PicoBlog

[Warning: This essay contains spoilers from Warrior Nun seasons 1 and 2.]

There are many reasons why Lilith is my favorite character in Warrior Nun.

The bitter rival has been a character in stories since the dawn of time. To every Cain there is an Abel. To every Rick Grimes there is a Shane Walsh. But there is not always a rival who is an enemy like those previous two examples. Sometimes a rival is someone who starts off as an enemy, but who is only pitted against the protagonist because of the circumstances of the story. Sometimes the rival isn't evil, but is instead someone who genuinely wants what they want because they think it's what they deserve. And sometimes they do deserve it. Sometimes what they want is just the status quo to be fulfilled, because anything else could plunge their world and their story into the unknown and the dangerous. Sometimes, a rival is just doing what they think is right, even if it pits them against the main hero or those around the main hero.

Lilith acts as the rival character throughout Warrior Nun, fulfilling the role in a way that doesn't mesh with the typical idea of what a rival is. Not over time, anyway. When she is first introduced, though, Lilith is clearly meant to be an opposing force to Ava. Lilith was supposed to inherit the halo after Sister Shannon, but with the halo having been hidden away in Ava's back, the expected passing of the halo from one nun to another had been interrupted. Lilith has a genuine, justifiable reason as to why she doesn't like Ava. To her, Ava is a nobody that's taken the most prized possession of the OCS. Something that belongs to Lilith, not some random outsider that doesn't understand the nuances of the world she's been forced to step into. Her distrust and partial hatred of Ava is understandable, as it manifests itself in her wanting to keep everything the same.

Lilith's training of Ava in Season 1, Episode 3 is harsh, but it doesn't just seem to come from a place of jealousy. Yes, that jealousy is there, but Lilith never directly confronts Ava about her anger surrounding the halo's new home. It stews in Lilith instead, coming out in her harshness while helping Mother Superion train Ava for the first time. But Lilith is shown to also be incredibly loyal to the OCS. Later, when then-Cardinal Duretti orders Lilith to find Ava, pretty much telling Lilith she would be a better candidate for the halo, she follows his order without question. She does have a personal stake in the situation, of course. After all, the halo technically belonged to her even when it wasn't in her possession yet. But she doesn't go after Ava on her own. Instead, she waits for Duretti to give her the order, her fealty to the OCS trumping her personal vendetta.

Or does it?

Part of what makes Lilith such an interesting character to me is the layers to her motivation, even when it seems like she's doing things out of loyalty or to save others. She doesn't go hunting for Ava until after Duretti orders her to, which I've presented above as her loyalty to the OCS being more important to her than her wanting the halo. But that's only one way to interpret Lilith's willingness to accept Duretti's mission. One could argue that Lilith takes advantage of Duretti's request to find Ava, deciding to use it as an opportunity to get the halo for herself. While a viewer can interpret this as her putting her loyalty above her personal agenda—the halo is better in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, after all—it can also be considered her using her loyalty to justify what she'd been thinking of doing in the back of her mind.

But what's interesting is that she waits for Duretti's orders before acting. Instead of actually committing to the thoughts she may have regarding Ava having the halo and deciding to do something about it, Lilith doesn't make any moves until she's gotten direct word from the OCS to do so. Even a small decision like this underscores the layers and mystery surrounding her character motivations from the start. Lilith is strong enough to do what she wants, but she also has underlying loyalties that need to be fulfilled first. Either as an excuse, or because of her loyalty to the OCS, is hard to say. But both personal motive and her status as a nun loyal to the OCS motivate her to follow Duretti's orders and find Ava.

As she does so, she's chased by Shotgun Mary, who has been sent by Father Vincent to get Ava back to the OCS' church in Spain alive. Season 1, Episode 5 sees the pair dueling quite extensively, allowing Lilith's fighting abilities to finally be showcased full-on. Because the fight scenes appear to reflect the conflict within the OCS as Lilith hunts Ava down, her fighting style is able to reflect how she feels. Lilith fights with strength and cunning, using her flexibility to expertly dodge and block many of the attacks Mary throws at her. However, she is also blinded by her inner rage that Ava is in possession of the halo, allowing Mary to thwart her attempts at getting to Ava many times over. This includes when Mary handcuffs Lilith in the bathroom, highlighting how little Lilith was truly paying attention to the fight, her own thoughts becoming her worst enemy.

It's not until the end of Season 1, Episode 5 that it becomes clear just who Lilith is. As Ava has been using the halo's powers constantly, it draws the attention of a large tarask that attempts to skewer her. However, despite trying her best to get the halo from Ava this entire time, Lilith ends up jumping in front of her in order to save her life. Lilith is impaled, returning to the tarask's Hellish world alongside it, presumably dead. It's here that the layers to Lilith's character begin to peel off. While she was introduced as a rival whose ulterior motives may have influenced her to follow Duretti's orders to hunt down Ava, in her heart, Lilith is someone who is willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Even if that means leaving the halo in the hands of someone she doesn't know.

Lilith could have waited for Ava to get impaled, then ripped the halo from her and ensured the tarask was defeated by using the halo’s powers. But to do that would risk the halo falling into the hands of the unknown enemy. It would also mean Ava would die, resulting in a life being lost as Lilith tried to get the halo back into her own hands. The layers once again come back on. Lilith saved Ava's life, a valiant thing to do. But was she doing it because she wanted to protect Ava, or because she wanted to protect the halo? Did Lilith value the halo more, or the innocent girl who had been swept up in a world she couldn't have possibly imagined a week ago? It's unclear, and I think that's what truly defined Lilith in Season 1. The uncertainty of who she was and why she did the things that she did. On the surface, her actions appear to be for the greater good. But those same actions may have also been motivated by personal agendas.

But...is that such a big deal, really?

A character's motivations can often be defined by who a character is. If a character is a loyal foot-soldier to a larger organization, then said character is more likely to do things for the greater good. But if a character is more motivated by personal gain and status, then they are more likely to do things that benefit them above all others. Lilith appears to be motivated by both. She has her own agenda and her own wants when it comes to inheriting the halo. But she also looks at those wants through the lens of doing what needs to be done for the good of the OCS. And, despite Ava's status as the protagonist, she's right. An ancient, holy artifact is in the back of a nineteen-year-old nobody who doesn't know how to control her powers and refuses to cooperate with the OCS' greater mission of Earthly protection. Why shouldn't she just rip the halo out of Ava's back and get it over with?

Even when the tarask was attacking Ava, Lilith still could have chanced it and tried to pull the halo from her back as the demon was attacking her. Instead, she chose to jump in front of Ava. To save her life. And while it can easily be argued that she did it to protect the halo, I believe she did it because she thought it was the right thing to do. The OCS is supposed to save people. Even people who just so happen to be a pain in the ass without malevolence. What kind of Warrior Nun would Lilith be if she inherited the halo by murdering someone else for it? I think that, when push came to shove—when Lilith finally had her chance at getting the halo for herself—she couldn't kill Ava, even if she thought she wanted to. It's just not who Lilith is. While there are so many layers to her motivation, so many unknowns, my perspective is that Lilith genuinely wanted to be a good person.

Which is why the rest of her story arc feels so tragic.

Lilith returns at the end of Season 1, Episode 7, with the following episode partially dealing with her massive tarask wound and the mysterious abilities she's come back to Earth with. Lilith can teleport now and her fingers are now donned with claws at the ends of them. As the final episodes of Warrior Nun Season 1 play out, Dr. Salvius learns that new, scale-like skin growing on Lilith's arm has a fast healing capability. Despite being dragged to Hell as a normal human, Lilith has now inherited some of the power found on the other side. In some ways, she got her wish at having abilities that could better help the OCS. But, in return, her body is scarred and the abilities are unknown and difficult to manage. Lilith, it seems, is becoming a demon all her own.

But what makes Lilith herself is still inside her. As evidenced by Season 1, Episode 9, Lilith continues to be motivated by the safety of her friends and her loyalty to the OCS above all else. To some extent, realizing she has these powers makes her feel like she can relate to Ava's struggle now. Both of them have come into contact with an unimaginable form of religious magic that has altered their bodies permanently. They now have powers they don't have full control over that are connected to a realm they know little about. Lilith encapsulates the idea of a rival by the end of Season 1, as both characters embody opposing spectrums of power.

However, as I mentioned before, Lilith is not your typical rival. Because despite having all the trappings of one, she is still determined to oversee the safety of the people she cares about. Including Ava.

Near the end of Season 1, Episode 9, Lilith teleports below the Vatican, intent on stopping Ava and the team from burning the bones of Adriel we soon learn aren't bones at all. And it appears that, somehow, Lilith knows they aren't just bones either. Lilith cuts Sister Crimson's throat open and goes to where Mary, Beatrice, and the team are preparing for Ava to phase through the wall into Adriel's tomb. However, Lilith seems like she’d be willing to kill them in an attempt to keep them from going inside. She tells them it's dangerous, that something bad is waiting for them on the other side. Mary is able to calm Lilith enough for Ava to go through, even if Lilith still has a bad feeling about their plan.

Now, here's the thing: Lilith was right.

Her trip to the Hell-like world that exists in Warrior Nun had given her a strong enough connection to it that, even if she didn't know what was in Adriel's tomb, she knew it was bad news. And bad news it was, with Adriel using Ava's phasing into his tomb as means to escape his captivity and become the central villain of Season 2. Lilith's warning had been correct, and if everyone had paid attention to what she was saying instead of how she was saying it, the tragic events of the following few month—months that would lead to Mary, Duretti, and Michael's deaths, among others—never would have happened. Lilith's connection to the Hell world is so strong that her hair begins to turn white, something we...really didn't get an answer to.

Huh.

Regardless, Lilith's warning exhibits just the kind of character she is by the end of Season 1. Understanding the weight that Ava has to carry now that she has unfamiliar powers of her own, Lilith clearly begins to do what she does for the good of the team over all else. If there were ever a part of her that was motivated by personal greed for the halo or anger that her birthright was taken from her, the moment she warns the team shows that greedy part of her no longer exists. She is not the bitter rival anymore, if ever she truly was deep down. Instead, Lilith is a fighter who wants to protect her friends at all costs. Even if she doesn't understand the danger they're in, she still wants to do what she feels is right in order to save them. The end of Season 1 shows Lilith is more loyal to those she cares about than any persona vendettas she may have harbored before.

This character growth in Season 1 is so compelling because of how Warrior Nun could have handled Lilith. Set up from the beginning as a darker side to Ava's light-hearted mood, Lilith could have easily been a power-hungry villain that Ava would have to face down by the end of the season. She could have been the stubborn rival that slowly turned toward a darker and darker belief system, all motivated by her hatred of what Ava accidentally took away from her. But none of that happened. Instead, Simon Barry and his team of incredible writers turned the idea of a rival on its head. Lilith received a character arc that made her go from a general rival that wanted the halo, to someone who fully understood where Ava was coming from and wanted to do right by the OCS in the end.

However, it wouldn't be long before her character altered. Because while Season 1 focused on Lilith as a rival to Ava, Season 2 began to explore the idea of what one does with the power they are given through the contrasting lenses of Ava and Lilith's stories. But before we explore how Lilith's character began to change in Season 2, we need to talk about another Lilith.

The Abrahamic Lilith.

According to a cut story from Abrahamic religious texts—namely Judaic religious histories—Lilith was the first wife of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Just like Adam, she was created by God, without any need of taking a rib bone from the first man. Her and Adam lived in the Garden for some time, but their relationship with quick to sour. This was because Lilith refused to be submissive to what Adam wanted. She believed that her and Adam had been created equal, and that to placate to his every whim was a symbol of her inequality. Lilith left the garden after she realized she would never be treated as an equal. From there, many interpretations of what happened to her have played out. But the gist of it is that, cast aside by God and man, she became a demon.

Lilith's story never made it into the final cut of any modern day religious texts. However, that hasn't stopped her from becoming a well-known figure in multiple religious and regional mythologies. Whether she is a murder of babies or a stealer of seed, Lilith is often portrayed as an evil figure. But looking at her through a modern lens, her story becomes adjacent to the saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Lilith wanted to be considered an equal to Adam. She wanted to be recognized as just as much a person as he is instead of a tool that was only there to birth babies and nurture them. But, because even God denied her of the ability to have autonomy, she became a corrupted creature whose rage was taken out on the children she didn't want to raise. It's a sad story of a person who wanted to be someone more than they ended up becoming. And it's one that is reflected in the journey of Warrior Nun's Lilith in season 2.

But there is more to cover before we talk about Lilith once more. Because we need to consider Ava's position in the first few episodes of Season 2. As previously established in Season 1, the two were "rivals," even if their relationship doesn't fit the traditional definition. However, Season 2 decides to do something different with the pair's comparative relationship to one another. The first few episodes of Season 2 parallel their journeys, which see Ava return to a broken OCS to stop Adriel, and Lilith moving from place to place, unsure of where to go and what to do.

Ava's story at the start of Season 2 is something I've briefly touched on in a few other essays, but here I will “briefly” reiterate. Two months after Adriel's release and his subsequent formation of an unofficial religious sect/cult called the Firstborn Children, Ava and Beatrice are in hiding, working for a bar in order to make ends meet. All the while, Ava is training to face Adriel in a battle that will determine the ultimate fate of the world as Adriel attempts to corrupt it for his own nefarious purposes. Along the way, the pair meet Miguel, who turns out to be the lost son of Dr. Salvius, Michael. Ava is supported by both Michael and Beatrice, the latter of whom harbors romantic feelings for her. Ava and Bea end up reuniting with Camilla and Mother Superion following a carefully executed attack on the OCS. While all appears to be lost for the heroes, Ava has banded together with her allies, who are hatching a plan to put an end to Adriel's messiah act.

Ava is surrounded by people who care about her. Throughout the first half of Season 2, Ava is constantly being reminded of the number of people who want to see her succeed in defeating Adriel and ending whatever plans he has for Earth before untold destruction can unfold. Michael was sent back to Earth by Reya to assist in their mission, specifically told to find Ava because of her importance. Camilla and Mother Superion support Ava as well, because they believe her ability to hone the power of the halo will be crucial to saving the world. Yasmine sought Ava out to give her information on the Crown of Thorns, becoming a trusted ally in Ava's corner by Season 2, Episode 3. And Beatrice. Someone who loves Ava for everything she is. Who recognizes the things about Ava that make her want to be a better person, while also supporting Ava in becoming her fullest self. Ava is surrounded on all sides by people who want to help her overcome her struggles and save the world while doing it.

Meanwhile, Lilith struggles alone.

The first we see of Lilith in Season 2, Episode 1 shows her tracking down Father Vincent a few months after Adriel's freedom from imprisonment and Mary's presumed death. She's doing this partially for the OCS, but also because she wants to learn more about the events of Adriel's arrival. Now that her original OCS team has all but disbanded, Lilith is left with nowhere to keep her loyalty steady. Ava and Beatrice are in hiding. Camilla is working closer with Mother Superion. Duretti is now the Pope. There isn't an anchor anymore for Lilith outside of the OCS as an organization, which is made moot by the fact that she can't work alongside any of the people she cares about. In light of this change, she decides to begin trying to find answers about what happened to her after the tarask took her to the Hellish dimension it originated from.

Father Vincent seemingly wants to provide some answers, though not about Lilith herself. In particular, he claims to know where Mary is. Lilith, hopeful for Mary's safety, follows Vincent. Right into a trap. A trap that is no match for Lilith’s strength in what must be the greatest fight scene in the entire series. In a single shot, using highly-impressive swooping camera movements, the audience watches as Lilith tears Vincent's men limb from limb. Blood stains the walls, her claws, everything in sight. Because Lilith isn't just fighting Vincent's soldiers in this moment. She's also fighting the reality of the situation. Someone she looked up to—the leader of their OCS chapter!—betrayed her and her friends for an ideological figure that may have killed their friend, Mary. And the gall for that same person to betray her again, when all she wants is to learn more about the terrifying things that are happening to her and where Mary is. She has no one to turn to. Which is why she's so willing to trust Vincent, even if she may know in the back of her mind that he's leading her into a trap.

Lilith's next stop is her mother's house. Here we uncover more about Lilith's background. Her family seems rather well-to-do, although that may be putting it lightly. However, her mother expects much more of Lilith. Despite the circumstances surrounding Ava getting the halo, she tells Lilith that she's all excuses and no action. Not even letting her daughter explain the truth—that Ava got the halo by chance, that Lilith had no say in the matter and even acted heroically to save her—shows how little her mother truly cares for her. She is not a supportive figure in Lilith's life. Instead, she's vindictive. She wants to see a version of her daughter that she's already crafted in her head, instead of allowing Lilith to become someone of her own. Little does she realize that Lilith already has, given her newfound abilities and newly-growing sense of loneliness.

But the scene that stuck out to me the most during Season 2, Episode 2 when Lilith is at her mother's house happens when she goes outside. Specifically, the dialogue she utters right before she teleports to Dr. Salvius' home in search of assistance: "We need help." "We need help."? As if Lilith is talking to someone in her head. This is a major hint at the corruptive force that Lilith is having to deal with inside herself as more and more people begin to fail or betray her. Mary is seemingly dead, something she will confirm for everyone at the end of this very episode. Father Vincent lied to her not once, but twice, both times during her weakest emotional moments. Her own mother doesn't want anything to do with her, all because circumstances beyond her control led to Ava getting the halo instead. With no one else to talk to, who better than whatever force she believes is inside of her, changing her, molding her into something beyond human comprehension?

At Dr. Salvius', the situation only worsens. In an attempt to better understand Lilith's powers and their connection to the Hellish world they came from, Salvius has Lilith go through the Ark. Salvius had been trying to do so for months in a vain attempt at searching for Michael, but couldn't on account of being a normal human. However, Lilith is able to bypass this hiccup because of her semi-demonic powers. Entering the Ark for a short time, she comes out a minute or so later, reporting that she had been wandering around for hours. She also dons new scales on her body, which has grown more corrupted due to her time on the other side. No answers have been gained from Salvius' tests. Instead, they have brought her nothing but more pain and a reenforcement that she's unfixably different.

Salvius herself isn't helping either. Once she sees Reya's face in the static recording she was able to salvage from Lilith's journey, she cheerfully believes that Lilith will be willing to go back through the portal to learn more. However, Lilith is preoccupied with the damage done to her body. Salvius, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care. Her interests are purely influenced by finding Michael. Something that Lilith doesn't take kindly to. She teleports her way out of Salvius' house, having failed once again at finding someone who can truly assist her. Who can tell her what's going on and why. If even the best scientist she knows can't do anything about it, then Lilith may feel as though the situation is hopeless.

Lilith doesn't have the luxuries that Ava does. She doesn't have a group of people who are helping to support her in her newfound role. People who she can rely on that want to help her understand her incomprehensible new abilities. There is no parallel to Beatrice, or Camilla, or Yasmine for Lilith. Instead she gets three options, none of whom want to offer a helping hand for Lilith's own sake. Father Vincent wanted to kill Lilith, seeing her as a threat to Adriel's plans, stringing her along with false promises of Mary's survival. Her mother sees Lilith as nothing but an abundant failure for being unable to secure the halo, and thereby become the Warrior Nun. And finally there’s Salvius, who is too blinded by her pursuit of her son to realize that Lilith can't just become her lab rat on the off-chance he is still out there somewhere, damaging her body in the process of searching for him.

Lilith is not an enviable character. Much like her Biblical counterpart, Lilith has been chased out of the Garden of Eden. Only for her, instead of being too domineering toward Adam and his demands, Lilith is simply a puzzle piece that doesn't fit into the larger picture anymore. In Season 1, Lilith had a purpose as Ava's rival. Her character arc throughout showcased her personal growth and underscored that, deep down, she is a good person that wants to protect the people she cares about. But now her arc is done. When Season 2 begins, Lilith has no purpose other than trying to determine what her purpose is. From a more meta-narrative perspective, Lilith's inability to get answers from Vincent, Salvius, and even her own mother feels like the writers speaking through the characters. Lilith has no grand purpose in the overarching narrative being told in Season 2. Any attempts to become part of that narrative are met with tricks, derision, or selfishness that could lead to her destruction.

By the end of Season 2, Episode 3, Warrior Nun is asking a question few TV shows know how to address: What do you do with a character whose purpose has been fulfilled?

There's a part of the Biblical Lilith's mythology I left out those many words ago. When Lilith fled the Garden of Eden, some believed that she became partner to the archangel Samael. Unlike Satan, Samael was not a fallen angel, although he is sometimes depicted as such. This is because his characteristics don't always fall under the expectations of God's angels. He is an accuser. A seducer. A destroyer. However, those he persecutes are often sinners, with his ideology simply being more in line with the Old Testament God than the New: The only good sinner is a dead one. In Jewish lore, he is the main angel of death. One account even claims him to be the father of Cain. He is, by all accounts, a "bad guy" who is only doing bad things because others perceive him as doing bad. But he ends up with Lilith by his side, the demonic, corrupted version of Adam's first love.

In Warrior Nun, Adriel is Lilith's Samael.

Not knowing where else to turn, Lilith decides to meet with the one person on Earth that comes from the other side of the Ark. Upon partnering with him,  Adriel tells Lilith where her powers originate from. He says that Lilith was given her powers by Reya, who wanted her to use them to bring the other-worldly ruler the halo, executing Adriel as an added bonus. But Adriel reveals to her the ability of free will. Much like the serpent tricked Eve, Adriel seemingly tricks Lilith into joining forces with him. However, Lilith appears to do so of her own free will. Without anyone else to turn to, she sees no other recourse other than to join forces with the one person in the world who may be able to give her the answers she's looking for.

However, I don't believe she joined forces with Adriel because she sees his point. I believe that she did so because she doesn't see Reya's. Step into Lilith's shoes for a moment. Life has become a living Hell. You have scaly skin, cool new wings, and retractable claws that probably made it hard to sleep for the months you didn't have any of this stuff under control. You've just learned that an otherworldly being who may have been influencing your mind and personality turned you into a monster in order to save the world. Your entire life has been ruined, set on a completely different path than you were ever expecting, because of someone from not-Hell that decided to lump her problem of saving the world onto your new, heavy wings.

Wouldn't you be just a little pissed off?

I believe Lilith joined Adriel not because she saw good in him, but because she sees a darkness in what Reya did to her. It's a very personal decision, one that is influenced more by the part of herself that's cropped up time and time again that is doing things for her personal benefit. The part of her that accepted Duretti's order to hunt down Ava in Season 1 because she wanted to properly inherit the halo. The part of her that decided not to help Salvius look for Michael because of the physical and mental toll it would take on her. Lilith has nobody who has been helping to support her for the last two months, with the only people she could ever rely on no longer in contact with her as they find ways to stop Adriel. Without ever considering what she could bring to the table.

Lilith probably feels betrayed to some extent. The last time her and Ava were together, the pair had grown to trust one another. And yet, in Season 2, Episode 6, when she battles Ava atop ArqTech’s roof, their former moment of bonding outside ArqTech in Season 1 means nothing to Lilith. Now she just wants to stop Ava from helping the person that turned her into a monster. Even if that means embracing the monster she's become. Much like her introduction into the series, Lilith has become a character with many layers that can't always be read. Is she loyal to Adriel because he whispered something in her ear that made her believe in his cause? Or is she adopting a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality to ensure Reya doesn't get the upper hand and continue to do things that could harm her...

...or her friends?

As I've been writing this essay, my mind keeps wandering back to the end of Season 2, Episode 1. Lilith is ripping through people like they're cheese in a grater, merciless tears that fling limbs in every direction. And yet, when she fights Ava on the rooftop of ArqTech in Season 2, Episode 6, she never tries this same trick. Even in the following episode, which sees a lengthy fight scene between the two, Lilith doesn't even go berserk mode to try and tear Ava's arms and legs off. Instead, they fight as if it's choreographed so that neither mortally wound one another. Ava clearly doesn't want to hurt Lilith, but Lilith hasn't vocalized a reason not to hurt Ava.

Except...her fight isn't with Ava. Lilith cares about Ava. Even if they aren't on the same side, or even on the same page all the time, Lilith can't help it. Even in the darkest of moments, when Lilith has made a decision that is entirely for her benefit—for the sake of her future and her ability to live with what she's become—she can't bring herself to kill Ava. Even if, with powers like hers, she easily could and we know it. It's because the Lilith who saved Ava from death at the claws of a tarask is still inside her torn heart. Lilith doesn't want to hurt Ava because Ava didn't turn her into what she's become. Her fight is with Reya, who has sent someone in her path that she cares about. Which is why she doesn't kill Ava. Why she gets injured. I'm not saying she got injured on purpose or anything, but if she hadn't been pulling her punches, she certainly would have left their fight less scathed.

Lilith's willingness to spare Ava, even when she has the clear ability to just tear her body apart and grab the halo for herself, shows that she truly hasn't changed much from the end of Season 1. She's gone through hardship and struggled with her loyalties. But, at the end of the day, she is still the same Lilith. The layered character full of mysterious, interpretive motivations that—to me, anyway—continues to care about her friends, even when they are on opposing sides of a major worldly conflict. Lilith may have been torn down by Vincent, by Salvius, and by her mother. She may have found refuge and understanding with Adriel. But that doesn't mean she no longer cares about the other people in her life that still care about her, even if they couldn't be there for her in her hour of need. She knows they care too, otherwise Ava would have just truly tried to kill her. It's why Lilith refuses to engage in life-ending battle with her friends, even at the very end.

But why, then, does Lilith kill Michael? I'm going to justify this with something a lot simpler than the many paragraphs above this one: She didn't know. There is never a moment in the show when Lilith is informed that Michael, who has come to kill Adriel using the divinium bomb inside him, is the same Michael she saw as a child just a few short months ago at ArqTech. I don't think she knew that Michael was Michael Salvius, and that the information simply never reached her. If it had, then I think she would have been less willing to kill him, especially knowing that he was Salvius' son. Despite Salvius trying to use Lilith to find Michael, I believe her grief is still understandable enough to Lilith that she wouldn't want to kill Michael. I believe Lilith would have tried to find another way.

Huh. That turned into a paragraph. Oops.

I believe Lilith's true compassion shines through in Season 2, Episode 8, when, after Ava is nearly killed after detonating Michael's body, Lilith assists Beatrice in bringing Ava over to the Ark so she can go to Reya's realm to be healed. Even if Lilith doesn't trust Reya, she admits that it's "the only way" to save her friend. Lilith is willing to put everything behind her in order to help Ava. If they truly had been on different sides this entire time, Lilith likely would have taken advantage of Ava's weakness to take her out. But that's simply not what Lilith wanted to do. She didn't want to see Ava hurt. Instead, she just wanted Adriel to win, because at least then, the person who turned her into a borderline demon wouldn't.

This also reveals another layer to Lilith's character: Her masked naiveté. Blinded by her rage against Reya, Lilith joined forces with Adriel, wanting him to win because she wanted to see Reya lose. But she never thought through the consequences of her actions. If she had, maybe she could have anticipated Ava sacrificing herself for the greater good, or the other forms of harm that came to the team following her joining forces with Adriel. Would Duretti have died if Lilith hadn't been there to fight Ava atop ArqTech's roof? Probably not. That death is now on her hands, an unforeseen consequence to her blind faith in Adriel, influenced by her anger at Reya.

In the end, though, Lilith ends up assisting in getting Ava to the other side of the Ark. As her final scene in Warrior Nun Season 2, Lilith informs Beatrice that, with Adriel gone, a Holy War is about to transpire. She hopes the two of them can be on the same side. And I think Lilith meant it. She seems to see, now, that even though she did what she thought was right at the time, Lilith still had people who would have been willing to help her. Whether that's more on Ava and her friends or on Lilith herself might depend on which character's perspective you understand more. But Lilith does realize in the end where her loyalties truly lay, even if, tragically, they may not be reciprocated. Her loyalties are still firmly positioned with her friends.

What do you do with a character whose purpose has been fulfilled? You make her realize finding a purpose isn't the end of the road.

The reason why Lilith is my favorite Warrior Nun character is because of just how many layers you can peel back on her character. She's a rogue. She's a loyalist. She feels betrayed by everyone around her. She cares about her friends. All of these are facts about Lilith that exist in tandem with one another (as I've hopefully proven over the last ~6,300 words so far). She is a character whose complexity is something I can't even do justice with what I've been able to jot down here. Not only is this reflected in her actions and the way said actions can be analyzed, but also in how her character can be compared to the Abrahamic version of Lilith and the meta-narrative of her purpose in the story during the start of Season 2.

Lilith is a character with so many impressive abilities, and yet the inability to realize her true potential. That is, until she finally helps her friends in the Season 2 finale. Despite everything she has done that could paint her as a villain, I believe that Lilith can find redemption in the eyes of people she cares about whom she's hurt. The Lilith that jumped in front of a tarask to save Ava still exists inside her. It's just a matter of time before that version of herself can fly free, as she learns to accept her own actions and the monster she has become. But, if she chooses to do what’s right, Lilith won't be a monster at all. Much like how she broke the archetype of the rival character, so too can she break the expectations of what others would perceive as an antagonist.

And that's why Lilith is my favorite character in Warrior Nun.

***

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