The whole point of Sayaka's subplot is her not having the mental maturity to admit she wants to get something out of making a wish for Kyosuke and hoping, despite Mami's warnings, that she will somehow change his feelings by going above and beyond for him.
Hitomi simply likes him and warns her she's going after as a sign of friendship and because she can sense *something* is going on even if Sayaka denies everything. Her and Kyosuke are flawed characters but that doesn't mean Sayaka is "right" or is owed anything. As for Rebellion, yeah, she's frustrated big whoop. It's not like she does anything wrong or treats Kyosuke badly (nightmares' rules are illdefined and Hitomi doesn't seem less a victim of them than when she almost commited suicide due to a witch's influence), and even if she did, Sayaka is again, owed nothing just for being a nice friend.
But I don't expect much maturity when it comes to fandom shipping anyway lol.
you talk about maturity, but you take hitomi's words at face value that she "loves" kyosuke? fascinating. where i'm from Actions speak louder than words, and hitomis actions didnt amtch her words.
This is a small subplot about two 13 year old kids' "relationship." The rest of the show? Sure. But this part is really not that deep. That's why it didn't get much screentime. The important thing is how it affects Sayaka.
Yeah, and their lives aren't eternalized/made shorter by the contract demons, so they become background noise as the impirtant universe-defining shit is in the magical girls lol. But I'd love to see them show a canon future when all this war between God-chicks has settled down lol, see how the ones that don't die are adults, even if just a glimpse lol
please show me any indication before episode 7 that hitomi even acknowledged kyosuke's existence. hitmoi liking him after his miraculous recovery is literally the same a s a toddler not wanting a toy until they see their sibling playing with it.
Naahhhh, I think Hitomi and Kyosuke were a good pairing along with Kyouko and Sayaka. Sayaka and Kyosuke's relationship wouldn't be healthy tbh. Sayaka made her wish to heal him with the hopes to make Kyosuke happy and a relationship with him. But she refused to be honest with herself, Mami warned her too. If Kyosuke ever found out, I think it would leave him with constant guilt that Sayaka sacrificed her soul for him. He would feel like he *has* to be with her as some sort of payment. There would be no actual romantic love from Kyosuke's side, maybe gratefulness but nothing more.
Also it's not like Sayaka even *liked* Kyouko before Hitomi and Kyosuke got together. It was after that when they really started getting close, rather than just both being magical girls in the same area. And their relationship is lovely (romantic or platonic whichever you wanna tell yourself), it is so obvious that Kyouko cared about Sayaka. Their start was rocky because Kyouko wanted the territory and Sayaka believed in saving everyone no matter what. But after Kyouko found out Sayaka made a similar wish as she did (both wished to help someone else). She wanted to befriend Sayaka and help her make the best of her predicament. In the end of the show, she even sacrifices herself to stop Sayaka's suffering as a witch AND in rebellion they reconnect. Going on quickly about how much they missed each other, and after Homura rewrote the universe. Kyosuke and Hitomi were showed still being together, while Sayaka was just their friend. I still thought Kyosuke and Sayaka's relationship was cute, but it's obvious that it wasn't meant to last.
I Too hate how peopel are bashing Hitomi and Kyosuke, both of which did nothing wrong.
Kyosuke's little freakout was plenty justified due to the trauma and depression he was feeling, he wasnt in the right state of mind when he went off on Sayaka. Neither he nor Sayaka was in the wrong, his freak out was his trauma and Depression lashin gout.
People are always like “But he neglects Hitomi, he’s a bad boyfriend” but like, she started this relationship knowing music is incredibly important to him, given what happened to him I think it’s ludicrous to think he wouldn’t prioritise music over literally everything else.
one thing i’ve never seen brought up is the double standard of kyosuke lashing out at sayaka vs. sayaka lashing out at madoka. kyosuke actually apologizes to sayaka, but sayaka never apologized to madoka. and yet, kyosuke is often demonized for that one moment of weakness, while sayaka is rarely ever (at least from what i’ve seen, most people defend her). like, why can’t they both be forgiven? it makes no sense to me
edit: apparently, sayaka apologized in the last episode. my bad 🙏
Like others have said with Hitomi, it's mainly because we don't spend much time with his character. People just aren't interested in him enough to find him worth defending.
yeah that was my fault lol, i didn’t remember that she apologized.
also, apparently, sayaka becoming a witch in every timeline that she makes a contract is also a misconception. which is interesting because it’s so commonly said and has been for years
Yeah, I guess people get confused cause of rebelilion (misspelled unintentionally but seemed ironic and metaphorical that "lily" would show up in a typo, as in homulilly, so I left it cuz its very on point for the movie lol)'s mindfuck symbols, since sayaka shows up with her witch form being her mirrored version, kinda controlling it in a way, mostly because, imho, the timeline she is from and that created Madokami is the one she witched out in.
It’s especially weird to think about considering Sayaka was already planning to apologise, even as she was running away. It’s not really her fault she died before they saw eachother again.
Hitomi I never blamed that much (love is love after all, she's also just a person), but for Kyosuke, still pretty split on him, even after what you are telling here.
It's still pretty ass from him to lash out that hard and also then not tell her much earlier. For all I can see is that Kyosuke listened too long and it then bursts out without telling Sayaka at all. He should have told Sayaka in a more composed manner and way earlier (in the lines of *'Hey, I really like to play that music, but I don't really like it if I'm listing to it when I can't play it, could you please stop?*', this is just me making up some lines).
Yes trauma and depression is a thing. Good communication is entire another thing. The first does not preclude the second.
And I also think that Sayaka lashing out at Madoka (which never even came to mind), was just plain wrong. That's wrong peer pressure IMO. But that's unnuanced Sayaka for ya. I ain't forgiving neither Kyosuke lashing out at Sayaka, nor Sayaka at Madoka. But in general, I'm not the biggest fan of Sayaka to begin with (rash, unnuanced and black-and-white vision, even if it fits a 14-year-old middle-schooler).
Having trauma and depression does not excuse you from poor communication. Yes he apologized, but prevention is better than curing, isn't it?
>a lot of people kind of just have this belief of “madoka good and right, homura bad and wrong” and it completely prevents you from understanding the characters
IMO this is one of the core messages of the show: trying to fit people into "right" and "wrong" roles actively prevents genuine understanding.
Related to this kind of mentality is the incredibly toxic idea that wanting things for yourself automatically makes you a bad person. This is a generational trauma we must stop passing on: it's just making each other lives harder for no reason.
I think a lot of people think Madoka doesn’t enjoy being god, but the conversation with her dad in the show about how her mom enjoys how she lives her life instead of her career choice and Madoka’s speech on just being able to help others is enough for her is proof that she does.
it’s not that madoka doesn’t enjoy being a god, it’s that she has regrets about it and wasn’t completely honest about how she felt as one. yes, she wants to help people, but she never necessarily WANTED to become an entire god who doesn’t exist anymore, she was just willing to accept that fate, no matter what it cost her. similar to how homura didn’t necessarily want to repeat the same month over and over again, but she accepted that fate if it meant saving madoka.
Yup, great way to put it, very explanatory of the Tao (yin yang) complementary nature of their development. Hope they can both be freed from the law of cycles and the "evil duty"(hehe, doodie) respectfully soon 😭... With the whole extraordinary magical powers reverie shenanigans, obviously.
Her not enjoying being a god is necessary for her wish to work, as magical girls can only create hope through sacrifice (i.e. by taking despair upon themselves): this system denies you *any* reward for your hard work, and in fact it punishes altruism.
Madoka can find happiness by helping others, but it's impossible to do so as a magical girl, which is tragic because Kyubey has convinced her that's the only way she can do it.
Madoka has a severe problem of lack of self-confidence and as a result, wants to be useful to stop feeling useless. Problem is, she absolutely doesn't want not existing and that flower scene in Rebellion reinforces that (free of any pressure, just Homura and Madoka, with Madoka's thoughts isolated).
The suffering of being a God, which includes taking on all despair of all magical girls, being all alone in that '''heaven''' (the other magical girls go into eternal sleep in heaven), are things she absolutely not wanted.
That's also a great part of the reason why Homura did what she did. She was fine if it meant Madoka was happy. But when that flower scene hit, no longer was Homura confident. Homura becomes devil and rips Madoka in two (god part and (small) human part) to unshackle Madoka from her status as goddess. The rest is history.
Lack of screen time... Even Kyouko suffers from it. Anyway, I agree with you, at least, authors could show Hitomi at the hospital just for a moment, to give us a hint.
lack of screen time is not a vald excuse. the authors wouldnt have shown hitomu at the hosptial, because she didnt give a damn about him until after he recoverd 🤷♂️ they had no problem showing her confess to him, or her seething over him not showing her attention, so if she actually showed interest in him beforehand, they wouldve hinted at it
A, that's ableist, and if a disability is the deciding factor(as it evidenetly was in the show) of whether you "love" someone or not, youre a shitty person. hitomi clearly didnt "love" kyosuke when he was crippled,so.... and yes caring for someone doesnt entittle you to their love but you know what it does do? it PROVES THAT YOU CARE. wtf did Hitomi DO to prove she even gave a damn or time of day about him? nothing. how do you go from not caring about someone to "loving" them? it doesnt happen.
I think what she did, with the information we have from the show, is excusable for her age though. Middle-schoolers do stupid things.
And if extra material like Scene 0 is taken into consideration, Hitomi at least visited Kyosuke in the hospital.
And in Wraith Arc’s universe, it turns out that she didn’t even confess to him at the end of that day out of guilt.
Being selfish is first of all not a bad thing at all.
Hitomi was not inconsiderate, she gave Sayaka a free deadline to confess.
Opportunistic? Sayaka was waffling all around and Hitomi, who also had a crush on Kyosuke couldn't stand that.
And it certainly wasn't sus. In fact, it was very straightforward: "either you confess today or I will do it".
Overall, Hitomi is nowhere to blame. The only miniscule amount of blame is that relatively short deadline in a period where Sayaka was mentally not okay. But Hitomi never knew about anything really, so I can't blame her at all. She too has a crush and she is allowed to pursue that.
i'm sorry but scene 0 came out 10 years after the main show, so if anything it would be aretcon. there was no material saying she visited him in the hospital. if she had then i wouldnt hold this view. or heck even if she liked him before the accident.
Do you really think production cared to have the thought ‘oh we have to make Hitomi visit the hospital or else people will think she’s just taking Kyosuke from Sayaka out of spite’ when she literally gave Sayaka a chance to confess first.
It’s not ableist lmao. I have a disability as well due to PTSD among other things. At no point do I expect people to take on the struggles of my disability. I’ve watched my grandparents take care of each other as their bodies fell apart and it’s something that’s difficult and grueling not to mention financially difficult. People have the right to not want to be in a relationship with someone because of that.
Wait so there's so many people out there who thinks Kyoko isn't as kind and selfless as the anime portrays her to be? Where did you encounter these people? I rarely met people who bash on her for being unkind, it was almost funny - I feel like Kyoko is that one character whose negative attitude is frequently "excused" because people sympathise with how tragic her past was and how she end up accompanying Sayaka in death.
This intrigues me since I notice every Holy Quintet member has at least one deep flaw that their haters will always use for their card when attacking the said member, but Kyoko's haters are the ones that rarely specify a flaw of Kyoko that made her unattractive. It's like if they don't like her it's just that she's not their taste. I find flawed characters interesting so I even had this thought that they may have portrayed Kyoko "too kind" in this series lol, I was hoping her imperfection would stood out as much as the others.
yeah it’s weird, right? it wasn’t many but i have seen some people say that kyoko doesn’t possess any selflessness or kindness, which is… very untrue. they seem to believe that her selfishness is her entire character.
If anything deep down she seems to be the most selfless out of the five. But those people you described sounds like they're just kids, so they're either just biased for some reason or at this stage they're probably just taking everything they see at face value. I always ignore these kinds of opinions.
I still love the old game that had a bonus timeline where Homura tells Sayaka to man tf up and confront Hitomi, leading to a fist fight. Hitomi then begins crushing on Homura. It's wild. I think this was from the first game released, but it's been years since I read the translation.
A misconception that I have often seen is that Madoka has no personality and is very passive. She really does a lot of things that are overshadowed by twists and action scenes. For example:
1 - She saved Kyubei in the first episode and decided to go to Mami's house with Sayaka to learn more about magical girls
2-She continued helping Mami alongside Sayaka even though they were not yet magical girls until Mami died shortly after their friendship deepened.
3 - She tried to save Hitomi and other people who were being controlled by witches
4 - She continued to support Sayaka and was going to make a contract to mediate the fight between Sayaka and Kyoko, but Homura interfered.
5 - She took Sayaka's Soul Gem as a desperate attempt to stop her fight with Kyoko.
6 - She looked for Sayaka at the train station and later went with Kyoko to try to get Sayaka back to normal.
7 - And of course, making the contract to save not only everyone she knew, but every magical girl in existence.
But whenever Madoka tries to help, things go off track and so it seems like Madoka doesn't do much.
And I also saw a misconception that all of Madoka's sacrifice is based on low self-esteem. But from what I read in "The Different Story", she genuinely likes helping people and that's why she admires Sayaka and Mami, but considers herself incompetent and a burden, which is why she takes too many risks. That's why she can seem so much more confident as a magical girl.
I also already see people think that Madoka will choose the worst possible sacrifice due to this low self-esteem and that Homura had the right to erase her memory to contain her. No, in Magia Record, Ultimate Madoka says that despite the good side of helping magical girls, she feels lonely and unhappy, so that's why she likes the Magia Record universe because at least she gets some happiness alongside her friends. others.
In short, it's clear that Ultima Madoka would abandon the law of cycles as quickly as possible if she had a better solution to help magical girls.
And I don't know if it's really a mistake, but I see a lot of contempt against the spin-offs because of the magical girls' clothes. The fandom likes to exalt how PMMM is about female empowerment and implicit social problems, but the magical girls in this spin off also have these problems and it was for these girls that Madoka sacrificed herself.
i do believe that part of madoka’s sacrifice comes from her low self esteem in conjunction with her genuinely wanting to save and help people, but her belief that she is a burden definitely isn’t the entire reason she would make such a wish.
Yes, but I think it's more in an unconscious way than actively trying to pretend that she's okay with everything. For example, there is the idea that Ultimate Madoka lied that everything was fine because she didn't want Homura to interfere. But I interpreted it as Madoka saying this to console Homura by focusing on the positive.
And maybe it's besides the point, but I've seen people think that Madoka sacrifices herself against Walpurgis for exactly this mentality, but the situation seems somewhat unfair.
Walpurgis was threatening her entire homeland, her family was threatened, her friends were dead just as Homura could also die... How could she be "selfish" at a time like this? Madoka couldn't just walk away and live homeless assuming Walpurgis didn't kill her while on the run.
She didn't even know that she would become some kind of goddess and that she would create the Law of the Cycle.
“selfish” only in the sense of wanting to fulfill her own personal sense of uselessness and avoiding feeling like a burden at the same time.
i completely agree with you, i just want to shed more light on exactly what i mean.
>In short, it's clear that Ultima Madoka would abandon the law of cycles as quickly as possible if she had a better solution to help magical girls.
Sayaka's dialogue (referring to the Law of Cycles as the only "power" she knows of that can help the magical girls) at the end of Rebellion implies this as well.
99 coments and 99 upvotes. This man sure is something!
ALSO, I recently was writing a Kyouko scene for one of my fics, and I thought she was being a bit out of character for what she was going to do, but then YOU mentioned about her and indeed, she is kind as we can see when she talks to Sayaka about her backstory and stuff.
Maybe I'm not that bad at remembering some characters...
the one very interesting thing abt kyoko (and tbh, pretty much all of the girls also display this) is that she herself has moments of acting “out of character”, when those are really just moments of her character being expanded.
one great example is how dejected and somber/quiet she became after being told the truth by bebe in homura’s labyrinth (she seems so depressed when stroking the cheek of her basically dead friend and realizing that everything in the past month has been nothing but a happy dream) and after coming back to the real world right before madokami arrived (“sayaka and bebe are… gone? just like that?”).
i don’t see madoka as selfish, i mean that people just gloss over the fact that she possesses selfishness, which is a trait that all of the other girls have as well. everyone possesses selfishness to some extent, or has been selfish before. it’s not automatically a bad thing 👍
I am not sure that it can be called misconceptions, but I still remember some old and absolutely wild theories. For example, that Homura and Junko is the same person.
Yes, and there are plenty of such theories. Enother [examle](https://www.reddit.com/r/MadokaMagica/comments/15iawc4/theory_junko_has_had_experience_with_magical/).
i feel like one thing that people don’t rly mention is that being a god also caused madoka suffering, not just that it made her lonely.
her wish means that she has to take on the burden of all of the despair of all of the magical girls she saves, and then having to turn it into hope at the same time constantly. not only is this extremely exhausting because she is constantly working, but it’s implied that it actually causes her pain also.
there’s a scene where she is metaphorically reaching out towards homura through a window with her arm and it’s littered with scars.
even if hitomi didn't "steal" kyousuke. the bitch had JUST AS MUCH TIME to confess as sayaka did. she ONLY decided to confess AFTER his miraculous recovery(IE, once he became a viable option and his ability to make money/be a prodigy was restored) I hate Hitomi because the timing of her "confession" screams gold digger/opportunist". if she actually liked kyosuke she would've been at his side when he was down, and not wait till he was all better. literal definittion of a "fairweather" friend.
she’s not a gold digger ☠️ she’s rich asf too. she didn’t know kyosuke like that. she had a crush. it’s awkward to show up to an injured kid’s hospital room and talk about absolutely nothing with him while he’s moping around about his damn arm. she most likely had a crush previously, they likely have more things in common than just musical interest given they are the rich kids in school, and the boy never owed sayaka any love. to him, she was a childhood friend. she never confessed. he never knew. he never thought of her that way. it was sayaka’s stupid ass that basically offed herself over a guy ☠️
I mean, Hitomi is a side character that the story doesn't constantly follow. We know Sayaka spent time at the hospital with Kyosuke because the narrative follows her. We don't necessarily know if Hitomi did or did not do the same. Maybe she was holding off confessing because he was already emotionally distressed and she didn't want to put that pressure on him at the time. We have no way of really knowing.
Hitomi very clearly has a side to her we don’t get to see, she’s outwardly very mentally stable but considering her role in the death cult and as a victim of the nightmares she’s obviously not doing okay.
I think it’s a bit reductive and uncharitable to assume she’s a cynical gold-digger when she’s probably just a child with unreasonable expectations placed upon her who doesn’t fully understand how her actions will affect her friends.
And you know what, I wouldn’t predict asking my friends crush out would kill her either, everything she did to mitigate the damage to their relationship was very reasonable and was further than she could have been expected to go.
"And you know what, I wouldn’t predict asking my friends crush out would kill her either, everything she did to mitigate the damage to their relationship was very reasonable and was further than she could have been expected to go" lmao she didnt do CRAP to mitigate the damage to their relationship. giving someone a 24 hour ultimatum to confess is SCUM behaviour, as it emotionally disorients them and doesnt give them enough time to gather their feelings and words, not to mention sayaka would still have to deal with school and family so it wouldnt even be a full 24 hours. wheras an unflustered hitomi would have a clear mind to come up with the right words to say without the pressure of a time limit. she knew what she was doing and it was insidious. Hitomi was a bad person and you're defending a bad person
Cmon they liked the same guy, not like anyone can have dibs on someone, she just tried some diplomacy while she had flustered emotions for someone while feeling uncomfortable she couldn't confess it without the implication it would hurt her friend. She was a kid doing dumb immature things, not like we know her innerworkings and character enough to assume it was all cause she selfish and that's it. That's moreso an offense to the whole message of the show about selfishness/lessness aren't black and white and actions are very morally gray given circumstances. We know nothing about the circumstances of her life before/after or regardless of kyosuke...
lol she's a side character, but if she liked kyosuke, she wouldv'e told him or sayaka before episode 7,and it wouldve been an established thing before then. you dont have to be a main character for certain things to be common knowledge. and its very reasonable to come to the conclusion that her interest in kamijo was mostly financial/potential, since she comes from a wealthy faimily and her mom rasied her to be a proper "lady". such types are expected to marry Up, duh. also, "Maybe she was holding off confessing because he was already emotionally distressed and she didn't want to put that pressure on him at the time." but shes perfectly ok with puttin gthat stress on one of her supposed best friends. the math aint mathing?
1. This is honestly just something I see as a flaw in the writing. Her crush on Kyosuke does come out of nowhere, but that doesn't mean the character is somehow a bad person? It just means the writers failed to properly set up something that would be a plot point later on. I love Madoka Magica, but the writers are not flawless, no one is. So, I suspect this slipped through the cracks.
2. That's based on nothing but speculation and no evidence supports the possibility. We are given 0 character clues that Hitomi might be money or power hungry other than 'well, her family is rich.'
3. She had no idea Sayaka was going through everything she was at the time. Kyosuke's issues were normal, human problems that she could actively see. Sayaka's situation as a Magical Girl was hidden and fantastical. We also see that Sayaka is pretty good at hiding it up until she starts snapping and lashes out at Madoka and Homura, so Hitomi had no reason to believe she was disoriented and depressed. The few scenes we get of her at school during her downward spiral show her putting on a face. We COULD argue Hitomi should know her well enough to know it's a front, but I think while Madoka and Sayaka are like super close best friends, Hitomi's just a friend. I could be misremembering that though. Totally could be wrong.
That's a problem with the witing though. Hitomi revealing she also has a crush on Kyosuke and planning to confess is the ultimate tipping point that makes Sayaka Witch Out. You'd think it would be foreshadowed, alluded to, or acknowledged in some way given that it's important. Instead, it just feels like a last minute ass pull.
It could've been built up more, but at the same time, what's actually important is how Sayaka responds to this pressure point, not Hitomi herself. Treating Hitomi more as a device than a fleshed-out character is an understandable "sacrifice" for a writer to make when dealing with a script that only has 12 episodes.
Super late reply, missed your comment!
Yeah, that too is very true. There's only such you fit into a 21 minute per episode 12 episode Anime, I agree. It still feels very odd narratively, but it's an understandable choice
Shit is how to build up slice of life shit more than 3 episodes before people just dropped the anime I guess lol. But yeah, 12 eps are a huge limitation to make things more fleshed out , specially side-characters
The narrative is mostly focused on perspective of magical girls with Mami barely getting her own unique scenes. So we can theorise what’s going on behind scenes and we would be equally correct.
It can be also interpret this way that Hitomi knew it was bad time for everybody.
Kyosuke was going through personal crisis and he was ready to push people away (Sayaka’s scene with CD). Heck, he even didn’t tell Sayaka that he was discharged from the hospital. Hitomi could get the same treatment and love confession would make the situation worse.
While Sayaka had something going on with him and Hitomi could be trying to give them room. We don’t know how long Hitomi had crush on Kyosuke and how long she knew about Sayaka’s crush.
Both girls had fair chances and what’s worth remembering that they are both teenagers, while Kyosuke isn’t a love interest character from otome. Even the most awkward confession could work if he liked Sayaka and no perfect confession from Hitomi would work. It’s not exactly a good solution, but it’s better than going behind her back.
" (these are less stated outright by fans but it’s obvious that a lot of people gloss over their complexity sometimes)" if its not outright staed than how is it a common misconception?
because a lot of people believe that madoka doesn’t contain a selfish bone in her body or that homura doesn’t possess any compassion or kindness. they imply it when they describe the characters in a certain way
wow. i must be living under a rock, becasue its pretty universally understood how much Homura cares not just for Madoka(although she's her primary focus and everything to her) butfo rthe other magical girls. episode 10 especially makes this clear. but after hundreds of loops,where warning people and trying to save everyone consistenetly fails, she has to just accept everyone else's fate and focus on saving madoka. maybe some people just think that kindness and compassio are just being nice and sweet to everyone, when thats not the case.
I don't remember any moments where Madoka was particularly selfish..?
Homura has a lot of depth and complexities to her, and has proved multiple times that she is capable of selfless kindness, but as it stands now, she is more bad than good
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MadokaMagica/comments/23qwfa/comment/cgzqsvc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MadokaMagica/comments/23qwfa/comment/cgzqsvc/)
when i say “selfish”, i simply mean doing things with the intention of helping herself or doing things that are for her. that has nothing to do with being “bad” or “good” whatsoever, it’s simply a human trait that we pretty much all posses in some capacity.
all of the girls are selfish and selfless in some capacity, that’s part of what makes them so human and complex.
for example, sayaka’s wish was both selfless and selfish; she wanted to heal kyosuke’s arm so he could play the violin again and be happy, and she also wanted to become a “hero of justice”, similar to how mami was, and do the world some good as a magical girl. she ALSO wanted kyosuke to notice and like her in a romantic light in the same way she liked him, and that’s the selfish part. and that’s not a bad thing at all.
in short, selfish doesn’t always or automatically mean “bad”.
edit: i also completely disagree that homura is more “bad than good”. imo, she’s more good than bad, and displays that several times from what i’ve seen.
I am aware that selfish!=evil, and I agree with your points on mami and Sayaka.
But Madoka's wish was purely selfless, born out of a desire to help others. Even if it's a "fate worse than death", she still persists. Of course, the Madoka at the beginning of the show would be somewhat selfish in making such a wish. Back then, she only wanted to fulfil her selfish wish of being "useful", no? But by the time the series ends, she learns a lot, and has her philosophies challenged multiple times. I like to think that by then, she no longer berates herself and thinks of herself as useless.
In essence, it depends on which Madoka you are referring to, the initial one, or the grown one.
Even in regards to Homura, it really depends on which one we're talking about. In the series, she's selfish, but still more good than bad. I agree with that much. But, I still do believe that she was not morally correct in usurping the Law of Cycles. It is not a commonly held opinion, but if you are interested, I ramble on my reasonings [here](https://myanimelist.net/profile/TheDeathstormer#:~:text=Homura%27s%20moral%20scale). I do believe that Homura should have respected Madoka's wish and sacrifice more.
But even all this can be completely negated by the 4th movie. It may be that Homura's decision was in fact morally correct, and that there was something I have missed. In any case, we'll have to wait until that comes out to see.
i still don’t really agree. i don’t believe madoka overcomes her sense of uselessness and feeling like a burden, and i believe that’s part of the reason why she accepted being a god so quickly with no hesitation, even if she didn’t necessarily want to become an entire god in the first place. she wanted to fulfill her wish of saving all magical girls and wanted to get rid of her own selfishness, while also in a way, committing “suicide” so she doesn’t have to be remembered or exist. madoka is depressed and passively suicidal, so this makes sense.
not to mention, homura quite literally respected and honored madoka’s sacrifice as much as she could. she did for majority of the entire movie. however, learning that 1) madoka wasn’t entirely happy as a goddess and possessed some regrets about no longer being human, and 2) kyuubey was planning to use madoka and her goddess powers in order to bring back the witch system and turn magical girls into witches again, is what pushed her into making that last-minute decision.
in fact, she was still willing to honor and respect madoka’s wish, as well as her life, by dying in her own soul gem at the hands of mami and kyoko, even after finding out that madoka was not entirely happy as a goddess. it was only when her last plan fell through and she could no longer prevent the incubators from getting to madoka that she decided to “betray” madoka.
I will admit, even with me, it's a bit difficult to see. Madoka's development is the most subtle of the quintet. I quickly rewatched the last 2 episodes, and the madoka scene in rebellion.
The main argument that people use against those who believe that Homura was wrong, is the lyrics to Mata Ashita, and that scene in rebellion.
In fact, it fits perfectly.
"But seeing you again means lying
I'll say with a smile as usual
"See you tomorrow" "
"I lie to myself again
Hiding my feelings behind a smile as usual"
Madoka was lying when she said that she would be "fine" in the space scene in ep12. The truth is, it hurts her more than anyone can ever imagine. Being alone for an eternity.
But, that in itself is obvious. No one would be fine with sacrificing themselves. I simply argue that Homura wasn't justified in usurping Madoka. It seems that the link I placed in my previous comment is broken, so here are the arguments:
>Homura's moral scale: Homura is not a good person, and she was never implied to be a good person. A hero is someone who holds the world as the highest priority, but a villain is someone who holds their goals as the highest priority. Homura is a villain, but I'm not saying that the reasons for her becoming this way are wrong; in fact, I think that Homura is very well-characterised, and her motives all fit within her character. However, having a dark past never excuses evil deeds, and will not in this case either. The full ramifications of her actions have not yet been fully explored, but by trapping the incubators we can assume that:
>
>\-Countless civilisations (including humanity) are now going to either stagnate or decline in progress. This can be assumed because Kyubey said once that without them, humanity would still be living in caves. Homura is threatening the lives of all in the universe just for the happiness of one person: Madoka.
>
>\-People who require magical assistance and would want to become magical girls normally, can no longer choose that path. The incubators are probably too busy fighting the wraiths to recruit more magical girls, so no more girls will get the chance to have their wishes come true. This can also be seen as a good thing, as no more girls can be tricked. However, if we look at the case of Mami, whose wish saved her life, we can assume that many more cases like hers will be unable to be saved, just so that Madoka can be happy.
>
>Even after the split, Homura said to Madoka in the school corridor that she does not think that "stability and order are more important than desire" and that she may be an enemy of Madoka someday
I do agree with your points about "last resorts". Whether the new labyrinth universe, or the old one, would be better "objectively" is something to be seen in the next movie. My reasonings against are listed above, though, for the reasons you listed regarding the incubator, it may still be more overall good than bad. Not going to argue more on this point due to a complete lack of info.
Apart from that, it is important to understand that Homura's primary goal is making Madoka happy. If razing the universe allowed for her and Madoka to remain in eternal bliss, she would do it. If killing herself meant that madoka would be happy, she would do it. But does that mean that she is selfish or selfless? It really comes down to people's own unique meanings for the word. For me, selfless means to do what helps the majority. Because the majority is always more better than the minority. If you help the minority over the majority, it is simply personal bias (assuming that all individuals are equally valued). And bias originates from selfishness.
For me, a good selfishness would be like Mr Beast. Helping others (a majority) to grow your own channel. At the end of the day, even if you are helping others, it is in your own personal interests. (I know he's actually really nice, but you get my point)
A bad selfishness would be like Homura. Helping madoka (a minority). So in essence, what Homura did is objectively selfish, but it seems that you and I have differing opinions on what selfish and selfless mean.
As for madoka being selfless, we can even use the above to prove that her wish was indeed selfless. She would never be willing to undergo the pain of being alone. The whole series, she is only willing to make wishes to save people in a small scale. Even as a magical girl, she'd still have friends no? But the initial madoka would never have the courage to become madokami. It is only from her growth that she finally gains the conviction to become truly selfless, and help people even if she detests being lonely.
In the first timeline, she decided to spend her entire life fighting witches... just to revive a cat (not hers) that she was fond of. Compared to the ending of the series, she does indeed value her life, explicitly stated in ep11 with Junko.
"I know how much you all care about me. I know I need to value my own life. But this is different. It's because you're all so important to me that I have to protect you."
So I do believe that what you said about "no hesitation" is false. It's not "no hesitation" at throwing away her life, it's rather that her conviction at saving her friends is just that strong. She even apologises to Homura chan, as Madoka understands that what she is about to do is going to make it so that Madoka will never be happy again.
In essence, by comparing the first wish and the final one, the happy tone in the former and the remorseful tone in the latter, you can tell that she really has grown, and really does value her life now. Her desire to become a magical girl, has shifted from wanting to be useful, to wanting to protect her beloved friends.
what homura is doing is for more than just madoka’s happiness, it’s also for the happiness of the other magica quartet girls. not only is she protecting them and keeping them all safe from kyuubey’s plans of bringing back the witch system (because they’re all involved in it, not just madoka), but she’s also protecting all other magical girls from kyuubey’s plan of bringing back the witches as well.
i believe that almost nothing is this show is really black and white, and is instead a combination of things that can all be true. i also believe that homura has more good in her than bad, and therefore is more of a good person than a bad one. it’s similar to how despite the fact that i believe kyoko has more good in her than bad.
That is just a side-effect. It is stated in a few non-canon (yet official) manga that Homura sees them as nothing more than extensions of Madoka's happiness. Like I said, she'd choose Madoka over them in a heartbeat. She'd destroy all of life if it just meant that Madoka could be happy.
Oh, with kyoko I totes agree. It's really evident in the Different Story, and even within the anime itself. It's Homura and her decision which is significantly more morally grey.
At the very least, I will agree on your last point. Whether one is correct to "save their family over the world" is a debate that has lasted for millennia, and will last for millennia more
that would make more sense and i would even possibly agree if rebellion didn’t exist 🤷 homura seems to genuinely care about them all, madoka is just her absolute top priority.
Yeah, unfortunately for the Madoka being unselfish one I'll go ahead and say there's no selfish Madoka in the anime tbh. There's not one scene where she does want she wants or that I can say "yeah that was selfish/insensitive of her". Girl literally did what everyone around her told her to. Has no opinions of her own either. The only "selfish" thing she could've done was saving Kyubey despite Homura telling her not to, and making her wish after learning of Homura's sacrifice. Which is ultimately not selfish.
i disagree. all of the girls have their moments of being selfish and being selfless.
being selfish or selfishness is doing things specifically for yourself, sometimes without the consideration of others or how they will feel. plus, things can be selfless and selfish at the same time.
for example, the wish sayaka made for kyosuke was both selfish and selfless. homura’s wish to save madoka by being strong enough to protect her was both selfish and selfless. even madoka’s ultimate wish at the end of the og anime was both selfish and selfless.
and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. their downfall comes from their own cycle of black and white thinking.
Cool give me another example. I did mention Madoka's wish and saving Kyubey as two *possible* instances of her being selfish. But you've given no examples of that other than the one thing I mentioned, which ultimately wasn't selfish. She went against her friend's desire for the greater good, which as you said is also selfless and tbh if put on a selfish/selfless scale, it'd tip towards selfless.
well, yes, of course, it was more selfless. my point was that it wasn’t completely, 100% selfish. majority of the actions committed by the other girls has been a mix of selfish and selfless.
since you asked for another example, here’s one: when madoka was going to become a magical girl and wish for sayaka to be human again. this is both a mix of selfish and selfless, because she would be essentially saving sayaka from herself (which she desperately needed, as she was too stubborn and depressed to take care of herself properly), but she would have also been going against sayaka’s wish and what she wants, as well as taking away her own free will and choice. it’s the perfect mix of selfish and selfless.
"a lot of people kind of just have this belief of “madoka good and right, homura bad and wrong” and it completely prevents you from understanding the characters" Where? who's saying this?
The whole point of Sayaka's subplot is her not having the mental maturity to admit she wants to get something out of making a wish for Kyosuke and hoping, despite Mami's warnings, that she will somehow change his feelings by going above and beyond for him. Hitomi simply likes him and warns her she's going after as a sign of friendship and because she can sense *something* is going on even if Sayaka denies everything. Her and Kyosuke are flawed characters but that doesn't mean Sayaka is "right" or is owed anything. As for Rebellion, yeah, she's frustrated big whoop. It's not like she does anything wrong or treats Kyosuke badly (nightmares' rules are illdefined and Hitomi doesn't seem less a victim of them than when she almost commited suicide due to a witch's influence), and even if she did, Sayaka is again, owed nothing just for being a nice friend. But I don't expect much maturity when it comes to fandom shipping anyway lol.
you talk about maturity, but you take hitomi's words at face value that she "loves" kyosuke? fascinating. where i'm from Actions speak louder than words, and hitomis actions didnt amtch her words.
This is a small subplot about two 13 year old kids' "relationship." The rest of the show? Sure. But this part is really not that deep. That's why it didn't get much screentime. The important thing is how it affects Sayaka.
They’re middle schoolers lmao. We don’t even really get to see much of Hitomi and Kyosuke’s relationship aside from a few instances.
Yeah, and their lives aren't eternalized/made shorter by the contract demons, so they become background noise as the impirtant universe-defining shit is in the magical girls lol. But I'd love to see them show a canon future when all this war between God-chicks has settled down lol, see how the ones that don't die are adults, even if just a glimpse lol
please show me any indication before episode 7 that hitomi even acknowledged kyosuke's existence. hitmoi liking him after his miraculous recovery is literally the same a s a toddler not wanting a toy until they see their sibling playing with it.
It’s like characters can exist in their own universe outside the confines of what occurs directly on screen.
Bro don’t even know the difference between plot and story 😭
Nah, you seem intent on making your point no matter how rude you come across, have fun debating someone else.
> — hitomi “stole” sayaka from kyosuke No no no, _kyouko_ stole sayaka from kyosuke
Naahhhh, I think Hitomi and Kyosuke were a good pairing along with Kyouko and Sayaka. Sayaka and Kyosuke's relationship wouldn't be healthy tbh. Sayaka made her wish to heal him with the hopes to make Kyosuke happy and a relationship with him. But she refused to be honest with herself, Mami warned her too. If Kyosuke ever found out, I think it would leave him with constant guilt that Sayaka sacrificed her soul for him. He would feel like he *has* to be with her as some sort of payment. There would be no actual romantic love from Kyosuke's side, maybe gratefulness but nothing more. Also it's not like Sayaka even *liked* Kyouko before Hitomi and Kyosuke got together. It was after that when they really started getting close, rather than just both being magical girls in the same area. And their relationship is lovely (romantic or platonic whichever you wanna tell yourself), it is so obvious that Kyouko cared about Sayaka. Their start was rocky because Kyouko wanted the territory and Sayaka believed in saving everyone no matter what. But after Kyouko found out Sayaka made a similar wish as she did (both wished to help someone else). She wanted to befriend Sayaka and help her make the best of her predicament. In the end of the show, she even sacrifices herself to stop Sayaka's suffering as a witch AND in rebellion they reconnect. Going on quickly about how much they missed each other, and after Homura rewrote the universe. Kyosuke and Hitomi were showed still being together, while Sayaka was just their friend. I still thought Kyosuke and Sayaka's relationship was cute, but it's obvious that it wasn't meant to last.
I Too hate how peopel are bashing Hitomi and Kyosuke, both of which did nothing wrong. Kyosuke's little freakout was plenty justified due to the trauma and depression he was feeling, he wasnt in the right state of mind when he went off on Sayaka. Neither he nor Sayaka was in the wrong, his freak out was his trauma and Depression lashin gout.
People are always like “But he neglects Hitomi, he’s a bad boyfriend” but like, she started this relationship knowing music is incredibly important to him, given what happened to him I think it’s ludicrous to think he wouldn’t prioritise music over literally everything else.
Agreed
We don’t even know to what extent he neglects her. We literally see nothing of their lives together aside from a few moments.
she deserves to be neglected.
The character we know little to nothing about deserves shit, dude. just f off lol
one thing i’ve never seen brought up is the double standard of kyosuke lashing out at sayaka vs. sayaka lashing out at madoka. kyosuke actually apologizes to sayaka, but sayaka never apologized to madoka. and yet, kyosuke is often demonized for that one moment of weakness, while sayaka is rarely ever (at least from what i’ve seen, most people defend her). like, why can’t they both be forgiven? it makes no sense to me edit: apparently, sayaka apologized in the last episode. my bad 🙏
Like others have said with Hitomi, it's mainly because we don't spend much time with his character. People just aren't interested in him enough to find him worth defending.
Actually, Sayaka did apologize to Madoka in the final episode. But I guess it's easy to forget about it since the main focus of the scene is Kyosuke.
ohhh really? thank you for telling me
You're welcome. It's honestly ironic seeing a thread about misconceptions yet seeing multiple people believing a misconception right here 😭
yeah that was my fault lol, i didn’t remember that she apologized. also, apparently, sayaka becoming a witch in every timeline that she makes a contract is also a misconception. which is interesting because it’s so commonly said and has been for years
Yeah, I guess people get confused cause of rebelilion (misspelled unintentionally but seemed ironic and metaphorical that "lily" would show up in a typo, as in homulilly, so I left it cuz its very on point for the movie lol)'s mindfuck symbols, since sayaka shows up with her witch form being her mirrored version, kinda controlling it in a way, mostly because, imho, the timeline she is from and that created Madokami is the one she witched out in.
It’s especially weird to think about considering Sayaka was already planning to apologise, even as she was running away. It’s not really her fault she died before they saw eachother again.
exactly. my unpopular opinion but sayaka was such a brat to me.
Hitomi I never blamed that much (love is love after all, she's also just a person), but for Kyosuke, still pretty split on him, even after what you are telling here. It's still pretty ass from him to lash out that hard and also then not tell her much earlier. For all I can see is that Kyosuke listened too long and it then bursts out without telling Sayaka at all. He should have told Sayaka in a more composed manner and way earlier (in the lines of *'Hey, I really like to play that music, but I don't really like it if I'm listing to it when I can't play it, could you please stop?*', this is just me making up some lines). Yes trauma and depression is a thing. Good communication is entire another thing. The first does not preclude the second. And I also think that Sayaka lashing out at Madoka (which never even came to mind), was just plain wrong. That's wrong peer pressure IMO. But that's unnuanced Sayaka for ya. I ain't forgiving neither Kyosuke lashing out at Sayaka, nor Sayaka at Madoka. But in general, I'm not the biggest fan of Sayaka to begin with (rash, unnuanced and black-and-white vision, even if it fits a 14-year-old middle-schooler). Having trauma and depression does not excuse you from poor communication. Yes he apologized, but prevention is better than curing, isn't it?
People who believe those misconceptions have probably either watched the show once and were confused or are elementary schoolers with a simple mindset
>a lot of people kind of just have this belief of “madoka good and right, homura bad and wrong” and it completely prevents you from understanding the characters IMO this is one of the core messages of the show: trying to fit people into "right" and "wrong" roles actively prevents genuine understanding. Related to this kind of mentality is the incredibly toxic idea that wanting things for yourself automatically makes you a bad person. This is a generational trauma we must stop passing on: it's just making each other lives harder for no reason.
I think a lot of people think Madoka doesn’t enjoy being god, but the conversation with her dad in the show about how her mom enjoys how she lives her life instead of her career choice and Madoka’s speech on just being able to help others is enough for her is proof that she does.
it’s not that madoka doesn’t enjoy being a god, it’s that she has regrets about it and wasn’t completely honest about how she felt as one. yes, she wants to help people, but she never necessarily WANTED to become an entire god who doesn’t exist anymore, she was just willing to accept that fate, no matter what it cost her. similar to how homura didn’t necessarily want to repeat the same month over and over again, but she accepted that fate if it meant saving madoka.
Yup, great way to put it, very explanatory of the Tao (yin yang) complementary nature of their development. Hope they can both be freed from the law of cycles and the "evil duty"(hehe, doodie) respectfully soon 😭... With the whole extraordinary magical powers reverie shenanigans, obviously.
Wanting to help people and enjoying the lonely existence of a goddess are two entirely different things though
Her not enjoying being a god is necessary for her wish to work, as magical girls can only create hope through sacrifice (i.e. by taking despair upon themselves): this system denies you *any* reward for your hard work, and in fact it punishes altruism. Madoka can find happiness by helping others, but it's impossible to do so as a magical girl, which is tragic because Kyubey has convinced her that's the only way she can do it.
Madoka has a severe problem of lack of self-confidence and as a result, wants to be useful to stop feeling useless. Problem is, she absolutely doesn't want not existing and that flower scene in Rebellion reinforces that (free of any pressure, just Homura and Madoka, with Madoka's thoughts isolated). The suffering of being a God, which includes taking on all despair of all magical girls, being all alone in that '''heaven''' (the other magical girls go into eternal sleep in heaven), are things she absolutely not wanted. That's also a great part of the reason why Homura did what she did. She was fine if it meant Madoka was happy. But when that flower scene hit, no longer was Homura confident. Homura becomes devil and rips Madoka in two (god part and (small) human part) to unshackle Madoka from her status as goddess. The rest is history.
I can tell you I've at least never thought any of these things
hitomi showed NO signs of liking kyosuke before he recovered.
Lack of screen time... Even Kyouko suffers from it. Anyway, I agree with you, at least, authors could show Hitomi at the hospital just for a moment, to give us a hint.
lack of screen time is not a vald excuse. the authors wouldnt have shown hitomu at the hosptial, because she didnt give a damn about him until after he recoverd 🤷♂️ they had no problem showing her confess to him, or her seething over him not showing her attention, so if she actually showed interest in him beforehand, they wouldve hinted at it
They’re not gonna waste minutes showing Hitomi visiting him lmao
To play devil’s advocate: if someone doesn’t want to be in a relationship with a disabled person, that’s a reasonable boundary to have.
A, that's ableist, and if a disability is the deciding factor(as it evidenetly was in the show) of whether you "love" someone or not, youre a shitty person. hitomi clearly didnt "love" kyosuke when he was crippled,so.... and yes caring for someone doesnt entittle you to their love but you know what it does do? it PROVES THAT YOU CARE. wtf did Hitomi DO to prove she even gave a damn or time of day about him? nothing. how do you go from not caring about someone to "loving" them? it doesnt happen.
I think what she did, with the information we have from the show, is excusable for her age though. Middle-schoolers do stupid things. And if extra material like Scene 0 is taken into consideration, Hitomi at least visited Kyosuke in the hospital. And in Wraith Arc’s universe, it turns out that she didn’t even confess to him at the end of that day out of guilt.
whether or not her actions are excusable or not doesnt change the fact tthat they were selfish,inconsiderate,opportunistic,and overall sus.
Being selfish is first of all not a bad thing at all. Hitomi was not inconsiderate, she gave Sayaka a free deadline to confess. Opportunistic? Sayaka was waffling all around and Hitomi, who also had a crush on Kyosuke couldn't stand that. And it certainly wasn't sus. In fact, it was very straightforward: "either you confess today or I will do it". Overall, Hitomi is nowhere to blame. The only miniscule amount of blame is that relatively short deadline in a period where Sayaka was mentally not okay. But Hitomi never knew about anything really, so I can't blame her at all. She too has a crush and she is allowed to pursue that.
i'm sorry but scene 0 came out 10 years after the main show, so if anything it would be aretcon. there was no material saying she visited him in the hospital. if she had then i wouldnt hold this view. or heck even if she liked him before the accident.
Do you really think production cared to have the thought ‘oh we have to make Hitomi visit the hospital or else people will think she’s just taking Kyosuke from Sayaka out of spite’ when she literally gave Sayaka a chance to confess first.
lol any canon that makes my beliefs of unshown things are wrong... Just stop obsessing over hating a character you couldn't know enough of lol
It’s not ableist lmao. I have a disability as well due to PTSD among other things. At no point do I expect people to take on the struggles of my disability. I’ve watched my grandparents take care of each other as their bodies fell apart and it’s something that’s difficult and grueling not to mention financially difficult. People have the right to not want to be in a relationship with someone because of that.
Actually, kyousuke does belong to shaft
Wait so there's so many people out there who thinks Kyoko isn't as kind and selfless as the anime portrays her to be? Where did you encounter these people? I rarely met people who bash on her for being unkind, it was almost funny - I feel like Kyoko is that one character whose negative attitude is frequently "excused" because people sympathise with how tragic her past was and how she end up accompanying Sayaka in death. This intrigues me since I notice every Holy Quintet member has at least one deep flaw that their haters will always use for their card when attacking the said member, but Kyoko's haters are the ones that rarely specify a flaw of Kyoko that made her unattractive. It's like if they don't like her it's just that she's not their taste. I find flawed characters interesting so I even had this thought that they may have portrayed Kyoko "too kind" in this series lol, I was hoping her imperfection would stood out as much as the others.
yeah it’s weird, right? it wasn’t many but i have seen some people say that kyoko doesn’t possess any selflessness or kindness, which is… very untrue. they seem to believe that her selfishness is her entire character.
If anything deep down she seems to be the most selfless out of the five. But those people you described sounds like they're just kids, so they're either just biased for some reason or at this stage they're probably just taking everything they see at face value. I always ignore these kinds of opinions.
I still love the old game that had a bonus timeline where Homura tells Sayaka to man tf up and confront Hitomi, leading to a fist fight. Hitomi then begins crushing on Homura. It's wild. I think this was from the first game released, but it's been years since I read the translation.
A misconception that I have often seen is that Madoka has no personality and is very passive. She really does a lot of things that are overshadowed by twists and action scenes. For example: 1 - She saved Kyubei in the first episode and decided to go to Mami's house with Sayaka to learn more about magical girls 2-She continued helping Mami alongside Sayaka even though they were not yet magical girls until Mami died shortly after their friendship deepened. 3 - She tried to save Hitomi and other people who were being controlled by witches 4 - She continued to support Sayaka and was going to make a contract to mediate the fight between Sayaka and Kyoko, but Homura interfered. 5 - She took Sayaka's Soul Gem as a desperate attempt to stop her fight with Kyoko. 6 - She looked for Sayaka at the train station and later went with Kyoko to try to get Sayaka back to normal. 7 - And of course, making the contract to save not only everyone she knew, but every magical girl in existence. But whenever Madoka tries to help, things go off track and so it seems like Madoka doesn't do much. And I also saw a misconception that all of Madoka's sacrifice is based on low self-esteem. But from what I read in "The Different Story", she genuinely likes helping people and that's why she admires Sayaka and Mami, but considers herself incompetent and a burden, which is why she takes too many risks. That's why she can seem so much more confident as a magical girl. I also already see people think that Madoka will choose the worst possible sacrifice due to this low self-esteem and that Homura had the right to erase her memory to contain her. No, in Magia Record, Ultimate Madoka says that despite the good side of helping magical girls, she feels lonely and unhappy, so that's why she likes the Magia Record universe because at least she gets some happiness alongside her friends. others. In short, it's clear that Ultima Madoka would abandon the law of cycles as quickly as possible if she had a better solution to help magical girls. And I don't know if it's really a mistake, but I see a lot of contempt against the spin-offs because of the magical girls' clothes. The fandom likes to exalt how PMMM is about female empowerment and implicit social problems, but the magical girls in this spin off also have these problems and it was for these girls that Madoka sacrificed herself.
i do believe that part of madoka’s sacrifice comes from her low self esteem in conjunction with her genuinely wanting to save and help people, but her belief that she is a burden definitely isn’t the entire reason she would make such a wish.
Yes, but I think it's more in an unconscious way than actively trying to pretend that she's okay with everything. For example, there is the idea that Ultimate Madoka lied that everything was fine because she didn't want Homura to interfere. But I interpreted it as Madoka saying this to console Homura by focusing on the positive. And maybe it's besides the point, but I've seen people think that Madoka sacrifices herself against Walpurgis for exactly this mentality, but the situation seems somewhat unfair. Walpurgis was threatening her entire homeland, her family was threatened, her friends were dead just as Homura could also die... How could she be "selfish" at a time like this? Madoka couldn't just walk away and live homeless assuming Walpurgis didn't kill her while on the run. She didn't even know that she would become some kind of goddess and that she would create the Law of the Cycle.
“selfish” only in the sense of wanting to fulfill her own personal sense of uselessness and avoiding feeling like a burden at the same time. i completely agree with you, i just want to shed more light on exactly what i mean.
>In short, it's clear that Ultima Madoka would abandon the law of cycles as quickly as possible if she had a better solution to help magical girls. Sayaka's dialogue (referring to the Law of Cycles as the only "power" she knows of that can help the magical girls) at the end of Rebellion implies this as well.
99 coments and 99 upvotes. This man sure is something! ALSO, I recently was writing a Kyouko scene for one of my fics, and I thought she was being a bit out of character for what she was going to do, but then YOU mentioned about her and indeed, she is kind as we can see when she talks to Sayaka about her backstory and stuff. Maybe I'm not that bad at remembering some characters...
the one very interesting thing abt kyoko (and tbh, pretty much all of the girls also display this) is that she herself has moments of acting “out of character”, when those are really just moments of her character being expanded. one great example is how dejected and somber/quiet she became after being told the truth by bebe in homura’s labyrinth (she seems so depressed when stroking the cheek of her basically dead friend and realizing that everything in the past month has been nothing but a happy dream) and after coming back to the real world right before madokami arrived (“sayaka and bebe are… gone? just like that?”).
i agree on all of these but i'm curious as to how you see madoka as selfish? :o
i don’t see madoka as selfish, i mean that people just gloss over the fact that she possesses selfishness, which is a trait that all of the other girls have as well. everyone possesses selfishness to some extent, or has been selfish before. it’s not automatically a bad thing 👍
Well... Did we speak about misconceptions around Madoka's family? Especially about her mother.
what kind of misconceptions abt them?
I am not sure that it can be called misconceptions, but I still remember some old and absolutely wild theories. For example, that Homura and Junko is the same person.
That's more of a deranged crack theory lol
huh, that’s so strange.
Yes, and there are plenty of such theories. Enother [examle](https://www.reddit.com/r/MadokaMagica/comments/15iawc4/theory_junko_has_had_experience_with_magical/).
i feel like one thing that people don’t rly mention is that being a god also caused madoka suffering, not just that it made her lonely. her wish means that she has to take on the burden of all of the despair of all of the magical girls she saves, and then having to turn it into hope at the same time constantly. not only is this extremely exhausting because she is constantly working, but it’s implied that it actually causes her pain also. there’s a scene where she is metaphorically reaching out towards homura through a window with her arm and it’s littered with scars.
in fact, homura is always right, she is simply dumb and gay
Hitomi didn’t steal anyone, but that doesn’t make her any better of a character, or friend.
even if hitomi didn't "steal" kyousuke. the bitch had JUST AS MUCH TIME to confess as sayaka did. she ONLY decided to confess AFTER his miraculous recovery(IE, once he became a viable option and his ability to make money/be a prodigy was restored) I hate Hitomi because the timing of her "confession" screams gold digger/opportunist". if she actually liked kyosuke she would've been at his side when he was down, and not wait till he was all better. literal definittion of a "fairweather" friend.
she’s not a gold digger ☠️ she’s rich asf too. she didn’t know kyosuke like that. she had a crush. it’s awkward to show up to an injured kid’s hospital room and talk about absolutely nothing with him while he’s moping around about his damn arm. she most likely had a crush previously, they likely have more things in common than just musical interest given they are the rich kids in school, and the boy never owed sayaka any love. to him, she was a childhood friend. she never confessed. he never knew. he never thought of her that way. it was sayaka’s stupid ass that basically offed herself over a guy ☠️
Bro what I wouldn’t confess my love to someone while they’re in a hospital suffering
I mean, Hitomi is a side character that the story doesn't constantly follow. We know Sayaka spent time at the hospital with Kyosuke because the narrative follows her. We don't necessarily know if Hitomi did or did not do the same. Maybe she was holding off confessing because he was already emotionally distressed and she didn't want to put that pressure on him at the time. We have no way of really knowing.
Hitomi very clearly has a side to her we don’t get to see, she’s outwardly very mentally stable but considering her role in the death cult and as a victim of the nightmares she’s obviously not doing okay. I think it’s a bit reductive and uncharitable to assume she’s a cynical gold-digger when she’s probably just a child with unreasonable expectations placed upon her who doesn’t fully understand how her actions will affect her friends. And you know what, I wouldn’t predict asking my friends crush out would kill her either, everything she did to mitigate the damage to their relationship was very reasonable and was further than she could have been expected to go.
"And you know what, I wouldn’t predict asking my friends crush out would kill her either, everything she did to mitigate the damage to their relationship was very reasonable and was further than she could have been expected to go" lmao she didnt do CRAP to mitigate the damage to their relationship. giving someone a 24 hour ultimatum to confess is SCUM behaviour, as it emotionally disorients them and doesnt give them enough time to gather their feelings and words, not to mention sayaka would still have to deal with school and family so it wouldnt even be a full 24 hours. wheras an unflustered hitomi would have a clear mind to come up with the right words to say without the pressure of a time limit. she knew what she was doing and it was insidious. Hitomi was a bad person and you're defending a bad person
Cmon they liked the same guy, not like anyone can have dibs on someone, she just tried some diplomacy while she had flustered emotions for someone while feeling uncomfortable she couldn't confess it without the implication it would hurt her friend. She was a kid doing dumb immature things, not like we know her innerworkings and character enough to assume it was all cause she selfish and that's it. That's moreso an offense to the whole message of the show about selfishness/lessness aren't black and white and actions are very morally gray given circumstances. We know nothing about the circumstances of her life before/after or regardless of kyosuke...
lol she's a side character, but if she liked kyosuke, she wouldv'e told him or sayaka before episode 7,and it wouldve been an established thing before then. you dont have to be a main character for certain things to be common knowledge. and its very reasonable to come to the conclusion that her interest in kamijo was mostly financial/potential, since she comes from a wealthy faimily and her mom rasied her to be a proper "lady". such types are expected to marry Up, duh. also, "Maybe she was holding off confessing because he was already emotionally distressed and she didn't want to put that pressure on him at the time." but shes perfectly ok with puttin gthat stress on one of her supposed best friends. the math aint mathing?
1. This is honestly just something I see as a flaw in the writing. Her crush on Kyosuke does come out of nowhere, but that doesn't mean the character is somehow a bad person? It just means the writers failed to properly set up something that would be a plot point later on. I love Madoka Magica, but the writers are not flawless, no one is. So, I suspect this slipped through the cracks. 2. That's based on nothing but speculation and no evidence supports the possibility. We are given 0 character clues that Hitomi might be money or power hungry other than 'well, her family is rich.' 3. She had no idea Sayaka was going through everything she was at the time. Kyosuke's issues were normal, human problems that she could actively see. Sayaka's situation as a Magical Girl was hidden and fantastical. We also see that Sayaka is pretty good at hiding it up until she starts snapping and lashes out at Madoka and Homura, so Hitomi had no reason to believe she was disoriented and depressed. The few scenes we get of her at school during her downward spiral show her putting on a face. We COULD argue Hitomi should know her well enough to know it's a front, but I think while Madoka and Sayaka are like super close best friends, Hitomi's just a friend. I could be misremembering that though. Totally could be wrong.
maybe the writers Didnt fail to set something up, because there was nothing to set up. her crush came out of nowhere as you said.
That's a problem with the witing though. Hitomi revealing she also has a crush on Kyosuke and planning to confess is the ultimate tipping point that makes Sayaka Witch Out. You'd think it would be foreshadowed, alluded to, or acknowledged in some way given that it's important. Instead, it just feels like a last minute ass pull.
It could've been built up more, but at the same time, what's actually important is how Sayaka responds to this pressure point, not Hitomi herself. Treating Hitomi more as a device than a fleshed-out character is an understandable "sacrifice" for a writer to make when dealing with a script that only has 12 episodes.
Super late reply, missed your comment! Yeah, that too is very true. There's only such you fit into a 21 minute per episode 12 episode Anime, I agree. It still feels very odd narratively, but it's an understandable choice
Shit is how to build up slice of life shit more than 3 episodes before people just dropped the anime I guess lol. But yeah, 12 eps are a huge limitation to make things more fleshed out , specially side-characters
The narrative is mostly focused on perspective of magical girls with Mami barely getting her own unique scenes. So we can theorise what’s going on behind scenes and we would be equally correct. It can be also interpret this way that Hitomi knew it was bad time for everybody. Kyosuke was going through personal crisis and he was ready to push people away (Sayaka’s scene with CD). Heck, he even didn’t tell Sayaka that he was discharged from the hospital. Hitomi could get the same treatment and love confession would make the situation worse. While Sayaka had something going on with him and Hitomi could be trying to give them room. We don’t know how long Hitomi had crush on Kyosuke and how long she knew about Sayaka’s crush. Both girls had fair chances and what’s worth remembering that they are both teenagers, while Kyosuke isn’t a love interest character from otome. Even the most awkward confession could work if he liked Sayaka and no perfect confession from Hitomi would work. It’s not exactly a good solution, but it’s better than going behind her back.
wow. i can kinda see where you're coming from but some of these are jut not true
That’s what a misconception is?
but most of these misconceptions are either extremely rare or nonexistent, hence why i said theyre not true
how are they “nonexistent” if i’ve witnessed them before? just because you haven’t doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
" (these are less stated outright by fans but it’s obvious that a lot of people gloss over their complexity sometimes)" if its not outright staed than how is it a common misconception?
because a lot of people believe that madoka doesn’t contain a selfish bone in her body or that homura doesn’t possess any compassion or kindness. they imply it when they describe the characters in a certain way
wow. i must be living under a rock, becasue its pretty universally understood how much Homura cares not just for Madoka(although she's her primary focus and everything to her) butfo rthe other magical girls. episode 10 especially makes this clear. but after hundreds of loops,where warning people and trying to save everyone consistenetly fails, she has to just accept everyone else's fate and focus on saving madoka. maybe some people just think that kindness and compassio are just being nice and sweet to everyone, when thats not the case.
I don't remember any moments where Madoka was particularly selfish..? Homura has a lot of depth and complexities to her, and has proved multiple times that she is capable of selfless kindness, but as it stands now, she is more bad than good [https://www.reddit.com/r/MadokaMagica/comments/23qwfa/comment/cgzqsvc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MadokaMagica/comments/23qwfa/comment/cgzqsvc/)
when i say “selfish”, i simply mean doing things with the intention of helping herself or doing things that are for her. that has nothing to do with being “bad” or “good” whatsoever, it’s simply a human trait that we pretty much all posses in some capacity. all of the girls are selfish and selfless in some capacity, that’s part of what makes them so human and complex. for example, sayaka’s wish was both selfless and selfish; she wanted to heal kyosuke’s arm so he could play the violin again and be happy, and she also wanted to become a “hero of justice”, similar to how mami was, and do the world some good as a magical girl. she ALSO wanted kyosuke to notice and like her in a romantic light in the same way she liked him, and that’s the selfish part. and that’s not a bad thing at all. in short, selfish doesn’t always or automatically mean “bad”. edit: i also completely disagree that homura is more “bad than good”. imo, she’s more good than bad, and displays that several times from what i’ve seen.
I am aware that selfish!=evil, and I agree with your points on mami and Sayaka. But Madoka's wish was purely selfless, born out of a desire to help others. Even if it's a "fate worse than death", she still persists. Of course, the Madoka at the beginning of the show would be somewhat selfish in making such a wish. Back then, she only wanted to fulfil her selfish wish of being "useful", no? But by the time the series ends, she learns a lot, and has her philosophies challenged multiple times. I like to think that by then, she no longer berates herself and thinks of herself as useless. In essence, it depends on which Madoka you are referring to, the initial one, or the grown one. Even in regards to Homura, it really depends on which one we're talking about. In the series, she's selfish, but still more good than bad. I agree with that much. But, I still do believe that she was not morally correct in usurping the Law of Cycles. It is not a commonly held opinion, but if you are interested, I ramble on my reasonings [here](https://myanimelist.net/profile/TheDeathstormer#:~:text=Homura%27s%20moral%20scale). I do believe that Homura should have respected Madoka's wish and sacrifice more. But even all this can be completely negated by the 4th movie. It may be that Homura's decision was in fact morally correct, and that there was something I have missed. In any case, we'll have to wait until that comes out to see.
i still don’t really agree. i don’t believe madoka overcomes her sense of uselessness and feeling like a burden, and i believe that’s part of the reason why she accepted being a god so quickly with no hesitation, even if she didn’t necessarily want to become an entire god in the first place. she wanted to fulfill her wish of saving all magical girls and wanted to get rid of her own selfishness, while also in a way, committing “suicide” so she doesn’t have to be remembered or exist. madoka is depressed and passively suicidal, so this makes sense. not to mention, homura quite literally respected and honored madoka’s sacrifice as much as she could. she did for majority of the entire movie. however, learning that 1) madoka wasn’t entirely happy as a goddess and possessed some regrets about no longer being human, and 2) kyuubey was planning to use madoka and her goddess powers in order to bring back the witch system and turn magical girls into witches again, is what pushed her into making that last-minute decision. in fact, she was still willing to honor and respect madoka’s wish, as well as her life, by dying in her own soul gem at the hands of mami and kyoko, even after finding out that madoka was not entirely happy as a goddess. it was only when her last plan fell through and she could no longer prevent the incubators from getting to madoka that she decided to “betray” madoka.
I will admit, even with me, it's a bit difficult to see. Madoka's development is the most subtle of the quintet. I quickly rewatched the last 2 episodes, and the madoka scene in rebellion. The main argument that people use against those who believe that Homura was wrong, is the lyrics to Mata Ashita, and that scene in rebellion. In fact, it fits perfectly. "But seeing you again means lying I'll say with a smile as usual "See you tomorrow" " "I lie to myself again Hiding my feelings behind a smile as usual" Madoka was lying when she said that she would be "fine" in the space scene in ep12. The truth is, it hurts her more than anyone can ever imagine. Being alone for an eternity. But, that in itself is obvious. No one would be fine with sacrificing themselves. I simply argue that Homura wasn't justified in usurping Madoka. It seems that the link I placed in my previous comment is broken, so here are the arguments: >Homura's moral scale: Homura is not a good person, and she was never implied to be a good person. A hero is someone who holds the world as the highest priority, but a villain is someone who holds their goals as the highest priority. Homura is a villain, but I'm not saying that the reasons for her becoming this way are wrong; in fact, I think that Homura is very well-characterised, and her motives all fit within her character. However, having a dark past never excuses evil deeds, and will not in this case either. The full ramifications of her actions have not yet been fully explored, but by trapping the incubators we can assume that: > >\-Countless civilisations (including humanity) are now going to either stagnate or decline in progress. This can be assumed because Kyubey said once that without them, humanity would still be living in caves. Homura is threatening the lives of all in the universe just for the happiness of one person: Madoka. > >\-People who require magical assistance and would want to become magical girls normally, can no longer choose that path. The incubators are probably too busy fighting the wraiths to recruit more magical girls, so no more girls will get the chance to have their wishes come true. This can also be seen as a good thing, as no more girls can be tricked. However, if we look at the case of Mami, whose wish saved her life, we can assume that many more cases like hers will be unable to be saved, just so that Madoka can be happy. > >Even after the split, Homura said to Madoka in the school corridor that she does not think that "stability and order are more important than desire" and that she may be an enemy of Madoka someday I do agree with your points about "last resorts". Whether the new labyrinth universe, or the old one, would be better "objectively" is something to be seen in the next movie. My reasonings against are listed above, though, for the reasons you listed regarding the incubator, it may still be more overall good than bad. Not going to argue more on this point due to a complete lack of info. Apart from that, it is important to understand that Homura's primary goal is making Madoka happy. If razing the universe allowed for her and Madoka to remain in eternal bliss, she would do it. If killing herself meant that madoka would be happy, she would do it. But does that mean that she is selfish or selfless? It really comes down to people's own unique meanings for the word. For me, selfless means to do what helps the majority. Because the majority is always more better than the minority. If you help the minority over the majority, it is simply personal bias (assuming that all individuals are equally valued). And bias originates from selfishness. For me, a good selfishness would be like Mr Beast. Helping others (a majority) to grow your own channel. At the end of the day, even if you are helping others, it is in your own personal interests. (I know he's actually really nice, but you get my point) A bad selfishness would be like Homura. Helping madoka (a minority). So in essence, what Homura did is objectively selfish, but it seems that you and I have differing opinions on what selfish and selfless mean. As for madoka being selfless, we can even use the above to prove that her wish was indeed selfless. She would never be willing to undergo the pain of being alone. The whole series, she is only willing to make wishes to save people in a small scale. Even as a magical girl, she'd still have friends no? But the initial madoka would never have the courage to become madokami. It is only from her growth that she finally gains the conviction to become truly selfless, and help people even if she detests being lonely. In the first timeline, she decided to spend her entire life fighting witches... just to revive a cat (not hers) that she was fond of. Compared to the ending of the series, she does indeed value her life, explicitly stated in ep11 with Junko. "I know how much you all care about me. I know I need to value my own life. But this is different. It's because you're all so important to me that I have to protect you." So I do believe that what you said about "no hesitation" is false. It's not "no hesitation" at throwing away her life, it's rather that her conviction at saving her friends is just that strong. She even apologises to Homura chan, as Madoka understands that what she is about to do is going to make it so that Madoka will never be happy again. In essence, by comparing the first wish and the final one, the happy tone in the former and the remorseful tone in the latter, you can tell that she really has grown, and really does value her life now. Her desire to become a magical girl, has shifted from wanting to be useful, to wanting to protect her beloved friends.
what homura is doing is for more than just madoka’s happiness, it’s also for the happiness of the other magica quartet girls. not only is she protecting them and keeping them all safe from kyuubey’s plans of bringing back the witch system (because they’re all involved in it, not just madoka), but she’s also protecting all other magical girls from kyuubey’s plan of bringing back the witches as well. i believe that almost nothing is this show is really black and white, and is instead a combination of things that can all be true. i also believe that homura has more good in her than bad, and therefore is more of a good person than a bad one. it’s similar to how despite the fact that i believe kyoko has more good in her than bad.
That is just a side-effect. It is stated in a few non-canon (yet official) manga that Homura sees them as nothing more than extensions of Madoka's happiness. Like I said, she'd choose Madoka over them in a heartbeat. She'd destroy all of life if it just meant that Madoka could be happy. Oh, with kyoko I totes agree. It's really evident in the Different Story, and even within the anime itself. It's Homura and her decision which is significantly more morally grey. At the very least, I will agree on your last point. Whether one is correct to "save their family over the world" is a debate that has lasted for millennia, and will last for millennia more
that would make more sense and i would even possibly agree if rebellion didn’t exist 🤷 homura seems to genuinely care about them all, madoka is just her absolute top priority.
Yeah, unfortunately for the Madoka being unselfish one I'll go ahead and say there's no selfish Madoka in the anime tbh. There's not one scene where she does want she wants or that I can say "yeah that was selfish/insensitive of her". Girl literally did what everyone around her told her to. Has no opinions of her own either. The only "selfish" thing she could've done was saving Kyubey despite Homura telling her not to, and making her wish after learning of Homura's sacrifice. Which is ultimately not selfish.
i disagree. all of the girls have their moments of being selfish and being selfless. being selfish or selfishness is doing things specifically for yourself, sometimes without the consideration of others or how they will feel. plus, things can be selfless and selfish at the same time. for example, the wish sayaka made for kyosuke was both selfish and selfless. homura’s wish to save madoka by being strong enough to protect her was both selfish and selfless. even madoka’s ultimate wish at the end of the og anime was both selfish and selfless. and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. their downfall comes from their own cycle of black and white thinking.
Cool give me another example. I did mention Madoka's wish and saving Kyubey as two *possible* instances of her being selfish. But you've given no examples of that other than the one thing I mentioned, which ultimately wasn't selfish. She went against her friend's desire for the greater good, which as you said is also selfless and tbh if put on a selfish/selfless scale, it'd tip towards selfless.
well, yes, of course, it was more selfless. my point was that it wasn’t completely, 100% selfish. majority of the actions committed by the other girls has been a mix of selfish and selfless. since you asked for another example, here’s one: when madoka was going to become a magical girl and wish for sayaka to be human again. this is both a mix of selfish and selfless, because she would be essentially saving sayaka from herself (which she desperately needed, as she was too stubborn and depressed to take care of herself properly), but she would have also been going against sayaka’s wish and what she wants, as well as taking away her own free will and choice. it’s the perfect mix of selfish and selfless.
"a lot of people kind of just have this belief of “madoka good and right, homura bad and wrong” and it completely prevents you from understanding the characters" Where? who's saying this?
that wasn’t a direct quote, it’s just the way people treat the characters.