The following is a character sheet for Lily's Well and the tropes associated with the characters.
Warning: All spoilers are unmarked.
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Lily Tabacchi
- Amnesiac Hero: Doesn't remember all of the times she's been killed due to her soul being put into a new body with a new brain with each death. Subverted in the True Ending where she remembers every single death.
- Back from the Dead: At the start of every new game, thanks to her soul being put into another homunculus body.
- Break the Cutie: She's a sweetheart who breaks down when she eventually remembers all of the deaths she's been put through while trying to get down the well.
- Children Are Tenderhearted: This is what leads Lily, a nine-year-old, to risking her life to help someone trapped in the well outside her home.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Even though most of her deaths are caused by falling in some way, Lily can also be killed via vines sucking out all of her blood, being eaten alive by monsters, or a strange entity completely skipping the game state to a Dead End.
- Daddy's Girl: She only lives with her Papa and loves him dearly. ...Which makes the things he puts her through all the more despicable.
- Death of a Child: Many times.
- Determinator: Despite all of the trouble she has to go through, she refuses to abandon the mysterious voice coming from the well.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the death and torment, she's finally free from her personal hell in the True Ending.
- Eye Scream: Her eyes get gouged out in the Sewer Pipe ending.
- Fate Worse than Death: Every time she dies, her soul is put back into another body that is once again lured into the well outside her home.
- Floral Theme Naming: Her name is Lily and she's clearly named after the plant genus of the same name.
- Flower Motifs: Her name is Lily, with the Stargazer Lilies in the garden representing how many times she has died.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: A young girl with a stuffed teddy bear..
- Heroic BSoD: Freezes up in horror after finding the maggot-filled corpses in the Maggot ending.
- Improvised Weapon: Uses a pair of shears, but can only use it as a weapon against Freddy Fungus.
- Mark of the Supernatural: Her hair is colored purple by the alchemical element, azoth. This serves as a hint to her non-human origins.
- The Namesake: Her name is Lily and the well is probably hers.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: All she wanted to do was help the voice trapped in the well.
- Not Quite Human: Is actually a homunculus with a soul replicated from the original Lily's.
- Player Character: The playable character of Lily's Well.
- Plot-Triggering Death: If the first iteration of Lily didn't fall into the well before the start of the game, Lily wouldn't have been put through the Generation Iteration Development experiment.
- Replacement Goldfish: Played with. While Antonio made her to replace the original Lily and he claims to love her, he has zero qualms with murdering her. Also, it's suggested in an office that he only loves his own memory of her, and not Lily herself.
- Suddenly Speaking: Doesn't speak for most of the game, but starts to have extended scenes of dialogue in later endings.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: She's an experienced knitter.
- Too Dumb to Live: This is the cause of several of her deaths, like if she tries to use (non-knitted) yarn as a rope while trying to descend down the well. Justified as she's still a 9-year-old.
- True Blue Femininity: She sports some blue and she's feminine.
- Unwitting Pawn: Is actually a test subject for her Papa and the College of Azoth to test how trauma in a soul affects the brain.
- Walking Spoiler: While not as much as the original Lily, saying too much about her will reveal a Plot Twist she's connected to.
Antonio Tabacchi (Papa)
- Abusive Dad: Antonio intentionally lured his daughter Lily down the well to test her obedience, causing her to suffer many Cruel And Unusual Deaths, some of which he even inflicts directly. In his twisted mind, this is all justified, because Lily wasn't being a "good girl". It's also implied in the true ending that Antonio was emotionally abusive to Lily, who states would he'd say she's a "bad girl", regardless of what she did. It's also implied he wasn't the best father to the original Lily either, seeing as when she told her boyfriend about him, the boyfriend threatened to kill Papa if he ever showed up at their house.
- Asshole Victim: A horrible and abusive monster whose house gets burned down and is implied to have been Killed Offscreen in the Golden Ending.
- Bait the Dog: Is suggested to be a Good Parent in the game's introduction, but is later revealed to be the exact opposite.
- Big Bad: He is the leader of the College of Azoth cult who repeatedly lures Lily to her death to keep her from ever leaving him.
- The Chessmaster: Is responsible for orchestrating Lily's Cruel And Unusual Deaths.
- Destructive Romance: According to the attic flashback, things were going rough with his wife while Lily was a teenager. It ended with him hanging her.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Antonio is only shown angry in the joke ending where Lily attempts to throw out the weed whacker he apparently broke at some point. Because he believes it can still be fixed, he activates a button that causes the garbage can by the road to eat Lily.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Claims to still hold love for Lily. However, he puts her through countless deaths and an office suggests Antonio only loves his own memory of Lily and not Lily herself.
- Evil All Along: The introduction may suggest Antonio is a Good Parent, but the rest of the monster's appearances reveal otherwise.
- Evil Teacher: A college professor who moonlights as a cult leader and Mad Scientist, using his students as followers and assistants. He also killed his wife and abuses his clone daughter(s).
- Good Parents: A subverted example. While the opening cutscene seems to suggest Antonio is a caring father, it's later revealed that he's really an abusive monster.
- Hate Sink: Everything he does to Lily is despicable. It’s no surprise the original Lily ran away from home.
- Honor-Related Abuse: Keeps letting Lily die until she becomes too afraid of the outside world to be a "bad girl".
- Lack of Empathy: Has no care for the traumatic deaths he puts Lily through directly or indirectly.
- Mad Scientist: Although, he's more of a mad alchemist; when his daughter left him, he cloned her and puts the clones through abuse and death to force them to be obedient to him.
- Non-Human Head: Appears to have a black mass with many eyes for a head for a moment when first seeing him in the homunculus lab.
- Parental Betrayal: The opening cutscene suggests Antonio is a Good Parent. It's also later revealed he's actually the Big Bad who's a helluva Abusive Dad.
- Red Is Violent: In the fourth rope ending, Antonio wears red, and kills Lily.
- Walking Spoiler: Little can be said about Antonio without revealing he's really an Abusive Dad.
- Would Hit a Girl: According to a flashback, Antonio murdered his own wife. It's also revealed he has no qualms with smothering Lily with a pillow.
- Would Hurt a Child: Is responsible for killing Lily (a nine-year-old) in two of the rope endings.
Gray Cloaked Figure (Gunther)
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A child murderer who initially sported glasses in his CG.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Is actually just participating in the experiment for a class project.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Sorta. Gunther is red-eyed and his cloak is gray (which is a lighter shade of black).
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Is red-eyed, and has zero qualms with killing Lily.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: According to the official art book, he originally wore glasses in his CG before they were removed. Compared to the Blue Cloaked Figure, he is also portrayed as smarter and more level-headed.
- Would Hurt a Child: Cuts Lily's rope in multiple rope endings, which generally flat-out causes her death. Also, she's nine years old.
Blue Cloaked Figure (Derek)
One of the students attending the College of Azoth.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Is actually just participating in the experiment for a class project.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Speaks pretty rudely, but is willing to argue with the college to help another student.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: However, he has no issues with Lily being murdered repeatedly.
True Ending Character
The Original Lily
- Beware the Nice Ones: Despite still being a caring person, hearing about what Antonio did to homunculus Lily drives her to the point that she (is implied to have) murdered him.
- Big Sister Instinct: She is technically homunculus Lily's sister, and she saves her from an abusive hell.
- Cool Big Sis: Certainly fits the bill when interacting with the homunculus Lily.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Growing up alongside her father's experiments as well as the discovery of her mother's corpse in the attic led her to leave home and cut ties with her father.
- Dark Is Not Evil: While she has a scene/goth aesthetic, she's the one to end the death cycle.
- Floral Theme Naming: She's named after lilies.
- Giant Poofy Sleeves: Downplayed; her sleeves are rather poofy, which add to her overall Goth aesthetic.
- Nice Girl: Despite everything she's been through, she's still a caring and kindhearted person and instantly treats homunculus Lily as a real person despite her clone status.
- Parental Substitute: Becomes this for the homunculus Lily in the true ending.
- She Is All Grown Up: A strange case with both the young homunculus Lily and older original Lily able to exist at the same time.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Looks very much like her mother in the attic flashback.
- Tranquil Fury: Doesn't lose her temper to keep homunculus Lily calm on the phone, but still keeps her anger quiet even as she's burning down her childhood home.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Subverted; she has a harsher look and uses harsher language compared to the young Lily, but she's still just as caring.
- Walking Spoiler: Everything about her spoils the true nature of the gameplay loop and the endings.
The Monsters
- The Big Bad Wolf: The one residing in the forest seems to be a version of this, as it devours Lily if she feeds it enough jerky, and getting the ending where it eats Lily unlocks the Red Riding Hood costume.
- Body Horror: As failed homunculi, they are horrifying to look at.
- Body of Bodies: The monster in the woods is revealed to be made of many Lily bodies fused together in the 1.1 update.
- Humanoid Abomination: They are all masses of flesh, bones, boils, and hair.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The monster that crawls on all fours has a mouth resembling a sandworm's.
- Nightmare Face: Applies to all of them as they all have disturbing-looking faces.
- Walking Spoiler: Their existences are spoilers themselves.
