Lilo Pelekai (first name pronounced LEE-loh) is one of the two primary characters of the Lilo & Stitch franchise. She is a young orphaned Hawaiian girl who lives on the island of Kauai with her older sister, Nani, and her extended yet unconventional family of alien visitors marooned on Earth.
Personality
Lilo's spirited and highly-eccentric personality, especially in light of her parents' death, has alienated her from her fellow children (whom she oddly still considers to be her friends, despite them mistreating her and openly admitting that they hate her and don't want her around), yet Lilo makes the perfect best friend for Stitch, an alien experiment whom she adopts, believing he is a "dog" (although he actually bears more of a resemblance to a koala, which is pointed out several times). She is also extremely disobedient. Lilo is emotionally sensitive and usually cries whenever she's really hurt or if something bad happens to someone she loves and cares for (mainly Nani or Stitch), having been emotionally scarred by losing her parents at such a young age. She attends hula school and her hobbies include the photography of tourists and obese people, talking about creatures from horror/sci-fi movies, and capturing and rehabilitating Jumba's evil genetic experiments. She also idolizes Elvis Presley and does not seem to understand that her eccentricities cause her to be an outcast from most of the other children.
In addition to her naughtiness, she enjoys being messy and having fun, though her recklessness sometimes causes her to make a mess of her surroundings, much to the disapproval of others around her. She does have a tendency to act selfish and irresponsible, however, especially when an experiment is around that she can use for her own personal benefit, which usually causes huge trouble and brings out the worst in her. She is very adventurous, brave, and clever, easily coming up with strategies to capture the experiments and never showing fear in the face of the many life threatening dangers to her life that she faces while capturing the experiments. In fact, she views the experiments as part of her ʻohana, and as a result, devotes so much time to capturing them that it sometimes interferes with her life, but sometimes she abandons them and leaves them free for Gantu to capture (which Nosy calls her out for in the last episode). Nonetheless, she is sweet and believes in the good of everyone as shown through her interactions with Gantu and the experiments, especially Stitch.
Appearance
Lilo is a small, short, chubby, little, 6 year old (7 at the end of Lilo & Stitch) Hawaiian girl with long, straight black hair, large, dark and almond shaped brown eyes, a big nose and a round chubby face due to her age. She stands 3 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 90 lbs. She's most often seen wearing a red muumuu with white leaf patterns all over it and blue sandals, but also wears other warm-weather clothing as well as traditional hula costumes. She also appears to be a little on the chubby side. In Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, her reflection in a mirror is compared to a picture of her young mother, suggesting that they look similar. In the episode "Skip", where an experiment is used to skip time 10 then another 10 years, it's mentioned that older Lilo looks a lot like her sister Nani. By the the end of Leroy & Stitch, she is almost 10.
Bio
Lilo's friends are Stitch, Victoria and Keoni. Lilo's ex-friends were Mertle Edmonds, Yuki, Elena, and Teresa. The reason why Lilo's friends became her ex-friends is because her parents died and they didn't seem to show sympathy when she was explaining it to them. Victoria and Lilo's ex-friends are all students in their hula class. Reuben and Gantu became friends with Lilo by the end of Leroy & Stitch.
Lilo's parents died in a car accident sometime before the first film, and therefore, they have not appeared in the franchise apart from three photographs: one of Lilo, Nani and their parents having a picnic on the beach; a photograph of Lilo's mother winning the hula contest at her school's May Day celebration and a photo of Nani with her parents when she graduated to intermediate hula.
Lilo's mother is depicted as beautiful, kind and loving (and perhaps eccentric like her younger daughter), as well as an excellent hula dancer. She would placate her children by holding a family night, singing lullabies and making up funny constellations. Lilo's father played the ukulele and was the one who coined the phrase, "ʻOhana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten." The phrase becomes a sort of family motto for his daughters and their intergalactic adopted clan.
Lilo loves and misses her parents very much, and so does Nani. She keeps a picture of them under her pillow and initially would not allow Stitch to touch it (rejecting him when his fight with Jumba caused her house and the picture to become damaged). In the episode "Remmy", which takes place on the anniversary of the accident, Lilo is depressed and takes a nap to help deal with her sadness. The picture is used to turn Lilo's nightmares into a dream of the day the photograph was taken, which manages to make her happy again.
Lilo writes a thank you note to an "Uncle Joe" in "Glitch/Woops". Otherwise, Lilo and Nani are the only known living members of the Pelekai family.
The development of Lilo's ʻohana (extended family) begins with the adoption of Stitch in Lilo & Stitch. Though Lilo technically owns Stitch by Hawaiian state law, the relationship between the two is more like siblings and best friends. By the end of the series, Lilo's extended ʻohana includes Stitch, Nani, "Uncle" Jumba, "Aunt" Pleakley, David, Cobra Bubbles, the Grand Councilwoman, Reuben, Victoria, all 627 (627 and 628 were shown dehydrated in the episode "627", although it could be argued that they still count) of Stitch's "cousins" and Gantu.
Trivia
- "Lilo" can mean "lost" or "the generous one" in Hawaiian, hence her generosity to others in the series, and possibly her loneliness.
- Her name may also be a reference to the character Leeloo from the 1997 movie The Fifth Element.
- It is quite possible that both Lilo and Nani were named after Queen Liliuokalani, the last ruling monarch of Hawaii. Lilo has the same first three letters of the monarch's name, while Nani has the last three letters of her name.
- Liliuokalani
- Lilo & Nani
- If this truly is indeed the case, then that would make their connection to the song "Aloha ʻOe" that much more meaningful, as they, as a whole, represent the last Queen of Hawaii, who wrote the song.
- Despite not appearing in the show itself (as the show ran for about one year before the movie came out), Lilo was featured with Stitch in some online games for the television series House of Mouse.
- Lilo was 5 years old in the original story.
- Lilo is the fourth heroine to be seen praying, the first being Snow White, the second being Penny, and the third being Esmeralda. However, the movie has Lilo saying that she is "making a wish" instead of praying.
- A stuffed toy Dumbo can be seen on Lilo's easel.
- She likes to be messy, which causes problems for the adults around her when she makes such a big mess.
- At least twice in the television series, when an experiment is christened, Lilo gives a ridiculous reason for its name after someone else gives a logical one:
- For Shoe, who had a horseshoe-shaped growth that affects its luck ability, she said he needed shoes, despite the fact that none of the experiments wear shoes.
- For Link, who binds together arguing people with sticky blue gunk that only mud can remove, she said he was named after Linkenstein, a zombie president.
- She enjoys feeding peanut butter sandwiches to Pudge the fish and cleaning his grove for him. Since her parents died in a car accident, where rain made the road more treacherous, it is possible the reason she wants to appease Pudge is because she believes he controls the weather, and that if she continues to treat him in such a manner, a similar accident to the one that killed her parents won't happen again.
Gallery
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