Thought I'd drop in my own vote. Maybe something like this would appeal?
[x] Answer her. That's a good part of it. Yes.
[x] Why? The short answer is Homura cares for Madoka very much and is doing the best she can to keep her safe.
[x] The long answer is complicated and involves things I can't tell you and aren't mine to tell. I was hoping one day she'd tell you herself.
[x] Homura has her reasons. They are good ones and they'll make complete sense to you once you have the context but only then.
[x] Sayaka? Be patient with her okay? Things are hard for her.
I don't know what you're on about with this crap. Anything that would breach Homura's trust in my vote is breached in Muramasa's vote.
I'm with Godwinson on this. The Muramasa vote is not really an improvement.
What do we want out if this? We want to convey that Homura is trustworthy and that her actions don't present a problem, and we want to do it without breaking confidence.
So... Let's *do it.*
[X] You can't give her a direct response to that. But.
[X] Sayaka has met a fair number of magical girls at this point, decent and not. She's heard you defend people like Oriko and offer benefit of doubt to others.
-[X] Akemi Homura is not the type of person whose actions require defending or benefit of doubt. Her moral fiber is not different from, say, Mami's -- only her concerns and experiences.
--[X] You can't make much comment on those for a variety of reasons, not least of which that you more or less promised her that you wouldn't. You
can correct Sayaka's earlier assumption: Ahab was a madman motivated by revenge. Homura fights monsters to protect people who cannot or
will not protect themselves.
[X] On a separate note... You can understand Chiyoda's actions, given certain assumptions. Enough that you're not massively upset with her.
So. Let's go over this.
First off, we
cannot really make direct comment on Homura's "strange" interactions with Madoka. There is no good way to do that that doesn't violate Homura's trust somehow, because we discussed telling Sayaka about Homura's past and Homura's comment was that that couldn't be done because "then Madoka would know." Homura doesn't want Madoka drawn to her, as was made clear when we talked with her about Madoka's dreams, and in pairing with Homura's voiced belief that telling Sayaka = telling Madoka, at the end of the day Homura has made it clear that she doesn't want us telling Sayaka anything that would cause Madoka to want to help Homura -- e.g., "she's having a hard time."
Secondly, we still need to somehow allay Sayaka's concerns. My preferred route is to confirm Homura's moral fiber -- if Homura's not going to do anything bad to Madoka, weird is just private instead of a potential problem.
But to do that we need to explain in some fashion why Homura doesn't act like Mami as far as megucaing goes. And to that end I think there's a relatively simple solution, which is, as I am now voting, to explain that part of why Homura is fighting is to protect people who just
will not protect themselves. Because at the end of the day, that really a summary of the difference in ideology between Homura and Mami -- Mami feels that the self-sacrifice of becoming a magical girl to fight evil is praiseworthy, where Homura feels that is a mistake. Both of them are willing to sacrifice of themselves to protect others, but Homura sees the choice to become a magical girl as something to protect others from, while Mami feels that it's the duty of those who are willing to make the sacrifice to protect those who are not -- Mami fights alongside those who would risk themselves in order to protect those who can't protect themselves, Homura fights alone to protect everyone from being at risk, period.
That difference should suffice to explain a lot, and what it doesn't explain we should be able to trust Sayaka not to pry at.
