YMMV / Miraculous Ladybug S03E01 "Chameleon"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: This episode is a major source of contention between fans because of this.
  • Are Alya, Nino, and the class all horrible for turning on Marinette, or were they simply too caught up with Lila not to realize how Mari was getting the short end of the stick, and were just trying to defend the nice new girl with health issues from being treated unfairly from baseless accusations?
  • Did the class initially think Marinette was the one akumatized after storming out of lunch? If so, did this make them realize how unfair they were to her over the seating change and went back to their old ones because of it; hence their Easily Forgiven attitudes afterwards? Plus, did this also make them think Marinette's hostile attitude towards Lila stemmed from her kickstarting the change, and not entirely out of jealousy?
  • Does Adrien's advice make sense in a pragmatic way, or is he just being an Extreme Doormat who doesn't want to get dragged into the conflict even if his friends might get hurt? Or is the problem simply that he hasn't been informed of how genuinely dangerous Lila is at this point, has only seen her celebrity lies, and has no reason not to think that she's just an annoying but harmless attention seeker who is more trouble than she's worth to antagonize?
• Broken Base: There are heavy debates in the fandom regarding this episode and whether or not Lila's subplot is good in the long run. Defenders argue that the subplot keeps the series interesting and tests Marinette's relationship with her friends, while detractors feel that Chameleon's drama was forced and only makes the class look like jerks towards a friend they're established to trust, while Lila herself stands as perhaps the biggest Base-Breaking Character in the whole series.
• Critical Backlash: This episode has slowly begun to garner this reaction from some fans. It completely tore the fandom apart and single-handedly gave birth to the salt fic genre, and the character of Lila Rossi who, while intentionally unlikable, was hyped up by fans (even on this very wiki) as undeniably a malevolent sociopath who was eviler than Hawk Moth just because of this single episode^note and that is before she got a subplot of plotting to take over Hawk Moth's operation in Season Five and became the main villain of the show on Season Six . For fans who don't get so emotionally involved with the show or Marinette's character, this is at worst an average and largely inoffensive episode that is far from uncommon in fantasy shows, where characters like Alya are shown to be flawed but not irredeemable and Lila is just a typical teenage Bitch in Sheep's Clothing character with over-the-top lying powers.
• Fanfic Fuel: The immensely Broken Base amongst the Ladybug fandom that caused the meteoric rise of the "Salt Fic" sub-genre has its beginnings in this episode.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Few fics acknowledge that "Chameleon" happened, and 90% of those that do parody it or rewrite it to have a different ending. It's the only way to prevent the hot-button issue of bullying from swallowing up whatever narrative writers want to tell.
• Franchise Original Sin: While all of the other students of Marinette's class had shown themselves to be gullible, quick to make erroneous assumptions and lacking in observation skills in previous episodes (one major example being Alya in "Lady Wi-Fi" thinking Chloé is Ladybug with flimsy evidence), the way Lila wrapped them all around her finger so easily (and kept doing in future episodes like "Ladybug") made this the episode in which a wide number of the audience decided that such a huge amount of blindness can only mean they are deliberately foul, leading to the meteoric rise of the "Salt Fic" Sub-Genre.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • If Lila had been a Villain of the Week, maybe she would have been less divisive. But by the end of Season Five, she took over the reins of being the Big Bad, dumping a truckload of fuel on the fire.
  • Either this or Hilarious in Hindsight about how increasingly absurd her capacity as a Consummate Liar became as the seasons passed, including scamming three women into making them believe she was their daughter (at the same time) and the reveal that "Lila Rossi" is not her real name (although which is it we have not been told yet), she is not Italian and that she has been wearing a wig all of this time.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Adrien's reputation among the fandom was irrevocably tainted as a result of his infamous "high road" advice at the end of this episode, despite the episode itself positioning this advice as correct since the conflict with the seating arrangements resolves itself afterwards without there having been any need to go after Lila for the lies she'd been telling. His most vocal critics would go on to paint his personality in civilian life as a spineless Accomplice by Inaction who cares more about maintaining an illusion of peace than actually standing up for what's right, even though earlier episodes such as "Despair Bear" (where he threatens to renounce his friendship with Chloé after a nasty fire alarm prank) and later episodes such as "Oni-Chan" (where he makes it clear to Lila that harming his friends is a line he will not tolerate) and "Ladybug" (where he uses his "friendship" with Lila to coerce her into retracting false accusations against Marinette) show him drawing his personal line in the sand when pushed too far.^note On a semi-related note, this also triggered a re-examination of his Entitled to Have You tendencies as Cat Noir, leading to his critics going after that as well.
  • Alya's reputation amongst the fans took a massive hit after this episode; even now, many refuse to see her as anything but a False Friend and hypocrite who'd ditch Marinette the second a more tempting offer presented itself, even in spite of episodes such as "Ladybug" (where she doesn't believe Lila's accusations against Marinette and investigates to prove her innocence) and Season 4 in general (where she becomes Marinette's loyal Secret-Keeper) showing otherwise.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: These days, this episode is more well known for the massive Broken Base it caused in the fandom and for being the trigger that unleashed a hoard of "salt fics" than the actual quality of the episode itself.
• Ron the Death Eater: For many fans, Marinette’s class are irredeemable jerks for not including her in a new seating plan. Never mind that she wasn’t present when said plan was unveiled and these sorts of things are generally first come, first serve in most schools.

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