Tanya Kennedy

**Overview** Dialogue Gallery

**Tanya Kennedy** is a main character in *Who's Lila?*. She was a fellow classmate and friend of William Clarke. Her disappearance is one of the central mysteries of the game and the main catalyst for its events.

## Appearance

Tanya was a young woman with a square jawline, long, dark hair, and a tall build. She is notable for having an appearance that is nearly identical to Lila with only subtle differences in their hair and face shapes. Despite this, Lila often insults Tanya for her supposedly-inferior appearance, and for "copying" her looks.

## Personality

Tanya was high-achieving, intelligent, and deeply reflective, though in her interpersonal relationships, she appeared distant and even cold at times. Her conversation with William at Matt Hurley's party suggests that she was highly anxious of how others perceived her and lived in constant fear of failure. Text messages reveal that she didn't feel worthy of being in a romantic relationship with Michael Graves, but that she did love him deeply. She cared about the well-being of her friends, as seen through her concern for Martha Jennings in light of her mistreatment from Danny, as well as her insistence of visiting William some time after the party. She also had a strong sense of social justice, being vocally opposed to the right wing movement that had formed around DADA DOG.

Tanya's Twitter page gives many insights into her interests, which include esoteric literature, poetry, psychology, and cats.

## Backstory

Prior to her death, Tanya was a popular and high-achieving student at the same school that William attended. She previously attended a private school and had many awards on display at the entrance hall of the school. She also had two unnamed sisters and was often called a prodigy by her parents.

She had a large friend group at school, consisting of Martha Jennings, Ellie Cooper, Regina Holmes, and Jimmy Stew. In April, Tanya tweeted about the death of Malcolm Graves, mourning his death and condemning the DADA DOG extremist(s) that had murdered him. She added that she was available for Michael, Malcolm's older brother, to talk to if he needed it. Michael evidently took her up on the offer and the two began talking more and eventually, dating. Tanya later stated that she thought that Michael would've been a horrible person, and she started dating him because she thought that she didn't deserve anyone better than that.

Later in September, she also made a tweet about the death of Chet Murie, then later a second one warning against the DADA Dog symbol and its transformation into a symbol of hate.

At an unknown point in time, likely a few months before the game took place, Fedor I. Ryibkin texted Tanya, warning her that she was in danger. He also sent her a link to his website, but it had been blocked. Tanya never replied to his message, likely dismissing it as spam.

### The Party

On the night of November 20, Tanya attended a party at Matt Hurley's house, where she met William for the first time. After some tense moments that occurred inside, she invited William to go on a walk with her. There, Tanya admitted that she felt as though nobody really knew the real her, and vented about all the pressure she had from her community to always be successful. She admitted that she started dating Michael because she thought he wouldn't be any good for her but had instead come to think he wasn't actually that bad of a guy. At one point, she snapped at Will, mocking his face and inability to make normal expressions. However, she quickly apologized and tried to move on.

Once Tanya and Will returned to Matt's house, they decided to dance in the backyard to the slow music that was playing inside. What occurred to Tanya directly after this is unknown, as the flashback of this moment we see in The Moon cuts away to things that are only happening to William.

### Friendship with William and Death

In the days following their first meeting, Tanya and William grew rather close, visiting each other late in the night and going to abandoned buildings together; this was in spite of the fact that Tanya was still dating Michael up until her disappearance.

Shortly before her murder, Tanya apparently had a dream in which she was Lilith, completely nude with golden hair in a garden of flowers. She was combing her hair and noticed that one of the flowers was drooping lower than the others and when she went to look at it, saw that there was a mirror inside of it. She saw her own face in the reflection, except the eyes were "insane". Tanya recounted this dream in detail to Ellie, seemingly one of her best friends. She had described the dream in further detail, but Lila deletes the texts before the player is able to read what Tanya had written.

On November 29, Tanya visited William's house and at one point, the two of them ended up in bed together, only wearing their underwear. They discussed whether they loved each other and William stated that something about it all felt off to him, and that Tanya seemed familiar somehow. Tanya expressed confusion and asked him what he meant. William, in a precarious mental state, managed to mistake her for Lila and call her by that name. Tanya became even more confused and asked "Who's Lila?". Her uttering this gave Lila enough power to re-emerge and fully possess William's body.

Lila and Tanya (along with The Stranger) were next seen standing in the kitchen. Tanya initially believed the Stranger to be William but later realized that he doesn't look anything like him. Lila directed the Stranger to murder Tanya, while Will, now forced out of control of his own body, was only able to watch as events unfolded.

After Tanya's murder, Lila dismembered and gradually disposed of Tanya's body parts. The only one left by the time the game begins is her torso, hidden in a trash bag.

## Plot

At the beginning of the game, five days after Tanya was murdered, Lila picks up the trashbag that contains Tanya's torso and disposes of it in the dumpster outside William's apartment. Later on, if Lila murders Martha and returns to the apartment, police will eventually discover the torso among the trash. Although DNA tests still need to be conducted, Officer Fisher boasts with confidence that it's definitely Tanya's and that the forensic team will also be able to identify the exact weapon used to dismember her.

On January 17 of the following year, about a month after the events of the game, Tanya's father, Ethan, makes a tweet on her Twitter account announcing that Tanya had died on November 29 and her body was found in December. He states he wants her Twitter account to remain up as a memorial of sorts for his daughter.

## School Locker

Tanya's school locker can be opened by obtaining the Locker Key found in William's Apartment next to the diary, which appears only when running the DAEMON client at the same time. Inside the locker is Tanya's Phone and a sticky note addressed to Michael Graves with her twitter handle, @tanyakenned1899.

## Trivia

* The description Tanya gave of her dream is incredibly similar to how Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicts Lilith, Adam's first wife, in his painting and sonnet about her. The sonnet is also posted on her Twitter account, and the painting can be found hanging on William's wall.
	+ The sonnet also contains the phrase "first gold" which is the password for the document that contains instructions on how to kill Lila.
* There are a few instances throughout *Who's Lila?* where Lila's image is used in places where Tanya's should be; for example the numerous missing person posters in the stairwell at William's Apartment, the award for Tanya sitting in a trophy case at school, and the profile picture of Tanya's Twitter account.
	+ One possible interpretation of this is that since Lila is the main playable character, the reality of what the player seeing is being skewed, replacing her own image with Tanya as an example of her own vanity and hatred for Tanya.
* Tanya and Lila are the only characters whose faces were not generated by AI. A woman named Veronica provided her likeness for the characters, as revealed in the game's credits.

## Sources

1. ↑ Rossetti's sonnet
2. ↑ Tanya's profile picture