Hello! Spoilers spoilers spoilers ahead read at your own discretion
aright so I want to talk about the double edged blades of assumption and choice.
Take this with a grain of salt, part two of Love Eater is out tomorrow and to begin with I know heck all about the chronology of this season as it goes but i like devices and symbolism and the power of suggestion so et ç'est parti
At the beginning of the episode, Marinette and Adrien sit in their rooms scrolling through pictures of their "unrequited" loves when they're interrupted by notifications conveniently involving potential alternative suitors.
Marinette's is pretty cut and dry, as we've been given episodes where Marinette is visibly and audibly concerned of who to choose—Luka or Adrien.
Meanwhile, I don't really think Adrien's is ever explicitly clear.
I mean, sure we all know it's meant to imply Kagami. And I'm not saying she isn't an option he's seemed to have considered.
But it's important to recognize that choice is while all in all an important theme to the show, it's important to Adrien's character in a very particular way.
All his life, he's spent living with decisions people have made for him— strict curfew, fencing, piano, language lessons, modeling, Chloe as a childhood and eventually only friend??? He's decided to live with those things and attempt to make the most of them. That's as far as his decisions can reach there.
The most starkly clear choices that have affected the entirety of the story are him being Chat Noir, and then him going to school. One was handed to him and he had to decide whether or not to take this opportunity, and the other was something he had to attain by force.
Since Onii Chan, I've not been able to stop thinking about that exchange between Akumatized Kagami, Lila, and Chat Noir.
Nobody this entire time has asked Adrien how he's felt about anybody—they just assume. Assume. Everybody in their own way has assumed what he's thinking.
Kagami is confident and assumes that she can be with Adrien through effort, precision, and her assertiveness, as that's been the case with everything she does. Her skill and accomplishments are all thanks to her amazing sense of self and hard work.
Lila is manipulative and assumes that she can get to Adrien if she were to spin a few truths and give a nice lil nudge of things and people to get her way. Her mischief has been a weapon and shield all of her life, and she's usually gotten everything she wants with a pretty little lie or two.
Chloe has just assumed she can get anything she wants by demanding it. Not even asking. Just demanding.
Marinette has assumed the worst of herself and/or what Adrien could think about her. Her lack of confidence and general clumsiness in the romance department ended up hurting her own feelings, and she just assumed she isn't what Adrien is looking for.
You can see this in the newest episode where, as this post has pointed out, she understands the implications of the ice cream and decides to give up the Marinette and Adrien ice cream. Adrien, thinking it is only ice cream, left the choice up to her, but she ended up deciding on something that would require him to be in the conversation.
Things like this keep happening around Adrien and he's kind of stuck in the center being pushed and pulled against and fought over and that's happening so much it almost feels like purposeful misdirection.
