Who Is The Real Villain Of 'Miraculous: Tales Of Ladybug & Cat Noir' In Season 6?

TV & Film

Feb 25

Ten years after making its international debut, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir has just started Season 6 on The Disney Channel in the United States. A French production by Thomas Astruc and Jeremy Zag, this cartoon follows the lives of a group of Parisian teenagers who can access supernatural powers through the Miraculouses, special pieces of jewelry or accessories that are connected to kwamis, who are rather cute and adorable magical creatures.

The main Holder of the Miraculouses is the Guardian - Ladybug, who has the power of Creation. This is Marinette Dupin-Cheng, who is in love with Adrien Agreste, who happens to be the Holder of the Black Cat Miraculous, which has the power of Destruction. Neither of them knows the true identity of the other, and while by the end of Season 5, a few select people know that Marinette is Ladybug, as of now, only one person knows that Adrien is Cat Noir. And what is the point of anyone needing the Miraculouses? To protect Paris (and sometimes the rest of the world) from villains! But, who is the villain (or villains) in this show? And what is their objective?

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Gabriel Agreste

For the first five seasons, the main antagonist was Gabriel Agreste, fashion designer and father to Adrien. Before the first episode, he had already acquired the Miraculous of the Butterfly and the Peacock. His wife Emilie, Adrien’s mother, used the Peacock Miraculous even though it was damaged. This damage caused her to become sick, eventually causing Emilie to fall into a coma.

Having gone on expeditions to learn about the Miraculouses, Gabriel knows that if he acquires the Miraculouses of both Ladybug and Cat Noir, he can combine the powers of Creation and Destruction in order to be granted a wish. The problem with that is that any wish that disrupts what has happened by the natural order on Earth will cause an imbalance which could lead to the end of the universe as we know it. So, it is very important to keep the Miraculouses out of the hands of those who could potentially do harm.

Hawk Moth — Image Source: miraculousladybug.com

As the holder of the Butterfly Miraculous, Gabriel Agreste can transform himself as well, just as Marinette and Adrien do to become Ladybug and Cat Noir. When he commands the kwami Nooroo with the words “Nooroo, Dark Wings Rise!”, he takes on the powers of the Butterfly Miraculous which had three iterations while Gabriel Agreste was the holder: Hawk Moth in Seasons 1-3, Shadow Moth for Season 4, and Monarch for Season 5.

Hello, World!

While he was Hawk Moth, Gabriel used only the Butterfly Miraculous, but by Season 4, he felt that he had improved the Peacock Miraculous enough to use it again, and combined the powers of the Butterfly and the Peacock to become Shadow Moth. In the Season Finale of Season 4, Gabriel is able to acquire all the Miraculouses, with the exception of the Ladybug and Black Cat, and becomes Monarch for Season 5.

While he is transformed, he is able to “akumatize” unsuspecting victims by sensing their negative emotions when they are in challenging situations. Gabriel sends out Akuma butterflies that can infiltrate the person through objects on them, enabling him to talk to the victim and convince them to use their negative feelings to become villains themselves.

Part of the deal to become the villain is promising Hawk Moth / Shadow Moth / Monarch that they will get Ladybug’s and Cat Noir’s Miraculouses. So, part of the genius of Gabriel Agreste is that he seldom does any fighting himself: he leaves that to his akumatized villains. Throughout the series, he improves upon the original akumas, creating Mega-akumas and Senti-Monsters.

In the last episode of Season 5, Gabriel Agreste comes face-to-face with Marinette / Ladybug and gets ahold of both the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses. He uses them to make his wish: join his wife Emilie in the afterlife in exchange for healing his assistant Nathalie so she can be a surrogate mother to Adrien. All’s well that ends well, right? Nope, because here we are in Season Six, with a new holder of the Butterfly Miraculous!

Lila Rossi / Cerise Bianca

Since Season 1, Lila has been a thorn in Marinette’s side: a pathological liar, she tries again and again to bring Marinette down. In Season 1, Marinette exposes Lila’s lies she says about her and Adrien’s relationship. While behavior like this could be chalked up to immature teenage girl behavior, Lila quickly shows that she is dishonest in almost every interaction she has.

She claims that she is friends with Ladybug to become popular at her new school. Lila tells Nathalie that Adrien’s grades have started to slip, and, in Season 3, after claiming that Marinette cheated on a test, pretended to fall down the stairs at school and framed Marinette for pushing her down the stairs, and stole a necklace, also blaming Marinette, leading to Marinette’s (temporary) expulsion. To top things off, Lila claims that she has a disease that makes her into a liar!

Cerise Bianca — Image Source: fandom.com

But, by the end of Season 5, we can see that there is something much more sinister about this character. During this season, it is revealed that Lila knows Gabriel’s identity as Monarch. When Gabriel drops her from working for his clothing line as a model, Lila vows revenge against him as well.

The real “wow” episode is Season 5, Episode 21, “Confrontation” where Lila is not only exposed as the manipulative psychopathic liar that she is, but it is also revealed that she has an entirely different personality - others know her as Cerise, she changes her looks with wigs and contacts, and she somehow has different family units, all believing that she is doing different charitable acts in different parts of the world. We also know from the “Revelation “ episode that Lila / Cerise has gained access to Gabriel Agreste’s photos, documents about his past and contracts with Tomoe Tsurugi, the location of Emilie’s crypt, and the Miraculous Spellbook. But, what does she plan on doing with this information?

Cerise — Image Source: miraculousladybug.fandom.com

So far in Season 6, and in the stand-alone TV movie, Miraculous London, it is surmised that when Gabriel Agreste makes his wish, destroying the secret crypt, Lila / Cerise is able to sneak into the mansion and recover the Butterfly Miraculous. She is seen outside the mansion and sneaking in while the main action is occurring. Marinette tells her best friend Alya at the beginning of Season 6 that the only Miraculous she was not able to recover is the Butterfly Miraculous. And someone is now ultra-akumatizing new victims!

Spectral Buttefly — Image Source: miraculousladybug.fandom.com

But, why? When the new Holder of the Butterfly Miraculous ultra-akumatizes her victims, there is no indication of her identity. She does not identify herself to her victims as Gabriel Agreste did, nor does she even have a very visible shape - she is a mysterious outline, and her voice is disguised. Even when her plans are defeated, the audience does not see her as she angrily stalks away the way we did when it was Gabriel. And while we know that she is still after Ladybug’s and Cat Noir’s Miraculouses, we don’t know what wish she wants to make - but, if the vision in Miraculous London indicates, it’s probably not one for the greater good. We will have to continue to tune in to see where this leads!

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir airs on The Disney Channel and Disney +.

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