Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Analysis: Difference between revisions

{{Analysis}}{{work}}

* '''Charlotte''': The dessert witch in Episode 3, and {{spoiler|an accomplished [[Knight of Cerebus]]}}. Her barrier is pretty much made entirely of food, especially cake, but according to her profile, her favorite food is cheese... which she can't make, since it's not a dessert. There's also a bit of a medical motif (pills, minions in nurse hats), and her Grief Seed was found stuck in a wall by a hospital. Her profile says that she wants everything and never gives up; this latter comes across in her second form, which just produces a new copy of itself when injured. Her real body resembles a doll, and even appears to be sitting and having a tea party. "Charlotte" is also the name of a kind of dessert. {{spoiler|She almost certainly wished for cake;<ref>Puts an even nastier spin on Mami's wish suggestion, don't it?</ref>; one theory is that she was an hospitalized [[Ill Girl]], and wanted the food she couldn't have on a patient's diet, which would also explain the location of her Grief Seed. It's also speculated that, if she ''was'' an [[Ill Girl]] prior to becoming a [[Magical Girl]] and then a Witch, then her illness may have been [[Littlest Cancer Patient|cancer]]: Charlotte's profile says that her [[Trademark Favorite Food]] is cheese, and patients subjected to chemotherapy aren't permitted dairy products.}}

* '''Kirsten/H.N. Elly''': The witch in Episode 4 that almost killed Madoka. Her barrier is full of TV screens and pixel art, and her profile describes her as covetous and reclusive; it's pretty obvious that she has a [[Hikikomori]] theme. She's unusual in that she has two different names displayed; most likely, the "H.N." stands for "handle name" (Japan's Engrish equivalent term to "screen name") so "Kirsten" is her real name, while she would go by "Elly" online. However, it's also possible that it's a very roundabout [[Shout -Out]]: If the "HN" is instead combined with "Kirsten," that would make her initials "HNK," an anagram of [[Welcome to The NHK|NHK]], which would be rather appropriate given the aforementioned theme. {{spoiler|At one point, one of her screens displays a silhouette of a magical girl. In all likelihood, this was her original appearance. This magical girl appears in the ending shot that shows all of the magical girls who appeared in the anime (even as witches), adding credence to this theory.}}

* '''Oktavia von Seckendorff''': Hooo, boy, this is going to be a long (and spoileriffic!) one. This is the witch who appeared in episodes 8 and 9. A slightly different version appeared in episode 10. She also {{spoiler|used to be Sayaka}}, which gives us a ''lot'' of extra insight into the symbolism behind her barrier and appearance. She appears as a mermaid with three heads and the upper half of her body clad in plate armor and heraldic symbols, wearing a cape and carrying a giant sword. The cape and sword {{spoiler|are holdovers from her magical girl form, and the armor represents her [[Knight in Shining Armor]] tendencies}}. The mermaid tail, especially combined with her profile's description of her as "prone to falling in love," is probably in reference to Hans Christian Anderson's version of "The Little Mermaid." {{spoiler|Sayaka's story, suffering to please the man she loves who ultimately rejects her anyway, closely parallels the original fairy tale.}} Coupled with the heraldry, it also brings to mind the myth of [http://images.puella-magi.net/5/5d/Melusine_information.jpg Melusine]; it should also be noted that Goethe wrote a version of this story. Her barrier is full of music-related symbols, to the point where many of the runes are actually written in a variant font that resembles musical notes or instruments. The hallway that Kyouko first enters by is covered in concert posters,<ref>Although most of them actually just say "Look at me"; I'll get to that in a minute</ref>, while the room at the center of the maze resembles a concert hall, packed to the roof and housing a ghost orchestra. {{spoiler|This is, naturally, connected to Kyousuke and her wish for him to be able to play again. At one point, a figure that appears to be him can be seen standing in the center of the concert hall stage, holding a violin.}} Like most of the witches, she has a [[Madness Mantra]] written in runes throughout her barrier: "Look at me!" {{spoiler|This comes from her frustration at Kyousuke ignoring her despite all her efforts to comfort and help him. She wants him to notice her, but he didn't even bother to tell her when he got out of the hospital.}} Her name also bears some analysis. "Oktavia" is derived from the Latin word for "eight," and is probably intended as another musical connection (an octave is an interval of eight notes). Her last name is likely a reference to the poet Karl Siegmund von Seckendorff, who wrote a novel titled ''The Wheel of Fate'' (which explains Oktavia's wheel attack) and set part of ''Faust'' to music. (Alternately, the wheels may be in reference to the [[Tarot Motifs|Wheel of Fortune tarot card]]; it represents possibilities, opportunities, and sudden changes, which would certainly be appropriate. Or it could just be a reference to {{spoiler|the train aboard which Sayaka crossed her [[Moral Event Horizon]]; it's implied that she '''murdered''' a pair of bartenders whom she heard spouting misogynistic sentiments}}.)

*** Which is probably the cutest grief seed ever.

** Considering she appears after Walpurgis Night, she may be based off the [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocken_spectre:Brocken spectre|Brocken spectre.]]

* '''Walpurgisnacht''': The most powerful witch until Kriemhild Gretchen, Walpurgisnacht is a looming threat throughout the entire series. In fact, she's so powerful that she doesn't need a barrier-- shebarrier—she just floats straight into town and starts letting her familiars loose and throwing buildings around. She's also nearly indestructible, easily shrugging it off when Homura blasts her with [[Wall of Weapons|enough weaponry to outfit a small army]]. Given her plot-critical nature, all sorts of [[Wild Mass Guessing|crazy theories]] cropped up about Walpurgis, particularly theories that she was {{spoiler|the witch form of a main character, usually either Sayaka (due to some details of clothing), Madoka (due to her immense power), or Homura (due to the gears)}}. However, these particular theories were all [[Jossed]] eventually, leaving us free to speculate wildly about Walpurgis herself. There are a few major things to keep in mind here. One is her name-- Walpurgisnachtname—Walpurgisnacht, or Walpurgis Night, is a German festival in the spring which is also believed to be a night on which witches gather. It also features in ''Faust'', when Mephisto takes Faust there to try to distract him from thinking about his lover Gretchen; when it doesn't work, Mephisto instead takes him to where a play is about to be shown. The second half of this is notable: Walpurgisnacht is, according to [[All There in the Manual|her card]], the witch of stage settings. Another interesting detail is that some of her minions resemble the silhouettes of magical girls. All of this combined has led many to believe that {{spoiler|rather than being the expression of ''one'' girl's despair, she's an amalgamation of many-- sort of a composite witch, which would also explain her incredible power}}. Another theory relies on the carnival theme that other of her minions seem to have, and theorizes that she is {{spoiler|the green-haired girl shown in the montage of Madoka saving all the witches in the finale, based on the fact that maypoles and what seems to be part of a fair can be seen behind where she was dying, and the location may have influenced her witch form}}. And, last but not least, there's the simplest one: {{spoiler|She started out as an ordinary magical girl that wished to join a theatre troupe, but in a time when theater was a male-only profession (thus her nature is inability). Since her fall into witchdom, she has been perpetually gathering other Witches as "actresses" for her "productions".}}. It is notable that she is the witch of stage machines, which in Greek theater was the "machina" part of [[Deus Ex Machina]]. This is appropriate as {{spoiler|her appearance instigated Madoka's ascent to godhood.}} And yet another theory would be that {{spoiler|Walpurgis was a lonely girl who was a victim of bullying and treated like a circus freak (hence the circus theme). She was helpless against it (hence the helplessness) and possibly wished to have friends (hence the mahou shoujo-like spectres; maybe said wish made her powers only fully workable when other mahou shoujo were near/being copied from other mahou shoujo, driving further the point of helplessness). She probably was curious and kept asking Kyubey about how the system worked (alluding to "The witch's mysteries have been handed down through the course of history" part; it could be referring to Walpurgis herself, or to how the system worked). Through years of loneliness, possibly coupled with some nerdiness, she treated life like a theater machine, where she just wanted to be the main character and see a happy ending. Her despair was that she ended up lonely again, because all of her friends became witches, but she couldn't do anything to help them. She became a powerful witch because she carried the burden of all magical girls who became her friends through the course of her history. There would be a chance of her being a [[Large Ham]], given the witch's attitude (loud laughter and spinning around). The fact the witch tries to destroy the entire world as a ''"grand finale"'' might definitely confirm her hammish nature.}}

** As it turns out, the black cat has another significance [[All There in the Manual|that is only revealed in the Drama CD accompanying the Blu-ray/DVD]]. {{spoiler|You remember how every girl has to make a wish to become a magical girl? In Episode 10, we see several timelines, but until the forth, Madoka was already a magical girl when Homura arrived}}. So this raises the question: {{spoiler|what did Madoka wish for in the original timeline}}? The Drama CD answers that question. {{spoiler|The cat's name is Amy. He/she is Madoka's contract; she wished for the cat's well-being}}. This gives us a glimpse into another facet of Madoka that doesn't get much play in the series: despite her [[Desperately Looking for Aa Purpose In Life|defining issues]], she's an extremely kind [[Friend to All Living Things]] who will go to great lengths to help anyone, even a stray cat. Something that Homura [[Lampshade Hanging|points out]] at the time.

* '''The two Madokas''': The opening theme has a brief section featuring Madoka's [[Transformation Sequence]], where there appear to be two of her that ultimately merge into one. There are a couple of ways to interpret this, given the ending. {{spoiler|It may represent the fact that Madoka's immense magical power comes from the fact that she has essentially absorbed all the "bad karma" from previous iterations of Homura's loop. Alternately, it may represent her ultimate fate-- the slightly older Madoka is the [[A God Am I|God!Madoka]] created when she [[Ascend to Aa Higher Plane of Existence|Ascends to a Higher Plane of Existence]] at the end of the series, and the transformation sequence ending in the two merging is a representation of this transition.}}

* '''Ending lyrics''': [http://wiki.puella-magi.net/Magia Here]. Very cryptic, and a bit on the creepy side, this lyrics of this song actually seem to be a tribute to ''Mami''. She's urging Madoka to make a contract and talking about how she's wanted the power to fight the darkness since she read fairy tales as a child. However, the overall tone of the lyrics, especially combined with the melody of the song, suggest that this is a ''very bad idea''. Given the [[Wham! Episode]] the ED was first played after, it's an appropriate tone for it to take.

* [[Selfless Wish]]/[[Be Careful What You Wish For]]: Remember that here we will talk about "deconstruction" as "exploring the real-life implications of the trope". [[Deal Withwith the Devil|Kyubey]] grants wishes in exchange for the wishee becoming a [[Magical Girl]] and fighting monsters for him. The problems that arise from the granting of the wish aren't exactly because of the wish itself, or from Kyubey -- whileKyubey—while he's not exactly trustworthy, he has no incentive to screw with people's wishes. The problem is that ''the person making the wish is almost never honest about what she '''really''' wants''. Veteran Magical Girls repeatedly warn potential ones against the perils of a selfless wish, and that's part of what makes it so tragic: ''there is no such thing as a selfless wish''. Every supposedly "selfless" wish has a selfish motive behind it (case in point: Sayaka's wish to heal Kyousuke), and seeing the chance for that selfish desire slipping away with the rising happiness of someone else sends a Magical Girl deeper into despair...

** Mami takes the concept of "pre-teen young girls with magical powers fighting monsters to save people daily" to its most logical conclusion; what she demonstrates is the true effect of taking that great responsibility and choosing to be a heroine, especially a middle-schooler who essentially had it forced on her because she had no other choice at the time. As she said herself- being constantly busy with hunting Witches leaves little to no spare time to have fun or make friends, leading to her becoming an incredibly lonely [[Stepford Smiler]] who latches onto the one chance she gets to make friends. She pushes herself too hard and desperately tries to hold herself together under those conditions- there's nothing actually good about being a magical girl, she tells Madoka. Living the life she does, even if she does help people at her own cost, leaves an effect of her mental and emotional state that is only reinforced by her loneliness. She breaks down crying when Madoka tells her she'll fight beside her. Simply put, her lifestyle is hardly a healthy one. And that isn't just because she's a magical girl-- againgirl—again, being a magical girl doesn't automatically mean being a heroine- but because she plays this trope as straight as possible by acting as much as a selfless heroine as she can. And when we first meet her, that's indeed what she seems like-- enoughlike—enough that Sayaka tries to take after her.

* [[Monster of the Week]]: The [[Magical Girl Warrior]] genre has a long tradition of monsters that a) resemble everyday things twisted into [[This Is Your Premise Onon Drugs|something you'd see on]] [[Mushroom Samba|a bad LSD trip]] and/or b) are [[Powered Byby a Forsaken Child]] in some way or another. ''[[Heartcatch Pretty Cure]]'', for example, had [[Monster of the Week|Monsters Of The Week]] made by ripping out human souls and inserting them into objects, with the victim's consciousness eternally reliving the state of misery and despair that made them vulnerable in the first place. This show demonstrates how horrifying [[Eldritch Abomination|on all levels]] opponents like this would actually be if the plot did not mandate that they be ineffectual [[Mook|Mooks]]s.

** This is reinforced by the fact that the version of Madoka that ultimately triumphs {{spoiler|Is the one that is fully aware of the consequences but makes the sacrifice regardless of them including losing everything.}}

* [["I Know You Are're in There Somewhere" Fight]]: When attempted on {{spoiler|Oktavia/Sayaka}}, it works about as well as you'd expect talking to an [[Eldritch Abomination]] killing machine to work. The fact that {{spoiler|Kyouko}} wasn't fighting to kill also made the fight much harder than it would otherwise have been, which ultimately led to {{spoiler|a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}} that probably wouldn't have been necessary if they had accepted that {{spoiler|Sayaka}} was gone.

* [[Reset Button Ending]]: In a normal Magical Girl show (say, Sailor Moon, for example),{{verify|reason=Since when was Sailor Moon a 'normal Magical Girl show'? It's more a toku show.}} when the button's pressed, everyone resumes their lives not being a Magical Girl or they are simply alive or something that is positive. In Madoka, when it's pressed, {{spoiler|everything is pretty much the same, except for the fact that Magical Girls fight demons now, and that instead of becoming Witches, they are whisked away by Madoka. Note that when the button's pressed, only three of the main Puella Magi remained, with the two missing being Madoka and Sayaka}}.

* ''Madoka Magica'' deconstructs the Magical Girl genre by having a Magical Girl being {{spoiler|the immature form of a witch}}.{{verify|reason=How is this a deconstruction? It's right there in the kanji.}} How does one reconstruct that? To answer that, first we must ask, what does a witch represent? One could say that the fairy-tale witch demonizes the idea of a woman having power. A potential reconstruction could involve the idea of witches being "evil" and "[[Eldritch Abomination|abominable]]" as either propaganda designed to keep girls under control, or what an empowered female looks like from a sexist perspective. The heroine's journey would be finding out that the witches are not, in fact, as evil as she has been led to believe, and her maturing and awakening to her true power as a witch as she struggles for freedom from those who would control her.

** Another possible reconstruction is to keep the ideas of witches as [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s, and that all magical girls have to eventually become witches...but it turns out that [[Dark Is Not Evil|Eldritch Abominations are not evil]]. Suddenly becoming a witch is like [[Coming of Age Story|growing up]] - it seems scary at first, but then it's not bad at all, just different.

* The Faustian bargain is a very powerful part of pop culture that underpins the entire series, but the direct comparisons are a little more difficult to make. The series is very heavily influenced by imagery from Faust but comparing any characters directly is like comparing [[ZeroThe noFamiliar Tsukaimaof (Light Novel)Zero|Saito]] and [[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Literature)|Dorothy]] simply because neither of them are in Kansas anymore.

There is a special area that is within Episode 1 that takes a direct excerpt from Goethe's Faust. [http://wiki.puella-magi.net/File:Ep1_Rune_Das_Hexeneinmaleins.jpg This picture] from the wiki has been translated and allows for a complete understanding of the anime itself and possibly why their positions were chosen. This is also a case of [[Shown Their Work]], [[Faust|since this direct from the original material]]. Here is the translated version (numbered lines as a reference).

{{quote| '''''Witch's one-time-one''''' (or '''''Das Hexeneinmaleins''''')}}

{{quote| 1 ''This you must ken (understand)!''<br />

2 ''From one make ten,''<br />

3 ''And two let be,''<br />

4 ''Make even three,''<br />

5 ''Then rich you'll be.''<br />

6 ''Skip o'er the four!''<br />

7 ''From five and six,''<br />

8 ''The Witch's tricks,''<br />

9 ''Make seven and eight,''<br />

10 '''Tis finished straight;''<br />

11 ''And nine is one,''<br />

12 ''And ten is none,''<br />

* ''Fifth line:'' Episode 3. [[Wham! Episode|Mami dies]], and its back to the [[Arc Number|fourth]] line, which would be Episode 4. This is a subtle way of showing [[Four Is Death]], but it is done one point ahead of time. However, in the real timeline, this is the perfect place to insert [[Four Is Death]], because Episode 10 comes before Episode 1. The "rich" portion is Kyubey tempting her with dreams of power after Mami, the only good [[Big Brother Mentor|Big Sister Mentor she thought she had]].

* ''Sixth line:'' Episode 5. An intermission episode, showcasing Madoka deciding between becoming a [[Magical Girl]] and not. Interestingly, this line is the exact inverse of what happens in the episode. Finally, this episode is also when Kyoko comes in, and when Sayaka becomes a [[Magical Girl]].

* ''Tenth line:'' Episode 9. References the deaths of Kyoko and Sayaka. Metaphorically speaking, Kyoko was [[A Father to His Men|reminded of her father (and herself)]] by [[Team Mom|Sayaka]], so it's only proper that they [[Together in Death|would die together]]. This episode is the last of the [[Wham! Line|Wham Lines]].

Mahou Shoujos turn into Witches. Witches represent perversion/whoredom.

You lose your virginity (become a Mahou Shoujo) due to desire (making a wish), then eventually you maybe are consumed by the socioemotional problems of such (Hope to Despair) and thus turn into a pervert (Witch).

Madoka, by contrast, represents "Ethics of Care". Care ethicists hold that emotion and empathy are of vital importance in moral judgments, and that special consideration should be given to those who are directly affected by the decision, particularly those most vulnerable (such as the girl making the contract). Madoka, having seen and empathised with the human consequences of Kyuubei's system, made her wish as an ethical decision based on her compassion.

Related to Judgement Ethics versus Ethics of Care above. For utilitarians, the most ethical decision is that which brings the most amount of benefits, and the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can only weigh the morality of an action after knowing all its consequences. [[For Happiness]] is one such example of utilitarianism, however this seemingly idealistic rule can be very easy to screw up, as shown by the [[Totalitarian Utilitarian]]. ''Act'' utilitarians are those who follow this and nothing more.

The Incubators are act utilitarians taken to the extreme: if saving the universe brings the greatest benefits, and if saving the universe means [[Powered Byby a Forsaken Child|the suffering of a few]], then this suffering of this few ''must'' lead to the greatest benefits. A similar situation happens in ''[[Warhammer 40000 (Tabletop Game)40,000/Analysis|Warhammer 40000]]'': brutal regimes like the Inquisition are not just important, but ''necessary'', because the universe there is so damned ''dangerous'' and humans are the brink of extinction. [http://crookedtimber.org/2004/06/18/by-the-power-of-stipulation-i-have-the-power/ As someone else put it:] "if you let me put my thumb on the utilitarian scales, I can get you to agree that you have an affirmative moral duty to torture a three-year-old child to death." Made worse by the fact that the Incubators, having a psychological structure different from that of humans (remember that in Incubator society emotion is considered a mental disorder, but they imitate human emotion in order to manipulate them), have no concept of such things like privacy and sanctity of life.

Now, Madoka is being driven further into this conflict between her own conventional morality (e.g., things like "love thy neighbour as thyself") and the Incubators' utilitarianism. Everyone around her is suffering, but the problem is that this vicious cycle of utilitarianism also ''makes sense'', and thus she cannot argue against the Incubators' position. But if she cannot argue against, why not compromise? At the end of the series, she gets an opportunity to change the [[Powered Byby a Forsaken Child]]-based universe and create a new one which also fits in with her morality that is based on rule of compassion. Thus Madoka adopts Rule Utilitarianism: she can still preserve conventional rules that allow a comfortable life for everyone in this universe (like for example the necessity for Incubators and Magical Girls to fight entropy and ensure the prosperity of human civilization), while dumping those conventional rules that are unnecessary and harmful (like for example having magical girls fall to despair and become Witches).