Opting to take the direct route to find out Ladybug's identity, Monarch attempts to use the kwamis to track her down. Unfortunately for him, he walks right into a trap orchestrated by Marinette herself.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Ladybug's plan to trap Monarch and recover the stolen Kwamis is ruined as the purple menace allows his arm to be cataclysmed followed by him escaping via portal.
- Anti-Climactic Unmasking: Monarch is very easily convinced that Marinette is merely a temporary hero who happens to own a clue to Ladybug's true home and his brief reaction implies it's because he finds it hard to believe that she could be Ladybug.Monarch: Marinette Dupain-Cheng? [to Kwamis] Are you sure?
- Batman Gambit: Several parts of Marinette's plan rely on other people to behave correctly, such as the skating instructor being present at the ice rink and taking a selfie with Monarch, and the wax museum curator going along with her plan on short notice. Cat Noir missing the selfie alert by itself would have rendered her efforts for naught.
- Call-Back:
- Just like in "Miraculous: New York", Cat Noir accidentally hits another person with his Cataclysm, which horrifies him.
- Much like Oni-chan in the titular episode, Monarch takes Ladybug's Lucky Charm away from her.
- Marinette mentions her brief stint as Multimouse in "Kwamibuster" to give herself plausible deniability when Monarch comes in search of Ladybug.
- Monarch orders the kwamis to reveal the identity of their Guardian (Ladybug), then specifies that he wants to know who Ladybug is. Cue them spitting a round of bubbles, just like Tikki and Plagg on occasion.
- Monarch once again abuses the kwamis by silencing them with a snap of his fingers.
- Philippe starts posting selfies with everyone who visits his ice rink- particularly celebrities- in order to boost its popularity, much like he did with Adrien in his first episode, "Frozer".
- Cooperation Gambit: The first step of Marinette's plan relies on luring Monarch directly to her and then cooperating with his demands per the game she set up, making him think she's merely another of Ladybug's temporary holders.
- Costume Evolution: After reforging his miraculous into rings, Gabriel gets a new costume as Monarch with a more monochrome color palette, evocative of his original Hawk Moth costume but retaining elements of the first Monarch costume.
- Crazy-Prepared: Marinette had a complex scavenger hunt prepared, had coached the kwamis to say a specific phrase "if they ever got lost", and even had Cat Noir carry an insulting piece of paper in his bell, all months in advance, just in case Hawk Moth (as he was still known at the time) ever got his hands on a kwami and tried to use it to find her.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Monarch deliberately pulls Cat Noir so Cat Noir will hit him with his Cataclysm. Both are horrified and Ladybug releases her yo-yo to separate the two. Without that leverage, Monarch is able to use Kaalki to portal out.
- Didn't See That Coming: The one flaw in Marinette's plan is that she never anticipated Monarch would willingly risk destroying himself with Cataclysm just to escape.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: Cat Noir threatens to hit Monarch with Cataclysm to prevent his escape, and really doesn't want Monarch to force his hand. When Monarch quite literally does so, he's horrified.
- Double-Meaning Title: The power of Destruction is used directly on Monarch, and then he has the Miraculous destroyed in order to make new ones.
- Dramatic Irony: The moment the kwamis claim that Marinette's "gift" from Ladybug will lead Monarch to the guardian, while conveniently failing to mention Marinette being both Ladybug and the guardian, it's obvious to the viewers that she's left them some kind of contingency plan to lead Monarch into a trap. He spends several scenes obliviously following her trail of bait, not realizing anything is wrong until the moment she springs the trap on him.
- Exact Words: Gabriel demands the kwami tell him the identity of the guardian, so they do so: it's Ladybug. He then clarifies that he wants her Secret Identity, which they cannot give.
- Extremely Short Timespan: This episode is Interquel to "Multiplication" which already counts as an example of this trope.
- The Gadfly: Xuppu gives overly elaborate and unnecessary explanations to Gabriel just to annoy him.
- Godzilla Threshold: Bound and seconds away from being unmasked, Monarch pulls a Deliberate Injury Gambit and allows himself to be hit by Cataclysm, knowing that not only is he risking being killed by it, but that taking Ladybug's Lucky Charm will prevent her from fixing the damage.
- Going for the Big Scoop: Alya's reaction to seeing a supervillain in her best friend's bedroom is to attempt to interview him. She gets her phone broken as a result.
- Imagination-Based Superpower: Or the limits thereof. Gabriel wants to use Orikko's power to either find Ladybug and Cat Noir or give him powers similar to their own, but Orikko makes it clear that their powers cannot copy those of other kwami or grant wish-like concepts. It would have to be something Gabriel could quantify. He also cannot grant any power that would compromise another Miraculous.
- Internal Reveal: Marinette tells Monarch that she was given the Mouse Miraculous, though obviously she's fudging the details about how that arrangement happened.
- Interquel: It's not revealed until the last few scenes, but most of this episode takes place in the middle of "Multiplication", before Adrien has asked to quit being a model.
- Like Cannot Cut Like: One of Orikko's limitations: he can't interfere with another kwami's magic, including their Glamour.
- Loophole Abuse:
- Gabriel attempts to command the kwami to reveal Ladybug's identity, but the Geas prevents them from doing so. Instead, he orders them to take him to where the guardian lives. Fortunately, Marinette anticipated that he might get his hands on another kwami and never allowed the kwamis to learn her precise address, instead setting up a scavenger hunt to lead him into a trap.
- The kwamis must obey Monarch's order to take him to where the guardian lives, but they are able to tack on Marinette's game because Monarch never specifically ordered them not to and they are leading him to where she lives in a roundabout way. Since they don't know her physical address, the game is meant to provide that, and Marinette deliberately misled them about its true purpose so they would be telling Monarch the truth.
- Lured into a Trap: Knowing a kwami might be captured and forced to lead Monarch to her, Marinette set up a false trail to lead him into an ambush.
- Metaphorically True: Lampshaded by Marinette, who notes that the kwami never once lied to Monarch despite misleading him about where to find Ladybug. They simply followed the instructions she gave them to find out where she lives, since that is what he asked for, and she never told them it was a trick.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Cat Noir takes the fact that he used Cataclysm on a human very badly, even despite it having been Monarch, and pleads with Ladybug to fix it. But she can't without her Lucky Charm, which Monarch took with him when he escaped.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: Cat Noir poses as a statue of himself to trick Monarch.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The stolen Miraculous (with the exception of the Butterfly) are rendered to dust and modified into rings. Gabriel is also Cataclysmed by Cat Noir, which his suit does not fully protect him from, leaving a nasty, hand-shaped burn on his wrist.
- Once More, with Clarity: The first half of the episode is focused primarily on Monarch as he attempts to learn Ladybug's identity through the scavenger hunt she set up to guide the kwamis home if they got lost. The second half has Marinette explain to Alya that the whole scavenger hunt was a trap designed to rescue the kwamis if they were ever captured by Hawk Moth, unmasking him in the process.
- Post-Modern Magik: Gabriel uses a very advanced looking array of lasers to render all but the Butterfly Miraculous into metallic powder. He then uses a component from Tomoe Tsurugi to reforge each one into rings that retain all their powers as Miraculous. This is to seemingly facilitate transmitting their powers to his akumas through the Alliance Rings.
- Properly Paranoid: Marinette suspected she might lose a kwami to Monarch, so she set up a game for them that would warn her if Monarch attempted to track her down.
- Reset Button: Subverted. Ladybug would ordinarily be able to use her power to fix the damage Cat Noir caused to Monarch, but he fled with her Lucky Charm. This means Gabriel's Cataclysm wound is very much permanent, and he even makes a new outfit to hide it better.
- Ring of Power: Gabriel reforges all the Miraculouses except his own into rings. In addition to retaining their powers, it serves as the mechanism to transmit their powers to his akuma.
- Shout-Out: Cat Noir jokes about Ladybug calling him with Bug Signal.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: To cover up the injuries from Cat Noir's Cataclysm in his civilian identity, Gabriel designs himself a new look, featuring all white instead of red pants and a striped tie, along with gloves and a higher neckline.
- Simultaneous Arcs: This episode takes place during the Time Skip in the previous episode.
- Spanner in the Works: Marinette's plan worked flawlessly, except for the part where she didn't expect Monarch to be willing to get hit by a Cataclysm to escape.
- Status Quo Is God: In keeping with the previous episode, Monarch goes back to his Monster of the Week formula (with an update now that he has more powers to choose from) because he realizes that allowing Ladybug any chance to corner him is too big a risk to take.
- Transformation Sequence: Gabriel gets a new one into Monarch to go along with his updated costume. White lace envelops his body as his similarly covered cane emerges from the ground into his hands. Then this cocoon of sorts unfurls into butterfly wings to unveil his transformed state, before the wings dissolve.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Marinette doesn't explain her plan until after she's caught Monarch. One of the few things she does explain is that Cat Noir is holding his Cataclysm to Monarch in case he tries anything... and naturally, this one point is where the plan fails, as Monarch instead takes the Cataclysm to his arm on purpose, leaving the heroes without their leverage.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: As a result of getting hit by Cataclysm, Gabriel sustains a very painful and nasty-looking, hand-shaped burn on his wrist that is spreading up his arm instead of healing, suggesting his suit slowed the effect of the Cataclysm but didn't completely stop it. This is similar to how Miraculeur's Cataclysm-imbued truncheon caused internal damage to Cat Noir instead of outright killing him, which was then healed by Ladybug's World-Healing Wave.
