Mao Quotes

2 quotes from Code Geass, each with commentary on what it means and why it stuck.

Hears every mind within range, permanently, except the one he wants. His cruelty takes the form of correct statements delivered at the worst available moment.

Spoiler — from the ending. Tap to reveal.

“Do you want to carry these feelings around for the rest of your life? All by yourself? Unless you atone and completely free your heart, you and Lelouch will both be lost in your sins, forever.”

Read as a villain torturing a schoolgirl, which it is, and also the most accurate description of the protagonist's situation anyone offers in the first season. Mao can hear what people actually think, so his cruelty takes the form of correct statements delivered at the worst possible moment. The series gives its clearest moral summary to the character least entitled to make it, and then has nobody act on it.

“C.C., your mind is so quiet! It's the only one I can't read! You really are the best there is!”

The Geass that made him is a curse dressed as an advantage: he hears every mind within range, permanently, and the one silence available to him belongs to the woman who gave it to him. That is the engine of the character and the argument the arc is making about all these powers, that each is granted in the shape of the wish and then charges rent for the rest of the holder's life.

Read Mao's story from the start

Every line above is a fragment. The manga is where the fragments come from, and the print edition is the one this site checks its quotes against.

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