Okay, I have finally compiled my thoughts about the episode, so let’s get into it because I have a lot. I know some people have been whining that Heartfixer was anticlimactic, but I for one appreciate that they handled her akuma the way they did. (I mean I have written a similar scenario before in fic) The focus of this season has been on how lies are impacting Adrinette's relationship, and we see just how badly this whole situation is hurting them. Even though the breakup was not related to the big lie, it was still centered around a lie, which was a very conscious and pointed decision given the context of the rest of the season.
I do get it, I also would love to see Marinette go apeshit, especially after this season, but I think that is truly a scenario that cannot happen without serious consequences. Because not only is she Ladybug, but she also knows the identities of every other holder (except Chat Noir). So, I get the sentiment as a viewer that nothing truly happened as far as a big intense fight scene, and sure, it would have been cool, but I also understand from a writing perspective that there are consequences to that. So I also get the decision to keep it contained and focused on the problem.
I did appreciate that Adrien had a boundary this episode and is not willing to accept it if Marinette is in love with someone else (*cough* unlike someone) and that is a serious deal breaker for him. One thing I have seen that I will contest in regard to Adrien this episode is that he learned nothing because he did learn something that has the potential to be incredibly heartbreaking later and that is to trust Marinette when she says she's not lying. And I think that is very loaded for obvious reasons. I could see it going either way with the big lie because on one hand it could make things worse and lead to more intense feelings of betrayal (if it's even Marinette telling him at all and not Ladybug), but it could also work to their benefit if he decides to hear her out and talk it out with her rather than jumping to conclusions.
I do want to bring back up the thing I said the other day about Adrien's journey this season being about processing his past and getting to a point where he is ready to hear the secret because it's mentioned by Marinette in the episode that Adrien is ready to hear it, but she isn't ready to deal with the consequences that would come with him hearing it. And I already know that the anti crowd are circle jerking each other about that being a selfish reason to keep the secret, and sure it sounds incredibly selfish taken out of context, but we have context.
She was literally akumatized, and her saying that she isn't ready to deal with the fallout was literally because she was akumatized and knows that is bad news for literally everyone because just as a reminder, not only is she Ladybug, but she is also the guardian, so if she goes down, basically everything goes down with her, which btw is a huge burden to put on a 15 year old’s shoulders. My boyfriend breaks up with me and the world could end? Yeah, I would be clinging on tight too.
Literally everything I’ve been saying the whole time. She’s a young girl. This is heavy shit for her to be carrying, and it’s clearly breaking her under the weight. The position she has been put in is fucked.
Self-preservation is a very basic human instinct that everyone has. We all want to keep what we have and be socially accepted. We naturally want to protect the people and things that we love and have bonded with. And we do know that Marinette truly loves Adrien. She does not want to cause him pain or potentially ruin his life, which was the basis that this lie started on and what she cites as the reason she isn’t ready in this episode. She could hardly handle the weight of Gabriel’s revelation and everything that happened in the final battle, so she knew it would crush Adrien, especially if we remember where exactly he was physically, mentally, and emotionally while the finale was going on. It’s hard enough that his last interaction with his father was so negatively charged, and he probably spent a good chunk of time laying in that cell cursing his father, then to find out he’s dead, and they’ll never have the opportunity to reconcile? In all honesty, I don’t think Adrien was ready to hear the truth at the time because we see how he reacted even to the news that his father was dead. Imagine piling “Btw he was also the guy who was terrorizing Parisians on the daily and he was already dying because you Chat Noir cataclysmed him on accident” on top. And I already know that even if she had told him the secret in that moment, the fandom still would have bitched about it because “He was already upset why would she make it worse?” “Why couldn’t she wait to tell him about it?” “Can’t she read the room?” “Poor Adrien! Didn’t she consider his feelings?” Because as we know, how dare a teenage girl.
That’s why I think the journey Adrien has been on is equally as important because he is being prepared to hear this secret and deal with the fallout that happens. He and Marinette have been moving in opposite directions this season. Adrien is moving toward healing, understanding, and acceptance (which is a journey he obviously can't complete until he knows the full truth). Marinette on the other hand has been steadily spiraling downward and nearly out of control at times. And I think given the show’s overarching theme between the two of them as balancing each other (yin/yang), I do think that those journeys are going to be important for the climax and resolution of this plotline. As I have stated previously, I don’t think Adrien will ever truly hate Marinette or Ladybug. There wouldn’t be a show otherwise. Any rift between them from the fallout would ultimately be temporary. It just would be. They’re not going to spend the whole rest of this show with the main duo at odds with each other. They always come back together in the end. They are both being pushed to the eventual reveal of the secret; Marinette likely being pushed to the limit where she absolutely cannot hide it anymore, and Adrien hopefully to a place where he can process and accept it. (Even if it takes a little time and he reacts negatively to it initially). And it might impact them for a little bit, or it may not. But the important thing is that whatever happens, we know that they will always come back together. The show has literally been telling us since day 1 that “Those two are made for each other.” And they always will be no matter what tests their relationship.
Another thing I want to talk about is Marinette’s akuma itself. I think it is a well-known character flaw of Marinette’s at this point that she has control issues and feels the need to fix everything herself. It’s literally her superpower, and overtime, as she has made mistakes and fucked shit up, her need to fix everything has only gotten worse. And they’ve actually been harping on this character flaw of hers for a few seasons now (pretty much ever since she became the Guardian), and I think that perhaps this lie plot is going to be the thing that really tips her into a place where she has to confront that side of herself and deal with it fully. But I think within the context of this episode, it’s so beautifully tragic that she didn’t care about anything else but fixing Adrien’s heart. She didn’t want revenge on the people who set her up. She didn’t want to drown the world in her tears. She didn’t want to break other couples up so others could understand her pain. She even literally said “And I won’t hurt anyone?” before she accepted the akuma. Marinette is a fixer, she always has been. But because she is a fixer, she struggles to relinquish control because she feels obligated to fix everything. Her lying about Gabriel was her attempt to fix the situation because she knew that the truth would both devastate Adrien and implicate Gabriel’s accomplices. And now that she has told that lie, she has to maintain it, which leads her to attempt to control the narrative surrounding Gabriel as we see in Lady Chaos. Because if the truth gets out, then everything will crumble. People will get hurt. Adrien will get hurt. So, she does what she thinks she needs to in order to “fix” everything.
She wants Adrien to be happy more than anything, and I know they have been drawing parallels between Marinette and Gabriel, but there are fundamental differences. Gabriel controlled Adrien because he wanted an obedient son who reflected well on him and his image. He did things regardless of how Adrien felt like digitizing his image or literally sending him to be locked up in a white padded room in London. Marinette, on the other hand, desperately doesn’t want Adrien to be sad or hurt or heartbroken. She doesn’t want the only caregiver left in his life to be imprisoned, leaving him to either grandparents he’s barely met or maybe his aunt? At the end of the day, she wants him to be happy, which is something Gabriel did not prioritize. And her pursuit of his happiness is coming at the expense of her own happiness, which is why I think Alya’s statement at the end about Marinette being as kind to herself as she is to others is particularly poignant. I mean, this is the girl who literally said she would have sacrificed herself with the wish so that Adrien could be happy.
And this isn’t the first time the show has drawn parallels between Marinette and an antagonist either, they spent several of the early seasons drawing parallels between her and Chloe, but we as the audience can see things from the outside and understand the nuance and differences. (I literally beg you guys to educate yourselves on narrative foils) Because Chloe hurt people for her own entertainment, enjoyment, and benefit, and she rarely showed remorse for her actions. And yeah, sure she is also a young girl who could stand to learn and grow, but that’s just it. She didn’t. She had the opportunity to, and she chose not to. Which, again, you can argue she is a product of her environment, but she also had an opportunity to have a different environment, but that environment didn’t interest her further than the attention it was bringing her. Because at the end of the day, that’s what Chloe wants: attention. Marinette on the other hand usually only hurt people on accident, and when she did cause harm, she sought to apologize and make it right. She learned her lessons. I don’t know where this notion that Marinette gets away with everything and is propped up by the narrative comes from because if anything she is the narrative’s punching bag. She’s the protagonist, so it’s kind of her job to get slapped around by the narrative. But I digress.
You want to know why the narrative is comparing Marinette to the villains? Because we are supposed to see the difference. You are supposed to understand that it’s not the same. It’s not a black or white issue. Just because she and Gabriel have both done things to protect Adrien without his knowledge doesn’t mean that Marinette is just as bad as Gabriel. Just because Marinette is withholding the truth doesn’t mean she’s just as bad as Lila. We are supposed to recognize how her situation is nuanced and different than the bad guys. They are making the comparison so we can go oh yeah, those guys are doing bad things because they are bad, whereas she is doing things that are bad but is still fundamentally good at her core. She’s the hero of the story. But just because she is the hero doesn’t mean that she’s always going to be in the right. It just means that eventually she will learn from her mistakes and make things right. Something the villains don’t do. She gave Gabriel an opportunity to do the right thing in the end, but he did what he wanted anyway. He was so hellbent on making that damn wish that he would rather orphan his son than give up on it. And don’t even get me started on what the fuck is wrong with Lila because I get the feeling we don’t even know the half of it yet. The fact that so many people are failing to understand that the comparisons are also a means of contrasting and demonstrating core differences between characters just demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of very basic storytelling. And ya know, idk if I can even blame people cause parents aren’t reading to their kids as much these days, and it fucking shows.
As for where this episode leads us in the future, I think her decision in the end to put the letter in the yoyo as Ladybug is both smart and risky. I've seen others point out that someone could find it if they use the Ladybug miraculous at any point, but I do think that it signals that she is going to leave the secret with Ladybug (or try to anyway). We know in Lady Chaos that she's doing her damndest to keep it up in both personas, but as Nathalie pointed out in an earlier episode, the secret lives with Ladybug. Marinette has no reason to know it because Adrien doesn’t know that Marinette is Ladybug. So, I feel like if anything the secret getting out is going to impact Ladrien and LadyNoir the most. (RIP Ladrien my beloved may you come back to us some day) I do think that the secret is going to come out at the end of this season. I don’t see them pushing this plotline another season if I am being honest, and I believe at some point someone who works on the show said that s7 will put a lot of s6 into perspective, and that we will want to rewatch s6 again to better understand it. I don’t know what that means, but I am hoping it means we will view Marinette’s actions differently (maybe even more positively).
All in all, I did like the episode overall. The Adrinette was cute as always, him hugging her from behind, the kiss when she was still akumatized, the way they held each other after it was over. The little dream sequence with the rowboat was precious as fuck. Even the fucked up implications of Adrien saying he feels so comfortable with her vs her saying that she can’t be herself around him. I hope s7 sees her healing from that and being able to be herself around him, or if not s7 at some point in the future. They deserve to have a real go at their relationship without Gabriel haunting the fucking narrative all the time.
Anyway, it’s @adrinetteapril so make some Adrinette content! I am going to try to do some this month, but we need to show those kids some love. They’re going through too much in canon.
