Ah, yes… the old excuse of ‘Félix doesn’t have good chemistry with Marinette’. As someone who has written a 26+ chapters story with the setting in the Ladybug PV Universe, I have to say that I have never encountered any problems where it was “impossible” for me to write Félix and Bridgette’s dynamics without creating bad chemistry between them.
Although, maybe it’s because I’m using a very special and very unique writing technique known as - character development.
Honestly, the more I think about Miraculous Ladybug and its characters, the more I think that the only reason they decided to make Adrien a Nice Guy is because they couldn’t bother writing some actual character development for him and instead decided to just hand him everything he wants on a silver platter. After all, isn’t it easier when your character already is super cool and super special and has just the right amount of trauma to make people sympathize with him in order to let him get away with literal murder (on multiple occasions!)?
To me, Adrien is a very one-dimensional and bland character who has no progress aside from flipping an internal switch and no life aside from obsessing over a girl. Take away his role as Cat Noir and him being Gabriel Agreste’s (the main villain) son, and there is really nothing that makes him appealing nor interesting as a character. Even if he is given an opportunity to develop as a character, he whines until the universe bends backwards to reward him without doing anything to deserve it.
It is also hilarious how they brought back Félix to be the one to actually progress the plot instead of letting either of the main characters figure out that Gabriel is Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth/Monarch, because they need to focus on unnecessary drama instead of actual story progression.
Seriously, this screams “We couldn’t bother to put effort into writing Félix, so we gave up”.
It’d be easy actually. With the power of characterization, pacing (aka: slow burn), emotional range, and ACTUAL CHARACTER-DRIVEN PLOT DEVELOPMENT.
Part of the problem is that the writers here rushed things from the start.
They wanted a love square but didn’t want to make any real effort to set it up. So rather than show how it gets started, WHY either character would fall in love with each other, or even have scenes that showcase and give legitimacy to all sides of the love square, they instead chose to start right out the gate with shenanigans caused by Marinette in love with Adrien who is Chat in love with Ladybug who is Marinette. And since they really need to really highlight that this really is really love, they show a lot of cringe-inducing scenes to remind us all that Marinette is in love with Adrien. And have they mentioned she’s in love with him? Because she’s in love with him.
They also wanted heroes but didn’t really set up how they got there or learned how to use their powers or became so trusted by the city. There’s no training. Little indication of what made them qualified over anyone else. Origins had to be tacked to the end of the first season to finally give a clue and even that ended up contradicting so much of what had already been shown.
They wanted the love square and superhero partners who were in a love square. So that is exactly where they started things instead of where they built to.
Most good romance stories don’t start with the characters in love. Hell, many of them start with the characters very much in dislike or hate. Seeing how they start out and progress and end up falling for each other and getting together is half the fun of a good romance.
In this light, the chemistry between Felix and Marinette doesn’t have to be perfect from the get-go. That they needed it to be and were so intent to have things already start things off that way that they chose to abandon Felix and his setup when it wouldn’t work indicates impatience on the part of the writers.
The other part of the problem is that they went into this with an endgame pairing and no real idea how to work towards it. At least not well. Because this pairing HAS to be endgame, many shows and books pretty much make it clear from the get-go that these two are going to end up together. But because they can’t just HAVE the duo in question get together too soon and lose that drama, they throw in some romantic rivals for each of them to be with temporarily until they finally figure out (despite somehow already knowing) that they were REALLY in love with each other. This makes the romance tedious because everyone KNOWS what the endgame pairing is going to be. It’s made even more asinine because the characters themselves are clearly crushing on each other (whether or not they know it) so there’s really no reason they can’t just confess and get together except that the plot demands they don’t. It also causes the OTHER problem that a good half of the time, it’s the other relationships they’re made to have along the way that are actually better. They’re sweeter, healthier, more interesting, and the people involved seem happier. So because the writers have to reverse track to get back to that planned endgame pairing, they do something—usually something rushed and poorly planned out—to nix that relationship in order to force the endgame pairing while ignoring that in doing so, the endgame pairing is itself forced.
If they wanted the endgame so badly that they had to replace one of the characters entirely to make it happen, maybe it just isn’t a good endgame pairing? Maybe instead of finding a perfect Adrien for the perfect endgame, they should have been looking at the flaws of the two characters they originally wanted to use and try to work out how they would get there and how they would need to change? Not just to be a perfect couple, but to make themselves better by the end. That’s where character development needs to come into play.
The other OTHER part of the problem is that they wasted time with filler and random relatively unimportant plots for the sole purpose of having a single character “learn a lesson”. The same character at that. Every episode.
How much focus could other characters have gotten had they had the time? How much could the plot have been moved forward if they’d allowed the characters to actually be proactive? How much time could have been freed up to offer that necessary focus if we removed all the unnecessary filler scenes full of cringe, frustration, and second-hand embarrassment?
And the final part of the problem is that they stick to the “Status Quo is God” setup despite all odds, and that just wouldn’t work for any male lead except Adrien. Felix in the PV and in canon is not a static character. Unlike Adrien, he is driven and proactive in ways Adrien is not and cannot be. In the PV, he became a “hero” to try to break his bad luck curse. In canon, he played both sides in order to secure his safety and freedom, with no real thought of the consequences until he’s actually hit with them. He is a selfish character. Selfish and yet understandable.
So you know what?
Yes, I could see how one would be able to write 72 episodes of the series replacing Adrien with Felix. And end up with a better written series.
