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Speaking of Chat Blanc and punishments, I once read this post saying that Adrien turning into Blanc was also meant to be a punishment, in this case Adrien's punishment for dating Marinette while secretly knowing she's Ladybug. Any thoughts on that idea?
(Post that spawned this ask)
I can see why someone would reach that conclusion, but I don't think it's supported by the text. To explain, we'll talk about why I don't think this read fits the way Miraculous dishes out its morals and then we'll talk about where the read comes from.
Chat Blanc's Intended Message
Once you understand the rules the govern Miraculous' writing room, the show's morals tend to be obvious. The reason they confuse people - myself included - is that the rules are weird and the morals are often atrocious. That combination has given us an abundance of episodes where the intended moral is not the moral most viewers take away from the episode even when it's clear that the moral the audience sees isn't the moral the characters learned. Because of that mismatch, the audience looks for something beyond whatever nonsense the story is telling us. We expect later episodes to fix or update the message or think that we were genuinely supposed to learn a moral the characters didn't, but that's the wrong way to approach this show. The stated moral is always the intended moral even when the stated moral doesn't fit what actually happened.
Chat Blanc is one of the episode that fits this pattern. Because the audience sees the full story while Marinette stays in the dark, we walk away thinking the lesson was "Gabriel is a monster and Marinette doesn't know that yet so she's blaming herself when she shouldn't" or "Gabriel can't learn Adrien's identity first" but those weren't the messages the episode wanted to send. The writers absolutely want Marinette to blame herself because the message of the episode is nothing more than "Marinette must only use her powers for selfless reasons" and "identity reveals are bad".
At the start of the episode, we get this:
Tikki: Maybe you can give him his present tomorrow at school?
Marinette: No. You heard what Rose said. I can't back out again. (runs farther) Since he's not back yet, I can go through the window!
Tikki: Oh, no no no! You know it's not a good idea to use your powers for personal reasons.
Marinette: I'll be quick, Tikki, no one will ever know!
And at the end of the episode, we get this:
Ladybug: You're still calling me Marinette. You're not supposed to know who I am. It means that if I use my Miraculous Ladybug to fix everything now...
Bunnyx: You'll still have this memory of her.
(Cat Noir lets the butterfly go and looks sad.)
Ladybug: (with her Lucky Vision spots the eraser and the Burrow) Of course! (hugs Cat Noir) I'm gonna fix everything, Cat Noir, I promise!
Cat Noir: (smiles) I know.
Ladybug: (jumps into the Burrow) Bring me back 10 minutes before the moment you came to get me, quick! I don't have much time before I transform back and lose my Lucky Charm. (puts the bowl on top of head) I have to erase my mistake to get things back to normal. This future is a result from something that happened in the past. I must not throw my eraser here and now, I must throw my eraser back then!
Ladybug from 10 minutes: Signed, Marinette. (Ladybug pushes her away) What the—
Ladybug: (erases her name) Trust me, it's better this way. (throws up eraser) Miraculous Ladybug! (throws her Lucky Charm up in air and reverts everything)
Scene: Burrow
Bunnyx: (looks at unicorn plushie) WOO-HOO!
This is the message. The setup and payoff. Tikki warns Marinette to not use her powers for personal reasons, but Marinette doesn't listen. Marinette not listening technically leads to Chat Blanc, so Marinette has to undo her selfish act of giving Adrien a signed gift to show the audience that she has learned her lesson and will no longer use her powers selfishly. That's why Bunnyx doesn't correct anything Marinette says. So long as Marinette learns the right lesson, it doesn't matter if it's based on a completely inaccurate idea of what happened. It's also why the show never cares to address how terrible Gabriel looks in this episode. Gabriel's actions don't matter to them. He's just a tool for teaching Marinette the error of her ways.
This is the way Miraculous works*. The "story engine" causes a problem, fixes it, and learns a lesson in the process. The story engine is not allowed to learn from the mistakes of others. They - by which I mean Marinette and on rare occasions Adrien - must be in the wrong.
Side note: Adrien getting the story engine promotion is how we got Kuro Neko and Hack-San where Adrien absolves Ladybug of any wrong doing and takes all the blame on himself instead of discussing their mutual faults because heaven forbid we have an episode where both leads learn a lesson. He got Marinetted - given her usual role - and it sucked.
This nonsense is why Miraculous has so many wacky episodes where the show twists itself into a pretzel to blame Marinette when she did nothing wrong. It's also why she randomly acts horribly even when it would be better for her overall characterization if the character in the wrong was someone else. For an example of the first, see Qilin or Volpina. For an example of the second, see Animaestro which would have been vastly improved if the one causing all the problems was Chloe and not Marinette as the linked post explains.
If you look at the way Chat Blanc handles Adrien, you'll notice that his arc - or lack thereof - doesn't fit the story engine logic. While Adrien made mistakes, he doesn't learn anything from them, so arguing that Adrien was supposed to teach us a lesson here is a hard sell. That's not how Miraculous teaches its morals. There's also the issue that this argument hinges on the idea that Adrien did something wrong by dating Marinette and that is not how the episode sees things.
The Nuance of Adrien's Deception
A fairly common complaint about Chat Blanc is that Adrien is manipulating Marinette and taking advantage of the situation. This argument comes from the fact that Chat Blanc comes after Glaciator, the episode where Chat Noir makes his romantic intentions explicitly clear and Ladybug turns him down. There are also multiple post-Glaciator episodes where Ladybug reiterates her no.
Because Ladybug has given such a firm "no", many viewers see Adrien's actions in Chat Blanc as underhanded. Adrien knows that Marinette turned him down and he asks her out without giving her that information, tricking her into dating his civilian side since he couldn't have her on the hero side. This understandable criticism is why I keep saying Glaciator was a terrible addition to the show. It's somewhat cute on its own, but it undermines Adrien's character in many of the episodes that comes after it so it should never have made it into the show.
Even without Glaciator, Adrien dating Marinette while secretly knowing her identity feels wrong to a lot of people because he's keeping important information from her. He gets to make a fully informed choice on who he's dating. She doesn't.
Those criticisms are not invalid if you're talking about the writing, but they are invalid if you're talking about the episode's message because the writers didn't write any of that into the episode. When Adrien figures out that Marinette is Ladybug and runs off to date her, there is no manipulation to it. He doesn't talk about this being his second chance or anything like that. He realizes that his Lady loves him and goes running to be with her without any considerations for the dangers or complexities of the situation:
(Flashback to Glaciator.)
Ladybug: You're my friend, and I'd never want to lie to a friend.
Cat Noir: But why do you think you'd be lying?
Ladybug: 'Cause... there's this boy, I...
(The flashback ends.)
Adrien: Me!
Plagg speaks out against Adrien's actions, but the only criticism he offers is that this is bad because Adrien shouldn't know the secret identities. Plagg doesn't say Ladybug should know the truth or that Adrien is taking advantage of the situation:
Plagg: Okay Adrien, this whole thing smells like rotten cheese. You know you aren't supposed to know each other's secret identities!
Adrien: Just because I know her secret identity doesn't mean she has to know about mine. Everything will be just fine, I promise. (wears the beret and runs out)
Plagg: Adrien! Putting a smelly piece of cheese in a box doesn't stop it from smelling!
And when Marinette finds out that Adrien has been keeping this massive secret from her, she is not upset:
Marinette: Adrien!
Cat Noir: You were about to be akumatized. I didn't have a choice, m'lady.
Marinette: M'lady? But how did you know? I thought our identities were supposed to remain a secret! (drops umbrella and hugs Cat Noir tearfully)
Cat Noir: Everything will be okay, I promise.
None of this invalidates the manipulation criticism, but it does mean that it's not a criticism you can make of Adrien's intentions. The most you can do is criticize that Adrien never stopped to think through the situation. There's simply no evidence that he was intentionally manipulating Marinette. He canonically thinks this is what she wants. You can criticize that his logic doesn't make much sense, but that's still on the writers, not an intentional character bear for Adrien. At least, I don't think he's supposed to feel like a dumb blond. The characterization in this show is so weird that I'm genuinely unsure how smart and observant Adrien is supposed to be. He gets to make the insane logic leap that Marinette is Ladybug based on a gift, but can't stop to think about the risks of a one sided reveal even after months of dating. It all boils down to the fact that the show will do whatever it needs to service the plot even if it means making the characters look awful, dumb, etc.
The fact that the episode ignores this issue indicates that the writers did not intend for Adrien's actions to be seen as this big, messed-up manipulation. For them, it is at most a minor faux pas. Ephemeral backs up this read because that episode has a full mutual reveal and yet we get same outcome making it clear that - in the eyes of the show - the issue is not a secret reveal. The issue is that there was a reveal and that should never happen.
This is also why Ephemeral never deals with the fact that Ladybug intended to use lies to manipulate Chat Noir. That wasn't an intentional plot point. It was just the messed up setup the writers went with so they could tell the plot they wanted to tell the same way Adrien's lies were used to get us Chat Blanc. It's a plot beat, not a character beat even though it absolutely should be a character beat, too.
For another example of this pervasive issue see Luka lying to Marinette about the identity reveal in Wishmaker. The show never treats that as Luka doing something wrong. He never apologizes to Marinette and Marinette never gets mad at him for the lies. She still trusts him, confides in him, and gives him a full time miraculous.
Similarly, Kagami is never punished for learning Ladybug's identity and spilling the beans to Felix without Marinette's permission. That massive betrayal of trust is somehow totally fine and Kagami gets to keep the dragon on her at all times.
Even Alya's choice to tell Nino her identity after promising Marinette she wouldn't is not treated as a big deal. It does lead her to be outed in the season four final, but that's just an excuse to get the fox back in the Miracle box so Gabriel can get the fox from Marinette. Alya shares no blame in Gabriel's win, she still gets the fox full time in season six, and her lie doesn't impact her relationship with Marinette begging the question why the Rena Furtive plot even happened.
The only hero character who is shown to be actively in the wrong for a deception is Marinette in season six and even that was a retcon. The bible leaks revealed that season five's ending was originally the show's big happy ending and that version still included the lies, they just came from Emilie instead of Marinette. I seriously think the lie plot is only a thing because something needed to replace Marinette wanting to confess her love in every episode, but chickening out at the last minute.
I can see why viewers would want Adrien to learn a lesson in Chat Blanc because Chat Noir's inability to accept Ladybug's "no" gives this episode a nasty undertone, but many viewers take the way that background and the lies make them feel and project intentionality onto Adrien that the story doesn't back. Because that intentionality isn't there and the story never addresses the issue, I don't see an argument for Chat Blanc to be an intentional punishment for Adrien. The only person the writers are intentionally punishing is Marinette. I don't agree with that choice, but it is how the episode is written. For more on that, see the power of love rant which pitches my simplest fix for Chat Blanc. I also support more complex pitches like removing the identity reveal element and having Chat Blanc happen via Ladrien.
While I understand why this episode makes people want to see Adrien punished, I'm not a fan of punishing Adrien for his actions because Adrien isn't supposed to be the villain of the piece. His actions are only questionable because of the show's piss poor writing. I'd much rather fix the overall writing to honor the character Adrien is supposed to be, keep the love square cute, and leave Gabriel as the one who gets to learn a lesson and pay for his crimes. It's the same logic I use when I defend Marinette and Alya and Nino and everyone else in this insane show: yes, the character is in the wrong here, but I don't care because this issue isn't intentional complexity meant to make them interesting, it's the writers being stupid and not thinking through what their choices mean for their characters.
[Gif description: Nick Fury from Marvel's Avengers delivering the iconic line "I recognize the council has made a decision but given its a stupid-ass decision I've elected to ignore it"]
*The story engine logic was not a thing in season one and the show was better for it. I think the only post-season one episode that breaks this logic is Derision which blames Chloe instead even though that really shouldn't have been the episode's takeaway.
