In Lillies case it's a whole lot darker once you realize why she looks like that.

And then you find out it's an actual REALLY cool subversion of expectations because once you realize that Lusamine dressed EVERYONE like the ultra beasts because she was so obsessed with them. It's never outright spelled out, but it ends up making red herrings that aren't just completely unrelated to the story. As opposed to other subversions where there's… not really much reasoning to them.