Miraculous Ladybug

I don't have a problem with secret identity in general, it's the degree to which secret identity is enforced in this series that's a problem, mostly because it's increasingly clear that adhering to it is stopping the plot from going anywhere.

At the very least, Lady and CN rigidly not being allowed to ever know each other's identity under any circumstances is kind of stupid, and it's pretty obvious that literally the only reason it exists is because the series wants to preserve the love square as much as it can and if they knew who each other were it would fall apart.

And now, say, look at how immediately now that Alya knows Marinette's secret, Marinette can interact with another person on entirely new layers, and that character can now actually contribute to the plot in a variety of ways. That's the kind of thing the series needed seasons ago.

It's not a problem that every superhero story has, but it's one Ladybug has had for ages because of the way it's set up. Everything in this series is designed such that it can remain as formula as possible, which always flew in contrast to the series trying to be so character focused.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2021 at 4:20:50 AM

It does mean that Marrinette now needs To make sure Ayla is never Akumatized again or Hawk Moth will find out the Identity.

Meh. That's only ever a problem if the writers want it to be. Much like how Marinette just happens to never be around big things that make other characters get akumatized, or always just happened to get distracted the one or two times she was almost akumatized, or half the times she is stressed or frustrated Hawkmoth never notices, and so on.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2021 at 4:49:50 AM

also she literally just invented magical never-get-akumatized charms, so like, give that to your Secret-Keeper asap lol

spoilered cause I can't remember whether this has appeared in English yet

Especially when said Secret-Keeper was already Akumatized several times before.

Marinette will need a whole new social circle at that rate.

My guess is the basic plot flow will go something like this:

• First, Marinette gives everyone magic charms to prevent akumatization, resulting in a bulk of the upcoming episodes being villain repeats: especially of the ones in Marinette's class.
• Then, the series continues the trend of Marinette giving Miraculous to her friends and classmates, until there's more or less one for every major classmate. They've already aired one for Rose (not dubbed yet), and from descriptions it looks like Sabrina might be getting one soon as well.
• And then in this or the next season finale: we ends up finally getting an episode where Marinette gets akumatized. Led by Rena Rouge, who now knows her secret and can access the kwami box, the rest of the class bands together to stop/save her.

I'm of two minds about the magic charms, since the other thing I think the show has really needed is a stronger Rogues Gallery, and these things literally remove villains from the board entirely, but a plot like that could really work.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2021 at 11:56:36 AM

The issue with the RG is that they are all technically the minions of one villain (Hawk/Shadow Moth), whose whole thing if super empowering, it is inevitable that Marinette would come towards a countermeasure towards that.

Not that I'm expecting her to be able to use the charms infinitely for obvious reasons (though depending on fast it takes to use the charm that could be weakened by simultaneous akumatizations, something that Shadow Moth might be capable of since he has both miraculi). But the point still stands that she could theory prevent any previous Akumatized victim from being akumatized again, and that the show needs another villain independent from Hawk Moth and his powerset. It's more of a villain diversity thing.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 28th 2021 at 5:47:07 AM

It looks like Ladybug creates charm with the power of purified Akuma so she can't make those ahead of Hawk Moth. I don't even think that she could e.g. make a charm from Lila or Chloe and then hand it over to Alya, they appear to be connected to the person who was just cleansed. So every villain can return one more time, and there is a chance someone will somehow lose their charm or even refuse to take it. I can't help but thinking that this seemed like a better idea when the show had only 5 seasons and with 2 more announced, they'll might regret introducing them.

Here's another thing that bothers me though: How many times Rena Rouge can help out Ladybug? Hawk Moth knows who she is, he should catch on that those illusions look familiar. (Plus if he won't, that will be super unfair to Chloe).

But this is another one of those things that's only an issue because the writers were very insistent on not branching out in the first place. There wasn't anything really stopping them from writing in ways to double down on the villains beyond them not wanting to upset the formula.

Call it me not paying too much attention, but when Marinette tried to say "sister" in Mandarin, it sounded awfully a lot like a slang term for "weenie." Honestly, that got a chuckle out of me.

I'm glad to see it confirmed that Gabriel was an evil, power-hungry villain well before what happened to his wife - it always me that he acts like such an over-the-top supervillain if getting his wife back was his primary motivation (shades of Batman & Robin), and now we know it's not - he wanted power before the wife angle and he'll likely still want power even after getting her back.

Edited by Isaac_Heller on May 29th 2021 at 8:08:41 AM

Huh where did that come from ?

I don't remember that in any of the leaks and spoiler threads ?

The latest Miraculous World: Shang-Hai special. He's shown to have been at work using mob boss style tactics to obtain the Prodigious for 15 years, meaning he started before Adrien was even born let alone before he lost his wife and became a supervillain.

In short, he's not a good man gone bad, he's a bad man gone worse.

Edited by Isaac_Heller on May 29th 2021 at 8:51:04 AM

for 15 years, meaning he started before Adrien was even born

Or he started exactly at the moment Adrien was born. *Cue people making mad theories*

Think astruc confirmed and it's mentioned in the short clip "Nathalie by Gabriel" that him , Nathalie and Emilie had been looking for them for that long.

Which begs more questions lol.

Edited by miraculous on May 29th 2021 at 8:56:26 AM

Honestly, the second it revealed Emilie's condition was from the Peacock miraculous begged the question of 'what was Emilie using it for that was more important than her health'? So it was clear that the Agrestes were dabbling stuff long before Gabriel got the butterfly miraculous, just that they were a lot more under the radar.

It would be a fun reveal if it shows that Emilie was just as power hungry as Gabriel.

Should also note that Nathalie shows it's not an instant Ill thing and you need to use it repedeatly for it to get that bad.

Exactly. Emilie knew it was hurting her health but kept using it. But if the peacock miraculous being in play was a surprise to Master Fu, then it wasn't exactly a big showy use.

Tried watching this show the other day. I like a lot about it, but the degree to which Marinette loses her mind when she's around Adrian seems a little much.

So... how about that stuff with Zoe? I seriously get the feeling that the ONLY reason she exists is that since they abandoned Chloe's character devleopment they had to make someone new for the Bee Miraculous so they essentially made a new character out of what would have (at least partially) been the end result. Which means Lila's more than likely gonna get shoved to the background. I don't know why but "illegimate daughter that wasn't mentioned or hinted at until now" set off some red flags.

At least Gang of Secrets has this show FINALLY doing something to leave the status quo

Edited by anoni on May 29th 2021 at 7:13:14 AM

I don't understand this idea that they "abandoned Chloé's character development". Did people lose their shit like this when Zuko turned on the team at the end of Book 2? Redemption needn't be a straight line, relapses happen, and the show's still got a ways to go. If you're worried about what Astruc says on Twitter? He's a known troll if not liar. Wait to see where the actual story takes us.

Chloé needs to actually do some serious soul-searching if she's going to become a better person. She never did before. Even when she became Queen Bee, she continued to treat other people like garbage. The suggestion that she was already redeemed and then they abruptly decided to make her an awful bully again is just patently false.

As for Zoé... she's cute. I like her.

Edited by Perseus on May 29th 2021 at 11:01:16 PM

On the one hand, they've said Chloe's character development was very much intended to be "had every opportunity to choose redemption, but always chose not to".

On the other hand, that would kinda imply her character arc is over now, in which case why are they keeping her around?

We'll see.

(And our opinion on Zoe is that she's nice and we like her )

Thomas is so spoiler-averse that it's part of his Twitter bio. Why would he — or any of his creative team — just say "this is how the arc ends and that's that"? It makes far more sense for that to be commentary on her character arc up to this point.

Edited by Perseus on May 29th 2021 at 11:14:20 PM

I don't think it'd be a spoiler to say that an arc that is over is over, exactly?

Of course that only means anything if her arc is in fact over, which doesn't seem to be the case.