Diana Cavendish

**Diana Cavendish** is one of the main characters from the *Little Witch Academia* franchise.

A haughty, stuck up girl from Great Britain who is out to prove the greatness of witches and has no time for nonsense. Still, she is not nearly as mean as she acts and might have more in common with Akko than either would care to admit.

In the AWA fics, Diana is a purchased slave from the Slave Fortress and is later rescued. She later attends the AWA Academy as a student.

## **Appearance**

Diana is a young witch with pale skin, light blue eyes, and platinum blonde hair with side-swept bangs and tea-green highlights. She is considered very beautiful.

Her Luna Nova uniform consists of the standard tunic, witch hat, shoes, and stockings. The band on her hat and shoes are colored blue, along with her sash.

Concept artwork reveals that Diana originally had yellow blonde hair with pale yellow highlights.

## **Personality**

Diana is serious, composed, and erudite. Being descended from a prestigious line of witches back to ancient times, she is exceptionally devoted to her magical studies and to the tradition and history of magic. Her status as Luna Nova's best student cannot be solely attributed to heredity — she has a self-disciplined and maturity far surpassing the average teenage girl.

She is confident in the superiority of her philosophy of magic where it differs from Akko's, one of the reasons Akko considers her to be her rival (although Diana never did). Like most students, she claims Shiny Chariot to be a fraud, but in actuality is hinted to have been a fan of her. This was confirmed in "A New Beginning" where she was in the midst of the crowd in the flashback and in "Cavendish". In "Intelligence and Sensibility", as Akko expresses her feelings of hope that Diana will be able to achieve her goal for her mother's wish and love her and the academy with all her heart, Diana starts to feel comforted and understood at that moment. In the following end, she and Akko became friends at that moment.

Despite appearing to be callous and condescending, Diana is not heartless nor arrogant: when she chastises other students it is not out of malice but frustration, she cares about the success of others studies and not just her own. This concern contributes to her dependability, she is willing to help out other students to her best ability whenever they ask.

Due to her pride in her own abilities and a strong sense of responsibility, she refuses to take credit for other's doing and always admits her mistakes, although she's unable to speak up to teachers due to the trust they have in her (such as being unable to tell Ursula that she was the one to free the dragon in the first OVA, and being unable to tell the teachers that it was Akko who awoke the Pappiliodya in the second episode of the TV series).

The extent of Cavendish's selfless sense of duty is revealed in the eponymous episode — she is ready to leave her beloved Luna Nova Magical Academy and give up the remainder of her childhood to preserve her family's legacy. She holds no contempt for Akko for being chosen for the role she sought to fulfill all her life and wishes her nothing but success. Her behavior at Luna Nova is seen in a more noble light— she didn't brag about being descended from one of the Nine Olde Witches and kept her orphanhood secret, wanting neither unearned respect nor pity. Despite her seeming to be very prideful, she has insecurities: even with her prestige and high social standing at school, she is too embarrassed to admit anything less than contempt for Shiny Chariot. This could explain why she surrounds herself with sycophants, although she does not let Hannah and Barbara praise her excessively.

## **Abilities**

Diana was born from a 1,500-year-old family of witches that both have a large influence in the magical world and access to knowledge even the faculty of Luna Nova does not know. Due to her origins, she was born with "talent in her veins", but for Chariot's Dream Fuel Spirit, she was unable to perform magic during her childhood. Even so, through her extreme dedication to magic from her early childhood, she becomes the most skillful witch in her class, and according to some, in modern times.

Diana can perform the extremely complicated Nullification Spell to negate any kind of magic which is part of the powerful Fusion Magic, which can enhance the user's power on her spells. She also can create very powerful illusions and determine who is affected by the illusion and who does not, as well as perform the plant rejuvenation ritual invented by her family and outstanding water summoning magic. By using her wand, Diana can project beams, powerful energy blasts or even conjuring protective energy barriers. She also can animate and control a statue, an advanced technique not even taught to senior students. She has advanced in transformations to turn a mouse into a strong and beautiful white horse and reverse any damage by altering matter's flow of time. She is very skilled at astrology as she can see the future usually accurately, has shown a high skill at Object Control Magic and displays a vast knowledge of the history of magic and in different magic languages. Her abilities in riding flying broomsticks are also better than the majority of the students in Luna Nova as well, even surpassing to Amanda O'Neill when it comes to speed.

## **Trivia**

* Despite being British, in the English dub, she lacks an actual British accent, having more of a mixed accent instead. This is because her voice actress, Laura Post, is not of British descent.
	+ Laura Post also voices Ragyou Kiryuuin from *Kill la Kill*, another Trigger production. Similarly, Akko and Lotte's English voice actress, Erica Mendez and Stephanie Sheh, also voices Ryūko Matoi and Nui Harime respectively in the same series.
* Many fans compared Diana with Draco Malfoy from the *Harry Potter* as well as Katsuki Bakugou and Shoto Todoroki from *My Hero Academia* (thought the latter has much more in common with Diana) as they all started as rivals to respective protagonist of their series before their relationships improved as the story goes.
* Diana's birthday of April 30th coincides with the Germanic festival of Walpurgisnacht, or Walpurgis Night, which celebrates the start of summer. In German folklore, it was when the German Christians prayed to God through Saint Walpurgia to protect them from witchcraft.
* Diana's personality in first and second short films contrasted to what later established in anime, as she shown more snobbish and arrogant. In fact, she called Akko names and belittled her for being Chariot's fan and even made fun of her alongside Hannah and Barbara while in the series she was more reserved and merely criticized Akko from a genuine point of view. Though not confirmed, said change is likely done to so she and Akko can gradually become close friends, making the character' anime iteration much more likable.
* Thanks to their dynamics throughout both continuities of the franchise (notably Akko's obsessive rivalry with Diana and later, their eventual friendship after Intelligence and Sensibility), Diana and Akko's pairing has always been the most popular in the fandom, far surpassing rival ships like Akko and Andrew or Akko and Sucy.

## **External Links**

* Diana Cavendish at Little Witch Academia Wiki