| “ | It doesn't matter anymore. With this new suit, everyone now knows Sparrow is a female, not a male. And that the legendary original Knightowl and Sparrow are long gone. Maybe it's a sign. That the time has come to embrace who we really are! | ” |
—Knightowl, Miraculous New York | ||
Barbara Keynes[3], also known as Knightowl, is one of the two tritagonists (alongside Olympia Hill) of Miraculous World: New York - United Heroez. She is a superhero in the United States, along with her partner Sparrow.
In "Re-creation", she, along with the rest of the United Heroez, fought against the Miraculized.
Appearance
Physical appearance
Barbara is a tall woman with a long face and strongly defined cheekbones. She has dark brown eyes and short, dark brown hair with bangs that she combs to the left side. Her lashes are thick and strongly defined, accentuating the woman's full eyes.
Civilian Attire
She wears a black suede coat with flared sleeves. The cover is fastened with a zipper and twelve silver buttons - six in one row. Barbara also fastens the coat with a black belt, which is at the waist. She also wears black, tight pants and high boots that are almost knee-deep, also in black. The whole is complemented by black leather gloves.
As Knightowl (original outfit)
She was dressed in an outfit in several shades of brown and purple accents. She wore a brown face mask with a voice modulator so that she could hide her true gender. Around the green glasses there were light brown decorations stylized on an owl "eyebrows". The mask had a light brown material around the mouth.
The costume was shaped to give the impression of a muscular man. It had many decorations and structures. In the abdominal area, the material resembled the shape of the muscles. There were purple tones sewn on the shoulders and knees. Knightowl also had brown elbow-length mitts with blue accents and golden claws and high boots in the same colors. The pattern on the heroine's torso was inspired by an owl, which was also represented by the character. A dark brown cape was also attached here. She wore a gun belt on her hips.
As Knightowl (current outfit)
Knightowl's new suit is magenta and purple with a similar owl logo on the chest, but with golden details on the ends of the magenta boots resembling an owl's talons. She also has knee pads and a utility belt with golden owl-shaped devices and magenta gloves with golden "talons" over her fingers. Her new magenta mask does not conceal her true gender and does not cover her entire face, but only the area around the eyes with pink lenses, golden owl "eyebrows", and a golden owl's beak over her nose. She also has a magenta cape and magenta hair that is longer than her civilian hair.
- For more of Knightowl's outfits and designs, see Barbara Keynes/Designs.
Personality
Knightowl is serious, irritable, and straightforward. Saving others in danger is important to her, which makes her frustrated and stern towards anyone who doesn't take the task as seriously, jokes around, or disobeys orders. Preferring solid, perfect plans without a chance of failing, Knightowl doesn't like questionable or risky suggestions, having little faith in them if they're not based on strong evidence or reasoning. Sometimes, she is willing to put her stubbornness aside to try alternate options and work together with people she doesn't agree with.
She likes to take the lead, and is good at commanding a team. While she can get impatient with others, Knightowl takes them seriously and gives them clear, strong orders to follow. Tending toward a negative disposition, she judges others harshly and tends to bluntly give her opinion of them without consideration. However, Knightowl is experienced, thus knowing the dangers of her job, and calming new fellow superheroes in difficult situations. She also has a softer side, laughing with Majestia and Sparrow about Ladybug and Cat Noir's budding romance.
When freed from her code of ethics, similar to Rogercop; Barbara punished everyone she saw for every little wrong thing they did.
When proven wrong, she can be gentle and humble when admitting her mistakes about the young heroes, as well as being open to changes.
Abilities
Knightowl is physically fit, having enough stamina and skill to keep up with Ladybug and Cat Noir while they're running and to jump from edge to edge down a huge crack in the ground, and strong enough to carry a large piano. She threw boomerangs based off of her logo with great strength and precision. Additionally, Knightowl is a skilled strategist, devising the initial destructive plan to destroy the Trash Krakken and giving commands to Ladybug, Cat Noir, and Sparrow when they were about to battle him. In "Re-creation", she's seen to have great willpower as she's able to resist the nightmares.
Family
Tree
 Unknown | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Barbara Keynes |  Olympia Hill |  Ignoblia | |||||||||||||||||||
 Jessica Keynes |  Aeon | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Unknown | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Barbara Keynes | Olympia Hill | Ignoblia | |||||||||||||||||||
| Jessica Keynes | Aeon | ||||||||||||||||||||
= Male
= Female
= Gender Unknown
Relationships
Jessica Keynes/Sparrow/Eagle
Knightowl treats Sparrow as a sidekick, seeing her in a similar but less judgemental fashion to Cat Noir. She trusts her enough to listen to her and her advice, such as begrudgingly agreeing to stray from her original plan for ten minutes when she persuades her to try Ladybug and Cat Noir's plan. Though close to her, Knightowl continues the mission after her daughter's apparent demise, thinking of it as a way of honoring her sacrifice. Knightowl is initially overprotective of her daughter. When Sparrow and Uncanny Valley go against her and Majestia's wishes, she is angry with the pair. However, when Sparrow becomes Eagle, she sees the error of her ways and praises Sparrow for her heroism.
Unnamed partner
Knightowl trusts her butler/partner to such a degree that a fan of hers decided to create an artificial version of said partner and was attached to it enough for it to become his akumatized object.
Ladybug and Cat Noir
Knightowl is critical of Ladybug and Cat Noir, displeased with them when they run off briefly so they can detransform and when they jump down a hole to confront the Trash Krakken instead of following Victory's direction. In particular, she finds Cat Noir annoying, thinking of him as a sidekick who mainly goofs off. However, she knows how important Ladybug is to the mission and relies on Cat Noir to calm her down after the apparent demise of Uncanny.
Despite her criticism of them, after they explain how they want to try taking Mr. Squid from Trash Krakken, Knightowl relents and works with them to execute the plan, though not without disagreements along the way.
She is also critical of the pair when Cat Noir unintentionally destroys Uncanny Valley. When she confronts Ladybug and Cat Noir, she orders them to hand over their miraculouses. However she warms up to the pair after they save New York City from Hawk Moth.
In "Re-creation", she, along with the rest of the United Heroez, fought in defense for the French duo against the Miraculized.
Olympia Hill/Majestia
Olympia is Barbara's romantic partner. As Knight Owl and Majestia, the two fight alongside each other when facing the villains of New York. When Barbara gets upset with Jess for not obeying her orders, Olympia attempts to calm her down. The two were on the same side as they are both very protective of their daughters. Later on, Barbara and Olympia both agree that they had to let their daughters be more independent.
Sightings
Episodes
Comics and books
Others
Trivia
- Barbara's civilian design was modeled off of Marinette's English VA Cristina Vee.[4]
- Knightowl's design is similar to the design of famous comic book superhero Batman.
- Knightowl's name and design are also similar to Nite Owl (specifically, the Daniel Dreiberg incarnation), a superhero from the Watchmen comics who is partially based on Batman.
- Barbara predecessors each reference a era of pop culture, the first Knightowl references the wild west Heroes, the second Knightowl references The Pulp Fiction Heroes, the third knightowl reference the 1966 Batman TV series, the 4th knightowl his attire appears to be based on the 90s anti-hero.
- Knightowl also shares the same civilian first name with the first Batgirl, whose civilian identity is Barbara Gordon.
- Coincidentally, her second costume is similarly colored to Batgirl's suit.
- Her sexuality is from the second Batwoman, Kate Kane, who is a lesbian.
- Knight Owl and Majestia's relationship mirrors to Batman and Wonder Woman's relationship in the DCAU.
- In the fourth issue of Miraculous Adventures, it is revealed that Knightowl keeps her identity and true gender a secret from the other heroes.
- As seen in "The Dark Owl", Denis Damoclès is a fan of Knightowl, having a suit similar to hers and a small collection of her comics hidden inside his office.
- As seen in the flashbacks about the past Knightowls, it can be assumed that she was Sparrow in her youth.
- According to Jess's English VA, Jess and Aeon are sisters[5]; this implies both are daughters to both of Barbara Keynes and Olympia Hill.
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
References
- ↑ https://twitter.com/anairis_q/status/1309617223372337152
- ↑ Anairis Quiñones in 25 September 2021 tweet: "I never knew one of my VO goals was voicing my own girlfriend, but here I am."
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1309860850837184515
- ↑ https://twitter.com/CristinaVee/status/1309551127050952704
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20200926034212/https://twitter.com/itsJaimiGray/status/1309661183104880640