Malina

**Malina** is the deuteragonist in *The Emperor's New School*. She is one of Kuzco and Kronk's closest friends and Kuzco's love interest, as well as Kuzco Academy's school council president and one of their cheerleaders. After her graduation, Malina becomes a reporter at Kuzconian Times.

## Appearance

Malina is a young woman of the slender, slightly petite figure. She has olive skin, big bright onyx eyes, and long black hair. According to Kuzco, Malina is the most attractive girl he knows.

Her main outfit was her high school uniform, which included black sandals, dark red long stockings under a red skirt with a long golden belt a white shirt with golden designs, and a red headband. She also wears large golden earrings.

## Personality

Malina is a very smart person who usually acts calm, reasonable, and somewhat serious, the latter sometimes scaring Kuzco and Kronk. Printing the Academy's news scroll and being enthusiastic at adventures, her curiosity at discovering the truth of the events is one of her main traits, sometimes leading her to commit daring actions that require considerable bravery. Malina is very open at seeing new things, seeing their differences but respect them as she thinks all things/beings complement each other.

Malina clearly cares about Kuzco and wants him to graduate and become a good emperor. Kuzco has a huge crush on Malina which she often dismisses, but in several episodes she does slip up that she actually returns some of the feelings. For example, in one episode she seems to look forward to a date with Kuzco that she had originally accepted reluctantly. She often uses Kuzco's crush (on her) to get him to do the right thing. Malina likes Kuzco's fun-loving, caring nature but disliking his big ego and selfishness, especially because he will be the emperor after graduation. She usually tries to show Kuzco the correct decision to take, though he rarely listens at least it is very urgent. Somehow, Malina seems to know what Kuzco is thinking and easily finds out what he does. It has been proved that Malina reciprocates Kuzco's romantic feelings despite often rejecting his attempts to dating her, feeling jealous when Kuzco appears to be interested in someone else (whenever it is truth or he is doing it for other reasons). Though reluctant to initially admit her feelings, Malina officially began dating Kuzco at the end of the series, seen embracing each other.

Though she can act sometimes bossy, Malina is often very assertive, empathetic and calm at others, helping and encouraging her friends when they are in trouble. Having a very high moral mindset, her actions are usually a foil against Kuzco's wild intentions. However, Malina can do things very reproachable and be somewhat hypocrite, including her greedy nature.

Malina is a straight-A student, which is apparently a requirement for the cheerleading squad. Though unknown why she was initially driven to excel almost everything to the point of having a nervous breakdown if she didn't do something "excellent". This even makes Malina do things immoral and risky, such as in "Picture This!", she had a bad yearbook photo of herself which led her stealing all the yearbooks and destroy them, and when one was placed in a time capsule buried in a temple, she nearly had herself, Kuzco and Kronk trapped. After escaping she finally comes to her senses and felt guilty for putting her friends in danger for one bad picture. She is a straight-A student, cheerleader and all-round perfectionist. She is shown to get rather anxious when everything she does isn't 'perfectly perfect'. In one episode she even attempted to cheat in order to win a contest. She is also very bossy and excellent at keeping Kuzco and Kronk in line.

Malina is a highly intelligent and witty young girl and often tries to show Kuzco the error of his ways, pointing out his stupidity, etc. She often tells Kuzco off for things such as cheating, lying and getting married to a woman he doesn't love so he can be emperor again.

Malina seems to be almost psychic, as she often knows what Kuzco is thinking, to which Kuzco replies "How does she do that?". She seems to be incredibly smart, especially compared to everyone else in the series. In the episode "Picture This", She uses only a fake mustache as disguise to fool Guaca, who easily falls for it. Malina lives with her mother, father and younger sister, and currently works for the Kuzconian Times.

Whether or not Malina and Kuzco actually got together is not exactly known, but since she doesn't appear in Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, she probably is still just his friend. Malina is almost the exact opposite of Yzma. Where as Yzma is old, ugly, mean and selfish, Malina is young, beautiful, kind and gentle.

Malina is more of a real hero then Kuzco. In the series, she is the one who comes up with the plans, and saves Kuzco in the end. Malina is the most underrated of main characters, as she only appeared in The Emperor's New School. There is a possibility that Malina was inspired by Nina, the female lead of Kingdom of the Sun (The film that The Emperor's New Groove was originally going to be.) Malina is a highly fast thinker. If there's a way out of a dangerous situation, she'll find it. It takes Malina a very short time to think. One might note that in the episode "Kuzclone" when the typical "Chimp and the Bug" gag is shown, Malina says "What's up with the bug and the monkey?" possibly referring to the fact that chimps and monkeys are two different types of primates. After this quote, Kuzco replies "If you figure it out, let me know." which is most likely a reference to Malina's intelligence, and ability to figure things out quickly. Whether or not she figured out the meaning is never revealed, but I'm sure she probably has. In the last episode, "Graduation Groove" Malina graduated, along with Kuzco and Kronk, and became a reporter for the Kuzconian Times -- later, she’s presumably married to Kuzco and became Empress.

Malina's age is uncertain, however, she is probably about 17 or 18 by the series finale.

## Role in Sora’s Adventures

She appeared in Sora's Adventures in Kuzco Academy