Lad os alle ønske stort tillykke til bloggens helt egen maskot, admiralens hund Buller, der fylder 13 år i dag!

This is Buller, he is a v happy doggo:

Le Bulleur in French, The Bubbler in English, the akumatized form of Nino Lahiffe. Now, while villains like Climatika are part of the “serious villains”, Le Bulleur is one of the “ridiculous” villains. That is to say, villains that use elements that seems at first innocent and completely random. In this case, a bubble. But there’s more to Le Bulleur than just “a villain that uses bubbles”.

Le Bulleur is in fact a villain designed over a French wordplay. In French, we have a word, “buller”, that is the verbal form of the word “bulle” (bubble). Hence, one could easily think “buller” means “to do bubbles”. But it’s an incorrect translation: “buller” is “doing bubbles” only in a figurative way. “Buller” means “to do nothing”, “be lazy”, to idle, to laze. Just like a kid who spends his time making bubbles instead of doing his chores, her homework, or help their parents.

And Le Bulleur seems to be the incarnation of one of these life lessons kids have to be taught one day or another: Don’t be lazy. Chores are needed. You can’t just have all fun. It’s a lesson you’ll find in any children’s work. It was used, re-used and re-re-used. The first example that comes to my mind is The Cat in the Hat.

Le Bulleur is born from the frustration of seeing someone denied a moment of happiness, someone being denied the possibility to celebrate a holiday, someone being denied something they rightfully deserve. And if you know the French mindset, you’ll know that being denied the right to do a holiday or a festival is a big thing.

However, he quickly slips into one of the extremes children and teenagers are always warned against. Le Bulleur only wants to have a fun, and can only offer people fun. He wants games, and songs, and parties. And he rejects all forms of chores and work. He rejects as a result the parents, the authority figures, the one giving orders. A form of fun-based anarchy. Le Bulleur is the embodiment of this mindset that prevents children to grow into adults: the rejection of responsibilities, of boredom and of toil. The refusal of forcing ourselves to do things we do not like, of putting aside our pleasures, of letting ourselves have pain or sadness in order to accomplish something. Le Bulleur is basically like all those figures that encourage people to do what they want to do, and not what is needed to be done.

If you ever follow the path of the Bubbler, you’ll end up as irresponsible and immature perpetual teenagers, unable to access to adulthood. Stuck forever in your little bubble of fun. And when you will need to work to sustain yourself, to dedicate yourself to people other than yourself, to adapt yourself to outside and unprepared conditions, your little bubble will pop, and you will fall on the floor. And it will be hard. And painful.

 Another important aspect of Le Bulleur is its own paradox, because Le Bulleur betrays the ideas that he preaches.

That is to say, he extols freedom. It’s in name of freedom that he wants everyone to be able to party and have fun. But for that, he is ready to imprison other people in bubbles, that is saying to deprive other people of their freedom. Le Bulleur is born of Nino’s indignation over seeing Adrien’s father imprison his son in a monotonous, lonely and boring life, forcing Adrien to be a “bubble-kid”. And to fight this, what does Le Bulleur do? Creates other bubbles to imprison people.

Freedom is also a big thing in France. And one’s freedom has only one limit: other people’s freedom. Everybody knows that. But the Bubbler betrays this idea, by making it “One’s freedom is limitless, for its price is the freedom of people who try to restrict it”. And unfortunately, it is a real-life example of the idea of freedom being distorted. Think of all of those leaders who fought for “people freedom”, only to imprison, torture and kill anyone against them. Well, Le Bulleur is basically them, but in a kid’s show.

 So, Le Bulleur went from a ridiculous villain playing with bubbles to an important life lesson doubled by a critic of politics and ideologies.

I know it’s overthinking.