#Let us also factor in the fact she gets her core 'melted' and can't use spiritual weapons anymore.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Daughter of delta Yu, show them that you're no fool!

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[jack-of-heartstrings]

Honestly, this was more or less my take, too, except I absolutely think he did/is doing the right thing in both leaving the decision to her and keeping their identities secret. I won't argue that his taking this kind of approach to things can't be a flaw at times, mind you; I just don't think these are examples of those times.

In the case of Ephemeral, there were no less than five ways he could have avoided everything that happened-- four if you consider the first one might have been a lost cause, but still.

(1) He could have tried a lot harder to just talk her out of it. (2) He could have lied and pretended he already used Second Chance to learn Chat's identity without her knowing any differently. (3) He could have ignored her telling him to wait and actually used it just before time ran out; she couldn't have been mad, bc again, she wouldn't know. (4) He could have told her a half-truth that he already knew Chat's identity, either implying it was due to knowing him outside hero work or even admitting he lied during Wishmaker, just only admitting half the lie. (5) He could have completely come clean.

With all that in mind, I know I'm biased toward thinking the best of him in general, but I think it's still pretty fair to say he would have thought of at least one of those options, right? Which means basically the only explanation would have to be "He wanted Marinette to be free to make her own decision on the matter," with a possible side of "respecting Adrien's decision too"?

And I don't... see a problem with that? I feel like I must be misreading what Miraculouspegasus's last post is saying, bc... Luka letting them figure out what they wanted on their own gave both of them maximum agency for the situation presented, and telling anyone Adrien's identity without asking Adrien first would have been revealing it without his consent? Like... yeah with the plan as it was, Adrien didn't know he'd be revealing it to Luka, too, and that's not really ideal... But at least it gave Adrien the choice of whether or not to reveal it in general.

So I don't really see this decision as flawed; I see it as him being humble and respectful enough to not feel like he had any right to make decisions on their behalf.

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Then as far as keeping the secret overall goes, I actually took it as a sign of character development that also stuck true to his core principles, heh. He's always been incredibly honest, even in season 2, speaking exactly what was on his mind without concern for anyone's reaction. In Truth, he was devastated that Marinette refused to grant him the same kind of honesty, but when first hit by the akuma, he did his best to resist, insisting "Truth needs to be shared, not taken by force, Shadow Moth!"

So what we wind up with in Wishmaker is him sticking to exactly that sentiment: he didn't take their secrets "by force", but he doesn't want to rob them of the choice to share willingly, even if he can only preserve that as they perceive it rather than in full, now. At the same time, it also showed he understands now why sometimes lies and secrets are meant to protect people, something he didn't get before.

Now, does this mean it's a perfect situation? Deeeefinitely not lol. The fact that he knows is a huge potential problem, and the fact that no one knows he knows isn't necessarily hurting the risk factor, but it's definitely not helping, either. Would both love it and cry until I melted away in despair if he wound up getting akumatized and used against them both. x'3

Just... given the options, I think he's doing the best thing he can. Telling either of them could create conflicting interest situations, and/or tempt either of them to become much more curious about the other's identity. Telling a third party, like Su-Han, may be debatably smarter in the long run, but would be giving their secrets away without their consent. (Not to mention he has basically no reason to trust Su-Han personally.) The only "good" option would be to somehow wipe his own memory, and given I don't think he has any means to do that...?

Yeh. Keeping it quiet is the best he can really do to try to respect everyone's agency in making their own decisions.

Question: Does anyone actually have an idea for why Luka didn’t speak up about knowing Chat Noir’s identity in Ephemeral, since it was immediately relevant, and that whole plan Marinette came up with was so that Luka could learn it and then pass it on to Su-Han? Like was it just sunk-cost fallacy, such that he was afraid of pissing Marinette off if she found out that he’d lied to her before? Or… actually yeah, I can’t really come up with a lot of other reasons. He never appeared nervous or anxious about keeping it quiet though, so I dunno.