The Pretender

**The Pretender** is the main and final antagonist encountered in *Very Little Nightmares*. She appears in Levels 16 to 18.

## Twitter Description

> *This pint-sized lady of the Nest loves her playthings. And anything that’s not her toy doesn’t last long in her nursery.*
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## Appearance

The Pretender appears to be a young child no taller than the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat. She has pale skin, contrasted by red lipstick that's smeared over her lips and pink blush on her cheeks. She has white hair that curls at the end, thick bangs that cover her eyes, and a short ponytail held by a grey band. She wears a green dress with a white jabot and dark green shoes.

## Personality

The Pretender is introduced to be a stereotypical spoiled rich child. Unlike the Lady and the Thin Man, who have a calm demeanor, the Pretender is actively violent, often shown screaming in rage. She is obsessed with her dolls to such an extent that she dedicates entire rooms to include as many dolls as possible in her daily life and is shown to be very particular in how they should be set in the room. Should any dolls be out of place, such as the doll with the red scarf in the dining room, the Pretender will not hesitate to lash out. Despite her temperament, the Pretender can be observed expressing some form of guilt or sadness as she is seen crying alone on a bench, where a destroyed doll lays in front of her.

She is shown to be very determined when she sets her mind on getting what she wants. This is best shown in the final chase with the Girl in The Yellow Raincoat, where she rapidly climbs downhill from a cliff with no difficulty in order to pursue the girl. Even when it appears as if she is defeated, she rises up unexpectedly to finish what she started.

## *Very Little Nightmares*

The Pretender seems to be the only living inhabitant (besides the Nomes) in the living quarters. Despite there being dozens of frames of other children and even the (implied) parents of the girl hung all around the place. In order to make up for her loneliness, she has dolls made of the framed children set up for events like tea parties and banquets in order to give herself the illusion of company. She's so serious about it, that when the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat tugs a doll off of a chair in order to reach the other side of the room, the spoiled girl drags the doll into the main hall and scolds it as if it was a living person.

She's later seen outside, crying on a bench, with the doll at her feet having been ripped apart. When she realizes that the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat is behind her, she proceeds to scream at her and immediately begins to chase the girl down a ledge. It all leads to the finale, where the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat is cornered by the Pretender until Six crushes her with a boulder. She recovers shortly after and leaps forward, tackling the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat off the edge of the isle and they both fall into the water below.

## Strategy

The Pretender simply chases her enemies, but because she is still a child, her pace isn't as quick as an adult's. She can only catch up to other children if they happen to stop for a second during a chase. If she manages to catch up to them, she will make them vanish with the touch of her hands.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Stunning shriek**: The Pretender has a voice that is abnormally loud and sounds autotuned. When she screams, her voice temporarily stuns the protagonist and additionally causes the environment around her to glitch.
* **Dissipate touch**: The Pretender has the ability to instantly erase any living child upon touching them with her hands. In the final chase scene, she demonstrates this by making the body of the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat vanish instantly, leaving only the raincoat behind.
* **Rock climbing**: The Pretender shows great skill at escalating steep surfaces as she can crawl down the cliff face first in pursuit of the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat. This may also suggest that she may have the ability to climb walls.
* **Durability**: She is quite resistant to damage, surviving the impact of a boulder knocked directly onto her head.

## Trivia

* The name Pretender may be a reference to a child's tendency to "play pretend", or imagine fictitious scenarios. This is supported by the fact that the Pretender can frequently be seen conversing with dolls and staging them in different locations around the Nest as if they were real people, such as having them watch TV or sit around a table for a tea party.
	+ The name may also be a reference to the aristocratic definition of pretender, which is "a person who claims or aspires to a title or position". The Pretender seems to be the first well-off child of this world and appears to take on the role of the mistress of the Nest. Despite this, a portrait in the main halls shows her with what may be her parents or caretakers, indicating she may not actually be in charge of the Nest despite her behavior.
* The Pretender is one of the few characters in the *Little Nightmares* games that speaks, despite not actually speaking a discernible language. She can be heard angrily scolding one of her dolls in an indecipherable autotuned voice. This dialect surpasses Mono and Six's speaking roles in *Little Nightmares II*.
* The Pretender is one of the few antagonists in the franchise who takes the appearance of a child, along with Shadow Kids and the Bullies.
	+ She is the first major child enemy in the entire franchise, coming before Monster Six.
* Similar to the Lady, the Pretender owns paintings and statues representing her or other residents of the Nowhere.

## References

1. ↑ "His head is always bowed to his **Mistress**, but his patience for grubby little creatures who dare to skitter across his path is… lacking."
"Play quietly now, little ones. **The Mistress** is in a foul mood, so you best lock the door to the nursery tight and finish your puzzle."

Noone • The Counsellor • The Candleman • The Workers • The Prisoners • The Tall Woman • The Child with Gooey Hair • Cici • The Bathers • Jester • The Merchants • The Shopping Mall • The Counsellor's Professor • The Performing Children (Rusty) • The Man in the Purple Suit • The Carnival People • The Dummy • Nomes • The Naughty Kids • The Balloon-Headed Man • The Puppet
Animals • Children • Unidentified Characters