If XANA were human...

[SilverPrince offline]

There was a tiny bit of a threadjack about this in the Games forum, but such a subject as this is best placed here.

I'm currently writing- or planning to write- a fanfic where this is the central premise. It's a staple of Code Lyoko fanfiction; XANA materializes a human form. I would very much like people's input on the subject, it would be very helpful. And I know other users are curious about this as well.

Many people tend to make XANA gothic, or emo, or the dress-in-black-and-red-look-at-me-I'm-a-dark-soul style. This is probably due to societal views on such people, and this is currently the way I have XANA's form in my story. My heart isn't necessarily set on it. Others have argued that XANA wouldn't have any kind of personality whatsoever. In his default state, this would be true, but I think that if he were making some big plan he would do the research and come up with something at least semi-believable. He did, after all, make an almost convinving, albeit sulky, Jeremie in Ghost Channel. And, based on the assumption that XANA attacks in Season 1 were roughly each a week apart, this would mean that with much more planning he could almost be human. A fairly good portion of contemporary youth culture is based on the Internet anyway.

Share with me your thoughts and opinions. Would Human!XANA be male or female? Would XANA be mean and rude, or just distant, or even scared and nervous? What kind of clothes would s/he wear? What kind of mannerisms and speech patterns would s/he have? Etc. etc.

[Asantewaalrus offline]

You know what? I'm still content with my idea of XANA being a general “nice guyâ€

[Carth]

Hoo boy this brings back memories...back when I was a wee lass, I had a Human XANA concept. The only thing I still like about it was the idea of his appearance- he was a composite of the physical files of all the registered Lyoko Warriors. He had multi-toned hair (mostly blond), kaleidoscope-colored eyes, intermediate skin, intermediate face...he was also a fantastically OOC Possession Sue, but you don't need to know that do you? 8D

I feel like making him a woman would only serve to be contradictory- he feels like a male to me. And thinking of his personality...I see someone that sort of fits what others see, dark, maybe not strictly gothic, just sort of...black and white. Simple, but evil. Charming, maybe, and good at convincing others to trust him, while subtly undoing them behind their backs. A two-faced charmer, sort of. And an unfeeling sociopath, considering he's a nigh emotionless computer program and I don't think being human would change that...

...but what if it DID? Ohohohohoho...now I have a mental image of this mental image, like, tearing up or something, and running his hand along the tear tracks because he has no idea what's going on...

I had a fanfic idea about this once. I think there was pairing involved...

[Asantewaalrus offline]

Now XANA just sounds more incredible than he sort of was before.

And writing something about it possibily gaining some sort of humanity and questioning it would be interesting if not super fun. Maybe he could even end up like being human?

No, that just doesn't seem likely. : /

But-but-but if being human ended up being likeable, XANA in a state of… say… denial could go crazy and do something incredibly… not really appropriate for a children's show, ha-ha.

likeidk, kill someone or something? critically injure?

But it would be awesome for artist purposes, ha-ha.

Man, now I really want to write some AU fan-fiction. D:<
I hate you guys.

[Taelia offline]

I got some thoughts on this.

Some of the human forms I have seen for XANA are male in physical form. Usually, these forms have black hair and ruby-red eyes. For clothing, XANA is usually dressed in black robes.

http://animango.deviantart.com/art/Code-Lyoko-X-A-N-A-57650063
http://snakealien.deviantart.com/art/Animango-Request-98942176

[Rho offline]

I kind of see him looking like a fusion of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Pesci, Duncan from Total Drama Island/Action, and the Joker.

[Taelia offline]

Not a good combination, I assure you.

[Lyoko Wario offline]

If XANA were human? Oh, boy... well, I still think he'd be almost entirely stoic. Think of Sherlock Holmes; he either feels no emotion whatsoever or never gives in to it (Watson acknowledges or even admires this trait here and there), and his entire persona is based around seeking out and acting upon the unequivocally most logical thing to do. Now, think of VICKI (or whatever that thing's name was) from the in-name-only film adaptation of I, Robot. VICKI was essentially "making the world a better place by removing humanity from it," based purely on utalitarian principles. Now think of XANA as a sort of combination between those two. I also see him as male, a tall slender guy with very light features, perhaps even an albino, with a color scheme focused on light colors, like sky blue or baby blue. I know my "theory" runs counter to what most people expect, but, if I may say so myself, I think I'm right on the money.

EDIT: Rho? Love to see another Total Drama fan on here.

[SilverPrince offline]

Well, I certainly agree that a human XANA would be rather logical. But he would think not just in terms of logic but in terms of himself. "How will this affect me?" "How am I involved in this?" XANA as an entity is rather self-centered; he wants to rule and/or destroy humanity. He literally wants to make it all about him. And after years of what is essentially warfare, I'm sure that XANA has self-preservation down to an art. XANA would act to defend himself or his interests even if such an action would be "illogical". (And that's a major point in Backup.)

As it stands, here is my current envisioning of XANA as a human.

He stood about as tall as William, with long black hair over one eye, and he was wearing dark sunglasses. He was paler than Jeremie, and very skinny. He wore a red shirt with a black dragon on it, and baggy black pants with red trim and chains, and there were cloth bands covering his wrists. There was an MP3 player earbud and three rings in his left ear, two rings in his right. He had a nose ring, a lip ring, and his fingernails were painted, alternating red and black. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and somewhat high pitched.

I think I'm going to change that. It was cool to me when I wrote it but thinking really hard about all this makes me think that just because we see XANA as evil, doesn't mean he would dress that way.

XANA would certainly do his research. I imagine him waiting for weeks, just searching through the Internet, looking for information. Clothes, hairstyles, speech mannerisms, societal attitudes towards things, politics, history, etc. Now, remember, he's learning things about contemporary society through the Internet. I can picture him saying to Rosa "I can has cheeseburger?" or saying something like "If it wasn't for us [the Americans], you'd all be speaking German right now!" then looking at Ulrich and laughing. These things don't necessarily fit his character, but they're funny to me.

He wouldn't be just a blank slate; if he were expending all the energy and processing power needed for making himself a form, he would put effort into it; if only for self-preservation. I'm not saying XANA would be a great actor, but he would try to learn enough to at least act somewhat convincingly as a human. He was born as a computer program; if XANA is good at one thing, it is learning. He would know enough to function. Sure, other people could see him as weird. I doubt that XANA would care.

In the previous version of Backup, I spoke for a bit about XANA's motivations. This is something that I'm almost positive I won't use in the second version, but I still think it's interesting.
[quote]“You humans… how can you stand to let people live like this? I have to steal food and money- thanks for the Euros, by the way, Mr. Dunbar- and equipment just to survive, live in an old abandoned factory… my guilty pleasure [smoking cigarettes] is killing my lungs. Had I been a human all along, I would have dedicated my life to ending this kind of squalor. But no, humanity disregards its problems and continues on its merry way to destruction. You continue to ignore the needy; you continue to live by your pathetic, unneeded emotion instead of embracing logic. Then why, you may ask, am I living here, in the world of humanity? Well… I’m smart enough not to reveal my whole plan. I have watched a little television.â€

[Cassius335 offline]

What you might want to do is remember The Gozer Rule: "He's whatever he wants to be". XANA doesn't have to manifest with the same appearence twice, as long as he's recognisable when dramatically appropriate.

[oddlauren offline]

xana a human, that'd be interesting.

I see him as a guy, around the group's ages, a bad guy. He's tall and skinny and dresses in black and gray, head to foot. I see him with an evil smirk on his face every time he looks around at the group. He has dark brown hair, slicked down. A rebel.

[TheLQ offline]

I see him as Arnold Schwarzenegger in the very first Terminator movie: No emotion, super epic strong, powers (or in terminator's case, advancements in technology), etc. This goes togeather because The Terminator wanted to do what? Kill Sarah Conner. Xana wanted to do what? Kill/mame/murder/shoot/disable the gang. See the similarities?

For clothing, pretty much anything would do. Depending on where your going with the story, you could make Xana a shape changer, or a guy that can change really quickly. A suit to break the ice in random situations, some gang outfit to scare the crap out of people (cmon, you can't say that a guy in a suit holding a M16A2 is more scary than a gangster holding a M16A2?).

[Sithking Zero offline]

Definately female. Definately female.

I always pictured her having long black hair... perhaps not wearing black and red to the degree that Yumi and William do, but it would be central to her design. Perhaps a T-Shirt with the eye of XANA on the back, and on the left upper side of the chest on the front.

Definately wears jeans.

She doesn't wear glasses, she wears Contact Lenses, over red eyes (if Aelita can have pink hair, red eyes are totally acceptable.)

Perhaps boots, or some sort of shoe that would be good for roughhousing in, like Hiking shoes or Gym Shoes.

[Odddellarobbia12 offline]

I have always seem him as a male, usually because they call him "him", and because he uses a male voice when he speaks in Ghost Channel (if memory serves)

I think he would look like one of the government agents we see him possess from time to time. Glasses, black suit etc. Of course he would be of higher ranking than one of these guys. Obviously he'd work solo and he'd carry around an expensive silver laptop.

I do wonder if he'd use the insignia though. I personally think that if he were a human he would keep himself hidden, rarely if ever coming out into the open. Of course that means he would wear plain clothes. So the previously mentioned suit would only be for when he goes out as his secret identity "XANA"

Interestingly, I think it is fair to have him as an over the top Mary Sue, since he can give people superpowers all the time, and can also create polymorphs I think he would simply infuse this tech with himself and make himself look cool. We all know how villains like to look evil.

And he'd shoot lightning from his hands

Thats enough from me.... we all know he's just a villian in a childrens show so he can't go as far as hurting people.

[TheDailyCookie offline]

I really see Xana as what most of you said, emotionless, ruthless, out for his goals and anything that gets in his way is going to get a shot in the heart. He'd be big, but able to blend in, etc, etc. Brown hair though, not black, and strong, but he would be in no way conspicous, at least not until he made himself ruler of the World.

Actually, I'm in the process of a fic that goes throw the idea that Xana was once human, and how he got that way, each chapter gets at least one clue, and one of our characters was closer to the creation than they thought. I hope the result is suprising, and it really doesn't go well with my belief. It's needs work though, but it's slowly being Beta'd, which is good. Speaking of which, haven't updated it in a few months...oops.

But yes, I would imagine someone like the MiB, able to fit in, but very very powerful. And he would talk to everyone as if they were below him.

[SearchingLyoko offline]

Hm...

Here is my personal insight.


I think making XANA a human would be a VERY hard thing to do.

In my opinion, he doesn't really have a personality. Sure he has certain traits.... but... like we've seen... NO personality (as of the end of season 4) .

In my opinion... yes... Black and Red would DEFINATELY be Xana's style. Sort of an evil genius..

Maybe Business-tycoon looking? Those guys are usually very emotionless.

Like I said... XANA is not really an emotion. You can't hate him. You can't define something as being XANA-like.

XANA is just pure, cold logic. Logic with a sinister purpose.

Yeah... Business Tycoon would definately suit him. All dealing with him would have to be cold and logical. No emotion involved. XANA has no emotion. He is not a soul. He is not a personality. He is just cold, sinister Logic.
_______________________________________

As for the male-female debate... Honestly... it could technically go either way... but by Xana's movements and the way he attacks and deals and such... I'd say he has a masculine demeanor.

[Dark William offline]

well, umm
I gues Xana should be a guy
then a black suit, with a xana sign on it, and not tha nice.
ya know like a anoying person that is a real bully ;p

[SearchingLyoko offline]

It appears to me he wouldn't have THAT much of a personality... being a computer virus and such.

But if he was to become a human... I totally think his tie should have the xana symbol on it.