A Lila Rant
Apr. 7th, 2019 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetJust needed to get this out of my system again, not sure how coherent it's going to be.
I don't like Lila Rossi. This shouldn't be surprising; Miraculous Ladybug canon hasn't gone out of its way to give her any redeeming qualities - quite the opposite, in fact. She's a practiced liar, manipulator, even a gaslighter. It's so, so easy to hate her.
And I absolutely resent that.
Like many shows of similar Magical Girl sub-genre (Main Character (almost always a girl) is granted magical transformation powers from a small talking animal thing, uses them to heal ordinary citizens who have been transformed by the bad guys, who themselves are after some MacGuffin), pretty much all of the bad guys are given some sympathetic characteristics. Sure, they may not make up for the evil they do, and redemption may never be in the cards, but they're usually there.
Gabriel has them; he's apparently doing this Hawkmoth gig for "love" or whatever, and he does care about Adrien when he bothers to notice his son is an actual person. Nathalie has them; she's also shown to care for Adrien, and probably pays more attention to him (and possibly even cares about him more) than his actual father. Not to mention loyalty; if you've got a villain loyalty kink, she's right up your alley.
It's a good formula! Just about every other show of this sub-genre I can think of does something similar; even if the big bad themself isn't even a little bit sympathetic, their underlings usually are, or at least we get some sort of implication that they're just doing the best they know how. It makes the conflict that much more poignant, and I've seen it over and over again, more times than I can count: Sailor Moon, Wedding Peach, Tokyo Mew-Mew, Steven Universe (trust me, it counts), the entire Pretty Cure franchise, and probably dozens more I've never heard of. (Leaving aside subversions like Madoka and deconstructions like Cardcaptor Sakura for the moment.)
Lila doesn't get that. Not even one inkling of it. And it was one thing when it seemed like she was going to be a one-off character that we'd never see again, but she's been back twice now, with still nothing to make her sympathetic; if anything, TPTB have ramped up her asshole traits.
I already had a problem with this from a storytelling perspective, especially with this sub-genre running so strong on themes of understanding and compassion. I start to itch when a show like this starts telling me I should hate a character "just because", not even trying a little to show us why they're being so terrible. (And don't think I haven't noticed she's our darkest-skinned villain/romantic rival.)
So no, I don't like Lila. The fact that the show hasn't even seemed to consider giving me a reason to, though? I outright loathe.
For all of that, I am fully prepared to find a way to like Lila out of spite.
I don't like Lila Rossi. This shouldn't be surprising; Miraculous Ladybug canon hasn't gone out of its way to give her any redeeming qualities - quite the opposite, in fact. She's a practiced liar, manipulator, even a gaslighter. It's so, so easy to hate her.
And I absolutely resent that.
Like many shows of similar Magical Girl sub-genre (Main Character (almost always a girl) is granted magical transformation powers from a small talking animal thing, uses them to heal ordinary citizens who have been transformed by the bad guys, who themselves are after some MacGuffin), pretty much all of the bad guys are given some sympathetic characteristics. Sure, they may not make up for the evil they do, and redemption may never be in the cards, but they're usually there.
Gabriel has them; he's apparently doing this Hawkmoth gig for "love" or whatever, and he does care about Adrien when he bothers to notice his son is an actual person. Nathalie has them; she's also shown to care for Adrien, and probably pays more attention to him (and possibly even cares about him more) than his actual father. Not to mention loyalty; if you've got a villain loyalty kink, she's right up your alley.
It's a good formula! Just about every other show of this sub-genre I can think of does something similar; even if the big bad themself isn't even a little bit sympathetic, their underlings usually are, or at least we get some sort of implication that they're just doing the best they know how. It makes the conflict that much more poignant, and I've seen it over and over again, more times than I can count: Sailor Moon, Wedding Peach, Tokyo Mew-Mew, Steven Universe (trust me, it counts), the entire Pretty Cure franchise, and probably dozens more I've never heard of. (Leaving aside subversions like Madoka and deconstructions like Cardcaptor Sakura for the moment.)
Lila doesn't get that. Not even one inkling of it. And it was one thing when it seemed like she was going to be a one-off character that we'd never see again, but she's been back twice now, with still nothing to make her sympathetic; if anything, TPTB have ramped up her asshole traits.
I already had a problem with this from a storytelling perspective, especially with this sub-genre running so strong on themes of understanding and compassion. I start to itch when a show like this starts telling me I should hate a character "just because", not even trying a little to show us why they're being so terrible. (And don't think I haven't noticed she's our darkest-skinned villain/romantic rival.)
So no, I don't like Lila. The fact that the show hasn't even seemed to consider giving me a reason to, though? I outright loathe.
For all of that, I am fully prepared to find a way to like Lila out of spite.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-08 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-08 03:58 am (UTC)(Remember how she was the first hinted Miraculous user outside of LB and CN? And how fans were looking forward to a new heroine and were assume she'd be super cool? And then we got the rug fucking yanked out from under us? Because I wasn't there, but I've seen the signs it left.)