The thinking of Thomas Astruc:
"Season 5's gonna be amazing! I can finally get rid of Chloe, destroy the plot and finally kill off Gabriel's whole character. Yes, this is gonna be fun but what to do with Gabenath? Sadly we gave the fans signs, hm let me think, oh I got it. If we make Gabriel say he never trusted her, only used her this entire time and leave Nathalie to die the Gabenath fandom will definitely be shut down once and for all. Yeah, that's what we gonna do. Also let's make Adrien suffer, it's so much fun. Fans will love it. And the finale will be great!"
Honestly, were the writers of MLB s5 like high or something!? Wtf did they do!? I'm afraid to ask what they plan with the next seasons lol
Anyway....let's just ignore it and live happily in our own headcanons cause at this point the show just became ridiculously overwhelming
TW: Mentions of terrorism
I don't know if anyone's said this yet but in a way, the season 5 finale is also a big insult to victims of terrorist attacks.
Gabriel has threatened to start a world war, attacked Paris via akumas for months, and caused THE WHOLE WORLD to have nightmares.
And that's not good at all.
I could be wrong, but I do think that those could be considered terrorism.
Even if it isn't, he still hurt a lot of people and it seems like the narrative doesn't even care about how many people got hurt because of Gabriel's actions
It's okay if you do like it.
Like why are we playing enlightened centrist to this guy who acts more evil than Gabriel Agreste did and the other guy?
Why does the evil guy who wanted to kidnap Adrien and force his other grandparents and legal caretaker out of custody of the child magically okay once the bad guy is defeated? He doesn't even apologize he just is better now. The same thing happened with Sublime and her mother, but here it's worse.
Why is Adrien being literally reduced to a prize with no agency when his power is necessary to the balance of things and him not getting to be a hero in this scene breaks the rules of the lore, in a plot specifically about him getting the right to make the choice himself.
I hate this season so much.
Kind of tired of seeing this trend, "Adrien will try to make the wish if he loses Marinette" this or "Marinette could handle immortality without him better than he could without her" that (a more recent flavor), as if the situation isn't:
One of them grew up in a stable and loving home, with doting and supportive parents who (presumably) taught them fundamental life and social skills, never had to doubt their parents' love or otherwise be worried for their own wellbeing/emotional security, and on top of all that they currently have a giant support system willing and waiting to come running at the drop of a hat.
On the other hand, the other grew up severely isolated from the outside world, with extremely limited (if any) opportunity for healthy and vital socialization with others their age, slowly watching their primary caregiver (and number one source of love and social interaction) deteriorate until finally "dissappearing" one day, whilst being neglected by their other 'caregiver' to the point of questioning whether said parent loves them. And this doesn't even touch upon the abuse or dwindling support network (that's being largely co-opted by the other person).
(Now, if we stopped there, it might be tempting to conclude that the first individual is likely to be the more well-adjusted of the two, able to bounce back from life's hits thanks to the advantage their secure childhood gave them. But. It's not over!)
Of these two, one is demonstrably an anxious wreck, paralyzed by their every mistake, and requires others to provide routine pep-talks assuring them they are "the best in the world, ever" to be able to even nominally function. All around reliant on others' emotional support at every turn.
The other already has experience with loss, having lost the literal, actual *most important* person in their life, who was *also* their only consistent source of love and affection, and was able to come to terms with losing them, within *one year*, to the point of deciding not to use a magical wish to bring them back to life (the option/temptation was quite literally in the palm of their hand)???
So...who sounds more well-adjusted now?
To me, Marinette stans give her waaaay too much credit. Girl has had every advantage between the two of them, and yet *still* can't function without constant support. She has demonstrated little to no resilence through her own merit, nor proven to have effective coping skills beyond 'let my partner/boyfriend/best-friend/ex-boyfriend/insert character here lift me up'. Which, it's fine to rely on others at times, but let's not pretend Marinette's "coping skills" are anything beyond a complete and total reliance on external validation.
On the other hand, Adrien is remarkably well-adjusted and resilient for someone with his background and lived experience. More than he should be, realistically. But the point is, he has on screen turned down/explained why he wouldn't use the wish, *twice*. Furthermore, he's moved on from the first love of his life, Ladybug (even if he doesn't know this isn't exactly true, he still experienced the very real emotional journey of accepting she didn't love him back, so the grieving process was *true for him*; tell me that Marinette has ever had to do the equivalent; more on this below*).
Point is, there's precedent, multiple times, that *this boy knows how to deal with loss*, even with almost no outside support in developing coping skills (seriously, who did he learn them from. Nathalie?? Press X to doubt). Also, when have we ever seen this boy receive support from others regarding his mother outside the episode *Felix*? Despite what the Paris Special might try to tell us, what we see...is that he's done very well for himself with very little.
*Despite her thinking she *should* at various points, Marinette has notably never truly been forced to move on from Adrien. Hell, girl even got the boy with zero effort or stakes, seeing as he confessed first. You can't convince me this girl, who in season 6 alone has been demonstrably jealous, self-preoccupied, and execessively anxious, bordering on straight-up neurotic, when worrying about losing him (as a boyfriend! We're not even talking death like in the original question!), would fair *better* than he would.
Tl;dr she'd be on the verge of absolutely floundering without her support network; he has survived despite the severe lack of a sufficient one.
I'm not trying to argue either one would be *at all* fine with losing the other, but all-around...Yeah, miss me with that. 🙄
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A truly masterful takedown of this asinine argument (asinine in that it’s even considered an argument by Marinette stans), Anon. I think you’ve managed to cover most if not all things that make this a stupid thing to argue about. For once the mouthy amphibian has nothing to add, other than "this is bvery expected behavior for Maripologists.
I've discussed it before on this blog that Maripologists have a habit of accusing Adrien of Marinette's faults, of managing to find accusations that would suit Marinette better or things Marinette has actually done in canon, and then claim Adrien is doing the same things to make Marinette look less guilty. Maripologists love to claim anyone criticizing Marinette should be aiming the same or worse scrutiny towards Adrien every single time someone points out something they can't refute.
I can't remember all the examples right now, but I remember some. Marinette steals often, well, Adrien dine and dased on accident that one time so they're both thieves and criminals (this one is done more tongue-in-cheek). Marinette is gaslighting Adrien about his dad, well, Adrien told Marinette that it was mean to throw a party about Chloé leaving school that one time which is totally the same as gaslighting. Marinette repeatedly manipulates Cat Noir to get him to do something he wouldn't want to, well, Adrien gave Marinette bad advice about Lila which is the same as manipulating her.
In this kind of discourse space, of course Maripologists will see how possessive and obsessive Marinette is about Adrien, how entitled she is to him, how much she treats him like her property and how similar she is to Gabriel, and will try to turn all of this to point at Adrien instead. They're used to doing it, so they'll claim Adrien is the one more like his dad between him and Marinette, despite the canon never making that comparison but making the opposite ones repeatedly. Of course they'll claim Adrien is so weak and so reliant on Marinette that he couldn't function without her, when almost all of Marinette's dysfunctional behavior ties back to her inability to be normal about Adrien when Adrien gets so much better along without her that he's actually less happy as her boyfriend than he was as "just" her friend. They'll accuse Adrien to shield Marinette, because it's always all about Marinette.
Her wins are like "The boy I like asked me out! :)"
Her losses are like "I let my enemy rewrite the universe! Oopsie! :)"
remember seeing a post that said marinette was a girlfailure and just. no. she's just a failure (derogatory). her "wins" in the show are usually personal but her losses far outnumber all of that.
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Yeah, like, “gilrfailure” is supposed to be the opposite of “girlboss”, a girl character that’s endearingly pathetic and pitiful. This is because it started off as a self-deprecating joke for women and girls online who didn’t see themselves as having the drive to become “girlbosses”. From there it snowballed into this idea of female characters that purposefully go against the girlboss mold to show femininity as more than just being a constant go-getter.
While Marinette is pathetic and pitiful, that’s only because the writers failed so utterly at making her a girlboss. There’s no deliberate subversion here. We are supposed to read Marinette as a girlboss, but she fumbles every single goal she had and the only reason she’s still around and kicking and dating the guy of her dreams is that the villain changed his mind about what to do when he won and the boy she was into changed his mind about who he was into and decided to pursue her instead. We aren’t supposed to laugh about Marinette getting the world destroyed and having Adrien just decide they’re dating one day; we’re actually supposed to view Marinette as winning here. The writers literally say so in the commentary for the season 5 finale.
I feel like the new “girlfailure” moniker being applied is either Maripologists trying to make every positive/quirky character trope apply to Marinette or them getting wise to the growing criticism of how much Marinette accidentally sucks at everything the writers insist she’s good at and are trying to turn that into a positive. It’s like “it’s okay Marinette isn’t the competent, intelligent hero we were told she is because failing is cute!”