The Chloe Bourgeois Problem
(Warning: I talk about season 6 but I don’t think this spoils the episode that much)
I genuinely think “Queen of the Dreadzone” perfectly exposes one of the biggest problems with how Miraculous has handled Chloé Bourgeois for years now: the show no longer treats her like a real character. She’s a caricature.
Not a person with motivations, contradictions, emotional damage, or even coherent villainy. Just a walking billboard screaming “THIS GIRL IS IRREDEEMABLE BTW.” And the episode repeats it over and over and over again like the writers are terrified the audience might still have sympathy for her.
What makes it frustrating is that the episode itself accidentally highlights why people *do* still care about Chloé. Because underneath all the exaggerated evil nonsense, the actual situation she’s in is deeply sad. Her mother and this weird new older brother figure are both adults who are blatantly exploiting this CHILD for attention, influence, and power. Audrey literally treats her own daughter like an object whose only value is finally being “useful.” Chloé is a child being emotionally manipulated by every adult around her, yet the framing of the episode expects us to hate her instead of recognizing how horrific that dynamic actually is.
The episode constantly pauses to remind viewers that Chloé is hated, unwanted, pathetic, stupid, irredeemable, alone. It’s excessive to the point where it becomes uncomfortable because it stops feeling organic. We already understood her downfall seasons ago. Why does the show keep insisting on humiliating her?
Especially because Miraculous already made its decision about Chloé back in season 5. They made her a political caricature, turned her into an absurd dictator figure, and completely burned down any realistic path toward redemption. Fine. That ship has sailed. But if the writers were going to commit to making her a villain permanently, why strip away every interesting part of her character in the process?
That’s the thing that bothers me most: Chloé is not allowed complexity anymore.
Early Chloé worked because she was cruel *and* insecure. Entitled *and* desperate for affection. She was emotionally stunted, deeply lonely, obsessed with validation, and constantly trying to imitate the toxic behavior modeled by Audrey. None of this excused her actions, but it made her understandable. Her dynamic with Ladybug, her desperate need to feel special, and her moments of genuine vulnerability gave the audience something compelling to latch onto. Even people who didn’t want a redemption arc could still acknowledge that there was an actual person there.
Now she’s written like a parody of herself.
Every scene in “Queen of the Dreadzone” goes out of its way to make her not just evil, but ridiculous. She can’t simply be manipulative or dangerous; she also has to be stupid, loud, incompetent, emotionally flat, and constantly mocked by the narrative itself. Compare that to someone like Lila, who the show treats with actual narrative respect. Lila gets to be calculating, composed, intimidating, and intelligent. Chloé, meanwhile, is reduced to comic relief evil. The writers seem determined to erase the possibility that she was ever nuanced in the first place.
And honestly? That’s a way less interesting direction.
A failed redemption arc could have been fascinating if the show had actually committed to exploring the complexity of that. Imagine if Chloé becoming someone genuinely dangerous and important to the overarching narrative after her failed redemption arc. That would have been tragic. That would have preserved the emotional themes tied to her character while still allowing her to become a villain.
Instead, the show treats her like a joke.
What makes it worse is how every adult in her life contributes to her destruction while escaping accountability themselves. Audrey emotionally abuses and humiliates her daughter for years. André consistently fails to parent her, enables her behavior, then eventually abandons her emotionally and publicly denounces her. And somehow he still gets framed as sympathetic because he redirects all his care and emotional stability toward Zoé, a child who essentially functions as a narrative replacement for the daughter he gave up on.
That dynamic is honestly one of the bleakest parts of Chloé’s storyline.
The show keeps insisting Chloé was “born bad,” but almost every aspect of her behavior can be traced back to neglect, emotional abandonment, toxic role models, and conditional love. Again, that doesn’t excuse what she’s done. But the series refusing to engage with that reality while simultaneously showcasing it onscreen creates this bizarre disconnect where the narrative wants us to condemn her without actually thinking critically about how she became this way.
And that’s why episodes like “Queen of the Dreadzone” feel so frustrating for a lot of fans. Not because people desperately need Chloé redeemed, but because the show itself refuses to treat her with narrative honesty anymore. She isn’t written like a human being allowed to fail. She’s written like a target.
Which is ironic, because the harder the show tries to convince the audience that Chloé is nothing more than an evil caricature, the more obvious it becomes that there was once a genuinely compelling character underneath all of this.
With all of this said, please writers if you’re not gonna do anything interesting with Chloe, just let her go 💀
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