#mirauclous ladybug

Adrien’s original trauma would be the disappearance of his mother. Yes his parents were already a bit abusive before (His only childhood dream was to be the perfect child his parent wished for. I’m not saying that wanting your parents to be proud of you is wrong, i’m saying that if it’s the only thing you ever wished to be as a kid, maybe your parents aren't the best), but everything went downhill after his mother disappearance. Gabriel became distant, he ended up even more alone, etc... And that's where we find him at the beginning of the serie, and it's a recurring theme with that character.

Marinette ? I can’t see anything to be honest. (edit : now with the recent episodes we have something that could be refered as her original trauma. But, it's something we learn way too late, and it's about something that has been used for comedy purposes since the beginning of the show. In other words, it's just a last minute change. It's something that should have been done in the beginning, and i'm not going to give them credit for doing the bare minimum so many season after the beginning of the show.) Her mistake with Felix at the end of season 4 could count as an original trauma, but it’s a bit late. A character can have an original trauma during the story, and can also have one after several seasons (it could be because the character’s growth has come to an end, but not the story. So something happens, and boum another trauma that the character will have to work with. It’s similar to the original trauma without really being one though), but here the mistake with Felix would be more of a trauma that starts off a new kind of character growth for Marinette. It doesn’t define her fears and her character in general since the beginning of the show, unlike Adrien.

But what is her original trauma ? Because without it, it becomes harder to care about her. Sure she is a nice girl (except with that poor Chat Noir), she is smart and makes us laugh. But to be honest, I never really liked Marinette, that is until season 4.

This season has so many bad sides, but also so many good ideas. And making Marinette’s mental health a subject that is often talked about is something that I like very much. We saw her having panic attacks, isolate herself and the first thought we had was “omg we should protect this girl”. BOOM we care about that character.

What kind of original trauma could she have then ?

Well if we want to go in Thomas Astruc’s view of how the show should be, we could say that she has been bullied by Chloe a long time. Because of that, she never has been able to fight for herself, raise her voice at someone, Chloe made her insecure and she began to doubt herself for everything. She even started to be clumsy, because she’d doubt her ability to do things, so she would stress about everything and the terrible thing she didn’t wanted to happen, well happened. She was isolated, and only the new girl, Alya, started talking to her. No one really paid attention to her, which would explain how she started to like Adrien that quickly. He was the first boy with who she shared a more or less romantic situation. 

Here we have the reason why Marinette started the new year of school without any close friends in her class, why the lesson of not letting someone walk all over you in the Origin episode is so important, why Marinette's over controling personality became worse with time (she is finally in a position of power where she more or less controls what happens to her, and it goes to her head and forgets that there is people that cares about her), it gives her a way to bound with Adrien (the feeling of being lonely for so many years and the difficulty of making friends) and an explanation to why her first reflex is to isolate herself when she is not feeling well.

But, if we want to give to Chloe a redemption arc easier to understand for a younger audience and and easier to make (it would be kinda hard to forgive a character when the main character still suffers because of that character don’t you think ?), there is other options. Maybe Marinette was admiring Chloe, and started lying in order to gain her attention, but it never worked. So she started to hate her, and Chloe hated her too for trying to be the center of attention.

That way, it’s a nice parallel between Marinette and Lila and a way to show how Marinette is different from Lila. It could explain why she hates liar and liying to her parents, but also why sometimes she does it without thinking. She is so used to lying that it’s hard for her to get rid of this habit, but she is trying, while Lila isn’t.

And if we want to give her a parallel with Papillon (because Adrien already has one, he lost Emily too and yet he didn’t go crazy) we could give Marinette something to obsess about. For example, when she was younger, her parents told her that being a fashion designer wasn’t a real job, or some kids mocked her designs or something dear to her. Her only place of comfort was with a person, like a member of her family, a pet or a neighbor. Either that pet/person ended sick and died or they disappeared. If they were sick and died, well it’s been a long time, but it still hurts. Her clumsiness is maybe a way to show that : She wasn’t clumsy before that person/pet’s death, but it had consequences on herself and now she doubts herself constantly and falls (for example). She maybe hates liar because of that, because she wasn’t aware of the sickness until it was too late (for example, her parents hid it from her to protect her, or that very same person hid it), and now she hates liars in general.

With that, we could show that it’s harder for her to lie about her secret identity. And maybe when she learns about the wish, she still think it’s bad but she kinda wants to use it. And as time flies she becomes more and more desperate to use it, until season 5. She sees how Monarch is because of his obsession with the wish, and does not want to become like him. 

If that person disappeard, maybe it could be because of Hawkmoth. Either they were close to Emily, went away to find a cure and never came back, either they are now Gabriel’s secret henchman, and kinda like in Spider-man : Into the spiderverse that person and Ladybug fight each other, until they learn the other’s secret identity. Or if we want to be really dark, that person died because of Gabriel. Either they tried to stop him a long time ago and he got rid of them, worked for him and saw something that they shouldn’t so he had to kill them to make sure his secret was safe, or they worked for him but kinda like Nathalie, they were so devoted to him that they gave their life for him. (then Nathalie discovers it and understands that he does not really care about the people who are devoted to him in the end.)

The main hero having lost someone because of the bad guy/being bullied/discovering that a close one works with the bad guy are tropes that are often used in the superhero genre. They were obvious choices. I also gave one less common : the “Marinette used to lie, but she tries to get rid of this habit”.

To be honest, adding this important step of Marinette’s character would have not changed a lot of things in the show. What I mean is, doing this important step of her character would not stop her from falling for Adrien, from being insecure about being a good Ladybug. It would've actually helped to picture her as a strong heroine. It could’ve even help when the writers lacked of inspiration sometimes. You don’t know how to relate this episode’s bad guy with a main character ? Well maybe if Marinette had an original trauma you would...

Anyways, as I said in another post, the writers, animators and concept designers did the best they could with what they had and what the producers wanted the show to be. I can’t be mad at them so I just give all of my hopes to the fanfiction writers