History WesternAnimation / AeonFlux

Possibly the best way to describe ''[=Æ=]on Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[GermanExpressionism Expressionism]], CyberPunk, and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes. The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough {{deconstruction}} of action hero tropes and cliches.

Possibly the best way to describe ''[=Æ=]on Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[GermanExpressionism Expressionism]], CyberPunk, and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes, wherein the eye's iris rolls in to stare at it (it rolls horizontally, mind you, which just looks...[[{{Squick}} unreal]]). The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough {{deconstruction}} of action hero tropes and cliches.

Back when Creator/{{MTV}} regularly [[NetworkDecay produced animated programming]] (yes, this was [[IncrediblyLamePun eons ago]]), they fronted some experimental animation. ''[=Æ=]on Flux'' is probably the fourth-best known example of these series (after ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'').

The show was made into a [[Film/AeonFlux live-action movie]] in late 2005 starring Creator/CharlizeTheron, in which [[AdaptationDecay the plot, characters, themes and artistic style were unrelated enough to the original series]] to cause the original creator to feel humiliated when he saw it. A licensed tie-in game was made to try and link the two, [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames but that didn't end well;]] a movie tie-in comic by Creator/DarkHorseComics was a little more successful at capturing the feel of the original show, however.

* PragmaticAdaptation: The videogame. The creators were obviously fans of the original series and did their absolute best to try to capture the feeling of it, using many designs and plot references from the cartoon. Still, as it was produced as a movie tie-in, they had to include several character designs and plot points from the film (particularly the use of Charlize Theron's voice and likeness for [=Æ=] instead of the actual voice actress and character design from the show), much to the game's detriment.

* PragmaticAdaptation: The videogame. The creators were obviously fans of the original series and did their absolute best to try to capture the feeling of it, using many designs and plot references from the cartoon. Still, as it was produced as a movie tie-in, they had to include several character designs and plot points from the film (particularly the use of Charlize Theron's voice and likeness for Aeon instead of the actual voice actress and character design from the show), much to the game's detriment.

The actual content proves even stranger than the art--our lead character is a highly self-motivated secret agent doing spywork (or possibly just sabotage in the name of anarchy), and is {{Stripperific}} to pretty much the greatest conceivable extent. Her arch-nemesis and lover, Trevor Goodchild, is also a main character; a morally-ambiguous totalitarian ruler attempting to be a benevolent dictator.

The show was made into a [[Film/AeonFlux live-action movie]] in late 2005 starring Creator/CharlizeTheron, in which [[AdaptationDecay the plot, characters, themes and artistic style were unrelated enough to original series]] to cause the original creator to feel humiliated when he saw it. A licensed tie-in game was made to try and link the two, [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames but that didn't end well;]] a movie tie-in comic by Creator/DarkHorseComics was a little more successful at capturing the feel of the original show, however.

[[caption-width-right:320:"My name is [=Æ=]on Flux. I'm here on a mission to assassinate Trevor Goodchild. Is everybody listening? Do you believe me?"]]

[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aeonflux.jpg]]

* CloningBlues: Averted by the clone of [[spoiler: [=Æ=]on made by Trevor. Aware of being a clone, she is perfectly OK with her existence and her role in the original [=Æ=]on's BatmanGambit]]. In the canceled [=PlayStation=] game, this cloning

Possibly the best way to describe ''[=Æ=]on Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[GermanExpressionism Expressionism]], CyberPunk, and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes, wherein the eye's iris rolls in to stare at it. The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough {{deconstruction}} of action hero tropes and cliches.

** The blonde agent who assists [=Æ=]on in "Tide" is named RU-486, [[MeaningfulName whose name comes from a birth control pill]].

* DyingDream: One of the {{Mooks}} [=Æ=]on kills in the pilot has a hallucination in the vein resembling ''SteamboatWillie''. Upon realising what he is actually seeing is [[spoiler: a streak of blood on a wall, a gun floating in the literal ''lake'' of blood [=Æ=]on has created and an apparently dismembered arm]], he sheds a tear of horror.

** The blonde agent who assists [=Æ=]on in "Tide" is named RU-486, [[MeaningfulName whose name comes from a pill that induces abortions]].

* TheArtifact: Both [=Æ=]on's theme tune and the "Breen National Anthem" are musical artifacts from the shorts. [=Æ=]on's was originally meant to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSong version of the ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' theme, to fit with the {{Deconstruction}} of action movies. The basic tune remained as her {{Leitmotif}} for the remainder of the series, though mutated into something much weirder through Drew Neumann's distinctive style to better fit the tone the series ended up taking on. As for the Breen theme, it was originally meant simply as a leitmotif for Breen soldier Vaarsche Lockney, intended to invoke a Wagnerian feel to fit his blonde, Germanic looks.

* BrokenPedestal: Gildemere spends most of ''Utopia or Deuteronopia'' trying to rescue Bregna's elected leader, Clavius and spends hours pouring over the documents he left behind, believing their incomprehensible gibberish to be a brilliant cipher. He's none too pleased when Clavius comes back and immediately orders the gangsters he'd been colluding with released from prison and reveals that [[ConspiracyTheorist the flying saucer men are not, in fact, a codename for the ministry of justice]].

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Between seasons two and three, [=Æ=]on changed from an AxCrazy FailureHero who would slaughter large numbers of random {{mooks}}, but usually failed at whatever she was actually supposed to be doing, to a cold, calculating and highly [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]].

* CloningBlues: Averted by the clone of [[spoiler: [=Æ=]on made by Trevor. Aware of being a clone, she is perfectly OK with her existence and her role in the original [=Æ=]on's BatmanGambit]].

* PragmaticAdaptation: The videogame. The creators were obviously fans of the original series and did their absolute best to try to capture the feeling of it, using many designs and plot references from the cartoon. Still, as it was produced as a movie tie-in, they had to include several character designs and plot points from the film, much to the game's detriment.

* ManicPixieDreamGirl: [=Æ=]on quite possibly represents the ultimate deconstruction of this trope.

Probably the best way to describe ''[=Æ=]on Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[GermanExpressionism Expressionism]], CyberPunk, and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes, wherein the eye's iris rolls in to stare at it. The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough {{deconstruction}} of action hero tropes and cliches.

The actual content proves even stranger than the art--our lead character is a highly self-motivated secret agent doing spywork (or possibly just sabotage in the name of anarchy), and is {{Stripperific}} to pretty much the greatest conceivable extent. Her arch-nemesis and lover, also a main character, is a morally-ambiguous totalitarian ruler attempting to be a sort of benevolent dictator.

Back when Creator/{{MTV}} regularly produced animated programming (yes, this was [[NetworkDecay eons ago]]), they fronted some experimental animation. ''[=Æ=]on Flux'' is probably the fourth-best known example of these series (after ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'').

The actual content proves even stranger than the art -- our lead character is a highly self-motivated secret agent doing spywork (or possibly just sabotage in the name of anarchy), and is {{Stripperific}} to pretty much the greatest conceivable extent. Her arch-nemesis and lover, also a main character, is a morally-ambiguous totalitarian ruler attempting to be a sort of benevolent dictator.

!!This work provides examples of:

* LostInTransmission: A rare example that doesn't involve actual transmitting equipment. At the beginning of "The Demiurge", Trevor is speaking with an underling when he suddenly recalls a vital piece of information. What he says is "Wait, I remember!" -- and what he says next is drowned out by the sound of an explosion behind him. It ''is'' possible to make out what he's saying if you listen extremely carefully, but the line appears to have been lifted at random from a later speech in the same episode and the animators made no attempt to match the lip flaps.

* SympatheticPOV: Played with in the original short episode pilot and in the second short episode. "Pilot" opens with typical action movie music and [=Æ=]on gunning down extremely implausible numbers of soldiers, action hero style -- then the perspective abruptly changes to that of two enemy soldiers trying to support each other as they gasp for life, shot and dying in the middle of a giant pool of blood. In "War", the identity of the protagonist changes every 20 seconds or so, each one dying when his time is up, as a satire of how viewer sympathy is manipulated in typical action movies.

The show was made into a [[Film/AeonFlux live-action movie]] in late 2005 starring Creator/CharlizeTheron, in which [[AdaptationDecay the plot, characters, themes and artistic style were unrelated enough to original series]] to cause the original creator to feel humiliated when he saw it. A licensed tie-in game was made to try and link the two, [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames but that didn't end well;]] a movie tie-in comic by DarkHorseComics was a little more successful at capturing the feel of the original show, however.

* {{Expy}}: The version of Hostess Judy and her comrades from the video game are based on the Fashion Club from ''{{Daria}}''.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aeonflux.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"My name is [=Æ=]on Flux. I'm here on a mission to assassinate Trevor Goodchild. Is everybody listening? Do you believe me?"]]

* [[EvenEvilHasStandards Even Kinkiness Has Standards]]: When an "alien" offers to trade eyeballs with [=Æ=]on (see below):

* ParryingBullets: The sword-wielding Monican soldier in "War" is capable of doing this so accurately that the bullet kills the enemy who fired it.

-->--'''Peter Chung'''

* TheArtifact: Both [=Æ=]on's theme tune and the "Breen National Anthem" are musical artifacts from the shorts. [=Æ=]on's was originally meant to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSong version of the IndianaJones theme, to fit with the {{Deconstruction}} of action movies. The basic tune remained as her {{Leitmotif}} for the remainder of the series, though mutated into something much weirder through Drew Neumann's distinctive style to better fit the tone the series ended up taking on. As for the Breen theme, it was originally meant simply as a leitmotif for Breen soldier Vaarsche Lockney, intended to invoke a Wagnerian feel to fit his blonde, Germanic looks.

** In a reference to Indiana Jones, the episode "War" has a soldier making an elaborate sword dance while facing another who simply looks at his gun and then back to the swordsman. In this case however, the swordsman blocks the bullet with his sword and then impales the shooter.

[[caption-width-right:350:"My name is Æon Flux. I'm here on a mission to assassinate Trevor Goodchild. Is everybody listening? Do you believe me?"]]
->''The original impetus behind the Æon Flux pilot was a critique of the manipulation of sympathy in Hollywood movies.''

Back when Creator/{{MTV}} regularly produced animated programming (yes, this was [[NetworkDecay eons ago]]), they fronted some experimental animation. ''Æon Flux'' is probably the fourth-best known example of these series (after ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'').

Probably the best way to describe ''Æon Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[GermanExpressionism Expressionism]], CyberPunk, and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes, wherein the eye's iris rolls in to stare at it. The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough {{deconstruction}} of action hero tropes and cliches.

The episodes tend to be fairly disconnected from each other, and center on the two main characters' (Æon and Trevor) interactions, political and personal, and the themes surrounding them.

* AllThereInTheManual: There was a companion book published during the airing of the third season, ''The Herodotus File'', which saw a brief return to print as a tie-in with the movie. It was a set of {{Fictional Document}}s telling the story of how Æon and Trevor first met and other info about their world. This being Æon Flux, it doesn't really have much effect on the {{canon}}, such as it is.

** The blonde agent who assists Æon in "Tide" is named RU-486, [[MeaningfulName whose name comes from a pill that induces abortions]].
* AntiHero: Æon Flux's actions are often morally questionable at best and she is generally portrayed as being cold, calculating, and (at least seemingly) heartless, although she does generally complete her missions for the sake of others. In the original short episode pilot, before the characters were fully realized, she filled the role of a satire of a typical action hero in that her wanton slaughter of Mooks is put to serious question, she winds up getting herself killed at the end, and doesn't even actually accomplish her goal, which someone else ends up completing independent of her and for completely different reasons.
* AntiVillain: Trevor Goodchild is a morally ambiguous figure much like Æon Flux is herself. He genuinely believes that his people are better off by submitting to his authority, just as Æon is convinced that her borderline terrorist activities are also for the greater good.

** Trevor comes across as this with just about anything that gets his attention. To give a list: Æon, the reporters who interview him, one of his patients, bird creatures, the Demiurge, and in the last episode, an alien [[spoiler: who is actually an evolved human, according to him.]]
** Of course, Æon is little better. She wears a chastity belt, but at the end of the first episode it is revealed that everyone (literally) in the country of Bregna has a key to it. She also attempted to get with the same alien that Trevor had, but changes her mind (see below).

* TheArtifact: Both Æon's theme tune and the "Breen National Anthem" are musical artifacts from the shorts. Æon's was originally meant to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSong version of the IndianaJones theme, to fit with the {{Deconstruction}} of action movies. The basic tune remained as her {{Leitmotif}} for the remainder of the series, though mutated into something much weirder through Drew Neumann's distinctive style to better fit the tone the series ended up taking on. As for the Breen theme, it was originally meant simply as a leitmotif for Breen soldier Vaarsche Lockney, intended to invoke a Wagnerian feel to fit his blonde, Germanic looks.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: One of Æon's many flaws in the silent episodes.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Between seasons two and three, Æon changed from an AxCrazy FailureHero who would slaughter large numbers of random {{mooks}}, but usually failed at whatever she was actually supposed to be doing, to a cold, calculating and highly [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]].
* ChekhovsGun: Extensively used to set up the small events that screw up Æon's missions.
* CloningBlues: Averted by the clone of [[spoiler: Æon made by Trevor. Aware of being a clone, she is perfectly OK with her existence and her role in the original Æon's BatmanGambit]].

** In "A Last Time for Everything," Æon clones herself, with the intention of seducing Trevor to let her clone get the drop on him. Rather than seduce him, her original self falls hopelessly in love with him. Her cloned self remains true to her cold-blooded original personality, however.
** In "Reirazure," Æon has a lover's quarrel with a crippled man, causing her to burst into tears.
** The ending of "Chronophasia" where Æon [[spoiler:is seen in a contemporary setting driving a young boy to a little league game]].
* CombatStilettos: Averted in most episodes. Æon's many outfits run the full gamut of practical to highly impractical fetish wear, but she wears regular flat-heeled boots more often than she does high heels (this is even important in the pilot episode, where she steps on a nail).

* DatingCatwoman: Æon and Trevor, although which is the villain is often hard to determine.
* DisasterDominoes: Several of Æon's missions fail because of an escalating series of accidents, but none more so than in "Ether Drift Theory".
* DyingDream: One of the {{Mooks}} Æon kills in the pilot has a hallucination in the vein resembling ''SteamboatWillie''. Upon realising what he is actually seeing is [[spoiler: a streak of blood on a wall, a gun floating in the literal ''lake'' of blood Æon has created and an apparently dismembered arm]], he sheds a tear of horror.

* [[EvenEvilHasStandards Even Kinkiness Has Standards]]: When an "alien" offers to trade eyeballs with Æon (see below):
--> '''Æon:''' Oh my God, no! I'm sorry, but there are some things even ''I'' won't do!
* ExoticEquipment: Various forms, partly to get past censors by using nonstandard methods of copulation, and partly because, well it's ''Æon Flux''. Examples include a woman with a gap in her spine (due to injury/surgery) having her spinal nerves manually stimulated with medical tools (which, incidentally, was proven to be viable by some doctors in RealLife [[LifeImitatesArt a few years after the show came out]]), sexual imagery involving a behavior-altering mechanism implanted forcefully through the navel, and a species of humanoid "aliens" who apparently engage in sexual contact by taking out an eyeball and replacing it with that of their partner.

* {{Facepalm}}: Done by Æon as she plummets to her death after completely botching an acrobatic manoeuvre on the outside of a plane; also when she watches the embarrassing security camera footage of her falling off a ladder.

* FriendlyEnemy: Despite having completely opposing philosophies and fighting against each other regularly, neither Æon nor Trevor want the other to succumb to any serious harm and there is some [[UnresolvedSexualTension obvious sexual tension]] between the two of them. They have also been known to [[DestructoNookie suddenly make out after meeting on the battlefield]].
* {{Gainaxing}}: Æon's breasts seem to be very carefully animated in some scenes.

** An enormous spoiler was added to "The Purge," ([[spoiler:A transparent image of Æon was superimposed over the Custodian in the final scene, ''heavily'' implying that she was implanted]]) ruining one of the great moments of ambiguity Peter Chung loved to put in the show (See YMMV tab).

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Æon and Trevor's ideologies are taken to such extremes that neither can be said to be totally in the right.
* HandyFeet (Adapted Feet): Scafandra, who had hands transplanted onto her ankles. Æon remarks that she likes them.

* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: A lot of characters, particularly Sybil. Æon Flux's measurements are implied to be 40, 20, 36.

* LeParkour: Æon's most important skill, even though the series began before the word ''parkour'' [[UnbuiltTrope entered into common use.]] (Her movements are jerkier than parkour usually prefers, however.)

* MeaningfulName: Some of the characters' names are somewhere between this and PunnyName. Æon Flux's name implies upheaval and change and literally means "Eternal Change". Trevor Goodchild's name implies obedience, although Peter Chung has denied any symbolic intent and claims he randomly took the name from a school classmate. Donna Matrix sounds like "dominatrix." A semi-religious Monican is named Zennith Nader, and a self-obsessed Breen is named Onan.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Æon quite possibly represents the ultimate deconstruction of this trope.

* {{Monologuing}}: Trevor was deliberately conceived as being overly verbose and having a certain amount of pomposity as a contrast to Æon's clipped, sarcastic speech patterns.

* NeverBringAKnifeToAFistfight: Subverted and then played straight. In the pilot, Æon simply shoots a martial arts-displaying redshirt. In "War," a swordsman shows off in front of a gunman, who simply shoots at him, only for the swordsman to deflect the bullet and kill him. Watching the shorts chronologically, the second example works as a subversion of the first scene, given their similar set-ups.

* OpeningNarration: A discussion between '''Trevor''' and ''Æon''.

* OrderVersusChaos: Æon's not actually "good" and Trevor's not really a cut-and-dried bad guy; they're just [[YouRebelScum The Rebel]] and [[TheMan The Establishment]], respectively.
* OurHeroIsDead: Literally in [[OnceAnEpisode every single episode]] during the silent shorts. During the half-hour episodes Æon tends to survive, with some partial exceptions: One episode where [[spoiler:a copy of her kills the original (which was planned all along)]], another where she's trapped [[spoiler:in a sea of paralytic fluid at the end (although the fluid could be neutralized)]], and another where she seems to die multiple times, but nobody knows [[MindScrew what the hell was literal in that episode anyway]]. [[spoiler:Explained somewhat in the video game.]]

* RedOniBlueOni: Trevor and Æon, respectively. The vain and people-oriented red oni (Trevor) represents order, while the cold and anti-social blue oni (Æon) represents chaos.

* ScrewYourself: Æon makes sure to get a good makeout session with her duplicate, before they part ways to carry out their plan.

* {{Stripperiffic}}: Many outfits worn by various characters are a shade away from pure bondage gear, most notably Æon's. In the DVDCommentary, Chung states that the lack of significant clothing also served to make the body language in the silent shorts easier to see, and compared it to the popularity of nudity in art.
* SympatheticPOV: Played with in the original short episode pilot and in the second short episode. "Pilot" opens with typical action movie music and Æon gunning down extremely implausible numbers of soldiers, action hero style -- then the perspective abruptly changes to that of two enemy soldiers trying to support each other as they gasp for life, shot and dying in the middle of a giant pool of blood. In "War", the identity of the protagonist changes every 20 seconds or so, each one dying when his time is up, as a satire of how viewer sympathy is manipulated in typical action movies.
* TheyKilledKennyAgain: Æon, during the short episodes.
* TooDumbToLive: Most of Æon's deaths in the shorts are a direct result of stupid mistakes, when they're not NecroNonSequitur, which is quite often. This is partly a satire on the trope of the invincible hero in more typical action works.
* {{Twinmaker}}: In one episode, [[spoiler: Æon herself]] gets cloned, and conspires with the original on an assassination attempt. At the end of the episode, one of them is gunned down. [[spoiler: It wasn't the clone.]]

* {{Underboobs}}: One of Æon's costumes.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: The security-obsessed technocrat Trevor is the more obvious example, but one could make a convincing argument that the anarchist Æon fits in right next to him.
* WhatMeasureIsAMook: The concept of {{Mooks}} is deconstructed in the second part of the pilot, which reminds us that under their masks, FacelessGoons are human beings too. (Also see AntiHero and SympatheticPOV.) The film plays it completely straight, by having Æon and Trevor casually kill huge numbers of FacelessGoons with no questioning at all.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Æon suffers a ''lot'' from this, to the point where she could have avoided an entire episode's worth of trouble by doing so in the first place.
* WritingAroundTrademarks: Because MTV didn't support the release of Drew Neumann's soundtrack album, the album had to use the title ''Eye Spy: Ears Only, Confidential'' and not mention Æon Flux at all. Peter Chung drew the cover art using {{Expies}} of ''his own characters''.

[[caption-width-right:350:"My name is Æon Flux. I'm here on a mission to assassinate Trevor Goodchild. Is everybody listening? Do you believe me?"]]
->''The original impetus behind the Æon Flux pilot was a critique of the manipulation of sympathy in Hollywood movies.''

Back when Creator/{{MTV}} regularly produced animated programming (yes, this was [[NetworkDecay eons ago]]), they fronted some experimental animation. ''Æon Flux'' is probably the fourth-best known example of these series (after ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'').

Probably the best way to describe ''Æon Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[GermanExpressionism Expressionism]], CyberPunk, and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes, wherein the eye's iris rolls in to stare at it. The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough {{deconstruction}} of action hero tropes and cliches.

The episodes tend to be fairly disconnected from each other, and center on the two main characters' (Æon and Trevor) interactions, political and personal, and the themes surrounding them.

* AllThereInTheManual: There was a companion book published during the airing of the third season, ''The Herodotus File'', which saw a brief return to print as a tie-in with the movie. It was a set of {{Fictional Document}}s telling the story of how Æon and Trevor first met and other info about their world. This being Æon Flux, it doesn't really have much effect on the {{canon}}, such as it is.

** The blonde agent who assists Æon in "Tide" is named RU-486, [[MeaningfulName whose name comes from a pill that induces abortions]].
* AntiHero: Æon Flux's actions are often morally questionable at best and she is generally portrayed as being cold, calculating, and (at least seemingly) heartless, although she does generally complete her missions for the sake of others. In the original short episode pilot, before the characters were fully realized, she filled the role of a satire of a typical action hero in that her wanton slaughter of Mooks is put to serious question, she winds up getting herself killed at the end, and doesn't even actually accomplish her goal, which someone else ends up completing independent of her and for completely different reasons.
* AntiVillain: Trevor Goodchild is a morally ambiguous figure much like Æon Flux is herself. He genuinely believes that his people are better off by submitting to his authority, just as Æon is convinced that her borderline terrorist activities are also for the greater good.

** Trevor comes across as this with just about anything that gets his attention. To give a list: Æon, the reporters who interview him, one of his patients, bird creatures, the Demiurge, and in the last episode, an alien [[spoiler: who is actually an evolved human, according to him.]]
** Of course, Æon is little better. She wears a chastity belt, but at the end of the first episode it is revealed that everyone (literally) in the country of Bregna has a key to it. She also attempted to get with the same alien that Trevor had, but changes her mind (see below).

* TheArtifact: Both Æon's theme tune and the "Breen National Anthem" are musical artifacts from the shorts. Æon's was originally meant to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSong version of the IndianaJones theme, to fit with the {{Deconstruction}} of action movies. The basic tune remained as her {{Leitmotif}} for the remainder of the series, though mutated into something much weirder through Drew Neumann's distinctive style to better fit the tone the series ended up taking on. As for the Breen theme, it was originally meant simply as a leitmotif for Breen soldier Vaarsche Lockney, intended to invoke a Wagnerian feel to fit his blonde, Germanic looks.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: One of Æon's many flaws in the silent episodes.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Between seasons two and three, Æon changed from an AxCrazy FailureHero who would slaughter large numbers of random {{mooks}}, but usually failed at whatever she was actually supposed to be doing, to a cold, calculating and highly [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]].
* ChekhovsGun: Extensively used to set up the small events that screw up Æon's missions.
* CloningBlues: Averted by the clone of [[spoiler: Æon made by Trevor. Aware of being a clone, she is perfectly OK with her existence and her role in the original Æon's BatmanGambit]].

** In "A Last Time for Everything," Æon clones herself, with the intention of seducing Trevor to let her clone get the drop on him. Rather than seduce him, her original self falls hopelessly in love with him. Her cloned self remains true to her cold-blooded original personality, however.
** In "Reirazure," Æon has a lover's quarrel with a crippled man, causing her to burst into tears.
** The ending of "Chronophasia" where Æon [[spoiler:is seen in a contemporary setting driving a young boy to a little league game]].
* CombatStilettos: Averted in most episodes. Æon's many outfits run the full gamut of practical to highly impractical fetish wear, but she wears regular flat-heeled boots more often than she does high heels (this is even important in the pilot episode, where she steps on a nail).

* DatingCatwoman: Æon and Trevor, although which is the villain is often hard to determine.
* DisasterDominoes: Several of Æon's missions fail because of an escalating series of accidents, but none more so than in "Ether Drift Theory".
* DyingDream: One of the {{Mooks}} Æon kills in the pilot has a hallucination in the vein resembling ''SteamboatWillie''. Upon realising what he is actually seeing is [[spoiler: a streak of blood on a wall, a gun floating in the literal ''lake'' of blood Æon has created and an apparently dismembered arm]], he sheds a tear of horror.

* [[EvenEvilHasStandards Even Kinkiness Has Standards]]: When an "alien" offers to trade eyeballs with Æon (see below):
--> '''Æon:''' Oh my God, no! I'm sorry, but there are some things even ''I'' won't do!
* ExoticEquipment: Various forms, partly to get past censors by using nonstandard methods of copulation, and partly because, well it's ''Æon Flux''. Examples include a woman with a gap in her spine (due to injury/surgery) having her spinal nerves manually stimulated with medical tools (which, incidentally, was proven to be viable by some doctors in RealLife [[LifeImitatesArt a few years after the show came out]]), sexual imagery involving a behavior-altering mechanism implanted forcefully through the navel, and a species of humanoid "aliens" who apparently engage in sexual contact by taking out an eyeball and replacing it with that of their partner.

* {{Facepalm}}: Done by Æon as she plummets to her death after completely botching an acrobatic manoeuvre on the outside of a plane; also when she watches the embarrassing security camera footage of her falling off a ladder.

* FriendlyEnemy: Despite having completely opposing philosophies and fighting against each other regularly, neither Æon nor Trevor want the other to succumb to any serious harm and there is some [[UnresolvedSexualTension obvious sexual tension]] between the two of them. They have also been known to [[DestructoNookie suddenly make out after meeting on the battlefield]].
* {{Gainaxing}}: Æon's breasts seem to be very carefully animated in some scenes.

** An enormous spoiler was added to "The Purge," ([[spoiler:A transparent image of Æon was superimposed over the Custodian in the final scene, ''heavily'' implying that she was implanted]]) ruining one of the great moments of ambiguity Peter Chung loved to put in the show (See YMMV tab).

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Æon and Trevor's ideologies are taken to such extremes that neither can be said to be totally in the right.
* HandyFeet (Adapted Feet): Scafandra, who had hands transplanted onto her ankles. Æon remarks that she likes them.

* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: A lot of characters, particularly Sybil. Æon Flux's measurements are implied to be 40, 20, 36.

* LeParkour: Æon's most important skill, even though the series began before the word ''parkour'' [[UnbuiltTrope entered into common use.]] (Her movements are jerkier than parkour usually prefers, however.)

* MeaningfulName: Some of the characters' names are somewhere between this and PunnyName. Æon Flux's name implies upheaval and change and literally means "Eternal Change". Trevor Goodchild's name implies obedience, although Peter Chung has denied any symbolic intent and claims he randomly took the name from a school classmate. Donna Matrix sounds like "dominatrix." A semi-religious Monican is named Zennith Nader, and a self-obsessed Breen is named Onan.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Æon quite possibly represents the ultimate deconstruction of this trope.

* {{Monologuing}}: Trevor was deliberately conceived as being overly verbose and having a certain amount of pomposity as a contrast to Æon's clipped, sarcastic speech patterns.

* NeverBringAKnifeToAFistfight: Subverted and then played straight. In the pilot, Æon simply shoots a martial arts-displaying redshirt. In "War," a swordsman shows off in front of a gunman, who simply shoots at him, only for the swordsman to deflect the bullet and kill him. Watching the shorts chronologically, the second example works as a subversion of the first scene, given their similar set-ups.

* OpeningNarration: A discussion between '''Trevor''' and ''Æon''.

* OrderVersusChaos: Æon's not actually "good" and Trevor's not really a cut-and-dried bad guy; they're just [[YouRebelScum The Rebel]] and [[TheMan The Establishment]], respectively.
* OurHeroIsDead: Literally in [[OnceAnEpisode every single episode]] during the silent shorts. During the half-hour episodes Æon tends to survive, with some partial exceptions: One episode where [[spoiler:a copy of her kills the original (which was planned all along)]], another where she's trapped [[spoiler:in a sea of paralytic fluid at the end (although the fluid could be neutralized)]], and another where she seems to die multiple times, but nobody knows [[MindScrew what the hell was literal in that episode anyway]]. [[spoiler:Explained somewhat in the video game.]]

* RedOniBlueOni: Trevor and Æon, respectively. The vain and people-oriented red oni (Trevor) represents order, while the cold and anti-social blue oni (Æon) represents chaos.

* ScrewYourself: Æon makes sure to get a good makeout session with her duplicate, before they part ways to carry out their plan.

* {{Stripperiffic}}: Many outfits worn by various characters are a shade away from pure bondage gear, most notably Æon's. In the DVDCommentary, Chung states that the lack of significant clothing also served to make the body language in the silent shorts easier to see, and compared it to the popularity of nudity in art.
* SympatheticPOV: Played with in the original short episode pilot and in the second short episode. "Pilot" opens with typical action movie music and Æon gunning down extremely implausible numbers of soldiers, action hero style -- then the perspective abruptly changes to that of two enemy soldiers trying to support each other as they gasp for life, shot and dying in the middle of a giant pool of blood. In "War", the identity of the protagonist changes every 20 seconds or so, each one dying when his time is up, as a satire of how viewer sympathy is manipulated in typical action movies.
* TheyKilledKennyAgain: Æon, during the short episodes.
* TooDumbToLive: Most of Æon's deaths in the shorts are a direct result of stupid mistakes, when they're not NecroNonSequitur, which is quite often. This is partly a satire on the trope of the invincible hero in more typical action works.
* {{Twinmaker}}: In one episode, [[spoiler: Æon herself]] gets cloned, and conspires with the original on an assassination attempt. At the end of the episode, one of them is gunned down. [[spoiler: It wasn't the clone.]]

* {{Underboobs}}: One of Æon's costumes.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: The security-obsessed technocrat Trevor is the more obvious example, but one could make a convincing argument that the anarchist Æon fits in right next to him.
* WhatMeasureIsAMook: The concept of {{Mooks}} is deconstructed in the second part of the pilot, which reminds us that under their masks, FacelessGoons are human beings too. (Also see AntiHero and SympatheticPOV.) The film plays it completely straight, by having Æon and Trevor casually kill huge numbers of FacelessGoons with no questioning at all.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Æon suffers a ''lot'' from this, to the point where she could have avoided an entire episode's worth of trouble by doing so in the first place.
* WritingAroundTrademarks: Because MTV didn't support the release of Drew Neumann's soundtrack album, the album had to use the title ''Eye Spy: Ears Only, Confidential'' and not mention Æon Flux at all. Peter Chung drew the cover art using {{Expies}} of ''his own characters''.

----
<<|AnimatedShows|>>

The show was made into a [[Film/AEonFlux live-action movie]] in late 2005 starring Creator/CharlizeTheron, in which [[AdaptationDecay the plot, characters, themes and artistic style were unrelated enough to original series]] to cause the original creator to feel humiliated when he saw it. A licensed tie-in game was made to try and link the two, [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames but that didn't end well;]] a movie tie-in comic by DarkHorseComics was a little more successful at capturing the feel of the original show, however.

[[caption-width-right:350:"My name is Æon Flux. I'm here on a mission to assassinate Trevor Goodchild. Is everybody listening? Do you believe me?"]]
->''The original impetus behind the Æon Flux pilot was a critique of the manipulation of sympathy in Hollywood movies.''

Back when Creator/{{MTV}} regularly produced animated programming (yes, this was [[NetworkDecay eons ago]]), they fronted some experimental animation. ''Æon Flux'' is probably the fourth-best known example of these series (after ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', and ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'').

Probably the best way to describe ''Æon Flux'' is that if you had ever seen it before, you would be able to recognize it immediately. The art style is a strange combination of [[GermanExpressionism Expressionism]], CyberPunk, and Gnosticism. One of the most enduring images of the series is that of a human eye staring at a fly that is trapped in its eyelashes, wherein the eye's iris rolls in to stare at it. The episodes would attempt to use the art style to further the viewer's interest as opposed to wordiness. The early shorts had no spoken words to speak of, unless you count a single "plop". As a whole, the show was a thorough {{deconstruction}} of action hero tropes and cliches.

The episodes tend to be fairly disconnected from each other, and center on the two main characters' (Æon and Trevor) interactions, political and personal, and the themes surrounding them.

* AllThereInTheManual: There was a companion book published during the airing of the third season, ''The Herodotus File'', which saw a brief return to print as a tie-in with the movie. It was a set of {{Fictional Document}}s telling the story of how Æon and Trevor first met and other info about their world. This being Æon Flux, it doesn't really have much effect on the {{canon}}, such as it is.

** The blonde agent who assists Æon in "Tide" is named RU-486, [[MeaningfulName whose name comes from a pill that induces abortions]].
* AntiHero: Æon Flux's actions are often morally questionable at best and she is generally portrayed as being cold, calculating, and (at least seemingly) heartless, although she does generally complete her missions for the sake of others. In the original short episode pilot, before the characters were fully realized, she filled the role of a satire of a typical action hero in that her wanton slaughter of Mooks is put to serious question, she winds up getting herself killed at the end, and doesn't even actually accomplish her goal, which someone else ends up completing independent of her and for completely different reasons.
* AntiVillain: Trevor Goodchild is a morally ambiguous figure much like Æon Flux is herself. He genuinely believes that his people are better off by submitting to his authority, just as Æon is convinced that her borderline terrorist activities are also for the greater good.

** Trevor comes across as this with just about anything that gets his attention. To give a list: Æon, the reporters who interview him, one of his patients, bird creatures, the Demiurge, and in the last episode, an alien [[spoiler: who is actually an evolved human, according to him.]]
** Of course, Æon is little better. She wears a chastity belt, but at the end of the first episode it is revealed that everyone (literally) in the country of Bregna has a key to it. She also attempted to get with the same alien that Trevor had, but changes her mind (see below).

* TheArtifact: Both Æon's theme tune and the "Breen National Anthem" are musical artifacts from the shorts. Æon's was originally meant to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSong version of the IndianaJones theme, to fit with the {{Deconstruction}} of action movies. The basic tune remained as her {{Leitmotif}} for the remainder of the series, though mutated into something much weirder through Drew Neumann's distinctive style to better fit the tone the series ended up taking on. As for the Breen theme, it was originally meant simply as a leitmotif for Breen soldier Vaarsche Lockney, intended to invoke a Wagnerian feel to fit his blonde, Germanic looks.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: One of Æon's many flaws in the silent episodes.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Between seasons two and three, Æon changed from an AxCrazy FailureHero who would slaughter large numbers of random {{mooks}}, but usually failed at whatever she was actually supposed to be doing, to a cold, calculating and highly [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]].
* ChekhovsGun: Extensively used to set up the small events that screw up Æon's missions.
* CloningBlues: Averted by the clone of [[spoiler: Æon made by Trevor. Aware of being a clone, she is perfectly OK with her existence and her role in the original Æon's BatmanGambit]].

** In "A Last Time for Everything," Æon clones herself, with the intention of seducing Trevor to let her clone get the drop on him. Rather than seduce him, her original self falls hopelessly in love with him. Her cloned self remains true to her cold-blooded original personality, however.
** In "Reirazure," Æon has a lover's quarrel with a crippled man, causing her to burst into tears.
** The ending of "Chronophasia" where Æon [[spoiler:is seen in a contemporary setting driving a young boy to a little league game]].
* CombatStilettos: Averted in most episodes. Æon's many outfits run the full gamut of practical to highly impractical fetish wear, but she wears regular flat-heeled boots more often than she does high heels (this is even important in the pilot episode, where she steps on a nail).

* DatingCatwoman: Æon and Trevor, although which is the villain is often hard to determine.
* DisasterDominoes: Several of Æon's missions fail because of an escalating series of accidents, but none more so than in "Ether Drift Theory".
* DyingDream: One of the {{Mooks}} Æon kills in the pilot has a hallucination in the vein resembling ''SteamboatWillie''. Upon realising what he is actually seeing is [[spoiler: a streak of blood on a wall, a gun floating in the literal ''lake'' of blood Æon has created and an apparently dismembered arm]], he sheds a tear of horror.

* [[EvenEvilHasStandards Even Kinkiness Has Standards]]: When an "alien" offers to trade eyeballs with Æon (see below):
--> '''Æon:''' Oh my God, no! I'm sorry, but there are some things even ''I'' won't do!
* ExoticEquipment: Various forms, partly to get past censors by using nonstandard methods of copulation, and partly because, well it's ''Æon Flux''. Examples include a woman with a gap in her spine (due to injury/surgery) having her spinal nerves manually stimulated with medical tools (which, incidentally, was proven to be viable by some doctors in RealLife [[LifeImitatesArt a few years after the show came out]]), sexual imagery involving a behavior-altering mechanism implanted forcefully through the navel, and a species of humanoid "aliens" who apparently engage in sexual contact by taking out an eyeball and replacing it with that of their partner.

* {{Facepalm}}: Done by Æon as she plummets to her death after completely botching an acrobatic manoeuvre on the outside of a plane; also when she watches the embarrassing security camera footage of her falling off a ladder.

* FriendlyEnemy: Despite having completely opposing philosophies and fighting against each other regularly, neither Æon nor Trevor want the other to succumb to any serious harm and there is some [[UnresolvedSexualTension obvious sexual tension]] between the two of them. They have also been known to [[DestructoNookie suddenly make out after meeting on the battlefield]].
* {{Gainaxing}}: Æon's breasts seem to be very carefully animated in some scenes.

** An enormous spoiler was added to "The Purge," ([[spoiler:A transparent image of Æon was superimposed over the Custodian in the final scene, ''heavily'' implying that she was implanted]]) ruining one of the great moments of ambiguity Peter Chung loved to put in the show (See YMMV tab).

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Æon and Trevor's ideologies are taken to such extremes that neither can be said to be totally in the right.
* HandyFeet (Adapted Feet): Scafandra, who had hands transplanted onto her ankles. Æon remarks that she likes them.

* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: A lot of characters, particularly Sybil. Æon Flux's measurements are implied to be 40, 20, 36.

* LeParkour: Æon's most important skill, even though the series began before the word ''parkour'' [[UnbuiltTrope entered into common use.]] (Her movements are jerkier than parkour usually prefers, however.)

* MeaningfulName: Some of the characters' names are somewhere between this and PunnyName. Æon Flux's name implies upheaval and change and literally means "Eternal Change". Trevor Goodchild's name implies obedience, although Peter Chung has denied any symbolic intent and claims he randomly took the name from a school classmate. Donna Matrix sounds like "dominatrix." A semi-religious Monican is named Zennith Nader, and a self-obsessed Breen is named Onan.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Æon quite possibly represents the ultimate deconstruction of this trope.

* {{Monologuing}}: Trevor was deliberately conceived as being overly verbose and having a certain amount of pomposity as a contrast to Æon's clipped, sarcastic speech patterns.

* NeverBringAKnifeToAFistfight: Subverted and then played straight. In the pilot, Æon simply shoots a martial arts-displaying redshirt. In "War," a swordsman shows off in front of a gunman, who simply shoots at him, only for the swordsman to deflect the bullet and kill him. Watching the shorts chronologically, the second example works as a subversion of the first scene, given their similar set-ups.

* OpeningNarration: A discussion between '''Trevor''' and ''Æon''.

* OrderVersusChaos: Æon's not actually "good" and Trevor's not really a cut-and-dried bad guy; they're just [[YouRebelScum The Rebel]] and [[TheMan The Establishment]], respectively.
* OurHeroIsDead: Literally in [[OnceAnEpisode every single episode]] during the silent shorts. During the half-hour episodes Æon tends to survive, with some partial exceptions: One episode where [[spoiler:a copy of her kills the original (which was planned all along)]], another where she's trapped [[spoiler:in a sea of paralytic fluid at the end (although the fluid could be neutralized)]], and another where she seems to die multiple times, but nobody knows [[MindScrew what the hell was literal in that episode anyway]]. [[spoiler:Explained somewhat in the video game.]]

* RedOniBlueOni: Trevor and Æon, respectively. The vain and people-oriented red oni (Trevor) represents order, while the cold and anti-social blue oni (Æon) represents chaos.

* ScrewYourself: Æon makes sure to get a good makeout session with her duplicate, before they part ways to carry out their plan.

* {{Stripperiffic}}: Many outfits worn by various characters are a shade away from pure bondage gear, most notably Æon's. In the DVDCommentary, Chung states that the lack of significant clothing also served to make the body language in the silent shorts easier to see, and compared it to the popularity of nudity in art.
* SympatheticPOV: Played with in the original short episode pilot and in the second short episode. "Pilot" opens with typical action movie music and Æon gunning down extremely implausible numbers of soldiers, action hero style -- then the perspective abruptly changes to that of two enemy soldiers trying to support each other as they gasp for life, shot and dying in the middle of a giant pool of blood. In "War", the identity of the protagonist changes every 20 seconds or so, each one dying when his time is up, as a satire of how viewer sympathy is manipulated in typical action movies.
* TheyKilledKennyAgain: Æon, during the short episodes.
* TooDumbToLive: Most of Æon's deaths in the shorts are a direct result of stupid mistakes, when they're not NecroNonSequitur, which is quite often. This is partly a satire on the trope of the invincible hero in more typical action works.
* {{Twinmaker}}: In one episode, [[spoiler: Æon herself]] gets cloned, and conspires with the original on an assassination attempt. At the end of the episode, one of them is gunned down. [[spoiler: It wasn't the clone.]]

* {{Underboobs}}: One of Æon's costumes.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: The security-obsessed technocrat Trevor is the more obvious example, but one could make a convincing argument that the anarchist Æon fits in right next to him.
* WhatMeasureIsAMook: The concept of {{Mooks}} is deconstructed in the second part of the pilot, which reminds us that under their masks, FacelessGoons are human beings too. (Also see AntiHero and SympatheticPOV.) The film plays it completely straight, by having Æon and Trevor casually kill huge numbers of FacelessGoons with no questioning at all.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Æon suffers a ''lot'' from this, to the point where she could have avoided an entire episode's worth of trouble by doing so in the first place.
* WritingAroundTrademarks: Because MTV didn't support the release of Drew Neumann's soundtrack album, the album had to use the title ''Eye Spy: Ears Only, Confidential'' and not mention Æon Flux at all. Peter Chung drew the cover art using {{Expies}} of ''his own characters''.