#ml passion

Guys, I swear I have a life outside of speculating the meaning behind pancakes in Miraculous...

But seriously, they're important. They symbolise the future (as made explicit in Pretention).

[Small note: they look like pancakes, they're called "pancakes" in the French dub, I don't know if they taste like pancakes, but I do know that they are not "French toasts" as the English dub claims. So I'll stick to "pancakes"]

Illusion

So we are introduced to the pancakes in Illusion, where for the first time Adrien sees his father in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.

Seems benign enough. Gabriel is even considered enough to ask Adrien how he likes his pancakes. He likes them "well-toasted."

Illusion is an episode where Gabriel fakes having changed, and him giving Adrien a choice is in line what that change. Of course, he still manipulates him into making him think that he has the freedom to not be the face of the Alliance, by basically threatening to withhold his newly expressed fatherly love if Adrien refuses to agree with him (more on that in this post). Pancakes are just a device for Gabriel to add to his illusion of good parent, and the illusion that Adrien has a choice.

Passion

Adrien and Gabriel are in the kitchen. Adrien is looking at his extremely decorated pancakes.

As we learn from Nathalie a second later, he likes his pancakes plain. She tells him to not eat them "to please his father", while Gabriel seemingly naively points out that if Adrien didn't want bananas, he could have told him.

Sure he could tell him, except that the last time Adrien asked for something from Gabriel -to not be the face of Alliance-, he emotionally manipulated him to withdraw his request, and even made him wear the said Alliance.

The bananas and the fancy toppings are basically a metaphor for the fancy model life Gabriel wants to give Adrien, while Adrien really doesn't want any of it. And just as many people like toppings on their pancakes, they also would like to have a life of fame, hence think Adrien is lucky (as seen in the S4 Finale). Meanwhile, Adrien doesn't want any of it, he likes his pancakes and and his life plain and simple, "au naturel".

Nonetheless, Adrien still continues eating his father's pancakes, saying that he doesn't mind, that he likes them.

Pretension

This is where the pancake business gets serious.

First, we learn that indeed, Gabriel's pancakes taste bad. Plagg cheers for being saved from eating another serving of Gabriel's pancakes. This is bordering to over analysis but, given that Plagg couldn't eat them while Gabriel is in the kitchen, I assume that's Adrien's opinion which he must have confessed to Plagg at a more appropriate time. And still, Adrien keeps eating his father's pancakes.

Later in the episode, the pancake/future metaphor is expressed very clearly by Gabriel. He tells Marinette that she can have her pancake and life however she wants it, but the one thing she can't do is to share it with Adrien.

He says very clearly:

You think that you have a choice, but all you have is the illusion of a choice. And I decide which choices you get.

And where do we get this exact claim in practice? In the episode Illusion, where Gabriel manipulates Adrien into thinking that he has a say over his future, while Gabriel is the one making all the choices that matter.

And he gives two "choices" to Marinette:

To eat the pancake, receive Gabriel's backing and be a famous designer

To refuse the pancake and have nothing

Once more, the way he frames it, Gabriel gives the illusion that Marinette has a choice, while neither of the two choices includes being with Adrien. So he basically leaves her with no choice but to break up with him.

Now comes the breaking point. Marinette fully understands that the pancakes are a metaphor for her and Adrien's future, and she continues the same metaphor to get her message across to Gabriel (talk about power move).

First, she refuses to eat them. She has "lost her appetite."

This refusal is in contrast with Adrien who kept eating them even though he didn't like them. Unlike him, Marinette "doesn't even need to try them to know that they are bad."

Normally, this is to be understood as her making the choice no 2: refuse the pancake and have nothing.

As such, she is escorted out the kitchen. The scene composition clearly shows that she is stuck between Gabriel on the one side, and the Gorilla on the other.

Because, she refused the pancake. Per Gabriel's rules, she is supposed to have nothing.

But Marinette defies that. Not only she runs upstairs to hug and tell Adrien that she'll never abandon him, but she also gets back downstairs without needing to be restrained by the Gorilla, hence protecting her composture.

Look at how she goes down the stairs, having not only the physical but also the moral high-ground:

She looks so intimidating that in the next frame, even the Gorilla steps aside to let her pass. Both Gorilla and Gabriel are surprised by her move, if you zoom in you can see it in their faces. Gabriel did not expect her to do something outside the two "choices" he had given her.

And then comes the death blow, where Marinette tells Gabriel:

You know what's your pancakes problem? They have too much flour and not enough butter. You use an outdated recipe, no one likes them like that anymore.

Yup. She calls Gabriel's entire fashion, but also life practices, outdated with one simple metaphor. My girl slays.

At the end of Pretention, during dinner (no pancakes here sorry), we see that a parallelling breakthrough happens in Adrien's front.

Gabriel tells Adrien that he can spend as much as time as he wants with Marinette, for he will be in London next year. Again, Gabriel is creating the illusion that he is free to date Marinette, except that, as Adrien now realises, he is not. Adrien gets visibly furious at his father for the first time.

He does quickly calm down, but what is his reaction? He says that he has "lost his appetite," just like Marinette did. The boy who kept eating badly made pancakes with the toppings he didn't like finally refuses to eat the illusions his father is feeding him.

This, coupled with Adrien's terror at going to his room at the beginning of the episode, leaving Marinette alone despite himself, become a turning point for him: he finally acknowledges that he isn't free, and that his father keeps forcing his decisions onto him. Maybe also getting one step closer to discovering/accepting that he is a sentibeing.

marinette unashamedly fawns over chat noir in the presence of an exasperated alya, pastel pink romantic montage with roses included

adrien thinks about marinette throughout his entire morning routine while saying her name to himself like a mantra and literally drawing her face on his bathroom window

gabriel and nathalie have a custody battle under the guise of talking about pancakes

nathalie yearns for- i mean mourns emilie

adrien tells marinette that she’s special and that her mere presence is enough to make him happy in the most tender voice one can possibly imagine while looking at her with eyes that scream “I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU”

chat noir says the phrase “hashtag run!” before yeeting a paralysed ladybug over a bus

lady noire flirts with compliments mister bug by saying that his suit “brings out the colour” of his eyes

lady noire scolds safari and says that no one is allowed to flatten her partner’s “gorgeous face”

lady noire straight up says that only she is allowed to pursue mister bug

did i mention that lady noire is horrendously, indisputably down bad for mister bug