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I'm pretty sure the answer is a doylistic "the writers want to paint Marinette as the underdog and/or they genuinely believe she's an underdog who's facing terrible hardship and impossible odds".

But that's boring, and there's actually a pretty consistent watsonian explanation.

For all that Marinette is creative, she's actually quite cognitively inflexible. It takes a lot for her to adjust to (or even process) new information or pick a different course of action.

A good example is Chameleon. She keeps trying the same tactic over and over again despite failing. Calling out Lila's lies in front of everyone isn't going to work the fifth time she tries but she never stops and thinks about trying something else. It's Adrien who had to pull the breaks for her and cause her to change course.

A Fairy Good Night is another good example. The moment the thought popped into her head that Max might have trouble adjusting she got completely stuck on it. She took it as 1) something true 2) that she had to act on and 3) barely processed any evidence to the contrary. It was only when Max outright told her, in the plainest way possible, that the thought is completely baseless.

This isn't helped by how she has problems with object permanence, so to speak. If something isn't right in front of her, she kinda forgets it exists. Her treatment of Chat Noir is prime example, especially in Kuro Neko where she jumps to the conclusion he's taking a break based on nothing and doesn't consider that something might have happened or his personal life interfered.

This also goes for concepts and ideas. If something isn't part of her conception of the world, she doesn't see it. Child abuse is the most blatant and topical example here.

However, the way she handles problems is also emblematic of this. Her focus is always on stopping the visible distress and treating the symptoms rather than solving the underlying problem. If she can't see the problem, that means there is no problem, right?

You might think her anxiety and overthinking goes against this, but it doesn't. Her thoughts may be running a thousand miles a minute, but she's still getting stuck on her anxiety and catasrophizing. That's how we get episodes like Illustrhater, Sublimation and Vampigami, where she gets stuck on her anxiety and must act on it in order to manage it.

Those things combine to make it so that Marinette tunnels visions on whatever her current course of action is and struggles to see alternatives until something external changes her train of thought. This contributes to her shortsightedness (she doesn't think about the consequences beyond what she's tunneled visioned on) and her black and white thinking (whatever path she's seeing seems to be the only one to exist at the moment, making nuance impossible).

This leads to her acting like she's a lot more helpless than she is. Most of Marinette's problems are things she has the power to at the very least mitigate, if not outright solve. However, that would require her to be able to consider alternatives to her current situation.

She's Ladybug, so she only sees paths where she keeps being Ladybug. She's the Guardian, so she only sees paths where she continues to be the Guardian. She does everything herself, so she only sees paths where she does everything herself. She keeps secrets from Chat Noir for literally no reason, so she only sees paths where she keeps on keeping secrets from him.

Marinette is someone whose actions are heavily influenced by inertia. She keeps doing whatever she's doing until something outside herself comes and changes her course. The source may be psychological, but it still leads to her feeling like she's unable to change her circumstances, even when she's the one in charge.

A moment that really jumps to mind for me about this is Marinette crying about how they know nothing about the new butterfly holder in Nemesis. She never even tried doing anything to learn more about the new holder?? Alya did. She even got some nuggets of information. But Marinette never so much as tried.

And there's no reason why she couldn't have. The plan she came up with in Nemesis was a plan she could've came up with in ep 1 of s6. Sure, they would have to use the illusion of someone else rather than an illusion of Marinette, but that's about the only change needed.

Even if we're assuming that it only worked because they knew Chrysalis would target Marinette (an assumption that has many logical holes to it then again that entire plan is one giant plot hole), they could've just briefed the team ahead of time of the plan, kept putting out illusions as bait and alerting the team once Chrysalis bites.

But that would require Marinette to change course from her existing passivity, which in not something she does unless her anxiety or someone else kicks her ass into gear.

#also i would argue that part of it is the simple dodging of responsibility#she can justify just about anything by saying she has no choice#and still not carry the moral weight of it because what else was she supposed to do?#(aka the reason why her apologists keep using that excuse)#acknowledging that she had other options means acknowledging that she did bad stuff when she didn't have to#which is an uncomfortable experience so marinette avoids it like the plague

i just wanted them to be friendsssssss ;——;

When you say “orientalist” v-neck or that Asra’s design is orientalist, can you elaborate on what that means? I’m trying to learn so my own characters don’t fall into anything racist or offensive

As a precursor, I'm not arab or desi so while I can give an overview on orientalism, I'm obviously not an expert and it's worthwhile reading up on actual middle eastern perspectives on this topic

But overall, orientalism is what you find when you google "middle eastern clothing", "Aladdin", or essentially any time you see someone throw in a "sand and swords" desert culture

See below:

It's based in Victorian misinterpretations of India, the Middle East, and North Africa and the idea that a lot of their culture is interchangeable. Famously, the British monarchy would take people from these countries (primarily India) and dress them up in costumes because their own clothing wasn't "authentic" enough for them

Unfortunately, most if not all outside depictions of these countries will be flavoured by orientalism because it's an ouroboros of artists being influenced by other artists' ideas of what these cultures might be. Despite a lot of it stemming from british misinformation, orientalism is also a massive issue in east asia, as you can see from the Free! outro designs. It's omnipresent and once you notice it, you can't stop

Common themes include: overly revealing clothing (deep v-necks, open shirts, crop-tops, tiny silk skirts), misunderstanding of turbans (hair exposed underneath), lots of sashes, massive puffy trousers, an overuse of gold accessories, etc.

Like many stereotypes, there is some basis for each of these concepts. modern lehenga blouses, dhoti, and indian jewellery form the basis of the crop-tops, puffy trousers, and lots of gold. Many saharan cultures wear turbans and bright looseclothes, and the short jacket + puffy shirt and flat hat comes from Albanian traditional clothing. But that's talking about countries a continent away from each other, with vastly different climates and cultures

Naturally, this leads to the Arcana. Contrary to popular belief, the aesthetic is not based on any one place. It takes inspiration from over Europe and North Africa, (along with India and Central Asia) + extra fantastical and modern inspirations.

Asra and his family are the main examples of the Arcana drawing from arab cultures. Now, the devs did take the criticism on board and they made an effort to change Asra's outfits and on avoid playing into orientalist design elements in future designs, but unfortunately, orientalism is baked into most attempts to represent the Middle East because it's just everywhere.

I also would say that the fandom's apprentice designs tend to lean much harder into orientalism because of the common misinterpretation that the Arcana is just based on the Middle East + wanting to make their designs "sexy" (you can't even count all of the "bellydancer" apprentice designs...)

Like with avoiding most stereotypes, the key is research. It is incredibly difficult to avoid orientalistic designs even from "proper" sources, but if you narrow your field to specific countries and cultures, you're less likely to create an unknowing mishmash. If you want to make a character along these lines, maybe choose if you want them to be primarily Tunisian, Egyptian, Iraqi, Pakistani, North/South Indian, etc. and try to find photos of people who live in those countries. These countries have both long histories of clothing culture and modern fashion industries you can take inspiration from

Fantasy design doesn't have to be purely based on existing cultures, but especially when borrowing elements from cultures you're not part of, you should put the effort into understand what those elements mean before modifying them. Especially when trying to modify them to be sexually appealing!

One example I use is when you want to include a face veil. Face veils are typically for modesty or protection from the sun or sand. As a result, when you make the veil transparent or make the outfit revealing and provocative, you can end up objectifying modesty wear and looking ridiculous

Another example is when you mix cultures without realising it and you end up putting a character in a Scottish kilt and French beret

Like... it can be a look, but only if you know what you're doing

This entire issue is in no way limited to orientalism. As a welsh person, I know it's impossible to find sources on traditional welsh clothing without running into "viking celtic neopagan savage" moodboards...

But it's most important to understand how this happens with non-western cultures because of the western power structure using these misinterpretations to contribute to everyday racism (e.g. sexualising hijabi women, assuming desert cultures are barren and criminal, treating all brown people as interchangeable)

Long May She Reign

Maybe you've seen this one before~

Your (girl)friend is very peculiar, Kagami.

Had to make at least one fanart of Marinette with her new outfit, like, OMG SHE LOOKS SO GORGEOUS. So sad at the end of the episode, Cerise ruined her moments TnT

Hey so Season 6 really ain't half bad!