"A" is a fictional character in the Pretty Little Liars franchise. Created by author Sara Shepard in 2006, the character serves as the main antagonist in both the television and book series. "A" has also appeared in the web series Pretty Dirty Secrets (2012).
Working as an anonymous figure, "A" is a stalker who blackmails, manipulates and tortures the main characters of the franchise. In the novel and television series, "A" has been revealed as multiple characters.
Development Characterization In the original television series, all three characters who take up the identity of "A" are mentally ill women seeking revenge for something that has negatively altered their lives. "A" frequently manipulates, blackmails, and tortures. "A" has a love for riddles and dolls, usually referring to the Liars as their own living dolls.
In Original Sin and the novels, "A" kills multiple people in order to achieve their goals.
Book series storylines The first "A" Real identity: Mona Vanderwaal. Three years after the disappearance of Alison DiLaurentis, her four friends, Aria Montgomery, Spencer Hastings, Emily Fields, and Hanna Marin each receive messages from someone calling themselves "A". Since Alison's disappearance, the girls had drifted apart and had no idea that other people were receiving texts as well. The texts referenced secrets that only Alison would have known. At first, the messages were simply teasing and the girls suspected that their missing friend sent them. They knew she was most likely dead, but believed Alison to be the only one who knew those secrets. When Alison's body is discovered in her old backyard, the girls are baffled when they continue to receive text messages. At Alison's funeral, the girls are reunited and they find out that they've all been receiving weird messages. As the girls stand outside after the funeral ends, they all get a text saying, "I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. –A".
From that point on, the messages take on a distinctly more threatening tone. Aria is given an ultimatum to tell her mother about her father's affair by midnight after the Foxy event, or "A" will do it for her. "A" continues to play life-altering games with the girls, such as encouraging suspicion of Spencer's involvement in Alison's death and outing Emily's sexuality to her conservative mother. However, "A" makes a mistake when texting Hanna on the night of Mona's birthday party. Instead of using the plain Blackberry she bought just for tormenting the girls, "A" accidentally uses her personal phone. Hanna, who has a new phone without all of her contacts registered, recognizes the number, compelling "A" to act before Hanna can reveal "A's" true identity to the others. "A" hits Hanna with an SUV, successfully destroying Hanna's phone and putting her into a coma that eventually leads to a temporary loss of memory. However, "A" knows that there is a very good chance Hanna will regain her memory.
Hanna's best friend, Mona Vanderwaal, informs the girls that she has also received texts from "A", drawing the five closer together in trying to figure out who their tormentor is. Mona subtly encourages Spencer's fears that her sister, Melissa, might be "A" as well as Alison's killer. During Hanna's party to celebrate her recovery, she suddenly regains her memory, revealing that Mona is "A". However, she, Emily, and Aria can't do much about it, because Spencer and Mona are on their way to the police station. After Spencer is warned about Mona by text, she tries to escape Mona's car, but Mona catches on quickly and diverts to a path in a more remote area of Rosewood.
Mona tells Spencer that she saw Alison launch a firework into Toby Cavanaugh's garage, blinding her friend Jenna and leaving Mona with a scar on her stomach. Mona also shares that she found Alison's diary among a pile of old DiLaurentis items that the St. Germains had left on the curb, discovering the girls' secrets that only Alison knew. Mona's motivation was to get revenge for Jenna's blindness — she didn't know that Jenna and Alison had planned together to launch the firework. Finally, Mona reveals that Ian Thomas killed Alison, due to Alison giving him an ultimatum to break up with Melissa — an incident Mona read about in Alison's diary. She then gives Spencer a chance to become "A" alongside her, suggesting that Hanna must not be remembering correctly, but Spencer refuses. The two fight at Floating Man's Quarry and Spencer accidentally pushes Mona, causing her to fall and for her neck to be trapped between the rocks.
The second "A" Real Identity: Alison DiLaurentis. Alison DiLaurentis felt her life was ruined by her twin sister, Courtney DiLaurentis, who was considered smarter and kinder than her. Alison began emotionally manipulating Courtney into pretending to be Alison, eventually tricking Courtney into pretending to strangle her. Courtney is sent to a mental hospital as a result and the ashamed DiLaurentis' erase all trace of her. Alison becomes Queen Bee at her new school. Courtney is allowed a short trip home to see her family, but while there sees Spencer, Hannah, Aria Montgomery and Emily arguing outside and goes out to talk to them, which makes her parents believe she is Alison. The real Alison insists that's not true, but because of her manipulating Courtney into pretending to be her, her parents think she is lying. A vengeful Alison is taken away to the mental hospital.
The girls begin receiving messages from "A" again, terrifying them. They believe the messages to be a cruel joke at first, but then discover Ian Thomas's body — murdered by the second "A," who then steals Ian's body to convince everyone that the death was a hoax. "A" mocks the girls over text and pretends to be Ian on an online account, giving the girls information such as Spencer being the product of an affair between her father and Alison's mother. "A" causes Spencer to be scammed out of $2000, taunts Aria with photos, manipulates Hanna so she is sent to a mental hospital and forces Emily to go to Lancaster to look into Wilden. "A" sends the girls on many searches to try and find out who "A" could be and murders Jenna. They eventually plant all the evidence of a random person. The girls are fooled by this, happy it is over.
The town is introduced to Courtney DiLaurentis who is Alison's ill twin sister who was kept in many clinics and hidden from the world. Courtney reveals herself to the girls as actually being Alison and that Courtney was pretending to be her and that she was the one who ran into the random person and died. Aria is suspicious, along with Wilden and Melissa. Melissa knew about the twins for a while because Jason and Alison's stories didn't match up with what Jason told her. The suspected murderer has an alibi and people begin digging up suspicious things about Alison. Alison kidnaps Melissa and traps her in a cupboard next to Ian's dead body.
At Alison's house, all of the girls get drunk and re-enact the day Alison went missing, they wake up to find a letter revealing that Courtney took Alison's place when they were young and the person the girls were friends with was actually Courtney, not Alison, and that she was sent to a mental hospital in her sisters place. When she came back, Alison killed Courtney. Alison then sets the house on fire with the girls in it, but they manage to escape with Melissa. The girls hope she was killed in the fire, but Emily left the door open for her.
After the third "A" (Nick) has been arrested, Alison escapes to a house that even Nick had no clue about and uses all of Nick's money for plastic surgery. Then, under a new alias, she begins tormenting the girls again. An obsessed fan group starts harassing the girls and she hires one, Greg, to infiltrate the Liars. He starts dating Spencer in hopes to do this, which works. Alison also pretends to be a famous artist's secretary to ruin Aria's potential career. She attempts to drown Emily in a pool for rejecting her and then murders her girlfriend Jordan which causes Emily to become depressed. Alison then frames the girls for her torture and murder by covering a house they broke into with her blood and weapons, and the girls are arrested.
Alison is able to avoid the girls as they attempt to find her before they are imprisoned. Alison is elated to discover she has caused Emily to drown herself and make Aria flee the country. Little did she know, Emily faked her death and managed to track Alison to her mother's house where she was hiding out. Alison confronts Emily with a gun and the two fight, with Emily holding off Alison long enough for the police to arrive. Alison is then arrested and the girls are exonerated.
The third "A" Real Identity: Nick Maxwell. A third "A" begins tormenting the girls. Emily hopes it's Alison, and the rest of the girls hope it's not. The new "A" torments them about "The Jamaica Thing", Spencer's framing of Kelsey, Hanna's framing of Madison, and Emily's baby. "A" reveals that they killed Tabitha, not Aria, which means they have killed four people total - the other three being Gayle, Kyla, and Graham - and have injured many more, which makes this "A" the most violent yet. The girls suspect this "A" isn't just Alison, as she would not be strong enough to kill and hurt so many people by herself and begin to suspect she has an accomplice.
The girls are lured to a basement where Alison reveals that she is alive and that the third "A" is not her, but Nick Maxwell. Nick was Courtney's older boyfriend who met the real Alison at their shared mental clinic and has introduced himself to the girls as different people throughout their lives: Phineas, who sold Spencer drugs and got her addicted to them, eventually causing her to frame Kelsey for drugs; Jackson, a bartender who refused to help Hanna, causing her to get into a car crash with Madison; Olaf, Aria's Icelandic friend who stole a painting with her; Derrick, Emily's colleague who she would regularly gossip to. Nick and Alison have put a shrine to Alison in the basement and are going to make it seem as if the girls have killed themselves in honour of Alison. They leave and flood the basement with poisonous gas, but Nick is found and arrested by the police and the girls are saved. Alison escapes and abandons Nick.
Nick is later visited in prison by the girls and tells them Alison may be at his grandma's house or something connecting to her may be there.
Television storylines Pretty Little Liars (2010)