#this took me two weeks | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yolowritter · 4 months

Text

In Defense of Chloe Bourgeois Part 1: Who is Chloe?

Well...shit, here we go again! Hello there everyone, welcome back to the source of my endless exasperation! Before any of you pick a side to the argument, I want to make it perfectly clear that this isn't a post about whether or not Chloe should have had a redemption arc. This is not my point, and any argument for either side have been repeated so many times by now that I can recite most by memory. So, let's begin by establishing why exactly I'm even writing this post!

Chloe Bourgeois is one of my favorite characters in Miraculous Ladybug. The...the fanon version, obviously. Canon can go keel over in an alleyway, it already has more holes in it than the average swiss cheese. I've been a part of this fandom for a good few years now, and at the time of watching Miracle Queen was understandably upset at the...direction, that her character was taken. It left a sour taste in my mouth because I honestly didn't see it coming, but I'll get more into that later. Point is, I was once a defender of Chloe's redemption arc. I am not stating if I am or not still one of those at present, because that's not what the point is. Regardless of what side of the fence you're on, we can all agree that her character was horribly mismanaged in the latter half of this show. Erratic, extreme and oftentimes illogical choices that sound stupider than Lila's average gaslighting scheme, and a character who previously had an arc going for her now being defined only by the sheer inconsistency that writhes every moment she's on-screen. I'll be honest, I no longer particularly care if Chloe "should" have been redeemed or not, because either avenue could have allowed for some brilliant (or at the very least pretty decent) storytelling.

This defense strives not to strip anyone of their arguments, nor to challenge anyone's headcanons, or make a point about what the "correct" way to handle Chloe's character should have been. Again, I lost interest in the debate a long time ago. I'm simply here to examine who Chloe is as a person, what drives her, what her life experiences have been like, and where all this could logically lead from both a writing and human perspective. I care about Chloe as a person, and about a character who if nothing else, at least acts consistently, in a way where the audience can watch them and understand why they're acting like this. I'll be trying to give context to some of her actions and fill in as many plot holes as I can, as well as giving a glimpse as to how a possible Redemption or Corruption Arc could have gone. So without any further ado, let's dive right in!

Firstly, let's start by laying out some common ground. After the Gabriel Agreste post, I think it's necessary to establish some clear lines as to what exactly we're talking about here. So before anything else, let's look at what we learn about Chloe in Season 1, yeah? Without going episode-by-episode, we generally don't get a good impression of her. Chloe is clearly spoiled by her father, used to always getting her way, and has no problem pressuring others into making that happen. She treats her classmates more like annoyances if not outright minions (Sabrina and on occasion Kim), has little consideration for other people's feelings, and likes appearing superior to everyone else. A pretty bad start, all things considered. She bosses Sabrina around, and we're explicitly told that Chloe often bribes her with her second-hand stuff, or whatever she wants to get rid of. Sabrina clearly doesn't know how to stand up for herself, and Chloe seems perfectly willing to take advantage of her doormat status. She also has the roots for a sweet sweet superiority complex firmly planted, considering how she rejects and humiliates Kim when he tries to confess his love to her. I'll be damned if I ever understand such bad taste, considering how Chloe is generally disliked by the rest of the class, but the point stands. She could have just told him no, even rudely if need be, and left it at that. Instead, she actively chose to humiliate the poor guy. Something similar happened with Nathaniel, whose feelings about Marinette she made public to everyone else for what seems to be entertainment value.

All in all, Season 1 Chloe has all the stereotypical makings of a popular girl from a 2010s American high school movie, including the narcissism, bullying, strong-arming school staff into not punishing these behaviors, inflated ego, and the complimentary minion! Except...Chloe isn't popular. With anyone, actually. Most of the class dislikes and barely puts up with her on a good day. They don't laugh along or jeer at whomever she's giving trouble to. Instead we have several instances where people actively try to either push the teachers into doing something or remove her from a situation where Chloe is causing problems. Think about the filming scenes in Horrificator for example. Chloe is acting like her usual self again, and refuses to allow Marinette to be the lead actress because she'll get to kiss Adrien. A tragedy, I know! Therefore, there's a whole plot to get her out of the room long enough for the scene to happen. People actively consider her at the very least a pain in the rear, and probably someone they just don't even want to talk to.

Obviously this isn't an excuse for anything she does. My point here is that from the perspective of the narrative, even while acting the part of a "Queen B", Chloe reaps none of the benefits, and in fact only serves to make people dislike her more with every episode that passes by. Even Adrien, who I'll circle back to in a second, her childhood friend who has a good opinion of her when he first comes to school, eventually stops trying to defend Chloe's behavior. There are, I think, a lot of reasons as to why she acts this way. Precisely none of them are an excuse or a "get out of jail" free card. Chloe still chooses to behave the way she does, regardless of the motivations.

About Adrien, we know that he and Chloe have known each other for a long while now. She was quite possibly his singular friend during his otherwise relatively isolating childhood, and she's very clearly attached to him. Chloe constantly clings to Adrien and drapes herself over him, and while he seems to find it annoying, there's still never a sense of disgust like with Lila in later Seasons. She's being suffocating, but there is never a connotation of romance here. Still, Chloe does everything she can to keep Adrien close to her, and (in Origins) "teach him how things are" in school. She's the one who got him signed up as a student in the first place, mind you, so she very clearly wants him to be around her. And while Chloe does brag about him being a famous model, she could just...do that without ever actually bringing Adrien out of the house? Clearly that's not the reason why she went through all the trouble to actually get him in the class, because bragging about it would probably go worse if she did it in front of him, or in an environment where Adrien could easily hear about and react to it. Chloe is very possessive of her "best friend" (and only friend, discounting Sabrina), and constantly belittles Marinette for trying to get close to him. Mind you, she doesn't find out about her feelings for Adrien until Season 3 I think. We never see Nino get bullied for befriending him, so what gives?

I'll talk about reasoning later down the line. For now, let's move onto Season 2. Amidst the beginnings of Ladybug handing out Miraculous jewels like candy to her best pals, seriously Season 4 overdid it, Chloe also exists. And during Despair Bear, Adrien finally puts his foot down about her behavior. He tells her that he can't be friends with someone who acts like a bully, and Chloe is genuinely hurt by this, to the point where she does her best to put on a good show and convince Adrien that is capable of not being an ass. Which is actually the case, believe it or not. She holds back the snides, does her best to make casual conversation with the people she considers to be inferior to her (I'll get to that, don't worry), and makes a real effort to keep at it for the sake of their friendship. The reason why she blows up here is made very obvious by the episode itself. Chloe is in unfamiliar territory and clearly reining herself in a lot, which Despair Bear pokes fun of in several back-to-back scenes. She doesn't want to do this, clearly has mutual dislike for the people she's forced to put up with every day and has made up her mind about a long time ago, for the sake of the one person she considers a genuine friend. And mind you, Chloe never uses Adrien for something. She brags about his job in Origins, and preens about their friendship often, but she never takes advantage of him like she does Sabrina. I will get to their toxic friendship in a minute, don't worry, but Chloe chooses not to try doing this with him. Adrien is...oblivious, to put it nicely, and she could easily try and play around that to serve her own goals, but she doesn't. Keep this in mind.

Anyway, she blows up because Armand (also c'mon, if you wanted to make the joke that Chloe doesn't know her butler's name, Jean "insert today's last name" was more than enough, Thomas) keeps lugging her teddy bear and playing pretend with her in a room full of people. I'm sorry, but that may be the most relatable Chloe moment in the whole show. Are you kidding me??? Of course she'd be embarrassed by this! I mean sure, her reaction to the situation is wrong, she shouldn't have screamed at him or threatened the man's job, but Chloe has serious anger management issues. That is obvious, because she acts like this every single day! Why would Armand do this??? She's already way out of her comfort zone by even hosting the party in the first place, surely there's easier ways of reminding Chloe not to be a bitch? Just tap her on the shoulder and say "miss, remember Adrien?" because that's the whole reason this is happening! The teddy bear is completely unecessary! Especially the voice acting! It made me laugh so hard when I first watched that episode but can you blame Chloe for being pissed? Again, she reacted poorly because her self control is comparable to Plagg's when there's camambert in his field of vision! So yeah, it's wrong to scream people's ears off like that, but she was also upset. And she's fourteen mind you!

Anyway, my actual point about Season 2 is that we get to see Chloe's character development. Thank Nooroo, finally a proper arc in this damn show! And we also get to see her family life. Side note, Andre Bourgeois is a spineless coward who I'll be bashing momentarily. But Chloe's mother is horrible! Audrey Bourgeois is blatantly neglectful, if not abusive to her daughter! She treats Chloe the same way Chloe treats everyone else! As disposable, expendable things that don't "deserve" her attention because they're not good enough. Like, if this doesn't give a six year old some hefty trauma along with an inferiority complex, what will??? And the situation becomes even worse as Chloe becomes incresingly desperate during Style Queen, trying again and again to please Audrey by copying her behavior (which she's been doing this whole time) even more intensly, and acting like the entitled, self-absorbed narcissist that her mother is! And this is where we see exactly why Chloe does what she does! Again, none of this excuses her actions, but it does help us understand the behavior. Audrey constantly puts Chloe down and belittles her the same way she does to Marinette...only to later pick the kid that Chloe is jealous of (I will explain this in a second!) to come with her to New York, where Audrey had presumably yeeted herself off to years ago and never bothered to come visit! We already know that she pressured her husband into giving up his love for film to stay with her, maybe even during her pregnancy or after Chloe's birth. Only to promptly vanish and leave him (a person who never grew a spine or managed to stand up to what is undoubtebly a toxic relationship) with her miniature copy. It's obvious that Chloe's barely ever seen Audrey, but she idolizes the woman because that's her mother! Heck, Adrien idolizes Emilie even if she was arguably not a great person (see here) and Chloe is always kicked to the curb for just doing the same!

Audrey is a horrible person and an even worse role model, but when you're five years old and she disappears from your life, is it any wonder that there's a steaming hot pile of mommy issues here? If Chloe has been told by Audrey from the moment she was old enough to understand words that she isn't "exceptional" enough to "deserve" her time, then isn't it obvious why Andre tries and fails to make up for this by always coddling his daughter and giving in to her every whim? He's trying to please her and give Chloe a sense of self-importance that Audrey made near-impossible to develop, and also makes up for his own absence by basically bribing his own child! Not that Andre is innocent in this! If anything, he's even more at fault than Audrey! Because while she flew off into the sunset to fire her twenty-seventh unpaid intern of the week, he was still in Paris with Chloe! Who grew up with him, mind you! And sure, he got elected into office and had a busy job as a single parent! You know what else he did? Crime! Almost everything he does in this damn show is completely illegal! Bribery, blackmail, undue termination of Roger's position as a police officer, who Andre doesn't even have juristiction over mind you (because Paris had the National Police until like 2021-ish if I recall correctly), he's just a corrupt, scummy politian whose ideas (see Megaleech) are harmful to the people he's supposed to be serving and outright motivated by greed! And also, we are explicitly told that he taught Chloe to do these same things! Andre Bourgeois is a total idiot who's probably been committing tax evasion for all we know, and Audrey is a self-absorbed diva who bullies her own child constantly, when she even bothers to go see her! Which is never, unless she needs to be in Paris for some other event related to her job!

Thomas, what the heck do you mean Chloe is evil? Lila is an accomplice to a domestic terrorist, and a psychopath against whom the only protection is the show's PG rating! If Lila could, she'd burn Marinette's house down for shits and giggles my good man! Audrey is everything I just mentioned, Andrey is a corrupt, spineless politician, Tomoe physically abuses her daughter with fucking katanas on the daily, Gabriel Agreste is that domestic terrorist who almost fired every nuclear warhear in the USA by the way! Because that was stupid of the NYC special to do! But he still did it! Plus the genocide in Shanghai! Accident or not, Hawkmoth is still responsible! And later on he also put his son in a room! A rubber room! Thankfully there weren't any rats, as if he needs another OSHA violation! Are you people insane when you say "I don't know why Chloe acts like this"? Have you lost your marbles??? Do you want me to have an aneurysm? Of course a child is going to act the way Chloe does if this is the shit she's been dealing with since Day 0 of her life! Does that make it okay? Absolutely not! But does it mean that she deserved what happened to her canonically? Also no! I'll talk about how the corruption arc could have worked at the end, because they tried and failed to do that, so let's circle back to the "jealous of Marinette" thing from a minute ago, kay?

Note: We're doing this in part 2 because this is closing in on 3k words already. The whole rant is done, no you don't want to know how long it is, I'm just splitting it because nobody will ever read 7.5k words worth of anything on Tumblr dot com.

< next post >

39 notes · View notes