Quick Links
Few stories are as head-scratching as the one told by Who’s Lila?, an indie title that seeks to burrow that question deep within your psyche. You won’t only be wondering who Lila is, but who all the characters are, since nearly all of them seem to be hiding a deeper meaning.
While there are 16 endings for you to find, all of them are canon in their own way, meaning that they all tell the same story. If you’ve seen all of them and you need some closure, or if you just want to know who (or what) Lila is, then you’ve come to the right place.
As Expected, Spoilers Ahead
The Timeline Of Events
The story and goal of the gamecan be divided into three layers, each becoming more conceptual than the next. The first layer is the simplest to understand, although still a little complicated to wrap your head around:the timeline of events, from William ‘meeting’ Lila to him getting questioned by the police.
Creating Lila: The Lawrence Fraternity
In the world of the game, there aredivine beings known as memetic agents, who gain power from the attention people give them. They can do nearly anything, as long asthere is someone thinking about themto give them power.
The Lawrence Fraternitywas formed by Professor W.A. Lawrence (known by its members as Father Lawrence) and Fedor I. Ryibkin to study these memetic agents,aiming to create one from scratchthat they could control. They gave their members a description of a mental image they needed to form, andthat the name of the meme was Lila.
William Clarke, a high school studentand member of the Lawrence Fraternity,became the main ‘host’ of Lila.Like most participants of the Fraternity,William didn’t think Lila was alive at all, at least not at first, and he saw her as a sort of thought experiment and part of his imagination.
William, Lila And The FBI
When the FBI learned of a culttrying to create an artificial memetic agent,they set the Fraternity on fire, killing nearly everyone involved.William survivedbecause he was feeling ill and didn’t attend the Fraternity’s meeting, and Lila survived inside of him.
Lila and William had regular conversations aboutthe concept of existence and what being alive even means; this was all a tactic developed by Lila tohave William succumb to her, making Lila the main host of William’s body.He managed to push her awayfrom his thoughts, forcefully forgetting about her and, in essence, making her cease to be.
William And Tanya
After the events of the Fraternity, William tries to move on with his life andgoes to a high school party.There,he bonds with Tanya Kennedy, a popular girl who is filled with insecurities. They share a kiss and, at that moment, a thought reappears in William’s mind:Tanya looks just like someone. She looks just like Lila.
The game uses different pictures to depict Lila and Tanya, but they are different shots of the same model.
They end up spending a night together, but in his confusion,William asks Tanya if she is in fact Lila, to which Tanya asks“Who’s Lila?”which triggers the absolute Lila takeover. Being able to commandeer William’s body at will,Lila kills Tanya and hides her body.
The Start Of The Game And Martha’s Murder
When you start playing the game,you aren’t playing as William, but as Lila in William’s body.From there, you can go to several locations and find all sorts of endings, some of which are flashbacks from before Lila gained control of William, hence why we can learn the whole story.
Sinceall endings are canon(this is said by Lila during the interrogations of Detective Yu), we know that the next series of events lead toLila going after Martha Jennings(another high school student) andkilling her in her apartment.
This leads to ‘William’ being brought into questioning by the police, who eventually find out that ‘William’ was the one behind Tanya and Martha’s murders.
Lila And Detective Yu
As you expand your collection of endings,you can discuss them with Detective Yu at his office.Yu, unlike the other officers who are questioning William,is aware that he is actually talking to Lila, and this is where the second layer of the game starts.
Each layer is about the same thing:Lila gaining a host by having said host think only of her, ensuring her continued existence.
Remember that, as a meme,she can only be as long as someone is thinking of her, and ceases to be whenever everyone has forgotten about her.
During the initial timeline of events,Lila uses William as a host, and all the interrogations with Yu seem to only serve as a way to interpret these endings. The purpose of this layer is different, however, since what Lila is trying to do ismake Yu her new host.
Who Are We Playing As?
During most of the game, you control either William during a flashback, or Lila using William’s body, but during the conversations with Yu it isn’t as clear. Detective Yu tells Lila to pick a card to talk about, which might hint towards us playing as Lila.
However,in the Hierophant ending, when Detective Yu is about to shoot William,you take direct control of Yu.If you fire or close the game, the next conversation will reference this, acting as if the decision was made by Yu alone.
Even if Yu kills William, Lila remains, since there is still someone thinking about her (Detective Yu in this case).For the whole game, you were playing as Detective Yulistening to Lila tell her story, becoming ‘infected’ by her, and acting as her new host.
Who’s Lila?
The third and final layer of the game is the answer to its title:Lila is the mystery of not knowing who Lila is, something explicitly said by the game in Morse code at the forest location.The point of the game is the point of Lila’s existence, that is, to be thought about constantly so she can continue to be.
Her final host isn’t William or Detective Yu,but you, the player.The whole story is filled with details and hidden meanings, with enough hints to point in a few directions, butnot enough to reach a destination.
Reaching a conclusionwould be the end for Lila, as she explicitly says when talking about the Death ending with Detective Yu. If there was a clear answer to the mystery, people would cease to talk about it,making Lila cease to be.
This means that Lila isn’t just the one depicted in the game, butshe is the whole game, at least from the perspective of this third layer. She isn’t just Lila,she is “Who’s Lila?”, and like any piece of media, it can only exist thanks to your undivided attention.
