I already blew off steam and ranted plenty after watching it, and to summarise..
This is Derision levels of hypocrisy - being an abuse victim is no excuse for bullying, but stalking and obsessiveness are excused by trauma; refusing to let go and move one from your old enemies is petty and a sign of a weak, angry person, but the shows creator can dedicate at least one episode per shows season, to shit on his least favourite character and target a fanbase surrounding her FOR YEARS after her character assassination in canon
I liked Sabrina confronting her abuser and moving on, but it had to be ruined by Marinettes edgy aah laughter and corny zingers in response - youâre NOT taugh, lil brođâď¸
You could physically see the writing quality taking a deep for this particular episode, which happens every time Thomas pushes his own agenda no matter what
This is JUST a season 5 Chloe ark rehash - this episode serves NO PURPOSE outside those few Lila and Noe involving scenes
Im not even that huge of a fan of Chloe, but this pettiness makes me want to be one with intensity out of pure spite. Youâll never make me hate her, Astruc - how about you touch some grass instead of arguing with your fanbase on Twitter 24/7
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Whenever anyone tries to defend Chloe's botched redemption arc by saying "you thought she was ml's Zuko, but she's actually Azula," I just know for a fact that they have the shallowest understanding of Zuko and Azula as characters.
(Warning: I talk about season 6 but I donât think this spoils the episode that much)
I genuinely think âQueen of the Dreadzoneâ perfectly exposes one of the biggest problems with how Miraculous has handled ChloĂŠ Bourgeois for years now: the show no longer treats her like a real character. Sheâs a caricature.
Not a person with motivations, contradictions, emotional damage, or even coherent villainy. Just a walking billboard screaming âTHIS GIRL IS IRREDEEMABLE BTW.â And the episode repeats it over and over and over again like the writers are terrified the audience might still have sympathy for her.
What makes it frustrating is that the episode itself accidentally highlights why people *do* still care about ChloĂŠ. Because underneath all the exaggerated evil nonsense, the actual situation sheâs in is deeply sad. Her mother and this weird new older brother figure are both adults who are blatantly exploiting this CHILD for attention, influence, and power. Audrey literally treats her own daughter like an object whose only value is finally being âuseful.â ChloĂŠ is a child being emotionally manipulated by every adult around her, yet the framing of the episode expects us to hate her instead of recognizing how horrific that dynamic actually is.
The episode constantly pauses to remind viewers that ChloĂŠ is hated, unwanted, pathetic, stupid, irredeemable, alone. Itâs excessive to the point where it becomes uncomfortable because it stops feeling organic. We already understood her downfall seasons ago. Why does the show keep insisting on humiliating her?
Especially because Miraculous already made its decision about ChloĂŠ back in season 5. They made her a political caricature, turned her into an absurd dictator figure, and completely burned down any realistic path toward redemption. Fine. That ship has sailed. But if the writers were going to commit to making her a villain permanently, why strip away every interesting part of her character in the process?
Thatâs the thing that bothers me most: ChloĂŠ is not allowed complexity anymore.
Early ChloĂŠ worked because she was cruel *and* insecure. Entitled *and* desperate for affection. She was emotionally stunted, deeply lonely, obsessed with validation, and constantly trying to imitate the toxic behavior modeled by Audrey. None of this excused her actions, but it made her understandable. Her dynamic with Ladybug, her desperate need to feel special, and her moments of genuine vulnerability gave the audience something compelling to latch onto. Even people who didnât want a redemption arc could still acknowledge that there was an actual person there.
Now sheâs written like a parody of herself.
Every scene in âQueen of the Dreadzoneâ goes out of its way to make her not just evil, but ridiculous. She canât simply be manipulative or dangerous; she also has to be stupid, loud, incompetent, emotionally flat, and constantly mocked by the narrative itself. Compare that to someone like Lila, who the show treats with actual narrative respect. Lila gets to be calculating, composed, intimidating, and intelligent. ChloĂŠ, meanwhile, is reduced to comic relief evil. The writers seem determined to erase the possibility that she was ever nuanced in the first place.
And honestly? Thatâs a way less interesting direction.
A failed redemption arc could have been fascinating if the show had actually committed to exploring the complexity of that. Imagine if ChloĂŠ becoming someone genuinely dangerous and important to the overarching narrative after her failed redemption arc. That would have been tragic. That would have preserved the emotional themes tied to her character while still allowing her to become a villain.
Instead, the show treats her like a joke.
What makes it worse is how every adult in her life contributes to her destruction while escaping accountability themselves. Audrey emotionally abuses and humiliates her daughter for years. AndrĂŠ consistently fails to parent her, enables her behavior, then eventually abandons her emotionally and publicly denounces her. And somehow he still gets framed as sympathetic because he redirects all his care and emotional stability toward ZoĂŠ, a child who essentially functions as a narrative replacement for the daughter he gave up on.
That dynamic is honestly one of the bleakest parts of ChloĂŠâs storyline.
The show keeps insisting ChloĂŠ was âborn bad,â but almost every aspect of her behavior can be traced back to neglect, emotional abandonment, toxic role models, and conditional love. Again, that doesnât excuse what sheâs done. But the series refusing to engage with that reality while simultaneously showcasing it onscreen creates this bizarre disconnect where the narrative wants us to condemn her without actually thinking critically about how she became this way.
And thatâs why episodes like âQueen of the Dreadzoneâ feel so frustrating for a lot of fans. Not because people desperately need ChloĂŠ redeemed, but because the show itself refuses to treat her with narrative honesty anymore. She isnât written like a human being allowed to fail. Sheâs written like a target.
Which is ironic, because the harder the show tries to convince the audience that ChloĂŠ is nothing more than an evil caricature, the more obvious it becomes that there was once a genuinely compelling character underneath all of this.
With all of this said, please writers if youâre not gonna do anything interesting with Chloe, just let her go đ
Okay, something I wanted to say about Marinette...
Clearly, there's no longer any way to define what Marinette feels for Adrien as love. In fact, if you disregard all the moments where she acted with an extremely obsessive attitude towards Adrien, you could consider the London special as the breaking point for considering that.
Don't get me wrong, but it's extremely worrying that Marinette said she would consider sacrificing herself for Adrien if necessary. Didn't she think about how her parents would feel? The rest of her friends? All this because of a boy she's only known relatively recently? Okay, maybe I'm being a little harsh, but, gosh, how can you say that the life of someone you know so superficially is more valuable than your entire life, disregarding your entire history with your family and your other friends, whom you certainly know in a more substantial way?
The worst part is that sometimes I feel Adrien is also developing a dependence on Marinette, because he sees her as an extremely important support system and someone who can cope better with the grief. It's very sad to see how dishonest she's being. I don't think her relationship with Adrien would have worked out anyway, but the lie about Gabriel was definitely what doomed their relationship.
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After watching Guilt Trip for my Live Notes and Opinions, it clicked in my head the true extent of how little the supporting cast interact with each other without Marinette or Hawkmoth/Shadow Moth hogging screen time because Rose and Daizzi only got 15 seconds together and barely had three lines of dialogue between them.
Have they ever been allowed to hold a meaningful conversation that wasn't the generic "wow, a magic being tied to the miraculous Ladybug trusted me with" that every temporary hero got? How about Juleka and Roarr? Kim and Xuppu? Mylene and Mullo? Ivan and Stompp? Was Alya allowed to hold conversations with the other kwamis when she was helping Marinette in S4, or were the kwamis treated as little more than power granting set dressing by the writers? Fuck, are the classmates or other school peers themselves allowed to have meaningful character building scenes together without being swallowed up by Marinette shenanigans or akuma plots? Isn't the appeal of a large cast watching the various characters engage with each other, especially with pairings the audience wouldn't think of at first to see how different personalities mesh or conflict with each other? Those types of plots can practically write themselves if the writers can put at least two characters with different personalities or worldviews or work ethics in a situation together and watch the sparks fly.
With how all interactions must be filtered through Marinette, it takes away opportunities for the supporting cast to authentically grow, removes interesting plot lines that could've been told because the writers can't stand the idea of Marinette not being the main character for a single episode, thus leading to the show having worse quality over all because the supporting cast aren't allowed to be well rounded characters and due to the writers limiting who each character "can" or "can't" interact with because they're reduced to their tropes or bog standard plot lines which the writer vehemently refused to part from for well over a decade. Most of the interactions we get are only through the lens of Marinette and her interference so what little we get doesn't feel authentic to the characters even when they haven't been portrayed as Out of Character purely for the plot to occur. What little growth they're given often comes off as hollow because they're often solely used for Marinette plots or to be the akuma victim of the day that's forgotten about in the next episode.
Taking another series I grew up with and am still fond of to shine a light on how poor I find MLB's writing to be in comparison, imagine if the Thomas the Tank Engine series latched itself to Thomas the way MLB latched itself to Marinette and how many stories wouldn't have been able to be written because Thomas wasn't the main character of every single story. I'll tell you now that there's a lot of episodes I can use for examples, I even double checked the Thomas TV Tropes pages to make sure I got the episode names and general plot points correct and to see if other characters still got spotlight episodes as the series continued after I stopped watching the show proper, which they do.
In the Model Series, we would have missed out on episodes such as:
"Edward's Exploit" where it's storming and he struggles to bring a coach full of train enthusiasts home when his side rod comes off making the journey far harder than before but he carries on and gets his passengers home safely. I believe this is considered one of Edward's best episodes by fans because of how it highlights his perseverance in the face of extreme adversity. It's included in The Railway Series book and the illustration accompanying the story showing that Edward's side had been ripped open due to the broken side rod which the models couldn't adapt when translating the story to the show but still included that his side rod had come off, making the journey that much harder for him to complete.
"Saved From Scrap" introduces Trevor the Traction Engine waiting to be scrapped because his old master considered him "old fashioned" so Edward helps by convincing the church vicar into looking at Trevor who then decides to buy Trevor who's delighted at being useful again, and now lives at the vicarage orchard. Edward and Trevor pair well together as they're both considered old by those around them but are still useful. That and the "I like children" jokes people used often in YTP's back in the day.
The entire Duck and Diesel trilogy that introduces the entire Steam vs Diesel conflict to the series as dieselization began in the 1960's and was adapted to the show later on. "Pop Goes The Diesel" introduces Diesel who brags about being revolutionary and making a fool of himself by trying to pull old trucks with Duck simply watching because Diesel never asked him about the trucks. In "Dirty Work" Diesel spreads lies about the big engines and Duck gets the blame for the insults the trucks call them, with Duck getting sent to Wellsworth by Sir Topham Hatt until he can get to the bottom of the issue. "A Close Shave" includes Duck's crash into a barber shop (which I think was based on a real crash but I'm struggling to find the exact details) when trying to stop a runaway train and the reveal that Topham figured out Diesel lied and sent him away, with the episode ending with Duck returning to the sheds. This is a well liked trilogy with one of the most well known crashes in the series.
The duology of "Brake van" and "The Deputation" introduced Donald and Douglas and their plight to escape scrap by removing their numbers in hopes of buying enough time to prove to the Fat Controller that they're both really useful to avoid one of them being sent away since he only ordered a single engine, which was Donald but he refused to leave Douglas behind to be scrapped. It includes the signal box crash which was based on a real event with a (somewhat niche to my understanding) headcanon being that Donald purposefully crashed in order to buy Douglas more time on the railway since he was being sabotaged by the spiteful brake van. Plus I think they were the first set of twin engines introduced in the Railway Series but I may be mistaken since I can't remember exactly when Bill and Ben were introduced.
"Escape" is where Douglas meets Oliver and Toad in a scrapyard on the mainland when he takes a train over and decides to help them to Sodor since Oliver is out of coal and water after being on the run for months. It's a solid Douglas episode and one that shapes his dynamic with Oliver since they're both connected to escaping from scrap.
Hell, we'd have lost out on every single narrow gauge engine episode if the show refused to focus on anyone other than Thomas in the way Miraculous Ladybug refuses to focus on anyone other than Marinette. Remember Smudger, the engine who got turned into a generator for constantly being too reckless on the tracks and pops up in clickbait articles about how "dark" the Thomas series is? Smudger only existed in a single episode but he would've never existed at all if Thomas shared MLB's style of writing.
In the CGI series (for this I'm choosing to focus on the Renaissance Era since that's considered by the fans to be the best CGI Era) we'd have missed out on episodes such as:
"Henry's Hero" which focuses on Henry and Hiro after they accidentally take on bad coal when they need to make a massive delivery. It's well regarded because neither character is considered to be in the completely in the wrong or right for the decisions they make when the writers could've easily made Henry in the wrong for giving up to avoid hurting himself due to the bad coal, or they could've made Hiro be in the wrong for pushing himself past his limits while he took on bad coal, but the writers didn't take the "easy" option any other show would've gone for. Another plus is that the character's choices aren't different for the sake of the plot but stem directly from their personalities and pasts. Hiro is determined so wants to push through to finish the job while Henry has a history of being a bad steamer before his famous flying kipper crash and rebuild at Crewe so he wants to wait for fresh coal instead. (Also it's Duck's first appearance since S12 which from what I understand was highly celebrated since Duck was and still is a fan favourite (understandable since I like him as well))
"Bill or Ben?" Is a fun episode where Bill and Ben prank Conner (a character introduced in the CGI era) by challenging him to a race while the other is already at the end and joke that he's slow but the trick is revealed when Connor nearly crashes into Henry. Topham sends Bill to be painted a different colour to stop the twins pulling tricks but they subvert the punishment when Ben pretends to be Bill and also gets repainted blue and ends with Bill pulling the same prank on Connor who falls for it again since he believes only Bill had been repainted. I remember watching this episode when it popped up on YouTube a few years ago and enjoying it despite not watching any official Thomas episodes for at least 8 or so years at that point. Thomas is in the episode but he's only near the beginning for at most 30 seconds to try and tell the twins that Connor's a pleasant engine but the twins choose to ignore his words because they believe Connor is conceited because of his speed.
"Love Me Tender" centers on Donald and Douglas having an argument while plowing snow and making up in the end when Donald realises he's accidentally left Douglas behind while taking his tender then going on a mad search trying to find him in the snow. This is considered a great episode though there are some people who aren't fond of how Donald and Douglas are portrayed as constantly bickering with each other in later seasons which started with "Twin Trouble" in S6 and made worse with "Emily In The Middle" with some saying their bickering is closer to Bill and Ben than themselves but I may be misremembering the last part. Again, Thomas is present but only as a side character.
"The Railcar and the Coaches" focuses on Daisy, Annie, and Clarabel with the plot being based on a single line of dialogue far back in Daisy's introduction episode in S2 when she insults Annie, Clarabel, and Henrietta in the coach shed by referring to them as rubbish. Annie and Clarabel play a mean trick on Daisy to get her back for her insults earlier in the episode but get left at a station when Daisy runs off to find her fitter. Sure, Thomas is present, the main characters of the episode are still Annie, Clarabel, and Daisy.
The final example I'm choosing to highlight to stop myself from continuing forever is "Dowager Hatt's Busy Day" which focuses on the titular Dowager Hatt as she substitutes for the sick Topham but assigns engines for jobs they're unsuited for and causes confusion and delay, with Emily stepping in to help sort the engines back into their regular duties. Once again, Thomas is present, but he takes a back seat so other characters can shine.
There are so many stories where Thomas isn't present or even mentioned but I can't think of a single MLB episode where Marinette isn't front and center as either the main focus or hogging screen time in the B plot, it's like the writers are petrified that the audience will forget that Marinette is the star of the show if she's not present or mentioned for longer that 5 minutes or that she'll stop being "the favourite" if she's not shoved down the audience's throat in every single episode, because MLB falls apart at the seams if Marinette isn't everyone's absolute favourite character. It's like the MLB writers can't fathom that people can have favourite characters and still like the other characters enough to enjoy episodes where their favourite isn't present or even mentioned.
Even with some episodes being considered "bad" or not as highly regarded as the fan favourites, they all still utilise the other characters present in the series which not only helps to avoid the audience becoming fatigued by Thomas always being the focus but also helps flesh out the world and make it more well rounded. Even if the episodes aren't liked, they can still be appreciated for allowing other characters to be the stars. The characters aren't reduced to one note caricatures or to a single trope or relegated to a single location where they only engage with the same character over and over. (Yes, I'm aware that the Thomas series has had its fair share of truly horrendous episodes in the HIT and Nitrogen eras and I'm not going to mention the BWBA rebranding and how they handled the series.)
This line of thought made a question form about both series, could you still find enjoyment in the majority of the show if the main protagonist isn't your favourite character?
For the Thomas series, I'd say yes because of how fleshed out all the other characters are that if you don't like Thomas and the episodes he's in, there are still so many other episodes that feature other characters that there's a high chance that you stick around for another character. Even if you have a ride or die favourite that isn't Thomas, you can still enjoy so many other characters and their dynamics that the show can still be liked even when your favourite doesn't show up in a while due to how many other likable characters and stories there are. James could be someone's favourite and they can still adore the narrow gauge engines, or have Duck as their favourite and still enjoy episodes with the diesel characters, or be fond of the classic era characters while liking those introduced in the CGI era, the examples could continue for ages.
With Miraculous Ladybug, I'd say no due to how much the narrative warps and contorts itself around Marinette to make her the center of the universe to the point she winds up usurping the other characters and their plot points, like the S5 finale where Adrien should've been allowed to confront Gabriel, the main villain for 5 straight seasons and his abusive father, but was locked away in a padded room while Marinette faced him alone because the writers wanted Marinette to turn into Bug Noire and didn't give a shit about which characters they threw away in order to get their desired outcome. Even with episodes that should be fully centered around members of the supporting cast, the writers still bend the plot to focus on Marinette and the stunts she pulls to the point where the other characters only get a few minutes of broken screen time and barely any dialogue that isn't filtered through Marinette. They barely socialise with each other if at all if Marinette isn't there, and if she's not then their conversations revolve around Marinette. Have fun having other favourites because they'll either barely get screen time and thus be underdeveloped, become so warped around Marinette they only exist to make Marinette look good, be nothing but akuma fodder that's cast aside until the writers decide to use them for cheap drama, or the worst option of all, the writers will despise that you and so many others prefer them to the main protagonist that they're character assassinated in their attempt to force you to stop liking them in hopes of forcing you to like the "better" character.
One of MLB's biggest writing issues is its adamant refusal to utilise the vast supporting cast it has accumulated in six seasons over the eleven years the show has been running because the writers vehemently refuse to use the characters who aren't Marinette or characters that exist solely to prop up Marinette's character. By writing Marinette the way they have for so many years, the writers have inadvertently made Marinette a blatant and text book definition of a Black Hole Sue in the way TV Tropes describes the term.
Please DON'T tag anything related to the Thomas the Tank Engine fandom because I don't want to expose them to any potential MLB related toxicity, I've heard some horror stories related to MLB and other fandoms and don't want anyone to go through that for any reason. I'm only using the Thomas series to compare how MLB's writing falls flat in a way other people can understand my viewpoint on the matter. Cheers and thank you for reading my rant that ended up far longer than I first anticipated because I couldn't stop adding onto it when I remembered different tidbits and details.
Every time that a fanon or AU Marinette meets their Canon version - it is always to criticize and say how wrong her decisions were (and always assuming the most selfish motivations) - no matter the point in the timeline or her mental state was at the moment....
Meanwhile, in the Paris Special, Canon Marinette tried to empathize with and help Shadybug...
I just wish to read at last one AU/Canon meeting where the AU!Marinette is honest enough to admit that if she was in the same position than Canon Marinette... she would have done the same decision - or at last understand why the canon self did that choice and not assume the worst.
Do you feel like Alya and Nino come off as the âBlack best friend to lighter skinned protagonistâ in canon Miraculous?
Honestly I donât think Alya comes across that way to me, especially in season 4 through 6. Sheâs allowed to disagree with Marinette and have her own opinions, and even her own moral code. That people deserve honesty and that true is important for someone to grow. We see this in revelator and lady chaos. We even see her grow from the journalist that wants truth no matter what to the journalist that knows when some secrets should be kept. Which started back in season 2 with Sapotis, where she puts back the miraculous after seeing that ladybugâs trust is more important than being a hero and even revealing her identity. And speaking of season 2, itâs also the start where we saw Alyaâs sisters and her sisters are recurring characters. So in short, I think Alya doesnât fit that trope and has good depth to her more than most black characters do. Though, I do wish she had more black features like having natural hair.
As for Nino, I think he fits to this trope sadly. That isnât to say that he doesnât have his own life or goals⌠but theyâre barely seen by the audience because he doesnât have a lot of screen time to himself. Heâs either stuck being Alyaâs boyfriend or Adrienâs best friend, and sometimes he gets his own moment and plotline like with the resistance in season 5, where he did help ladybug and chat noir as well as having his own character moments but it wasnât a lot of that plotline and the resistance disappeared after season 5 leaving Nino in the dust because he barely knows the main plotline of season 6, Gabriel is monarch and Marinette is hiding it from everyone especially Adrien until she gets the butterfly miraculous back. I mean he still gets moments where he has his own thoughts and opinions on things, rocketear is a good example of this. And we saw his parents for the first in chained titans and his home life, seeing how it shaped him to the person he is. But that isnât enough, he should be allowed to do more outside of being Adrienâs best friend or Alyaâs boyfriend.
One last thing to add about Nino, we donât actually know heâs black. Like canonically black, heâs Moroccan, which is Arab. But him being black is up in the air, not saying it isnât implied. We have Zeno as his Va, his curls, and one of his bracelet are an African pattern. But I think it should be explicitly shown in canon that he is black more than just implying it. As for his parents, I have a light skinned mom that has a similar skin color to Ninoâs dad, so his parents being lighter than him is honestly pretty realistic because sometimes thatâs how genetics works.
But yeah, I think Alya doesnât fit this trope but Nino sadly does, also keep in mind Iâm not an expert on this because Iâm black.
