#i hope this made sense fkfkfjfkv i feel like i should have marathoned season 3 to answer this

[ladyofthenoodle]

What do you mean Snake Noir was Cat Noir’s mental health peak?

ok so this question is in response to some tags i left a while ago and i’ve been putting off answering it so sorry it’s so late!!! part of the reason i put it off is i can’t remember whose meta i read originally discussing chat noir’s season 3 development and how snake noir represented him growing from his struggles and insecurities earlier in the season. so sorry to uncredited person that made me think about this initially and whose points i’m about to attempt to summarize.

in season 3, we start to see a greater imbalance between ladybug and chat noir‘s partnership. ladybug isn’t guardian yet, but she’s the one handing out the miraculous and allowed to work closely with fu. even as early as season 2, with syren, we see this affecting him and him becoming more unsure of his place on the team. then, in season 3, two more things happen to really exacerbate this: desperada and reflekdoll. in reflekdoll, he isn’t able to be mister bug without lady noire’s help, while she mostly does fine with his miraculous. in desperada, he fails to use the snake miraculous and hears ladybug say she doesn’t need chat noir. so he’s at a pretty low point.

but then, things start to get a little better. adrien gets his bro team up episode. he tries to move on romantically. he’s not basing his whole self worth on ladybug so much anymore. honestly i need to do a rewatch of season 3 to properly explain this because a lot of this development is subtle but it’s there. things are looking up!

and then, in the finale, ladybug needs him. she’s a mess.

and he gets it together. he picks up all her slack in that battle and he gets his second chance with the snake and he absolutely rocks it once he combines it with the cat! and it’s very symbolic that this battle he does so well in is while he’s wielding a miraculous he failed with before. and honestly after the season 3 finale, he rocks it every time he combines miraculous and he rocks the kwami swap too, so that level up in skill lasts… but as we all know, season 4 pretty much cratered his emotional health. hence snake noir being the peak 😭 shoutout to bunny noir and passion era mister bug though!