There was no ChloĆ© BourgeoisĀ Redemption Arc
Itās time to for me to write about the so-called āRedemption Arcā for ChloĆ© Bourgeois, of Miraculous Ladybug infamy. Many people claim that such a thing existed. These people are wrong. While Miraculous Ladybug may provide the illusion of such an arc, thatās all it is - an illusion. And like all illusions, it falls apart once you touch it.
Thereās also some questionable takes in regards to exactly how responsible Marinette is meant to be for ChloĆ©ās āredemptionā, which need to be tackled since they help feed into the illusion. And also because I find them deeply offensive. To me, personally.
A neccesary preface here is that Iām not saying ChloĆ© is incapable of redemption. What I am saying, however, is that during seasons two and three of Miraculous Ladybug, the redemption arc people claim existed clearly did not.
Redemption 101
In the most basic sense, a redemption arc is a type of character arc where a bad character decides to stop being bad and start being good. Along the way, itās generally accepted that they need to atone for their bad actions, and perhaps do something to reverse the damage such actions have caused. A critical component required for this to work is that the character both understands that their actions are harmful, and so decides to act in a better way.
Probably the most famous redemption arc in western animation is Zukoās, from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuko begins the show as an antagonist, directly attempting to capture Aang, the Avatar and Last Airbender. Doing so will allow the Fire Nation to win the war, and also complete their genocide of the Air Nomad people. However, Zuko realises that supporting the Fire Nationās bid for world domination is harmful to others, and himself. By the end of the series, he has rejected the worldview of his father, grandfather and great grandfather, and indeed helps Aang defeat the Firelord. Along the way, Zuko find a way to help not just Aang, but also Katara and Sokka, who are also victims of Fire Nation Imperialism. Zuko earns redemption not through the decision to be good, but by performing good, and in many cases, reparative actions.
Honestly, from this basic definition, I think itās pretty obvious that ChloĆ© hadnāt even started the first step of a redemption arc by the time she betrays Ladybug in Miracle Queen. She never accepts her actions are wrong, makes no attempt to change them without an ulterior motive, and generally continues to do bad things for bad reasons. But in spite of this, the claims of this mythical redemption arc donāt just exist, they are considered generally accepted. Why? Itās complicated, yet simple.
ChloƩ Who?
On a basic level, ChloĆ© Bourgeois is fairly generic character - the āmean girlā school bully, who torments the protagonist, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. In keeping with Miraculousā superhero genre, ChloĆ© admires Ladybug, Marinetteās superhero alter-ego. How ironic! Generally, ChloĆ© acts as a minor, civilian-level antagonist to Marinette, who gets in the way, while being clearly much less of a deal than Hawk Moth. However, due to the mechanics of akumatization, ChloĆ©ās actions often spiral into larger, supervillain-shaped consequences. Because while she may fit into the bully archetype, there is one thing that makes her somewhat atypical: a reach that extends far beyond the school setting.
AndrĆ© Bourgeois is his daughterās primary enabler. As a rich person and Mayor of Paris, he has a significant amount of influence. Influence he makes freely available to ChloĆ© for basically any purpose. No grudge is too petty, no problem too small when it comes to indulging her whims, and no bridge is too big burn. Nobody who theoretically has the authority to say no to ChloĆ© actually can, because her father is implicitly approving her every action. Itās hardly a shock that ChloĆ© is consistently terrible when she faces no consequences for her actions.
But thereās one last piece in the ChloĆ© puzzle - Audrey Bourgeois. ChloĆ© really wants her motherās approval, but her mother lives in another country. Audrey is also a terrible person, a character who is literally defined by her vileness. She has ChloĆ©ās attitude, and AndrĆ©ās level of influence, and like her daughter, immediately throws a tantrum when she canāt get her way. The attention Audrey gives towards her daughters is primarily negative, and thatās when she actually pays attention to them. Thus, Audrey provides ChloĆ© with a Tragic Backstory, and some much needed Sympathy Points. This, of course, forms the foundation of the Redemption Illusion.
The thing about ChloĆ©ās relationship (or lack thereof) with her mother is while it explains her behavior, it doesnāt excuse it. The harm she inflicts is no less because of it, and many of her actions cannot be ignored due to it. I think thereās a pretty obviously piece of bad logic here. Many characters who undergo redemption arcs are often sympathetic villains. ChloĆ© is a sympathetic villain. But that doesnāt mean that Despair Bear, the episode that introduces this sympathetic side is the start of, nor the foundation of a redemption arc. If anything, Despair Bear shows the primary reason why ChloĆ© isnāt on the path to redemption - her attempts to be āniceā are motivated entirely to maintain her friendship with Adrien, and once she has what she wants, she immediately reverts to her normal behaviour. This theme of apparently good acts being done for selfish reasons will be repeated later.
Marinette: Victim, Not Victimizer
An important part of the Redemption Illusion is how it ultimately revolves around not just ChloĆ©, but Marinette. ChloĆ© is nothing but negative towards Marinette, but at the same time admires Ladybugā¦ who is Marinette. This isnāt Alya style āwow look how cool and heroic she isā style admiration, however. No, ChloĆ©, in a sense, wants to be Ladybug. First by pretending to be her, and later via the Bee Miraculous, which would seem to put her on the same level as Ladybug. But since Ladybug is Marinette, this can only lead to conflict.
While ChloĆ© has perpetrated many on-screen acts that are selfish, obnoxious and downright cruel, something that manages to slip under the radar is her pre-Origins treatment of Marinette. Sabineās comment about how long Marinette and ChloĆ© have been in the same class indicates that the latter has been bullying the former for at least three years. This has evidently damaged Marinetteās self-confidence, since even after being Ladybug in part one of Origins, she still thinks she canāt do it, and tries to give it up. She also doesnāt dispute Alyaās rather hasty assessment of ChloĆ© as evil, and immediately assumes that Adrian is a bad person because heās friends with ChloĆ©.
Marinetteās relationship with ChloĆ© is already poisoned at the start of the show. And itās entirely ChloĆ©ās fault. She didnāt have to bully Marinette. Being cruel to Marinette wouldnāt earn ChloĆ© her motherās approval. All it achieves is making ChloĆ© feel better, by making Marinette suffer. Three years of bullying isnāt something you can ignore. Itās not something Marinette can simply āget overā, even as Ladybug. She probably hates ChloĆ©, and every drop of enmity is earned. But how can I know this all from the limited picture painted by Origins, and the glimpses into Marinetteās pre-Ladybug life? I donāt. This isnāt something I needed to find from the text or subtext of the show. So then, how do I know?
I know because I lived it. When I was Marinetteās age, I was bullied. A lot. It hurt. But what people donāt want to acknowledge is that being a victim of bullying doesnāt just make you sad. Itās deeper than that. It made me angry. At the perpetrators, and the staff who let it happen, no matter how many times it was brought to their attention. Itās took me years to realise just how much it affected me, how my aggressive behaviour in certain online spaces might be connected to it. In Marinette, I see a part of myself. So when I see people claim that Marinette is somehow to blame for ChloĆ©ās actions, that āMarinette should have given ChloĆ© a chanceā, it makes me a little angry. If someone told me I should be responsible for making my bullies better people, Iād tell them to fuck off.
Attempting to shift the responsibility for repairing ChloĆ©ās bad behaviour on to Marinette is simply victim blaming with extra steps. Yes, Marinette is Ladybug, hero of Paris. But Marinette is also Marinette, a long-term victim of ChloĆ©, and someone who ChloĆ© continues to try to abuse, even if the efficacy is no longer there. Itās also not really fair to ChloĆ©, either, when you think about it. Marinette is positioned to think the worst of ChloĆ©, meaning sheās likely to see any regression on ChloĆ©ās part as proof that the whole endevour is pointless. For ChloĆ© to escape her toxic behaviour, she needs help from someone she hasnāt caused significant damage to.
And as with the rest of the Redemption Illusion, you have to ignore a lot of the text to make the idea that Marinette is somehow to blame seem reasonable. Marinette shows more compassion to ChloĆ© than ChloĆ© does to anyone in her entirety. It simply doesnāt help, because ChloĆ© doesnāt want Ladybug to be nice to her, she wants Ladybug to accept her as an equal. And when that isnāt given, ChloĆ© isnāt above trying to take it, with disasterous results.
Bad Bee-haviour
A key point in Zukoās redemption arc is when he joins Team Avatar. This is when he truly abandons the ideals of Fire Nation Imperialism, and chooses to work directly against them. Itās not the end, but a midpoint. And itās not a reward - itās a duty, a commitment to help Aang defeat Ozai. I think itās worth noting that Zuko actually gets weaker due to this, as he can no longer draw on his negative emotions to firebend. Only by helping Aang discover the pre-imperialism version of Firebending does he regain the ability himself. Rejecting the negative brings Zuko so far, but to be complete he must embrace a positive alternative.
ChloĆ©ās transformation into Queen Bee is her anti-Zuko moment. She doesnāt work to attain it - the Bee Miraculous is literally dropped into her path. It gives her power, yes, which she immediately abuses. Queen Bee doesnāt exist to do good, like the other four heroes at the time. No, Queen Bee exists to exalt ChloĆ©. Becoming a hero doesnāt move her to toward redemption. If anything, it moves her away from it.
It all comes back to ChloĆ©ās first act as Queen Bee. In an attempt to prove that sheās āexceptionalā, she transforms and tries to find a problem to solve. But when she canāt find one, she chooses to create one. By paralysing a train conductor, which ends up creating a problem she canāt solve. If it werenāt for Ladybug and Chat Noirās timely intervention, a lot of people would have been injured, or even killed. All because ChloĆ© wanted to seem like aĀ āheroā. Itās an act so callous that it should have marked the end of her career as Queen Bee. Itās instant, irrevocable proof that she canāt be trusted with a Miraculous, because she nearly murdered a bunch of people with it.
But even if you ignore the train incident, being Queen Bee clearly doesnāt make ChloĆ© better. In both Stormy Weather 2 and Miracular, her cruelty is what triggers an akumatization. In Animaestro, she forms a truce with Marinette entirely for the purpose of harassing Kagami. These are not the actions of someone trying to be a better person. Indeed, they look very much like the actions of a person who doesnāt think they need to change, and is thus continuing as usual.
Yet in spite of the lack of actual progress, Queen Bee is perhaps the keystone of the Redemption Illusion. She wants to be a hero. So it is assumed that if she wants to be a hero, she must be good. I suppose this line of argument sounds convincing, if you only consider it on the surface level. The problem is that it falls apart when you actually examine ChloĆ©ās actual behaviour after becoming Queen Bee. Which is mostly the same as her behaviour before, except sometimes she tries leveraging being Queen Bee for status or bullying. This is because her motivation for being a hero isnāt heroic - itās selfish.
Malicious Queen
Of course, the Redemption Illusion eventually collided with reality in the form of Miracle Queen. When Hawk Moth offers her the Bee Miraculous, ChloĆ© doesnāt hesitate to take it, and is then willingly akumatized. While I do think this could have had a little more setup, itās an action thatās entirely in-character for ChloĆ©. Sheās selfish, sheās cruel, and sheās unwilling to change. But Ladybug couldnāt be bullied or blackmailed via ChloĆ©ās normal methods. So when Hawk Moth offers her a way around Ladybugās No, of course she takes it. She accepts akumatization because she believes that the best way to prove her superiority to Ladybug is by harming her. The same way she harmed many other characters up to this point. (Including Marinette, who is Ladybug.)
Some people attempt, in the usual poor manner, to deflect ChloĆ©ās responsibility for her actions onto Ladybug. Gotta keep that victim blame train going, I guess. The logic is that because Ladybug chose Kagami to help fight Heart Hunter for selfish reasons, ChloĆ© is magically absolved of her guilt. I canāt disagree that picking Kagami in order to break up her date with Adrien was a bad thing, but in the grand scheme of things, itās not that bad. The fact of the matter is that Ladybug probably wasnāt going to bring back Queen Bee, no matter the situation. Itās not her job to make ChloĆ© a better person, and itās not her responsibility to stop ChloĆ© from making bad decisions.
Marinette made a dodgy decision because of a teenage crush and suffered massively disproportionate consequences. ChloĆ© decided to help a terrorist because she felt entitled to the Bee Miraculous, and could still go back to her incredibly privileged life afterwards. Itās Marinette who had to live with the consequences of both their actions, becoming Guardian far earlier than she should have. A consequence that only occured because ChloĆ© decided to help Hawk Moth. Once again, Marinette is not the problem; ChloĆ© is the problem.
Ultimately, Miracle Queen is entirely in-character for ChloĆ©, because ChloĆ© has never been a good person. The Redemption Illusion persists, however, because people seem to have blended her few sympathetic traits with her occational (and temporary) good actions to create a version of ChloĆ© who doesnāt exist within the show. Along with one last act, that really isnāt as heroic as it might seem on the surface.
The One Where She Isnāt Akumatized
In Miracular, Hawk Moth tries to akumatize ChloƩ and fails. Up to that point, akumatization had been presented as 100% effective, with no attempts to resist being successful. This is occationally used to suggest that ChloƩ is becoming good, which ignores basically all information the show provides about akumatization.
Throughout Miraculous Ladybug, succumbing to akumatization is never considered to be an immoral act. Indeed, the reasons for akumatization vary, from completely unjustified selfish reasons, to justified selfish reasons and more community-minded reasons. But no matter what a victimās starting intentions are, Hawk Moth twists them around until he can make them into a supervillain. People are even akumatized over stuff like ākids donāt respect panthersā and āice cream was wrongā, which arenāt really things you can appy a moral judgement to.
Since being akumatized is not a moral failure, it follows that resisting is not a moral success. While breaking the akumatization is impressive, with very few people achieving it, that doesnāt mean ChloĆ© gets merit points for it. Indeed, ChloĆ© resists akumatization on the basis that she believes she can still be Queen Bee. She rejects Hawk Mothās offer not because itās the right thing to do, but because she thinks she doesnāt need it. Which is why once it becomes clear that Ladybug wonāt be giving her the Bee Miraculous, she willing accepts akumatization.
But the real killer problem is that Sabrina is able to be akumatized into Miracular because of ChloĆ©ās actions. When Lilaās fake Ladybug dance fails, ChloĆ© takes it out on Sabrina, in a way thatās just, look, hereās the exact quote:
PLAY? With you!? Who are YOU anyway? You donāt have any powers! Youāre a nobody! Iām a superheroine, okay? Iām Queen Bee! You and I have NOTHING in common! Go away!
Thatās a horrible thing to say to someone, especially a friend! She explicitly ties Sabrinaās worth (or lack thereof) to having powers. And the real kicker? This is the last thing she does before the failed akumatization. Out of context, ChloĆ© resisting akumatization might seem heroic. With this context? Itās anything but.
The Overdue Conclusion
Ultimately, a Redemption Arc is a narrative process for developing a character. Itās a trope, a storytelling pattern. The key element of such an arc is change. A static character cannot undergo a redemption arc (or indeed any arc), because the arc is the process of transformation, of becoming a better person. Not just on the surface, but in a fundamental way. A post redemption character is, in some ways, a different person to who they were before.
During seasons two and three of Miraculous Ladybug, ChloĆ© does not change in such a way. Sheās just as cruel and spiteful after becoming Queen Bee as she is before. She does bad things for bad reasons. Her motivation for being Queen Bee is entirely selfish. Indeed, while there is some feeling of a divide between Marinette and Ladybug, Queen Bee is simply ChloĆ© with superpowers. And while she may be a victim of abuse from Audrey, that doesnāt mean she is excused from abusing others herself.
ChloĆ©ās tragic flaw is her desire to be exceptional, in a way that places her above other people. This is why she fails to change. In the narrative of Miraculous Ladybug, the exceptional that matters is to be exceptionally kind, exceptionally couragous, exceptionally selfless. Character traits which ChloĆ© displays sparingly and insufficently, because she believes she is above them. But without humility, there can be no change. Without change, there can no redemption. And while others might provide a catalyst for such a change, ultimately it must come from within.
The concluding point is that I still donāt think there was a ChloĆ© Bourgeois Redemption Arc, but I can sort of see how youād fall into thinking one existed. But when you actually examine the characterās behaviour, the illusion quickly crumbles. At this point, the whole thing has clearly taken on a life of its own beyond the source material, and is perhaps unstoppable. Will my long, somewhat rambly Tumblr post make much of a difference? Perhaps not.
But there are harmful ideas attached to it. As long as people try to make Marinette responsible for ChloĆ©ās actions, it adds, however slightly, to the notion that the abused are responsible for the actions of their abusers. In many respects, I donāt care that strongly about these particular fictional characters. Yet other people do, and in doing so I see how they distort the role of victim and victimizer, and I care about that. I understand that itās not a big serious issue, but it matters to me. So Iāll say my piece, and move on to other thoughts.
So Iām going to talk about child abuse because thatās always fun, and also the sticky question of what even is narrative tone on this show.
One of the very few instances of the show giving us the background of any characterās psychology IS ChloĆ© and her various dysfunctions. ChloĆ©, as you well lay out, doesnāt want to do good, but to be āexceptionalā. She flaunts her fatherās political power, her motherās fame, her familyās wealth, her own role as Queen Bee. What ChloĆ© consistently wants is admiration, and fame, wealth and superhero powers are things that ChloĆ© herself admires in others. The source of those values isnāt really interesting; their purpose, however, is core to understanding where the crying about the ~redemption arc~ comes from.
The show plainly shows us that ChloĆ©ās need to be āexceptionalā goes back to a mother who will only pay attention to whatever qualifies as very word. We get a full episode of ChloĆ© pitifully trying to get her motherās attention and be rejected again and again, until Audrey flat out tells her that ChloĆ©ās lack of āexceptionalā qualities means that sheās of no interst to her. This ultimate degradation is what spurs ChloĆ© into her disastrous attempt at being a hero as she transforms into Queen Bee for the first time - she does it to show her mother āhow exceptional [she] can beā. By the end of the Style Queen episodes, itās bluntly stated that what ChloĆ© wants isnāt so much her motherās attention, but the thing her motherās attention would be a sign of:
Beneath ChloĆ©ās pathological need to be admired by others lies the fact that she believes her mother doesnāt love her. And that one thing - proving yourself worthy of a parentsā love - is one hell of a motivation to give a child. Because that goal comes from the pain of knowing, deep down, youāre not good enough for even the people who should love you unconditionally. If even THEY canāt love you, you must TRULY be a worthless human being.
I would know, because that is what I lived. I was a child who had a parent treat me the way Audrey treats ChloĆ©, and I could tell you the tales about the parts of me that never grew back quite right. My abuser didnāt want me to be āexceptionalā, in fact she wanted me to not be there; and so I didnāt turn out like ChloĆ©, but like Adrien. (who is an entirely different tale of unfortunate implications) Even so, ChloĆ©ās desperation to be whatever it takes for her mother to see her is one that rings painfully true to me. Because the abused child will internalise it, will come to believe that the treatment is deserved because the parent, of course knows best. Just ask me: Iād forget every cruelty if I could just have her back; I was sure all my hurts would be healed if only I knew I was good enough to be loved by her. What screwed me up into well into my twenties was that my abuse left me with the deep conviction that I wasnāt worthy of love. In fact, that the people I cared about would be better off without me, and that no-one would care for me if it werenāt for the social obligations of family and childhood friendships.
And OBVIOUSLY I canāt compare ChloĆ© to that, because her reaction is the diametrical opposite of mine! And itās HORRIBLE, and at fourteen sheās got no excuse for the way she treats others because she KNOWS that the only reason this is in any way āacceptableā is because her fatherās power makes her immune to consequences. But sure enough, the show put on screen a scene of her crying because she thinks herself āuselessā, thus making one thing clear: her bluster and self-grandeur is a rickety construction of denial, an attempt at convincing herself that she THIS is how sheās not a useless and unlovable person. The tragedy is that ChloĆ©ās way out of beingĀ āuselessā is literally to have Ladybug accept her as Queen Bee so that she can make good her own mistakes and serve a purpose. And indeed: the few times Queen Bee is on screen, her purpose is noble, and important, and a source of good. The problem, of course, is thatĀ ChloĆ© is childish and short-sighted and very much not capable of seeing the value of being an everyday hero when Ladybug later retracts that position.Ā
Thereās a lot that could be said about the way ChloĆ© and Adrien both look to Ladybug for the kind of recognition their respective parents are refusing them, and it is very possible to think that ChloĆ© is a horrible person but also a deeply tragic character.
At least until āGabriel Agresteā rolls around and just flat out states that oh, no, she was just evil all along!
Yeah, I lost some illusions about this show and its emotional ambitions when I learned that Thomas Astruc doesnāt consider ChloĆ© an abused child, because ālots of kids grow up without a parentā. THAT, per word of god, is the problem with Audrey Bourgeoisā parenting in-universe.
On the bright side: the dismissal of emotional abuse even existing at least explains how the show could spend three full seasons treating ChloĆ©ās abuse of others as a go-to source of comedy.
Like Audreyās abuse can be handwaved as ābad parentingā, ChloĆ©ās petty meanness was alway portrayed as small fish; it hardly ever had big consequences, because the only person who cares enough about ChloĆ©ās opinion to take it personally is Sabrina (and Kim, for one episode). All her BS is clearly not enough to have driven her peers away from her - when they come to her party and include her in out-of-school activities and group chats, itās not just because theyāre all just so darn nice. With her history of everything sheās ever done, all logic dictates that they should avoid her like the plague out of self-protection, but they at the very least tolerate her presence because no-one takes her cruelty seriously. Certainly not the show itself, which frames it as funny when ChloĆ© makes others cry (except when it conveniently needs to play it straight, because Juleka deserves our sympathy in āReflectaā but Sabrina doesnāt in āLiesā) ChloĆ© scheeming against Kagami? Would be terrible in real life, but on screen itās just a series of slapstic moments that never reach their intended victim and clearly isnāt so bad that we canāt just wave it off that Marinette spent an episode helping her in that pursuit. ChloĆ© is unquestionably horrible to others, but how bad can it be when none of the characters really care and weāre mostly meant to laugh at it? Sheās a one-man Team Rocket, blastinā off again in every episode and so pathetic that the show repeatedly has Marinette going āaw, thereās hope for her yetā.
No matter how vile she gets, the show hardly ever portrays ChloĆ© as a genuine threat to anyone. Certainly never comparable to Lilaās ambition to ostracise Marinette, until ChloĆ© joins her in that pursuit. But until that point, ChloĆ©ās shenanigans cause trouble, but not hurt. And if the worst she does is be a source of annoyance, well - you donāt need to prove your regret and reformation, do you? If you never caused true harm, itās enough to just learn to be nice to people.
Wow, exactly what I said would happen in the tags when I reblogged this post actually ended up happening soon after on the very same post. Self-projection and treating her relationship with Audrey as something to be taken seriously as an abusive parent-child relationship, followed by minimization and trivialization of Chloeās bullying and insistence that she didnāt actually hurt anyone. Audrey needs to be taken seriously as an being harmful but Chloe apparently doesnāt.
And as always, the āChloe isnāt abused. Her mother leftā tweet was brought up again. Chloe stans love to use it as a Gotcha moment to insist that all the naysayers are wrong and Astruc is evil and knows nothing about emotions/trauma/psychology/his own characters/etc. and poor Chloe is his victim and deserves to have a redemption arc and have all her bigotry erased because of it.
First, ML critics have GOT to stop taking everything said on Twitter of all places by a literal nonnative English speaker so literally and getting hung up on his wording and jumping to the most bad faith interpretation possible (or they could stop obsessively scrolling his twitter and taking screenshots to wave around on tumblr out of context altogether, but yāknow, baby steps). Itās not hard to see what he means by this ā that Audrey, while cruel, does not actually live with Chloe. Audrey being cruel the one day she bothers to interact with her daughter every whatever number of years, preceded before and after by Chloe having her Papa at her beck and call to give her anything and everything she wants and make anyone in the city bend to her will, is not the same as a child who is growing up trapped in an abusive household where they are experiencing abuse and intimidation on a regular basis from their guardian.
By definition, Chloe is NOT growing up in an abusive household. Audrey was barely present in Chloeās life to begin with ā to the point that Chloe even said (or implied bc itās Disney) that it felt as if her mother had passed away. Saying āChloe isnāt abused, her mother leftā does not equal āeverything Audrey did is okay!ā Dear god, life is not just a dichotomy of just āabusiveā or ānot abusive.ā This is a woman who does not have custody of Chloe, is not her guardian or caretaker, is not exerting any kind of control or manipulation over Chloe or using her in any way, she literally is flat out rejecting Chloe and choosing not to be in her life. Thatās an entirely different form of cruelty. There are ways of being a awful piece of shit parent that donāt qualify as abuse. The answer as to whether or not this qualifies as abusive will vary from person to person but no one will say that it isnāt cruel or is less cruel than abuse and doesnāt come with itās own psychological repercussions for children.
ML is not a dark show. No matter how much the fanon loves to make it in to one. It is not going to show kids cutting themselves, contemplating suicide, developing eating disorders, staying home from school in bed, etc. in response to bullying. That stuff is reserved for PG-13+ teen dramas. The most they can show while staying with the tone of being a fun Y-7 superhero cartoon is things like Akumatization (surprise! Chloe causes a Lot of these) and Marinetteās anxiety. The show makes her comedic because itās funny to make fun of the ridiculousness of rich people. We do it all the goddamn time on this website. That does NOT mean her bullying is being shown as being harmless. Thereās a reason people are shown to be akumatized so regularly in response to her bullying. Iām not going to transcribe the laundry list of people who succumbed to akumatization all because they were subject to cruelty and humiliation by Chloe, yāall can rewatch the show for yourselves. Thatās their disney Y7 cartoon-friendly way of depicting the level of hurt and humiliation her victims were experiencing from her bullying.
And you know what? It wouldnāt even matter if they had started to depict characters experiencing real trauma as a result of Chloeās bullying given the way Chloe redemption stans treat every new in-character instance of her cruelty. If they decide to show the characters actually having realistic trauma and hurt from her bullying? Thereās going to be whining and eye-rolling that itās just another āāācontrivanceāāāā being āāāāforcedāāāā by the writers to āāāpunishāāā her and axe her supposed āredemption arc.ā And if Marinette is the one showing said consequences? There will be even more whining about her being a MaRy SuE and the writers sabotaging Chloe to favor her. This seasonās undoubtedly going to be full of that from the fandom regardless of what happens with Chloe. Chloeās handful of instances of showing basic human decency apparently cancels out any and every āseriousā depiction of her willful cruelty both before and after season 2.
Another favorite argument from Chloe stans is āAstruc is clearly projecting one of his childhood bullies through Chloe.ā Ok and? Why do people think thatās such a trivial and laughable thing for an author to do and that that somehow negates or excuses her actions? Why do people think a real human being reflecting on trauma they themselves mightāve had from childhood through their writing is such a laughable and eye-roll inducing thing? As if so many of yāall havenāt also been unsubtly projecting yourselves and yāalls own childhood trauma on to Adrien and Chloe to sometimes unhealthy degrees all the while? Trauma from bullying leads to people having issues up through adulthood. Trauma from bullying, especially public humiliation, leads to kids harming themselves or even taking their own lives. And racial bullying inspires a whole lot of self-hatred, insecurity about onesā family and roots, etc. Stans need to stop minimizing it while hypocritically writing paragraphs giving weight to the trauma characters can get from child abuse.
Adrien actively chooses to be kind and the opposite of his abuser to break the cycle and we get scenes explicitly depicting him rejecting the possibility of being like Gabriel, Chloe revels in being cruel and the same as Audrey and having power over people and continues it. Itās called the cycle of abuse for a reason. Having an abuser doesnāt give anyone a free pass to becoming abusive themselves, let alone a bigot, and their friends do not need to tolerate them stepping all over them and continue holding their hand through their tantrums and mistreatment just because of their past. Chloe is a message to all yāall Fixers out there, the āI can fix himās and āI can fix herās, to stop letting people like this walk all over you and use you as their therapist / stand-in mother or father and mistreat you while you continue to give them fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth and ninth and tenth chances just because you think you can be their Savior from their Sad Past. She is a message to every person who has ever stuck with a toxic friend/partner to the point of it being detrimental to themselves, making excuses for them at every turn because of their Sad Past and the few times theyāve shown some capacity to be nice in between their regular disregard for others.
This is the girl who is apparently just āa source of annoyanceā who ānever caused true harm.ā
And since the non-Asian Chloe stans are undoubtedly going to insinuate that this blatant racism āwasnāt that badā or go off about how it āwasnāt treated seriouslyā by the show either and brush it under the rug because Astruc wrote it and thatās apparently excuse enough:
Theyāre not going to show Chloe calling characters like Marinette and Kagami āch*nkā or going āching chongā at them or asking for āLinglingā to do her nails or asking them if they eat dog for the same reasons theyāre not going to show kids self-harming as I mentioned above. And theyāre not going to show her racism repeatedly because we Asian (and other POC) viewers want to enjoy this fun show in peace without being reminded every few episodes about how white girls like her talk to us/our families in the real world all just to make sure sheās racist āāāenoughāāā that stans wonāt see fit to gloss over it.
Her age isnāt even an excuse. Sheās old enough to know better (and Adrien even told her so.) Thereās no āitās because of her mother!!!!ā or āshe didnāt know!!!!ā excuse here. Itās very, very easy for a 14 year old to understand that bigotry and racism are bad, lmao. She chooses to be racist and classist so she can feel superior to others. And I do not want to hear any of that āAstruc MADE her racist!!!!ā noise from the Chloe stans because yes, he did. Sheās not a real person being forced to do things against her will by him. He made her racist because this is a realistic depiction of how ignorant, bigoted, privileged white women treat Asians in the real world. I canāt count on one hand the number of times Iāve seen a white person in a public setting unabashedly call one of my non-Chinese east Asian friends or coworkers Chinese and then brush it off when theyāre corrected, or act like Asian cultures are interchangeable/all the same, or say that all Asians ālook the sameā, or make the stupid jokes about nail techs, or the āching chongā ones, or the ones about eating dogs, or their latest favorite joke: acting like every east Asian has COVID and going out of their way to avoid or cough around them.
ML called that racist behavior out onscreen. Yet despite this, I keep having to listen to white feminists proclaim that not giving the racist classist white girl a redemption arc and portraying her as the bigoted bully she is is āunfeminist,ā sometimes even going further to imply that the Chinese protagonist and victim of her bullying is to blame for HER bad decisions and that Marinette just āshouldāve been nicer to her.ā I keep having to listen to Chloe stans preach that the people who think her not having a redemption arc is a good thing are terrible people who ādonāt care about abused kids.ā All because these stans are too attached to their fanon self-projection version of Chloe who is āisnāt THAT badā to see canon and donāt seem to care about or give real weight to the real life consequences of bullying and casual racism and the people who identify with her victims to the point that theyāll even circle back to victim-blaming and/or denying the bullying entirely.
Frankly the way some of yāall coddle her, pretend sheās not an actual bigot, minimize her mistreatment of others as a trivial annoyance with the argument that sheās Just mean because of her mother, and insist that its the writers who are terrible people for not giving her a redemption arc and narrative focus in a story thatās not even about her, is an insult to every child abuse victim who actively choose to be kind and the opposite of their abuser (and isnāt racist, because thatās not particularly hard), every lower class kid who was ever made to feel less than the upper class kids for what they didnāt have, every victim of bullies like her who is still dealing with the psychological effects of said bullying in their adult years, and every POC who has ever experienced racial bullying.
But apparently the only problem people see here is that she needs to ājust learn to be nice to people.ā
As I hope my repeatedly calling ChloĆ© a horrible person makes clear: Iām not interested in defending her actions.
Iām also not interested in spending the week debating the existence or non-existence of the moral compass of a fictional character, so Iāll leave it at this response. In part because - no offense - youāre projecting opinions onto me here that I didnāt bring up and certainly donāt share. I know what this fandom is like and I get it, but I really donāt care to be spend time refuting the idiocy of other people who happen to share my poor little meow meow.Ā
So letās get it out of the way.
Audrey needs to be taken seriously as an being harmful but Chloe apparently doesnāt.
The point I was hoping to make was that both of themĀ are depicted as (relatively) harmless. The show trivialises their abuse by its refusal to ever let it cause more harm than getting someone akumatised, and itās kind of not great when their acts of verbal and social abuse is consistently depicted as no more dangerous than AndrĆ© the Ice Cream Man thinking his OTP sunk or Max loosing at video games.Ā
In part, this can be credited to the show staying true to its light-hearted tone. Like how Marinetteās spying on Adrien would be deeply worrisome behaviour if this wasnāt a comedy, or how Mr. Damoclesā delusions would render him unfit for any employment, far less one involving responsibility for children. And thatās harmless, because itās so OTT that we canātĀ read that as mimicking real life.Ā But when it gets to the disaster zone that his the Bourgeois family, the charicature isnāt gross enough to be funny. Take it from someone who lived it: the most unrealistic part is that Audrey does it in public.
Audreyās abuse of her family is depicted as comedy 95% of the time - isnāt it hilarious that the mayor of Paris is a henpecked husband? Isnāt it great to see ChloĆ© get what she had coming?Ā Likewise, ChloĆ©ās abuse of others is more often played as comedy than itās not. Look at those stupid fangirls crying over a poster of Adrien; look at that lapdog Sabrina, what kind of idiot would ever think ChloĆ© will ever be nice to her?Ā
See, hereās the problem with the show staying true to its light-hearted tone:Ā Audrey and ChloĆ©ās verbal violence haveĀ caused lasting harm: In AndrĆ© and in Sabrina.Ā
And the show tells us to laugh at the victims.Ā
Unless of course AndrĆ© and Sabrinaās fawning arenātĀ the results of abuse but just them being spineless idiots who let mean people walk all over them, but victim blaming is hardly more charming.Ā
If weāre not meant to feel sympathy even for the people who have been traumatised by the abuse, then the show has established a moral code where the deciding factor in whether an action is harmful or not is decided not by its results or its motivation, but by the narrative framing.Ā The times when ChloĆ©ās abuse of others isĀ depicted as serious rather than funny, itās the toned-down moments we believe could happen in real life: lashing out at Sabrina when she herself has been disappointed by Ladybug, getting Sabrina to trap Juleka in the bathroom, yelling at the butler for trying to help her make friends. Sheās done far crueller things with far more intent, but thatās just for the funny.Ā
And yeah, I do think itās problematic that the show sorts her motherās treatment of her into the latter category.Ā
As it happens, thatās also the context that makes logic of theĀ āsilly rabbit, ChloĆ© isnāt abusedā statements fairly obvious. If it isnāt abuse when it happens to AndrĆ© and Sabrina, of course it wasnāt when it happened to ChloĆ© either. Itās hard to imagine that Audrey treated her family any better when she lived in Paris, but that wasnāt an issue, according to both the show and the head writer. The hurtful part, as stressed by both ChloĆ© and Astruc, is that she left. Any emotional destruction she inflicted on her family before that point is irrelevant, because words can never hurt you! At worst, theyāll just let you be an easy victim for Gabriel and youāll get it out of the system by destroying a bit of urban infrastructure.
Fun fact about this lighthearted superhero rom-com: ChloĆ© at present lives in an abusive home where the only way of avoiding said abuse is performing per Audreyās ideal. Were ChloĆ© to have a change of heart and defend her father or sister, sheād certainly be doomed to the same treatment as they are. Do I think the show will ever go there? No, but with the introduction of Zoe it has established that cruelty - be it real or pretend - is the only way to survive around Audrey Bourgeois.Ā
While Audreyās particular brand of obedience is certainly a charicature, the dynamic ofĀ āact per my unreasonable standards or be ostracisedā is the normal for a distressing amount of families. And much as I hate to pull the think of the children, there are no helpful messages in depicting that dysfunction as just bad rich people being mean to each other in a ha-ha funny way.Ā
Bringing up things other Chloe fans say is not āprojecting opinions onto [you].ā Neither my response nor the topic of the thread are about you. It, like the original post, was covering the ways pro-chloe redemption fans act as a whole. You just happened to do exactly what I said they do. (You ARE also one of the people who has insinuated that the show is unfeminist for not redeeming Chloe.) If you paid attention to what I said, youād notice that Iām regularly addressing āChloe stans,ā not you. The entire thread is about how fans perceive and treat the concept of Chloe āredemptionā, you ignored much of what OP said and made it about your personal experiences while minimizing her actions.
Youāre not interested in defending her actions but you are interested in minimizing them. Itās right there in writing: āChloĆ©ās shenanigans cause trouble, but not hurt. And if the worst she does is be a source of annoyance, well - you donāt need to prove your regret and reformation, do you? If you never caused true harm, itās enough to just learn to be nice to people.ā I thought that reply was going to have some sense about her actions when it acknowledged that her actions were horrible, but instead it went into self-projection and invalidating bullying and negating the previous disclaimers of her actions being āhorribleā by categorizing all of her actions, including her past instances of bigotry and racism, as āannoyanceā and not ātrue harm.ā
Sabrina actively participates in and laughs about Chloeās bullying and AndrĆ© is a corrupt leader and capitalist pig and I donāt give enough of a shit about either of them to say another word about them. Now that thatās out of the way:
Youāre still doing the exact thing I said ML critics have a bad habit of doing: taking a 12-word-tweet and fixating on its shaky english wording and baselessly headcanoning a whole essay on what Astruc āāā"actuallyāāāā thinks and what that means for how the show should be viewed. You apparently also missed the part where I said heās not exactly wrong: she WASNāT living in an abusive household for YEARS (sheās depicted as having been a literal toddler when Audrey left and we donāt know anything before that point). Audrey spent YEARS out of Chloeās life to the point that Chloe felt as though she might as well have died. ChloĆ© also stated outright that sheās hurt and confused because her mom ādoesnāt love her.ā Not just because she left. That was not treated as a joke. Audrey publicly being cruel to her on two different occasions were not treated as jokes by the show or Marinette and Adrien. Also, I donāt know why weāre repeatedly trivializing the act of being rejected and abandoned by a parent as if itās a silly thing compared to abuse and not deeply painful and the quickest way to make a child feel unloved and unwanted and not good enough and scar them for life. I donāt know why the idea of Chloeās main source of hurt being that her mother rejected her and walked out of her life right in front of her is being treated as if its an idiotic concept.
āThe show trivialises their abuse by its refusal to ever let it cause more harm than getting someone akumatisedā
Did you not read what I saidā¦ They were not EVER going to show the heavier ways the kind of hurt and trauma that results from this abuse manifests because itās a Y7 Disney Channel cartoon. Youād think people wouldāve learned something when Alex Hirsch dropped the examples of Disney Channelās batshit insane nitpicky revisions to his Gravity Falls scripts for the sake of ākid-friendliness,ā and yet.
You are not the target audience. This is literally just the normal extent to which shows for this demographic depict bullying. āProtag got tripped in the hallway/got called a nerd/got their fashion sense insulted/got their financial status snidely ridiculed/got their locker vandalized. The protag rolls their eyes and sighs deeply in frustration and removes the vandalism. You now understand that this other character is a regular bully and donāt like them.ā They do not tend to show these characters skipping school to spend the day sobbing their eyes out in their room. I see many young people in other ML fan spaces online, kids and young teens, who hate Chloe and see her as the bully she is even with how ācomedicā and supposedly āāāāā"harmlessāāāāāā the show depicts her bullying to be. They pick up on that fact just fine. Some of them know Chloes in their own lives. Every ML viewer picked up on it just fine in 2015/2016. But once Audrey came in to the picture, suddenly every excuse under the sun is being made by the 19+ year olds who project their issues on to ChloĆ©, even though Chloeās bullying has stayed consistent over the past 4 seasons and she did horrible things back in season 1, long before half the fandom decided to collectively forget about that and exclaim that every new horrible thing she does is all just a conspiracy to bury her āā"redemptionāāā
And once again: Chloe is a bigot, a classist, and a racist. You can go back and forth all you want about how harmful her bullying is or isnāt treated by the show but thereās absolutely no debate about those facts. MY main point was that fans in favor of ChloĆ© redemption regularly gloss over and erase those facts and selectively remember what sheās actually done and push the idea that Chloeās nothing more than Occasionally Annoying and just needs to be a little nicer, which is exactly what the reply above had done.
Akumatization is a metaphor the show uses to show people being overwhelmed by their strong emotions like anger, hurt, frustration, and humiliation. I guess Chat Blanc/Ephemeral and the Hawkmoth reveal are on the same level as Andre crying over ice cream and Max being upset over video games now, too? If so, then whyās the fandom so obsessed with how angsty that premise is, if its Just a silly little akumatization? Every time Adrien or Marinette or anyone else felt sad or guilty about directly or indirectly causing someoneās akumatization must also just be silly overreactions then. Acting like all instances of akumatization are treated as being equal in severity and seriousness when theyāre a staple in every single episode and when the only common denominator is any strong negative emotion is a bizarre leap in logic.
The hurt she causes IS the akumatization. Theyāre overtaken by their negative emotions before they learn from it and learn to not let people like ChloĆ© have power over them in the future. People donāt have regular strong reactions to Chloe anymore and she seems like nothing more than a pathetic nuisance to some viewers is because 1) her bullying is a regular enough occurrence to become expected and sighed about like aforementioned generic protag de-vandalizing their locker and 2) because her victims learn and refuse to let her have power over them. The latter is literally what Origins established when Marinette and Alya took their seats back.
āAll her BS is clearly not enough to have driven her peers away from her - when they come to her party and include her in out-of-school activities and group chats, itās not just because theyāre all just so darn nice. With her history of everything sheās ever done, all logic dictates that they should avoid her like the plague out of self-protection, but they at the very least tolerate her presence because no-one takes her cruelty seriously.ā
Noā¦.. itās literallyā¦. because the showā¦. repeatedly tries to teach kidsā¦.. to be the bigger personā¦ā¦ the show is not going to tell children to gang up and exclude a single classmate from class activities, oh my god. (If they did, then people would be saying that that, too, is a cause and excuse for Chloeās cruelty because āno one will give her a chance!!1!1! theyāre just as bad as bullies because theyāre excluding her and leaving her all alone!!1!!1ā) But Chloe is well aware that none of those people actually like her. In season 2 alone, Alya says sheās āworse than Hawkmoth,ā Alix complains that āhalf the city has been akumatized because of her,ā and the rest of the class erupted in outrage that she was being let off the hook by Bustier while Chloe sat and smirked about it. āBecause theyāre all so damn niceā is EXACTLY why they bother to tolerate and include her. Not because they donāt care about her bullying. Thereās a reason everyone celebrates when the news comes out that sheās leaving, ffs.
āChloĆ©ās petty meanness was alway portrayed as small fish; it hardly ever had big consequences, because the only person who cares enough about ChloĆ©ās opinion to take it personally is Sabrina (and Kim, for one episode).ā
Yeah, itās only Sabrina who ever got seriously hurt or had big consequences. And Juleka. And Marinette on multiple occasions including Origins. And Alya when Chloe literally got her (and her blog) suspended. And Sabrinaās father (and Sabrina by extension) when she got her Papa to fire him all because he wouldnāt arrest Marinette on her command. And Nathaniel when Chloe humiliated him and laughed at his private sketchbook and his crush on Marinette. And Mylene, who ran away crying because of Chloeās words. And Kim (who took her side in multiple episodes, Dislocoeur marked the end of that). And Rose when she tore apart her letter, laughed in her face, and left her crying on the sidewalk. And Mlle. Bustier, in that episode people love to use to be all āuwu look at Chloe being kind getting a gift for Bustier, how could they not redeem her,ā which had been preceded by ā¦ Chloe literally vandalizing Marinetteās own gift for Bustier and the class being rightfully outraged at her. And Marinetteās Uncle for disgustingly racist reasons Iāve already covered. Andā¦ yeah, like I said, Iām not going to list this all out for people. None of those things were Funny. Y'all really need to rewatch this show from the start before making these arguments about how harmful her actions were/were not depicted to be. The show has not failed to depict her cruelty seriously, y'all are just being very generous and selective with what you remember.
