People have been debating for a while about Marinette's decision to not tell Adrien the truth. Frankly, though, I'm still wondering why a fourteen year old would decide the fate of terrorists. The job of the heroes was to track down Hawkmoth and retrieve the missing miraculous, why would they get a say in the fate of ones behind it. Especially because everyone knows they are children. No one seems to be adulting the way they should. I mean, I don't really expect Nathalie to be the best adult possible but surely she shouldn't let a teenager determine who gets to know the truth. And again: teenager. Of course Marinette is more concerned for her friends than with what would be justice.
That whole Adrien would be alone without his father and Nathalie line of thought drove me crazy too because no he wouldn't. He has his bodyguard, his friends, his bodyguard, his aunt and cousin, his bodyguard, and most importantly HIS BODYGUARD. The gorilla, who's more attentive to Adrien than his father ever was. Who actively helps him do what brings him freedom and happiness even when he's disobeying his father(who really doesn't deserve to be obeyed). Who is the only person in Agreste Mansion not leading a double life. That guy?? Way more qualified to take care of Adrien. Gabriel just doesn't want to trust his son to someone who doesn't know his secrets.
Gabriel's last act of assholery was making Marinette think she owned him his dying wish. He doesn't get to decide how Adrien remembers him
Marinette is not 'a teenager' she is the protagonist. She has protagonist powers in the narrative quite often. Were you complaining when she was given the miraculous in the first place? Did you grumble that 'This show is lame who gives a teenager magical artifacts'? Did you say 'Guh she doesn't deserve to be in charge of the Miraculous, she's a teenager!' Did you side with Su Han when he wanted to take them away from her? Did you gripe about how weird it was a famous fashion designer decided to host some random baker's daughter's school project in a fashion show? Or when a famous Rockstar decided she was the EXACT person to design for him? Or any of the many other things that a protagonist does in a show?
I'm guessing not, and that is fine. She's the protagonist. She gets the perks, but then she also has to do the work. In this case the work is being the hero not just punching but *doing the right thing*. Gabriel was Hawkmoth. Gabriel is dead. Gabriel was Adrien's father. Adrien is a sentimonster. Marinette is one of a select few who know all these things. Among them she is the only primary character. so the duty falls to her, narratively. She is Ladybug. Nathalie spoke against the lie. Ladybug overrode her. Kagami spoke against the lie. Ladybug overrode her.
Marinette makes the statement of complete ownership of this plot in the London Special:
Bug Noire: Ladybug knows. Ladybug holds the truth. The whole world will know only what Ladybug will tell it. Her words will be the truth.
There's no gray area there. This is *her* lie to carry out or correct. Narratively there are two ways this goes down:
1)She confesses and faces some sort of minor blowback(because it has been so long)
2)She doesn't confess, but because others(including Lila) know aspects of the truth someone else uses her failure to do so as a weapon against her. Most likely Lila if they go that route.
There's no other remotely satisfying narrative outcome at this point. That's just how stories work. There's no need to wonder. It's writing.
If you want to complain that it's bad writing, well, I won't argue with you there. I've said for a while the Big Lie should never have been done, or should have been a quick fix(like Truth/Lies) at the beginning of S6. Dragging it this long has only given it a lot of narrative weight and made Marinette look... awful. They're trying to draw parallels between Marinette and Gabriel because someone in the writing room read you do that somewhere. They're also re-enacting the Peter Parker/Harry Osborne arc from Spiderman, but without taking into account all the ways the two are VERY DIFFERENT that make it just not work.
Marinette does deserve better, but not in a 'Poor Teenager carrying the burden' way. She's a protagonist, that's what she does. She deserves better in a 'Let the protagonist be the protagonist, not the antagonist in her own show' way. S6 Chrysalis is barely a presence. The major tension is the Big Lie, and Marinette is *not* the hero in that story.
She deserves to be allowed to be the hero in the show named after her.
@generalluxun I'm well aware of why it happened narratively. I'm not criticizing the writing, I've always thought it was good and gets stronger every season. I'm just saying that in real life there probably would have been a lot of people mad that Monarch never saw real justice, that they had made to entrust the safety of Paris to two people whose brains aren't fully developed. I hadn't even seen season 6 when I wrote this. I was just processing the London special. And her being the protagonist and objectively the best person to carry the weight of a burden doesn't negate the trauma it causes her
It's... not real life? It's a story. She's the protagonist, that doesn't mean she's the *objectively best* person to carry the weight. It means it's her *narrative* job to carry the weight. She's proven handily in S6 that she's definitely not the best person to carry the weight. She's rejected the help of everyone around her. She's abused the Miraculous to actively further the lie. She's ignored Adrien's own words on the topic. This is not something Marinette is good at, yet the writers simply will *not* let her do the right thing and let go of the reins. The future plot will reveal if/how this failure impacts things going forward.***
It's definitely not a narrative choice I would have made for her story.
*** It's very weird. S3 had Marinette fail- and Fu lost his memory for it. S4 had her fail, and they lost all but 2 Miraculous for it. S5 had her fail and the Wish was made because of it. I do *not* understand the writing room's obsession with having her fail so relentlessly. The S2 finale, her last unmitigated Win in at the end of a season was in 2018! The girl is long overdue for a W on the scorecard! (This is the kind of thing that fuels the 'the writers hate Marinette!' folks)
@generalluxun I meant the weight of being Ladybug. She should never have lied to Adrien but that's the entire point of season 6 I imagine. She's panicking because she's not ready to admit she messed up. Do people really think the writers hate Marinette? She's clearly the favorite. But you're right about it being a long time since her last real win. I figured that's why her anxiety is getting worse
















