#lieutenant roger

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Miraculous Ladybug: Season One Alteregos

(10/28) Roger & Rogercop

[allpurposegirl]

In which Sabrina might be the most three-dimensional character in the show.

Look at all the little subtleties, which are probably just happy accidents, but I’m going to pretend they were on purpose.

Consider her roots: her sinnamon roll of a father who so firmly believes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and imagine Sabrina developing a misguided altruism and hyper-empathy, and this being the leading factor in her sympathy/friendship with Chloe. And Sabrina is clearly very reverent of her father-- look at how proud she is when he’s talking about his job. He’s her hero I’m going to cry.

Now think about how much invisibility really relates to her character. With only one parent to speak of, and Paris being on the verge of obliteration every episode, it’s rare to see her dad out of uniform. He’s so busy with his heroism that he didn’t seem to notice that she was nowhere to be found for days in “Antibug.” Look at how loudly she dresses in a vain attempt to stick out, argyle patterns having a cultural history of being flashy and demanding the spotlight (see: Payne Stewart). But no matter how many neons she wears, she doesn’t get recognition as anything but Chloe’s beta. (Even on a meta level, she doesn’t get included in most of the fanart of the main characters and someone made the joke that her akumatized episode wasn’t even named after her.) As Vanisher, Hawkmoth just kind of enlisted her and then forgot about her; he turned her invisible and then left her to her own devices for a couple days. He doesn’t even acknowledge her as a soldier of his until she’s really close to snagging Ladybug’s miraculous.

And let’s talk about Sabrina’s relationship with Chat Noir, because I think her cosplaying as him is more than just playing along so Chloe gets to play Ladybug; she looks like she’s having the time of her life in that catsuit. Consider how much she probably relates to and reveres Chat Noir, the unsung hero, the second banana that Paris doesn’t really appreciate as much as Ladybug, even if they’re a team. 

Just imagine all of the pent-up rage this girl must have from all of the abuse and neglect she has to take. But, most likely out of emulation for her father, she never lets herself be frustrated, forcing herself into this stepford satellite role instead. You see little glimpses of her aggression when she’s being petty with Chloe, but she doesn’t really express it until she’s seemingly erased from this plane of existence, and, goodness gracious, she becomes a hostile little ghost.

And don’t even get me started on how much I love the realism in her toxic relationship with Chloe and how important it is that she doesn’t just break off from her after one heart-to-heart with the hero. She recognizes that Chloe doesn’t respect or appreciate her and she knows it’s not a healthy relationship but she just has such a history of love and empathy for her that she accepts irrelevant material objects as sincere gestures of appreciation. They have such a long history together and old habits die hard and she’s already wired her brain to accept that Chloe is the only person who give her any kind of attention so she’ll do anything to maintain that friendship and it’s such a hopeless situation. I mean, I know Sabrina crawling back to Chloe at the end of every episode is just done to keep the show as formulaic and simple as possible but it does come off like a real abusive friendship and I love it.

TL;DR: There’s so much more to this character than just being Chloe’s twee lap dog and I really really want to bring more attention to her. And goddammit can we please give her a surname already. Ffsssssssssssss