>>31423480There are certainly parallels between N and Lillie, but N's advantages in the less-annoying contest are clear. Ghetsis intentionally raised N to be the way he was, giving him motivation towards a clear goal: "Humans treat Pokemon like shit, so I'll liberate them from those assholes!" Regardless of how Ghetsis was pulling the strings in the background, N had plenty of agency in his plot, which was entirely necessary, given that he was an antagonist and all. The fact that, as an antagonist, he could only show up sparingly meant both that his appearances seemed more important, and also that players were less likely to dislike him for being shoved in their faces (though disliking him for being a wimpy hippy was fair game).
The strikes against Lillie are that she doesn't have much of a clear goal, only hoping to keep Nebby safe and eventually get her mom to stop being such a bitch, and her story is predicated on her lack of agency that isn't solved until the story's already over. So in that sense, Lillie has a terrible combination of traits: she can't do much of consequence on her own - the best she does is give herself up to Plumeria to protect her friends - yet she's a constant companion with loads of screentime. So if you don't like her, she's little more than a useless tagalong that needs you to actually do anything; while that role is intended to make sure the player still has a game to play, that's never stopped people from getting annoyed by it in other games.