I Don't Think He Is Having An Affair - Tumblr Posts

Honestly, Gabriel’s horrible behavior makes so much sense now that we know that his wish being granted means reality gets rewritten entirely.

Think about it. If Gabriel knows that reality will be rewritten when his wish is granted, then he also knows that nothing he does really matters because his wish is going to wipe the slate clean and erase all of it so that it never happened in the first place. Whatever he does, good or bad, is going to be completely wiped out the moment his wish is granted and reality is rewritten. As a result:

— His treatment of Adrien—of this Adrien—doesn’t matter, because when reality is rewritten, this Adrien will cease to exist. Instead, the Adrien that will exist will be the Adrien that would have existed had Emilie never fallen comatose. The Adrien that will exist is one that won’t have been neglected or emotionally abused. The Adrien that will exist is one that won’t have been akumatized into Chat Blanc or Ephemeral. Sure, Gabriel is doing horrible things to this Adrien, but this Adrien is only temporary, so it’s okay. The Adrien that will exist after reality is rewritten—the one that, in Gabriel’s mind, will stick around as the real Adrien—will be much happier, and that’s what matters most. (Side note that this might also be why Gabriel is so distant; he knows that reality will be rewritten and this Adrien will disappear, so why bother to bond or have a close relationship? All of that will be undone, so there’s no point in doing it in the first place.)

— His affair with Nathalie doesn’t matter, because when reality is rewritten, it’ll never have happened. He won’t have cheated on Emilie because in the reality that comes about as a result of his wish, that affair never happened. Hell, Nathalie might not even be his assistant anymore. Bonus, she’ll be restored to full health because she’ll have never used the broken Peacock Miraculous. So her being bedridden doesn’t really matter, either.

— His akumatizations of children, toddlers, and literal babies doesn’t matter, because again, none of that will have ever happened once reality is rewritten. Yes, he’s making them suffer now, but he’s going to create a new reality and wipe this one from existence, so ultimately, they won’t have suffered at all in the end.

— And likewise, his throwing a fourteen-year-old girl bodily across a movie theater, slamming her into walls, and ripping earrings out of her ears doesn’t matter, because in a few seconds he’s going to rewrite reality and that will have never happened. Her pain isn’t real to him, because in a few seconds it won’t be. He doesn’t feel guilty because he’s about to undo it. He’s about to undo her. In the new reality there will be a Marinette Dupain-Cheng, but it won’t be this Marinette Dupain-Cheng. And he thinks that’s for the better.

It’s so easy to understand how Gabriel manages to do truly heinous things and then continue about his day like he hasn’t done anything wrong now that we know he has this rationalization in his mind. There are people who, if they knew they had 24 hours to do things with no consequences because those things would be undone at the end of the 24 hours, would do heinous things. Not everyone, of course—but some. There are people who would, who would do so with the rationalization that, “Well, it’s not real, it’ll all be undone in the end, so why not?” Of course, Gabriel isn’t able to reset things in 24 hours. He can’t reset things until he gets the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses. But perhaps that’s why he gets more desperate, violent, and depraved as time goes on: because he’s having to rationalize more and more, and the only way he can continue to rationalize it is if he thinks, “okay, but if I do this heinous thing and it works, then I can just undo it anyway.” Knowing that Gabriel won’t just be magically healing Emilie, but that he will be rewriting reality itself, makes it so much easier to understand why he can do deplorable things and still go to sleep at night. Because yes, maybe he’s being a complete monster in this reality. But in the new reality he won’t have done any of these things, so in that reality, he won’t be.

Or so he tells himself, anyway.