silveradept | /run/media/silveradept: Miraculous: Tales of Leitmotif

Right up front, I'm going to admit that I have no formal musical training, and so this is mostly a listening experience rather than someone being able to analyze a piece of music and figure out the same sorts of things that a lot of the Into The Spiderverse people.

Also, by the time I'm done, secret identities will have been spoiled pretty thoroughly, so if you don't already know where all the Miraculous are and who has them, the first part may be safe, but the second part definitely won't be.

Also, the links, being that they are related to material under copyright, may vanish at any time, and that's a thing that happens. I'll try to be descriptive, but this is aural, and it's often damn hard to find anyone who is willing to provide backing tracks without sound effect or dialogue put over them.

Now, I admit that I may gently rib Ladybug a bit for its effective re-use of footage, but it's a magical girl show, and transformation reuse is a time-honored tradition of them and the Super Sentai / Kamen Rider genres of tokusatsu shows that are also being drawn on here. And a thing that happens in those shows a lot is that power use is signaled by specific themes coming into being.

I'm working backward from shortest material to longest, but the videos that I can find want to work long to short, because of course they do. So, the first thing that I noticed has to do with the general thematic elements of Ladybug and Chat Noir using their respective "gimmick" powers. Ladybug has the Miraculous of Creation, Chat Noir, the Miraculous of Destruction, and the composer(s) want to make sure we remember this.

Have a listen. Ladybug's Lucky Charm is first, then Chat Noir's Cataclysm. Notice how Ladybug gets the power guitar chords and heroic brass? Lucky Charm starts with the "Miraculous" lick (that will try very hard to earworm you with how much it shows up) and then proceeds in a progression that starts low and lands high? The kind of idea that gives you a feeling of triumph at the end? (I'll bet it's major chords the whole way up, but again, no formal musical training to know.) If you keep listening to that particular linked video, the "capture the akuma and reset everything" theme continues in this vein, although it starts high, drops down for the windup, and then gets back there and higher by the time the butterfly has been purified.

For Chat Noir, on the other hand, while the general pitch of Cataclysm goes up, it's a series of disparate chords on strings and percussion that all walk down from their initial pitch, and it ends on the Miraculous lick, almost as an afterthought to remind us that this is a hero using their power. (I have a sneaking suspicion each progression also lands on a minor chord, if they aren't all minors to start with.)

Why is this important? Well, for people trained in a European-descended musical tradition, major chords are for heroes, minor chords are for villains. Usually. Minor chords carry the power of transforming a situation into something that doesn't feel right and that deserves attention. Most of the "spooky/scary" type pieces, or songs that have a bridge in them where you realize that not everything in this song's world is a good thing (or that introduces an alternate point of view or interpretation) often use their minor chords to good effect. (Also, power ballads are mostly major chords, which is what makes them so singable and empowering, right?)

Chat Noir's Cataclysm is the power of destruction. That would normally be the province of the villain, and so he gets the scoring for it when he uses it.

These motifs of powers also figure into the transformation music for each of the characters as well. The next video, however, is spoiler city if you don't already know the secret identities of all the known Miraculous holders, just saying.

Take a listen through each of the transformation sequences in their Season 1 and 2 variations. Several of the "Alternate" marked variations are taken from the episode "Catalyst", which has some specific variations to itself. Season 1 is mostly scored differently, since it is Ladybug and Chat Noir doing the transforming.

I'll be talking about the themes in the order of the video, at least until they get to the animatic and Promotional Video versions, which are generally the same or are just the PV background theme.

Ladybug: There's a few hits, but the theme itself really starts with the "windup" sound that happens right before launching into the dance beat / power chords variations on the Miraculous lick. (Which, by the way, anything that ends with the Miraculous lick is already primed for immediate segue into Lucky Charm, if it should ever be needed.) Most of the variations that you'l hear on this theme are related to key and speed of the song, but the basic version doesn't change.

Chat Noir: I find it interesting that Chat Noir gets a quicker-tempo transformation theme. The beat pattern underneath it could be described as a gallop, as if Chat Noir just wants to get this transformation thing done and over with already. alexseanchai has said that Adrien has been practicing for needing to do a transformation pose or two all his life, and the scoring definitely helps that idea along - he knows that you have to go through the motions, but he already has it down so well that he's ready to move on to the next thing.

But notice that Chat's guitar sounds different (possibly from being strung with a different materials), but also that when the five-note sequences happen, they end lower than when they started, and I suspect they're on minor chords again. Heroic instruments moving in a hero direction, but punctuated with the fact that his power would be very easy to turn villanous. (And Chat Noir ends up getting depicted or controlled to villainy much more than Marinette does, to make it easy for us to see how his powers could go terribly wrong in the wrong hands.) Chat's variations are like Ladybug's - they change tempo and maybe key a bit, but they basically stay the same.

Rena Rouge: Of course there's a flute in the background playing arpeggios, because that's her weapon of choice, but what's interesting about this is that Rena Rouge's pattern sounds like it should be straightforward to understand. It's not Ladybug's dance-pop, Chat Noir's happy trip-hop, or Carapace's scratch-funk (or his "Ninja Turtles" style). And really, most of it is the same variation on the "Miraculous" lick with a key change. Which is funny, because Rena's got the power of illusions at her command. It makes sense that her seemingly simple and straightforward theme hides a few tricks in the second part of her drum pattern. Queen Bee's beat pattern is the closest to Rena's that we get, but Queen Bee doesn't pick up the extra bass kicks that Rena does, which makes Rena's theme a more complex item to listen to on a second pass.

Carapace: This one highlights the fact that Carapace's user is a scratch-heavy DJ, and so we get obviously synth instruments repeating a groove not out of place for any hip-hop emcee to rap over, as the character does a breakdance routine before pulling up a hood over their head to complete the look. It sounds out of place in the sense that it's not in the same genre or groove as the other themes around, but then again, this is also supposed to be the Tortoise Miraculous, so I think the composer is also having a little fun with us about how quickly tortoises move.

The Catalyst version above I see marked as the "alternate" version, since this is the second time Carapace transforms. The first transformation fits a little bit better thematically with the others, with a brass style that's almost a shout chorus over the beat. It really strongly reminds me of the idea of the first (not-comedic) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, that wants to invoke an action-movie feel in a reduced color-palette world. I'm not sure which version I like better, actually.

Queen Bee: Remember that part above with Chat Noir where I talk about descending musical lines, dissonance, a different guitar sound, and leaning into the minor keys as generally signs that the character in question is not entirely heroic? Queen Bee basically takes that as her theme and owns it. (Unsurprising, given her civilian identity.) The clues to her being on the side of the heroes has much more to do with her instrumentation and that her piece is up-tempo rather than anything that has to do with the notes played. (I really wonder what her transformation song would sound like with the guitar riffs reversed.)

Also interestingly, her transformation theme is the only one with deliberate silence in the drums instead of a break or a fill at the transition point between theme and ending lick, and it's that break that throws me off. I'm used to expecting the silence at the midpoint of a theme, as a transition before the theme repeats, but in Queen Bee's case, it's used as the transition to the outro, and that makes it feel shorter than the others, because the others use drum fills or changes to signal their shifts to the outro. Yes, even Hawkmoth. And speaking thereof...

Hawkmoth: Note the heavy drums, the organ, and the choir hits? Classic villain scoring. And a whole mess of minor and dissonant material, I'm betting, too. He's scored unmistakably as an evil dude, and also as a Big Bad type of person, rather than a less powerful villain. (This is variation three, the ":Catalyst" scoring on Hawk Moth, and I think it's the one that works best for him, as the others don't quite find their footing appropriately to express to someone who doesn't know who Hawk Moth is that he's a Bad Guy. For example, this variation has the disturbing organ part down, but it lacks the drums and the choir hits for emphasis.)

It will be interesting to hear how the Peacock Miraculous scores for transformation when it's used and who it's used by. Given that we don't yet have that (at least as of the time of this post), I guess we'll have to wait for something else.

Anyway, that's my un-music-theoried thoughts about the use of licks and motifs in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. The reality is probably very different than what I've laid out here. *shrug*