Right from the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars, fans know that Emily Fields has a special bond with Alison DiLaurentis. She’s devastated about Ali’s disappearance, especially because it seems like she could have been murdered, and viewers found out later that she was always in love with Ali.
While in some ways Ali is the teen drama’s main character, as she’s the reason for the major mystery, there are some ways that Emily can be seen as the protagonist everyone is rooting for. She sure made Rosewood memorable — for all the right reasons.
Emily And Ali Have A Great Romance
Ali starts off the series as a mean person who needed to control others, but Emily sees a different side of her and knows that she’s much nicer than she seems to be.
Emily and Ali have a great love story once they find their way to each other at the end of the series. They don’t want to live another second without each other and they raise Ali’s twin babies together. This romance suggests that Emily can be seen as the protagonist, as there’s some tension surrounding these characters and whether they will ever be together.
Emily Has An Important Coming Out Story
While Emily is in love with Ali, she loves her girlfriend Paige and that relationship is just as significant.
Emily is an important part of Pretty Little Liars as the show features her coming out. Her mom, Pam, acts poorly about this at first but eventually realizes that she was in the wrong and that she should offer her daughter support and love. It’s great that PLL is so compassionate and inclusive, and Emily dates several people throughout the show’s seven seasons.
Maya And Paige, Her Love Interests, Are A Meaningful Part Of The Plot
From Maya’s passing in the second season to Paige’s involvement with Caleb in researching Mona, Emily’s love interests have a huge role in the show’s plot.
This is another reason why Emily is the main character. Emily loves Maya and Paige and they become significant characters who wonder about the main mystery along with everyone else. Emily wonders if she should hide that she and her friends are being stalked by A, and she also struggles with wanting to be a normal teen with a dating life and the horrors that she and the others face.
She Has An Identity Crisis
Emily has no idea who she is by the time she and her friends leave Rosewood after high school.
She experiences a terrible depression after the death of her father, and she doesn’t seem to know what she wants to do as a job or even what to study in college. She is also an excellent swimmer but doesn’t seem to want to continue with that passion, which is confusing as she always loved it. Since Emily has a big identity crisis, this shows that she has some compelling character growth, as she figures out by the series’ end that she wants to be with Ali and settle down.
The Death Of Her First Love Proves Everyone Is In Danger
Fans love Emily and Maya’s sweet relationship as the two characters bond at the beginning of season 1. Emily realizes that she wants to be with Maya and it’s so sad when she is murdered in the second season.
The fact that Emily’s first love is killed proves that everyone is in great danger. This also suggests that Emily can be seen as the show’s main character, as the stakes are so high here.
Emily’s Eggs Are Stolen And Used To Impregnate Ali
While Emily and Ali decide to be together and the other characters also have positive endings, the finale of PLL doesn’t change the strange way that Ali gets pregnant.
Fans were definitely confused about Emily’s egg donating storyline, as it feels random, and it turns out that A steals Emily’s eggs and gets Ali pregnant. It’s hard not to find this creepy and scary. Since Emily’s eggs are the focus here, that suggests she is the main character, since she’s at the center of this major storyline.
She’s The First Character To See The Real Toby
In season 1, Emily and Toby become friends, and Emily isn’t sure that she should tell her friends because they don’t trust him. But it turns out that Toby is a good person and his stepsister, Jenna, was abusing him.
Emily is the first character to see the real Toby and to understand that while has a troubled past, he’s worth getting to know. The others are definitely more judgmental since they don’t like Jenna.
Emily Has Sweet Parents, Including The Strongest Mom On The Series
While the parents on PLL make some bad decisions, Pam Fields is always strong and solid. It’s true that teen dramas feature a lot of chaos and wild moments, but it’s also good when at least one character has a happy family life.
One of Pam’s shining moments is when she tells Paige’s father that he should love his daughter no matter what and that he needs to support her. Emily’s parents are sweet, as she always seems close with both her mom and her dad. This is important since Spencer and Hanna’s mothers are often scheming and up to nothing good.
She’s The Most Connected To Ali’s Disappearance
While the other girls care about Ali and can’t believe that she’s gone, it’s Emily who is the most invested in what happened to her.
Since Emily is the most connected to Ali’s disappearance, and even wonders in the pilot episode of Ali was killed or something awful happened, she seems like the show’s main character. She never stops thinking about Ali or missing her and moving on seems impossible.
Emily’s Student Is The Focus Of A New Mystery
All of the season finales of Pretty Little Liars are worth talking about. That is especially true of the show’s very last episode.
A new mystery is set up, as after the liars hug and say goodbye, viewers see a group of teenage girls saying that their leader, Addison, has disappeared. Addison is a student at Rosewood High whom Emily encounters during the final season, and she seems like the Queen Bee that Ali used to be. It’s telling that Emily is the one who interacts with this character, whose tragic story seems to mirror Ali’s.
