Miraculous Ladybug
Examples of Unintentionally Unsympathetic in this series. open/close all folders
Adrien/Cat Noir
A large part of Adrien's Base-Breaking Character status is tied to this trope. While the narrative portrays him as being in the right a majority of the time, plenty of fans see his actions in a more negative light.
- In "Copycat," Cat Noir lies about his relationship with Ladybug to Théo, causing the latter to get akumatized. While Cat Noir does acknowledge to Ladybug that he got himself into this mess, he deflected Ladybug's question by pointing out that she didn't show up to the statue unveiling. He tries to capture Copycat himself in an attempt to fix his mistake, but he doesn't apologize to Théo, leaving Ladybug to apologize for her absence as if that had been the cause of the akuma. He exits the scene on a slightly bitter note with a remark about how "his crush got crushed." The context wants the audience to be sympathetic over Adrien's heartache, but he shouldn't have gotten possessive and lied in the first place.
- In "Glaciator," while Cat Noir's planned surprise romantic date for Ladybug is sweet and his disappointment understandable, both she and Plagg warn him beforehand she might not attend since she has other plans with friends, and he chooses to get his hopes up anyway. While he acknowledges this to Marinette, by the time the Monster of the Week shows up, he acts like he got stood up. Rather than point out she never promised to attend or explain that she didn't realize his offer/flirting was serious, Ladybug apologizes, and at the end of the episode, Cat Noir decides to keep pursuing her even after she tells him she's in love with someone else.
- In "Syren," we're meant to sympathize with Cat Noir because he feels Locked Out of the Loop regarding Master Fu and the temporary heroes. However, the fact that his response to this was to threaten to throw away his Miraculous (one of the two most powerful ones in existence, mind you) in the middle of an active crisis made him far less sympathetic in the eyes of fans, who pointed out that responding like that is the worst way to prove that he's responsible or mature enough to learn more from Master Fu.
- Some were hoping for a shift in the status quo at the end of "Glaciator," in which he chose to be hopeful that Ladybug would return his feelings someday but gave the impression that he wouldn't push the issue again. However, "Frozer" has him asking her out in the opening scene, and for the rest of the episode, Adrien's persisting feelings for Ladybug despite Kagami's interest in him are presented as sweet and romantic, even though by now, Ladybug has repeatedly told him she's in love with someone else, and he's basically leading Kagami on. This also leads to him giving Ladybug the cold shoulder during the fight with Frozer, which makes him come off as feeling entitled to her affections.
- In "Weredad," we're meant to sympathize with how awkward Adrien feels about Marinette being in love with "Cat Noir" when he doesn't return her feelings and how terrible he feels that he's in a no-win situation where he can spare her feelings by leading her on or be honest and break her heart. Rather than taking a moment to consider that he may be placing Ladybug in a similar situation, the narrative reassures Adrien that he should never feel guilty or pressured to return the feelings of someone he doesn't love.
- In "Lies," we're meant to sympathize with Adrien because Kagami breaks up with him after he fails to explain his constant disappearances to her. However, he's shown to still be pining after Ladybug while he's dating Kagami, even looking forward to future akuma attacks so he can see the heroine (to the point that his interactions with Mr. Ramier come off as him encouraging the man to get akumatized). It especially contrasts with Marinette's actions in "Truth"; she was genuinely upset about missing her dates with Luka, while Adrien seemed happy to ditch Kagami for Ladybug.
- In "Kuro Neko," Cat Noir feels neglected because Ladybug has been relying on other superheroes more, he's Locked Out of the Loop from her Guardian duties, and she's changing the established rules for her own convenience and his detriment. Rather than tell her his feelings so they can fix it, he Rage Quits by telling her she should come back and collect his Miraculous. While she realizes what he meant and comes back moments later, the fact that he chose to de-transform and leave one of the most powerful Miraculous in existence (with Plagg trapped inside) alone on a rooftop can make him look reckless and irresponsible. Even those who sympathized with his plight felt that his willingness to abandon Plagg (who has been with him through thick and thin) erased some of that sympathy. There's also the fact that Cat Noir feeling neglected because Ladybug has been relying on other superheroes more falls flat since it happened because he's failed to show up for akuma fights more than once (at first because of his father's restrictive schedule and later out of the belief that Ladybug doesn't need him anymore).
- In "Strike Back," Cat Noir is framed as being in the right for distrusting Flairmidible (since the audience knows Flairmidible is Félix and up to no good) and leaving during the final battle (while his allies are losing) due to his heartbreak over Ladybug being all over this new superhero (whom she thinks is Adrien, AKA him, which he doesn't realize). But since season 5 established that Cat Noir didn't know Flairmidible was Félix, to some viewers, it comes across as Cat Noir being rude and distrusting towards a new hero and Rage Quitting in the middle of a crisis once again due to his jealousy and entitlement regarding Ladybug's affections.
- In "Destruction", Cat Noir has a massive My God, What Have I Done? moment after he uses Cataclysm on Monarch. While his shock in that moment is understandable (especially since Monarch forced him to do it), some fans felt less sympathy for him after "Jubilation" and "Derision" (both of which take place after this episode) saw him deliberately attempt to use Cataclysm on akumatized villains (and while the "Jubilation" example can be excused as a knee-jerk reaction after being trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine, the "Derision" example can come off as Disproportionate Retribution); the fact that he showed less visible remorse over these incidents than he did accidentally Cataclysming Monarch has caused these fans to label him a hypocrite with Skewed Priorities.
Marinette/Ladybug
Much like her partner, Marinette has been on the receiving end of this trope multiple times by fans.
- She falls into this in "Animaestro," as she spends the majority of the episode partnering up with Chloé of all people to keep Kagami away from Adrien. While the viewers are made to sympathize with her because her fears of Adrien leaving are worsened by Chloé's manipulations and Marinette states she would never hang out with Chloé again, Marinette still does cruel things to Kagami, whose only real "crime" was smiling smugly at her (and Chloé) while holding onto to Adrien's arm, which was in response to them glaring at and looking down on her. To recap, Marinette (a victim of Chloé's bullying) decides to partner up with Chloé in order to humiliate another young girl for no actual reason. As such, she helps ruin what were possibly the heirlooms of Kagami's family and doesn't help her parents. Moreover, at the end, she doesn't even get called out for her dubious actions. We do get an episode later, though, in which she realizes she's been unfair to Kagami and makes friends with her.
- There's also her plan in "Gigantitan." Not only is Marinette scarily informed of Adrien's whereabouts at any point in time once more, a sore point for some viewers—and even lampshaded by Alix—their plan hinges on framing the Gorilla for parking someplace inconvenient for Marinette to make a move on Adrien without his intervention. The girls are required to do this three times during the episode, so the Gorilla receives three parking tickets from Officer Roger, all for doing his job while having done nothing to deserve this. It's perhaps mitigated a bit by the fact that, had the plan gone off without a hitch, he would have been able to move the car without getting any tickets at all, but it still doesn't excuse them manipulating two people trying to do their jobs. Gorilla may not have become akumatized thanks to Adrien's last-minute intervention, but one can hardly blame him for being in a poor mood by the end of the episode when he picks up Adrien.
- In the Shanghai special, Marinette learns Adrien's father is sending him to China, so she convinces her parents to send her there too by claiming to want to connect to her heritage. The show acknowledges this is an expensive trip—her parents have been saving money for the occasion since she was born—and Sabine and Tom clearly want to share this experience with their daughter but can't close the bakery on such short notice. Once Marinette arrives in Shanghai, she promptly ditches her great uncle on his birthday to wander around a country where she doesn't speak the language or know the culture in hopes she'll get to see a boy whom she sees every single day in school. While getting pickpocketed and lost wasn't her fault, it's hard to watch knowing she's putting her parents and great uncle through so much just so that she could continue stalking Adrien.
Akumas
Several akumatized villains are presented as being justified victims in the face of whatever negative incident got them akumatized in the first place. This works for some characters (e.g. Luka getting akumatized after a corrupt producer plagiarizes from and threatens his friends), but for others, the sympathetic reasoning falls flat, and they come off as having brought their problems (including the subsequent akumatization) upon themselves.
- Xavier Ramier in "Mr. Pigeon." He's presented as a harmless Cloudcuckoolander Friend to All Living Things getting prosecuted by a police officer over something minor; however, said officer had warned him repeatedly that feeding pigeons is illegal and gives good reasons as to why it's illegal (health hazards), making Xavier come across as a misanthropic jerk who cares more about pigeons than the impact of his behavior on other people. "Timetagger" implies that he still ignores these warnings and still gets upset whenever he's told off given how many times he's apparently been akumatized offscreen (which a later episode reveals to have been at least seventy-two times).
- Jalil Kubdel in "The Pharaoh." While he's meant to be sympathetic in the face of his Fantasy-Forbidding Father shooting down his plans to test a hypothesis, said father rightfully points out that using museum artifacts to perform a ritual that may or may not work (one that requires someone getting sacrificed, no less) could get the two of them fired from the museum, making Jalil come off as someone who doesn't care what he has to do to prove he's right.
- It happens to him again in "Reunion." His desire to reunite with his sister is understandable, but the idea that we're still meant to sympathize with him after he willingly gets akumatized by Monarch is a bit harder to swallow—especially since characters who've done this previously (e.g. Lila and Chloé) have normally been treated as being Beyond Redemption by the narrative.
- We're meant to sympathize with Max in "The Gamer" because he practiced for an entire year so that he could be chosen as one of the two students meant to represent his school in a video game tournament and failed to qualify after Marinette, who only entered to spend time with Adrien, beats him. However, many viewers have pointed out that This Is a Competition and that regardless of her motives, Marinette (and Adrien) beat Max fair and square in the tryouts, meaning Max didn't deserve to represent the school in the tournament. Moreover, Max was rather dismissive towards Marinette when she first announced she wanted to compete, and while he initially tried to be a Graceful Loser when she beat him, once he's alone, he quickly does a 180, declaring his loss was "a travesty," that he "was the chosen one," and that his loss was "inconceivable," making him come off as an Entitled Bastard who refuses to accept the simple fact that he didn't earn the right to represent the school while others did. Even after being deakumatized, he still acts like a Sore Loser and gives Marinette the cold shoulder despite having attacked her as an akuma, which he's not even seen apologizing for. He only "forgives" her when she decides to give him what he wants (thus rewarding his bad behavior) by offering to drop out of tournament because of how much it means to him, and we're supposed to feel happy that he gets to compete despite Max still not having earned his spot fairly and never apologizing for or getting called out on his poor sportsmanship or entitled behavior.
- Nadja in "Prime Queen". We're supposed to sympathize with her after Ladybug walks out on the interview and her show gets canceled afterwards; however, she repeatedly pushes an invasive question onto the duo even after Ladybug told her to stop, making it harder to sympathize with her when Ladybug decides to Rage Quit. Additionally, any sympathy she could've gained from the pressure her boss Arlette is putting on her is lost because A) a line of dialogue implies that Nadja has been hyping up this scoop for a while now without considering whether or not Ladybug or Cat Noir would actually want to talk about it, which could easily explain why Arlette is expecting something big, and B) even after the whole fiasco, Nadja is allowed to keep her show. With all this in mind, it's difficult to find her sympathetic.
- Kagami in "Riposte." She's presented as being under a lot of pressure from her family to succeed, and her loss to Adrien is supposed to be due to a supposed bad call, even though the call made against her was never actually determined to be incorrect (a Freeze-Frame Bonus even hints that Kagami really did lose the bout). Though Marinette did say that she thought Adrien struck first, she also stated she was unsure, and it was D'Argencourt who officially declared Adrien the winner based solely on Marinette's flimsy opinion while ignoring protests otherwise, with it being strongly implied that he did so to spite Kagami for being rude to him earlier. Moreover, Kagami was the one who suggested that she and Adrien be disconnected from the electronic scoring machines that exist to ensure an unbiased call and later continued their bout into the school library where there were barely any witnesses when she could've just pointed out that the bout ends when one of the fencers leaves the mat. All in all, it was Kagami's own foolish decisions that caused the allegedly biased ruling against her. That's not even getting to the fact that many of the moves she used—including crossing her feet, shoving someone off the mat, and turning her back to her opponent—would be illegal in fencing in real life, making many fans who are familiar with the sport feel like Kagami deserved to lose.
- André the ice cream man is repeatedly akumatized when he fears that his ice cream has lost its magic. However, this increasingly boils down to shipping teenagers he barely knows and getting mad enough to be akumatized whenever he sees them with other people. A lot of fans view André not as the Excellent Judge of Character that his improvised recipes are meant to show, but as a blithe, pathetic creep who needs to mind his own business. His conviction in the power of love also seems fickler the more often he loses hope (over what must look to him like a standard Love Triangle), wearing down the sympathy for his motives under akumatization.
- We're meant to feel sorry for André in "Glaciator" because Marinette rejected his ice cream and doubted its magic, but given that he was essentially forcing it upon her without asking if she even wanted it, Marinette had every right to reject it, and even though she said it due to her upset state, she had the right to her opinion of the "magic" ice cream being "just ice cream."
- In "Glaciator 2," André sees Marinette and Cat Noir chatting on a passing bus. Unbeknownst to them, he stares sadly at the window, assuming they're dating. Not only can this scene come off as creepy rather than sympathetic, but this is the second time that day that André jumped to such conclusions and felt entitled to police the heroes' love lives as a result.
- "Elation" doubles down on the above. When Marinette and Cat Noir really are on a date and want to buy his ice cream, André makes them feel guilty and awkward instead of doing his job. Despite knowing nothing about the situation, he also oddly pins all the blame for sinking his ships on Marinette, which some viewers interpreted as misogyny. As revenge, André goes to destroy her life by attempting to blow up her house with her parents and friend inside. While André is called out, future episodes have the characters still happily buying from his cart, suggesting that we're to forgive him for wanting to orphan a teenager for ruining the prophecy of alleged ice cream magic.
- Anarka Couffaine in "Captain Hardrock." We're supposed to sympathize with her when Roger shuts down her plans for the music festival; however, she shows absolutely no concern regarding the damage her way-over-the-legal-limit speakers caused (likely adding up to thousands of euros considering how many cars were blown over), talks back to Roger when he tries to ticket her for this, and then gets herself into further trouble by implying she has none of the relevant permits for her houseboat. Yet we're supposed to be happy when the episode ends with her not getting punished for any of this.
- Marinette's girl squad come off as this in "Gang of Secrets." They know Marinette is going through a bad moment, yet they use the opportunity (motivated by some "ancient legend" Mylène heard about) to barge into her room uninvited, break some of her stuff by accident, and then demand to know why she's acting so weird, as if Marinette had no right to brood or keep to herself (especially after a breakup). Marinette gets angry and tells them to leave her alone (which Alya refuses at first), leading to their akumatization. This is all framed as Marinette's fault for losing her temper and chasing away the friends that want to support her, but none of her friends apologize for some of their more meddling behavior at the beginning.
Other characters
- Tom Dupain is supposed to be a Reasonable Authority Figure in "Rogercop" who helps Marinette have a Jerkass Realization by making a "Not So Different" Remark about how Marinette is accusing her friends and insisting that all their bags be searched just like Chloé was doing to her. However, despite what he claims, the two's actions aren't at all alike. Chloé immediately pinned the theft on Marinette despite lacking any real evidence, whereas Marinette calmly and correctly pointed out that Everyone Is a Suspect (herself included) due to a lack of evidence regarding the theft, all without accusing anyone in particular (she did suggest to Chloé that she look inside Sabrina's bag, but only to highlight Chloé's Double Standard in only demanding Marinette's bag be search despite there also being evidence against others). Likewise, Marinette only pitched the idea of having everyone's bag be searched because the evidence against her isn't much stronger than the evidence against the other suspects and she understandably refuses to be singled out based only on Chloé's biases. Granted, Marinette did cross a line by arbitrarily insisting that Adrien couldn't be the culprit due to her crush on him, but that comes long after Tom had reproached Marinette for allegedly making kneejerk accusations at her friends when she did no such thing in the first place. All this certainly isn't helped by how Tom repeatedly chides Marinette to let the adults handle things even though the mayor had earlier fired Roger for refusing to break the law and tried to confiscate Nino's phone while the other adults (Tom included) did little more than stand there as onlookers as it happened; indeed, even after Mayor Bourgeois leaves to speak with the principal, the remaining adults all seem to just be standing apart from each other and watching the students argue instead of working together to come up with a reasonable solution.
- The entire class often gets hit with this, save for Chloé and Lila (since the latter two are portrayed as intentionally malicious to Marinette):
- Most of the class come off as being sellouts in "Darkblade": they seem to genuinely be swayed by Chloé's bribes to consider voting for her—the class bully who's implicitly been neglecting her responsibilities as class representative, given the long list of requests the class makes to Marinette after she declares her candidacy—over their friend Marinette, whom they know is caring and hardworking.
- In "Chameleon," while it is understandable for them to want to sit with their friends/Love Interests, it's not understandable for them to completely cut Marinette out of this decision when it directly affects her since she's the one who will have to move seats.In particular, everyone in the room not named Marinette or Adrien has been a victim of akumatization, meaning they should know better than to have such callous disregard for Marinette's feelings.
- In "Qilin," Roger is presented as a tough but fair Reasonable Authority Figure who can't play favorites with Sabine just because he knows her and is forced to detain her due to the unnamed ticket inspector having proof that she was on a bus without a ticket. The problem is that Roger knows she's an honorable woman with a daughter he can contact who can corroborate her story, and he sees the ticket inspector gleefully harass and antagonize her. However, rather than tell the ticket inspector to back off and let her prove her innocence, Roger instead condemns, arrests, and threatens to bring reinforcements against Sabine for daring to verbally defend herself against increasingly trumped-up accusations against her by the increasingly hostile ticket inspector. It can make him come across as Lawful Stupid at best or a Dirty Cop at worst. The Karma Houdini he and the ticket inspector get at the end doesn't help.
- Félix Fathom in Season 5. We are given multiple episodes that show that we're meant to sympathize with him due to the implications that he's a Sentimonster who just wants control over himself, as well as the fact that his deceased father was apparently abusive towards him. However, the fact that these instances came right after the season 4 finale (which saw him willingly give almost every Miraculous to the Big Bad) made it hard for plenty of fans to find him sympathetic, especially since he has yet to really atone for that moment. Add in the fact that he continues to do morally dubious things (e.g. casually wiping people from existence in "Emotion" and stalking and abducting Kagami in "Pretension"), and detractors quickly dismissed the attempts at garnering sympathy for him as being part of the writers' accused favoritism of the Agreste family at the expense of other characters.
- Gabriel Agreste/Hawk Moth. As the show went on, it became clear that he was intended to be somewhat sympathetic, given his motives (wanting to save his wife), the fact that he cares for his son to at least some extent, and (as of season 5) the fact that he's Secretly Dying. However, these are all undermined by his actions—even if he loves Adrien, he's still neglectful and controlling towards him (and that's without getting into how he manipulated Adrien into getting Akumatized in "Cat Blanc" and "Ephemeral"), he only has himself to blame for his impending death (since he deliberately got himself Cataclysmed), and several episodes flip-flop on what his motives actually are. Combine that with all the crimes he committed both directly and indirectly, and a significant number of fans found it hard to sympathize with him at all.
- We're supposed to sympathize with André the ice cream man in "Revolution" when Chloé shuts his ice cream stand down for petty and spiteful reasons. However, it's revealed in the process that he doesn't have a permit to operate his stand, which is actually illegal in Real Life, and the only excuse he gives for not having one is "I don't need one." As such, fans instead ended up seeing it as the one good thing Chloé did during her tyrannical reign as mayor.
- André Bourgeois. In seasons 4 and 5, we're meant to see him as sympathetic due to him having to deal with Audrey and Chloé abusing and using him, with him only finding solace in Zoé, who actually treats him with respect. While fans did sympathize with him in regards to Audrey's abuse, they also pointed out that Chloé's abuse of him is largely a result of his own actions — after all, he was the one who originally spoiled her and abused his power for her whims, actions that were guaranteed to turn her into a Spoiled Brat. As such, they found it hard to sympathize with him on that front, especially since his solution is seemingly to replace her with Zoé and consign Chloé to her abhorrent mother instead of even trying to raise Chloé better.
