to put a stop to it, at least not for a while.
  • Let me answer that with another question: why didn't XANA kidnap Aelita with the Teleport Orb in Season 1? He probably didn't have the power to open a gate between Carthage and the other Sectors, meaning that he probably didn't have the power to influence the real world using that tower.
• Regarding the nature of teleportation, Jeremie specifies that the warriors become 'spectres of their virtual manifestations', rather than maintaining their real bodies but with added Lyoko powers. In that sense, the characters should look identical to their Lyoko forms, but there are many noticeable differences between their Lyoko forms and their teleported forms. This is perhaps most obvious with Aelita. Not only is her star bracelet missing, but also she has regular human ears, rather than elf ears, black eyes rather than green, and even her Earth form's eyebrows! Why are there these minor differences between their appearances? In addition, many of their Lyoko powers function differently - Odd's shield, for instance, is much bigger, covering his whole body rather than just his torso, whilst Aelita's energy fields are apparently powerful enough to knock out SIX robots at a time...
  • How about due to the absurd amount of energy it takes to create those Spectres in the first place?
  • I think there might be different factors. First, the animation is different on earth and Lyoko, but likely cannon is that they look like themselves but with different outfits. Materilization takes place on earth not Lyoko so they go with earth style animation. As for the bracelet physics makes angels impossable sure they could have wings but that wouldn't mean they could actually fly, either Lyoko has less gravity or since Lyoko is a virtual reality wings=flight. Jeremy might not have included it because materilizing a worthless piece of equiptment would take more effort or energy or he thought it might confuse Aelita. The powers could be a combination of the two or Jeremy could have intentionally boosted their power on earth because he fely it could be useful. The ears thing doesn't make sence because she clearly has elf ears in Lyoko even if they never state it out loud, so either it has to be ignored, written off as never stated out loud, or through hyper justification you could say Jeremy wanted her to look human because he thought it would help her diplomatically if she actualy ran into somebody.
• Here's one for all you guys; in the episode Guided Missile, XANA takes control of a jet (with Jeremie in it, due to him winning a magazine contest he was entered into by Odd without his premission) and uses it in an attempt to destroy the factory. Sounds cool, right? And it is...except I have to wonder if the writers did any research on the subject.

First off, the plane he jacks is an F-15. This makes good sense; the 15, like most jets nowadays (especcially American built ones) uses a fly-by-wire system, which means everything the pilot does is transmitted electronically to the control surfaces. Perfect target for XANA to attack. Except; most fly-by-wire jets carry two or more completely (and I mean COMPETELY in every sense of the word) separate computers to avoid just this situation. They're even seperated by plastic and other non-conductive materials. Why didn't the pilot just switch to the back up computer? Second; Jeremie and the pilot can't eject from the plane because XANA won't let them. Which makes no sense; THERE'S NO ELECTRONICS IN A FIGHTERS EJECTION SYSTEM FOR XANA TO CONTROL. The entire system consists of a hardened impact detonator, charges to blow off the canapy, and solid fuel rockets to get the seat out of the plane. Thirdly, XANA obviously doesn't know ANYTHING about military tech. The missile he tries to destroy the factory with? It's an AIM-9 Sidewinder, or (more likely) the licensed French copy. Which, for those of you who don't know, is a heat-seeking air to air missile, used for shooting down other jets. Its warhead doesn't have enough explosives in it to even put a dent in the factory. Though XANA realizes this and uses the jet to try and ram the factory later, but still... Finally; what kind of magazine gives out chances to go up in fully-armed military jets? I mean, COME ON, that's just ASKING for things to go bad...

• • Xana's taken control of teddy bears before. You're overthinking this.
  • True... but I'm pretty sure that bear had some kind of electronics in it for XANA to infect.

• A minor gripe, but it still bugs me. OK, so it's no secret in-universe that Yumi's favourite colour is black, and that she hates pink (thus acting as a contrast to Aelita). Yet despite this, her phys ed outfit clearly has pink trim. On top of that, Jeremie himself said that he thinks Yumi looks "awful" in pink in "Cold Sweat", yet he designed her a Lyoko outfit which has lots of pink on it?

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