#sentiadrien

Whether you are team "Adrien is a Senti" or not, there was a lot of interesting teasing going on in this episode.

I couldn't help but notice how much Adrien's rings were being framed in this episode from start to finish.

Of course, they do love to tease us and they are really avoiding giving us a straight answer, but I think the "Is he/isn't he" hinting dropped in this episode are significant.

Now obviously this episode is very heavy on the Senti-lore, so of course you might think they would finally give us an answer, but no. But what they did give us is very curious.

I think the fact that even before Adrien arrives, the lack of conversation about how Felix and Kagami's problem might also affect Adrien is very telling in itself. Clearly, everything they are concerned about should also apply to Adrien if he's a senti too. And if he is, they know it. So why does it never come up that Adrien keeping his own rings holds the same potential dangers?

I think the answer is right here: Felix believes that as long as he has the Paacock, Adrien is safe. And that they are in more danger because they are heroes, who might become the target of such an attack. Since none of them know Adrien is Chat Noir, this doesn't seem to be a concern of theirs. Because really, who would want to steal Adrien's rings if no one knows he's a senti and no villain has a reason to go after him?

So they are having a very intense and serious conversation about Sentis and rings and lore, etc., and Adrien pops in. And Everyone is losing their dang minds and he's gesturing like this?

like the way this is framed almost emphasizes it. The 'ring' hand has to be in the shot. Why does he have his hand up like that? It's not just a silly gesture, it's being framed into the context of the conversation. Even the quote on-screen, "Where did they hide them?" In his case, they're 'hidden' right in plain view!

Meanwhile poor Adrien has no idea why everyone is acting so on edge; he's got their literal lives just under his foot. (!!)

Then of course you have this simple little 'magic trick' that sends everyone reeling. But you know what's crazier to me than his ability to fool the "Magician" of the group with a simple sleight of hand trick?

It's the framing of his HANDS the entire way through. Look how much focus and attention we're getting on him holding ALL THREE of the rings in question. (Four if you count Adrien's as two, five if you count his Miraculous.)

I mean there's just a lot of emphasis on hands going on. And rings.

And I know he's literally wearing them all the time so obviously we're going to see them a lot, but I also feel like they were flaunted in this episode WAY more than they've been seen in other episodes.

(I took screencaps every time his rings were very clearly displayed and there were quite a few!)

So you have Felix, Kagami, and Marinette giving Adrien the runaround because everyone is lying and keeping secrets, and poor Adrien is just clueless.

And then THIS happened.

Did Adrien just unknowingly use Felix's Amok against him????? (Thank you to @jigglypuff1994 for pointing this out to me!) The way this goes down... the intentional framing... Adrien being completely oblivious to it all while Kagami and Marinette are utterly shocked.

When Pandora’s Box is opened…

She doesn’t remember who she is…

But he needs her now more than ever…

Shattered Virtue

Kagami accidentally insulting Lila (“you’re just a stone”)? Vibing.

A bizarre wealthy-person masquerade as a social commentary? Vibing.

Amelie yelling at Gabriel? Vibing.

“Adrien” and Kagami’s banter before their dance? Vibing.

Marinette dancing with “Adrien,” then immediately getting hostile when she learns he’s Felix? Vibing.

Felix having a Disney-villain style musical number in the streets as he Thanos-snaps everyone? Vibing.

Adrien blowing up at Felix? Vibing. (he’s earned that so bad)

Felix having a mental breakdown on a roof? Vibing.

Plot-wise, I have a few issues, but I can honestly say I am so happy to ignore them because I just had a BLAST watching it. Top-tier episode. 10/10. 5 stars.

———

In summary:

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.

When Félix tried to bring back Marinette and failed, we (as viewers), figured out fairly quickly it was because she was not Marinette at the moment but Ladybug. But Félix doesn't know that, so he was only thinking of Marinette as Marinette when he tried to bring her back, and he came to the conclusion that he couldn't control his powers as well as he thought he could (but we know it wasn't the case).

So would that mean if Félix knew that Marinette was Ladybug, he could have brought her back? (I'm almost certain the answer is "yes").

And here comes the interesting part:

Would that also mean for Adrien that as long as Gabriel doesn't know he's Chat Noir, Gabriel can control Adrien but cannot control Chat Noir (which is a significant advantage for Adrien even though he's not aware of it) (yet)?

We're back with some confessions from Marinette:

but Alya is such a great friend, she knows it wasn't on purpose

Nino was in the cover of a magazine!

on the news...

Bonus: Adrien loved the feathers and likes the marionette control bar...

guys I don't wanna scare you, but Adrien might be a sentimonster controlled by his father 😱

it's a joke, pls don't come at me

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