Diana Cavendish

Diana Cavendish (ダイアナ・キャベンディッシュ, Daiana Kyabendisshu) is one of the main characters in Little Witch Academia. In certain point of view, she can also be an anti-heroine. In spite of her differences with Akko, she is also a fan of Shiny Chariot, though she hates to admit it. She comes from an ancient family of wizards in Britain and is a famous student at Luna Nova Magical Academy.

Appearance
Diana is a young witch with pale skin, light blue eyes, and platinum blonde hair with tea-green highlights. She is considered very beautiful.

Her Luna Nova uniform consists of the standard coat dress, witch hat, shoes, and stockings. The band on her hat and shoes are colored blue, along with her sash.

Personality
Diana is serious, composed, and erudite. Being descended from a prestigious line of witches back to ancient times, she is exceptionally devoted to her magical studies and to the tradition and history of magic. Her status as Luna Nova's best student cannot be solely attributed to heredity — she has a self-discipline and maturity far surpassing the average teenage girl.

She is confident in the superiority of her philosophy of magic where it differs from Akko's, one of the reasons Akko considers her to be her rival (although Diana never did). Like most students, she claims Shiny Chariot to be a fraud, but in actuality is hinted to have been a fan of her. This was confirmed in "A New Beginning" where she was in the midst of the crowd in the flashback and in "Cavendish". In "Intelligence and Sensibility", as Akko expresses her feelings of hope that Diana will be able to achieve her goal for her mother's wish and love her and the academy with all her heart, Diana starts to feel comforted and understood at that moment. In the following end, she and Akko became friends at that moment.

Despite appearing to be callous and condescending, Diana is not heartless nor arrogant: when she chastises other students it is not out of malice but frustration, she cares about the success of others studies and not just her own. This concern contributes to her dependability, she is willing to help out other students to her best ability whenever they ask.

Due to her pride in her own abilities and a strong sense of responsibility, she refuses to take credit for other's doings and always admits her mistakes, although she's unable to speak up to teachers due to the trust they have in her (such as being unable to tell Ursula that she was the one to free the dragon in the first OVA, and being unable to tell the teachers that it was Akko who awoke the Pappiliodya in the second episode of the TV series).

The extent of Cavendish's selfless sense of duty is revealed in the eponymous episode— she is ready to leave her beloved Luna Nova Magical Academy and give up the remainder of her childhood to preserve her family's legacy. She holds no contempt for Akko for being chosen for the role she sought to fulfill all her life, and wishes her nothing but success. Her behavior at Luna Nova is seen in a more noble light— she didn't brag about being descended from one of the Nine Olde Witches and kept her orphanhood secret, wanting neither unearned respect nor pity. Despite her seeming to be very prideful, she has insecurities: even with her prestige and high social standing at school she is too embarrassed to admit anything less than contempt for Shiny Chariot. This could explain why she surrounds herself with sycophants, although she does not let Hannah and Barbara praise her excessively.

Abilities
Diana was born from a 1500 year old family of witches that both have a large influence in the magical world and access to knowledge even the faculty of Luna Nova does not know. Due to her origins she was born with "talent in her veins", but for Chariot's Dream Fuel Spirit, she was unable to perform magic during her childhood. Even so, through her extreme dedication to magic from her early childhood she become the most skillful witch in her class, and according to some, in modern times.

Diana can perform the extremely complicated Nullification Spell to negate any kind of magic which is part of the powerful fusion magic, which can enhance the user's power on her spells. She also can create very powerful illusions and determine who is affected by the illusion and who does not, as well as perform the plant rejuvenation ritual invented by her family and outstanding water summoning magic. By using her wand, Diana can project beams, powerful energy blasts or even conjuring protective energy barriers. She also can animate and control a statue, turn a mouse into a strong and beautiful white horse, and reverse any damage by using the restoration spell. She is very skilled at astrology as she can see the future usually accurately, has showed a high skill at telekinesis and displays a vast knowledge of the history of magic and in different magic languages. Her abilities in riding flying broomsticks are also better than majority of the students in Luna Nova as well, even surpassing to Amanda O'Neill when it comes to speed.

Etymology

 * "Diana" is probably derived from an old Indo-European root meaning "heavenly, divine".
 * The meaning of the name "Cavendish" is "Cafna's pasture", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century personal name "Cafna", itself from "Caf", meaning "bold, daring", plus "edisc", meaning "enclosure or pasture".
 * "Cavendish" can also be interpreted as a joke on her characteristic blonde hair, as Cavendish is a common strain of Bananas that were popularized in Britain.

Trivia

 * Her English voice actress, Laura Post, also voices Ragyō Kiryūin from Kill la Kill, another Trigger production. Similarly, Akko's voice actress Erica Mendez also voices Ryūko Matoi in the same series.
 * With some viewers compared the series with Harry Potter book series due to sharing few major themes includes revolving school for spellcasters, Akko's rivalries with Diana parallels that of Harry Potter with Draco Malfoy, mostly due to Diana being portrayed as prideful witch from a long line of famous witches, just like Draco Malfoy who had a similar reputation. Unlike Draco, who was mostly indifferent to and outright enemies with his rival Harry, Diana doesn't hate her rival Akko and is actually concerned with her well-being as well as having better chance to become friends, despite hating to admit it.
 * Despite being British, in the English dub, she lacks an actual British accent.