When Mami learns about the loops, it is also time for the witchbomb, because the context added by the loops changes the situation of the witchbomb from 'useless, extremely harmful' to 'very harmful, extremely useful for things Mami wants
Thank you, that was what I needed.
And in unison with the loops, that's what the witchbomb is. It hurts, but it's also a key part of understanding Akemi Homura's past, and in being a key part of understanding Homura's past, it is also a key part of helping Homura, because the greatest thing Mami could feasibly do for Homura would be to learn Homura's entire story and then accept her.
I believe that Homura's story is functionally complete without the witchbomb. I think that Mami can give Homura her full support now. Even if a witchbombed Mami
was more able to support Homura, I think it would take her days to reach that point. I do not think that the witchbomb is sufficiently important to this event for Mami to grit her teeth and push through for the sake of her friends.
One of Homura's core problems is that everyone always dies and she blames herself for their deaths. You can't engage with an overarching problem by going through every individual event and individually forgiving her for every single one of them. So the details don't really matter. Even if the details did matter, the witchbomb is almost never a necessary detail: "Sayaka's gem filled up with grief and she died. You took it badly enough that you went murder-suicide. Madoka killed you to save me and it broke her." That captures everything that's relevant. Mami can still understand that Homura thinks she's wronged her and Mami can still forgive Homura for it. The only scene that'd actually lose something would be the end of the loop where Madoka asks Homura to kill her. However, even if that scene was at all relevant to Mami, even though it serves to illustrate the problem in ten gut-wrenching seconds, it is
sufficient, not
necessary. Homura's entire
problem is that that core idea, that Homura think she's killing everyone over and over, is
nowhere near being unique to that single event.
Given that the witchbomb doesn't matter for the purposes of Mami forgiving Homura, I don't think that this situation puts Mami under enough pressure for her to use it to control herself for the sake of her friends. Rather, I think that witchbombing Mami will mess her up enough that it'll be
days before she's able to keep herself together enough to help Homura. Edit: Additionally, even if Mami
can keep it together long enough to forgive Homura, what's stopping her from collapsing
afterward? She'll have discharged her purpose and given Homura forgiveness. I don't think that this is a persistent drive that would keep her going indefinitely.
Also, remember that Homura is driven by
logic, not
empathy. Homura wouldn't be able to use anything Mami managed to get out through being a sobbing wreck. Mami needs to explain, calmly and in fully control, exactly why she is forgiving Homura. Otherwise Homura won't get anything out of it at all.
edit: Finally, I think that you're not thinking about the trajectory of Mami's thoughts in real time and are missing some internal blockers. Let's assume that your claim is true and Mami needs to understand the witchbomb to forgive Homura properly. I don't think she'll be able to do that kind of thinking while she's just been witchbombed. There isn't enough purpose to keep her focused on moving forward. We could try to tell her what to think beforehand, or we could try to lead her through it, but because the witchbomb doesn't matter for Homura's real problems or Mami's involvement with her real problems I don't think that Mami will be able to figure it out while being witchbombed.
edit edit: I don't think that we gain anything by witchbombing Mami right here and right now. Say that we witchbomb Mami three days from now, help her get over it entirely, and then ask her if there's anything she needs to change about her response to Homura's story or what she thinks of Homura. I think the only change is related to the specific event of Madoka asking Homura to kill her, which is entirely unrelated to Mami. I think that Mami would not find anything different that she wanted to go back to tell to Homura.
The rest of your argument sounds like the usual "we should witchbomb her ASAP because kyubey could do it any time he wants." This has been the case since the start of the quest. It is the same scenario that we're in with the potentialbomb and Homura, and the same problem applies: I don't see why witchbombing Mami is any safer or better now than it was last week.
Finally, I just plain
do not want to interrupt Homura's story with this. I do not think that we can eat our cake and have it too. I think that in order for us to gain any benefit from your proposal we'd have to witchbomb Mami before she reacts to Homura's story. I think that that would take far too much attention away from Homura. This is time for us to be helping Homura, not Mami.
Also, a clarification: I thought that I'd heard that the "Mami survives the witchbomb because she's under pressure and has to push through it to save her friends" narrative actually ended with Mami getting past the under-pressure situation and then going off and quietly committing suicide after things were over. I am certain that I am confused, but I would like to confirm that with some actual details.
Like, what the fuck 'charged rhetorical questions' are you talking about?
Okay, fine, that was actually because I had so much trouble reading that post that I assumed that it was exactly like the last four walls that kaizuki posted.
Here are the parts the gave me trouble:
What you're going to see in the next couple of updates is this horribly hurt girl who Mami will be discovering is... in many ways as important to her or more important to her, once upon a never, than Kyouko. Someone who she befriended and cared for, pushed and fought against. A friend that never really left her and is now standing before her in terrible pain.
I've read TDS. Multiple times. I've seen the look on Mami's face in this fucking panel --
I couldn't make it past that; every time I tried my eyes just skipped over the rest of the post.
edit: I asked those questions because they needed answers. There are a lot of questions because this is a complex situation and our actions have many effects that need to be considered. I built my argument above off of those questions.
- How would Mami react? Emotion.
- How would Homura react to Mami's reaction? She wouldn't be able to use anything Mami said because Mami will be too fucked up to present a rational argument.
- How long would it take Mami to recover? Too long for us to eat our cake and have it too.
- What would Mami do that we wouldn't have a way to deal with? This situation isn't important enough for her to grit her teeth.
- Why is doing it now better than doing it later? This is time for us to be focusing on Homura, not Mami.
- What would we do to help Mami? Telling her to push through won't work.
- What do we gain by doing it now? I don't see how Mami's response would change. Even if it did change, I don't see why it's so important to do it all at once instead of half now and half later.
I try to not ask useless questions, especially when I am trying to figure out what someone is thinking.
Edit:
[X] When Homura is done: pause slightly to let Mami ask questions / think before it's your turn to relate things, then break.
If you want to try to witchbomb Mami right after Homura finishes, vote to try to witchbomb Mami right after Homura finishes.