Madlax/Characters

Madlax (The Gatekeeper of Hell is All Alone)

Voiced by: Sanae Kobayashi (Japanese) and Nancy Novotny (English)

An agent for hire in the war torn country of Gazth-Sonika. She is a part of Margaret, released after the horrible plane crash incident.

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• Action Girl: As the highest rated mercenary in Gazth-Sonika, this is a given.
• All-Loving Hero: She's kind to everyone, sticks her neck out for people she barely knows, and only fights to bring an end to the war in Gazth-Sonika. A perfect example of this is when she's hired to publicly assassinate the commander of Gazth-Sonika's armies, Guen McNichol. When she's told that the target was also the person who commissioned the hit, she sneaks into his residence at night and, after discerning his motives, comforts him (and may have had sex with him) before leaving. It's downplayed, however, since she's still an amoral mercenary more than willing to gun down anyone foolish enough to get in her way, even if she is unhappy about it. She also has no problem Shooting the Dog when the situation requires it. And overall, her sense of morality is rather Blue and Orange at best.
• The Anti-Nihilist: She is a gun-for-hire in a civil war-torn country, yet this only makes her more appreciative of life and its small everyday joys; e.g. she visits her client and target (same person) on the night before his assassination to comfort him.
• Asskicking Pose: She has a lot of these.
• Badass Adorable: Madlax is oh so very sweet and cute for a mercenary.
• Badass Bisexual: As said below, Madlax is bisexual. And she's also EXTREMELY badass.
• Bi the Way: She flirts with some cute men, is implied to have slept with a male target and have had feelings for a male ally, has buttloads of Ship Tease with her female partner Vanessa, and is implied to have made peace AND get together with her female rival, Limelda, at the end.
• Big Damn Heroes: Most notably when she meets Vanessa for the first time.
• Brutal Honesty: Kind as she is, Madlax doesn't mince words about how dangerous Gazth-Sonika is, and will frequently warn people to leave. If they refuse (which they often do) she calls them stupid, though that doesn't stop her from helping them out regardless.
• Cartwright Curse: Virtually everyone who expresses romantic interest in her ends up dead. Two of them end up dead after asking her out, but before the date can actually happen. Limelda may be the exception.
• Code Name: Her name has always simply been known as Madlax.
• Cruel to Be Kind: In episode 3, she willingly agrees assassinate Guen McNichol by his own request, as part of a suicide hit, because she did not want him to live a life of endless suffering and being used as a part and felt that putting him out of his misery was the kindes thing to do for him.
• Cursed with Awesome: Her Immortality
• Dissonant Serenity: She's terrifyingly calm whenever she fights. Sometimes, she even closes her eyes.
• Fingerless Gloves
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Madlax has long hair, changes into dresses on several occasions for seemingly no reason other than to look good and is a really good cook (though she is only seen cooking pasta). She is also by far the most badass character in the series, and, in spite of the above, mostly wears a tank-top.
• He Knows Too Much: Unfortunately, as nice as she may be, she makes it very clear in the first episode that she is not above killing those who know too much about her plans. When a soldier asks her what she is planning, she tells him she is not allowed to say, otherwise she would have to kill him.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Although she didn't know the meaning of what it meant to be "normal" at first in Episode 8.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Madlax enjoys looking good and doesn't have any ulterior motive for it.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: The red and white cocktail dresses.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: She can snipe a target from farther away than even an expert sniper thought possible. Then there's her hitting her targets despite not looking directly at them from a considerable distance away using just a pistol. And finally, she also brought down an attack helicopter by firing a FAMAS while she was hugging it like a stuffed toy.
• Leave No Witnesses: Implied. Though we never actually see her kill people who make the unfortunate mistake of witnessing her assassinate someone, if what she says in the first episode about her having no problem killing those who know too much about her plans, then it would not be out of character for her to enforce this trope either.
• Legacy Character: Madlax isn't the first person to go by that title. The first one was Margaret's father.
• Likes Older Men: She isn't really picky about whether the men she flirts or sleeps with are young or older. It's also implied in episode 3 that she slept with Guen McNichol (who was both her target and client), a middle aged man.
• Meaningful Name: Madlax is supposed to be a portmanteau of "mad" and "relaxed", as in, someone who manages to stay calm in an insane world.
• Ms. Fanservice: And how!
• Mysterious Past: Just one of many.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: She does her best to protect innocent lives and almost always only ever kills bad guys or anyone foolish enough to try and kill her. The only exception to this trope, however, are suicide victims who request her to put them out of her misery, which she has absolutely no problem in doing. Other possible examples may include those who either know too much about what she is planning or witnesses.
• Nice Girl: Very much so. Throughout the entire 26-episode series, you can count the people she's not nice to on one hand.
• No Name Given: As it turns out, Madlax is the only name she's ever had.
• Nothing Personal: While she does kill a lot of people as part of her job, she mainly only kills either out of self-defense or to take out potential threats. She doesn't actually take any pleasure in killing, nor does she feel any hatred towards any of her targets.
• One-Man Army: Platoons- even companies- of soldiers can do nothing but die in droves when Madlax starts fighting.
• Out of the Inferno: Episode 1.
• The Protagonist: Arguably edges out Margaret as this. Not only is her name the title, but she also does most of the fighting and defeats the Big Bad at the end.
• Punch Clock Villain: She is definitely not a villain by any means, though she does use this as a justification for when Vanessa questions her as to why she kills people, saying that it's just part of her job.
• Ship Tease: With multiple characters. She has some with Pete (a cute ex Child Soldier who dies right after they agree to have a date), Guen McNichol (a person she kills later on in that episode, but not before they're all but stated to sleep together), and Chris (a young boy she's assigned to protect in Episode 5). However, she has the most teasing with Vanessa Rene, whom she spends protecting for a majority of the series.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Yanmaani!
• Trademark Favourite Food: "Yeah, PASTA!"
• The Unfettered: Subverted. She seems to be completely matter-of-fact with regards to her job (and the body count it entails), and when Vanessa calls her out on her apparent callousness, she calmly defends herself saying it's what she needs to do to survive. In the final episode, however, Margaret states that Madlax actually torments herself over person she's killed, which is what makes her a "kind killer". Even before then, Madlax tells Margaret that she only kills because in Gazth-Sonika, it's kill or be killed.
• Weapon of Choice: The SIG P210.

Margaret Burton

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (Japanese) and Luci Christian (English)

A usually sleepy eyed and slightly amnesic aristocrat.

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• All-Loving Heroine: To the point that she becomes close friends with Carrossea, The Dragon to the Big Bad.
• Ambiguously Bi: She appears to grow quite fond of Luciano (which Vanessa and Eleanor notice and make knowing smirks about), but also at one point tells Elenore that she loves her. She's also heavily implied to have been in love with her classmate Anne Morey.
• Badass Adorable: Becomes this in later episodes
• Birds of a Feather: She says this verbatim to describe herself and Carrossea. She's not wrong, either, given that they're both people who have lost their memories and are on a quest to find out who they are.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She's a bit odd, to say the least. She describes news about a terrorist attack as "boring", claims it's going to rain when there's no signs of it, stares at red shoes for ages through a window despite not wanting them and takes being on a person's mind as a sign she did something to offend them. Being only a third of her former self may have something to do with it.
• Deuteragonist: Easily the most important character after Madlax.
• Ditzy Genius: Yes, she's an airhead, but she's far from stupid and often shows keen intuition about people or about certain dangers. 
• Evil Costume Switch: Dark Margaret
• Hidden Eyes: Dark Margaret
• Nice Girl: Probably the only character who can outdo Madlax in this regard.
• The Social Expert: Surprisingly, yes. As odd as Margaret can be, she is shown to be able to tell a lot from people she's only known for a few hours, her description of herself and Carrossea as Birds of a Feather being just one example.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Margaret is the Mother, Laetitia is the Child, Madlax is the Seductress
• Trademark Favorite Food: PASTA! Yeah, Pasta!
• Zettai Ryouiki: In her school uniform.

Elenore Baker (Everyday Gatekeeper)

Voiced by: Ai Uchikawa (Japanese) and Kira Vincent-Davis (English)

Margaret's loving and very devoted personal assistant and maid.

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• Action Girl: In certain circles it's joked er...hinted that she's the teacher of Roberta from Black Lagoon.
• Beach Episode: Episode 9. One of the few times in the series that you see her wearing something other than her maids uniform.
• Beware the Nice Ones
• Cool Big Sis: To Margaret
• Gainax Ending: Her fate and that of Vanessa and Carrossea has been the cause of some intense debates over if Margaret ressurected her or not.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: With Margaret, though Margaret tends to be oblivious to the fact that Elenore is a lesbian.
• Just Friends: Vanessa and her in the first half of the series, until Vanessa hooks up with Madlax.
• Kick Chick: Watch eps 6 and 24 for prime examples of this.
• Killed Off for Real Episode 24
• Let's Get Dangerous: Episode 6
• Mama Bear: A surrogate one for Margaret
• Meganekko: Episode 14
• Meido: Margaret's personal maid, who has looked after her for most of her life.
• Messianic Archetype: Tragically becomes one.
• Ninja Maid: Oh God, does she ever prove it.
• Old Retainer: Her grandpa was this, and she'd fit if not for her age since the Bakers have served the Burtons for generations.
• Plucky Girl: Pretty much one the entire series
• Small Girl, Big Gun: One episode she gets on a mounted gun and starts firing off like hell.
• Undying Loyalty: To Margaret, of course.
• Zettai Ryouiki: Episode 14. The only other episode that she wears something other than her maid uniform.

Vanessa Rene (Gatekeeper of Happiness)

Voiced by: Satsuki Yukino (Japanese) and Kelly Manison (English)

Margaret and Elenore's friend who determined to find the truth and clear her parent's names. She's also an employee of Bookwald in order to find thier connection to the civil war Gazth-Sonika.

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• Bodyguard Crush: On Madlax, mutual
• Cool Big Sis: To Elenore and Margaret
• Died Happily Ever After:Vanessa is reunited with her parents after saying goodbye to Madlax
• Heroic Sacrifice
• Just Friends: With Madlax and Elenore (in earlier episodes)
• Les Yay With Madlax and to a lesser extent Elenore.
• The Promise:Her's to Madlax and vice versa
• Teach Me How to Fight

Friday Monday

Voiced by: Masashi Ebara (Japanese) and Mike Kleinhenz (English)

Friday Monday is the enigmatic founder and head of the Enfant organization. Very little is known about his past before 1999, when he used his Gift to open the Door of Truth in a failed attempt to plunge the world into a total war, which, as he believes, is its natural state.

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• Big Bad
• Blue Eyes
• Cool Mask
• Light Is Not Good
• Straw Nihilist
• Villain Protagonist
• Villainous Breakdown: Margaret! What happened to you?! YOU BITCH!!!

Limelda Jorg

Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (Japanese) and Christine Auten (English)

A deadly Dark Action Girl whose boss dies at Madlax's hand. She's very displeased by that, and as such she starts chasing after Madlax.

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• Badass Normal
• Cold Sniper
• Dark Action Girl
• Depraved Bisexual: She slept with Carrossea Doon and she is Very, VERY fixated on Madlax. She does seem to "calm down" and settle on the more benign Bi the Way alley after she and Madlax decided to ride out together, however.
• Despair Event Horizon
• Good Looking Privates: A very beautiful woman in the army.
• Villain Protagonist
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

Laetitia

Voiced by: Tomoko Kaneda (Japanese) and Cynthia Martinez (English)

A strange and very creepy little girl seen more than once. She is also a part of Margaret, and the keeper of her memories. As such, she's stuck in the Sanctuary.

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• Creepy Child: Not an evil one, but pretty enigmatic.
• Happily Adopted: Margaret accepts her fully at the Grand Finale, and takes her in as her sister.
• Lonely Doll Girl: She's always seen hugging a ragdoll.
• Meaningful Name: She's named after both a chara in Mashimo's favorite movie and the Roman Goddess of gaiety.
• The Three Faces of Eve: The Child to Madlax's Seductress and Margaret's Mother.

Colonel Richard Burton

Voiced by: Toru Ookawa (Japanese), Ben Hamby (English)

Margaret's Disappeared Dad. Killed by the recently "born" Madlax after Monday uses the Words of Awakening on him.

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• Brainwashed and Crazy
• Colonel Badass
• Offing the Offspring: Tried to kill Margaret when driven insane. It backfired horribly.

Carrossea Doon. Aka Poupee.

Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese) and Vic Mignogna (English)

Carrossea is officially an independent contract worker for Bookwald Industries, although, in reality, he is one of Enfant's best operatives and the right-hand man of Friday Monday himself.

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• Creepy Child: As Poupee.
• Dead All Along: He only was alive due to his Gift and his unyielding wish to protect Margaret. Once he realizes this... he fades away of existence.
• The Dragon: To Friday Monday
• Dragon with an Agenda
• Gainax Ending: His fate and that of Vanessa and Eleonore has been the cause of some intense debates over if Margaret ressurected him or not.
• I Will Protect Her: For Margaret.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Sort-of, to Margaret. Poupee was another survivor of the plane crash, fell for Margaret, vowed to protect her... and died Taking the Bullet for her. His Gift kicked in and he sort-of lived on; then, Friday took the amnesiac kid in and named him Carrossea, with his Poupee self remaining stuck at the Sanctuary.
• Villain Protagonist