YMMV / Miraculous Ladybug S03E26 "Miracle Queen (Battle of the Miraculous Part 2)"

• Angst? What Angst?: Given that the two heroes have spent the whole three previous seasons trying to win the heart of the other, their main goal until then, they recover from having to renounce to this pretty quickly in this episode, and the previous one. Cat Noir only has to hear once Ladybug assuring that she "can't love him" to go straight for Kagami's photos. And Marinette may cry a little, but it's always cut short by Luka's appearance. It's certainly the reason why, when put in a similar situation in the New York special, Marinette experiences a more realistic and noticeable pain related to Adrien's loss. The latter also shows a way more believable sadness in the following season in episodes such as "Glaciator 2" or "Kuro Neko" when Ladybug rejects him.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Miracle Queen doesn't physically do anything herself to intimidate nor hurt the heroes, and she's defeated rather halfway through the episode. Despite her increased powers and Miraculous-wielding army, she ends up less of a threat than she became as Queen Wasp this time last year.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Need we say it? The biggest one in the whole series is the realization that Master Fu passing the torch is a bigger sacrifice than we realize at first. A Guardian who steps down loses all memories as a Guardian, and his life has revolved around being the last Guardian for a very long time. As such, he loses everything. All of his work, his decades of devoting his life to protecting the Miraculous, ends with him finding himself as an old man out of his time who doesn't know anyone around him (with his long lifespan, anyone he knew before becoming a Guardian as a child in the 1800s is surely long gone.) At least he won't be alone.
  • When you notice Marinette's narration since the previous episode is actually her reading Fu's last message to her, it makes Fu's farewell even more heartbreaking.
  • A minor one for Chloé. It was ultimately her choice to join Hawk Moth. However, since it was because of the villain's machinations to isolate her from Ladybug, aside from Ladybug's constantly sidelining her many times in this season, it's hard to not feel bad for her. Even if it was selfish, she genuinely wanted to help, and now, she regressed to a state even worse than she was in season 1.
  • Ladybug and Adrien turning their backs and walk away from each other (complete with sad eyes) on the ending card is really soulcrushing.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Despite Word of God condemning Chloé as "irredeemable" after this episode, no small number of fans hotly question this dim interpretation of her character and still feel that she's far from the monster Astruc apparently intended her to be. Not least of all because she achieved next to nothing as Miracle Queen and was abandoned as a failure, and because it was Marinette's own selfish hypocrisy in the previous episode that made Chloé amenable to Hawk Moth's manipulative overtures in the first place. This sentiment was so strong that Astruc was barraged with complaints after the episode aired, many feeling that recycling Queen Wasp again was trite and that the story would have been a better one had Chloé's Hidden Depths, moments of kindness, and aptitude for heroism resulted in real Character Development.

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