#sentibeing

'You wouldn't dare!'

'Do you want to take that risk, Felix? Think of your mother...'

This whole scene is just... oooff! The script! The composition of this particular screenshot! The unsettling music!

Showing the senti-Gabriel backing Felix up against the image of his deceased aunt, who in turn is the spitting image of his own mother, reminding Felix that he is a Senti who can be snapped out of existence with just one order...

I think I may have talked about this before, but my thoughts on it basically boil down to this:

If they had done it well, it could have been a very interesting narrative choice. However, Miraculous is the plot hole show, rife with unfulfilled potential and SO inconsistent. I think they liked the fan theory and decided to yoink it, but couldn't do it justice, nor does it entirely make sense with the magic rules they'd already established. But, since they aren't consistent about anything, that's kind of a moot point. I also think it's preposterous that they tried to claim it was impossible to undo Gabriel's cataclysm damage when in that same season (I think), a lucky charm got destroyed and Chat Noir made a new one by painting an every day object with nail polish. I know the target audience is children, but it's insulting regardless.

Anyway, the concept of a parent controlling their child so completely is horrific, and it happens in real life to abused kids, even without the convenience of a magic ring. But instead of exploring abuse and Adrien's personhood in a meaningful way, they used it for cheap drama and are now continuing to victimize Adrien and treat him like a possession with not agency over his own life: except now it's "good" because Marinette is the one doing it? Aided and abetted by Felix and Kagami, who should know how it feels and want Adrien to know because they care about him?

It is fascinating to look at Adrien and Felix’s respective behavior through the lens of/with full knowledge of their status as senti-beings and their respective parents’ supernatural control over them.

For one thing, Felix’s erratic, nonsensical behavior MAKES SENSE with that context!

Felix KNEW (presumably always, though we don’t technically know that) that his father controlled him through magic. He also understood that his father was an abusive a-hole. So he spent his life thinking about everything he wanted to do to express his pain and frustration. But since it wasn’t physically possible for him to actually make those choices, he never had to worry about the consequences.

Then his dad dies. Felix suddenly gains his free will. OF COURSE he has no impulse control! He’s never had the opportunity to develop any! So he’s doing every little weird, rude thing that runs through his mind, every scheme that he ever cooked up as a revenge fantasy. Just reveling in the ability to make choices and not thinking through the consequences. With his Mom being super supportive but frankly overly permissive because they survived an abuser together and she doesn’t have it in her to deny him any of his newfound freedom, even when he uses it to be a dick to people who don’t deserve it.

Adrien on the other hand, was manipulated more subtly, with significantly less understanding of the situation. There were a few things that he knew he wanted outside of his father’s plan for him, but he always expected any choices he made (with the exception of Cat Noir) to be something with would have to work with his dad to decide.

So when Adrien’s dad dies and he receives his amok, he’s NOT READY to think for himself. Everyone’s trying so hard to be sensitive and supportive and let him make his own choices, but he doesn’t know how. If choices were water, he’d be a desert child suddenly thrown in a lake without a single swimming lesson.

So yeah; Felix makes terrible, impulsive decisions until he experiences enough consequences to beat some forethought/impulse control into him. While Adrien freezes at having to pick his own outfit, until he spends enough time under his own control to actually develop opinions of his own on little things and not just the huge things (like being Cat Noir, dating Marinette, and staying with Natalie).

Adrien realizing that the reason he *doesn't* have any mannerisms from Chloé is that his mother was 'editing' those behaviors out of him. She edited anything she didn't like out of him with the amok. Everything he was up to her death was what she wanted him to be, no more, no less. How many interests, curiosities, childhood fancies, and idiosyncracies vanished under a sweet smile and a pat on the head?