#d'cheese bullshits

[baronessedcheese]

The Narrative Art of Nathalie’s Absence

Now with some Miraculous Ladybug spoilers out which diminish the clouds of uncertainty around Nathalie’s absence from the first episodes of Season Four, I would like to celebrate the writing team’s decision to create content I can analyse by taking the time to actually analyse it. Credit should be given where credit is due after all, and I’m offering it with both hands.

Warning: Season Four spoilers up until the sneak peek from Optigami

The key is the power of repetition. Repetition means that a feature (in literature, in music, in visual media and who knows where else) is repeated several times, to emphasize a certain idea. It’s a narrative device used to hammer something into the head of the audience.

Is that too boring? It might be. But how about letting the basics sink in and then turning it around to hit the audience in the face? When used effectively (to build up to a surprise, for example), repetition becomes a wonderful narrative tool. And I think the writers of Miraculous Ladybug had exploited it amazingly.

For a long time, Nathalie was the background character whose role was very repetitive: she had to be where Gabriel was supposed to be, ensuring that Gabriel was there, even if virtually. So her defining characteristic was to hold a tablet which had a video connection with Gabriel.

Using this structure over and over meant that the image of Nathalie holding a tablet (and Gabriel’s fais) inevitably became iconic to her character. So much so, that when Marinette did something similar (holding her phone while on a video call with Adrien) in Anansi, the fandom jokingly compared Marinette to Nathalie. This was the first time (I know of) when the connotations produced by repetition were seen at work.

After the concept made its nest in the audience’s consciousness, a writer can decide how to play with it. In Nathalie’s case, the writers turned away from the good old "usual," diverging form the expectations and creating disturbance by changing what the audience perceived as normal.

This is the narrative power Season Four was playing with up until Optigami (or more likely up until Gabriel Agreste, but we have no way of knowing that). Gabriel was only virtually present during the advertisement’s shooting in Mr. Pigeon 72, and he will be only virtually present in Queen Banana too. But it’s Bob Roth and Adrien who are dealing with the tablet in these two episodes, not Nathalie. This new setup breaks repetition and draws attention to Nathalie’s absence.

To spice up Nathalie’s absence even more, the writers combined it with the fear of the unseen (the fear of those who care about her character of course). The second to last time we have seen Nathalie (in Miracle Queen) she had been very ill, and the last time we have seen her (New York Special) she had been confined to bed. And the last time we have heard of her, she had created a sentimonster which destroyed half of the city. Knowing these facts without seeing the outcome, immediately followed by the show altering a returning element, creates suspense. And when there is suspense, there are questions. Did the transformation in the New York Special strain her? Is she recovering? Is she very sick? Is she in a hospital? Did the coma catch up to her?

And when the suspense is built up, it’s time for the punch to be delivered. And the punch in this case is that it was all a deception. We learn that Nathalie’s genius was the real threat in this season so far (and hopefully will remain to be). She was not truly absent during the first third of Season Four like we thought she was, she just seemed to be. All the while, she was spying on Ladybug’s friends, using every opportunity Shadow Moth gave her. Her glorious reappearance after her suspicious absence is the exact opposite of what the audience was manipulated to believe, and heavy suspense turning into a praise of how badass Nathalie actually is carries the narrative power repetition has.

So if we look at it like this, I think that Nathalie’s lack of screen time was a good decision on the writers' part. Breaking the habit of her carrying the tablet for Gabriel and showing others do it in her stead brought uncertainty, and playing with that must feel awesome. But being on the other end also has its rewards, I guess. I for one felt goosebumps yesterday, when I learned about what Nathalie was up to, because this is how you use repetition effectively. Nicely played, writers of the show! Shame that the Competition of TV Channels ruined the surprise.

[research-fan]

Takeaway from my research of the French long 19th century:

Two out of four Napoléons be like: My name is Napoléon and this is a coup d'état.

[baronessedcheese]

Nathalie: *exists*

Gabriel: *falls off from horse* Bitch

Nathalie: okay I love him

[baronessedcheese]

Let’s talk about body language

I’ve been thinking (and then slacking off), so here is my take on a certain topic I got hooked on in Miracle Queen. Needless to say, I will speak spoiler language. Proceed at your own leisure.

First of all: we were all waiting for a GabeNath kiss to seal the ship’s treasure chest, right? Well, I’m not sure we’re going to get one at all, at least not in the foreseeable future.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing happened between them. I’m pretty convinced that a lot happened off-screen, we just didn’t see it. Let’s not forget that we are talking about an extramarital affair, and this show is mainly for kids (I know that two episodes are still missing, but I won’t get my hopes up for any clarifications). Something definitely happened because the episodes of the finale (and even the episode Ladybug if you think back) show a huge change of dynamics between our beautiful villains. And these little, now explicitly intimate moments are messages to the adult audience that this relationship is more than platonic now, and I will even risk saying that there is a chance that it already went waaay past kissing.

Here’s my scale of the romance that we were given, just because I want to commemorate these moments is one post:

We got fluff stuff in the form of face touching from both sides (Hawkmoth even leaning into Mayura’s palm like a kitty-cat) and the look Gabriel gives Nathalie at the end. It’s all very cute!

As a side note, remember when Hawkmoth akumatized Nathalie back in Heroes’ Day and then in Ladybug? When he puts the akuma on the tablet is a reused animation, but when he grabs Nathalie’s wrist is not. Can you spot the difference (on his face)? (And hers?) Yep.

But there is stuff that goes beyond fluff. It ranges from how Hawkmoth murmured to Mayura from behind her in Loveater, to how he immediately grabs her shoulders when he joins her on the rooftop in Miracle Queen, to how he khm… squeezes her body to his.

And let’s not forget Mayura’s declaration of love. When you know that your love interest has a wife, you don’t just go around saying things like “From the first day I met you I knew I’d do anything for you”  while you basically lock waists with him. That’s very immoral, Nathalie! Everything was so sexually heated there (for all the wrong reasons if I might add), that it urged me to write this text.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were already smoochies exchanged, but we will only get to see one when Emilie is completely out of the picture, because cheating on her is not cool. (But it’s not at all off the table that she will return. Gabriel keeps on going full criminal, even though by now it is so clear that he is infatuated with Nathalie that it pierces my eyeballs. I really don’t know what the hell he wants at this point.)

So my point is that… don’t freak out? The ship probably sailed.

Okay, you can definitely freak out, because if I’m right, then it’s one of those ships where you can see almost no building up and things just happen.

And second of all: what was that melodrama all about on the rooftop?

The whole thing with Mayura collapsing and Hawkmoth’s monologue was such a theatrical moment that my first reaction was laughing, and only after that did my brain process it as an “aaaw, it’s lovely and wooo… smuxy” moment. And I’m a GabeNath fan (someone save me)! My third reaction was that the whole scene was so artificially dramatic that is it possible that Nathalie intentionally initiated it? Of course Hawkmoth was more dramatic, but he always is. I don’t know why, and I have to think about this more, but Mayura collapsing after Hawkmoth turns away and then making a smug face after her declaration of love, and then instantly making a sentimonster without trouble is very fishy. At first I was terrified that Miracle Queen really rampaged and hit Mayura (as the theories flew), or that Nathalie really betrayed Gabriel (a theory that was out there but I never believed would happen). Whatever was going on in that scene got my mind to label Nathalie as suspicious. I’m keeping my eyes on you, lady.

Thank you for reading the interpretations that my mind came up with at 10 PM after days of massive sleep deprivation. May you always have cheese in your life if you love it!