#formula show problems

There are many ways you could fix the Lila plot and I don't have a true favorite. Which one I'd pick really depends on things like the overall story I want to tell and how much time I have to dedicate to the lie plot. I'll give you three pitches to show the variety of options that are out there. Note that all of these require some level of serialization because of course they do! If your story doesn't allow for serialization, then don't include plots about large scale deception. Those need time to cook!

Option One: Alya Gets an Arc

Season one established Alya as someone who wanted to be a serious journalist, but wasn't there yet which made sense. She was more a hero fan turned journalist than a journalist who got into heroes. This fangirl background meant that she was quick to get caught up in the hype of a good story and slow to stop to think if the story made sense. That's why we have an episode where Alya thinks Chloe is Ladybug, leading to an embarrassingly bad investigation that gets Alya akumatized. This means that season one wasn't a good setup for Alya to become a hero, but it was a good setup for Alya to believe Lila if you tone Lila's lies down a bit which is what we're going to do in this pitch.

New girl Lila comes to town and Alya is immediately enchanted. Lila no longer claims to be Ladybug's bff, but she does start claiming that she's been caught up in akuma attacks left and right. Whenever this happens, she's happy to give Alya an interview. Alya is thrilled because she often struggles to get interviews after an attack and there are tons of attacks she misses that Lila is "luckily" able to catch.

None of Lila's lies are glaring, but there's enough there that Alya should be asking questions and she isn't. She's too caught up in the excitement of having a Jr. Reporter who cares about the blog as much as she does. Lila is also telling more mundane lies at school to make herself seem cool and well connected. Marinette has picked up on all of this and gotten herself on Lila's bad side. Marinette has also warned Alya that Lila is a liar, but Alya just thinks that Marinette is jealous of how cool Lila is because Marinette has no proof that Lila is lying and Alya is too new to reporting to really understand the nuances of questioning sources.

Then Sapotis happens. Alya gets to be a hero for a night and is so happy about it! The only downside is that she doesn't have any footage. There's not even footage online since the attack happened at night. She's lamenting about this at school when Lila speaks up and says that she saw the attack first hand! Alya is thrilled until Lila starts talking. The story she tells isn't remotely accurate to what actually happened.

Alya is shaken. She goes home and, for the first time, she starts actually researching Lila's statements by watching Lila's old interviews and comparing them to other accounts of the akuma attacks. Alya immediately finds discrepancies. By the end of the evening, she's realized that Marinette was right and Lila is a liar. Lila gets outed and the arc ends. Since Alya has done so much research to take Lila down, she ends up making a bunch of blog posts summarizing her findings for the attacks that Lila lied about as a way to replace Lila's lie-ridden interviews. The summaries end up being massively popular and Alya gets praised for how well researched her work was.

This experience changes Alya. She no longer wants to just throw random stories onto her blog. She wants to give accurate accounts of what happened. She also starts to question what should and shouldn't be shared. Finding out Ladybug's identity was always a big goal for Alya, but now she's realizing just how dangerous that would be. Her and Marinette get to have talks about all of this since the Lila fallout should matter to their friendship! Marinette is impressed by how professionally Alya handled the situation and even more impressed by how Alya handles herself now. There's no more talk of outing Ladybug. Instead, Alya is focused on the thing that's less fun, but that really matters: outing Hawkmoth the same way she outed Lila. It's this change that convinces Marinette that Alya should be more than a one-time hero leading Alya to get the fox for good as I think that should have been a thing in the show. No mass recruitment. Everyone has to earn their assignment or be nothing more than the occasional tag in.

Option Two: Alya Is Already Perfect

In this version of the plot, we remove every episode that made Alya a bad reporter. No more wanting to out Ladybug. No more thinking Chloe is Ladybug. No more posting about things Ladybug drops. Just good, solid reporting right from day one.

When Lila shows up and starts telling her lies - which will still be toned down - Alya immediately picks up on the fact that something seems off while Marinette is oblivious. As a good reporter, Alya doesn't share her suspicions because she has nothing to back them up. She keeps quiet and gathers information. Once she has enough proof, she outs Lila. Marinette is shocked, but grateful. She also realizes just how good of a reporter Alya is. This leads to Marinette giving Alya the fox miraculous because the team needs someone like this to help them take down Hawkmoth!

You're probably thinking that this pitch is less interesting than the first one so why would I ever pick this one? The answer is that it's a better fit for canon's episodic structure. You'd pick a season, introduce Lila, and then have this be a running thing in the background leading to a Lila takedown at the end of the season. Alya would only get a minute or two at the end of each - or at least most - episodes to move the plot forward. It lets you establish her skillset and gets you hyped for her to help take down Hawkmoth without it needing to eat up a ton of screen time. Maybe have the big, season finale drama be that Marinette is going to give Lila a miraculous and Alya outs Lila just in the nick of time, leading Alya to get the miraculous instead.

Option Three: Something to do with Whatever the Lila Plot is Supposed to Be

The biggest problem with fixing the Lila-the-liar plot is that most of the obvious fixes involve Lila being a less-than-stellar liar. While the lies canon had her tell back that up, the way canon plays the lies doesn't. Canon Lila is supposed to be a master manipulator whose lies are impossible to see through. I'd like to pitch ways to fix that, but canon makes it tricky because a proper fix requires understanding Lila's character and that's an impossible ask. We're almost to the end of season six and we still have no clue who she is or what her goals are. The only thing we know is that she's a master manipulator who is somehow connected to Tomoe. My best guess as to where that's going is that Tomoe sent Lila to Paris to get the miraculous, but that's just a guess. Still, it's the best I've got so let's just assume that's what happened to show why it's such an issue.

I've always liked the idea that Lila came to Paris on a mission, but I liked it as an alternative way to write canon. I never expected it to be canon. If this is where the story is going, then the first five seasons are an even bigger writing failure than I thought. The writers didn't just give Lila lies that felt too obvious. They had her lie in ways that completely undermined her supposed goal!

In the first five seasons, Lila is written like a compulsive liar who just wants attention. She's not written like someone who is lying to support a mission. For example, why would she lie about being Ladybug's best friend? What does that get her? Attention, Ladybug's ire, and nothing else so it's a terrible lie for a spy who wants to get close to Ladybug! Similarly, why would Lila tell Ladybug that they're enemies, instantly putting Ladybug on guard any time Lila is around? That's the last thing she should do if she wants to steal Ladybug's miraculous!

If Lila's goal is to get the miraculous and her lies are all supposed to support that goal, then I'd rewrite things so that Lila no longer cares about being loved by everyone. Instead, she just wants to get close to Alya because the Ladyblog has made Lila suspect that Ladybug and Alya have a special connection. Why else would Ladybug give Alya that special private interview from the end of The Mime? In this new version of canon, Lila barely ever lies because she's not a compulsive liar. She's a woman on a mission who only lies when the lies serve the mission.

Where the story goes from there depends on a ton of factors. I could see a version of the story where Alya and Marinette are oblivious that Lila is a liar until Lila pulls off some crazy move like stealing the fox. I could also see a version where Marinette and Alya are oblivious to the lies, but Marinette doesn't trust Lila because she's a stranger who is obsessed with Ladybug and it's natural that Ladybug would not be okay with that. Once Alya becomes a hero, Alya would share that fear and naturally grow apart from Lila without needing a Lila reveal.

Now is Alya perfect? No. But she's human and will make mistakes. Her believing Lila I agree is annoying. But let's not forget that many others did too. Even Max who's suppose to be the smartest in class, yet he believes a napkin can stab out his eyes, when he wears glasses. Yes she should have done better research on Lila's stories. But let's not forget that she thought Chloé was Ladybug for just having a Ladybug costume. Now her being angry at Marinette for keeping Gabriel's identity as Monarch a secret from everyone in Paris, including Adrien, who wouldn't be mad about it. Plus she seemed more mad that Adrien didn't know, as he didn't get that choice. Plus that truth was just thrown in her face. As we've seen later on that she tries figuring out what Marinette's hiding to help her. Will she still be a little angry? Maybe. But atleast she'll understand why Marinette feels so affected by it. And what happened in heartfixer. Neither she nor Adrien knew it was akumatized villains who took the form of Marinette and Nino kissing. Plus she noticed Marinette acting very odd. So ofcourse she'd be pissed if she thought her best friend and boyfriend was cheating with eachother behind her back. Plus she did apologized later.

Now her being a hypocrite for using illusion when she hates lying? The power of illusion isn't the same as lying. Illusion is using one's imagination to make tricks for someone's mind, making it easier to distract them, trick them or just capture them. While lying is just doing it to keep the truth from others. Yes illusion can do it too. But still. Alya isn't lying with her illusions. We see her using it to try finding out what happened in the fight between Ladybug and Monarch. Aswell as helping to defeat villains.

So for me, Alya isn't a bad friend. She's human and will make many mistakes and have emotions.

Alya suffers from the same issue as pretty much every significant character at this point: the writers gave her flaws that don't work for a formula show and people hold that against her instead of the writers. How much that bothers me depends on how a person talks about it because Alya's writing is genuinely infuriating at times. The Lila plot was particularly bad. If you can't stand Alya in those episodes, that's fair! If Alya occasionally drops lines that get under your skin because they feel massively hypocritical, that's fair, too! The writers have done her dirty! She's one of my favorite characters and there are still multiple moments where she drives me up a wall! My personal "favorite" was this line from Chameleon:

Alya: A good reporter always verifies her sources. Can you prove she doesn't actually know Ladybug?

This is a logical fallacy. You shouldn't blindly believe your first source of information, especially when that source is a person you barely know. It's also incredibly hard to prove a negative which is why isn't not on Marinette to disprove Lila's claims. It's on Alya to verify her source. A fact that's extra true since Alya is the one posting Lila's lies on her blog. She should want to be sure that she's sharing good info.

This line's existence isn't the actual problem, though. The problem is the completely lack of long term consequences for the line.

If Alya started as a bad reporter and went through an arc where she learned to be more discerning, then this line would still be infuriating in the moment, but that initial annoyance would fade as we saw Alya learn and grow. In fact, I wish Alya had an arc like that! It could have been a fantastic way to teach kids things like how to evaluate your sources and deal with rumors. But the show didn't do this so viewers are never given a way to forgive Alya for this moment or any of the others which makes them linger like a bad smell.

That's not on Alya, though. It's on the writers. They're not using these lines to shape Alya's character. They're using them for petty drama with no concern for how it impacts and undermines the character Alya is supposed to be.

When we look at the way the show usually presents Alya, we can see that she is intended to be a good friend and voice of reason. That's why she's Marinette's confidant. A thing that is very clearly not supposed to be seen as a problem. We're supposed to be happy that Alya knows that Marinette is Ladybug! We're supposed to think she gives good advice! We're supposed to love the Ladyblog! Anything that makes you feel otherwise without a character arc to fix those bad feelings is - presumably - unintentional.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of moments that understandably make people feel otherwise because Miraculous has horrifically bad writing and no respect for its characters. The show is constantly doing this shit! It doesn't care if an episode or plot-line will make a character look horrible to the audience. It just cares about cheap, petty drama and Alya is one of the show's favorite punching bags, second only to Marinette.

When they need a tabloid journalist they will happily shove Alya into the role even if it makes her seem like a terrible friend, reporter, and hero. When they need cheap friend drama, they make her behave like an irrational idiot because she's Marinette's bestie so it makes the drama more dramatic. And because those moments exist without any character growth to make them more palatable, Alya ends up feeling like a massive hypocrite when she's allowed to be in her intended role of awesome friend and nascent reporter because so many of the terrible plots undermine those roles.

Like take this line from Revelator, a season six episode which means it comes post season-five Lila reveal:

Alya: Impossible. I'm a lie detector in the flesh.

Because of the Lila plot, people hate this line! But if this was your intro to Alya? The line wouldn't phase you. Now imagine that Alya actually did get to investigate Lila. Imagine that she was the one who took Lila down. Imagine that she then went on to investigate Hawkmoth and was instrumental in taking him down. Imagine how this line would hit then.

I will die on the hill that all of that should be canon. Character roles matter. If you're going to make a character an investigative journalist and then go on to give them a special spy role on the hero team, then let them be an investigative journalist and spy. Alya didn't need to be the one to take Gabriel or Lila down, but she gods damn should have been the one to uncover some of the key clues in their demises. The fact that Alya was left out of all of the show's important investigations while Marinette was just handed solutions by random side characters is embarrassingly bad writing that the writers should be ashamed of.

On top of my head:

1. Chat Noir Characterization.

Him being a big jokester to the point of jeopardizing akuma fight make sense considering his home situation. And it would be a nice arc to made him take superheroing a bit more seriously when he sees it as escapism and fun adventure at first.

But the insistent flirting even after getting rejected doesn't really make sense since Adrien know how annoying it was to have pushy fans/suitors. But it made sense for PV Felix because he's desperate for Ladybug kiss he believe would break his miraculous curse

2. Fu's Favoritism and General Distrust to Chat Noir

Apparently he's supposed to be related to Marinette and their family are long generation of guardian while he doesn't know who Chat Noir is. Makes sense why he and Marinette doesn't trust Chat in this version.

3. Season 5 Final

Bug Noire fiasco would be tolerable if it was Felix who distrust everyone would try to believe in Ladybug and send his miraculous to her instead of Adrien.

There probably other things I'm not remembering right now but these ones bug me the most.

Oh, also the creator insistent to do complicated serialized plotline while trapped in strict episodic formula structure needs to stop. It's hard to do coherent serialize plot when Status Quo is God.

Or they could do it like Miniforce and Miniforce X (I don't like other chapters they're shit), which despite having serialized elements it was keep pretty simple that u can watch any seasons episodes out of order besides the 2 part-er finals all four seasons have and the character still come out likable. And for the love of God, please do important stuff on screen and be more consistent with the power system.

Hell, they could go like Super Wings and fully commit to serialized plotline. If Super Wings could ditch their formulas after 9 seasons (40 episodes per season, 11-12 minutes per episode) why can't Miraculous? Super Wings also surprisingly more consistent with tone. If they want you to take something seriously they commit to it till the end and same with absurdist jokes instead of treating something as jokes then change it to serious plot out of nowhere.

I'm sorry if it comes out like vent rants but rewatching all three for languages practice really made me mad at Miraculous lost potential than usual. I really want to enjoy season 6 but while as a one of lots of its episodes are fun The Big Lie drag everything down.

I don't have much to add to this post since I agree with all the Miraculous criticism. So many of the show's choices make sense for earlier pitches, but don't work in the final product making the show an excellent lesson on killing your darlings and owning your chosen medium. I can address this, though:

Hell, they could go like Super Wings and fully commit to serialized plotline. If Super Wings could ditch their formulas after 9 seasons (40 episodes per season, 11-12 minutes per episode) why can't Miraculous?

In Reckless driver, While discussing therapy with the friend group, Adrien suggests that he might benefit from seeing a therapist re: the feelings he has about his dad. Marinette is quick to shut that down and when Alya backs Adrien that it’s good to see someone who isn’t a partner about this kinda stuff, Marinette protests saying she will help him since she’s his girlfriend.

On the one hand it’s very Marinette to want to fix things, on the other considering how supportive Marinette was with everyone else going to therapy and given the context of “the lie plot” it comes off as Marinette not wanting Adrien to get any kind of help that might make him more independent.

Before we get into it, this is the dialogue that anon is referring to:

Adrien: Do you think I could talk to Dr. Psiquat about... my father? Marinette: Your father? Why? You can talk to me about him, right? Adrien: Yes, of course, you're right. Alya: Talking to Dr. Psiquat's different, Marinette. She's someone from the outside with specific skills to help. Marinette: I help him! I'm his girlfriend, you know. Alya: I know, but that's not the point. How can I put this...okay, let's say we're in a video game. Alya: Adrien is trapped in a maze being chased by a ghost. You can face the ghost and temporarily help Adrien, but the ghost will always come back. Until Adrien figures out why he can't face the ghost he'll be stuck in the maze. Dr. Psiquat can help him find the exit by guiding him from the outside. See what I mean? Adrien: I think... I do. And I'd like to try. Alya: It doesn't mean you're not helpful, Adrien can talk to both of you. But you'll be there to support Adrien while Dr. Psiquat will heal him.

Credit where it's due, this is a good scene with an excellent message. The only criticism I have for it my evergreen criticism of the series: you can't tell serious serialized plots in episodic formula shows. This episode is a great example for why that is. As a standalone episode, Wreckless Driver is fine. In the context of the ongoing plot, Wreckless Driver is yet another mark against Marinette even though I don't think it's supposed to be. It's just supposed to be a standalone episode that fits the general theme of the season.

The Dark Castle has the same issue. It doesn't bring up the lie plot and the message of the episode is solid, but because that message has a clear tie to the season's plot, people are going to hold it against Marinette because of course they are! Viewers who are invested in the show are invested in the overall plot and they are viewing everything that happens in the context of that plot which is what you're supposed to do with serialized stories. In serialized stories, everything matters.

But Miraculous isn't a serialized story. It's an episodic show where every episode stands alone with the exception of the season finales. Those are the only time when the background serialized plot is allowed to advance. Outside of the finales, the most the writers can do is have the standalone episodes match the theme of whatever the season finale's big plot is.

There's nothing wrong with that setup. Lots of excellent shows use it! The problem is that the writers have picked a fucking terrible plot for that kind of show and it's making everyone hate Marinette because of course it is! The writers have picked a plot where she needs to have clear positive forward momentum for anyone to be on her side, but she can't have that because it goes against the fundamental rules of the show. That means she is stuck being clearly in the wrong with no ability to properly address that for at least 24 episodes, a fact that is not helped by the fact that most of those episodes have a theme of "lies bad" or "Gabriel bad" or "Adrien is hurting!"

Is Gabriel being a toxic adrinette shipper. Basically he learns of his son crush on ladybug. and decides to interfere by trying to push him to that smart designer girl in his class [lol dramatic irony].

So he starts making akumas to try to push the romance. [well he accidentally succeed in setting up ladynoir dates]. (this can occur before or after reveal but either ways its funny).

Heck an episode that Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Hawkmoth all wanting to hurry up the fight because they all have dinner scheduled as civilians [Gabriel trying to set the two up + evaluate marinette skills as a designer], and we get fun double speak.

Actually Gabriel abusing the Butterfly to do petty bullshit would probably serve better if they wanted to redeem him. Like him trying to akuatmize a student/teacher to get the PTA meeting cancelled so he doesn't have to leave his house. Like plots where getting the miraculous is a secondary goals with dealing with some petty bullshit he on today.

That be funny at least. It keep the romcom comedy going

I believe I've got posts about Gabriel as a toxic shipper somewhere in the blog's history, but I don't feel like going digging for them so have the only fanfic I know of that uses this idea instead:

Villainous Matchmaking by Nedjemet When Paris’ favorite domestic terrorist realizes how Ladybug feels about his son, he comes up with his greatest plan yet: using Ladybug’s extremely obvious crush on Adrien Agreste to akumatize Chat Noir.

If anyone knows of more fics with this kind of premise, please share them! I love the idea of Gabriel playing matchmaker for villainous reasons only for the idea to backfire spectacularly because of identity shenanigans, but I never see fics about it, probably because Lardien is criminally underused in this fandom. It's the comedy hijinks ship, people! You're missing out on gold! Gabriel playing matchmaker with other sides of the square is also welcome. It's such a wonderful trope! Gabriel and Marinette actually getting along on the civilian side is another good one that doesn't get much use. The drama that adds to the situation! I love it! Make Gabriel's villainy just as heartbreaking for Marinette as it is for Adrien!! That's what identity shenanigans are made for! It's so much less fun if Gabriel and Marinette hate each other on both sides of the mask. Oh, the villain/hero you hate is secretly a person you hate? How... boring.

The big problem with ideas like these is that they only work with serialization that leads to an identity reveal since the reveal is what makes the story have a meaningful payoff. Without a reveal, it all falls flat as we saw with season five's ending. The lack of a meaningful connection between Gabriel and Marinette's civilian sides and the lack of a reveal for Gabriel and Adrien made it all incredibly underwhelming even if we ignore how gross the message was.

But canon refuses to give us meaningful identity reveals that break the status quo so we don't get the fun, juicy stories that make identity shenanigans fun. Instead we get endless drama that goes nowhere. Even the semi-important reveals we have gotten were all massively underwhelming. Alya finding out Marinette's identity didn't bring us Lila's downfall. Adrien finding out Nino's identity just kind of fizzed to nothing. The mass reveal of the temp heroes in season three lead to two nothing burger episodes. Lila's lies being outed meant nothing. It's all so boring! If you're still watching the show and agree with that criticism, then I hope you're not holding out hope for the lies or the love square to lead to meaningful reveals because the track record is not good. Never say never, but if you want to stay sane, expect the writing quality to be on par with what it's always been.

Even with canon's questionable rules and status quos, I think we should have seen more petty akumas. I love the idea of Gabriel causing akumas to get out of work. That would be such a perfect addition to the show! Here's another one: he's been so busy being a super villain that he's behind in work and going to have a sub-par entry to a fashion show, so he causes an akuma to delay the show and then spends the whole fight working on designs instead of backseat driving.

Ugh. I just can't

(Statement in question for those who haven't seen it.)

At least he acknowledged that an apology was warranted? That's shallow praise, but given the way other plotlines have played out, this is legitimately a step up from the usual word of god commentary. Fault is being acknowledged. An apology is being given. Yay?

Mind you, no child watching the show is going to know that so the show is once again failing it's intended audience, but it's been doing that for seasons now. Why would this be any different? Same goes for poorly written character arcs and relationship arcs. Those have become defining elements of canon. At least with the Felix apology, we can imagine it was good unlike the nonsense we got with Sabrina where her bullying was all blamed on Chloe as if Sabrina was not a completely willing participant?

Outside of total incompetence, my best guess as for why Felix's apology never made it into the show while Sabrina's did is that Felix's is too serialized. It's not an apology for general behavior where it's fine if you don't know the specifics. It's an apology for a specific act that happened a full season before Felix's redemption. That's heavy serialization and serialization is such a hard no in this show that the season five final was written so that it "made sense" even if you missed Felix's weird backstory play. That's why Marinette acts shocked when she sees Gabriel. She couldn't act on her knowledge from Felix as it's "too serialized".

Take her reaction becoming the guardian in s4. We can see quite clearly that she's stressed, but we never get to learn why she's stressed.

Is it because she lost her mentor and is now on her own? Is it because she's the on calling the shots? Is it because the cost of failure is now so much bigger and she's afraid to fail? Is it because she feels unworthy and incapable? Is it because she has no guidence and no proper idea of what she's supposed to be doing now?

Each of those reasons would look more or less the same as an outward reaction but would imply different things about Marinette's character and her root motivations and fears. More importantly (well, in a story that does character arcs) each of them needs a different growth trajectory for her to overcome the problem.

And this is true for just about all of her actions. As it is, you can insert whatever motivation you want for her and the show won't contradict it because the show barely if ever explores what actually goes on in Marinette's head and what motivates her to act.

Post in question

I think Marinette's character is significantly stronger than Adrien's with enough clear elements to exclude her from the "vibes based enigma" category where almost anything goes, but that doesn't make her a strong character. At best, she's strong for the show she's in, but that's not saying much. Let's get into what I actually think is going on here because it goes far beyond Marinette.

Case Study

When it comes to major plot beat, Miraculous struggles to give clear motivations to many of its characters. For a non-Marinette example, let's talk about Luka. He's one of the show's most consistent reoccurring characters and, in Wishmaker, he lies to Marinette:

Ladybug: Thank you, Luka. Thanks to you, our secret identities were preserved and no one discovered who Cat Noir and I really are. Uhh... not even you, right? Luka: Not even me. Luckily, Wishmaker never hit you or Cat Noir.

We're never told why he does this. A lot of people think it was because he wanted to protect Marinette from the anxiety, guilt, and fear that would come from knowing the truth, but that's never directly stated. The show flat out ignores the fact that Luka knows everything until the episode Migration - which comes a season later - where his knowledge gets him kicked out of Paris.

When the truth comes out, Marinette never confronts Luka about the lie to find out why he did it or points out that his lie has put them all in danger from Monarch because she couldn't make contingency plans. She doesn't even worry about the fact that Alya knows, too, and does that mean that Alya should also leave town?

Instead, Marinette is completely incurious as to why Luka didn't trust her with the truth and almost instantly moves on from the bomb drop that he knows her and Chat Noir's identities:

Ladybug: How could I—?! I was careful! I would never—! Luka: It's not your fault, or Cat Noir's. You didn't make any mistakes, and you won't make any today, either. I trust you. Ladybug: What would I do without you?

I picked this example because it shows that this is a systemic issue and because it highlights what I'd consider the real problem here: the story keep picking serious story beats that should impact the characters, but because this is an episodic formula show with a strong status quo, those serious story beats lack the depth they need for them to work. Marinette's character should have been allowed to have a strong reaction to this moment and it should have impacted her relationship with Luka, but because this is an episodic formula show that needs to resolve everything by the episode's end, we can't have that level of depth so this major moment fizzles out to nothing even though this is basically a trial run of the plot that will dominate season six.

The Actual Problem

Marinette absolutely has serious inconsistencies that undermine her character such as the intensity of her crush and what it drives her to do, but she has a solid enough foundation that she works. My lore bible has almost nothing on her because I already know the basics of who she is. It's all there in canon! If Miraculous was written like an actual episodic formula show, then she would be perfectly fine as-is baring a couple of bad episodes that need to be cut but that's another thing that's true for almost everyone. I'm not going to hold it against her when I don't hold it against anyone else.

The real problem here is that Miraculous keeps trying to have strong plots and strong plots require you to get really deep into who a character is, but we don't get that for anyone. The questions raised in your ask aren't basic questions about who Marinette is as a person - we already know that - they're questions about how the ongoing story is impacting Marinette:

Take her reaction becoming the guardian in s4. We can see quite clearly that she's stressed, but we never get to learn why she's stressed.

This isn't asking who Marinette is at a basic level, it's asking what the story is doing with her, two very different questions. If I want to answer this question, I don't need to rework Marinette's character, I need to improve my story telling ability because I'm clearly failing to take my character - and by extension my audience - on a compelling and coherent journey.

While I wouldn't call Marinette a "vibes based enigma" I do think it's fair to call her an inauthentic character. She is not the person she should be given who she is and the journey we've seen her go on nor do we really understand how the journey she's gone on is impacting her. A prime example of this is that many people - myself included - thought that Chat Blanc was effecting her in season four, driving her to push Chat Noir away. We now know that wasn't the case, so we're left looking at season four and asking what even happened there? The writers clearly did something, we're just not sure what thus your completely justified confusion with that season.

If you want more reading from me on this topic, here's two more rants for your viewing pleasure: rant 1 and rant 2. They're both focused on the lie plot and how the story failed to take the audience on a journey where the lies made sense. In a well written show where Marinette is an authentic character, we should reach the end of season five and go, "Oh no, she's going to lie to Adrien! I know this because the story has lead to this moment and built it up to be a forgone conclusion or perhaps just a clearly viable choice for this character." The story didn't do that so it feels inauthentic.

When discussing this, it's always important to keep the target audience in mind. Miraculous is a family show whose target audience is little kids therefore its plot should be incredibly easy to follow and its characters should make perfect sense to the majority of the audience. If we have to debate things like character motives, then the writing has failed.

If you want to see someone else talk about this topic, Lindsey Ellis has a great video where she rants about the final season of Game of Thrones and explains how none of the characters work in the final season because they're just doing things for plot and not because of authentic character beats. I watched it having only read the books and still followed along, so you may get something out of it even if you aren't a Game of Throne fan. (Unsurprisingly, bad stories tend to have similar flaws. Is why they're worth studying.)

In Summary

Vibes based enigma: this character doesn't make sense at the most basic level. Their backstory is contradictory, their relationships are contradictory, and/or I'm not even totally sure what their motivation is even though I really should know it given their role in the narrative and how far into the story we are. This is Adrien's problem. Lila's, too.

Inauthentic character: this character has a solid base, but the execution of the character doesn't make much sense. The longer the story goes on, the less sense they make. This is the problem with most of the characters including Marinette, Gabriel, and Chloe.

Early on, we had episodes like Gamer which made Ladybug and Chat Noir an Ultimate Mecha Strike III dream team. But the dream team message was totally ignored on the civilian side. Marinette wins the Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament with Max as her partner and, when Marinette and Adrien train together, Adrien claims that he adds nothing to their team:

Adrien: You're amazing, Marinette. I guess you wouldn't even need me. I'm so lame compared to you...

This is really weird writing. The messages don't match. You could replace the Ultimate Mecha Strike III akuma fight with any other flavor of akuma fight and the episode would actually become more coherent which is not how this is supposed to work. This episode should have shown us that Ladybug and Chat Noir are the best team no matter which side of the masks they're on.

Thanks to the lie plot, season six has taken this pervasive issue and elevated it to a running theme. Many of the episodes are absolutely bonkers in their messaging because delivering a coherent message would require resolving the lie plot and they can't do that. The lie plot is the new status quo. It can only be undone in a series final.

My personal "favorite" example of the issue El Toro de Piedra. My full thoughts on that episode can be found here, but who in the world thought it was a good idea to let Marinette say this to Ivan in an episode where she actively hides Gabriel's final letter to Adrien, thereby denying Adrien the ability to make the kind of choices Ivan gets to make in this episode?

Ladybug: (Puts a hand on Ivan) You're not responsible for who your father is... Nothing forces us to become like our parents... You can love your father and disagree with him.

The A plot and the B plot are not in harmony! They're from totally different shows! This is not how this is supposed to work!

There are many more season six episodes that have this exact problem. They bring in the lie plot, but can't resolve it, so whatever moral we get about lies, secrets, and/or bad parents fails to land because the show can't fully commit to it. Or the message does land which results in Marinette looking horrible because how many times does she need to learn these lessons before the writers let her act on them?