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yolowritter · 4 months ago

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In Defense of Alya Césaire

Hello there everyone, and welcome back to the source of my insanity! Sorry for being away awhile, final exams have been a serious pain. But I'm finally free, so this series continues! And this time we're talking about the greatest detective in all of Miraculous! Creator of the Ladyblog, the girl who out-Sherlocked the Holmes, and local reporter extraordinaire...Alya Césaire! I'm actually going to take a stance on this for once, she gets far more hate than she deserves. Sure, Alya isn't perfect, but there's a disturbing trend in this fandom where people tend to blame her for what the writing has Alya do, even if it's not how she as a character would react to a situation. So today, we're going to analyze our favorite reporter's character, look at her flaws, and determine how much (if any) of the Alya Hate is warranted in this show. Anyway, let's just get started before I lose my patience!

First things first, it's worth establishing exactly what we're talking about today. I'll be putting a much bigger emphasis on Alya's relationship with Marinette than her general character actions, since that's where (from my personal observations) most of the dislike for her stems from. Rena Rouge/Furtive will still be talked about, but the focus here is how Alya acts with her best friend. I don't think she needs any kind of introduction, but we should still establish a baseline for her personality and character. In the beginning, she's introduced as the classic "best friend" character. Alya is Marinette's best friend, always running around with her or getting our beloved heroine into crazy situations. She's there to support and help Marinette with anything from babysitting, to confessing her feeling for Adrien, and also the occasional crime! Because what are best friends for if not to help you steal your crush's phone? Alya is a fun character that allows Marinette to bounce a lot of her schemes off of, and generally there in a supportive role. They are great friends, and it's always fun to see them together on screen.

Alya is also a superfan of the heroine Ladybug. Who, in case you've been living under a rock, is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Her very best friend! Shocking, I know! How could Thomas possibly use the classic trope of "hero with a reporter bff from who they hide their secret"? It's such a riveting writing choice! Nonetheless, this actually works really well with Alya's character. Her hyperfixation on Ladybug often puts her in interesting (or dangerous) situations that create conflict for our heroine to solve. See Pharaoh for example, where Alya is so focused on "the scoop" that she keeps trying to interview the villain even as she's being held hostage! At least one can appreciate the confidence. All in all, Alya exists to compliment Marinette's character as a fun, cheery, career-driven and sometimes reckless best friend.

Nothing of much note happens in Season 1, as most the episodes follow a villain-of-the-week format, and not all of them focus on Alya. However, her detective work continues in the background. Some honorable mentions are Pharaoh, where she correctly deduces that Ladybug must go to their school because of the unique history book, and of course Lady Wifi, since that's the point of the episode. She even guesses Chat Noir's identity on accident one time! But despite all of her clearly dedicated theory crafting, Alya's tendency to run headfirst into trouble doesn't just stop at akumatized villains. She often gets overly excited about her reporting, and sometimes this willingness to verify her theories can get her in hot water. Not to mention that she's extremely rash when it comes to anything Ladybug-related. She tends to jump through logical hoops when brainstorming, and doesn't really give much critical thought to the validity of information on the heroine. Which...brings us to Lila Rossi. It always comes back to her, doesn't it? All roads lead to Rome, and all Season 3 character conflict leads to Lila.

For those unaware, I made another post about her in general, which you can find here. I won't re-hash what I said about Lila's introduction to the series, but it becomes immediately obvious to the audience that she might just be a liar. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Alya. Aside from the well-known condition of braincell-vanishing that Lila's presence in a continental radius tends to cause, Alya is additionally affected by her bs. This once again ties in to Alya's...obsession over Ladybug. I won't call it unhealthy, but her hyperfixation and overeagerness to learn the slightest details are absolutely a negative trait which clouds her judgement constantly throughout the series. Now, Alya is a teenager at this point. Nobody is expecting her to act like a professional reporter when a friend comes up to her and claims to be friends with her idol. Critical thinking isn't exactly Alya's strong suit; she tends to tackle problems far more directly than Marinette. And I actually really like that about her, because these two are made to complete each other from a character perspective. Alya oftentimes doesn't think enough before jumping the gun, and Marinette always overthinks and spirals into impossible scenarios. Alya is needed to groundher best friend, and Marinette should be there to give her reporter buddy the occasional reality check.

All of this works perfectly as setup for the Season 3 character conflict between Marinette and Lila! it makes sense that Lila would try to get in Alya's good graces and slowly drive a wedge in their friendship, causing more and more drama by manipulating Alya into surrendering to her worst tendencies of operating on assumptions. It's an excellent opportunity for a character arc where Alya slowly comes to realize she's being too hasty, and that "a reporter must always double-check their sources" isn't just a phrase to be parroted, but instead genuine advice for how to operate. And honestly, I think that she would be doing this, albeit slowly...if only the show gave her a chance. But unfortunately, this where the infamous writing problems swoop in to take this beautiful potential and kick it off the nearest cliff!

For example, in the episode "Ladybug", Lila tries to manipulate Marinette's friends and teachers to get her expelled from school. This ties into the Lila post I mentioned beforehand, and I make a big deal of the episode there. But after that debacle of incompetence on the teachers' behalf, Alya tries to prove Marinette's innocence by collectiong evidence that her best friend isn't guilty. To her credit, she immediately thinks of lifting finger prints from Lila's locker, but is unfortunately said evidence-filled surface gets cleaned just before Alya can get to it. She's on the phone with Marinette at this time, who insists that Lila is evil and framed her. To Alya's credit, Marinette doesn't exactly provide concrete proof here. It's not unreasonable to attribute her insistence to being upset about the whole situation, and Lila was directly involved and the very reason why Marinette got expelled. I don't blame Alya for trying to verify this before taking her friend's word for it, because even if Marinette is right, nobody will believe them without evidence. My problem with this episode is that this should have been the turning point for Alya's opinion of Lila. As a reminder, Lila admits to framing Marinette and lying about the whole thing, even if her "lying disease" excuse is ridiculous. The show never clarifies how well-known this "condition" is, but I'm fairly sure it isn't brought up again after anyway.

What should have happened here is that this whole situation raises a big, waving red flag in Alya's head. She's a reporter, and finding out the truth is her job. She chases after danger for reliable news and prides herself on being a trustworthy source. So why then, is there never any mention or indication that she stops taking Lila's word for things? All across Season 3 we have moments of Lila passive-aggressively turning what is a legitimate question or concern from Marinette into an "attack", and playing the victim. So for this to have been done again, and for Lila to admit that she did it on purpose, should have Alya questioning how valid a source the girl is for anything! It could have been a huge moment of connection between the two friends, where Marinette admits that she's being too rash when fighting against Lila, and Alya finally understands that something is fishy about the italian girl. It would have made for a great plotpoint where the two work together, building off how well they compliment eachother, to take Lila down.

Unfortunately, none of this happens. Alya doesn't realize any of Lila's lies are just that, and never even begins to suspect her at all. And this isn't the first time Marinette has suggested that Lila is bad in some way. Yes, it was unreasonable to do so during "Volpina", because nobody really knew Lila that well at the time, and Marinette was clearly jealous because she got to spend alone time with Adrien. But at this point we're in Season 3, where Alya is Rena Rouge. She's on Ladybug's team, and is the exact type of person who would try to get in contact and ask "hey, do you know a girl named Lila Rossi?", before properly investigating the matter when Ladybug naturally says no. Alya's entire character is built on her detective work. Yes, she's rash and reckless. Yes, she puts herself in danger all the time. But those are character flaws that she's supposed to slowly overcome, and nothing compared to the narrative forcing her to ignore a clearly important case. Season 3 features the Miraculous Team quite heavily, and by all means should also focus on Alya's investigative work. She isn't trying to discover Ladybug's identity ever since becoming Rena Rouge and finally getting the rose-tinted glasses taken away, so why not give her a new mystery to work on in the background?

My point is that Alya already has established flaws that excel at causing problems in her life. She's overly curious. She constantly jumps the gun with assumptions and theories. She always puts investigations first, above even her own safety. But instead of those traits being used in conjunction with Season 3's main conflict of Marinette vs Lila, she's instead dumbed down when there should be a bigger role for Alya to play here. In Chameleon for example, she's openly and immediately dismissive of Marinette's accusations. This would be reasonable if Alya just wanted to wait for the right moment and investigate privately, but the only given reason for her acting like this is because she thinks Marinette is jealous over Adrien. And yes, her friend does get ahead of herself sometimes, we also see this happen with Kagami. But while calming Marinette down and taking her aside to scheme would be something Alya would do, simply doing nothing about this for a whole season wastes her role in the story. This curiosity and recklesness are what make Alya into who she is, and they are utterly absent for almost the entire season!

My problem isn't that Alya doesn't pick Marinette's side here. I don't expect her too, and frankly it makes more sense for her not to do so, and try to figure out the truth while staying in the middle and not pointing fingers without proof. Naturally, this necessitates that the writers understand the character well enough to allow Alya to act like herself. All of this inaction and needless hammering of the "nobody believes Marinette" notion just paints Alya in a bad light which is truly undeserved. There are much better ways to convery the message that Lila has everyone fooled. The rest of the class' actions already do a good enough job at that. Dragging Alya in the middle of this does raise the personal stakes, but nothing ever comes of it! If there had been a fight, or a confrontation, or something, where both Marinette and Alya's flaws clashed in a way that they stopped being friends for a while, that's wonderful! I'd cry over it, but it would be great for the narrative! This would solidify Lila's efforts to isolate Marinette from her peers and open the door for Alya's redemption arc, where she would have to confront her flaws and grow as she overcomes her stubborness and starts to be more open-minded.

There were so many interesting ways to handle this, and with Alya learning Ladybug's secret identity in Season 4, I was (reasonably, in my humble opinion) expect this to tie in back to the character conflict between Lila and Marinette. Clearly she's been lied to, because Ladybug is standing right in front of her and hates the girl. But again, Alya's wonderfully inquisitive nature vanishes in thin air for no reason. Season 4 is deeply personal when it comes to character conflict. We have overarching plots like the rift between Ladybug and Chat Noir, we have Kagami healing from her breakup with Adrien, and the overall message is how keeping secrets and not trusting other people will result in hurt. It makes logical sense for Alya to fit here perfectly, because she didn't trust Marinette about Lila. And now their friends are tangled in a web of lies, cue the re-kindling of Alyanette friendship and these two teaming up to take Lila down! Again, Alya's character perfectly compliments the story's themes, and gives depth to Marinette's civilian life that is sorely needed this season. This is what Alya is built for, and tries her best to do...but again, isn't allowed to.

Even as far into the show as Season 5, the fact that Lila is lying to her is never acknowledged by Alya, even with direct proof staring her in the face whenever Marinette breathes in the same room as her! This isn't a dig at Alya, nor any other character. Frankly it's a plothole, and a clear show of inconsistent writing from the part of Thomas and co. Alya has all the necessary information to take an active role in the story, and every last character trait the show has spent four season building on works perfectly for something to happen...but we get nothing. Even Alya's greatest flaw of jumping the gun could have her try to take Lila out on her own, get outplayed by the manipulative psycho in the room, and be in a lot of trouble because of it! But the writing sidelines her so badly, not letting this wonderful character do anything about a problem she's clearly been designed to solve! At this point, the major conflicts in the show are made clear. Monarch is the villain for Ladybug and Chat Noir, and Lila is the villain for Marinette and Adrien. Alya isn't expected to grab a frying pan and beat up a supervillain, but as a part of their inner circle, she should be there to fight against Lila. Everything about her character screams it, but all that is falling on deaf ears.

As an aside, there allegedly exists an apology scene that got cut from the show, where several characters (Alya included) apologize to Marinette for not believing her. This upsets me for several reasons, the first of which being that it got cut. The second one is that Alya shouldn't be apologizing. Not at this time. The required evidence has been staring her right in the face for almost two whole seasons now, and the writers want to act as if she didn't realize? I'm sorry, are you kidding me? What in the name of Lila's three mothers do you mean when you tell me that the DETECTIVE CHARACTER never figured out that Lila, whose entire system of lies revolves around "Marinette bullies me", is lying, when Marinette is literally a superheroine? Realistically, anybody with a singular braincell would immediately understand what Alya does not. But the worst part is that none of this is her fault! I'm sounding like a broken record here, but Alya is built to take Lila down! She might be straightforward and rash at times, but she's just as cunning! It's a battle of fox versus fox in terms of character traits, with Alya embodying the well-meaning ones, while Lila personifies the malicious evil that they can be used for!

I'm honestly just sad about this whole debacle. Alya clearly doesn't deserve the hate she gets, since she still does try to support Marinette to the best of her ability. But the writing just...forgets to make do anything? This is a general problem with Miraculous Ladybug, and one that I intend to fully touch on in a future post, but my point stands. The combination of Alya's established character and the narrative choices made with it (ex: learning Ladybug's id) make for an incredible chance to have Alya shine! And despite this, one of the best characters in this entire show is left to sit around on the writing room's floor, never getting the depth she deserves and making illogical decisions that serve only the immediate plotline. Nobody put any thought into what she would actually do, and only used Alya to further other narratives, such as having her "replace" Chat Noir as Marinette's confidant.

If Alya were allowed to act as an individual and not a girl who's been reduced to a mere plot device, I have no doubt that a lot of the shows later writing problems could easily be solved, or at least be given the necessary depth to make them interesting. She's there, and later installments in the series such as the Paris Special have tried to give Alya something to do, but her character seems stuck in a void between being the supportive, inquisitive bff we love to see...and a cardboard cutout that's reading lines off a script. Inconsistency is the death of good characters, because they aren't allowed to be themselves! But hey, these posts are all about discussion. I didn't get to cover everything here, so if you think I missed something or want to add to this, by all means feel free to do so! If you'll excuse me, I have to go and dramatically envision Alya actually being herself in this show, but I'll see you all soon with another post! Until then, Stay Miraculous everyone!

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