Lila Rossi is an Italian student in Miss Bustier's class at Collège Françoise Dupont and the tertiary antagonist of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir.
Personality[]
Lila is proud and loves attention, which she is willing to obtain by lying. This even means going beyond words to support her lies, like buying a necklace that looks like the Fox Miraculous to convince Adrien telling that she is a descendant of the fox-themed superhero. She gets jealous if someone gets more attention or love than her and doesn't like it when someone reveals that her lies aren't true, showing no remorse for lying in the first place. If anyone attempts to expose her, she won't hesitate to try to make them miserable or break them down just to get them out of her way. She also doesn't take advice from those who try to make peace with her or encourage her to be honest like Ladybug or Adrien.
Lila doesn't easily forgive people who she feels wronged her, as she is still furious at Ladybug for ratting her out harshly and ruining her chance to woo Adrien. Asides her lying ability, her desire for vengeance is so great that Gabriel Agreste actually decided to form a formal alliance with her, not just akumatize her.
Lila is highly deceptive and crafty, being able to manipulate people exceedingly with her lies, Tikki even remarking she's never seen someone as skilled at lying as her. She is overly fond of attention and has no qualms with how she may acquire it, leading to her making up various false tales about herself towards her peers in order to garner as much attention as possible. She seems to view no harm in these actions and possesses no remorse for them, yet can be incredibly distraught if they are exposed. Furthermore, she also seems to envy the attention others receive, quickly becoming jealous upon realizing Adrien has a crush on Ladybug and going out of her way to make him feel the same about her. She also does not forgive people whom she thinks to have wronged her easily, as shown in her refusing Ladybug's apology for her harshly exposing her lies.
Her hatred of Ladybug, in general, appears to be rather petty and undying, with her being enraged at the attention she receives and willing to grab up any opportunity to get back at her for supposedly ruining her chances with Adrien. Thus, as Volpina, she takes great joy in beating and tormenting Ladybug, gleeful in nearly succeeding at taking her Miraculous twice by exploiting her emotions. Through her usage of her powers, she can be incredibly precarious in her attempts to overcome Ladybug and Cat Noir, almost never confronting them directly and using her illusions to fool and trick them into being where she needs them to be, although her arrogance in doing so seems to match her cunning. As shown in "Catalyst (Heroes' Day - Part 1)", she seems to take pleasure in ruining Ladybug's reputation using her illusions even after being de-akumatized, showing absolutely no remorse, making her the first of Hawk Moth's victims to genuinely enjoy her actions while akumatized. Overall, Lila is vindictive, spiteful and seemingly detached from telling any sort of truth, making her one of Ladybug and Cat Noir's more clever enemies.
Trivia[]
- The name Lila means "beauty". Maybe the name Lila was chosen because it contains the syllable li-, which is pronounced "lie", in connection with all the lies that Lila tells.
- In the Brazilian dub, her name is changed to Layla.
- The surname Rossi means "red" in Italian.
- Her surname also reference to Valentino Rossi. A Motogp rider with 9 world championships since his debut back in 1996.
- As seen in "Catalyst", Lila's room is decorated with masks, which symbolize hiding truth.
- Volpina is similar to the word volpe, which is Italian for "fox". The suffix "-ina" indicates "small" and is often used in feminine names among friends, as a form of nickname or pet name. Roughly translated, "Volpina" means "Vixen" or "Small Fox" in Italian.
- Lila was first revealed when Wilfried Pain posted a drawing of her as Volpina on his Twitter. When a fan page on Facebook shared the image, Thomas Astruc added a comment where he revealed her akumatized name
- Later, Thomas posted a picture on Twitter as a sneak peak of Lila (as Volpina) with the caption "Una ragazza italiana in Pariggi," meaning "An Italian girl in Paris."
- When Mélody Cisinski was asked on Tumblr if Volpina would show up eventually before Season 1 ended, she replied "yes and no."
- Thomas noted that he intentionally made Lila to be unlovable.
- Volpina's abilities are based on the Fox Miraculous holder and Rena Rouge's powers, similar to how Copycat has Cat Noir's powers, Antibug has powers similar to Ladybug's and Queen Wasp is similar to Queen Bee.
- Lila tells several stories assumed to be lies:
- She knows Prince Ali and flew with him in his private jet.
- Jagged Stone wrote a song about Lila.
- Lila knows all of the Hollywood directors. She promised she'd introduce Nino to Steven Besielberg.
- Ladybug saved Lila's life, and the two of them are best friends.
- Lila loves superheroes.
- Lila claims to be a descendant of a Fox Miraculous holder seen in the Miraculous spellbook, calling her Volpina. According to Lila, Volpina is "one of the most important superheroes, more powerful and celebrated than Ladybug." Lila also claimed her grandmother gave her the Fox Miraculous, showing a simular looking trinket she bought in a giftshop after seeing the miraculous in the Grimoire.
- In the French dubbed version, she tells Alya that her parents are diplomats and that she has traveled a lot.
- As Volpina, most of the things she says are lies. For example, she tells Adrien and all of Paris that she is a true superhero.
- She has a close relationship with prince Ali.
- She saved Jagged Stone's kitten.
- Based on Lila's behavior and mindset, she has a classic case of anti-social personality disorder, a mental disorder characterized when a person is unable to feel empathy to others and only understands emotions that affect themselves, such as gratification.
- Despite her claims of being a descendant of a fox-themed superheroine being false, Lila physically looks like the holder of the Fox Miraculous illustrated in the Miraculous spellbook.
- She is the first akumatized villain to have amplified Miraculous superpowers, as it's revealed in "Timetagger" that prolonged and multiply use of said powers only occur when a holder grows into an adult.
- She is the the third akumatized villain who doesn't appear in the theme song or its animatic in Season 1. The others are Animan and Kung Food, both of whom appear in the animatic.
- Lila is the only known person, besides Hawk Moth and Mayura, that sees Ladybug as her enemy even while not akumatized.
- Lila is the first previously akumatized victim to be reakumatized with the same supervillain identity but with a different akuma.
- Also, the akuma which affects her is the first seen akuma to be de-evilized by Hawk Moth himself and removed onscreen.
- Lila's smirk after being de-evilized in "Catalyst" implies she may have been the first person to be willingly akumatized other than Hawk Moth himself and his assistant Nathalie.
- Lila is the third person to be akumatized voluntarily, but the first to direct the akuma to an object.
- She is also the first akumatized victim to introduce herself to Hawk Moth instead of the other way around.
- Her powers both as Volpina and Chameleon have to do with lies and deception.
- Her name and abilities as the latter may also be based on the Spider-Man villain Chameleon.
- Despite her third akumatization being caused by Scarlet Moth, she didn't have a red-colored appearance.
- According to Thomas, this was an animation error.
- In "Style Queen", Lila appears in the audience, but according to Thomas Astruc, it was actually an animation mistake and she wasn't supposed to be in the episode or its use as a clip in "Queen Wasp".[15]
- Every time Lila gets deakumatized, she is on the Eiffel Tower.
- Lila is the second person to rival Marinette for Adrien's affections, behind Chloé Bourgeois.
- Also, it is interesting to note that while Chloé becomes progressively more heroic over the course of the series, especially during "Malediktator", Lila, on the other hand, becomes much more antagonistic and dangerous than Chloé over the course of the series.
- This has not been officially confirmed on the show.
- Volpina appears another time in "Gamer 2.0" for Gamer's powers.
- A statue of Volpina appears in the Musée Grévin in "The Puppeteer 2".
- Lila's akumatization into Chameleon marks the first time a villain doesn't change their appearance upon akumatization; however, this quickly changes after she uses her powers on Adrien.
- Also, the akuma which affects her is the first seen akuma to be de-evilized by Hawk Moth himself and removed onscreen.
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