Hawk Moth

"This is just the beginning, Ladybug. You and Cat Noir may have won this battle, but I will win the war. I will get your Miraculouses. I will get the absolute power! And then my secret dream will come true!"

- Hawk Moth. "You're never going to win. Not today, or any other day! You're still so green, young superheroes. You can't even stay transformed after you've used your powers!"

- Hawk Moth taunting Ladybug and Cat Noir after defeating them. "Fly away, my little akuma, and evilize him/her."

- Hawk Moth sending an akuma to corrupt someone. "Nooroo, dark wings, rise!"

- Gabriel transforming into Hawk Moth.

Gabriel Agreste, better known as Hawk Moth (Le Papillon in the French dub, which translates to "The Butterfly") is the main antagonist of the French-superhero cartoon series Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. He is a fashion designer, the father of Adrien Agreste/Cat Noir and supervillain who desires to take Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses and gain the power to change reality, with the ultimate goal of saving his wife Emilie. He creates and leads the akumas; white butterflies corrupted with evil who can transform normal people into supervillains under his control.

He is voiced by Antoine Tomé in the original French version, and by Keith Silverstein in the English dubbed version, who also voiced Captain Gantu in the Stitch! anime, Hammerhead in Marvel's Spider-Man, Dr. Wily in Mega Man 11, Hunter X Hunter's Hisoka and HUNK in the Resident Evil series.

As Gabriel Agreste
Gabriel is tall and possesses comed-backlight blonde hair and blue eyes. He wears black-framed silver glasses. He has a white dress shirt underneath a silver vest with red buttons and a cream-colored dress jacket, along with a red-and-white striped tie. He also wears red dress pants and white shoes with red laces. On the middle finger of his left hand, he has a silver band ring.

As Hawk Moth
While Hawk Moth, he wears a dark purple dress shirt with a black butterfly-shaped lapel and black dress pants. He also wears a gray mask that covers most of his face and neck. The Moth Miraculous brooch is pinned to his chest. Whenever he is controlling someone with an akuma, a bright pink butterfly-shaped outline appears in front of his face and around his eyes.

In "Catalyst (Heroes' Day - Part 1)", while he is Scarlet Moth, his entire outfit becomes burgundy-red due to Catalyst's enhancement.

As Collector
Collector's skin is a pale purple shade. His white hair sticks up in a point and bears black vertical stripes, the back of his head and his neck also being the same tone of black. He wears a black dress suit with a white lapel and pants of the same color, stiff shoulders, and black and red downward-bent stripes on the front. Each lower sleeve has a white stripe, and the Collector's hands have white gloves. His high heel boots are connected to his body suit, and they are black with black and white striped heels.

Personality
Even while not using his villainous persona, Gabriel comes off as strict, cold, and harsh towards those around him, particularly towards his son Adrien, whom he has seemed to put at a distance for much of his life. He is highly possessive and protective of his son, practically controlling his life and sheltering him from the outside world, not letting him attend public school or have many friends up until the events of "Stoneheart (Origins - Part 2)". His domination over Adrien's life extends to the point where he is very quick to make any sort of conclusive judgement about his interaction with the world and his friends, forbidding Nino from ever coming to his home again in "The Bubbler" due to thinking him a bad influence on his son and placing the latter back in homeschool for taking and losing the Miraculous Spellbook in "The Collector". He also hates incompetence or disobedience of any kind, along with being told what to do, like in "Simon Says", where he refuses to listen to Cat Noir's instructions before he lashes out at him.

Despite his flaws, Gabriel is normally kind and orderly when dealing with others, such as Marinette and Audrey Bourgeois, and knows when to act professionally. He very genuinely cares for his son, regarding him as "perfect" in "Simon Says" and wants nothing to harm him. His affections also extend out to his wife Emilie, whom he loves and misses greatly, having become a changed man ever since losing her. As such, he has become fixated with gaining Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses in order to use them to erase the past incident which resulted in her condition and thus bring her back, leading to him becoming Hawk Moth. Furthermore, according to Thomas Astruc, he is fully aware that any wish he makes using the Miraculouses could have consequences as to retain balance in the universe, yet this knowledge does not seem to affect him, showing the depth of his obsession.

Under his supervillain persona, he is even colder and more ruthless than before, caring very little for the destruction he causes so long as he is able to achieve his goal. He is extremely skilled at picking out and manipulating his victims when they are weak and desperate and pretends to be a friend to them in order to turn them into his minions. While normally overconfident to a fault, he can be very clever in his approaches and gives his minions specific instructions on how to overcome his enemies on various occasions, like having Frightningale hinder Ladybug and Cat Noir by forcing them to rhyme and dance or by having Reverser endanger people in order to distract Ladybug and make her vulnerable. His tolerance for mistakes and ineptitude also becomes even shorter, with him being willing to hurt or threaten to deakumatize anyone who tries to disobey his orders. In spite of his calm and collected demeanor, he becomes extremely aggravated whenever he is beaten by Ladybug and Cat Noir and always swears to get back at them one day.

Although his main goal has remained consistent throughout the series, Hawk Moth has seemed to develop a hunger for power whether it suits his main objective or not. In "Syren", he shows a desire to acquire the means to gain more abilities for himself. In "Sandboy", he reveals that he not only wants to steal Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses but all the Miraculouses in general in order to have a virtually unlimited variety of powers. However, in spite of his lust for power and desire to restore his wife, Hawk Moth still has his limits as to how far he's willing to go to achieve his goals, specifically when he might end up harming his son. In "Riposte", he instructs Riposte not to hurt Adrien and instead wait for Ladybug and Cat Noir to save him, and in "Gorizilla", he deliberately has Gorizilla loosen his hold on Ladybug so that she can save his son—in fact, after Style Queen's failure and attack on Adrien in "Style Queen (Queen's Fight - Part 1)", Gabriel almost decides to quit being Hawk Moth forever, not wanting to keep hurting his son and reluctantly deciding that he'll never be able to acquire Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses.

In spite of what restrictions he possesses, Hawk Moth is far from truly being limited by his morality, as he is not above using dirty and/or unfair tactics to get what he wants. In the "Heroes' Day" episodes, he resorts to overwhelming Ladybug and Cat Noir with an army of akumatized villains, and specifically uses Dark Cupid to generate enough negative emotions from his past victims to allow him to simply re-akumatize them as many times as he wants, even turning their own allies against them using this tactic. In the same episode, he shows how utterly merciless he is when he knows he has nothing left to lose, defeating Ladybug and Cat Noir with ease when they corner him before taunting them for their youth and inexperience with using their Miraculouses. Overall, Hawk Moth is an immeasurably persistent, sadistic, and power-hungry villain who still proves to have many areas in which he is not totally cold-hearted.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug
Though Gabriel doesn't know her too well, he finds her to be a skilled hat maker and is impressed with the derby hat she designed for the contest he was holding, declaring her the winner. He even comments on Marinette's talent to Audrey Bourgeois and seems happy for her when Audrey offers her a chance to become a famous fashion designer. He treats her coldly when she returns the Miraculous Spellbook to him and lies that she had stolen it, yet he accepts her apology and grants her request to let his son go back to school.

Contrasting to his more neutral relationship with Marinette, Gabriel outwardly despises Ladybug and wants to get his hands on her Miraculous at any cost. He is consistently and greatly shows his desire for revenge against her almost each time he is defeated; the only exceptions to this normally being when he feels that she has slipped up and given him a piece of information or an idea which can help him to further his own goals, at which point he reverts to taunting her for her mistakes. Even with his incredible hatred for her, Gabriel still manages to put on the facade that he does legitimately respect her when the two meet or in public, though this is usually only in the pursuit of his own goals, like in "Catalyst (Heroes' Day - Part 1)", where he announces that he is producing a Ladybug film entirely for the sake of his grand plan. Much like with Cat Noir, he is quick to taunt her about her youth and inexperience in "Mayura (Heroes' Day - Part 2)", and always shows confidence in being able to destroy her once and for all, even in the face of all the times which he has lost.

Adrien Agreste/Cat Noir
Gabriel cares deeply for his son, but he is very distant and overcontrolling of his life. He is also extremely overprotective, as he doesn't let him go out without his bodyguard and sometimes won't let him go out at all.

Gabriel is unaware that Adrien is Cat Noir. However, he despises the hero and wants to take his Miraculous from him. He does briefly suspect that Adrien might be Cat Noir, but after Adrien makes it look like he and Cat Noir are at the same place at the same time, Gabriel is fooled by this trick and is relieved that his son isn't Cat Noir.

Nathalie Sancoeur
Gabriel trusts his assistant Nathalie, not only with taking care of his son but also with the fact that he's Hawk Moth. However, he does not appreciate it when she messes up. When he akumatizes her into Catalyst, he says that she has always been loyal to him. When she uses the damaged Peacock Miraculous to aid him, Gabriel expresses concern and fear for her yet still accepts her help and later on thanks her for everything she's done.

Nooroo
Gabriel views his kwami Nooroo as nothing more than his slave. He doesn't allow him to be more than a few feet away from him or to communicate with anyone besides him. When they first meet, Nooroo attempts to convince Gabriel that the Miraculouses aren't meant to be used evilly, but Gabriel refuses to listen and even yells at him.

Lila Rossi
Ever since her first akumatization in "Volpina", Gabriel is shown to have a great admiration for Lila's desire for revenge on Ladybug and her talent for lying to and manipulating those around her, as he sees these traits as well-suited towards achieving his goals; making note of the fact that she has yet to give up her anger in the aforementioned episode and that Ladybug has yet to see the last of her. Later in the "Heroes' Day" special, he shows this by weaving Lila into a crucial role in his plan, playing on her hatred of Ladybug in order to akumatize her back into Volpina to both dishearten Paris and later fool Ladybug and Cat Noir with an illusion of him so they can be akumatized. In "Chameleon", he encounters Lila again and willingly gives her powers again once she offers to defeat Ladybug for him, recognizing again once she is deakumatized that she will help him achieve his goals since she still has yet to give up wanting revenge on Ladybug.

However, even though he views her as being useful to him, he doesn't actually like Lila personally, wanting to keep her away from Adrien in "Oni-Chan" knowing how deceitful she is; and even akumatizing Kagami into Oni-Chan for this purpose. Despite this, upon realizing just how dedicated she is to getting rid of Ladybug by being willing to give up Adrien in exchange for having her destroyed, he decides against keeping her away and instead allies himself with her, meeting with her on a seemingly regular basis in order to get information on Adrien's school life while secretly manipulating her into helping his plans. He does this in "Miraculer", where he sees Lila at the park and prompts her to go after Chloé as part of his plot to make her lose faith in Ladybug.

Chloé Bourgeois/Queen Bee
Though she was the only friend he allowed Adrien to have for many years, Gabriel doesn't care much for Chloé overall, but he is aware that she is necessary to him since her unkind and spoiled attitude is often the direct cause of many of his akumatized villains. In "Despair Bear", he even sends an akuma to her party ahead of time, knowing that she will inevitably make somebody there vulnerable to being akumatized. Later, in "Queen Wasp (Queen's Battle - Part 2)", he regains his desire to continue being Hawk Moth upon seeing her take up her Queen Bee identity, believing that her selfish desire to be viewed as a hero will inevitably lead to disaster and thus make her vulnerable to akumatization.

Furthermore, as he is aware of her secret identity as Queen Bee, he is more than willing to use this to his advantage, akumatizing her family in "Mayura (Heroes' Day - Part 2)", in order to use them against her. As of "Miraculer", he has developed a desire to make Chloé lose faith in Ladybug and convert her over to his side, believing that she would make a powerful ally; even using Lila and Mayura to try and manipulate her into joining them.

As Hawk Moth

 * Akumatization: As stated before, Hawk Moth has the ability to turn a citizen with potent negative emotions into a supervillain through the use of his akumas. It is assumed that Hawk Moth chooses the powers that his villains receive, though, regardless, the powers that the akuma gives always directly or metaphorically relate to the reason behind their distress (ex: Max Kanté lost the chance to play in a video game competition and gained the ability to play as the game's robot character in real life, Chloé Bourgeois pretended Sabrina Raincomprix was invisible, causing her to gain the powers of invisibility, etc). Also, as hinted at in "Despair Bear" and seen in "Queen Wasp", Hawk Moth can akumatize previous victims of his as well and give them different powers than the first time around. In "Catalyst (Heroes' Day - Part 1)", while empowered by Catalyst, his akumatization powers become even stronger, allowing him to create an army of scarlet akumas capable of instantly re-akumatizing his previous victims so long as they are being affected by negative emotions.
 * However, despite it's consistent record of success, it has been shown on different occasions that it is actually possible for a person to resist being akumatized if their will is strong enough. In "Zombizou", Miss Bustier tries to reject Hawk Moth's offer for powers, yet she ultimately gives in after Hawk Moth persuades her to believe that he seeks to spread love just like she does. In "Miraculer", Chloé blows off Hawk Moth's offer completely, even tossing away her akumatized object (a photo of her and Ladybug), claiming that she is a superhero and won't give into him.
 * Control Over Akumatized Villains: As shown in "The Evillustrator", Hawk Moth can cause pain to anyone he akumatizes in order to force them to obey him should they ever become disloyal. In "Pixelator", after Pixelator becomes too distracted with trying to capture Jagged Stone, Hawk Moth directly controls his body and strangles him in order to force him to stay on task. He also has the ability to remove the powers of his victims and purify their akumas, which he generally threatens to do should they not stay on task and get him Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses.
 * Negative Emotion Sensing: Hawk Moth can psychically scan Paris in search of people who are perfect for his akumatization. Furthermore, even when his Miraculous is inactive, he can feel it sense powerful negative emotions within Paris.
 * Partial-Omniscience: As shown in episodes such as "Simon Says" and "Despair Bear", Hawk Moth is somehow aware of particular events, like the competitions in The Challenge and Chloé Bourgeois's party, if they involve so much as the potential to generate negative emotions, implying that he may have the ability to watch over the entirety of Paris all at once.
 * Telepathy: When the akuma possesses something belonging to the victim, they become telepathically connected to Hawk Moth, forming a moth shaped emblem around the faces of himself and his minion, which is how he instructs them to help him complete his goal. Even if someone tries to reject the connection, as seen in "Zombizou", Hawk Moth can fully impose it on them by making them want superpowers, or by appealing to their interests.
 * Hologram Projection: Hawk Moth can pull the akuma out of any villain he creates, putting them into a coma-like state, and multiply it to create a hologram of himself that he can use to communicate with a large group of people.
 * Swordsmanship: As seen in "Robostus" and "Catalyst (Heroes' Day - Part 1)", Hawk Moth is an incredibly skilled swordsman, as he managed to fight off and destroy his own defense system with his sword in only a few minutes, and dueled with Ladybug and Cat Noir proficiently before having his weapon destroyed.
 * Superhuman Agility and Reflexes: Hawk Moth is extremely agile and able to react to things very quickly, managing to dodge his security system's missiles unscathed.
 * High Combat Proficiency: As shown in "Mayura (Heroes' Day - Part 2)", Hawk Moth is a highly skilled fighter, given that he successfully managed to overpower and defeat Ladybug and Cat Noir with nothing but his bare hands.

As The Collector

 * High Combat Proficiency: Collector is a very skilled fighter, being able to keep up with both Ladybug and Cat Noir for an extended period of time.
 * Sketch Book: Collector can throw his Sketch Book like a boomerang, and whatever it's pages touch will be trapped inside of it. The Collector can also erase the sketches in his book if he feels the need to, supposedly destroying the objects entirely if he does so. However, despite how much the book can hold, the number of pages still has a limit that can be overtaxed.

Weaknesses

 * Miraculous: Although it provides all of his powers, Hawk Moth's Miraculous is also his greatest weakness; much like with other Miraculouses, if it were to be removed from him, Hawk Moth would be rendered completely powerless and could be easily defeated. It can also be assumed that, much like Ladybug and Cat Noir, Hawk Moth can only use his powers for a limited time before Nooroo needs to come out of the brooch and refuel himself, although this has yet to be shown. However, in "Mayura (Heroes' Day - Part 2)", he implies while taunting Ladybug and Cat Noir that he has more time and experience with using his Miraculous and thus does not have the same transformation limitations.
 * Minions: While a great help towards his goals, Hawk Moth's minions are also the greatest problem with almost all of his plans. In most instances (typically in the case of the teenagers or younger children he akumatizes) his minions will often directly disobey his orders in order to pursue their own goals, often preventing the Miraculouses from being taken (as is the case with Timebreaker and Reflekta) or even trying to outright kill Ladybug and Cat Noir without taking their Miraculouses (as was the case with Bubbler). On occasion, the minions he creates may be able to successfully betray him and pursue their own goals, such as with Robustus—who took control of the technology in his lair and turned it against him—or they may not listen to him at all no matter what, such as with Gigantitan, who almost never seems to be able follow his orders or stay on task due to his infancy.
 * Akumatization Limitations: For unknown reasons, Hawk Moth can only create one villain a day, although he has seemingly created two on occasion, such as in "Catalyst (Heroes' Day - Part 1), where he creates a villain for Ladybug and Cat Noir to fight off-screen and mere hours later is shown akumatizing Lila Rossi into Volpina and then Nathalie into Catalyst afterwards. It is generally assumed that this is because he has only a certain amount of dark energy that he can use to create his akumas over a period of time. As shown in the aforementioned "Gigantitan", Hawk Moth also cannot control his akumas if they decide to go after a different citizen than he originally intended, and is furthermore powerless to stop his victims from losing the negative emotions that made them vulnerable in the first place.
 * Physical Limitations: Hawk Moth, when expending himself over a long period of time, can become extremely exhausted.
 * Adrien Agreste: Hawk Moth is highly protective of his son and will adjust his schemes to avoid him getting hurt, best shown in "Gorizilla" when he allowed Gorizilla to release Ladybug so she could save Adrien, despite having a perfect opportunity to steal her Miraculous. Hawk Moth briefly gave up pursuing the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses in "Queen Wasp", as he couldn't risk putting his son in further danger.

Comics

 * Replay/Adam: Can manipulate time around him by shooting energy blasts out of his watch.
 * Silurus/Fisherman: Can control both water and catfish.

Trivia

 * Hawk Moth is named after the Sphingidae; a family of moths that are generally referred to as "hawk moths" because of their swift flight patterns.
 * Hawk Moth surrounding himself with darkness may also be a reference to these moths, as most types are nocturnal.
 * It has been confirmed that both Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste (Ladybug and Cat Noir's civilian identities) would be extremely hard for Hawk Moth to corrupt, as Marinette always has an extremely positive attitude and Adrien is too used to being disappointed and upset for anything to truly aggravate him.
 * Despite this, he still came very close to akumatizing Marinette in "Zombizou" and in "Chameleon", before she let go of her anger.
 * In "Zombizou", Miss Bustier cheered Marinette up, resulting in Marinette's anger to fade.
 * In "Chameleon", when Marinette was strickened in fear upon seeing the akuma, Tikki encouraged her to think positive, resulting in Marinette's fear to fade.
 * It was confirmed by Thomas Astruc that Adrien will be akumatized in "Cat Blanc" ("Chat Blanc" in French).
 * Despite being the main villain of the series, Hawk Moth makes very few appearances in the Miraculous Secrets webisodes and makes no appearances in the Tales From Paris spin-off.
 * Also, despite being the main villain of the series, he does not serve as the main antagonist in Marinette's case, if not counting her fights against the akumatized villains as Ladybug. Through the first season, Chloé served as the main antagonist to Marinette (and to all of the other girls in Miss Bustier's class), with the exception of the episode "Volpina", where Lila served as the main antagonist to Marinette. Lila also served as the main antagonist to Marinette in the episode "Chameleon".
 * The only times where Marinette (as Ladybug) confronted and / or fought against Hawk Moth was in "Stoneheart (Origins - Part 2)" and in "Mayura".
 * Hawk Moth has named every villain that he has akumatized, with the only exceptions being Horrificator, Darkblade, Volpina and the Sapotis (the second and third because they were named after real people and the fourth because they were named after a mythological creature).
 * It is unconfirmed as to whether Hawk Moth shall appear in the special episode entitled The Chinese Legend, as it takes place outside of Paris.
 * Prior to "The Collector", Hawk Moth's true identity had been foreshadowed/hinted at numerous times:
 * As Ladybug points out in the aforementioned episode, Gabriel's signature logo is a butterfly, and most of his decor bears a butterfly symbol.
 * In "The Bubbler", Gabriel is not seen among the adults being carried into space by Bubbler's bubbles, despite the fact that Nathalie and The Gorilla are both seen floating away.
 * In "The Mime", Gabriel is unavailable after Hawk Moth surfaces.
 * In "Ladybug and Cat Noir (Origins - Part 1)", the visible portions of Hawk Moth's civilian form resemble Gabriel. Additionally, Hawk Moth holds a locket with a picture of Emilie Agreste in it and has a silver ring on his left middle finger, similar to Gabriel's.
 * In "Simon Says", Hawk Moth states that "this could be risky" upon learning of Simon Says' plan of going after Gabriel Agreste. Later, Hawk Moth suggests Simon Says to not go after Gabriel, despite having never shown concern over the people his victims want revenge on before. Hawk Moth then does not appear for the rest of the episode after Simon Says captures Gabriel.

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