#uwouldthink

It makes sense in everything, except how there's no evidence of it in canon.

A single nightmare that isn't even focused on it doesn't trauma make. (Btw, the nightmare was in Sentibubbler, so in the middle of the season rather than the start of it). But we do get to see a lot of her guardian stress many times that season. We see the many times it affects her and makes her do unwise things. How does she go from guardian stress to excluding Chat Noir? No clue. But at least the guardian stress is something that exists in the text, unlike the Chat Blanc trauma.

And this kind of thing happens so often with the show. Where people assume the most logical explanation (or else the one most in line with the tropes the shows is using), but it ends up being a headcanon because there's actually no evidence for it in the show. I lost count of the amount of times I told someone "what you're saying makes complete sense and in a better show it would be true, but unfortunately the series doesn't show us that".

(Post that spawned this ask)

And this kind of thing happens so often with the show. Where people assume the most logical explanation (or else the one most in line with the tropes the shows is using), but it ends up being a headcanon because there's actually no evidence for it in the show.

I wouldn't call these headcanons. At least, not when the arc in question is ongoing. It's more complicated than that.

It's normal to look at a story, see the puzzle pieces it's laying out, and try to make sense of them. When you do that, you're not necessarily creating headcanons. It really depends on what you're arguing. If your explanation makes sense, but has no backing in the text, then I'd call it a headcanon. Example of this: coming up with ways that Gabriel got his hands on Felix's monocle. We have no idea how that happened, so anything you throw out there is a headcanon.

However, if your read has genuine backing in the text and fits where the story seems to be going, then it's not a headcanon. It's analysis. Specifically the kind of analysis that competent storytellers rely on to tell good stories.

Good writers want you to assume that everything in a story is there for a reason. That they're not just throwing shit at a wall with no intent to do anything with it. Audiences know this and allow themselves to get invested in stories based on little more than potential because they are trusting the writers to have included that potential with purpose. It's a contract between the writer and the audience. The audience gives the writer time to develop the story and the writer eventually give the audience payoffs for all the things that have been setup. Without that mutual exchange and respect, stories don't work. Why bother getting invested in something if nothing matters?

Miraculous breaks this contract. Canon is a never ending list of BS that goes nowhere and means nothing. The Chat Blanc thing is one example, Felix's monocle is another, and Chloe's "damnation arc" is a third. It's also the one that most people are deeply familiar with so let's use it as our example.

The introduction of Chloe's mother and episodes like Malediktator feel like they're the setup to a redemption arc and so people assumed that Chloe was getting a redemption arc because why else would those elements exist? But that redemption arc never actually started so it's wrong to say that she had an abandoned redemption arc. All she ever had was the setup for that kind of arc. But that doesn't mean that her fans headcanoned her redemption. The redemption expectation had backing the text as Chloe's arc was airing! It was a valid read!

This is especially true since we're talking about character motivations. Those are rarely ever directly stated. You're supposed to infer them because that's how people work and - as a consequence - it's also how good storytelling works. You don't say "Mary was frustrated" you show Mary stomping into the room and slamming down a book as she demands to know why the dishes still haven't been done! If someone says, "Mary was really frustrated in that scene!" and it's later revealed that she was actually sad, the frustrated read isn't suddenly a headcanon. It's still reasonable analysis. It's simply reasonable analysis that additional context invalidated. Analysis only becomes a headcanon if you continue to cling to it after it's clear that it's not canon. Prior to that, it's just a theory/analysis work.

Circling back to the Chat Blanc thing, I would not call that a headcanon if someone argued for it while season four was airing because season four never actually explained why Marinette was keeping Chat Noir at arm's length while trusting Alya. All we knew was that Marinette was stressed and needed help and for some reason she decided to seek that help via an identify reveal to a multi-time akuma victim who the villain knows is her ally while leaving her partner in the dark. That made no sense so people looked at what canon had given them, remembered Chat Blanc, and said, "Is that why she's doing this?" And then nightmare Chat Blanc showed up and people went, "Okay, yeah, I guess it is!" Because a nightmare is a great way to visually communicate character motivation without the character just coming out and saying "I'm doing X because Y".

We now know that Chat Blanc wasn't the motivation, but that's all we know. We still don't have a canon explanation for why Marinette picked Alya over Chat Noir. That choice undermines the whole arc because the season four final seemed to imply that the issue was control and pushing people away, but Marinette didn't actually do that. At least, not entirely. She did pick a confidant and she did take that person's input! It just wasn't Chat Noir which makes the message feel icky to people like me because Marinette should be allowed to pick her confidant. Yes, Alya was a questionable choice because of the season three final, but the show clearly doesn't care about the season three final! That's why the message of the season four final wasn't that Marinette picked the wrong person. Alya is her sole confidant to this day! Instead, the message was... I honestly don't know what the message was. Trust Chat Noir, too? Make sure your cat feels special? Whatever it was, the show didn't care to elaborate because Ladynoir's transparency and trust didn't change in seasons five and six.

This is where the headcanons come in. Anyone looking back at season four and trying to make it make sense has to use headcanons to do it because season four doesn't make sense. The pieces don't fit. There are lots of ways to fix it, though. The Chat Blanc thing is a great choice if you wanted to keep canon mostly intact and actually make picking Alya over Chat Noir a questionable, fear-driven choice instead of a valid choice that Marinette is allowed to make*. You could also rework the season to have Marinette keeping secrets be the reason Gabriel gets the miraculous instead of a freaking evil twin plot that wasn't remotely her fault. Another option would be to removed the Alya reveal and actually have Marinette push everyone away.

I'll end by noting that while analysis can turn to a headcanon, the opposite can also be true! Adrien being a sentimonster was arguably nothing more than semi-popular headcanon until season four finally gave textual evidence to make it a viable theory. Prior to season four showing on screen senti-commands, nothing in the text supported the theory outside of the fact that Emilie obviously used the peacock for something so maybe that something was Adrien? But that's not analysis, that's just wild speculation.

It's a nuanced topic that is not helped by Miraculous' terrible writing and endless retcons, but the general rule is this: I would only call something a pure headcanon if it never had backing in the text. If a thing has backing in the text and nothing contradicts it, then it's a theory or analysis/read.

Take her reaction becoming the guardian in s4. We can see quite clearly that she's stressed, but we never get to learn why she's stressed.

Is it because she lost her mentor and is now on her own? Is it because she's the on calling the shots? Is it because the cost of failure is now so much bigger and she's afraid to fail? Is it because she feels unworthy and incapable? Is it because she has no guidence and no proper idea of what she's supposed to be doing now?

Each of those reasons would look more or less the same as an outward reaction but would imply different things about Marinette's character and her root motivations and fears. More importantly (well, in a story that does character arcs) each of them needs a different growth trajectory for her to overcome the problem.

And this is true for just about all of her actions. As it is, you can insert whatever motivation you want for her and the show won't contradict it because the show barely if ever explores what actually goes on in Marinette's head and what motivates her to act.

Post in question

I think Marinette's character is significantly stronger than Adrien's with enough clear elements to exclude her from the "vibes based enigma" category where almost anything goes, but that doesn't make her a strong character. At best, she's strong for the show she's in, but that's not saying much. Let's get into what I actually think is going on here because it goes far beyond Marinette.

Case Study

When it comes to major plot beat, Miraculous struggles to give clear motivations to many of its characters. For a non-Marinette example, let's talk about Luka. He's one of the show's most consistent reoccurring characters and, in Wishmaker, he lies to Marinette:

Ladybug: Thank you, Luka. Thanks to you, our secret identities were preserved and no one discovered who Cat Noir and I really are. Uhh... not even you, right? Luka: Not even me. Luckily, Wishmaker never hit you or Cat Noir.

We're never told why he does this. A lot of people think it was because he wanted to protect Marinette from the anxiety, guilt, and fear that would come from knowing the truth, but that's never directly stated. The show flat out ignores the fact that Luka knows everything until the episode Migration - which comes a season later - where his knowledge gets him kicked out of Paris.

When the truth comes out, Marinette never confronts Luka about the lie to find out why he did it or points out that his lie has put them all in danger from Monarch because she couldn't make contingency plans. She doesn't even worry about the fact that Alya knows, too, and does that mean that Alya should also leave town?

Instead, Marinette is completely incurious as to why Luka didn't trust her with the truth and almost instantly moves on from the bomb drop that he knows her and Chat Noir's identities:

Ladybug: How could I—?! I was careful! I would never—! Luka: It's not your fault, or Cat Noir's. You didn't make any mistakes, and you won't make any today, either. I trust you. Ladybug: What would I do without you?

I picked this example because it shows that this is a systemic issue and because it highlights what I'd consider the real problem here: the story keep picking serious story beats that should impact the characters, but because this is an episodic formula show with a strong status quo, those serious story beats lack the depth they need for them to work. Marinette's character should have been allowed to have a strong reaction to this moment and it should have impacted her relationship with Luka, but because this is an episodic formula show that needs to resolve everything by the episode's end, we can't have that level of depth so this major moment fizzles out to nothing even though this is basically a trial run of the plot that will dominate season six.

The Actual Problem

Marinette absolutely has serious inconsistencies that undermine her character such as the intensity of her crush and what it drives her to do, but she has a solid enough foundation that she works. My lore bible has almost nothing on her because I already know the basics of who she is. It's all there in canon! If Miraculous was written like an actual episodic formula show, then she would be perfectly fine as-is baring a couple of bad episodes that need to be cut but that's another thing that's true for almost everyone. I'm not going to hold it against her when I don't hold it against anyone else.

The real problem here is that Miraculous keeps trying to have strong plots and strong plots require you to get really deep into who a character is, but we don't get that for anyone. The questions raised in your ask aren't basic questions about who Marinette is as a person - we already know that - they're questions about how the ongoing story is impacting Marinette:

Take her reaction becoming the guardian in s4. We can see quite clearly that she's stressed, but we never get to learn why she's stressed.

This isn't asking who Marinette is at a basic level, it's asking what the story is doing with her, two very different questions. If I want to answer this question, I don't need to rework Marinette's character, I need to improve my story telling ability because I'm clearly failing to take my character - and by extension my audience - on a compelling and coherent journey.

While I wouldn't call Marinette a "vibes based enigma" I do think it's fair to call her an inauthentic character. She is not the person she should be given who she is and the journey we've seen her go on nor do we really understand how the journey she's gone on is impacting her. A prime example of this is that many people - myself included - thought that Chat Blanc was effecting her in season four, driving her to push Chat Noir away. We now know that wasn't the case, so we're left looking at season four and asking what even happened there? The writers clearly did something, we're just not sure what thus your completely justified confusion with that season.

If you want more reading from me on this topic, here's two more rants for your viewing pleasure: rant 1 and rant 2. They're both focused on the lie plot and how the story failed to take the audience on a journey where the lies made sense. In a well written show where Marinette is an authentic character, we should reach the end of season five and go, "Oh no, she's going to lie to Adrien! I know this because the story has lead to this moment and built it up to be a forgone conclusion or perhaps just a clearly viable choice for this character." The story didn't do that so it feels inauthentic.

When discussing this, it's always important to keep the target audience in mind. Miraculous is a family show whose target audience is little kids therefore its plot should be incredibly easy to follow and its characters should make perfect sense to the majority of the audience. If we have to debate things like character motives, then the writing has failed.

If you want to see someone else talk about this topic, Lindsey Ellis has a great video where she rants about the final season of Game of Thrones and explains how none of the characters work in the final season because they're just doing things for plot and not because of authentic character beats. I watched it having only read the books and still followed along, so you may get something out of it even if you aren't a Game of Throne fan. (Unsurprisingly, bad stories tend to have similar flaws. Is why they're worth studying.)

In Summary

Vibes based enigma: this character doesn't make sense at the most basic level. Their backstory is contradictory, their relationships are contradictory, and/or I'm not even totally sure what their motivation is even though I really should know it given their role in the narrative and how far into the story we are. This is Adrien's problem. Lila's, too.

Inauthentic character: this character has a solid base, but the execution of the character doesn't make much sense. The longer the story goes on, the less sense they make. This is the problem with most of the characters including Marinette, Gabriel, and Chloe.

We get somewhat of an answer with Marinette for the miraculous of creation. She's a creative person with a lot of creative hobbies, which allows her to use lucky charm very well.

But then, shouldn't Adrien be a destructive person in one way or another? Not him being toxic or hurting people. Just his personality having something to do with the concept of destruction.

I've seen some people argue that Adrien is a good black cat holder because he's not a destructive person and that the best holder for destruction is someone who isn't destructive, unlike with creation where the best holder is someone creative.

It's sound logic, so I can't really argue with it. However, on a thematic level it promotes a narrative of "creation is good, destruction is evil. Therefore we want as much of creation and as little of destruction." Which can work for some stories, but wouldn't fit with the imagery of mlb of how creation and destruction are a yin and yang thing rather than a good and evil. Both in how the miraculous are presented in the box, how Ladybug and Chat Noir are (supposed to be) equal partners and how the show never really explored or acknowledged much how destruction can be more dangerous than creation (other than Chat cataclysming people on accident/trying to when angry, but those are more for shock value than actually making a thematic point.)

The saddest thing is that as a character, Adrien is perfectly positioned to show the ways destruction can be good. His arc should be all about cutting off the toxic people in his life (namely his father), which is peak "destroying something bad so there can be good".

His establishing character moment in origins even plays into it, with how he rebels against Gabriel's control to run away to school. That's already a big action where he tries to destroys Gabriel total control of his life!

You mentioned in a recent ask how there's not much canonically to support that Adrien values freedom or that he uses Chat Noir as a way to gain freedom, which is correct. But I think the reason why it's such widespread fanon to the point it's confused with canon is that thematically Adrien should value freedom above all else.

His literal worst nightmare is being trapped in an ever shrinking cage, which he only escapes from by transforming to Chat Noir. His life is tightly controlled by his father, and Chat Noir allows him to both knowingly stand up to him (like in simon says) and unknowingly fight his father. Whenever he and Ladybug are trapped, cataclysm is the answer, not lucky charm.

But incorperating that into the narrative would require the show to engage with the themtics of having characters associated with specific concepts on... any level at all really. Or just have themes in the first place that more than accidental unfortunate implications.

Sometimes I wonder why Adrien even got the black cat ring. What makes him a good holder for the miraculous of destruction?

The show has done a terrible job with most of its power assignments. You can headcanon and rewrite ways to make them work, but in the context of canon, many of them make no sense. Like in what way is Nino a protector? And why was Alya given Illusions? Odd choice for a journalist. What even makes someone a good holder for Illusions? I go the storyteller route and fix Alya accordingly, but that's not canon. Canon clearly wants her to be an investigative journalist who is obsessed with truth, not good stories which would be a better match for something relating to revelations or investigation.

As you rightly pointed out, Adrien has similar issues. What makes him a good holder for Destruction? What does it even mean to be a good holder of Destruction? I'll give you my two cents, but you'll quickly see that none of this is canon. This is just what I think canon should have done. I also don't think there's a way to make Adrien's assignment work in canon as it's way too late in the game to make the kind of changes Destruction's power set needs for it to feel like a good Force. (Note: I don't think Destruction fits anyone in canon because of the following issues. I think it's got fundamental design flaws. I'm only focusing on Adrien since it's his assigned Force.)

The biggest issue with Destruction - and the reason some people think that the best holder is someone who isn't destructive - is the fact that canon has failed to show Destruction as a positive force even though Destruction can absolutely be a positive force! You wouldn't know that from canon, though. Canon shows Creation as good and Destruction as just kind of there.

Cataclysm is sometimes useful in a fight, but it doesn't add much value to the world. Another miraculous would often work just as well or even better as cataclysm has been known to cause trouble. For example, it's arguably the reason Adrien is an orphan, severely undermining my ability to look at it as something that benefits Adrien!

The newly introduced "Miraculous Chat Noir" ability isn't great either. So far, it's only been used to have Adrien unknowingly denying himself information because Alya would absolutely have caved and told him the truth if he hadn't erased her memory. What a wonderful way to introduce a new power! I'm so happy that Adrien finally got an upgrade! (That was sarcasm. Worst power introduction in the show.)

Tikki is seen as a good and positive Kwami while Plagg causes chaos and gets blamed for things like the loss of Atlantis and the death of the dinosaurs. Su-Han is even on record as saying that Plagg should never be out of the box because Destruction just isn't a good thing to set free. But Tikki being free? That's fine even though she's Plagg's equal.

All of this is why I will once again get on my soapbox and argue that Adrien should be the one purifying akumas, not Marinette. Purification is an act of Destruction. You are removing taint and restoring something to peace. Which is fitting because Adrien's life is full of things that he needs to remove in order to find peace. Marinette doesn't have that kind of plot line so her being the one with the purification power is both bad lore and just thematically bad. She's a creator, let her stick to creation!

Because Destruction can so easily cause harm, it should also be about self control. It's yet another one of the many ways that canon could have leaned into this idea of intent mattering. Over the course of the show, Adrien should have become better and better at targeting his cataclysms so that they only destroy the thing(s) he wants destroyed while leaving everything else intact. If that isn't a solid metaphor for things like emotional self-regulation, learning when to cut things from your life, and healthy boundary setting than I don't know what is.

All of this leads to my lore bible's list of what makes a person a good match for Destruction, none of which is canon, but my rewrite, my rules:

Someone who is capable of controlling their negative impulses to an absurd degree. They cannot be inclined to act out when angry or frustrated. It’s okay if they're emotional, the question is what they do with those emotions because a Chosen of Destruction cannot get upset and physically act out while transformed.

Destruction’s powers have to be perfectly honed in a way that the other powers don’t, so the ideal Chosen will be someone patient who doesn’t mind hours of practice.

While the first two traits in this list are the only essential ones, Plagg has found that his best kittens are those with kind, nurturing natures. In almost all of the strongest miraculous teams, Destruction is the team's heart. The one who encourages others and brings everyone together. (Destroying barriers between people?) Destruction needs kindness and selfless love to direct it properly.

You mentioned in a recent ask how there's not much canonically to support that Adrien values freedom or that he uses Chat Noir as a way to gain freedom, which is correct. But I think the reason why it's such widespread fanon to the point it's confused with canon is that thematically Adrien should value freedom above all else.

Also agree on this. That's why the post you mentioned had this bit:

it's pretty popular for people to say that Chat Noir is Adrien embracing freedom, a take that makes perfect sense given his backstory and the way he's played in Origins. However, it's hard to call this canon. Outside of Origins, there's not much in canon to back up this read.

Adrien wanting freedom makes so much sense for his character, but then they'd have to actually give him a character so of course canon won't go there. Imagine how much better his "I don't know what I want to be" arc would have been if his final note was about wanting to explore the world instead of about loving Marinette. Essentially take this:

I've been thinking a lot, and still not know what I would like to do later in life. The only thing I know for sure is that I love Marinette Dupain-Cheng. But I guess that doesn't really help you. I'm sorry. Adrien Agreste.

And make it something like this:

I've been thinking a lot and I still don't know what I would like to do later in life. The only thing I know for sure is that want to try out as many things as I can to try to find my passion. I'm not sure how much that helps you, though. I'm not even sure where to begin. Sorry. Adrien Agreste.

A lot of it comes from the show's refusal to engage with Adrien as a character in his own right rather than simply Marinette's trophy. A trophy boyfriend can work for the last five minutes of a film where they kiss and it's implied they go on to have a relationship. It's not enough when you have to actually portray the relationship in a meaningful way, and especially when it's the main relationship the show focuses on.

The most obvious way it manifests is that I honestly have no idea why Adrientte is even together. Not in the sense of "the relationship is unhealthy and they should break up" (although that's certainly true), but in the sense of "what does Adrien see in Marinette?". What trait about her specifically he finds appealing? What caused him to see her in a romantic lie when he was perfectly fine with them being platonic friends (I know the show said the statue scene but, how? What about it changed his mind? Why did it take more than a season to affect his perception of Marinette? Give me details show)? Why is the relationship so important to him?

Right now it reads as if he wants to be in a relationship with Marinette because he needs a relationship to define himself by and his relationship with his father no longer fulfilled that role, and that the reason he stays with her is because he has abandonment issues, is freshly an orphan grieving his father (and his mother considering she died a bit more than a year ago, but the show forgot that) and doesn't really have a meaningful relationship with a peer other than Marinette, so he clings on to her because she's the only thing he has and he can't cope with losing more people.

Which is a really fun premise for an angsty character exploration fanfic (or even a deconstructive story intended for a more mature audience), but is hardly what you want for a children's rom-com main couple.

Another aspect that's missing is the question of "what do they bring into each other's life that was missing before?". That answer to that is really important for selling the couple to the auidence and saying why they should be together other than idk destiny says so or whatever.

I'm not even sure they have a good answer for that on Marinette's side, let alone on Adrien's. I mean, why Marinette wants to be with Adrien is obvious considering her massive crush, his unconditional support of her (even when he really should be holding her accountable for stuff) and that he's a free therapist she can have meetings with whenever. However, if they broke up and she went on to date someone else like Luka, would this be meaningfully different? Why is Adrien specifically the person she should be with? How does his unique personality changes her life for the better?

Adrien's side is slightly better considering there are moments like Marinette trying to help Adrien find his passion, but they're one off moments rather than her consistently encouraging in him character traits he needs to develop. And of course that's only if you don't consider the Big Lie, or all the other ways in which Marinette is a bad girlfriend and encourages bad traits in Adrien (like how Adrien apologized for Marinette skipping out on him and she didn't say anything about him not needing to apologize). As things stand right now in canon, Adrien is actively worse off for having Marinette in his life. That's really not something you want for your main couple unless you're writing dark romance and sometimes not even then.

For as much as they dragged out the love square and dangled it like a prize, they sure aren't putting the effort to make the relationship feel worth it.

I agree on all accounts. The longer the show has gone on, the weaker the love square feels. The writers are so focused on dragging the show out for as long as they can that they've become allergic to giving the relationship the depth it needs since deep relationships require the characters to do things like trust each other and communicate openly. That would break the "Adrien and Marinette must have a secret" rule so instead we get a couple that we're expected to ship because canon says to ship them and not because they're particularly shipable. I'm happy to blindly ship at the start of a story, but I won't play along forever. You do have to eventually sell me on the couple. If you don't do that, I will eventually lose interest.

I've mentioned the podcast/youtube channel Unresolved Textual Tension on here before and one of the hosts made a great point about a common problem with romance writing that I'm going to paraphrase here:

So many writers come to a story already shipping the couple that they forget that they need to make the audience ship the couple, too.

I thought that was a great summary of the issue which is certainly not unique to Miraculous. It's not even unique to shipping! I can think of a lot of stories where the author clearly loves the characters and their relationships, but they never sell those characters and relationships to the audience, so the story falls apart for anyone who wants a story that welcomes you in and makes you fall in love with it.

That ability to bring the audience into your world is a really underrated skill that takes a lot of effort! When I'm writing a story, I'm constantly reminding myself of what the audience knows vs what the characters know and trying to balance those things so that I can really sell the story to the audience. It's part of why I love writing "slow burn" stories. I want the audience to fall in love with my couple and what better way to do that then to let them fall in love, too?

Personally I'm a big fan of interpersonal conflict in fiction where both sides have a point and is rooted in some real and presistent character flaws. And they absolutely could've had that with the conflict moments they had building up the arc.

Because all the conflicts they showed are ones where Adrien had legitimate complaints about Ladybug not treating him like the equal partner he's supposed to be and needlessly keeping him in the dark. But whenever anyone talked about the conflict it was made all about Adrien whining that Ladybug doesn't love him, which huh?????

Adrien complaining Ladybug didn't trust him was valid. Adrien complaining Ladybug didn't love him made him sound like a Nice GuyTM.

And the narrative keeps flipflopping about whether he's angry that he's not her partner or that he's not her lover in a way that feels like there were two writing teams who kept tugging the narrative between them.

In Hack-San Adrien complains to Alya about how no one keeps the cat in the loop, but when talking to Ladybug he says Ladybug did everything right and the only issue was that he would miss her if she was gone.

In Kuro Neko, Adrien is depressed because he feels like Ladybug doesn't need him and he's the same as any of the other sidekicks she picks and chooses at her convinence (a sentiment he echos in Wishmaker). The plot they set up, with Chat Noir being replaced with Catwalker, clasically should lead to the lesson of "Chat Noir really is irreplaceable in their dynamic, not just for his cataclysm but for who he is" and/or "Catwalker may be who Marinette wants but Chat Noir is the partner she needs". A plot which implicitly says Marinette is the one who needs to learn the lesson because she was devaluing Chat Noir contribution, at least if we go by the classical beats of the plot.

Instead, what we gets is Adrien learning a lesson about how he was wrong to complain and that he was simply too sensitive (also that Chat Noir is an inferior version of Catwalker and that's why he's better as Ladybug's partner). Which would fit the narrative of him being angry because he isn't Ladybug's lover but is an insane take for the narrative of him wanting to be treated like an equal partner. Except that in the finale, Ladybug tells him that he may not be her special partner anymore but he's still her favorite, which only makes sense in a narrative where he's angry about not being an equal partner and wrong for that.

(Also, don't get me started about how literally nothing in the episode built up to Adrien learning the lesson that he ended up expressing. I can't even point out to anything specific that would've logically made him change his mind that way. At least not anything that doesn't come with a whole lot of unfortunate implications.)

In Strikeback, the "conclusion" to the arc, it gets somehow even worse. I first thought that during the ladynoir argument, Adrien complained about how she gets to know all of the temporary holders' identities and he doesn't, but no. Apperently what he's actually angry about is that she knows everyone's identities and he wants her to know his too. Something which goes against the narrative of him being angry because he's not her partner because this would only make the imbalance between them worse.

Except, in the end of the episode, when Marinette has her breakdown after all the miraculous got stolen, she apologizes for pushing Chat away, keeping secrets, etc. All stuff that would make perfect sense in the narrative of Chat not being treating equally, but that the show never established because every time there was an instance where Ladybug treated Chat unfairly, the show refused to acknowledged it and said that the real issue is Adrien's crush. And once again, there was literally nothing in the episode that would lead her to learning the lesson that those parts of her behaviour are problematic. (Nevermind that she kept up the same behaviour in future seasons so she didn't really learn anything and develop as a character, but we're talking about s4).

And it would've been so easy to fix the finale so that it would've both adressed the season long arc they were (kinda) trying for, as well as made the loss of the miraculous rooted in an actual character mistake rather than simply bad luck. All it would take are two little changes.

Have Chat actually hear Ladybug calling Flairmidable "Adrien", instead of having him close by and listening for no reason and with no payoff.

Have Chat argue against Ladybug's order for him to detransform because he wants to keep an eye on Felix and prevent him from getting into shenanigans.

Keep everything else canonical, maybe insert a line or two where Chat tells Ladybug that he doesn't trust Flairmidable and her dismissing him so that by the end of the episode she would know not trusting Chat was a mistake, and bam! Now you have an episode that actually engages with the season long plotline rather than only playing lip service to it, gives an actual reason for Marinette to learn the lesson she expresses at the end and it makes the heroes' loss character driven rather than random happenstance.

Honestly, I think a lot of the conflict in the fandom over s4 comes for the shows indecision for which narrative it commits to. Both have grounding in the text, both are a complete mess that doesn't get a proper payoff, but in one Chat is in the right and Ladybug is in the wrong and in the other Chat is in the wrong and Ladybug is completely innocent. So people pick which narrative thet think the show was showing based on who their favorite character is.

I agree with everything you said, but I've covered my thoughts on most of it in various other posts, so I'll just link to my season four my beloathed tag in case anyone wants to read a bunch of rants on the topic. For this response, I'm just going to comment on a few things you brought up at the end because I don't think I've discussed them before.

Have Chat actually hear Ladybug calling Flairmidable "Adrien", instead of having him close by and listening for no reason and with no payoff.

I hated this scene so much! Ladybug was being so cute and sweet and giving an uplifting message that Adrien should have gotten to hear with the full context that it was meant for him! Instead the scene is focused on Chat Noir being pissy that Ladybug is being nice to another boy. What was the point of that? It's not like it pays off later! Adrien obviously learns that Flairmidable was supposed to be him, but we never see him process the fact that he spent a good chunk of the episode being jealous of himself or that all of those nice things Ladybug said were about him. You could cut the jealousy issue and the Flairmidable reveal would play exactly as it already does in canon because the jealousy was pointless! Why do they insist on undermining his character like this?

Obviously Adrien realizing that Flairmidable is Felix complicates the identity switch thing a bit since he could out Felix, but outing Felix is near impossible without an identity reveal, so it's easy write Adrien being cautious, but letting it happen once Ladybug insists that Flairmidable has been great. After all, Adrien has no reason to think that Felix is going to help the super villain. Plus the fact that he just saw Ladybug being so nice to "him" might make him want "Adrien" to stick around so that he can hear some more nice things.

This fix combined with nixing Chat Noir's worst behavior in the final would make the ending message work much better! As is, it makes no sense. Ladybug is apologizing for things that never really happened and Chat Noir was mad over things that weren't actually flaws on Ladybug's part even though this season was full of things that Ladybug did wrong. Of course, the rest of the season still undermines this fixed message, but at least this is better than what canon gave us! Cuter, too. I will always be annoyed that they finally took some time to let Ladybug assure Adrien that Desperada was a fluke only to never let us see him react to that statement. Many viewers probably even missed that she was talking about Desperada since it was subtle:

But even with those improvements I don't have much faith for the season level writing. The very premise of s6 seems to make failure inevitable because they're unwilling to do any of the things that they would have to do if they wanted to have any kind of satisfying pay off here.

At the very least, the plot would have to hold Marinette meaningfully accountable for her mistakes for a good period of time. They would need to treat Adrien like his own character with inner world as well as "imperfect" traits like being angry and acting on that anger in whatever way, specifically against their precious protagonist. Hell, they would need to dedicate some more screen time to Adrien's emotional arc in general in a way that's more than "uwu sad boy", which might make him a very inconvinent boyfriend to Marinette.

Most importantly, they would have to write a character arc with development that sticks. Something which the show never managed to do intentionally.

(I think this was the post that spawned this ask based on timing)

I completely agree. There have been some improvements at the episode level, but the higher levels have yet to show any improvements. That's a problem because the show has too many serialized elements for me to turn off my brain and enjoy the one-offs. That's what I used to do back when the serialized elements were more subtle, but they're glaring now and Miraculous still isn't serialized, making it impossible for it to be good given its current narrative. Is anyone enjoying the fact that the lies can't be addressed because it would break the status quo? I don't think so. Even those who are positive about this season seem be waiting for the lies to come out, but I'm not sure if they even will be and the lies existence kills the fun for me.

The entire reason why their relationship was unique and "meant to be" is the ladynoir side. She's creation, he's destruction. They're yin and yang. Partners in a cosmic sense as well as romantic partners.

Without that part, they're just bog standard high school romance. Even if the ladynoir relationship wasn't romantic, it still needed to be special. "You and me against the world" and all that.

Instead we get Ladybug as the important person because she's in and of herself the greatest and awesomest while Chat is just yet another partner/employee for her to call on. The dynamic completely shifted from their connection being special to her being special.

It betrays the very premise that made the love square so appealing.

Yep, season four was a mistake on every level. It's a bad conflict for the format, it undermined the show's most important relationship, and it had no meaningful payoff. Total waste of everyone's time. Just stick to cute fun plots and stop with the dark and edgy BS!

It really feels like at least some of the writing team wanted to write a serious dark show about a solo hero, but got forced to write a rom-com for kids because that's the idea that sold. Instead of owning that and writing the rom-com, we're getting the worst of both worlds as the show tries to be what the writers sold and what they wanted to write while failing to really be either of those things.

It's not even a total conspiracy theory to wonder if that's what happened since we know that the show was originally pitched as an adult-focused property:

At the time, the project was called "Ladybug". No one was interested, as the project was aimed more at an adult audience than a children's audience. Sébastien had to make sure that the project could be broadcast on Disney and TF1... In the end, Thomas Astruc's entire project was discarded, leaving only the love story between the two heroes and the city of Paris, where the story was to take place.