Pretty Little Liars: Why Ali Is Actually The Show’s Main Character

Throughout 7 seasons, Pretty Little Liars kept viewers on the edge of their seats with plot twists so convoluted, fans could barely keep up or remember them by the time the show ended. One thing that remained fresh in the minds of longtime fans of the show were the main characters who brought the twisted stories to life.

The show mostly followed the lives of five characters; Alison, Spencer, Hanna, Emily, and Aria. Each of them had a thrilling story, mired in deceit, danger, and murder, but some were direr than the others. Alison DiLaurentis, affectionately known as Ali, especially took the lead with some of the biggest plot twists and vital storylines, leaving little doubt that she was the show’s main character.

10 It All Began With Her

The Pretty Little Liars story began with Ali’s disappearance from the barn in the pilot episode. Fast forward a year later and she was still missing, her circle of friends had broken apart, and her family had left Rosewood. Throughout the episode, her former friends got varying messages from someone who only signed off as -A and seemed to know their deepest, darkest secrets.

Before her body was supposedly found towards the end of the episode, they believed it was Ali messing with them. Ali remained the focus of the story, throughout the show’s run, with a reprieve her and there when other storylines were explored. However, these often connected to her and her past misdeeds, as well as present deceptions.

9 “She’s Gone, But She’s Everywhere”

This was a line Spencer spoke to Hanna when she brought up the issue of the local newspaper reporting that Alison was still missing a year later. It’s an accurate description for the show as well, because although Alison was “dead,” she was still quite present in the show. If it wasn’t a flashback showing her precarious relationship with her best friends, it was the anonymous texts the girls were getting, revealing a secret only Ali knew, or an inquisitive detective digging into the girls’ pasts to solve the mystery of Ali’s murder.

Even when she eventually returned from the dead, Ali was a major part of the show, like any main character should be. Her life was still in danger and despite how many As’ they unmasked,  her story was never complete until the very end.

8 She Kept The Group Together

Through flashbacks of the girls’ past, the audience learned that Ali was the Queen Bee of her clique. As she always liked to remind them, “secrets keep us close,”  but she used their secrets to keep them under her control.

Before her disappearance, she used the secrets she knew about the girls and their families to keep them in her circle. And after she “died,” A used those same secrets that were connected to Ali to blackmail and torture the girls and it eventually brought them back together again.

7 She Was The Primary Victim

As later seasons revealed, A was targeting Ali long before he/she started texting Emily, Spencer, Aria, and Hannah. It was actually one of the reasons why Ali faked her death, left Rosewood, and lived under the radar for a while. Even after her return, A continued to torment her, as well as the other girls.

Since A is the main villain of the show, Ali being A’s main victim makes her an essential main character. She faced A’s wrath and torment more than the others and for a little longer in some ways. She also revealed that she’d tried investigating on her own to find out A’s identity, as the other girls later did when they started getting texts from A.

6 She Was The Number 1 Pretty Little Liar

Over the course of 7 seasons, Ali, Spencer, Emily, Aria, and Hanna told so many lies, the line between the truth and lies blurred significantly. As Mona (another pretty little liar) once said, “if you believe a lie, it becomes the truth.” Of all the girls, Ali lied the most. She believed lies were far more interesting than the truth and thrived on making stuff up.

The show, Pretty Little Liars, focused on the lies the girls told and the repercussions resulting from those. Ali’s lies were the most dangerous and the consequences were devastating and even life-threatening. She was basically the definition of a pretty little liar, like the name of the show.

5 Her Family Was At The Center Of Everything

When the series premiered, the DiLaurentis family was in the spotlight because of Ali’s disappearance and presumed death. As the seasons went on, more and more of the DiLaurentis family featured on the screen, including long-lost aunts with deeper and darker secrets than everyone else.

By the time the show ended, the girls and the fans had suffered through more A’s than they could count, including an Uber A, the final season’s baddie. Uber A turned out to be someone closer than they thought, another member of the DilLaurentis’ extended family, putting them and Ali at the center of the show right until the end.

4 The Story Revolved Around Her

For every web of lies that was spun on Pretty Little Liars, Ali was at the center of it. Whether she was alive, playing dead, on the run, or wreaking havoc in Rosewood, the story always connected to her somehow.

Especially, given how the show started with her disappearance and focused on the mystery of her “murder,” it’s safe to say that without Ali, there wouldn’t be a Pretty Little Liars. Eve stories that seemed t have nothing to do with Ali led back to her in some way. Now, if that doesn’t make her the main character of all main characters, then nothing else does.

3 She Was Tied To Many Storylines

While Pretty Little Liars involved lots of secrets and stories about the lives of the other 4 girls, a lot of those were tied to Ali. For most of these, she was like the point of origin for a particular plot point or storyline and her involvement advanced the story.

One example is Mona’s story arch, evolving from the awkward girl Ali cruelly nicknamed “Loser Mona” to the IT Girl who was smart enough to anonymously torture Ali and her friends before she was eventually discovered. Even Emily questioning and exploring her sexuality began with Ali, who was the first girl she ever kissed and fell in love with.

2 She Played Many Roles

From Queen Bee and IT Girl to That Girl Who Disappeared and Red Coat, Ali wore many hats. There were so many sides to her that made her a complex character, worthy of the role of the main protagonist. She was loving, but also manipulative, brutally honest at times, and shockingly devious at others.

Because there was so much about her to unpack, it’s no wonder the majority focus of the show was on her. Her life was an enthralling tangled web of cunning lies and deadly truths, all tied together with a string of deaths—including her own at one point. All of which made her the biggest part of the show.

1 She’s In The Spinoff

After Pretty Little Liars ended, a spinoff called Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists took its place. It was one of two spin-offs of the show, the other being Ravenswood, which was canceled by ABC after 10 episodes. Ali is one of the main characters in Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, along with her former arch-nemesis, Mona.

Given that Ali was the only one out of the five main liars who had a main role in the spinoff, it shows that she’s very important to the Pretty Little Liars world and that there’s still a lot of her story that needed to be told beyond the 7 seasons of the original show.

About The Author

Tricia Mawire
(172 Articles Published)

Tricia is a List Writer for Screen Rant with a background in creative writing and a love for all things film and TV. She fell in love with reading at the age of 10 after discovering that her favorite movie, Matilda, was based on a novel. That led to her first in-depth analysis of literary work to her mom and anyone who’d listen. If she’s not reading or writing stories with crazy plot twists, she’s bingeing a new series and ranting about character arcs and plot holes. Or she’s eating French fries.

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