A few thoughts on the first half of Miraculous Ladybug season 2 (SPOILERS) · 12:07pm Mar 30th, 2018
Just a few idle musings, mostly about Gabriel Agreste.
Gabriel is...a very complex character.
We have here a man who is very controlled and composed most of the time, whose emotional range skews toward anger and stern disapproval. He doesn't show kindness, tenderness, affection, or other positive emotions easily--but he does feel them.
Emilie's disappearance and the ambiguity of her fate have clearly broken the man, and his desperation to keep Adrien safe stems from genuine love and a fear of losing the last family he has. At the same time, he has overbearing expectations of Adrien and a tendency to want to control every aspect of his son's life. Even so, he's begun to realize, more and more, that his methods of controlling Adrien are leading down a dangerous path--the path to breaking his bonds with his son forever--and he's begun to show more affection and tenderness with Adrien. It's a process, but it's a process that's clearly in...umm...progress.
He is also a very calculating and shrewd man, and ruthless in all his endeavors--which shows most clearly through his actions as Hawk Moth. He unflinchingly endangers himself, Adrien, young children, and all of Paris to further his goals--his one moment of weakness so far is when he began to doubt his own suspicion his son is Chat Noir, and made Gorizilla drop Ladybug so she could save Adrien from falling to his death.
Also, Gabriel seems to suffer from some sort of...dissociation when he invokes his alter ego. While as Gabriel he does occasionally exhibit similar behavior in private, and on rare occasion (see above) we see Gabriel shine through the cowl, for the most part, Hawk Moth is the antithesis of Gabriel--the calm, cold, dispassionate, stern and forbidding Agreste becomes a malevolent, hammy, over-the-top supervillain who revels in behaving like a comic book villain. Even though his endgame is PROBABLY related to the disappearance of his wife and he's a good man at his core, he throws himself passionately into the role he's crafted for himself. Sometimes disturbingly so.
I'll have more to say in coming days--I'm likely to post fresh reviews of all of season 2 to date. For now, I'll sign off with this:
I already hate Luka.
My guess is that when Emilie reappears, what she's going to do first is apply her right knee to his groin for being a moron.
The contrast between Gabriel and his Hawk Moth identity makes him a perfect counterpoint to his own son, even if the characters don't know it.
Both of them put on a front in public to hide their true feelings, and only release their emotions after putting on a mask. There's a quote from somewhere that I can't exactly remember, about how people are more likely to show their true selves when their identities are hidden. I'm pretty sure the quote applied to the Internet in general, but masks are a good allegory for it as well.
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I'm not sure. I've been convinced for some time now that Emilie is the Miraculous holder mistake that Master Fu made originally. It's the peacock miraculous, and even though no one's stated what it does, I have a theory. What if the peacock allows the holder to ensnare the mind of whoever it's used on? If Emilie is the nastier, more evil villain the producers hinted at, what if she used her power to capture Gabriel Agreste's interests for her own personal and financial gain? This would certainly be the "mistake" that Master Fu hinted at.
If something happened, and she realized she was either seriously ill and/or dying, she may have used the power of the peacock to force Gabriel to search the world for the lost Butterfly Miraculous, as its power to create superpowered henchmen might allow Gabriel to create someone to heal her. Failing that, it could be used to create supervillains and force the Ladybug and Black Cat to become empowered.
I've suspected for a while that she's the real villain of this story, and is using Gabriel to save her own life, regardless of what it costs Gabriel in the process.
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That's an interesting theory, and the only flaw in it is that Gabriel has the Peacock Miraculous in his hidden vault, next to Emilie's picture.
I'm reasonably certain Nathalie is going to become Le Paon.
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Well, part of the assumption is that she used the primary power on him, making him fall for her. After that, it probably isn't necessary to reuse it unless she does something that upsets his view of her. It would allow her to effectively control him after even death, turning him into an obsessed supervillain devoted to saving her, at any cost.
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Yeah.....I remember how Bruce Wayne refers to putting on his cowl: "Becoming."
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Good example.
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Of course, he doesn't go to the extreme Superman does. The Big Red S wears street clothes a size too big, slouches and raises his voice an octave when he's being Clark Kent. All the Bat does is put on that mask and hide in shadows.
I want to know if Fu will give Alya the fox because of her decision...
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At this point, my prediction is that the other Miraculous will only be issued on a case-by-case basis until La Paon is active. Once La Paon appears, THEN the others will probably receive their Miraculous permanently.