Chat Noir should've gotten a second love interest, not Adrien.
Like I know Kagami IS a foil to Ladybug, so she does serve a function like Luka does with Marinette. I get that part.
But why I mainly think is...well...:
Luka acts like the perfect partner and is essentially Marinette's free therapist. Someone she can rely on, when things get tough.
ADRIEN DOESN'T HAVE ANYONE LIKE THAT! And no Marinette herself doesn't count! Either his support is taken away or they lean on Marinette/Ladybug instead.
And I feel sorry for Kagami and acknowledge that Adrien wasn't the best in the relationship either, but Kagami isn't the perfect girlfriend for Adrien.
Yes they could relate to things and she had points, but compared to Luka, she only cared about the Adrien parts, not the Chat parts.
Also I know with Adrien's obliviousness, he might need a more blunter partner, but at the same time, BOUNDERIES! While not as bad as Marinette, Kagami could be pushy at times.
I guess I just wanted Chat to have someone in his corner for him to talk too and lean on when things get tough. Because neither Kagami or Marinette are it.
Adrien watches the commercial for privatized oxygen play on the projector overhead, and he is...
Well, he’s not surprised.
He wished he were.
-
It would be easier if it was a surprise, because then he could be shocked and horrified. And he is horrified, but not shocked.
He was handed the script, he read the lines, he said the lines dozens of times. He knew what he was selling. He knew what his father was doing, what he was becoming the face of.
But now he was seeing it in action, now he was seeing the reactions of his classmates.
Now it was finally starting to sink in just what he’d signed up to be a part of.
It was finally starting to sink in, how much of himself he’d happily sold away for the sake of convenience.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since Viperion had tackled him out of the way of Wishmaker’s spell. He’d given up the fight, just stood there, waiting to be hit. Because he couldn’t remember what his childhood dream was, and he wanted to remember, even if it meant leaving Ladybug to fight the villain by herself.
Thanks to Viperion, he would never know what his dream had been as a child. He couldn’t for the life of him remember.
But if he was honest with himself, he thought he could guess.
It had probably been to be whatever his parents wanted him to be.
And what his father wanted him to be right now was a pretty face that only had a voice when that voice was used to earn him even more money than he already had.
The cries of his classmates were raised in anger all around him, and even Marinette, who always looked at him with blushing adoration, was staring at him in horror. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, her mouth open in shock, her eyes wide.
And in front of him, behind the projector screen, so that they could have a better view of him, he can see the crowd of his fans. And they’re staring at him too, the same way Marinette is. With all due shock and horror and betrayal. They can’t see the screen, but they could hear it.
They heard him, in his own voice, advertising privatized oxygen. They heard him being used as a willing puppet to sing praise for the company that wanted to cut down the trees and replace them with oxygen sold by the glass. A mindless gear in the corporate machine, tearing the planet apart peice by peice just so the dead scraps can be sold back to the poor.
Adrien isn’t an idiot. He knows what’s happening. He knows what Project Oxygen is, what it’s for.
You can’t live in the same mansion as Gabriel and Emilie Agreste and not know what the motivation of the rich and powerful always is -- to get more money, to get more power, and to hell with the consequences.
He can’t remember for sure, but he can guess that his childhood dream was to be whatever is parents wanted him to be.
And he knows what they wanted him to be.
He knows why he was born.
So that he could do exactly what he just did in that commercial. Put on makeup, smile for the camera, and sell whatever they wanted him to sell. He was free advertising, nothing more. A walking billboard they could dress up whenever they wanted, and bring wherever they wanted. He was always wearing a patented Agreste™ outfit. Just one pair of his socks alone were worth more than any of his friends’ parents earned in a month.
And here he was, standing in the crowd of protestors who would never be able to afford a week’s worth of his clothes if they combined all the money they’d ever had.
He knew that if Project Oxygen was allowed to continue, if his father and the dictator who called himself a mayor were allowed to poison the city and sell back the cure, none of these people around him would be able to afford it. Their families would be driven further into debt, they would be desperate enough to work even for the lowest wages his father and the dictator could make legal...
And you know hat?
He was tired of doing what his parents wanted. He was tired of being a mindless puppet who did whatever he was told and was happy to do it. He was tired of being a mindless cog in the machine of his father’s corporate empire.
He couldn’t remember what his childhood dream had been.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t forge a new one.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t change. Couldn’t rip the strings that bound him out of the hands holding them. He would bite the hand that caged him. He would bite the hand that made him complacent, that made him cruel and uncaring.
He strode forward out of the crowd, and ripped the microphone out of Dictator Bourgeoise’s hands.
And he took up the chant.
He was going to stop Project Oxygen, he was going to defy his father, he was going to stand up for once and do the right thing rather than the easy thing, and to hell with the consequences.
What was his father going to do about it, anyways? Send him to his room? The room he spent all his time in anyways? The room he could now escape whenever he wanted to to transform?
Let him try. There was nothing his father could do to stop him.
Adrien was done playing the role of the dutiful and meek son, born only to increase the profit margin.
Thoughts on Adrien: Surprisingly Three-Dimensional
Adrien is a complicated character. He’s one who I will admit I have strongly mixed feelings on. He possesses more than a tinge of being a Gary Stu – especially given how Astruc views him as ‘perfect.’ He’s famous, an accomplished fencer, good at the piano, can speak multiple languages, skilled at sports, and more. Everyone in-universe either likes him, or in the case of Felix, is jealous of him. Despite supposedly being heavily sheltered and naive about how the world works, he delivers moral lessons to the protagonist. The background narrative goes out of its way to consistently try to make viewers feel sorry for him and excuse any mistakes he makes.
The series ignores his faults. Going as far as to have the writers’ tweets make it sound as if Chat Noir is an alternate character when they talk about Chat’s flaws. Paradoxically this very writing has created a potentially interesting character via Adrien’s character faults versus his actual good traits. When the narrative is not focused on it, his best traits shine through both as Adrien and Chat. From a character growth standpoint, Adrien has an immense amount of potential as character.
As Adrien, he is a rich white boy who has grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has never wanted for anything at least in the material sense. Money issues have never been an issue for the Agreste family. Until his mother disappeared, he had happy childhood with a loving family. He’s already rich and famous despite still being a teen. Adrien is consistently popular with his fellow teens whenever he interacts with them be it in school, on the job, or at fencing class. He is a bright young man – and he knows it too. His good grades are a requirement for him to be able to get out of the house.
All in all, it seems like a bright life. Except his childhood is spent in a golden cage. A comfortable cage but a cage none the less. He was homeschooled until he finally managed to go to school at the start of the series. Even before Emilie’s disappearance, his social environment was unhealthy. His only interaction with other children was either through his modeling career, fans, fencing class, or the children of his parent’s social peers. Given his general attitude as Chat, his academic achievements are likely the result of his parents expecting a 100% success from their son. Like Chloé, the only real adult authority figures in his life seems to be parents. Adrien might respect Nathalie, but he doesn’t really treat her as an authority figure. Adrien’s fate would have likely followed that of many child stars if things had continued.
Despite this he’s happy and content. Then his mother disappears, and everything goes to hell. Gabriel withdraws into himself, either becoming emotionally abusive or it being more overt. Adrien is forcibly confronted by the prison-like nature of his environment. Cue the events at the start of the series with Adrien trying to get out of it.
Now why is all this rambling important? It lays the groundwork for explaining Adrien’s potential character: warts, sugar, and all. First off, as both Adrien and more noticeably Chat Noir, he possesses serious entitlement issues. It is most obvious in how he treats Ladybug, but it shows in his civilian life as well. He treats his feelings and wants as more important than other people: an example being how he acts when the class is celebrating when Chloé, a girl who had spent literal years tormenting her classmates, is seemly leaving. He also seems to possess either a superiority/inferiority complex or control issues due to his shitty home environment which every so often makes him act like he is better or knows more than other characters. An example of this Reflecdoll and how he tries to mansplaining how Ladybug’s powers works to her – once again forcing Marinette to carry his ass while also doing the duties of Lady Noire.
Most negatively is how his sense of entitlement has led him to harassing Ladybug. And it is harassment: Marinette has asked him repeatedly over multiple episodes to stop and told him she is not interested in him as Chat Noir. She has shown she is not comfortable when he tries to act romantic. There is a clear difference in how she acts when uncomfortable with his actions versus when the two acts as friends. Some people excuse Adrien’s behavior as him not knowing better, but I personally have a hard time not seeing him getting at least some anti-harassment training given his gig as a model. Plus, given the difference between how he acts as Chat versus Adrien suggests he has at least some clue he would face blow-back acting like he does.
Yet, it cannot be forgotten why Adrien was chosen to be Chat Noir in the first place. When pushes comes to shove, Adrien barring Syren has repeatedly shown his heart is in the right place. In Ladybug despite how uncomfortable it made him; Adrien made a deal with Lila to help Marinette. There are scenes of him helping former akuma victims in the background of episodes. When given a opportunity to discover Ladybug’s identity in the Miracle Queen, he instead did the right thing.
Adrien is at his core a flawed character. He is willing to help others but focused on his own wants. His is potentially a great hero if he can grow past his faults. The show repeatedly shows us his potential to be a good person. Both sides of the character are part of what makes Adrien who he is.
