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Oh…. I have a bit of a rant to go on lol. (Not gonna be extra mean)
The main ‘mean girl’ in Miraculous Ladybug, Chloe aka Queen Bee (superhero alter-ego), was getting some ‘redemption’ over the course of season three. But in the final episode (two-part finale) of the season, she joined Hawk Moth and Mayura to become Miracle Queen, and revealed the identities of all the other holders (except Ladybug and Chat Noir) to HM, and became the Mad Queen of the show.
The entire fandom started to complain about this, calling the writers ‘sexist, or ‘butchering her character’. I disagree for a few reasons, and here’s why -
Butchering a character is as if they were in another series and screwed over completely (you likely understand this based on your posts I’ve seen in the Naruto fandom), or crushing how they were on the path to success and doing good but making them go insane last-minute. This wasn’t the case for Chloe, as the show ISN’T over yet and we still have two more seasons that are official on the way and a movie. There are several more examples of this in media, but I won’t name names because I could trigger some people who dislike the character lol.
Chloe didn’t show many signs of progress to me this season, personally. She still treated Sabrina like her slave, was a bully to Marinette and her friend group, and was pretty much at fault for the entire situation with Miraculer (imo). Long story short, she wasn’t/isn’t ready to be redeemed… YET.
I believe that the right person could make her change. Not Sabrina (considering she’s scared of Chloe), Marinette (as she has her own things and is done with Chloe’s BS), not Adrien, BUT maybe her parents could as Audrey’s coming back to Paris for good.
Chloe could learn to be better through seeing that her mother is so crappy to people, and if she sees some of herself in that, she’d see why Ladybug didn’t want her to become Queen Bee after the Queens’ Battle arc and start to actually change for good.
Chloe was selfish in the Queens’ Battle arc, on that hand, because SHE is the one who transformed on camera for the entirety of Paris to see because she wanted her mother’s attention. Not that I don’t blame her for wanting her mom’s attention and I don’t think Audrey is a bad parent (which she is), but that was HER decision to become QB onscreen.
Chloe’s way to redemption will be through learning from her mistakes, apologizing to everyone for the aftermath, and most of all, doing it in spite of her herself, and NOT her parents, Adrien, Sabrina, Ladybug, or anyone for that matter. Chloe will do it for Chloe.
I don’t hate her as a character by any means, but this is, in my opinion, her fault in the first place, because as Ladybug has told every Miraculous holder from Rena Rouge to Viperion ‘Your identity must remain a secret’, because she wants to keep them and their families safe from akumas. Chloe failed at that order, plain and simple.
I also don’t believe she’s irredeemable, or that she’s worse than Lila. On topic of her (Lila), she literally TEAMED UP with a supervillain terrorizing the city everyday, willingly gets akumatized, and got Marinette EXPELLED from school. If it wasn’t for the sudden urge of them all calming down, she very well would have been akumatized that day into Princess Justice - and that would’ve been it. Game over for everybody if LB/Mari is akumatized and Hawk Moth is controlling her. The user @galahadwilder has a much better analysis of this than I do, and he’s even given me permission to write a fanfiction on it.
At the end of the day, Chloe just pits people against her. Lila however, does the opposite. She pits people to be on her side and against others, and she almost came close to doing that with Marinette in the episode ‘Ladybug’ (also where she got expelled for a while).
Lots of people in the fandom hate on the class for believing Lila, but how many episodes did this happen in? Only one. Just because Alya, Nino and the other classmates were poorly characterized in ONE episode doesn’t mean we all should go out of our way to hate on them and make them OOC in our fanfiction: They’ve turned Rose into a snappy and rude friend instead of the sweetheart she is in canon, Mylene into a loud and obnoxious bully instead of the meek and mousy girl we know canon as, and OH MY GOD. Words cannot describe how much I hate the false characterization of Alya, making her tear up Marinette’s sketchbook, violently hurting her and so on.
Alya ‘I’m the best friend to Ladybug/Marinette ever’ Cesaire would never do that. She’s been there for Marinette from episode one, always helped her when it comes to Adrien, and much more that you’d see in canon (once you begin the show). She is probably the greatest friend in this show to Marinette, point blank. This same thing applies to Nino.
But these same people want to turn Chloe around in two seconds and make her be all sweet and kind with Marinette and turn Mari into this bitchy, bossy, and controlling delinquent and turn Chloe and Kagami along with Luka and sometimes the weather girls Aurore and Mireille into her lapdogs. It’s boring to see and I hate it. The class doesn’t deserve this insane amount of hate they receive from the fandom. If you read @galahadwilder‘s post on this after finishing the series, you’ll see exactly why him, I and many others believe this.
Long story short, here’s what I think: Chloe has a chance for redemption (I know it will happen, Thomas is just saying it won’t to tease us/not spoil the show), Lila is a horrible person who I absolutely do not want to see redeemed, the show isn’t badly written, Chloe’s character wasn’t butchered, and the class are all great friends to Marinette and always will be.
I know this got crazy long and I got a little heated about some things, but thank you for the ask! Hopefully this is a good example of what to watch out for in the fandom/perspective of the show and its characters once you start lol. (The classmates are my children.) (And how to not paint the class as villains if you ever write fanfiction for ML, XD.)