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valleyfthdolls · 2 years ago

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GGY is bullshit: an essay which has escaped my drafts thanks to @thatoneautisticfnaffan (why I don’t think Gregory is patient 46)

Trigger warning: discussion of harm to children, trauma, mentions of ableism, and other potentially upsetting horror-typical discussions.

Content warning: long

I’d like to preface this with the fact that it has not been confirmed that Gregory is patient 46. I looked into it, and no, despite what people have said Scott has not outright stated Gregory is patient 46- not in Tales From the Pizzaplex and not in Security Breach. Got that noted? Alright. Because if we bear in mind that not every new theory turns out to be pivotal to canon or even true, I think I can decisively conclude that there is no way Patient 46 is Gregory- something I first argued in a Google Doc I didn’t do anything with in January of 2022. Since I’m stupid and did that on my now deleted school district account having switched districts (I checked, it’s disabled,) I’ll redo it here in the same manner I did it then- breaking down each part of Patient 46’s mannerisms, personality, past and behavior that makes her a far cry from a perfect match for Gregory.

Derailing Immediately- FNAF AR

That being said, I’d like to start with one… weird piece of evidence I found on the fnaf subreddit. A man named “Greg A.” listed in FNAF AR as connected to the company and on the birthday list.

…A birthday list that proclaims this Greg, the third or even fourth known “Greg” in the franchise (if you consider SB and TFTP Gregory two different characters being two variants of the same one) to be forty-four years old.

That one disproves itself, moving on.

Completely Different Personas- CD 2

We are introducing to patient 46 in the second therapy CD, which, by the way, has to be violating these guys’ rights. Regardless, when we meet patient 46, she- as referred to in other languages- is sitting silently in the office, upset about how bright it is. The therapist tells her that when the window is blocked it feels like a cubby hole or cave, indicating that to be the reason patient 46 likes it. Patient 46 doesn’t confirm or deny this, and the therapist is unsatisfied with her lack of a response, and asks if she’s not talking “again.”

Now here’s something you’ll hear me say later in an entire section dedicated to it.

Gregory cannot shut his fucking mouth.

This is not an insult, it’s a statement of fact with an extra swear word added to be haha funny. Gregory speaks faster than he thinks sometimes. Even when it’s to his detriment, he doesn’t have a lot of restraint on what he says.

If he’d stayed quiet at the beginning, he would have been able to simply hide and wait it out. He wasn’t being spoken to, even, but still responded. In fact, when he’s with Freddy, he talks a lot, and expresses any source of distress with seriousness. Gregory is always actively reaching out to him for help, guidance, and support, which tells me he’s never really had any person to provide that given just how heavily he relies on Freddy, and that calls into question him being a therapy patient who’s been to over seventy documented sessions.

But even when Gregory is completely alone, he still talks a lot. He expresses any immediate thought. He talks himself through the whole parts and service section, for one.

The therapist then tells patient 46 that everyone associated with this company gets performance reviews. A, if the therapist is his school counselor like in GGY, she wouldn’t call the school “this company.” B, the wording of this implied patient 46 knows she is getting performance reviews, but not the therapist.

Patient 46 is associated with Fazbear Entertainment in some capacity, seemingly working for them given she gets performance reviews from the company and is familiar with them.

You know who isn’t associated with it in any capacity?

Mr. “Your guest profile is unknown to me, who are you” Gregory.

Logistically, Patient 46 isn’t a Child- CD 4

In the fourth CD, a second therapist has replaced the first, but patient 46 is unbothered by this. The new therapist gets to talking and asks her two things that stand out: not if she considers herself a hacker, but if she knows what the words hacker and phenom mean.

Now, one would suspect from this that patient 46 is a child. However, I did a bit of math. And this is entirely not necessary to prove my point, but I grew up watching 2010s matpat. I’m thorough.

At this point, she has been to 73 days of therapy. If she’s been going daily, this means it’s been just under three months. However, you don’t usually go to therapy sessions daily unless it’s an extreme case, in which case the therapists would not be half as lenient as they are. Usually they’re biweekly. There are 52 weeks in one year, meaning 26 of those weeks she attends therapy. She has been attending therapy for about three years to have racked up 73 logged sessions. Which is possible for a child, under one particular circumstance: they have some sort of early onset mental illness or have undergone a traumatic event. While that can be argued for Gregory, it can’t for patient 46, and it undermines itself. A perfectly healthy and happy child wouldn’t be attending biweekly therapy for three years. An adult who’s displayed concerning manipulative tendencies and claims to have untreated trauma, however? That’s more likely.

The reason, then, that patient 46 is being treated like a child is up in the air, but my speculation makes it a bit of a tragic thing that indicates these therapists are, uh, failures.

Patient 46 may have autism.

The evidence is minor and my reasoning is anecdotal, but hear me out. Patient 46 seems to be nonverbal. She doesn’t speak, ever, and it’s pointed out by her therapists as a constant and recurring pattern. She doesn’t talk at all, and it seems to be that the office’s environment is the reason. The one that stood out from the beginning was that she nonverbally indicates to her therapist that the reason she isn’t speaking one day is that the flowers are too fragrant. This is sensory overload. Being autistic, her brain can’t filter out sensory input and when the flowers smell too strong, it overwhelms her, and she goes nonverbal in response.

Unfortunately, if she is autistic, especially if it’s more prevalent (like being frequently nonverbal), she is more likely to be treated like a child, even in adulthood. Ask any autistic person, or ask me, I have a story of it happening in therapy.

One of my symptoms of BPD is stress induced psychotic symptoms. They first appeared in middle school, and I believed I must have been schizophrenic. After months of fighting to get a psych eval, it came back that I wasn’t schizophrenic, but I was autistic, which I had also suspected. My therapist hadn’t believed me that I was autistic, and while I had previously been “so mature” in her eyes, as soon as the confirmation came that I had autism, she told me my near-psychotic symptoms were just my “overactive, childish imagination.” That was used to describe my symptoms for years, by every adult in my life- my OSDD symptoms, derealization, the return of my stress induced paranoia, it was just my childish imagination, which had never been brought up before. Because I was now autistic, I was no longer mature beyond my years, or even mature enough to understand anything about my own brain. I was a child with an overactive imagination and no crayons. I was a child.

And my autism went undetected for 12 years. In the case of someone whose autism had a clearly visible impact on their life from the outside, they would be treated even more childish. Disabled and mature do not coexist in the eyes of others, not even in the eyes of fucking psychologists. Back to patient 46, having “lower functioning” symptoms, she would be seen as inherently less mature than others her age.

Also worth noting is that it’s not likely at all that patient 46 is in for her potential autism. She is undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy, which is used for conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, etc. It’s the traditional “therapy” people think of, but it’s not all that there is to therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy is not often used to help with autism because it’s not effective unless the patient is experiencing a mood disorder or something similar- especially anxiety. Therefore, patient 46 being a child doesn’t add up from a logistic standpoint- the only reason a happy child without any mental health issues or trauma would be in therapy for years would be for the autism discussed above, but she wouldn’t even be in CBT like we see her in.

The more likely scenario is that her therapists simply don’t see her as mature, likely as a result of a listed diagnosis or disability like autism, even though she is an adult.

Canonically, Patient 46 isn’t a Child. (Gregory Most Certainly is, and a Traumatized One at That)- CD 6 & 8

In the next CD, the therapist decides she would like to talk about patient 46’s childhood trauma without giving her a say in it, something she also does to Vanessa- she just sucks bad as a therapist. Although the story sounds possibly reminiscent of Gregory’s backstory- “what happened to your parents, and you, was tragic-” I don’t think she’s talking to Gregory at all, not only for reasons that will come up later as I try to stay focused on a linear progression of evidence, but also for two other reasons.

Firstly, she refers to the whole situation as though it’s all over and done. Both here and later on she refers to patient 46’s childhood as a thing of the past. Patient 46 no longer is a child, and everything that happened when she was a child is history. Gregory, however, is a child, actively affected by his situation, and it would be unproductive and outright incorrect to talk about his childhood that he’s still living and trauma that is still a prevalent and completely unresolved part of his life this way.

Secondly, she claims that patient 46 spends a lot of time by herself- which, Gregory may too, being that he’s fucking homeless and legally nonexistent, I know- but also that she’s good at self talk. This is… not what self talk means. That refers to your internal monologue, good self talk means giving yourself kind and positive messages. You’d think a therapist would know this. What the therapist means is patient 46 is an introspective person, who’s good at looking inside herself and making sense of her thoughts and feelings.

This is absolutely not Gregory, ok? First of all, Gregory is like, eleven? Maybe? He’s a kid, and a kid whose brain is developing and whose emotions are beyond his understanding because he’s… a kid. Kids at that age aren’t going to be able to sort out their feelings, especially not about a major life-altering trauma. It would be, again, unproductive and completely incompetent of a therapist to expect a kid who lost his whole life to be able to do that.

Furthermore, I have reason to believe Gregory specifically isn’t good at making sense of his emotions. He tends to react to things like he’s angry when he’s really scared- he complains, gets frustrated about irrelevant problems, and even outright yells at Freddy. This happens as a result of anxiety triggering anger as a self defense response, and is a big reason people act angry when they’re afraid. However, he doesn’t seem to know that he’s scared, which to me indicates he doesn’t have a close understanding of his own feelings.

Roughly two weeks after this session, the therapist wants to know if patient 46 has written down what made her feel the way she did about what happened in her youth, and we are given the information that she said she felt “sad and scared.”

First of all, a stereotypical answer, and one that hints that she isn’t telling the truth. Second of all, Gregory is not going to easily be able to admit he feels sad and scared about anything. He never even admits he’s scared through the six hours he’s being tracked down by a serial child murderer. And if he’s sad- that’s a whole other issue. There are signs through the game, the way he doesn't want to let go of Freddy, the way he runs away crying in the ending where he leaves the Pizzaplex even though nothing is chasing him. The way he becomes more vulnerable over time around Freddy. The way that any time he is sad or hurt is because he has lost Freddy, and he is alone. It all reads as a deep loneliness that adds up with him being an orphan. Not addressing sadness or fear like this allows him to be defensive, to protect himself, and that’s what he does. He wouldn’t be able to get an easy answer that he was sad and scared about the source of 90% of this fear because he holds back those feelings and doesn’t even recognize them. He never addresses or really even feels his fear. The one exception is the disassembled ending, and that’s when he’s literally cornered by the murderer trying to put his face on a missing poster and has absolutely zero means of self protection.

Patient 46 is Desensitized- CD 13

After a few weeks where patient 46 seemed to be skipping therapy, she returns to meet a fourth therapist. This therapist informs her she’s been told to discuss the disappearances of two of her previous therapists, and the confirmed death of the third.

It doesn’t seem as though they suspect patient 46 did anything- not yet, at least, given how quickly the therapist stops discussing it. But while the therapist does say she “has to” tell patient 46 one of her previous therapists was found dead and doesn’t want to upset her, when patient 46 isn’t upset by the “news,” the therapist decides it’s fine to go right on ahead and tell her that her corpse was horribly mangled by what appeared to have been machinery.

These are not things you tell a child, and again, Gregory is a child.

However, patient 46 is also notably unbothered, neither the news nor the description of the body upsets her, and her therapist calls that out. Most likely, patient 46 saw it happen or at least caused it, and was probably unbothered then too. It’s heavily suggested, after all, that she is the cause of the deaths.

Compare this again to Gregory, who sees the exact same thing happen to Vanny.

Gregory does have one line that always struck me as something a kid shouldn’t say so comfortably- “okay, but you’d better be careful moving around. I don’t want to be crushed and twisted into a meat pretzel.” While the people I was playing with were amused by this line, I found myself… a little horrified. Gregory spoke so casually about such a gruesome fate, it made me think that he was from an environment where his wellbeing, safety or even life was at risk to the point he’d grown desensitized to the idea, the thought always on his mind.

What he isn’t desensitized to, however, is harm to others. He’s upset by the idea of the disappearances that are happening and specifically that they won’t stop. He’s worried for Freddy- an animatronic- when he’s in a weakened state. And when Vanny is attacked?

If he even knew Vanny was a human, I don’t think he thought through what it meant to call for the STAFF bots to disassemble her. It was a spur of the moment reaction paralleling what she’d said to turn the bots on Freddy, and one that Freddy had suggested. The realization seems to set in when they corner Vanny. He covers his face to avoid seeing it, and runs away in horror. It’s a horrific thing to bear witness to, something you can’t unsee. And Gregory’s obvious fear shows that. Bear in mind: if Gregory was really secretly an evil murderer, he has no reason be hiding it right now. He could stand contently and watch her get dismembered alive, the only witness to his behavior is about to die, but he doesn’t. This is a consistent issue with this theory. If Gregory is lying to further some malicious plan, he keeps up the “act” when he has no one to fool. When he’s alone with his own thoughts, he drops no facade, no different side is revealed- it isn’t a facade, it’s his real life and feelings.

Gregory’s Utter Technological Mediocrity- CD 14

If there’s one thing GGY and patient 46 have in common aside from fucking everything, it’s that they’re both unusually good with computers. They can both hack into the pizzaplex’s systems, patient 46 does it multiple times and GGY can’t even be traced. Damning evidence that Gregory is GGY and patient 46?

No.

Gregory isn’t that good with technology. He’s worried to use the maintenance thing at first because it “looks complicated” even though it’s essentially simon says with spoken instructions. The only real hacking we see from him is putting a magnet on an ATM with a big red sticker saying not to put magnets on it that he can even find a message telling him to put a magnet on to mess it up. He’s far from a tech wizard, and really it’s about as much skill as you’d expect from a kid his age.

Plus, you’d think he’d be able to dismantle the enemy animatronics for good, or at least more efficiently, if he was some master of technology. Or get them to stop attacking him by hacking them. Or even do something GGY does and hack his entry pass to turn it into a security badge to allow him to get wherever he needs instead of endangering his life running around for the individual passes for hours. But nope.

Moving on.

Gregory Can’t Even Lie, Let Alone Manipulate Several Adults- CD 15 & 16

These last two sound like I’m just roasting Gregory. I’m not, I’m dead serious about this.

As revealed in the last two tapes, patient 46 has been manipulating someone else through encoded messages- if I had to guess, it’s Vanessa, who absolutely is not distressed when around Gregory- and has been lying about her trauma from the beginning.

As I covered earlier, if Gregory’s homelessness was a lie, it’s far too convincing, and he keeps it up way too long, literally causing his own death in the bad ending. It also doesn’t account for the clear emotional distress he experiences related to these supposedly fake traumas.

Furthermore, there’s one specific thing that can ONLY be explained by Gregory being homeless for real.

Throughout the game, Gregory hides from the animatronics in lockers, trash bins, carts, strollers, and Freddy. Thing is, he could really only feasibly fit into three of those. Strollers are made for babies, and Freddy’s stomach hatch is not big enough for a normal kid, it’s literally for cake and piñatas. The only way Gregory could fit in there is either if he’s used to cramping in spots like that for safety, or if he’s underweight and probably short for his age, both of which become possible and even likely explanations when you consider that Gregory has been homeless for god knows how long and is probably malnourished.

Not to mention, we meet a major plot hole here. The last therapist finds out about patient 46’s lies by checking her records. Gregory, lying or not, is legally nonexistent. What fucking records are being checked? All she would have is what he’s said.

However, more importantly, to be that successfully manipulative requires a lot, well, skill, in lying and tricking others. Knowing what buttons to push, how to twist the truth. Gregory doesn’t know this.

I don’t know if it’s inexperience, lack of skill or a mental block against lying, but he cannot. We’ve finally come back around to it:

Gregory can’t keep his mouth shut.

Through Security Breach, Gregory can upgrade Freddy with three parts- Chica’s voice box, Monty’s claws, and Roxy’s eyes. The only one Freddy suspects to be from his friends is Chica’s, which he knows immediately. But when he asks Gregory to tell him what happened, Gregory gives him a nondescript, obviously falsified half-truth. He speaks slowly, thinking through every word, deliberately and obviously leaving out any trace of his involvement, and even pretends to not know the word for “trash compactor” when relaying the story- an obvious indicator of a lie, trying to pretend you know as little as possible. When asked if she’s okay, he doesn’t even lie either. It would literally be easier to blatantly lie and say “yeah, she’s fine” than to give any semblance of the truth. Instead, he offers a half-reassuring answer: “she’s… still functional.”

When Freddy gets Roxy’s eyes, thing is, Gregory had a perfect cover up and way out. Even though Freddy knew that he had just been at the raceway where Roxy was, and you’ve already stolen one part, he doesn’t even THINK to suspect these may have come from an.. illicit source. If Gregory simply had thought through his words for a second, and not said anything, Freddy never would have known. Instead, he basically told Freddy outright that he took them from Roxanne. He doesn’t try to back down, either, and instead draws another half-truth. “There was an.. accident in the raceway.” And technically it WAS an accident. Roxy jumped onto the track and Gregory swerved. And just like he says, “nothing seems to stop her.”

While the realization isn’t entirely there with Monty, this is the one time Gregory doesn’t stick his foot in his mouth and give away the truth for no reason. But even so, he hints at it- when Freddy says he can break through gates just like Monty does, Gregory responds “exactly like he did.”

Gregory, for whatever reason, struggles with lying. He’s terrible at it. But patient 46 can lie and manipulate multiple psychologists for three years without any issue.

I Hate These Books- GGY Wiki Summary Lightning Round

You’re gonna have a hard time convincing me Gregory is 12. It can probably be done, but. As I mentioned he can fit into strollers made for babies and hatches made for cake. This one is minor I just needed to say it.

There’s a weird incongruence between GGY and game!Gregory, in personality, skill sets, actions and motivations. GGY just feels like a weird mesh of Gregory and patient 46.

I know the last therapist tells Vanessa that she works with a lot of places, including schools, but… school counselors don’t do that. They work at schools. Therapists will work with schools when they have a patient at that school, but that is a totally different situation from a school counselor. It absolutely does not make sense for the therapists to all just be school counselors. School counselors don’t even do regular therapy- Cawthon, you are thinking of a therapist.

If Tony knew Greg’s real name why wasn’t he the immediate suspect for GGY? This plot feels inherently flawed.

Why the hell were the school counselors meeting with the students alone in the middle of the night? This plot feels inherently flawed.

GGY has a known presence in the Pizzaplex, has records, and owns a guest pass. Guess who doesn’t? Gregory.

No fucking way is this how they’d make a big reveal like this. That’s bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

Everything this Kid Does is a Fucking Fear Response- the Part Where I Psychoanalyze FNAF Characters

OHH I’ve been ACHING to talk about this. Gregory is a character so defined by his fear, driven by a survival instinct and the fact that he is a child who doesn’t want to die.

As I’ve covered, Gregory shows signs of both anger displacement and anxiety manifesting as anger for self defense. The reason anger issues are common in PTSD is because it stems from fear and anxiety. Gregory seems so grumpy because he's scared, and looking for the pattern in when he shows serious frustration, annoyance or anger this becomes very apparent.

However, fear seeps into everything else Gregory does. When he begins to doubt he can even make it to the exit alone once Freddy isn't there to help. The shouting, genuinely upset tone he says he hates the map bot in. Him trying to reach out to Freddy every time he feels he's in crisis. The anger thinly veiling distress and terror at the constant threats to his life. The way he stutters a bit when he talks to himself. The gasping, heavy breaths you can hear from him whenever he's hiding, uneven and shaking, sometimes even sniffling. The genuine panic with which he addresses every threat, whether anyone is around or not- solidifying it is not an act- and the way he tries desperately not to let it overtake him. The fact that you can hear him stifling a scream as Chica drags him into the dump. He may be no crying child, but the constant sense of "I am going to die" he carries is absolutely a deep, life-threatening fear, and it follows him everywhere. And when we see all of that, so clearly, I'm going to have a real hard time believing he was secretly the villain all along.

#fnaf #fnaf theory #five nights at freddy's #fnaf sb #fnaf gregory #security breach #tales from the pizzaplex #long post #un fucking believably long post #onyx talks too much #like way too much #60 fucking paragraphs

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yolowritter · 5 months ago

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In Offense to Wang Fu and Su-Han Part 1: Whinny chicken leg!

Hello there everyone, and welcome to another post where we bash Miraculous characters over the head with a steel chair! Well, their writing in most cases, but Fu is different! If there is one adult in this show that has genuinely almost drove me insane, it's this man! Even Su-Han, I can sort of understand! I hate him just as much, but I kinda get where he's coming from. So today, I've got a rant to explain what role they are supposed to be fulfilling in the show, why both of these "wise mentors" fundamentally fail to do so, and why I personally dislike their characters to the point of seething hatred, comparable only by the kind I feel for Tomoe Tsurugi! I'll get to her and a few other adults I have a bone to pick with in future posts, but nobody, and I mean nobody is safe from me! Today we focus on the analysis of "mentor characters", their intended role in a story, and why Wang Fu and Su-Han make the top-10 list for the worst mentors in fictional history! Anyway, before I start losing my marbles again, let's all make sure we're on the same page when it comes to Fu and his "character" in Miraculous Ladybug.

First off, it's important to give context as to the man's backstory and how exactly he ended up Guardian of the Miraculous! I'll be taking most of this information from Seasons 2 and 3 of the show without naming individual episodes, since everything pretty much blends together for his story. So, in his early life, Fu was born and grew up in a rural village presumably near Tibet, considering he was at some point selected to become a Guardian of the Miraculous by Su-Han and the Order. Now, I will elaborate on this later, but for the record, I will be first when it comes to bashing him and his organization for their short-sighted practices and arbitrary rules. Believe me, I will! But none of what they do absolves Fu of his own failures as a mentor to Ladybug and Chat Noir. Anyway, Fu was selected as a child by the Guardians, a supposed great honor that forced him to abandon his family and home. I don't remember if an exact age was stated in the relevant episodes, but he must have been a very young child at that time. His training was harsh, and Fu was practically considered an outsider, scorned by his fellow trainees and delegated to the duties of a modern-day unpaid intern. Sweeping the floors, general chores, etc.

We have little information on the Order's structure, but it's easy to see how Wang Fu was on the lowest possible rung of the proverbial ladder, even amidst his fellow Guardians-in-training. He was apparently considered a failure yet stayed nonetheless, fulfilling his duties and pushing forward with his training. Even the Grand Master of the Order calls him "whinny chicken leg" and a "failed disciple". As an aside, if Reverse!Fu is the Supreme like people theorize, that's an awesome villain backstory! Point is, Wang Fu very much did not like being a Guardian. Still, it's important to mention that he did his best! there are a lot of reasons as to why the Temple and the Order both Fell, but it's obvious to us that Fu blames himself for that catastrophe even almost two centuries after the fact! He's clearly dedicated to his assigned purpose as a Guardian, and wracked by guilt for his part in the Order's destruction. All in all, Fu is an honorable man who was pushed into a role he never wanted, burdened with responsibility and scorned by all those around him. He is undoubtebly a victim of abuse and the last bastion protecting the entire human race from whomever may decide to use the Miraculous and their godly powers to become an absolute, unstoppable power. Wang Fu is a survivor, striving to keep everyone safe even in the face of fundamental loneliness, and tending to the Kwami as his Masters once did. I honestly very much like his backstory, and admire him for sticking to his own principles instead of misusing the Miraculous for personal gain.

Now let's see why none of this fixes any of his fundamental faults as a mentor to Ladybug and Chat Noir. Notice I said faults, not flaws. Those are different, and present in every character within a story. Flaws are necessary for complexity, building a multi-dimensional and deep character that doesn't end up as a cardboard cutout or a Mary Sue. Even the shows titular protagonists have flaws, a whole mountain of them! And that's very good in my opinion! In fact, Fu's backstory perfectly explains his cautious attitude, borderline paranoia and constant insistences on secrecy. Believe it or not, I actually like that about his character! Unfortunately...Wang fails to actually learn from his experiences, despite how badly they torment him. Guilt wracks every fiber of his being, yet he repeats the exact same mistakes of his own teachers. The result? A young, untrained Guardian left alone in the world, as the last bastion of humanity and desperately fighting to keep the Miraculous away from a madman who wishes to misuse them for his own personal gain! A young girl burdened by a power she never asked for, forced to give up her once-normal life in the service of the Greater Good. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, striving to protect everyone under the guise of Ladybug, and close to being crushed under the weight of responsibility! Sound familiar? I sure hope it does!

In a harrowing twist of irony, every decision and action that Wang Fu makes ultimately dooms his own apprentice to the very same fate that he was once subjected to! Admittedly, some of these choices serve to keep the status quo from a meta perspective, since "the show must go on" and all that. But Fu had both the experience and the years of self-reflection necessary to at least know what not to do when taking two young heroes under his care. And if we take Fu at his own word, he's already "gotten it wrong once before". It irks me that we still don't know what this line means, and I do hope we find out because it could make for an amazing flashback story, but anyway. From this, we know that Fu has had the opportunity to learn from his mistakes. And...to his credit, that isn't entirely false. After all, he does test both Adrien and Marinette, who perform an act of kindness at their own expense without a second thought, and correctly judges them worthy of the responsibility that comes with bearing a Miraculous. But he also makes mistake after mistake, even when red flags should have been raised specifically because Fu himself was on the other side of these very problems once!

Let's go through the basics, shall we? Fu is extremely hands-off when it comes to Ladybug and Chat Noir's fight with Hawkmoth. I obviously understand the need for secrecy, and I'm not expecting a 186 year old man to suit up and fight. Once again, Fu does try, and only picks others because he recognizes his own lack of ability to act as he once did. But after giving the kids time to adjust in Season 1, Fu should have revealed himself to both Ladybug and Chat Noir. The only reason Marinette ever learns he exists in the first place, is because Tikki finds the missing Grimoire and instructs her Holder on how to return it. If the Volpina mess hadn't happened, Fu would have presumably continued to hide away, until eventually deciding that he should step in. But...knowing what we know and seeing how cautious he is, Fu's entire M.O. can be accurately described as too little, too late. This deals mainly with his treatment of Adrien in S3, but also is a general truth. Nothing Fu does to help the kids comes at the right time, despite the fact that he does his best. Sometimes his best just isn't enough, because he never acts in time.

Several points can be made as to how this was necessary, and to act rashly would be a security risk...but to not act and allow problems and uncertainty to fester is the very reason why the Order fell in the first place! Fu had a first-hand experience with being on the receiving end of this treatment from Su-Han and the other Masters. So why does he make the exact same mistake? Why not allow Marinette to inform her partner that they have a safety net, and there exists someone who they can go to for help and advice? Mind you, Ladybug feels that she can't tell Chat Noir, and not from a place of safety concerns. Fu has secrets, and it simply isn't her place to tell without his permission. Marinette doesn't do anything wrong here, it's Fu who places the kids in a bad situation that breeds mistrust. Look what this evolves into! An entire Season-long arc with Adrien feeling like he isn't wanted anymore, to the point where he willingly gives up his position as Ladybug's partner after being kept out of the loop for months by that point! Fu could and should have nipped this problem in the bud immediately, by at the very least sitting down with the two and offering to listen.

Wang Fu is meant to be a mentor. There are many examples in fiction I could use, such as Uncle Iroh or Obi-Wan Kenobi. I won't get into it here, but you know what every proper mentor does? They are there for the student. It is a mentor's sole obligation to nurture and teach their desciple to the best of their ability, to listen to their troubles and guide them through hardships. Sometimes a hands-off approach is necessary to avoid coddling and sheltering a student, therefore making them dependent and turning the mentor into a crutch. But Fu...just doesn't try to teach. There's many ways to wave this away or excuse it with "trauma" and "bad experiences", yet his own hardships at the Temple of the Guardians should be the reason why Fu adamantly refuses to stay out of it! If anything, Wang should be in the thick of it, offering tea and a listening ear to help Adrien deal with the stress Gabriel puts on him! He should be there to guide Marinette through her feelings of insecurity and anxiety, to gently remind her that she's been chosen for a reason, and he has faith in both of them! Fu already has the means to get into close proximity with both Ladybug and Chat Noir, yet never utilizes them to perform even the most basic duties a mentor worth their salt should be! His crippling loneliness and burden of responsibility ought to push him to alleviate those negative emotions from the children under his care, but he never does this! Not once!

Fu only acts when it's absolutely necessary, and by then the damage has arguably been done! It's only a matter of time until Adrien starts feeling like he isn't needed, or until the cracks of the kids' partnership begin to show! As their teacher and instructor, it's Wang's job to help deal with these problems! But evidently, he keeps all the cards close to his chest. He's overly secretive, never provides even the most flimsy excuse of a support system, and fundamentally fails to keep them safe! He is the one who put Marinette and Adrien in mortal danger! It's because of his choice to give them their Miraculous that Adrien has died dozens of times by this point! it's because of him that Marinette is overworked and burdened by the weight of responsibility, and Fu doesn't do the bare minimum to help! He isn't there, only tells Marinette about his secrets when they are absolutely needed, and doesn't allow for Ladybug and Chat Noir to properly co-operate, because Fu's own decisions keep their partnership from being equal in the first place! There is an entire separate rant I could go into here just for how he's been treating Adrien during the show's runtime, but suffice it to say, I am pissed!

Fu is an adult! He is the one responsible for all of Marinette and Adrien's double-life problems, because he's the one who selected them for the role! Despite trying to help, Fu doesn't ever manage to offer even meager guidance, on the account that he doesn't want to! It isn't hard to just tell Ladybug that she or Chat Noir should show up at a certain day and time for a conversation. It isn't hard to ask how the kids are holding up, or how he can help take off some pressure! It isn't hard to be there, but he never is! The only times where Fu actually helps instead of being a glorified "select your powerup" videogame cutscene are when he wants to appease Adrien or needs Marinette's help to translate the Grimoire! Wang never even acknowledges any of the myriad of problems that our protagonists are battling with, even though a five minute conversation with them or even their Kwami could inform him about this! So yes, Wang Fu tries! But in the end, Su-Han is -and I never thought I would say this- partially right in his assessment of Fu! The man is a coward, because he's scared of admitting his own faults, never mind confronting his guilt and fear! As an adult, and especially a Guardian, he has a responsibility to at the very least prevent the demons that plague him from being passed on to the next generation! Fu could have let the Guardians' faults die with him, yet he passed on every last bit of self-doubt, confusion and weight on the shoulders of the apprentice that he also failed to prepare for her role! Marinette was arguably the one doing more work than Fu, and a far more responsible, respectable, and dedicated Guardian than her pathetic excuse of a Master! And as a truly wise man once said, Do or Do Not! There is no Try!

There's even a really easy way to fix this! In fact, Thomas would have to change nothing about this man's backstory and actions to make him ten times better, and I'm baffled as to why it never crossed his mind! Just...make Fu bitter. He was heckled and borderline abused by Su-Han and the other Masters at the Temple, burdened with a duty he clearly didn't want. And yet...he's the last member of the Order. Every single one of those old mentors are dead, and it's all his fault! Or that's what Wang believes anyway. He blames himself, so he keeps the last relic of the Guardians safe out of guilt, holds onto the great weight that is his duty because there is no one else. Maybe his mistake, the one time he got it wrong, was when Fu had made a friend. A person he trusted, who wormed their way into his good graces by listening to his troubles, by letting the old man slowly begin to open up again. Think a character like Lila for example. This person is a Miraculous Holder, for one reason or the other. There's plenty of historical events to warrant one in the last hundred seventy years. Fu tentatively gives out a Miraculous to an adult, as Su-Han had insisted was good and proper, tries to stick to his teachings and do things by the book. Slowly but surely, he feels less alone, instructs this person in the Old Ways...perhaps considers it's time to retire. But then it's revealed that they've been after the Box all along! They only craved the power of the Miraculous, and Fu was forced to fix his mistake once again! Mind you, this could be done through a vague allusion and a two-minute flashback sequence. Not like Thomas bothered to give us anything else for the Guardians...

Irrespectively of this plotline, Fu is bitter at the time of Origins. He's done his job for almost two centuries, and been repeatedly hunted down for it. The only real reason why he protects the Miraculous anymore are the Kwami themselves, who are his only friends. Then in Origins, he still tests Marinette and Adrien. At the end with Wayzz, he says that he hopes again, for the first time in a while. As for his tendency to never act in time? He purposefuly holds out till the last moment, because he doesn't want to be doing any of this. Maybe he eventually feels guilty for dragging children into this fight, maybe he doesn't share the Guardians' secrets because he hates what their supposed training did to him. Fu is in essence trapped and duty-bound, battered and broken by the many years that have passed by...until Ladybug comes along. A bright girl that reminds him so much of his old self, who Fu hesitantly decides to take on as an apprentice. But he's never taught anyone before. He was widely known as the Temple's failure. How can he, a talentless old man who those great Masters of the Order never once praised...possibly become an instructor? Fu lacks self-confidence, he hates asking Marinette's help because he should be able to translate the Grimoire's metaphors on his own...and he has very little to offer in terms of knowledge. It instantly becomes a story that gives him incredible depth as a man who believes himself unable to help, yet still trying! Fu doesn't hesitate to help because the plot says so, he just doesn't think that he can! Take this in whichever direction you want, it's much better than canon I promise you.

In conclusion, Fu...greatly annoys me. But then again, I suppose there is a reason why he ended up this way. A cowardly, secretive old codger with no ability to look past his own failures Fu may be...but he isn't at fault for what happened to the Guardians themselves. Oh, no no no! That mountain of responsibility goes directly on the shoulders of Su-Han, and his utterly repulsive excuse of an institution! But...this post is getting long, so we'll look at him in part 2! It's coming in the next couple days, but feel free to drop your thoughts below or shoot an ask my way! These posts are meant to open up discussions after all! Anyhow, I'll see you all next time, but until then, Stay Miraculous everyone!

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