In Defense of Marinette
I like Marinette. While there are many valid criticisms of her writing, the same can be said for literally every other character and she's actually doing pretty well given that she's the main character. After all, in a show where consistent characterization is an ongoing issue, the one with the most screen time will probably be the one who's the biggest victim of the issue.
This is heavily exacerbated by the rule that supposedly governs Miraculous. Namely that, in each story, Marinette must make a mistake. Or, at least, so says the head writer:
I really do not care what this guy says on Twitter or anywhere else. I only care about what's in the show because, if you have to go outside the text to understand the text, then you have no idea how to tell a good story.
However, unlike many of the tweets that I've seen, this one isn't some BS bit of lore. It's a writing rule and it has substantial backing in the text. It's extremely rare to have an episode where Marinette comes out smelling like roses and that's a problem because Miraculous has over 100 episodes. In other words, to follow this rule, the writers have to come up with over 100 ways for Marinette to be wrong so of course she's going to come across poorly. Why would you do this to your main character?
It's extremely common for kids shows to have a "lesson of the day" element to them. Someone always needs to learn something, but I've never seen a show misunderstand the assignment so badly. Learning a lesson is not the same as doing something wrong.
It's been a while since I watched the 2010 version of My Little Pony, but it really leaned into that whole "lesson of the day" thing and it actually knew what it was doing, so I'm going to talk about it briefly to discuss things that Miraculous should have done.
The first thing to note is that MLP had an unambiguous main character - Twilight Sparkle - but Twilight was not the one who learned all of the lessons. She had a pet dragon and a crew of five friends who would, occasionally, be the ones to learn the lesson because there were lots of lessons that simply didn't fit Twilight's character. Instead of warping Twilight to make the idea work (cough cough Ikari Gozen cough), the writers just let someone else have the spotlight for a bit.
This is an excellent way to build out your cast and Miraculous had plenty of opportunities to do it. For example, Lila should not have been Marinette's issue. The fact that Lila hates Marinette could have certainly stuck around, but the one who takes her down and learns to investigate her sources? That should have been Alya. A liar is the perfect enemy for an investigative journalist, but a poor enemy for someone who shines as a battlefield commander and overthinks when she's given too much time.
Another way that MLP would teach lessons was to have someone other than Twilight or the main crew cause the issue that they then had to deal with. This leads to one of the best moments in children's television:
And, frankly? Marinette deserves a moment like this. That poor girl has been through hell and is never allowed to make the right call when it really matters. The show will even completely rewrite its lore to make her fail (see: Strike Back). That is such an awful thing to do to your lead! Shows about female empowerment should include women feeling powerful and, no, Lila and Chloe don't count!
Also, the show is literally about Gabriel taking advantage of people who are upset. You don't need to have Marinette make a mistake to shoehorn in a life lesson. Akumas are life lesson fodder and season 1 actually seemed to get this. I'm not sure why they switched gears to "Marinette is the star and, therefore, must always be wrong."
The final way that MLP taught lessons was to have Twilight do something wrong because having your main character do something wrong is a totally valid way to teach lessons. It just shouldn't be your only way because you know who is always wrong in children's media?
Villains.
They wrote Marinette like a villain.
And a large part of the fandom hates her for it because of course they do.
You're not supposed to like villains.
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Can you guys tell that I like FOPANW?
I’m kind of warming up to Jasmine, not because of her character, BUT BECAUSE SHE’S FUN TO DRAW!!
Her outfit’s cute and has personality, which I respect, and her hair is cut to show she’s wild!!
Basically whenever I don’t have a cardboard cut out idea on how to feel about a character, I measure it on how fun they are to draw, and she’s a solid 8! (Which is a lot since I love to put 7 for everything!!)
I went through this process back in let’s say 2022 when I was watching TOH due to a friend’s persistence, and drew Hunter. Beforehand, yeah he was a fun character, but after? HE JUST BECAME BETTER!!
I don’t know, maybe it’s an artist thing, but the moral of the story is—
There is no moral.
I drew it this because Dev looked SO CUTE in this scene and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to draw him.
It had nothing to do with Jasmine…😖
JUSTICE FOR DEV!! MAKE HIS GOVERNMENT NAME PROVE TO BE TRUE!! GIVE HIM BACK HIS DEVELOPMENT AND SCREEN TIME🥺🥺
Peace!😘
-🤍
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i absolutely DESPISE voltron for not giving hunk enough screen time. he’s a very complex character, and has a lot of potential for an amazing character arc, but they just threw him out. 🙁
please give my sweet beautiful angel more. he deserved better!!!🙏🙏
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Dan got stuck...on a universe..again
( he swears it's happening on purpose and the Old Clock has something to do with this-)
Dan...was stuck- Like stuck in a universe.
He can't create a portal, he can't go to this universe history of timelines and he can't meddle anything, he doesn't like this and neither this universe spirit acknowledging his presence in this world.
Ok good news and bad news
Good news, Clockwork and Danny is already been informed and been trying to find ways to help him out to settle in this universe and found a way to get him out of here.
Bad news, it might take long- and he has to settl-settle... Here in this universe which it's spirit barely acknowledging him as a anomaly, and there's heros here...and some of them..just has problems which is relatable but...Dan is In form of a teenager...well like the empty clone Vlad made when he had been adopted by him..
Now he's been misidentified as some “Chaos lord” or “Witch boy” or “your still so young”
Hey! He never asked, and he's also been kinda adopted by this boy who's taller than him ( he's still at that age💀) with his cat name teekle.
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