Gabriel Agreste - Villainy At It's Most Stale | A Critical Retrospective

Its so funny how Gabriel switches from being genuinely caring towards his son to actually not giving a single shit what happens to him

Honestly the show didn't know if they wanted a serious villain or a entertaining cartoony villain and ended up making neither and just made this pathetic depressing slop. his peak was 100% gorizilla it's the time where he's the most interesting and it's down hill from there imo

I completely agree. I still think Its funny how Felix accomplished everything Gabriel wanted to do from five seasons in one single episode. He stole every single miraculous, outsmarted ladybug and made her doubt abilities majorly, which led her to break down. Gabriel feels like a joke villain when compared to him

I think the actual reason why Gabriel relies on Chloe so much is because the writers desperately want to double down on their flimsy point that Chloe is an unlikeable irredeemable monster who doesn't deserve to be happy in life. It's basically just damage control.

Chat blanc destroyed what was left of my sympathy for him, In the episode, he tossed his son flying across paris after knowing his identity and then akumatized him and breaking him mentally which caused him to snap and trigger the apocalypse murdering the entire population on earth, Just who the hell thought it was a good idea to give his son infinite destruction that is so dumb and he didn't even flinch or hesitate to violate his only son and push him to the breaking point, there are hundreds of ways to get the damn miraculous from his son but he chose the worst possible way to achieve it, The miraculous movie (spoilers alert) gabriel was portrayed as a concerned and anxious widower who wants to bring back his family the way it was before he snapped in the climax and almost killed adrien, but when he found out who he is he broke down in tears, terrified at the realisation that he almost ended what was remained of his family. It actually what caused him to quit his evil ways and cherish the memory of his late wife and what she would think of him if she was here, tv gabe is a psychopath while movie gabe is sympathetic

As someone who watched the original french version of the show, just wanted to correct one tiny mistake: In the french version, Hawk Moth never really says he wants to "rule the world", just that the miraculouses would give the "absolute power", which is consistent with this motivation to bring back his wife (he wants to unleash the "absolute power" to make a wish and bring Emilie back). As such his motives remained ambiguous in season 1. The english translators ignored his motives back then so gave him a generic villain motive

The thing I hate about Monarch is the fact he NEVER uses the good miraculous. From dragon to monkey. But then again, I remind myself. We can’t end the show yet. We need to redeem to asshole because apparently he deserves it.

I actually really liked the Gabe x Nathalie thing. I kinda expected them to go in the direction where Gabriel realizes his feelings for her, and gives up villainy. Finally moving on from Emelie, and Adrien ending up with a new Step mom.

It's wild how much better the movie does with making him sympathetic. In the show, he's pretty abusive and everyone chalks it up to him being overbearing/overprotective.

Gabriel completely lost sight of the whole reason he wanted the miraculous in the first place. After he obtained all the miraculous he had the ability to go back in time. He had the opportunity to save his wife, but he had to be greedy and power hungry. He gave up the chance to save his wife on a hunch.

This is always the detail that Astruc frustrated me with. He himself said bad people cannot be redeemed that they are beyond help, but whines about Chloe only to still redeem Gabriel! Astruc really needs to let go of his stupid hate boner on Chloe.

14:44 THANK YOU! I never got why he was so fixated on recruiting Chloe. As much as I like her, Lila is a much sidekick. She is intelligent, manipulative, does most dirty work herself. While Chloe is just a spoiled bully who whines to get what she wants

I know this video is about Gabriel, but honestly, Natalie's pity crush on Gabriel paradoxically makes a lot of sense and no sense at the same time, and it confuses me to no end. It makes sense because Natalie is, in a way, the "loyal henchman" character. The character who is loyal to the main villain and thinks the villain is loyal in return when, in reality, the villain couldn't care less about them. And I know this from the way Natalie will rarely tell Gabriel off for the way he treats his son, at least in season one. She just puts up with a lot of his nonsense and goes about her day like nothing is happening. Then, she puts her own health at risk for him. But it also DOESN'T make sense when you take in the other half of Natalie's character. She's very prim and proper and orderly. She cares enough about Adrien to feel guilty when lying about the birthday present from Gabriel. She homeschools him even though that probably isn't in her job description as an assistant. And she comes across as a no-nonsense person who wouldn't just take Gabriel being a bad father with a straight face. Or like she wouldn't get in between Gabriel and his wife. If anything, it would make more sense for Natalie to have been the one holding Gabriel back from doing too much damage in both sides of his life. But the writers, like with most things, don't do that. They just have Natalie flip-flop back and forth between loving Gabriel, hating him, and being indifferent to him. Which is it, writers? Is Natalie an assistant, a loyal henchman, a homewrecker or just there to be there?

My God, they really fumbled the bag with this one. It's like the writers didn't know what type of villain they wanted Gabriel to be, the sympathetic one or the irredeemable one, so they just did both at the same time!

Before I watch this video, I just wanna say. Don't get me wrong, I love the villain concept they were going for Gabriel: Started out genuinely tragic & sympathetic and actually cared for his son's safety, but his obsession over power & defeating a bunch of teenagers overruled his original goal of saving his wife, that he's gone full-blown irredeemable terrorist willing to risk his son if it can give him a better chance at winning. Unfortunately I think the writers fumbled up on that idea. Especially with what they did in the Season 5 Finale. What were they trying to redeem him at the last second, and now the public thinks he's a hero and Adrien never got his final confrontation with him.

They probably noticed, however, Thomas has an iron grip on the writing so strong the writers don't have the final say in the writing. So the bias/double standards with Chloe, Gabriel, and even Felix in the series are because of his own biases.

Throughout the show Gabriel shows frantic inconsistencies with his personality, and this is a problem with the show overall, even simple powers like the "fetch" keeps changing, and i think i know why, Thomas mentioned in an interview his method of writing is focusing on the moment, meaning that if he needs to add tension somehow he's just gonna do it regardless of future planing or pre-established facts , he referrs to ladybug describing the miraculous as indestructible as something he would change if he could, and we know how major of a plot point is the fragility of miraculouses And seemingly this mindset is also why Gabriel is never the same in two episodes He's humain now and irredeemable tomorrow, blink and he might be dancing or something idk... And we can see how this approach effected everything else in the show too, Like butchering chloe after disagreeing with the writing team And Lukas revelations being obsolete except in the single episode he had to wrap it up ... Lila's randomness

As someone who adores villains in general, even I agree that Gabe as a villain sucks. Great video bro.

Wish they didn't had the "senti-monster children" plot and have made Adrien and Felix be twin brothers but the Peacock made it that Adrien is "their child". They could've easily made Gabriel be flipping emotions because he knows Adrien isn't his "real" son but Emilie really wanted children or him being frustrated that he couldn't provide his wife with their own children.

Gabriel Agreste had the potential to be such a fascinating villain, he could have had Emperor Belos vibes. Belos used his love for his brother and the human race as an excuse to enslave and ultimately destroy and entire race of people. Belos cloned and KILLED his own brother HUNDREDS of times because he could never seem to keep his brother from being "corrupted". He was completely fine murdering thousands of people and it was all motivated by this weird fucked up love he had for his brother he himself MURDERED and humanity. He said it himself, he was trying to "save humanity", that was his goal. Gabe could have had such a similar story, motivated by his destructive love for his family, willing to terrorize thousands of people every day for YEARS just for the chance to bring his beloved wife back. Endangering his own beloved son every chance he could just so he could have the chance of having his family again in the end. He doesnt care who he hurts or how many times he fails, as long as he gets what he wants in the end: his family. Love and family is such a interesting motivation for a villain, doing horrible evil fucked up things for the ones he loves so passionately. And making the main villain the FATHER of one of the main heroes???? Imagine the CONFLCIT, the DRAMA if Adrien and Gabriel were allowed to know for real and not in some alternate timeline. The writers were such cowards when Cat Noir wasnt allowed to be in the final fight against Monarch. (which is an awesome name for a butterfly themed super villain if you ask me) and letting Gabriel WIN??? Redeeming him at the literal last second??? And Adrien wasn't even allowed to know??? And Marinette didnt tell him??? Adrien just has zero agency in his life and its depressing since he was supposed to be one of the main characters