Lila/Chrysalis Analysis
So, after I made a post exploring the possibility of Lila being Tomoe’s daughter (and Kagami’s sister), I decided to also make an analysis of her character as a whole. I will take into consideration the possibility that she is indeed Tomoe’s daughter, while still primarily focusing on information that we see in the show that is confirmed. So without further ado, let’s dig right in!
Lila is introduced in the first season in the episode “Volpina” where she is shown to be a liar. She lies as easily as she breathes and it’s mostly to make herself look better, by claiming to know celebrities and other affluent, successful people. And she is shown to be quite a convincing liar since almost everyone seems to believe her, except Marinette. And Marinette only clocked her lies because Lila lied about knowing Ladybug, something Marinette can confirm is not true. Before that, Marinette was also seemingly believing the lies Lila was telling. Throughout the episode, Lila lies repetitively in order to get closer to Adrien, whom she seems to have feelings for. This results in Marinette getting jealous and exposing Lila’s lies to Adrien as Ladybug. Feeling humiliated by Ladybug, Lilah gets akumatized for the first time, as Volpina. This is the beginning of Lila’s long-standing hatred and resentment towards Ladybug, both for hurting her ego and foiling her plans to get closer to Adrien by exposing her to him as a liar.
Most of Lila’s episodes in the early seasons followed a similar pattern. She comes back after being absent for a while, she makes up a bunch of lies that usually serves the purpose of making herself look better and important, and most people except Marinette blindly believe her. Then she ends up being akumatized whenever things don’t go her away or her lies get exposed. In most of the times, her akumatization is fueled by her hatred for Ladybug and/or Marinette exposing her lies. And in some cases, she willingly let herself be akumatized and choose to work with Hawk Moth of her own free will. She never shows remorse for her actions and how her lies affected others, even after she gets de-akumatized. It only reinforces her hatred for Ladybug and in some cases she pretends feeling bad for what she had done, but it is never sincere and she quickly resumes to continuing telling lies.
From those episodes we can already get a good idea of Lila’s personality. She’s a pathological liar who lies specifically to elevate herself by claiming to know celebrities, affluent people and being involved in many humanitarian causes. And she is quite skilled at manipulating others into believing her, since most people get deceived by her lies, showing how persuasive, charming and even charismatic she can be. She’s quite smart and cunning as well as ruthless when she is determined to get what she wants, and doesn’t show any remorse for how her actions and lies affect others. She is also quick to anger when things don't go her way. Most of her motivations to do what she does seem to stem from personal benefit or her bruised ego, with complete disregard for others.
Given her personality, a lot of the fans either label Lila a sociopath or a psychopath. It’s important to clarify that neither terms are official medical terms and they usually refer to “antisocial personality disorder” (ASPD). One of the criteria for this diagnosis is to be at least 18 years old, meaning Lila would be too young to get diagnosed. But, there is a similar disorder for youth (which is usually required to be diagnosed with ASPD), called “conduct disorder”. So let’s see if Lila would qualify for that diagnosis by first looking at the criteria:
I think it is safe to say that Lila exhibited most of those criteria. She repetitively causes harm to people and shows no remorse for that and have a lack of empathy for others, she purposefully let herself get akumatized knowing it will cause harm and damage, she is extremely deceitful and lies constantly for her own gain, and she has no issue breaking the rules to achieve her own goal. One of the criteria for ASPD is to show signs of conduct disorder before the age of 15, which is the case for Lila. So, theoretically, if Lila continues in this path, she would probably fit the diagnosis for ASPD once she becomes an adult.
But I don’t think this is the only diagnosis that fits Lila. And that would be narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Let’s take a look at the criteria:
Right off the bat, Lila exhibits a lot of those criteria. The way she lies constantly and exaggerates her achievements, while also wanting to have that kind of grandiose life, which she feels entitled to. Most of her actions throughout the show proves it, since her lies are both meant to make herself look better but also get closer to affluent people, such as the Agreste, to further her own social standing. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Lila does think she is “special” and therefore, deserves to be associated with people of high-status. Her lies also show how much she loves having the admiration of others, and she feels entitled to special privileges. She is also manipulative and uses others to further her own gain, most of her relationships are exploitative by nature and exist solely to serve her needs. She also doesn’t seem to have empathy for others and is solely preoccupied with her own desire over others. She is also shown to be envious of those who get the attention and recognition she desires, for example with Ladybug, hence why she lied about being the descendant of a the vixen superheroine “Volpina” (and bragged about her being even better than Ladybug), and also when she is envious of Kagami being allowed to go to the Diamond Ball while she can’t because she isn’t a “precious stone”. However, Lila doesn’t outright act arrogant or haughty, she presents a facade that is usually humble, but we know it’s insincere. I would say that Lila is an arrogant person as she genuinely seems to believe and act as if she is above others, she’s just good at hiding it with fake modesty.
I’m pretty confident that Lila would qualify for a NPD diagnosis. You only need to exhibit a minimum of five criteria and she practically shows signs of fitting all of them. So in my opinion, Lila is indeed a narcissist with potentially conduct disorder. But, neither of them are innate, they are usually the product of one’s environment, nurture and often trauma. So why did Lila end up the way she is? If you read my previous Lila post, then you know I strongly believe she is indeed Tomoe’s daughter and Kagami’s sister. And I think that it would perfectly explain why Lila turned out the way she did. Let me explain.
If we assume that Lila is actually Tomoe’s first child, then it’d mean she was abandoned by her, in favor of Kagami, her more “perfect” daughter. Being the illegitimate child of a prestigious family and being viewed as “lesser”, as well as denied motherly love and a life of luxury could definitely have led Lila to develop NPD. It does seem like Lila exhibits some “mommy issues”, given all the fake mothers she collected. One of these might be her legal adoptive mother, but it is also possible she grew up in an orphanage or a foster family. We do know that for at least one of her mothers, she convinced her that she was actually her real daughter, claiming that they “found each other”. It would mean that Lila specifically targeted a woman who might have given her daughter to adoption, and claimed to be that child years ago. This might be the way she managed to collect mothers. Perhaps this is the result of her looking for her birth mother, and ended up collecting fake mothers along the way. She felt unloved by her biological mother, therefore she craves as much motherly love as she can get from other women.
Lila’s actions in the show are also consistent with that. Since her first appearance, she always tried to associate herself with the elite, both through her lies and her manipulation, trying to get closer to people such as the Agrestes. She even “befriended” Kagami and Chloe, two people who belonged to an affluent family. If Lila feels like she was denied her birthright as the eldest daughter of the Tsurugi family, it would make sense for her to feel entitled to that sort of life and try to elevate herself to that status. All steps Lila has taken was to get her closer to being part of the upper class. Both because she feels like she should have always been part of that world, but also perhaps to finally gain the approval of Tomoe, her birth mother. To make her recognize that she is her daughter and she deserved to be part of the Tsurugi family. When she couldn’t get that through her usual manipulation, Lila sought more power and ended up as the new holder of the butterfly miraculous, which I believe is a way to force Tomoe to recognize how powerful she can get and that she could have been the daughter worthy of her expectations.
I do think proving her worth to her birth mother has always been Lila’s initial (and main) goal, but it slightly changed when she first met Ladybug. After Ladybug exposed her lies and ruined her chance to get closer to Adrien as she planned, Lila started nurturing a vendetta against her. I do think Lila always intended to get involved with the Agreste family in order to get closer to Tomoe, and Ladybug made this goal more difficult. This resentment made it so Lila’s goal isn’t just to seek the approval of her birth mother, but also defeat Ladybug to get revenge on her for making things more complicated for her. For Lila, who always has a wounded ego from being abandoned by her birth mother and feeling like she had been “replaced” by Kagami as her more “perfect” daughter, being humiliated like that by Ladybug must have given her a profound narcissistic injury. And therefore, Lila develops this fixation on Ladybug, and an obsession in taking her down.
This is a good segue to the next aspect I wanted to analyse: Lila’s relationships with others. While she does lack any meaningful, sincere friendships, she does have certain relationships that are worth exploring and how it relates to her goals and narcissism.
Let’s start with Adrien. Despite what Lila claims, I do not personally believe she ever had a sincere crush on him. I think Adrien has always been a means to an end for her. As soon as Adrien started to push back against her and made it clear he knew she was a liar and even tried to reason with her, she took it as an insult because she felt like he was lecturing her and it probably hurt her ego. Once she realized that Adrien knew what kind of person she truly was and therefore, she couldn’t manipulate him like she did with others, she lost interest in trying to be in a relationship with him. And this lack of genuine interest in him is apparent in season 5, where she became his “partner” for the alliance ring, which satisfies her, showing that she was never seeking an actual romantic relationship with him, just the prestige of being with him. I also think part of her interest in him was in order to get closer to Gabriel, who Lila eventually figured out was Monarch, and become his ally. Or rather, use him to achieve her own goals. Also, the fact it is now heavily implied that she is Kagami’s sister does recontextualize her desire to be with Adrien. As sentibeings, Kagami and Adrien were quite literally made with them becoming partners in mind. So it is possible that, out of jealousy and resentment towards her sister being their mother’s favorite daughter, Lila was also motivated to get with Adrien to take “take him away” from Kagami. To get back at Tomoe by stealing her, or to prove to her that she’s just as worthy, if not more, than Kagami.
The way Lila feels about Ladybug and Marinette feels different to me, especially in the earlier season when she is unaware that they are the same person (while she is suspecting it in season 6). Lila has nothing but hatred for Ladybug, even since she humiliated her in front of Adrien and exposed her as a liar, ruining her chances to manipulate him. Her resentment for Ladybug is often the cause of her many azumatizations. Her ego was so bruised by that that she couldn’t even pretend to get along with Ladybug for the sake of keeping up appearances. While she absolutely despises Ladybug, it doesn’t seem like Lila hates Marinette. At least, not as much. If anything, she seems somewhat amused by her. Marinette is one of the rare people who could see through her lies and even challenge her, and I think part of Lila is intrigued by her. Unlike Ladybug, Marinette wasn’t able to actually expose Lila’s lies (until season 5), so it might have been simply amusing to see her try to do so and fail, and an ego boost for Lila to be able to still lie and manipulate others despite Marinette’s interference. Unlike Ladybug, whom Lila views as a threat, Marinette is at worst a nuisance, and at best an entertainment. There was a scene where Lila saw Marinette in a compromise situation and she pondered if she should use that to humiliate, but decided not to, because it’d be “too easy”.
So I do think Lila did “appreciate” Marinette and the challenge she posed to her, but only because she didn’t view her as an actual threat. Until season 5, when she helped expose Lila’s lies once and for all, forcing Lila to abandon the “Lila Rossi” persona and leave the school. I think this is one of the reasons why Lila started putting 2 and 2 together and realized Marinette was Ladybug. Perhaps even realizing that the reason why Marinette could tell she was a liar was that she was Ladybug and knew Lila was lying about them being friends, and she is now trying to prove they were the same person.
All of Lila’s relationships in the show seemed to be one-sided, where she pretends to be people’s friends but it’s only to get something out of it. We saw it with Kagami, Chloe, and basically the whole class. None of her relationships is genuine, other than perhaps with Tomoe. I think Lila has complicated feelings towards her birth mother, where she both resents her for abandoning her but also is desperate for her approval. She’s not directly hostile towards Tomoe, but some of her behaviors around her do feel passive-aggressive. She is quick to taunt her about Kagami not listening to her anymore and breaking free from her control, then uses this to try to convince Tomoe to train her instead. She does want Tomoe’s recognition and probably to be accepted as her daughter.
And I do think that, whatever Lila’s ultimate goal is, it is related to Tomoe. I think since s1, Lila has been trying to prove her worth to her birth mother, by climbing the social ladder through her lies and manipulation and getting involved with affluent people. She somewhat succeeded when she became part of the Alliance Ring, but once she was discarded by Gabriel, she sought another way to gain Tomoe’s respect, and it was through gaining a miraculous. The Butterfly Miraculous, more specifically. Both for the power it would give her, and as retribution against Gabriel. Being the new butterfly holder was the perfect outcome for her, since she could get closer to Tomoe, who was Gabriel’s previous ally as Monarch. But also, Lila does hold a grudge against Ladybug, specifically because she poses a threat to her goal, as she made things harder for her when she exposed her lies to Adrien. So while I don’t think Lila’s ultimate goal solely revolved around defeating Ladybug, she is now part of Lila’s personal vendetta and defeating her could help her prove her worth to Tomoe, since she was also previously her enemy and is still a threat to her birth mother. I think Lila wants to accomplish what Gabriel and Tomoe failed to (which is, get the ladybug and cat miraculous) to prove she was better than them, and that Tomoe should have chosen her as her legitimate daughter instead of making Kagami. And of course, she’d get to make a wish. But what exactly Lila’s wish would be is something I’d rather keep for another analysis.
And that will be all for this analysis. Thanks for reading until the end and I hope you liked it. Please feel free to let me know what you think, and hopefully we will get the finale for s6 soon, and it will answer some of our questions regarding Lila!
