#am i allowed to tag my opinions again. hiii

[flxfthm]

I don't know if you ever said it before, but do you think Gabriel was a good villain?

mmm i guess the answer is yes because i think he's a good character? and the things that make him a "bad" villain are intentional flaws and weaknesses that make him more human. he's arrogant, short-sighted, and all his wins are attributed to outside help from nathalie, tomoe, or even felix !!! but he's not really meant to be seen as a schemer, as the way he exerts power over people is through his status. as he claims in pretention and as felix highlights in his play, the empire he's built and the resources he has access to make him the most intimidating, it's about "gabriel agreste" as a symbol of influence, who can control people in more ways than one.

he shines the most in S5 as he fully loses it and his dehumanization of adrien reaches ridiculously cruel extremes with the alliance rings, which are one of my personal favorite visual metaphors in the show altogether. it's sort of what i'm getting at, that you can see gabriel increasingly more corrupt with every passing season, and with that he also loses all the plausible deniability he was operating with from the start. the agreste story arc of S1-S5 is ultimately about questioning the consequences of our choices and the power we each hold as individuals, and gabriel is a physical manifestation of our worst possible selves. he's unapologetically selfish from his first to last appearance and even when he seems to come to recognize the results of his insanity, he cowardly leaves marinette to clean up his mess & deal with the aftermath.

while nathalie snapped out of it earlier than him & tried making amends for her actions by doing the bare minimum for adrien with the time she had left, and as felix ended up trading his cynicism for a positive outlook through the power of love, gabriel remained stubborn in his ways and his goal changed from the noble-sounding promise to reunite his family to, like, sticking it to those morally righteous brats as he grew mad with power. like akumas are people possessed by their negative emotions, gabriel is consumed by his regrets without even realizing it, and he's a cautionary tale for marinette to remember so that she doesn't end up like him. felix got to find out for himself pretty quickly how it felt becoming the monster that he thought his father was, that gabriel agreste was, and he immediately changed his path. but for marinette, whose life mirrors gabriel's own, the stakes are much higher and she's yet to come to terms with whether the choices she made in the S5 finale & london special were morally reprehensible after all. even with his physical disappearance, gabriel's control of the media, the people, and his son, have all been passed down to marinette and he still lives on through her. she could arbitrarily sympathize with felix's motivations as they both fought for adrien's sake and eventually their own romantic interests, but this time she's in a situation that would greatly affect and endanger her own life, and that's where the question initially posed to gabriel comes back to her - how far is she willing to go to keep things as they are, and how long will it be before she's also consumed by regrets?

the marinette/felix/gabriel spectrum really fascinates me because these characters have a ton of flaws in common as well as a similar way of thinking, and the distinction only lies in how instilled those mindsets are, and how easy or hard it would be to change them. marinette is always second-guessing, always unsure of herself; felix knows who he is, he has causes he vehemently advocates for but he's willing to make the occasional sacrifice or two if they'll benefit him in the long run, and he'll learn from past mistakes when things blow up in his face - and as for gabriel? he never makes any compromises, never reflects on himself, not once does he try and make an attempt until it's too late to change things.

and the way all of this ties with the show's message definitely makes him an incredible villain to me. thematically, he archieved his purpose in miraculous' first story arc and was an amazing nemesis to the main character. my only real complaints are only about how much more could've been done with these parallels while he was still active as the primary antagonist, or how we were only told about gabriel's past in the last minute, even if it was purposefully hidden. however i'm really excited for lila to succeed him as the theme of lies will surely be the most prominent in the second story arc, and i hope i'm correct in assuming that'll mean gabriel replacing emilie as the entity the narrative revolves around.