The Problem With Marinette Is That Claiming Her As "the Best Ladybug Ever" Or "the Best Leader" Gets

The problem with Marinette is that claiming her as "the best Ladybug ever" or "the best leader" gets moot when there's no measure. We hear nothing about other Ladybugs in the past, so there's no one to compare to as "the best Ladybug ever". And as "the best leader", there's also no one to compare her to. Of course she'd be the best leader—you can call yourself that however you want because there's no competition!

And as a "leader", she gets next to no challenge taking on a leadership role. She's just good at it. The point of writing a character, especially a main character like Marinette, is to challenge them. Give them struggle. Marinette doesn't struggle as a leader. She either makes a coincidentally-good choice with no backing from the story whatsoever (which is 90% of the time) or she fucks up and is told it's not her fault.

Every time Marinette forms a "team", everyone is magically amazing and is 100% obedient to Ladybug. If they weren't obedient (like Kagami) it gets resolved in the episode and then they're 100% cooperative like the rest. There's a difference between being a leader and just plain being the boss. Being the boss means you get the final say in choices and people do what you say. A leader inspires, leads, and is a big responsibility that should be treated as such, because your choices strongly impact the lives of the people that trust you.

I 100% agree on the five-man band. The "temporary heroes" concept feels just like a cheap excuse to make more costumes, but a single consistent team with their own dynamics—not just as heroes but also people—would help not only challenge Marinette's abilities, but to actually enrich the story and introduce more arcs that could help us become invested in what the show tries to preach.

Any fanfic I write always uses the original five-member team, because they didn't need to go away. It didn't need to change. And frankly, giving so many people different miraculouses for no other reason than "Marinette thinks they deserve it" actually devalues the importance of the miraculouses, since apparently anybody will do.

I like ML because it has a formula that I've never seen in superhero genre before, a girl as a leader whos also the brain of the team who's also one that have little to no emphaty paired with a boy who's the heart of the team that also a team mom yet the brawl at the same time. That premise is so good because usually it's the girl who is the heart of the team so this formula is good... In concept.

The problem is that the leader, aside from lacking in emphaty departemen is also very avoidant and self centered. Way too self centered to even notice the problem in her team and that's a very dangerous line to walk on. Of course usually this problem would be fixed when the heart of the team try to talk to the leader, that's how it's usually goes, right? Except the leader either keep dismissed him or outright ignore him which makes the conflict prolonged. The writers seems to be saying that she could do everything, even comforting her own teammate which she failed spectacularly.

Even now as s5 ended, I haven't seen Marinette as the leader, try to talk to Adrien about the problem. There's just no growth on her part. In fact, she double down in her secrets. At this point they're basically just keep the false peace.

In Timetagger Bunnyx said Ladybug is the best team leader, but with current dynamic and her lack of growth as of current, I feel like that assessment is as false as Fu's saying Marinette as the strongest Ladybug. Considering he only know ONE Ladybug holder. There's no base in those praise, just pure bias.

Yeah, like there's no growth going on for Marinette but that's probably because all the traits we see in her, being self centered and lacking in empathy, the writers didn't intend it. That's why there isn't an arc planned to resolve it. And it makes people claiming she's the best Ladybug ever when she doesn't have much to show for it under her belt.

But she ain't special.

I'd be ranting all day if I had to list every character that has a trait (good or bad) we all see but I doubt the writers saw it too, like Adrien being Marinette's equal or Chloe coming off as more sympathetic than intended in the early seasons. But then, when they do notice a character flaw a notable chunk of the fandom complains about... you get bullshit like Derision (to address Marinette being a "stalker"). Honestly, I'm more afraid of what they'd do to rectify this.

I get it.

But if Ephemeral was supposed to be the starting point for the strife in Kuro Neko, it was done badly. In Kuro Neko, it doesn't sound like Cat Noir just slowly began withdrawing. Rather, it implies that Ladybug brings out so many heroes that he sees it as pointless to show up.

Hell, the thing Ladybug tells him at the end of the day, "Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean I don't need you at all", just further implies that he was nudged out of the circle.

I don't know if Ephemeral and Kuro Neko are [meant to be] connected, but if they are, TA did a bad job at it, because finding the end of yarn in the middle of the skein is easier than this (and I'd already done that multiple times).

What did you think if the episode kuro neko? For me it was peak „Lady//noir toxicity“, how LB yells at CN and then CN abandoning his position as one of the two most important heroes of the city only to later gaslight LB into thinking he‘s a completely different person. Even if they talked it out at the end, it was just… idk, that episode was really the nail in the coffin for the ship imo

I actually think Ladybug was pretty reasonable in Kuro Neko. She only yells at Chat Noir when he's running down her timer by keeping her from her Guardian duties even though he just missed an akuma fight, making her have to call in a whole slew of heros and defend his absence on the news. It's like the writers wanted her to look good even though she's supposed to be the source of season four's conflict, I think? Idk, the writing is just a mess.

I've talked about how the communication issues in that episode and it lead up drive me up a wall, but I don't think I've talked about how messed up it was for Adrien to come back like that. It was a dick move for sure. However, I mostly lay the blame on Plagg and Tikki's shoulders because Plagg is the one who came up with this idea and Tikki let him go through with it. They're supposed to be the mentors here and they are failing their Chosen hard in this episode and season four in general. Just terrible writing no matter how you look at it. I have no idea what the writers were aiming for in this episode. It was like a tiny preview of how much they were going to mess up with Kwami's Choice in season five.

When a hero quits, you're supposed to show the audience that no one can take their place because of who the hero is. Instead we get told that Catwalker was perfectly fine, but Ladybug can't handle competence without falling in love? And Kwami's Choice basically said that Adrien and Marinette could be easily replaced if it weren't for the Aliance rings. I just... this is a classic, beginner-level trope. How do you mess it up this badly?

Orange

Even with the concept itself being overall problematic, it's so weird too when taking the characters into context. I can see why Colt Fathom would do this (he is a whole other can of worms here) but I don't understand why Emilie and Gabriel would do it.

With the little information we have of Emilie's character, she's supposed to be the kindest, most loving person anybody's ever known. I just don't understand how they're so desperate to have a child that turning to magic is their go-to. Is there no IVF? If not IVF, why not adoption? Based on how Emilie is painted to be, I'm sure she can still wholeheartedly love a child she didn't birth.

So why even make Adrien a sentimonster? What's the point?

And as for Félix... the idea that Colt, with or without his wife's permission, can basically make her pregnant with a sentimonster is kind of disturbing to say the least. And why would Emilie give him the Peacock Miraculous to get Amelie pregnant, knowing how he is, when she's basically been described to be a literal angel?

Tell me, do you think making human babies with the Peacock Miraculous is pretty f*cked up?

On both paper and in the deeper narrative - extremely so. You've basically created a living, breathing, growing creature you can control and delete on command once you get bored (and with a very fragile remote control depending on what gets used as a amok). The show says that they're no different from humans, but the way they present the entire thing sure doesn't match the claim (or at least for the non-human looking sentis).

And the controversies with it get worse when you consider that there's no actual permanent solution to the above - your only options as a Senti are basically "put your amok in a secure place no one can find and hope for the best" or "pray that the next Peacock holder isn't a complete psychopath who hates your kind/see you as fakes rather than real people."

Either that, or it's:

After this I'll write.

Okay, after this then.

After this then.

I'm so busy, after all this then.

Oh no, it's too late. Tomorrow then.

On repeat.

Me waking up: I want to write

Me eating breakfast: I want to write

Me getting ready for work: I want to write

Me at work: I want to write

Me eating lunch: I want to write

Me driving home: I want to write

Me at home, sitting in front of my laptop:

Another image from Instagram.