Talk:Britannian Imperial Family

Does anyone know anything about the princes/princesses between 5 and 11? We got Carline Le Britannia as 5th princess, then Lelouch and Nunnally at 11th prince and princess respectively. Or is it just that the ones in between were only seen in Manga/Games? Snoopy 18:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Princes: #1 Odysseus (Age:??), #2 Schneizel (Age 28), #3 Clovis (Age 24 at time of death), #11 Lelouch. Somewhere in between, we have Emile (Area 15 Viceroy), and Oscar (Area 13 Viceroy), who are only mentioned once, in a Sound Drama set several years before R1, and never mentioned again - but since they are Viceroys at that point, they must be older than Lelouch. There's Rolo vi Britannia, Lelouch's twin from Nightmare Of Nunnally, who obviously isn't canon. And finally, there's Castor and Pollux Rui Britannia, from the Code Geass DS game, also not canon. Which leaves anywhere between 5 missing brothers, or 3 if you include Castor and Pollux as being entirely possible to exist in canon.

Let's face it, the creators did poorly with that. They made Lelouch 11th Prince to coincide with Japan being Area 11, which is fine from a storytelling point of view, but they've left an unnatural gap and had no desire to fill it in.

For Princesses... There's #1 Guinevere (Age:??), #2 Cornelia (Age: 28), #3 Euphemia (Age 16 at time of death), and #5 Carline (Age:??). [Though I will admit that I have no idea where it mentions her as Fifth Princess. Probably Episode 12, but my copy isn't working.] Listing Nunnally as #11... Is fanon. She is never referred to as the Eleventh Princess, and is only given that number because of the fandom associating her with Lelouch. With Euphemia being only 2 years older than Nunnally, (Nunnally is 15 in R2) and Carline being roughly around the same age, there's a fair chance that Nunnally is actually #4.

That Nunnally would have 7 sisters all somewhere between 15 and 17 is maddening, especially when you see the large gaps in the ages of all their other siblings, particularly the 12 years between Cornelia and Euphemia. With Lelouch, at least there's 7 years between him and Clovis, letting them fit one brother per year. Which is still only possible if the Emperor doesn't believe in contraceptives, or he has at least one child for all 108 of his consorts.

Mr SP 16:22, December 6, 2009 (UTC)

What number wife is Marianne really.
It gets worse. Given what we know about the Rules of Succession to the throne of Brittannia, Marianne could not have possibly been the Emporer's fifth wife, as she is stated to be. From evidence in canon, the rules of succession are that heirs are ranked first by their mother's status and then by their birth order among their mother's children, ie all of the first wife's children take precedence over the second wife's and so on. Presumably the wives are ranked by when they married the Emporer. Therefore, we can derive alot about the emporer's earliest wives by the order of precedence among the heirs seen on screen. The precedence of the wives in order would be as followes.

1. Arianna eu Britannia 2. ??? el Brittannia 3. ??? su Brittannia 4. Gabrielle la Britannia 5. ??? li Brittannia
 * Mother of Odysseus: the First Prince and Heir Presumptive to the throne.
 * Had no other (surviving) children, evidence- niether the Second Prince (Schneizel el Britannia) or First Princess (Guinevere su Britannia) share his middle name, which is derived from the mother.
 * Mother of Schneizel: Second Prince, Prime Minister of Brittannia and Second Heir to the Throne
 * First name unknown, middle name "el" was inherited by Schneizel
 * Also had no more children (next oldest male, Clovis, and oldest female, still Guinevere, have diffrent middle names)
 * Mother of Guinevere, the First Princess
 * again, passed on middle name to child.
 * also had no more children (Third Prince Clovis and Second Princess Cornelia have diffrent middle names)
 * Mother of Clovis, third prince of Brittannia
 * Earliest wife confirmed to still be alive at time of series (status of earlier wives unknown)
 * May have had additional children
 * Mother of Cornelia li Britannia and Euphemia, the second and third princesses
 * May have had additional children

+ Special Note, the Fourth to Tenth Princes of Brittannia. There is no way to know who the mothers of the Fourth to Tenth Princes are, based on canon. According to this birth order, they could be a younger (full) siblings of either Clovis or of Cornelia and Euphemia. If they are not children of the fourth or fifth wives (the first three being demonstrated to have no more children) then there must be between one and six more wives preceeding Marianne. If they are canon, then Emile, Oscar, Castor and Pullox would fall here.
 * I place Gabrielle la Britannia  (Clovise's mother) before Cornelia's to allow the Fourth through Tenth Princes to be children of either one. There is a distinct possibility that these two wives could be reversed, especially as Cornelia is older than Clovis. If this were the case the Fourth through Tenth Princes would be either the sons of Gabrielle or unknown additional wives. The order I have placed them in allows for the least number of additional wives before Marianne while retaining plausibility.

6. Marianne vi Brittannia
 * Mother of Lelouch, the Eleventh Prince and Seventeenth Heir and Nunnally, the Eighty-seventh Heir
 * Cited as the Fifth wife, however she could not have possibly been earlier than the sixth wife, and likely later.

+A note on daughters, especially Karine le Britannia. If we accept Karine as the Fifth Princess, then her middle name "le" indicates at least one more wife before Marianne, as the name is unique among named members of the Royal Family. Her mother most likely would come before Marianne as her daugher is fifth princess, and presumably relativly close to the Throne, at least compared to Nunnally. The unknown Fourth Princess could easily be an older sister of Karine's, a younger sister of Cornelia and Euphemia or a child of any of the mothers of the Fourth to Tenth Princes. However, the acceptance of Karine as Fifth Princess bumps Marianne back to wife number seven or later. This model seems likely as Lelouch was the Eleventh Prince and Seventeenth Heir, indicating that he had ten brothers and six sisters ahead of him in the succession to the throne.

Nunnally's status as the Eighty-seventh heir means that the wives prior to Marianne must have had eighty-six children between them. Including Lelouch only eight of these heirs have been identified by name. This number would be virtually impossible for such a limited number of wives, especially since the first three wives could not have had more than one child each. Assuming that starting with wife number five, each wife had no more than ten children, then counting named Heirs, Marianne could be no higher than the thirteenth wife.

+Summary

So as we see, the numbers cited for precedence and order in the Royal Family make no sense, unless their are some truly complicated and esoteric laws of succession that are not detailed or evidenced in canon. Using the established facts in canon and some math, Marianne is wife number six or later if we only consider the family relationships and precedence of named heirs. If we accept Karine as Fifth Princess then Marianne becomes the seventh wife or later. If we consider how far Nunnaly is from the throne, then it strains credulity for Marianne to come before the mid-teens.

98.200.169.62 09:21, December 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no evidence in canon for your first assumption, invalidating much of your argument. The logical progression for inheritence is to list children by birth order, not by mother's marriage date. Sons are first, followed by daughters. Their numerical listing is a set number which does not change from birth, thier inheritence listing is not. Marianne could easily be 5th wife, but not bear any children for an extended period of time. Cornelia and Euphemia are second and third princesses because they have no female siblings between them, not that they are grouped by their parents. We've accepted that Karine is 5th princess, though I don't remember what proof we had, so considering their apparently close ages, Nunnally is either 4th princess or 6th.


 * Beyond that, we already know that Lelouch's position as 11th prince was made without any thought towards the gap, chosen mostly just to use it as a number joke, and his position as 17th in line for the throne is equally bogus, with no logic behind it. That's why the princesses make more sense, even if Nunally's "87th in line for the throne" is incredibly stupid. So, yes, it doesn't make sense, and it's illogical. Don't worry about it. MrSP 10:00, May 17, 2011 (UTC)

Carine's true spelling
Checking the Australian R2 DVD release, Carine's name and spelling is... Carine. Yeah, I know, we were thinking Carline or Karine, but this is what we've been given. Also, Nunnally is NOT Eleventh Princess. Lelouch is Eleventh Prince, but that has no relation to Nunnally at all.

Who in the world added that part about "privelge of the mother"?
Really, that Imperial children are ranked based on the mother's prestige? What nonsense.

The "heir" part can be changed. That's what it's there for. But you can't change their birth order. Lelouch is 11th Prince and 17th in line for the throne - that alone suggests a difference between birth and inheritence, and with the higher numbered princes and princesses clearly being younger than the lower numbered, and with no princes or princesses contradicting this up until now - and Oz is a manga, and Sunrise has a very poor track record when it comes to manga and canon - then it seems the logical and reasonble method. Odysseus and Schneizel make that even more obvious - there is no way that Odysseus is more likely to inherit than Schneizel based on their own merits. It is even more absurd to think that that, somehow, their mothers could affect this, with Odysseus being entirely unnoteworthy and Schneizel being the second most powerful man in Britannia. Not to mention: there is no logical reason for a mother to have any relationship with the inheritence of the throne. It just doesn't work that way. If Charles is doing things based on merit, as opposed to birth, it would affect who he marries frist, not who he proclaims to be his heir. There is no other way to explain Odysseus' prominence than "because he's the eldest sibling".

Not to mention, there is no suggestion that Lelouch drops down in the line of inheritence because of Marianne's death - his dismissal is purely because of his personal behaviour towards Charles - and Charles still refers to him as 17th in line for the throne in R2, when if anyone should know who his heirs are, it's Charles. (That Charles is ranking Lelouch higher is possible, but he'd never say that to Lelouch or Suzaku, nor would he rank what he called his favourite son so low.) That the 87th heir, despite this being supposedly "extremely minor in the scheme of things", should get a position as a Vicereine, when this is commonly a position reserved for extremely prominent members of the royal family and high-ranking nobles, shows that Nunnally is at least somewhat trusted - though it's Nunnally who requested it, and Charles probably approved because of Lelouch, and Nunnally recieved oversight from Schneizel, and Nunnally recieved a great deal of support from several Rounds, it's still a strong and public demonstration of respect, contradictory to her supposed ranking. (Actually, with Nunnally essentially being given protection from three Rounds probably only furthers the contradiction - either that Nunnally is not trusted, or that Japan is not a major concern, or both.) And Maribelle having an anti-terrorist force armed with the same sort of KMFs that Knights Of Round pilot? That screams "I have a ****load of power!". There's no way that she doesn't have a great deal of prestige, 88th heir or not. You don't get a Lancelot *and* a Tristain variant for being minor.

That Charles has a lot of very young sons makes *far* more sense than someone like Maribelle being minor - especially more minor than Nunnally and Euphemia. Marianne is given as 5th Empress, so if this is related to her prestige, which we can safely assume it is, then Nunnally being 87th heir, and Lelouch being 17th can only be explained by a great deal of younger brothers and male-preference primogeniture. (Though Lelouch being 11th born and 17th heir is still an odd issue - the logical supposition would be that some of his elder brothers have children.) That Charles suddenly has a great deal of children can be explained by only becoming Emperor the year before Lelouch was born, and thus not having the oppurtunity until recently - though Charles still had at least 4 wives before then.

Where in the world is the source for this supposed inheritence theory? If it doesn't appear in the series, and isn't given on an official source material, then it should be noted. Novels and manga are not primary material, especially since all of them contradict canon to greater or lesser degrees. MrSP (talk) 05:08, October 21, 2012 (UTC)