What are some of Adrien’s flaws that you find appealing ? —- bad writing aside .
First I have to preface what I consider character flaws. They're not some negative trait stapled onto the character that they must have a character arc about. A character flaw is any trait that causes the character problems in the narrative.
Even traditionally heroic traits can be a character under the right circumctances. Advocating for the truth is an issue when opsec is required. Loyalty is great up until someone prioritizes the person they're loyal to above all others. A strong sense of justice can be twisted in a thousand and one ways. Heroic willpower becomes a real problem when the goal the person set for themselves isn't the best.
So consider the following examples not as a "bad traits Adrien has" but as a "some traits Adrien has that could create interesting conflicts".
The first and most classic would be Adrien's anger. Adrien's canonical method of dealing with his anger is bottling it all up until it (after a long time) erupts. There's this great breakdown of it by @pearl484-blog that goes in depth to all his responses and tactics to manage it.
This doesn't really get explored much, by either the show or fandom, because there's this widespread perception of him as this gentle sunshine child. It's not a wrong perception, as it's a big part of who Adrien is, but I get annoyed when it becomes all that he is. He's a Good Victim and a Perfect Boyfriend and everything that Gabriel and Marinette's fantasy wants him to be when his character arc should be about breaking away from all that.
For all that the show fails to write him well, Adrien's character has really strong themes and arcs attached to him on a foundational level. His father controls him and forces on him the image of perfection. His father is the main supervillain. He's the hero of destruction. All of those chart a very clear arc for his character: he must break free by destroying the perfection of Adrien AgresteTM.
The exact form of the destruction is up to the writer's preferences. I've seen some cool interpretations like @wisteriasymphony's that paint him as a nerd and kinda a loser and that works great. Personally, I'm a big fan of exploring his anger for that purpose. Considering the salters' reaction every time he got a bit pissed, I would say it does the job quite nicely.
Imo, Adrien should be a very angry person deep down, or at the very least grow up into one. Repressed emotions don't go away just because you're not looking at them. If you don't give them an outlet, they would build up and force their way out eventually. And Adrien has so many things to be angry about.
Writing anger as Adrien's flaw would be both very easy and very hard. I mean, it's anger. You don't even have to do anything special to generate conflict with it and have it cause trouble for Adrien.
However, there's a fine line to walk here so as to not demonize Adrien's anger. So much of Adrien's anger is justified that painting it as a pure problem would have some really unfortunate implications. It would also be a bad character arc direction for him since it would be healthy for the kid to embrace some of his anger. All our emotions exist for a purpose and anger is no exception.
Another unexplored trait of his is his stubborness. I don't think the writers realized the implications of Adrien looping 25,913 times in Desperata. Aka somewhere between two weeks to three months with no sleep or breaks. That's an insane demonstration of willpower. That kind of thing should be a character defining moment.
And it's not an isolated incident either. In Weredad we see him keep getting up after getting beaten despite visibly struggling to do so. All that's missing is him saying "I can do this all day" and it would be the same scene as the one used to establish the foundemantal heroic quality of Steve Rogers. Yet for some reason the show framed it as him being weak and needing rescuing unlike our amazing girlboss Marinette who *check notes* climbed some vines with no resistence or obstacles.
It's a trait that could be projected to many of his action. His persistence in chasing after Ladybug, for example (although that's the most boring aspect of it imo). The way he kept running away to school in Origins even after he got caught and scolded. In Risk he got so much flack for not standing up to Gabriel, but a pep talk was all that's needed to get him to try again despite literal mind control being involved.
Combine that with how conflict averse he is, and you can get some really fun results. Usually stubborn characters are portrayed as confrontational (or at least assertive), where no matter how much you argue with them you can't get them to change their minds.
Give the same stubborness to a character who's conflict averse and he'll keep his head down when you argue with him but then go on to do whatever he wanted anyway. We've seen Adrien being sneaky enough times that you could generate some really fun scenarios with this. And you only need one ill-advised goal for him to get stubborn about to create some conflict.
Then there's his empathy. It's one of his greatest heroic qualities and also one that could lead him down some really bad paths. Adrien is empathetic to a fault, and that's something that could easily be taken advantage of considering the people he's surrounded by.
You wouldn't even have to change much in canon to have this trait of his cause him trouble. Gabriel is the obvious antagonist here. Lila and Chloe (and even Marinette, but that strays further from canon) could serve as a more nuanced exploration of the idea.
The really fun thing here is the way it interacts with him being a hero. Usually the way this arc would go would be the character learning to prioritize themselves. However this doesn't work so well with a character who's supposed to be a hero, who by definition should prioritize others.
So what we end up with instead is an arc about all the ways the world can punish empathy, and how to keep caring about others despite it all. It's about learning how to reach out even to the more difficult people without setting yourself on fire to keep warm.
And that's the kind of story that would work beautifully with Adrien, especially in a story where the main villain preys on people's emotions to make them monsters.
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
gracieabrams
tangentwithtanner
discoholicmusic
origamiaround
izzy806
