Other thoughts about Madoka

[runespoor]

Still on ep6, and will be until this week-end at the soonest.

- was Homura’s wish “I want to be special” or?... Because she stands apart as ~good at everything and popular and cute at school, and she’s apparently something of a wildcard as a Magical Girl. Was it her wish that set her apart, on top of the strains of being a Magical Girl? (It would work well with Mami’s assumption that Homura used to be bullied, but I’m not sure it explains Homura’s ‘splosions+teleportation powers. And it doesn’t fit with her costume at all, which is basically a school’s uniform. Unless her wish was “I want to be special at school”.)

- reading various watch-alongs up to the point where I am, I’m finding pretty interesting stuff. Especially with regards to the fact that Kyubey seems more interested in the girls’ wishes than in them fighting witches. He doesn’t present being a Magical Girl as being the right thing to do; he doesn’t try to sell them the powers or the glamour of being a MG. That’s not part of the sales pitch at all. He tries to sell them their wish. Wouldn’t that be interesting, if it turned out that the thing that’s supposed to be a compensation for your eternal services was even more useful to the—the whatever it is Kyubey tries to achieve/serves/sides with?

- the biggest twist would be if Kyubey turned out to be a perfectly benevolent if inhuman entity. Heh, maybe he is working for a greater good, even for our human criteria, such as trying to keep the world from being destroyed, and making pacts with Magical Girls and using their soul/life energy is the Only Way to keep the walls between reality to shatter.

- so I wonder: is the wish the price or the prize?

- one thing about the girls’ fighting style: Homura hasn’t used a weapon yet (no clue whether she’s got one she just hasn’t taken out yet or not) ETA: has her tiny shield, Kyouko has her articulated spear thing, and Mami and Sayaka have their cool and metaphorically incredibly disturbing throw-away weapons. If the weapons say something about their users, and I have no reason to assume they don’t and plenty to think they do, that means Kyubey considers Mami and Sayaka cannon fodder – use them once and throw them away, there’s an endless supply where it comes from.

- I wonder what Kyouko’s backstory will turn out to be, because so far I’m perfectly fine hatin’ her.

- also read the theory that becoming a Magical Girl = not growing up anymore. (man, the more I read these things the more I want to shove them in a room with the Robins.) Which is appropriately interesting and terrifying, but I’m not sure how it parses with Mami having been a MG “for a long time” and still not mentioning it to Sayaka and Madoka. Having decided that Mami is basically the most sensible and ethical character on the show, it doesn’t hold.

- ending with a superficial note: I hate Sayaka’s costume. THAT SKIRT. WHY.

Comments

[gehayi]

- I wonder what Kyouko’s backstory will turn out to be, because so far I’m perfectly fine hatin’ her.

Without spoiling you, it's messed up. And her hatred for Sayaka is, I think, largely a hatred for her younger and more naive self.

Which is appropriately interesting and terrifying, but I’m not sure how it parses with Mami having been a MG “for a long time” and still not mentioning it to Sayaka and Madoka. Having decided that Mami is basically the most sensible and ethical character on the show, it doesn’t hold.

I'm not sure. There are some hints that the magical girls can appear anyplace and any time that there are witches, which suggests that they aren't bound by linear time and go wherever there's need/power. Homura and Kyouko appear to be such nomads. Mami could easily have been a magical girl for many, many battles without much time passing chronologically.

I tend to subscribe to the idea that the magical girls are frozen at whatever age they were when they made their wish. Kyubey has said that girls of middle-school age are the ideal magical girls; why would he want anything less than the optimum?

As for Mami not telling Madoka and her friends all the bad parts about being a magical girl, I can think of three reasons why she wouldn't. First, she's a relatively new magical girl, for all that she feels that she's done this for a long time, and simply doesn't know that she's frozen in time. Her sheer joy at being a magical girl and at fighting witches, in contrast to Homura's weariness and indifference and Kyouko's contempt and desire for power, supports this theory.

Second, Homura addresses this later, saying that she's specifically tried to tell people in the past all the bad things about being a magical girl and no one ever believes her. (She hints that the reaction has, on occasion, been a lot more dangerous than simple disbelief.) So Mami could know the truth but simply not be saying anything because she knows that Madoka and her friends wouldn't accept the idea that there's anything bad about being a magical girl. And she does seem to like them as people. Maybe she simply doesn't want to lose them as friends. That would be a bad decision...but they're kids. No matter how old any of them are, they look and think like kids.

The third option is the most horrifying. Since Kyubey allows Mami to take Madoka and her friends along on journeys and battles to the witches' realms, it seems that he's using Mami as a shill to draw the other three in. Perhaps he offered to release her from her service and let her go back to being an ordinary girl if she brought in others to take her place.

Frankly, though, I think that it's a combination of one and three. Kyubey was using Mami as a shill--but Mami was the cheerful young recruit who didn't know about any downside to being a magical girl. She was truthful...as far as she knew. She was convincing because she herself was convinced that becoming a magical girl was a wondrous miracle and not a Faustian bargain.

Does that make sense?