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Laura Gauthier 
|  |  | "I'm so delighted for her, except that Laura is not here to have fun. She is here to achieve the highest level."
#12 Chaos at Kadic |
A new arrival at Kadic Academy, Laura is a gifted student. However, it's hard for her to shine as brightly as she'd like because she just so happens to be in the same class as Jeremy Belpois, a student just as smart as she, if not more so. Even if Laura was quickly noticed when she solved an exercise that Jeremy couldn't (episode 04 “Lady Einstein”), the genius boy remains first in class, to the blonde girl's great displeasure.
Laura was enrolled at Kadic by her father, a man very high up in society who graduated top of his class from the École Polytechnique. The man hopes that Kadic will push Laura to the to;. He is very inflexible and extremely strict, putting huge pressure on his daughter. We know nothing else about Laura's family.
By several strokes of fate, Laura was brought into the conflict with XANA and found a unique place in the group. She herself is a third point of intrigue, alongside Tyron and XANA. Her character is the disruptive element in the group's cohesion, like Sissi and William before her. And her place as a simultaneous powerful ally and the team troublemaker make her a very original character. | | |
| |  | "What are you trying to prove? They're not gonna like this."
"I know, but... That's the price to pay when we're misunderstood."
#22 Mutiny! |  |
Laura is the newcomer in the group of Lyoko Warriors. She quickly develops a peculiar relationship with the group. At first, she's only interested in Jeremy, completely ignoring the others.
This interest in the genius boy immediately puts her on bad terms with Aelita (episode 04 “Lady Einstein”). And this is without any real reason, since Laura only seems interested in the pinkette's blond boy for professional reasons: Laura is happy to have someone to talk about computing with as equals. As such, she isn't interested in the rest of the group.
Laura has difficulty being accepted. Not only did she force her way into the group, but she also has a rather hot-headed temperament. Laura is (for good reason?) very self-assured, maybe too self-assured. That makes her a girl who behaves, without even realising it, in a condescending and sometimes even completely arrogant way.
This is shown through the jokes and sighs she gives to the others. Actually, Laura underestimates XANA. This is understandable: she has only ever known the weakened version of the virus and she's not under any threat from spectres. However, Laura is confident in her abilities. Various events often prove her right as she manages tor solve problems that not even the combined efforts of Jeremy and Aelita can sort out.
Laura feels like she has a mission. She's sure she has a bright future ahead and certain that she can beat XANA by herself. This is what causes her definitive exclusion from the group after she and WIlliam went on a mission to destroy the Cortex alone (episode 22 “Mutiny!”).
All these behavioural problems can be explained with Laura's father. A very clever man, but arrogant and full of himself, he inflicts great pressure on his daughter so that she can do her best. Laura's behaviour is the same as her father's when she thinks of herself as being better than her peers.
So, and because of this very strict education, Laura doesn't look for love or friendship. She doesn't care about how coldly the Lyoko Warriors' coldness or Aelita's animosity. Above all, what she wants is gratitude. She wants her great talent to be acknowledged. So, she can't resist putting herself in the spotlight when she does something successfully (episode 12 “Chaos at Kadic”). She gets upset when nobody acknowledges that she is the reason for a mission's success (episode 11 “Rendezvous”). In the end, she is surprised and touched when Aelita comes to thank her personally.
Despite this, Laura is still not accepted. She only considers the Lyoko Warriors as virtual tools. And Jeremy only gives her half the gratitude she deserves, being much too afraid of showing more appreciation for the blonde than Aelita.
However, Laura is determined. She is quick to volunteer for things and is as hard-working as Jeremy, with whom she spends countless hours developing the virus. She is also very curious, which pushes her to investigate Aelita's past, or even follow the heroes to the factory the first time she meets them.
Laura has one last set of faults: she can be very derisive, and even sneaky. However, the debate on who is right and who is wrong is still ongoing. Is Laura only defending herself against Aelita's wickedness? Or does she take pleasure in annoying Jeremy's doll, through which she seems to find some kind of concurrence... A big debate for the fans!
Finally, Laura is manipulative and calculating if need be. She uses William's weak spots and his feelings for Yumi to get him to help her in episode 22. When Aelita is depressed and comes to Jeremy's room to seek comfort, Laura is satisfied to see Aelita making her way back and doesn't even tell Jeremy she was there (episode 18 “Resolve”).
Laura's personality is indeed very contrasted...and that's what makes her character interesting. | | |
| |  | "XANA is an AI. And all AIs follow some logic. There has to be a pattern. Some kind of sequential repetition in the way the towers flash on and off."
#11 Rendezvous |
After Laura proved herself by helping Jeremy with an emergency Megapod debugging (episode 04 “Lady Einstein”), she's recruited into the group to help the operator when Aelita is on Lyoko. She therefore has no reason to go to the virtual world, even if this almost happens in episode 13 “Betting on Odd” so that she could debug the Skid.
And so her role is the same as Jeremy's. She's often there to help when the genius is in charge. She has, however, taken matters into her own hands (episodes 11 “Rendezvous” and 22 “Mutiny!”).
As Laura joined the group far later than the others, her skills are very paradoxical. She excels in certain areas in which Jeremy is lacking, notably in creating computer viruses (episode 08 “Virus”) and understanding AIs (episode 11 “Rendezvous”). However, she seems to lack some basic skills in extremely simple things that Jeremy does easily, such as virtualising the Megapod (episode 22 “Mutiny!”).
Laura is often sidelined by the heroes because they don't trust her. However, she's often there to help when the situation worsens. She helped Jeremy with many tasks, such as creating the doppelgänger identification program (episode 21 “Imposters”). And without her, the virus that Jeremy infects Tyron's supercomputer with wouldn't even exist.
In general, Laura didn't know the real dangers of the fight against XANA, and this puts her a fair distance away from the heroes. | | |
| | "One of these avatars might be yours. Who knows? No... None of them look like you. Maybe you're the one who gets left out. The one no one trusts."
#17 A Bright Career Ahead |  |
Laura arrives at Kadic in the middle of the year. Determined to be noticed, she hasn't the slightest idea just how much she will succeed. A boy in her class attracts her attention: Jeremy Belpois. Very skilled in computing, he and his group of friends seem to be hiding a secret. She tries to worm her way in, but fails. After following them, she discovers what's been going on: the group of teenagers is fighting against an artificial intelligence from a high-tech laboratory hidden in an abandoned factory. Within this lab is a Supercomputer generating a virtual world. Laura has just discovered the secret of Lyoko. Arriving out of the blue in the middle of a mission, Jeremy is unable to shoo her away. However, Laura proves herself to be extremely useful by helping Jeremy, who is trying to save Yumi from falling into the Digital Sea. Aelita wants to take her place after being devirtualised, but Jeremy stops her. Thus, the conflict between the two girls begins.
Yumi is eventually saved and the group debates whether Laura should be allowed into the group or not. It's the blonde's first time in the lab and she has already shown her potential. But as the group prepares to vote, Aelita launches the return to the past (episode 04 “Lady Einstein”).
It's back to the start for the young girl...almost.
Jeremy really noticed her talent. When he fails to make a virus designed to destroy the supercomputer belonging to their enemy, Tyron, he decides to ask for her help. He then decides to launch a Return to the Past afterwards to erase her memory. He would only use her brain for a limited time. So Odd steals her tablet and leads Laura to the laboratory.
She accepts the mission given to her by Jeremy and helps him to develop the virus. However, she realises that she is being used. She then modifies the Return to the Past to exclude herself from its effects. The heroes launch it, but Laura doesn't forget anything and soon makes her way back to the lab. She helps the Lyoko Warriors once again. Then, despite her usefulness, they decide that they will only ask for her help as a last resort and will leave her out the rest of the time (episode 08 “Virus”).
However, this conclusion is very unrewarding for them, because Laura soon reveals herself to be a very precious trump card. Being codeless, she's obviously not targeted by XANA's spectres. However, she's given a main role in the creation of the virus. The first version didn't work because Tyron has made some modifications to his supercomputer. She and Jeremy therefore work as hard as they can on a better version.
This professional complicity between them displeases Aelita, who doesn't miss an opportunity to have a go at Laura. The blonde doesn't do anything to ease the situation, even adding more fuel to the fire by looking into Aelita's past concerning Franz Hopper (episode 16 “Confusion”).
Despite this, Laura is often able to shine. During a mission in which Jeremy and Aelita are unavailable, the blonde girl handles things by herself, solving the harsh problem of the activated tower protection system being used by XANA. She's also called in an emergency when XANA infects the Skid with a virus. She was even nearly virtualised to repair the ship, but this never came to pass.
She is also the first one to discover that the Cortex also has towers, like Lyoko, and that XANA can launch attacks from there.
Always being rebuffed by the heroes, Laura ends up feeling resentment towards them. The situation doesn't get any better when Laura's father arrives at Kadic to take her to another school. Seeing her access to the Supercomputer fading away and knowing that her “friends” wouldn't lift a finger to help her, she brings her father to the lab to force Jeremy to talk to him. He launches a Return to the Past, which erases Laura's father's visit. The gifted girl's situation with the group gets even worse (episode 12 “Chaos at Kadic”).
This is when a new opportunity presents itself to her. Tyron sends one of his men, Graven, to Kadic to try and find the heroes. Asked to do a quantum physics skills test, Laura tries to falsify her responses but eventually gets caught. Graven asks her to collaborate and bribes her with an invitation to Tyron's centre for the gifted, leaving a calling card with her.
The Warriors eventually manage to keep Graven away with a Return to the Past...but Laura secretly keeps the card and all the future opportunities that are linked to it (episode 17 “A Bright Career Ahead”).
The virus she's creating with Jeremy is finally finished. Laura is with the heroes when they discover that Aelita's mother is still alive. She silently accepts their choice not to use the virus in order to allow the pinkette to find her parent (episode 18 “Resolve”).
However, the more Jeremy improves on the virus with her, the more impatient the girl grows, shocked to see that the Lyoko Warriors are taking the risk of keeping XANA alive for personal reasons. She decides to take action. She goes to see William and manipulates him into going to the Cortex and using the virus to destroy the virtual world. Being very annoyed at Yumi at the time, the ex-XANA Warrior accepts. The mission goes south. Laura is unable to virtualise the Megapod and William is caught by the Scyphozoa. The heroes arrive and save the day.
Jeremy then reveals that he had secretly been working on the Return to the Past. It can now affect Laura again. Following a vote, the group decides to expel Laura; the Return to the Past is activated and the blonde forgets everything (episode 22 “Mutiny!”).
From there, the Lyoko adventure is over for Laura.
However, without anyone knowing, Laura hasn't yet finished causing trouble for the group. Laura soon rediscovers the card Graven gave to her among the things in her bag. Curious, she decides to call the centre. She ends up speaking to Tyron himself. After several questions, she eventually reveals that the virtual avatars she is shown look like “Jeremy Belpois' group”. Now holding the information he longed for, Tyron hangs up.
The girl is left flabbergasted and without any future opportunity in quantum physics...but she has unknowingly revealed to Tyron that the students he is looking for are enrolled at Kadic Academy, which leads to his visit to the establishment (episode 24 “Time Warp”).
The series ends on a rather discrete note for Laura, who will apparently live a normal life from now on. | | |
| |  | "You really want to ask Laura for help?"
#08 Virus |
Although featuring in the opening credits and being long time considered as the new main character in Evolution, Laura only ended up appearing in a limited number of episodes. In addition to this list, she also had a one-scene, non-speaking role in episode 23 "Jeremy's Blues."
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| |  | The actress portraying Laura Gauthier in Code Lyoko Evolution is Pauline Serieys. Click on the picture to reach her page! |
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