Y’all still overreacting about the episode, I see
The fandom: Ugh, why were the classmates so dumb in this episode? And what’s up with that lesson at the end? The lesson in origins directly contradicts it! And who is Alya to talk about sources when she clearly doesn’t use them herself when it comes to Lila? Ugh, ugh, UGH!
Me, over here cackling and not caring how dumb the classmates were because I don’t attach myself to minor characters who were never meant to be that important anyway and who have displayed dumb behavior in the past, while also realizing the finite details that differentiate what calling out Chloe had done in Origins vs how calling out Lila in this episode would make Marinette look, as well as realizing that looking up sources about someone’s personal life when those sources likely don’t exist anyway–whether their claims are true or not–is a stupid thing to discuss, and that Alya’s real point had been to make sure that Marinette understood the gravity of what she was doing if she truly intended to call Lila out without proper backing, therefore implying that Alya was actually trying to do her a solid with the limited knowledge she had: Sure, fam.
No, the episode wasn’t state-of-the-art, but this show isn’t exactly state-of-the-art. Like… if you can’t take the writing quality, which has been pretty consistent since Season 1, then why are you still watching it? This episode isn’t the worst one in the series by any stretch. This show promised to be exactly what it is when it came out. Like, be critical–I’m the first person to be critical most of the time–but it feels at this point that a good chunk of you are hating just because you don’t like the show itself, in which case… stop watching it. Like, I stopped watching Voltron. You control your own life.
There’s the type of criticism that takes what you’ve seen and critiques in the attitude of acknowledging what the show promised to deliver on, which stays within the realm of relevancy, and then there’s critique that is so biased against what the show is because you want a different story to be told that it amounts to null. So you don’t like how the classmates were portrayed? Well, newsflash, they’re teenagers. Young teenagers at that. Their behavior? Not that off-base. They literally don’t have the cognitive development to make good decisions all the time. You know how much attention injured students get in public schools? My brother was never popular, but when he broke his ankle, he had girls rubbing his back and bringing him food despite the fact that he could get around just fine. Best time of his middle school career. And yeah, calling out Chloe in origins was the right thing to do because everyone knew she was horrible because she wasn’t deceitful, she was just blatantly terrible. With Lila, it becomes more complicated, because everything Marinette says is going to be twisted and thrown back in her face. Sometimes, when the effort is only going to make you look worse, you need to step back and let someone do themselves in. Adrien isn’t wrong–calling out bad people doesn’t usually make them do better. Especially if it’s in public where they’re going to be even more defensive. Chloe committed her wrongs publicly and everyone could see the wrongs she was committing–there was awareness. With Lila, there’s no source of apparent wrongdoing, and so Marinette simply appears less like the righteous hero. She isn’t “taking the highroad,” she’s acknowledging that Adrien is right–that taking action against Lila in those moments wouldn’t help–and that the best thing to do would be to move on. It’s become nothing more than a she-said, she-said moment, in which neither party comes away looking good. Adrien knows that.
Plainly put, while calling out Chloe in origins was worth the effort because it resulted in consequences, calling out Lila won’t do anything because no matter what Marinette says, Lila will deny it or twist it. Even if Alya were to believe Marinette, it’s not a victory, it’s still just Marinette’s word against Lila’s, and there’s little value in that. I don’t care how “friendly” you think the classmates are with Marinette–it’s never that simple and even the nicest people get doubted. People believe what they want to believe. So in this case, yeah, it’s likely better to say nothing and just move on, at least for the time being.
And Alya was fucking right when she told Marinette she needed better sources. Alya doesn’t seem to care one way or another about Lila. She seems friendly and otherwise, she doesn’t seem to care. She had an interesting story about Ladybug one time that no amount of research–aside from Ladybug refuting the claims herself–is going to contradict. Just as researching whether Jagged Stone ever had a cat is likely going to get her nowhere unless she asks him directly, which is unlikely to be possible. Alya is a journalist, and as such, her sources are likely what people have to say about a situation, which she then presents to viewers. As in, “look, this is Lila, and this is what Lila has to say.” Sure, she can have more in-depth pieces, and for those pieces, she’d probably have better sources, but she’s not wrong in telling Marinette, “hey, if you’re going to call someone out, you’d better have the evidence to back it up, otherwise you’re just going to make yourself look bad.” When they called out Chloe in origins, they had evidence. That’s the difference here, people. Chloe and Lila are not carbon-copy comparisons that can be handled the same way, and Adrien knows that, even if his passivity is just as much a bad thing as it can be good. Marinette likes to call out all wrong-doing as she sees it, which also isn’t bad. But this is where Adrien and Marinette can compliment each other–sometimes Adrien would be better served in stepping out and saying something, and sometimes Marinette would be better served in stepping back. Y’all seem to have missed that major point between them.
Yes, some parts of the episode were ridiculous. And yes, the classmates were blatantly stupid, but they’ve been blatantly stupid in previous episodes. That’s why characters like Alya and Nino were kept out of serving Lila, because they’re the important ones, not the rest of the class. It’s why Chloe wasn’t even in the episode, because that would have added an entire level of drama that they didn’t need for the story at this point.
Like… none of this is surprising if you look at previous episodes. Miraculous has plenty of issues, but lack of consistency isn’t exactly one (if anything, it’s too consistent).
It’s really not as bad as y’all think it is.
dededos
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
2087
romaincrisis
