Cow Tools: How Miraculous Ladybug Treats Ivan And The Ox Miraculous
Hi everyone! For context, I'm the authoress of Two Bees in a Pod, a Miraculous Ladybug AU fanfiction. I'm also a member of the Marinette Critique Studio, and recently I made a post analyzing how Ladybug's ladybug motif is some very good accidental symbolism of Marinette's toxicity in her relationships with others, particularly in how she treats other girls, Chloe, and Adrien, by comparing her to a solitary, poisonous, carnivorous, and cannibalistic beetle that evolved to shove past ants to steal their aphids, with some notes on Chloe's honeybee motif reflecting Chloe's aggressive and frankly territorial personality.
In the comments, one lovely poster made a good analysis of how Adrien/Chat Noir has a black cat motif to represent bad luck, but how this is actually quite symbolic of Adrien being a sweet, playful boy who loves people but will break out the claws if pushed too far. That got me thinking about how the writers of Miraculous Ladybug might not understand the ecologies of the animals they designed their heroes after, and if the ecologies of said animals might be unintended symbolism of their personalities. This post is all about the Ox Miraculous and the unfortunate implications inherent in giving it to Ivan.
Let's start with the mammal itself. An ox is a bovine, most often a castrated bull, trained for use as a draft animal, most often plowing fields and hauling carts. Larger breeds are favored for their greater strength, and in New England only steers that are four years old & have finished their ox training can be considered such. The specific species of bovine used depends on the area; in Europe they're usually taurine cattle, Bos taurus, in India they're usually zebu, Bos indicus, and in eastern Asia they aren't really cattle at all; they're buffalo, and specifically water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, which, true to their name, love the water much more than their cattle cousins.
Three water buffalo in Laos having a pool party by Basile Morin - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68326318.
Unlike most Kwamis, Stompp's design is clearly based on a specific species, as his dark complexion & curved horns show that he's a water buffalo. This makes sense given that he's part of the Chinese Miracle Box, as water buffalo have historically been much more popular in China than taurine cattle due to their adaptations for wetland life in the tropics, which translated to much better efficacy at managing rice paddies. With this in mind, we can analyze water buffalo behavior specifically to determine whether Stompp fits his base concept, which is, well, determination.
Two subspecies of water buffalo exist, differentiated by chromosome count and morphology: the river buffalo of most of India, Egypt, and southern Europe, and the swamp buffalo of northeastern India and eastern Asia. River buffalo were domesticated in western India 6300 years ago, while swamp buffalo were domesticated independently between 3000-7000 years ago in southeast Asia; both subspecies originate from Bubalus arnee, the wild buffalo. Both subspecies love water and will even feed underwater, although swamp buffaloes do show a preference for wallowing in mud. Some breeds can tolerate high amounts of salt, and their appetite for aquatic plants keeps invasive species like water hyacinth in check and creates habitat for other aquatic animals, particularly birds, making them a keystone species like their distant bison kin. However, wild buffalo are endangered, partly due to interbreeding with water buffalo, which is common in places where domestic animals can interbreed with their wild ancestors (chickens & cats, for example).
Water buffalo are matriarchal, forming herds consisting of cows & their daughters led by a dominant cow that stay together for life like elephant herds & small groups of bachelor males. During mating season, male & female herds meet and mingle, then part ways. River buffalo reproduce at younger ages than swamp buffalo, but females in both subspecies are known to let calves that aren't their own drink their milk, including orphans. In terms of intelligence, water buffalo are smart enough to learn patterns to the point of forming habits, designate distinct areas for drinking, wallowing, and pooping, and make specific friends based on compatible personalities. Temperament-wise, domestic ones are quite docile and easily herded around, but wild buffalo, as is the case with all bovines, are very aggressive due to evolving in the same country as big cats, which are very good at killing and eating them.
A tiger attacking a wild water buffalo in Bhutan. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/TigersofIndia/comments/1pat7ha/tiger_hunting_wild_water_buffalo_royal_manas/.
Like other bovines, water buffalo are revered for their strength. This species specifically are in the Thai and Sinhalese zodiacs rather than a nondescript ox like the Chinese zodiac. Buffalo fighting festivals are held in northeastern India, Vietnam, and Thailand, and buffalo races are held in India. You might be tempted to draw parallels between buffalo fights and the infamous bullfights of Spain, but buffalo fights don't work like that. Instead, two buffalo bulls fight each other as they would in the wild, and the one that submits as they would in the wild is the loser, with the winner receiving a ton of money. Buffalo fights are an assessment of whether the buffalo are smart enough to understand, i.e. determine, their strength both in a physical sense and in a metaphorical one, so Stompp being the Kwami of Determination is completely appropriate. His Miraculous being a nose ring is also appropriate given that bulls of any species are given them so their handlers can pull on their nose and keep them under control, as pulling on someone's nose is painful regardless of species.
But we do need to talk about bullfighting, because I believe it influenced how MLB approaches the Ox Miraculous and specifically Ivan's background. Descending from Roman gladiatorial games, bullfighting emerged in Spain in the eighth century and officially entered Spanish culture with the one held on the coronation of Alfonso VIII in 1158. Modern bullfighting, aka the kind parodied in western cartoons, was established by the bullfighter JoaquĂn RodrĂguez Costillares in the late 18th century. The Umayadd Caliphate and Pope Pius V tried to ban it for its pagan origins, while Spanish kings of the 18th century tried to ban it for its cruelty; all failed due to bullfighting being seen as a proud Spanish tradition. However, in the 21st century animal rights groups & those concerned about the dangers of Spanish nationalism are turning the tide against bullfighting, particularly in northern Spain and Catalonia, the latter having outright banned it.
The running of the bulls, another largely Spanish tradition involving bulls, also likely influenced MLB's approach to the Ox. Simply put, a bunch of people run down a street in front of a small herd of bulls. The most famous of these is the one held in Pamplona of the Basque country, part of a nine-day festival held in honor of Saint Fermin. While also controversial for animal welfare & human safety concerns the practice is still quite popular, and runnings of the bulls (or other animals) are also practiced in France, England, New Zealand, Ireland, and the United States.
Runners surround the bulls on Estafeta Street in Pamplona's 2013 Running by Atkins525 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48177978.
All of this is important to discuss because bullfighting & running of the bulls are common cartoon cliches, and are especially common in stereotypical depictions of Spain & the Spanish people.
An example of such a depiction. Tow Mater is decidedly not a Spanish model of tow truck.
Many people much smarter than me have talked about Miraculous Ladybug's recurring issues with using stereotypes to inform its portrayals of people of minorities, but I think I might've figured out WHY these issues exist in the first place. Looking back on the show as an adult, Miraculous Ladybug has a very similar atmosphere to cartoons of the late 1980s to the early 2000s, employing similar tropes & archetypes (the MC has an obsessive crush on their love interest based almost entirely on physical attraction, female MC's rival is a catty, shallow rich blonde girl, mentor figure is a wise old Chinese guy; it even has Very Special Episodes!) with the influence of the Spiderman cartoons of the late 20th century, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sailor Moon most prominent. Given Astruc's age, this makes sense; he watched these cartoons as a teenager and drew inspiration from them (along with Totally Spies!, which he worked on) to craft his own ideal show. In principle there's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from your favorite TV shows from your childhood to make your own show (I do it myself), but you have to be nuanced about it because societal values change over time; what wasn't considered offensive in your childhood might be considered offensive now, and you should take that into account when designing your own show. MLB lacks this nuance, and it shows in how it depicts the Spanish people, and one Spaniard in particular.
Raul Bruel is Ivan's father, introduced in Season 6. He's a violent career criminal who verbally abuses his son, valuing strength, masculinity, and monetary enrichment over kindness and personal fulfillment. He's in prison when he's introduced and tries to get Ivan to commit a crime with him, yet Ivan refuses and Raul is akumatized over it. The name of Raul's akumatized form is in Spanish. Ivan fears that being a criminal is his destiny because Raul is one and so was his father...which carries some unfortunate racial implications.
Due to the long history of machisimo, Hispanic men are often stereotyped as masculinity-obsessed jerks whose desire to be seen as "macho" leads to them being violent brutes. Hispanics are also commonly stereotyped as criminals, especially in the United States, but an analogous stereotype towards the Spanish doesn't really exist in France, so at first it seems strange that Astruc would use that particular trope to inform Raul's character. But when you consider the influence of Western media on Miraculous Ladybug it makes more sense: Astruc saw how these shows depicted not only Spanish culture, but Hispanics in general, and based Raul off those depictions without any regard for the racist implications. Raul's love of bulls supports the influence of cliche depictions of Spanish culture on his character, as what does he do once akumatized? Start his own running of the bulls.
There's another unfortunate implication that Raul being a criminal creates. Raul is obsessed with bulls, and Ivan would've grown up surrounded by taurine iconography and sayings; realistically speaking, Ivan should be positively sick of bulls by now. Yet when Ladybug gives him the Ox Miraculous in Penalteam, he doesn't hesitate beyond worrying about hurting people even though, given his backstory, he should've had serious second thoughts about wearing the Ox due to not wanting to be seen as a bull-themed criminal like his father, and Ladybug giving him that specific Miraculous should've been seen as innocently insensitive at best and potentially a microaggression.
Resistance carries even more unfortunate implications. It's implied that Raul may have been physically abusive to Ivan as well, and a big part of Resistance's powerset involves tanking enemy hits. Making the abuse victim the champion of a Miraculous that involves taking abuse is not good. For Two Bees in a Pod I emphasized the anti-magic effect more while removing the part about blocking physical attacks, which ties into the concept of determination: you can see Resistance as someone being so determined that an attack won't hurt them that when someone tries to attack them, the wielder only has to say "No" to make the attack harmlessly bounce off them.
Had canon framed Ivan accepting the Ox as reclaiming bull iconography to focus on positive cultural associations with bulls (strength, kindness, and protectiveness) to defy his father's plans for him, that would've been great. But that's now how it worked; instead, canon framed it as Ivan, the biggest & strongest boy in school and the archetypal tough guy, getting the Miraculous of the biggest & strongest animal in the Chinese Miracle Box after Longg. Not only that, but it's not the Miraculous of just a bull but specifically an ox, a bull that's been castrated to make it more docile so it's easier to turn into a beast of burden, which implies that Ivan's been emasculated to make him less manly than his father and therefore easier to train to be subservient to Ladybug, who is a girl. Man, I didn't know it was possible to hate Penalteam even more than I did when it aired, that episode was seriously one of the worst.
I've already discussed Ivan's animal symbolism in an earlier post, and I think the (Box) Turtle works better for him. While Ivan is strong like a bull, his projection of brute strength is a facade and the soft, tender shyness is the real him, and Ivan needs to learn that it's okay to let his softness out every once in a while. Ivan doesn't need to understand determination as much since, being rather clever, he knows exactly what kind of person he is; he was just too nervous to show it. Him being Boxcutter also avoids the mentioned unfortunate implications that him being Minotaurox does, although Minotaurox does cameo in Season 3 of Two Bees in a Pod, likely because Stompp explicitly being a water buffalo and not a taurine bull allowed him to mentally separate the Kwami from his father's favorite animal.
The person best-suited for the Ox, or the Water Buffalo as I call it because it's more gender-neutral, should be someone who doesn't know their own strength, or someone whose real strength is overlooked for reasons they can't help. Someone who's strong, yet perceived as weak. Luckily for us, Ivan knows such a girl â and no, it's not Mylene, because giving Mylene the Ox would lead to a lot of "fat cow" jokes.
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Rose is the cheerful optimist of the Akuma Class. She loves all things cute and romantic, has a high-pitched voice, is the second-shortest girl after Alix, and has a chronic illness that Season 6 implies might be cancer (given her age it's most likely leukemia, a bone marrow cancer marked by overproduction of immature white blood cells). When her illness is revealed in Guiltrip, her classmates baby her. Her canon hero costume looks like a ballerina's outfit, and ballerinas are often associated with young girls. Put together, Rose is meant to evoke the image of a child who refuses to grow up, and given this and her illness Rose is subsequently heavily infantilized both in canon & in the fandom. This does a great disservice to Rose as a character, one that I intended to rectify.
First of all, Rose is dating Juleka, likes the horror movie seen in Vampigami, and wears the same monstrous masks as her bandmates. This suggests that Rose is actually something like a pastel goth. Second of all, Rose is repeatedly shown to be very resilient and willing to take big risks to help people, to the point of using Chloe like a human battering ram. With both of these traits in mind, I concluded that Rose is likely much smarter than she looks, yet goes along with everything and tries to see the good in everyone because she wants to be taken seriously and be included, which can't happen if people treat her like a toddler. Thus, I characterize Rose as a cheerful, kindhearted optimist who's very level-headed and good at reading people, yet carries an inner sadness due to internalized ableism.
Because Rose's specific disease wasn't known in 2024, in my fic I identified it as rickets, and more specifically Type 1 Vitamin D-Dependent Rickets (VDDR). VDDR is a genetic disorder that impairs bone formation through impaired uptake of Vitamin D; in Type 1 the enzymes that convert vitamin D3 into its active form, calcitriol, don't work, while in Type 2 calcitriol is produced but the receptors for it are mutated and cells can't respond to its presence as a result. Both are managed by dietary calcium & vitamin D supplementation, and both result in delayed growth, brittle bones, and a small stature, all things that can and do lead to people with rickets being infantilized. Rose's physical profile fits VDDR, and her baldness in S6 fits it too as alopecia (hair loss) is a possible sympton. With this in mind, here's Rose's character arc in Two Bees in a Pod:
Due to her illness making her short & frail and her cutesy nature, Rose was subjected to a lot of infantilization by peers growing up. While she's in a more supportive environment now she still worries about being treated like a fragile baby, which factored into her akumatization and her current self-esteem issues. When she learned that Stompp needed to be worn by someone to defeat Heart Hunter, Rose volunteered for a chance to be strong so she could in her eyes finally be taken seriously. It was a little bumpy at first, but she soon found her groove and helped save the day. Afterwards, Stompp told Rose that he wanted to help her recognize her inner strength, her determination and resilience, that she overlooked due to being told all her life to prioritize her physical strength, and chose her to be his next champion.
Temperament-wise, Rose is a lot like a water buffalo: gentle and nurturing, yet not afraid to call people out when they mess up. Giving her the Miraculous of a bovine makes sense from a dietary standpoint as well, as one of the treatments for VDDR is calcium & vitamin D supplementation. Milk contains both of those nutrients, and my take on Rose does consume a lot of dairy in addition to taking supplement pills. Water buffalo milk is used to make cheese in Italy, including the buffalo mozzarella seen on Pizza Margherita, and I think that Rose would want to pay homage to a bovine product that helps her boost her physical strength and can be shared during outings with her friends where she feels like their equal. And so, I give you Rose's Water Buffalo transformation: Scaremorza, a pun based on Scamorza di Bufala cheese with a reference to Rose's interest in medical horror.
(Image of Rose to go here when I get around to drawing her.)
Scaremorza speaks in a Southern drawl like a stereotypical cowgirl, and she's also tall & beefy. I'll stop with the cow puns, because they're just ridiculous, udderly ridiculous.
In the end, I think that giving Ivan the Ox Miraculous runs into unfortunate implications regarding racism & parental abuse when you take into account his backstory & ethnicity, and determination isn't a concept he needs particular help with as he already knows how strong he is. Rose, in contrast, is a much better fit for it, and her character arc should be about learning to recognize her own strength, especially when so many people are willing to overlook it because of their preconceptions about her disability (whether it's cancer or rickets) & her demeanor. Both of them deserve so much better than canon has given them, and that's no bull.
(Okay, NOW I'll stop with the cow puns.)
