Recently got hooked on “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir.”
I have to confess: I felt guilty about liking Chat Noir but not Adrien. I love how energetic, optimistic, pun-tastic (yes, I love lame puns), chivalrous and flirty he is in costume, but thought his civilian persona as Adrien was kind of bland; nice but forgettable.
And I felt so terrible–like, how can I like the affect he puts on but not the real Adrien?
Then I learned from a webisode that he considers Chat Noir the only time he can be himself.
And then I felt better about liking Chat Noir since that is “the real Adrien,” while the nice, polite, but kind of reserved and closed off Adrien is the affect he puts on - most likely to please his neglectful yet exacting father, his many fans, and his few friends at school.
Yet… how sad. He constantly feels pressure to put on this perfect persona to please his father, his many fans, and his friends. No one knows the real him; they just know the perfect persona he put on. and he’s afraid of making waves by being himself
But then that made me realize… Marinette has this obsessive crush on Adrien, the pretty polished boy she sees every day, but she just finds Chat Noir annoying.
I don’t think Marinette is a bad person, but I think it’s tragically ironic that for all her obsessive crushing on Adrien, she doesn’t love the real him–in fact, she finds the real him annoying.
Though to be fair to Marinette, Adrien isn’t much better. Their situations are similar but reversed. He loves her confident, assertive, kickass persona as Ladybug, but finds the “real” Marinette - clumsy, forgetful, absent-minded - “just a friend.” (Plus, he’s the master of mixed messages - acts suave and flirty one minute, insists she’s “just a friend” the next.)
I guess it’s fair to say that, for now, Adrien and Marinette both love the idealized versions of each other. Marinette loves the perfect polished version of Adrien that he maintains out of fear of losing his father and friends’ love, and he loves the cool, confident, kickass superhero persona she has to adopt as Ladybug.
I don’t know if this will ever be explored in the show proper, but I’d love it if the show creators ever acknowledged this. (Also, I still ship them, don’t get me wrong. This is not an anti or critical post. Just thoughts about this pair.)
