Lila Sawyer

**Lila Sawyer** is a supporting character in the *Hey Arnold!* series. A 9-10 year old nice girl who came from a fictional farming community she calls "Pleasantville" and who lives with her father. Her mother is never seen or mentioned probably because she and Lila's father are divorced or she died. She is Arnold's crush. However, she only prefers Arnold as a friend. She had a crush on Arnold's cousin Arnie. She knows that Helga loves Arnold and offered to help Helga become more like her in one episode. She is described by the show's creator as being a foil for Helga, someone who tries to suppress her darker side by acting overtly nice and sweet similarly to how Helga tries to cover her kind, sensitive side with bullying.

## Personality

Lila is, as Helga puts it, "Little Miss Perfect". She has a tendency to add the words "ever so" or "oh so" to just about every sentence she speaks, and she's very polite, sweet, and kind. This leads her to bond quite easily with Olga, as the two have similar interests. But in truth, Lila has a darker side to her. As she sings about in "Eugene, Eugene!", she is actually very sad on the inside and purposefully puts up her perfect persona to hide it. This essentially makes her the opposite of Helga, who puts up a mean persona to hide her kind self.

## Appearance

Lila is always seen wearing a green dress, that matched with shoes. Her hair has two braided pigtails with green hairbows at each end. In her first few appearances, her hair was red, but in later episodes, her hair is darker.

## Biography

Lila makes her first appearance in the episode "Ms. Perfect". She is a new student at P.S. 118. She's new to "the big city," having moved with her father from Pleasantville, a farming community. She's as smart as Phoebe, as stylish as Rhonda, and the most popular girl among the boys. At first, the other girls are jealous, but when they learn about her humble, disadvantaged home life, they begin to sympathize with her.
Helga's dislike for Lila later resurfaces in the episode "Arnold & Lila", even though it is the result of Helga's own actions. Lila decides that she "like-likes" Arnold after finding "Arnold Loves Lila" written on an alley wall while walking home from school. Arnold initially rejects Lila's advances, but eventually develops a crush on her. But by that point, Lila has already gotten over her romantic feelings for Arnold, and says that while she's flattered that he has a crush on her, she only likes him as a friend.
In "School Play", she is assigned the penultimate understudy, making her the last person Helga has to get through in order to play Juliet opposite Arnold as Romeo. However, all of Helga's attempts to get Lila to quit fail. Lila suddenly begins to hint she knows why Helga wants to play Juliet, and says she would be willing to quit if Helga admitted she liked Arnold. Helga stubbornly admits to Lila that she does have a crush on Arnold, and Lila willingly gives the role to Helga. Some have speculated that Helga's crush on Arnold could be a reason why later on, Lila continuously turns down Arnold's advances, and states she only likes him as a friend.
In "Timberly Loves Arnold", Timberly asks Arnold, "Did anyone ever really hurt your feelings?," and Arnold sadly looks at Lila. After Arnold gets turned down again by Lila at the end of the episode, this time for something Arnold did that even he finds indefensible, he finally decides to let go of his romantic feelings for her.

 ***Nickelodeon Movies***