Ace Lightning Ace Lightning Ace Lightning is a children's television show co-produced by the BBC and Alliance Atlantis, which has been broadcast in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and Australia. The show was filmed in Canada, but the program was set in America...  character
Lady Illusion
Name	Lady Illusion
Nicknames	Snookums (previous lovename from Lord Fear)
Species	Elf/CGI/metabeing
Affiliation	Lightning Knights, previously a villain
Gender	Female
Age	N/A
Abilities	Shapeshifting, teleportation, attacks with explosive crystal balls, speed of a spider, can give emotions to other characters.
Weaknesses	Hopelessly in love with Ace Lightning, leading her to put herself at risk of reprisal from her teammates.
Voice Actor	Tamara Bernier

Lady Illusion is a hero/villain from the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 programme Ace Lightning

Ace Lightning

Ace Lightning is a children's television show co-produced by the BBC and Alliance Atlantis, which has been broadcast in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and Australia. The show was filmed in Canada, but the program was set in America...

. Originally programmed to be Lord Fear

Lord Fear

For the antagonist of the same name featured in Knightmare, see Knightmare.Lord Fear is a fictional character and a primary antagonist from the BBC television programme, Ace Lightning.-Character Outline:...

's sidekick, Lady Illusion quickly abandoned her programming and fell in love with Ace, who had never experienced emotions before. Despite the fact she is supposed to hate Ace, Lady Illusion cannot find it in her heart to hate him and she helps him secretly. Lady Illusion is a mistress of illusion, able to shapeshift into any human or animal form. She is unique among the show's villains in that she isn't shown to have a carnival attraction in which she recovers her strength.

Character outline

Lady Illusion appears in the show as a green-skinned elven

Elf

An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...

 female with spider-like hair dressed in a neon-coloured battlesuit. Her original character programming involved her being Lord Fear's assistant and love interest, although she rebelled against him at one point which ultimately led to a forbidden romantic relationship with Ace Lightning, whilst remains a secret until the end of the show's first season. She is a master of illusions, her signature ability being her skill to shapeshift into other living forms.

Personality

In the earliest episodes, Lady Illusion is depicted as a character with little to no personality, appearing to be a one-dimensional loyalist to Lord Fear

Lord Fear

For the antagonist of the same name featured in Knightmare, see Knightmare.Lord Fear is a fictional character and a primary antagonist from the BBC television programme, Ace Lightning.-Character Outline:...

. However, by episode six of the first season, Lady Illusion's personality comes out. She acts out aggressively towards those who irritate her, is not very ladylike but does act sweet and charming towards Lord Fear, until her betrayal where she at first pretty much grovels at his feet until she grows fed up and acts freely towards Lord Fear and Staff Head. Towards Ace, she is rather flirtatious and eventually warms to him as their romantic relationship grows. She does show kindness towards Mark Hollander when in Ace's presence but she can also be aggressive towards him, Mark's opinions on the relationship between Ace and Lady Illusion throughout the show. She shows extreme hostility and possible jealousy towards Sparx, mentioning "revenge" towards Sparx, hinting that they may have had a past encounter prior to the events of the show. The two clash at every meeting they have, often insulting each other and getting into catfights, Lady Illusion repeatedly accusing Sparx of trying to become Ace's lover - although this is not the case, when Sparx is questioned by Kat Adams if she and Ace are a couple, but she admittedly points out that Ace loves Lady Illusion, the villain in question eavesdropping on the conversation. She shows disturbance to Kilobyte's fondness of her, and he occasionally stroke her face with one of his tentacles.

Abilities

Lady Illusion is a mistress of illusion

Illusion

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people....

 and her signature ability is that of shapeshifting

Shapeshifting

Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...

. Lady Illusion can take the form of a human or animal form, although she has only transformed into two different species of dog

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

 over the course of the series. She has transformed into several characters including Mark, Sparx, science teacher Mr. Cheseborough, and a middle-aged male carnival employee. She shows an ability to teleport

Teleportation

Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...

 which she employs for quick escape, spinning around until she vanishes in a flash of light. She also appears to have a connection to spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...

s, as she is able to stick to and scale walls with ease, has impressive jumping capabilities, and can summon giant spiders in the video game adaptation

Ace Lightning (video game)

Ace Lightning is a series of video games, based upon the BBC-created television programme of the same name. Two almost identical copies for the PC and PlayStation 2 are 3D action-adventure, third-person shooter and platform game, whilst the Game Boy Advance version is a 2D side-scrolling platform...

 for the PlayStation 2

PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

 and PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

.

Her main form of attack is in the form of explosives resembling misty crystal ball

Crystal ball

A crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball believed by some people to aid in the performance of clairvoyance. It is sometimes known as a shew stone...

s. Lady Illusion can summon these orbs and toss them, causing an explosion which releases a cloud of smoke. This will either wound a person, make them go delirious for a time as seen with Chuck Mugel, or fall unconscious thanks to the smoke. In Season 2, Kilobyte upgrades Lady Illusion with two new abilities, which gives her the most abilities out of all of the game characters. Her explosives are upgraded to resemble an orange fireball of sorts, although her old ones are still used. The new "fireball" explosive appears to be stronger, and can also appear to give characters unstable human emotions that will wipe out their original programming and give them new ones. This is performed upon Ace intentionally, causing him to experience vast mood swings throughout the season. Ace appears to gain new emotions every time he is struck by the explosive, including anger, fear and sadness. Lady Illusion mentions that she has the power to remove the emotions.

History

Like most of the other characters, Lady Illusion's background is a mystery. She was known to possess a manor estate dubbed the House of Illusion, as seen in the video games. She was also in league with Lord Fear for sometime, being imprisoned with him inside the Sixth Dimension although it was by her doing that the villains escaped. She was loyal to Lord Fear at the beginning of the show, assisting him in trying to assassinate Mark via her shapeshifting abilities. Her loyalty eventually wavered when she fell in love with Ace, although she remained by Lord Fear's side until the end of Season 1 where her treachery was revealed.

Between the end of the first season and the beginning of the second, Lady Illusion kept an eye on Ace after her departure at the conclusion of the first season. She disguised herself as a human housekeeper named Felicity Fury (played by Brooke D'Orsay

Brooke D'Orsay

Brooke D'Orsay is a Canadian actress and voice actress best known for her role as Caitlin Cooke on the animated Canadian series 6teen and on King's Ransom as Brooke Mayo. She was recently in the Nickelodeon movie The Boy Who Cried Werewolf as Paulina Von Eckberg.-Early life:D'Orsay was born in...

) and used this guise to steal Amulet pieces from Mark's house to give a vengeful Lord Fear. She was upgraded by Kilobyte and deceived into giving him human emotions, which later learnt may have been a mistake. The two lovers find themselves at odds and have little time to be together due to their other problems. Lady Illusion believed Ace no longer loved her when he picked Sparx over her to save, and she rejoined the villains. She discovered that Ace still loved her by eavesdropping on a conversation between Sparx and Kat, and made the ultimate sacrifice by disguising herself as Ace and was mortally wounded by Lord Fear, which she predicted would occur. She died shortly afterwards in Ace's arms, but not before she offered to remove Ace's emotions as her last gift to him. Ace refused, admitting that the real gift was their love, and cries as single tear when Lady Illusion dies.

In the cancelled Season 3, Lady Illusion was hinted to be alive and that Ace would rescue her in the Sixth Dimension.

Behind the scenes

Lady Illusion's character is very similar to Mystique

Mystique (comics)

Mystique is a fictional character associated with the Marvel Comics' franchise X-Men. Originally created by artist David Cockrum and writer Chris Claremont, she first appeared in Ms...

, a villain from the X-Men

X-Men

The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...

 franchise. Both character have odd appearances, are shapeshifters, and have had relationships with heroes. Interestingly, Lady Illusion's voice actor Tamara Bernier has since gone on to voice Mystique in Wolverine and the X-Men. Bernier is the second of the show's voice actors to voice a character of the X-Men franchise, Random Virus' voice actor, Cathal J. Dodd

Cathal J. Dodd

Cathal J. Dodd is a voice actor who is best known for his portrayal of the Marvel comics character Wolverine in X-Men: The Animated Series, then reprisal of the role for X-Men: Mutant Academy, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, and the Marvel vs. Capcom series of video games. He has been...

 having voiced Wolverine

Wolverine (comics)

Wolverine is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Born as James Howlett and commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant, possessing animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, three retracting bone claws on each hand and a healing...

.