Apparently some people blame Hitomi for adding some more pressure to Sayaka's shoulders, but I don't. Sayaka was bottling everything up where Hitomi couldn't see it and Hitomi was more than fair in giving Sayaka a full day to ask out her crush and giving her advance warning, too. And in a better frame of mind, that Hitomi thought Sayaka had, she probably would have done it, too.
I don't remember the name of the game in question, but I know in one of it's alternate routes Sayaka can successfully ask out Kyosuke. Whether he'd be a good boyfriend is another question entirely. But yeah, the tragedy of it all is that she and Kyosuke really don't know, and it's not like there's anyway Sayaka could have told them the truth without sounding like a crazy person or directly putting them in danger + potentially causing Hitomi to become a Magical Girl. Which makes the hatedom both recieve more than a little undeserved, honestly.
ACT I - PMMM Episode Eight: I really was an idiot.
Last episode: Sayaka angrily confronts Kyubey about the revelations of the last episode. Kyubey defends themselves by claiming Sayaka didn't ask about the details of the contract and adds that because her soul has been torn from her body, said body can take much more punishment than a normal human body - to prove their point, they place their paw on her Soul Gem to simulate being stabbed by a spear and she doubles over in pain. Kyubey notes that Sayaka is even capable of ignoring pain entirely, but cautions against it.
Sayaka does not come to school the following morning, and on the rooftop, Madoka asks Homura why she didn't tell them about the nature of Soul Gems. Homura sadly replies that no one ever believes her, and urges Madoka to give up on Sayaka once again. Madoka asks Homura while she is so cold, and Homura replies that it is because she is no longer human as well. Meanwhile, Kyoko asks Sayaka to come out and talk to her, where she leads Sayaka to an abandoned church and explains her backstory.
Kyoko's father was the priest who owned this church, but after straying from its teachings, his followers abandoned him and he was excommunicated. This left their family impoverished and Kyoko angry that no one would listen to him, so Kyoko struck a contract with Kyubey in exchange for people listening to her father. The next day, droves of people turned out to listen to him, and Kyoko began to fight Witches in secret, believing that she was helping her father save the world. But when her father learned of her wish, he grew angry and called her a witch, fell into an alcoholic stupor, and ultimately killed himself and his family in the church, leaving only Kyoko.
Kyoko sees Sayaka as making the same mistake as her and pleads for her to live for herself instead of other people, but Sayaka adamantly refuses and declares she will never regret anything ever again, leaving Kyoko trembling with rage. Sayaka attends school the next day, and Kyosuke has also returned to school. Hitomi notices Sayaka's reluctance to talk to him and tells Sayaka she also has a crush on Kyosuke and will give her one day to confess her feelings - otherwise she will ask him out instead.
Sayaka falls into a deep depression at the realization that she is "no better" than the other Magical Girls and laments to Madoka that she can't bring herself to ask him to kiss a "zombie" like her. Though she seems to recover after this confession to Madoka, during her next Witch Hunt she acts increasingly reckless and callous. Kyoko attempts to help her slay the Witch, but Sayaka rebuffs her and kills it with laughing sobs. As she hammers its corpse with the handle of her blade, she exclaims "It's true! If you just detach yourself, it doesn't hurt at all!" while Madoka begs her to stop...
In this episode: Sayaka regrets becoming a Magical Girl.
...
Sayaka hammers the Witch's corpse over and over again, even as the Labyrinth begins to shatter like glass. With dead eyes and blood (who's to say if it's hers or the Witches?) splashed across her face, she exclaims that it's "easy when you get used to it" while she mends her wounds. Anger and disassociation are all she has left now.
With a deranged tilt of the head, Sayaka tosses Kyoko the Grief Seed - that's what she was after, right? Kyoko's confirmation that she did use to be just like Sayaka has had the opposite effect of what Kyoko was hoping for. Kyoko was hoping to cement herself as a wiser, more experienced Magical Girl in Sayaka's eyes - instead, it's only solidified Sayaka's determination not to end up like her, even if it ends with her losing everything else. Sayaka detransforms and promptly stumbles, confessing to Madoka that she's "just a little tired" when she has to lean on her for support, while Kyoko can only watch and curse...
After the OP, Madoka and Sayaka seek refuge at a bus stop from a sudden rainstorm. Sayaka slumps onto Madoka's shoulder, her eyes covered in shadow, while Madoka tries to reach out to her friend...
Madoka: Sayaka-chan, you shouldn't fight like that. Silence. The camera focuses on rain falling into a puddle outside.
Madoka: You say it doesn't hurt, but you're lying. It hurt just watching you... Her eyes overflow with tears. You shouldn't be hurting yourself just because you can't feel it. Sayaka sits up.
Sayaka: I couldn't have won without it. I have no talent, after all.
Madoka: Even if you fight like that and win, it's not going to help you out in the end. Sayaka is now facing away from Madoka.
Sayaka: And what would help me? She stands. The rain begins to fall faster as she reveals her Soul Gem, darker than last time. Now that I've been turned into this thing, how can anything help me?
Madoka: Sayaka-chan...
Sayaka: I'm just a rock that's good for nothing but hunting Witches. I just pretend to be alive by dragging my corpse along on strings. What could anyone do to help a rock like me? There's no point in even thinking about it.
Madoka: But I just want you to be happy again, Sayaka-chan... There is a brief red flash of Sayaka angrily whipping around and presenting her Soul Gem, while the real Sayaka turns around slowly.
Sayaka: Why don't you fight them, then?
Madoka: Huh?
Sayaka: Kyubey told me. You've got more talent than anyone else, right? You could easily beat Witches without struggling as I do, right?
Madoka: I... That's not... She looks down at her feet.
Sayaka: If you want to do something for me, why don't you try and do what I've done? But you can't. Of course not. She turns to the door, which automatically slides open as she approaches it.
Sayaka: You can't just give up your humanity out of pity.
Madoka: It's not pity... I- Sayaka turns back to Madoka with dead eyes and with a fish-eye effect.
Sayaka: You could be all-powerful, but you just sit there and watch me suffer instead. Don't act like you know how I feel from the sidelines. Sayaka walks out into the rain. Madoka follows.
Sayaka: Don't follow me. She takes off running, leaving Madoka standing in the rain as she watches her.
Madoka is right, but as far as Sayaka is concerned there are no off-ramps, no going back - which causes her to lash out at Madoka and seize upon her greatest insecurity: that she doesn't think she's strong enough to help other people. And it's something she immediately regrets: as she runs, tears trail off behind her as she wails that she's such an idiot. Once again Sayaka can only blame herself ("I'm beyond help now!"), once again she falls deeper into the spiral.
The next scene is set in Homura's apartment, with a conversation between her and Kyoko. Homura lives by herself in a spacious and spartan white apartment, the only furniture consisting of candlesticks along the walls, various multi-colored seats scattered across the floor in a pseudo-ring arrangement around a single table, a series of panels on the wall displaying various depictions of Walpurgisnacht (and the Hexeneinmalein from Faust) and last but not least, the shadow of a large pendulum swinging overhead.
Homura briefs Kyoko on the strategy she will use against Walpurgisnacht. When Kyoko once again asks how she knows this, Homura brushes it off as "statistics" which causes her to complain that she doesn't have to be that secretive. Kyoko promptly gets her answer when Kyubey announces that they'd also like to know.
Kyubey is always watching, always ready to provide new information that risks derailing everything. Homura needs to keep her powers as much a secret as possible from a being with cold and infinite patience. Kyoko immediately summons a spear extending from her Soul Gem while Homura merely glares at Kyubey, who laments the hostile reception and announces that Sayaka is "deteriorating far faster than I expected" and has begun to carry a "curse" inside her Soul Gem. At this rate, it will "be an issue" before Walpurgisnacht's arrival, and Kyubey correctly guesses that Homura knows what they are alluding to and is curious as to why she does. But before they can explicitly ask, Homura's patience runs out and she asks them to leave, which they do with a bow. Kyoko asks Homura what they're talking about, and Homura says that Sayaka's Soul Gem has become too tainted, and if it is not purified soon, there will be consequences.
Sayaka is absent from school again the next day. Madoka says that she knows she should have gone after her, but... That evening, Hitomi takes Kyosuke to a bridge in front of a waterfall in preparation to confess. Madoka finds out that Sayaka didn't come home that night from her parents, and Sayaka can only watch from the shadows as Hitomi confesses to Kyosuke. Her response is to violently throw herself into her work once again.
She hacks and slashes through a crowd of Familiars, screaming and crying as she does. When the Labyrinth dissipates, her sword immediately breaks under her weight, and she wobbles to her feet while clutching an almost fully-darkened Soul Gem and panting. She practically jumps out of her skin when she hears Homura's footsteps behind her:
Homura: Why don't you get it? You can't afford to waste any more magic. Focus on Witches, not Familiars. Sayaka angrily turns around.
Sayaka: Shut up. Mind your own business.
Homura: Your Soul Gem is already at its limit. You need to purify it right now. Use this. Homura tosses a Grief Seed at Sayaka's feet. Sayaka angrily kicks it behind her.
Sayaka: What are you planning this time? There's a brief shot of Homura's eyes growing wide with shock and rage.
Homura: Don't be a fool. You're in no position to be questioning others right now. Or does being helped by someone else bother you that much?
Sayaka: I won't be like the rest of you Magical Girls. That's what I've decided. I won't associate with people who use or abandon others. I don't need any reward for my work. I'll never use magic for my own benefit!
Homura: You're going to die.
Sayaka: Only when I can't kill any more Witches. And then I wouldn't be any use anyway, right? Sayaka smiles and falls to her knees. Someone like me has no other place in this world.
Homura: Why are you doing this? I only want to save you. Why won't you believe me?
Sayaka: I don't know... I just get this feeling... that you're a liar. You have the eyes of someone who's given up on everything. You're always saying empty words. This is no different. You say that you want to help me, but I know that's not what you're really thinking. You can't fool me like that. Homura scowls in anger.
Homura: And that's how you keep making Madoka suffer.
Sayaka: Madoka? This has nothing to do with her.
Homura: No. Everything I do is for her. Homura transforms into her Magical Girl outfit. You're pretty sharp. Yes, you're right. I don't want to save you. I just don't want Madoka to see you destroy yourself. If you refuse me here, you'll die either way. And if you're just going to keep making Madoka suffer... A silhouette runs towards the two. ...Then I might as well kill you myself, here and now... Miki Sayaka. Homura raises her hand towards Sayaka. The purple, diamond-shaped Soul Gem glows with bright light... and then Kyoko wraps her spear around Homura.
Kyoko: Hey! Hurry up and get out of here! Sayaka stares for a moment... and then gets up and shuffles away slowly.
Kyoko: What's wrong with you? Weren't you trying to save her?
Homura: Let me go.
Kyoko: Huh? I see. You can't use that weird technique of yours when I'm holding onto you like this. Homura's shield opens to reveal an hourglass shape and a grenade which she pulls the pin from with her teeth. Kyoko jumps back, the gears on Homura's shield turn, and... it turns out to be a flashbang. When the white light clears, Homura is gone. Kyoko stomps her foot on the floor.
Kyoko: Damn it.
I'm 95% sure the framing of this shot is an Evangelion reference to Misato confronting Shinji in NERV's cells.
Homura's attempt to save Sayaka ends about as expected. Sayaka has no reason to trust Homura due to her paranoia and determination not to become like the other Magical Girls, and now that she's bit the bullet, she's "fine" sacrificing herself in the name of her ideals. As far as she's concerned, she has no other options left. Sayaka has finally become the hero of her dreams, only to find it hollow and empty. As for Homura, Sayaka is correct that at this point she's just tired. The smoldering embers of her friendship with Sayaka are drowned out by her mission, the only thing she has left. If Sayaka is going to throw herself onto the pyre anyway...
Sayaka shuffles to a train car. What follows is one of the most infamous scenes of the anime: shot in greyscale, Sayaka overhears a disturbingly realistic (Urobuchi has said he's based this off a conversation he overheard himself) discussion between two misogynist men gossiping to each other about their conquests. Women are worthless sluts, objects to be used as one sees fit and discarded when they're no longer of any use. Sayaka can't help but see herself in their hapless victims... and it all comes crashing down. She's no different in Kyubey's eyes. All of this was for nothing...
Sayaka stands up and confronts them - the women they are talking about love them more than anything, but they dare compare them to dogs? If people like them can just walk around doing what they please, then perhaps this world is too rotten to be saved. She demands they tell her what she's been fighting for, right this second, or... and as she does, her body is consumed by dark ripples.
The fate of the two misogynists is left ambiguous - the director of the anime says that Sayaka didn't kill them, in the manga version she explicitly does, while Urobuchi himself has said it's meant to be up to interpretation. I think it makes sense for her to kill them, having crashed down to rock bottom, but that's just me.
Madoka still can't find Sayaka, and once again Kyubey emerges from the shadows to tempt her by asking if she hates them too. Madoka asks if she does if that will make them turn Sayaka back, and Kyubey says that's beyond their power. Madoka sits down at a fountain side bench and asks Kyubey if she really can be a strong Magical Girl, and Kyubey is more than eager to start reeling her in, at long last. Yes, she would be, the strongest in the whole world! She has potential beyond what should be theoretically possible! The ability to bend the laws of the Universe itself! They really don't get why Madoka of all people has this potential though, which only feeds her insecurity and pushes her closer to the threshold. Madoka is strong and a good friend, but her strength is an emotional one the world has taught her to disregard. And Kyubey is more than happy to exploit this.
The trap is fully set, Madoka has been worn down enough, and Kyubey finally goes for it. If Madoka struck a contract, she would easily be able to restore Sayaka to normal. Madoka agrees, prepares to make the contract, and-
God is in His heaven, all is right with the world.
Homura intervenes. Kyubey's corpse slumps down on the bench. She drops the pistol at her feet and strides towards a horrified Madoka, and the emotions come flowing out because unlike Kyubey she does see Madoka's true strength. "Don't demean yourself by saying that you can't help anyone or that you're useless. Think about all the people who care about you!... Why don't you understand that there are people who would grieve if you died?! Why don't you consider the people who try so hard to protect you?!" she yells, before falling to her knees sobbing. Madoka feels a strange feeling wash over her... and asks her once again if they've met before. But Homura can't bring herself to answer... and Madoka apologizes and runs away, saying she needs to find Sayaka, leaving Homura sobbing alone.
Well, not exactly alone:
The White Devil chides Homura for doing something she knows is pointless. This isn't given explicit confirmation until Rebellion, but Kyubey's species is a hive mind - destroying a single body is about as inconvenient as ripping out a single hair, and it will not save Madoka from the terrible fate awaiting her. The new Kyubey promptly devours the corpse of the old for efficiency's sake and reveals that they know Homura's secret. She can manipulate time, and this isn't the first time she's done this. Homura says that she knows just what Kyubey is and that she will not allow them to get their way... Incubator.
Meanwhile, Kyoko has finally caught up with Sayaka, finding her seated by herself at an empty train station. But it's too late. Sayaka has succumbed to despair.
Kyoko stumbles up an escalator and moves to sit down next to her.
Kyoko: I finally found you. She takes out a small can of chips and rips the top off, placing a chip in her mouth.
Kyoko: Just how long are you going to keep this up?
Sayaka: I'm sorry for wasting your time.
Kyoko: Huh? That doesn't sound like you.
Sayaka: Yeah. That's because I don't really care anymore. I can't even remember what I thought was so important, so worth protecting... None of it makes sense anymore.
Kyoko: Hey... Sayaka unclasps her hands to reveal her Soul Gem has fully corrupted. Kyoko gasps in shock. Decretum begins to play. [The movie version of this scene uses a different track, blatantly titled "She is a Witch."]
Sayaka: The balance of hope and despair in the world cancels out to zero. You told me that once, didn't you? Now I finally understand what you meant. Sure, I managed to save a few people, but in exchange, hatred and jealousy filled my heart. I even hurt my best friend.
Kyoko: Sayaka, you're not...
Sayaka: Whenever we pray for someone's happiness, someone else must be cursed in exchange. Turns out that's how we Magical Girls work. She turns to Sayaka with tears overflowing from her eyes and a sad smile.
Sayaka: I really was an idiot. A single tear lands on Sayaka's Soul Gem. Corrupted memories and runes flash before her eyes. A massive blue light fills the room, throwing Kyoko back with a shockwave. Sayaka's Soul Gem cracks while over her head, a Grief Seed begins to form. Her body is blasted aside as a dark, murky shape rises from the depths and begins to form a Labyrinth. Kyoko grabs onto a nearby fence and yells as the whirlwind hammers her:
Kyoko: SAYAKAAA!
Kyubey overlooks the city. In a pun lost in translation, Kyubey muses that since young women are known as girls (shojo), therefore it is only fitting that those destined to become Witches (maho) are known as Magical Girls - maho shojo, which can also be translated as "Young Witch."
Kyoko: This may sound foolish, but I don't want to give up until we know for sure that she can't be saved. Episode Nine: There's no way I'd allow that.
In the end, Sayaka's downfall is due to her fundamental inability to accept that she has needs and that that is okay. Sayaka wants the boy she loves to notice and love her back. And who can blame her? Love is a wonderful thing. But Sayaka, selfless to the point of self-destruction, cannot accept that. Confusing her desire to be the person who makes Kyosuke happy with making him happy, she makes her wish accordingly. She continually denies her needs and looks down upon the Magical Girls who are explicitly selfish, only to realize to her horror that she really is no better. It's something she fundamentally can't accept, which leads her to continually reject the help of others or a Grief Seed that would save her from the fate I'm sure she knew was happening to her. She's just like them, and so she's not worthy of living. Her ideal life turns out to be hollow and empty, so she should just die. In the end, it was all pointless, so she should just...
In the end, Sayaka wasn't a hero. She was just a normal girl who realized she had bit off more than she could chew, that it was too much. She had allowed herself to be consumed by despair by denying herself, and as she becomes a monster only capable of spreading it, her final words are only "I really was an idiot."
ACT I - PMMM Episode Nine: There's no way I'd allow that.
Last episode: Sayaka bludgeons Elsa Maria to death as her Labyrinth disintegrates and gives her Grief Seed to Kyoko, assuming that the Seed is what Kyoko is really after. After she detransforms, she is very unsteady and needs to lean on Madoka as they walk to a train station as it begins to rain. Madoka begs Sayaka not to fight like that and tells Sayaka she just wants her to be happy, but Sayaka tells Madoka the only thing she has left now is to fight Witches and accuses Madoka of being too cowardly to contract and actually help her, before running away from Madoka with tears in her eyes.
In Homura's apartment, Kyoko and Homura discuss their strategy for fighting Walpurgisnacht. Kyubey arrives and despite their hostile reception, relates that Sayaka's mental state is deteriorating rapidly and that Homura knows what will happen if Sayaka does not purify her Soul Gem soon. They publically muse over where she got that information, which causes Homura to dismiss Kyubey.
Sayaka does not return home that night or go to school the following morning, worrying Madoka. Sayaka watches Hitomi confess to Kyosuke at a distance and then throws herself into her work once again, prompting Homura to intervene. Homura offers Sayaka a Grief Seed but Sayaka declines it. Homura asks Sayaka why she won't let Homura help her, and Sayaka replies that she believes Homura has given up on her. Homura confirms that this is true, and says that if Sayaka is going to get herself killed either way and hurt Madoka's feelings, then Homura will just kill her herself. Homura is stopped from killing Sayaka by Kyoko's intervention, but Homura drops a flashbang from her shield and escapes.
Sayaka then rides in a train car that is empty except for her and two misogynists gossiping about their conquests and how women are objects to be used and discarded as needed. Seeing herself in their victims, Sayaka angrily lashes out at them and laments that she can't understand how she thought this rotten world was worth protecting, and as she demands they tell her what she was fighting for, her body is consumed by dark ripples.
Madoka cannot find Sayaka and Kyubey manipulates her into believing that signing a contract will allow her to save Sayaka - but before the contract can be sealed, Homura kills Kyubey and breaks down crying. Madoka asks Homura if they have met before, but when Homura cannot answer, Madoka leaves her to find Sayaka. Another Kyubey appears and devours the corpse of the old while revealing they know Homura can manipulate time while Homura refers to Kyubey as an "Incubator."
Kyoko finds Sayaka too late, as her Soul Gem has completely corrupted. Sayaka echoes Kyoko's previous sentiment that "hope and despair balance out to zero" - for the hope born of her wish, an equal amount of despair must be created. She cries and confesses that she "really was an idiot," and as a tear lands on her Soul Gem, it shatters and reforms into a Grief Seed as Sayaka becomes a Witch. Overlooking the city, Kyubey reveals that all Magical Girls are destined to become Witches...
In this episode: Kyoko attempts to save Sayaka, one final time.
...
OKTAVIA VON SECKENDORFF
The mermaid witch; it is in her nature to fall in love. Looking for the feeling that moved her so long ago, she moves with the entire concert hall. Her fortune only turns under the weight of memories and no longer moves toward the future. Nothing will reach her any longer. She will come to know nothing more. She simply allows no one to disturb her minions' playing.
Of course, Kyoko does not have Kyubey to conveniently spell this out for her, and understandably but mistakenly assumes Sayaka has fallen under the influence of a pre-existing Witch. But we do, so let's talk about it for a sec.
The last episode's post was mainly devoted to the character implications, the downward spiral that led to Sayaka becoming a Witch. But let's talk about the storytelling implications of Sayaka becoming a Witch. In episode two, we are given a very simple explanation that Magical Girls embody and fight for Hope, while Witches embody and spread Despair. These two forces are equal and opposing ones, that are seemingly unrelated. But it is a testament to Madoka Magica's storytelling that the last episode's revelation makes logical sense while still managing to be genuinely shocking - if it hasn't been spoiled by the internet, anyway.
From now on, these concepts of Hope and Despair shall be placed in a cyclical relationship, a unity of opposites. Hope is meaningless on a conceptual level without Despair, and vice versa. It's what makes Madoka Magica a true tragedy in the Greek sense - the despair the Magical Girls fight is birthed by the hope they wish to preserve. The harder one struggles against one's inevitable fate, the faster they are ensnared by it. Various attempts to overcome this Hope-Despair dialectic characterize the rest of the franchise.
The knowledge that all the Witches that have been fought up to this point are also former Magical Girls heavily recontextualizes their fights - for instance, the Witch that killed Mami did so because she believed her yellow hair was cheese, her favorite snack - but apart from official descriptions (such as the ones I've been posting) and symbolism that allows us to try and take a shot in the dark as to who these girls were before they succumbed to despair, with one major exception we are locked out of their pasts. But we've watched Sayaka's unfold before our eyes, and her Labyrinth(s) are chockful of meaningful symbolism, as well as Oktavia herself:
This first Labyrinth is inevitably reflective of the train station where Sayaka's heroic dream finally collapsed inward on itself: rigid black-and-white checkerboards under a blue sky and crisscrossed with train tracks. As a Magical Girl, Sayaka already had subtle musical symbolism (her yellow hairclips become fortissimo ones, and small rings of music notes circle her wounds when she heals them), but as a Witch, it's brought to the forefront: musical notes flow from the Witch in streams resembling chains, and all the runes in her Labyrinths are rendered in a stylized font resembling them unique to her.
Oktavia herself is half-knight in shining armor, the warped image of the hero she once saw herself as - though, in her first appearance, her armored upper half is covered by the tattered black remains of her flowing white cape - and half mermaid. The latter bit requires some explanation. Sayaka's character arc is derived from, of all things, The Little Mermaid. The Hans Christian Anderson one.
(To recap: a mermaid rescues a prince from a sinking ship and brings him ashore to a temple, where another girl brings him to consciousness. The Mermaid falls in love with him and makes a contract with a sea witch to become human in order to woo him - but in exchange, every step she takes will be agonizing, she is paying with her voice and will thus be mute, and if she is unable to make the prince fall for her, she will dissolve into sea foam, as is the fate of all merpeople, who lack souls. She is taken in by the Prince, but is unable to make him fall in love with her - he instead falls for the other girl, a princess of another kingdom who he mistakenly believes rescued him, and refuses to kill him with a magic dagger to become a mermaid again. When dawn comes after the day they are married, the Mermaid dissolves into sea foam. The original story ends here, though it was shortly revised to have her become a "spirit of the air" who will obtain a soul in three hundred years or faster if she does good deeds, and thus will eventually enter Heaven.)
But enough of that. Let's get back to the anime proper.
Venari Strigas blares as the new Labyrinth takes shape, Kyoko quickly transforms as she spots Sayaka's falling corpse, and as she does, Oktavia hurls wheels of fate at Kyoko. Kyoko catches Sayaka's body but is soon overwhelmed by the sheer vengefulness of the Witch, which prompts Homura's intervention. Homura hurls a grenade at Oktavia as a smokescreen, then "teleports" her and Kyoko down to the floor of the Labyrinth. Homura orders Kyoko to take her hand, and as she does, the gears in her shield turn, and time grinds to a halt.
Homura's shield has the ability to freeze time for everyone except for the user (or objects/people they are holding) for a theoretically indefinite length - so long as the mechanism is not obstructed, anyway. Homura and Kyoko take off running, and Homura tells Kyoko what we already know. Kyoko objects to the idea of just leaving Sayaka behind, but when Homura points out that their other alternative is "toss[ing] that useless hunk of meat aside and we'll kill it here and now," Kyoko continues to flee with Homura, Sayaka's body slung over her shoulder. They return to the train station, and with a shimmer of air and fading music notes, the Labyrinth disappears.
After the OP, Kyoko and Homura walk down the train tracks: harsh industrial lights pressing down on them under the cover of darkness, and fenced in with barbed wire. It's here they meet up with Madoka again, and she is informed of what has just taken place.
Kyoko and Homura walk down the tracks while Kyoko carries Sayaka's body. The top half of Kyoko's face is shaded darker while Homura's is almost completely obscured by darkness. Madoka unknowingly walks towards them, only looking up and running over when she hears their footsteps on the gravel.
Madoka: Sayaka-chan?! Sayaka-chan, what's wrong?! Kyoko looks away while Homura looks up.
Madoka: Where's her Soul Gem? Wh-What happened to Sayaka-chan?!
Homura: Her Soul Gem turned into a Grief Seed, giving birth to a new Witch, and was no more. Madoka falls to her knees.
Madoka: No... You're lying, right?
Homura: It's the truth. That's the final secret of the Soul Gems. Homura presents hers, glowing a bright purple in her hand.
Homura: When these gems darken and cloud over, we turn into Grief Seeds and are reborn as Witches. That is the inescapable fate of all who become Magical Girls. Kyoko grimaces while a nearby train approaches, passing by on the track next to them. Madoka stands up and runs closer.
Madoka: That's not true... It can't be true! Right? Madoka is only answered by silence and the roar of the train. She falls to her knees at their feet and begins to cry.
Madoka: But... how could that be? Sayaka-chan just wanted to save people from the Witches. She just wanted to fight for what was right. That's the reason she became a Magical Girl. So why...
Homura: She just ended up bearing a curse of equal magnitude to her wish. From now on, she will live to curse as many people as she had saved. Kyoko gently sets Sayaka's body down at Madoka's feet... then angrily whips around and grabs Homura by the collar.
Kyoko: Who the hell do you think you are? Do you just get off on acting like you know it all? Homura sadly glances towards the floor. Kyoko starts to shake her by the shoulders.
Kyoko: How can you stay so calm at a time like this? Sayaka was her... Kyoko looks at Madoka, crying while holding her corpse. Sayaka was her best friend. Homura coldly looks down at Madoka.
Homura: I hope you understand now what it is that you aspired to become. She pulls herself free from Kyoko's grip.
Homura: Now that you've brought her corpse along, you'll need to dispose of it carefully. If you just dump it somewhere, you'll run into trouble later. Kyoko slams her foot down.
Kyoko: How can you even call yourself human?! Homura flips her hair.
Homura: I can't, of course. And neither can you. Homura turns and walks away.
What follows next is another iconic scene: Madoka, in her PJs and curled up into a small ball on her bed, her room only lit by dim sunlight outside is visited by Kyubey once again, who has decided to shift gears. Madoka knows enough about the Magical Girl system now that their old tactics won't work anymore... but if Kyubey can crush her with the weight of what she doesn't, then she might feel backed into enough of a corner to give in. Kyubey enters her room, and as they do the empty chairs sitting at the side of Kyosuke and Sayaka's beds join them.
As Sis Puella Magi! plays, Kyubey reveals (most of) the truth: Kyubey holds no malice towards humanity, but is using them in the hopes of expanding the lifespan of the Universe. Kyubey then gives a very simplified explanation of the concept of entropy - one that is slightly incorrect but they're also talking to an eighth-grader.
(To correct and expand on it: When a log is burned in a bonfire, some of the energy the log had prior to being burned is transformed into heat and dissipates into the air. Even if you were to scrape together every single particle of ash left, you can't put that energy back into the log. This process of energy in the form of heat being "lost" is known as entropy. In a closed system where energy cannot enter or exit, the entropy of this system will inevitably increase until total entropy (a state where mechanical motion is no longer possible) is achieved. The largest closed system in existence is our Universe, which is inevitably marching towards a state known as "heat death," where its energy is perfectly evenly distributed - and as a side effect, nothing as we know it can exist anymore. Not even atoms or the particles that make them up.)
Heat death thus serves as the final barrier to The Kyubey Hivemind (or as they refer to themselves, Incubators)'s goal of self-preservation, but technologically advanced they may be, they still can't bend the laws of physics themselves. That is where Magical Girls come in. As it turns out, there is one source of energy that is not subject to entropy: emotions. But Incubators do not have emotions, which required turning to humanity instead. Most effective of all is teenage girls (and here comes the slight bioessentialism baked into the concept of Magical Girls, but it's fortunately not one the series dwells on), whose emotional fluctuations between Hope and Despair are the greatest.
We can thus create a sketch of Kyubey's system as follows: there is an initial investment of energy in order to convert a girl's soul into a Soul Gem and grant her wish - it's somewhat implied that the Incubators use the magical potential of the girl in question to do so. When a Soul Gem is brought into existence, a set amount of Hope/Magic is created that is steadily expended via the use of magic, or even just piloting the body. When a Soul Gem fully corrupts (and it inevitably will), the ensuing "phase change" between Hope and Despair results in the creation of a tremendous amount of energy, and a Witch as a byproduct. Presumably, Kyubey recycles depleted Grief Seeds into more Soul Gems, starting the cycle again.
We thus reach a philosophical impasse: Madoka and Kyubey fundamentally cannot comprehend each other's perspectives. Kyubey is just one appendage of an emotionless and utilitarian hivemind seeking to preserve its own existence, while Madoka is understandably horrified and appalled at the cold calculations such logic is founded upon. As Madoka protests at how horrible this system is, Kyubey says that there are countless civilizations among the stars burning energy and that humanity will eventually join them. This is for humanity's benefit as well: Magical Girls "consensually" sign up for this! When Madoka snaps that they do it through deception, Kyubey replies that they don't understand the concept of lying - "Why is it that when humans regret a decision based on a misunderstanding, they feel resentment towards the other party?" When there are 6.9 billion humans in existence, a number constantly expanding, why do humans get so upset at the loss of a mere handful?
Madoka says to Kyubey that if they really believe that, then they really are their enemy. Kyubey effectively shrugs and says that she was hoping she would understand - and is convinced that one day, Madoka will become the greatest of all Magical Girls and the most wicked of Witches. Then they depart with the cold aside that "if you ever feel like dying for the sake of the Universe, just let me know." Madoka buries her face between her knees and cries...
Elsewhere in the city, Kyoko takes shelter in an abandoned hotel room, where she is rather uncharacteristically expending her own magic (and thus darkening her Soul Gem) to keep Sayaka's body from starting to rot. Having accepted that they are alike, Kyoko is determined not to let things end like this.
Kyubey appears behind her. The lights are off, there's a pile of fast food on the table, and Sayaka's corpse is laying on the bed.
Kyubey: Why are you so obsessed with keeping that body fresh? Kyoko turns her Soul Gem back into its ring form and then strides over to unwrap a burger.
Kyoko: Is there any way to get her Soul Gem back?
Kyubey: Not that I know of.
Kyoko: ...So there could be some way you don't know of?
Kyubey: As Magical Girls, your existence already defies established logic. I wouldn't be surprised no matter what implausible feats you managed to accomplish. [Nice non-answer.]
Kyoko: So you're saying it's possible?
Kyubey: No one has ever done it before, so I don't know how you'd go about it. Unfortunately, I have no way of advising you on the matter. Silence. The camera cuts back and forth between their faces for a few moments, before:
Kyoko: I wouldn't need your advice anyway. As if I'd ever accept help from you.
Kyoko angrily digs into the rest of the food she has gathered.
Madoka sadly walks to school the next morning, painfully feeling Sayaka's absence and evading Hitomi's ignorant and naive questioning. Tragically, Hitomi says she's considering visiting Sayaka after school to make up with her, but she doesn't know if that would be appropriate. Before Madoka can reply, Kyoko suddenly interrupts telepathically and calls her over. Madoka apologizes to Hitomi and takes off running in Kyoko's direction.
Madoka finds Kyoko hiding within a small alleyway like the one they just met, and Kyoko asks Madoka for her help to save Sayaka. Madoka is surprised, and Kyoko reflexively chides her for assuming Kyoko would just leave Sayaka like that, but then softens and apologizes. Kyoko confesses she's not willing to give up on Sayaka if there's still a chance of saving her (awww) and wants to try to call out to her and see if she's still in there, somewhere. And since Madoka's Sayaka's best friend... Maybe it will turn out in the end "like one of those stories where love and courage triumphs overall." Kyoko confesses that she became a Magical Girl because she always liked stories like that - Kyoko wasn't able to save Sayaka, but Sayaka was able to save her, if only inadvertently, as Kyoko says in the next line.
Kyoko tells Madoka that she won't force Madoka to come with her and that she might not be able to protect Madoka, but Madoka summons her inner strength and says that she will come along... and extends a hand in friendship towards Kyoko, formally introducing herself. Kyoko laughs and says that Madoka is "going to cramp her style" but returns the introduction and the handshake in her own way, by placing a candy bar in Madoka's hand. The tragedy lurches on, but with a small seed planted that will lead to its undoing.
As Homura excuses herself from class in preparation for a song and dance she's already seen before, Madoka follows Kyoko as she tracks down Sayaka. Madoka wonders if Homura will help them out, and Kyoko dismisses the possibility. Madoka asks if they're friends, and Kyoko says no - they've just come together in the name of a common goal. Kyoko explains Walpurgisnacht to Madoka,
but it's, unfortunately, things we already know. Kyoko comes in front of a gate that is chained shut and shatters it with magic - a gesture more important than it seems in a series where chains have repeatedly been shown as symbols of destiny, the crushing fate waiting to ensnare all Magical Girls.
As Kyoko approaches Sayaka's new Labyrinth, telltale rings of musical notes encircle her Soul Gem. Kyoko comes to a stop in front of a wall and transforms with a flourish, and asks Madoka one final time if she's sure. Madoka once again self-flagellates herself for being "useless" but firmly insists she comes with - Madoka's character development is probably the most subtle in the show, but it's real nonetheless. Kyoko smiles and calls her a strange girl as they step into the Labyrinth - a brick hallway covered with posters announcing in runes that Kyosuke is holding a concert, and through camera angles, we can see that on their backs are desperate pleas for him to "LOOK AT ME."
As they walk towards the heart, Madoka asks Kyoko if she's a coward for not contracting, and Kyoko is the first person to tell her not to contract in a way that isn't half-hearted (Mami) or overly forceful (Homura) - fighting isn't just a job anyone can do, and why would Madoka trade the life she enjoys to become a Magical Girl "on a stupid whim?" She threatens to kick Madoka's ass if she tries, but it's with sincerely good intentions behind it, even if they're expressed in a blunt way.
Kyoko and Madoka come to a door at the end of the corridor and open it to walk into another where Sayaka's memories play on screens lining the walls while faint classical music can be heard. Almost as soon as they enter it, the door suddenly slams shut behind her and the screens shut off: Oktavia knows they're here, and the Labyrinth itself moves past them to bring them to its heart, where the viewer is struck full force by Oktavia's theme, Symposium Magarum (Symposium of Witches) - a final, tragic lament for Sayaka.
Oktavia waves her saber, miming the conductor of her Familiar orchestra, a horde of faceless violinists known as Holgers who never once attack Madoka or Kyoko.
Kyoko: Let's do this as we planned, okay?
Madoka: R-right. Sayaka-chan, it's me. Can you hear me? Do you recognize my voice? A distorted red silhouette screams at Madoka. Oktavia raises her sword and summons several wheels. Kyoko pushes herself in front of Madoka.
Kyoko: Stay strong. Keep calling out to her! Kyoko surrounds Madoka with a thick lattice barrier and brandishes her spear.
Madoka: Sayaka-chan, stop it. Please remember. I know you never wanted to hurt anyone! You wanted to be a hero, right, Sayaka-chan? Please go back to your old self! Oktavia hurls wheels in Madoka's direction, which Kyoko deflects.
Kyoko: Being stubborn will only get you so far, Sayaka! The silhouette screams again, and Oktavia summons an armada of wheels. The barrier shatters and Madoka calls out for Kyoko in concern.
Kyoko: I'm fine. This is nothing. Keep calling out... to Sayaka... She says while panting and sweating heavily, raising another barrier around Madoka.
Madoka: Stop it! Stop it! Sayaka-chan, open your eyes! Kyoko is knocked back and forth between large wheels rolling on the floor as the orchestra continues to play. She monologues internally.
Kyoko: So you finally got the chance to pay me back, huh? I guess we did try to kill each other at first. I thought you'd be a wuss. But no matter how much I beat on you, you always got right back up. The blue and red silhouettes of Sayaka and Kyoko spiral around each other. Kyoko reaches toward Sayaka, cradling her head in her hands. As she does, Sayaka dissolves, and blue and red mix together into a puddle of liquid that spills out onto the floor.
Kyoko: You're mad, aren't you? You can't accept what's going on, right? I know how you feel. Come back to us when you feel better, okay? Kyoko is hit by several wheels and knocked into her barrier, shattering it. Oktavia reaches down and grabs Madoka in her fist.
Madoka: Sayaka-chan... Please... Kyoko's face contorts with anger.
Kyoko: SAYAKA! Kyoko leaps into the fray and chops off the arm holding Madoka, which spurts blue blood.
Kyoko: You said you believed this power could make people happy! Oktavia strikes the floor beneath them, which steadily crumbles and reveals the bottom half of the room, an upside-down and blue mirror of that above.
Kyoko: Please, God... After all I've been through... I deserve a lucky break, even if it's just this one time. The room flips right-side-up, and on the newly formed floor, Kyosuke stands in shadow. Homura catches a falling Madoka gently. Kyoko's spear loudly crashes to the floor and disappears in purple flames.
Homura: Kyoko! A heavily injured Kyoko comes to her feet.
Kyoko: Hey.
Homura: Are yo-
Kyoko: Take care of her. I made her go along with my idiocy. She raises a barrier between her and Homura. You should never fight with a burden, right? It's fine. That's the right choice. Just focus on the one thing you really want to protect and keep it safe 'til the end. As she says this, Homura looks at the unconscious Madoka cradled in her arms.
Kyoko: It's funny. All this time, that's what I thought I was doing. Kyoko pulls the black ribbon from her hair. A golden hairpin falls onto the floor. Kyoko grabs it and kneels in prayer.
Kyoko: Go. I'll take care of her. Homura stands and begins to run away as massive spears rise from the floor. The largest of all forms under Kyoko. While smiling, she says:
Kyoko: Don't worry, Sayaka. I know you don't want to be alone. It's okay. I'll be here with you, Sayaka. Kyoko binds her Soul Gem to the hairpin and kisses it as she throws it into the air. As it falls in front of the point of her spear, she attacks it. It shatters and explodes with a tremendous force that annihilates them both.
Outside of the Labyrinth, Homura cradles Madoka in her arms.
Homura: Kyoko...
(Apologies for the poor quality and the use of the dub, no one has uploaded anything better.)
In death, Kyoko and Sayaka shall be together as one.
The next scene is shot in Homura's apartment. Homura dejectedly looks down at a map of Mitakihara as Kyubey's silhouette covers it in shadow.
Homura asks Kyubey if Kyoko had any chance at all of reaching out to Sayaka. "Of course not. She should have known that it was impossible," they reply. Homura asks why Kyubey didn't stop her, then. Kyubey reveals that with Kyoko out of the picture, Homura is the only Magical Girl left to fight Walpurgisnacht. And she's not strong enough. Madoka has no other choice but to contract.
"I will never let that happen. I swear it."
With that, the episode ends.
This time around, Magia is replaced with a special credits sequence set to the song And I'm Home, a duet between Kyoko and Sayaka's seiyuus:
Kyoko: What does your heart, rusted to brown,
see in this world bereft of sounds?
I try to find the courage to say goodbye,
Always, never succeeding
Sayaka: When I came to
I saw you from afar, crying all alone
Kyoko: How painful
Sayaka: And sad
Both: It felt there
I want to link hands with you
Call me by my name, again and again
Whatever the future may hold for us
I can't let go, and merely thinking of it pains my heart
Here I am
Here I am
Is this where I belong?
(Ironically enough, I managed to find the Tumblr post I wanted to end Episode 5 (which introduces the Sayaka-Kyoko relationship) with, just in time for this one that sees Kyoko and Sayaka off:
"Sorry, I just couldn't help but notice that you're calm and logical and reserved and associated with the color blue? Well I'm hotheaded and impulsive and passionate and associated with the color red if you want to beat the shit out of each other or make out or something?"
Kyoko knew deep down that she had no chance of appealing to Sayaka. This is not a world that bends to human wishes or prayers. The wheel of fate keeps on turning, grinding them underneath. But Kyoko died alongside the one she loved. It's not quite a happy-ever-after, but it's better than a lot of people (or Magical Girls) get. And in a roundabout way, Sayaka ended up rescuing herself after all by rekindling in Kyoko's heart the ideals that made her become a Magical Girl to begin with. The selfish girl not all that different from Kyubey ends up dying for the sake of another. What a wonderful character arc.
But there is still one character that remains closed off to us: Homura Akemi. Her secrets will reveal themselves next time.
Karl Sigmund von Seckendorff was a German poet who was inspired by Goethe; he enjoyed composing music for several of his poems before they were even published, and translated The Sorrows of Young Werther into French. In this story, the titular man is ultimately driven to suicide by his unrequited love, as he is unable to harm or murder others to resolve the love triangle at the source of his despair. However, Goethe thought little of his work.
He also wrote a book called The Wheel of Fate (Das Rad des Schicksals), and could explain Sayaka's wheel attack.
Actually we got all the clues needed to figure this out by now:
-Grief seeds are not depleted when used by a magical girl. They are recharged.
--A fully utilized Grief Seed will hatch into the Witch it came from.
-Charlotte only just manifested her Barrier at the Hospital and took a while to reform.
--We know from Sayaka that a magical girl transforming into a Witch is cataclysmic and instantaneous as the Barrier instantly deploys and an aggressive Witch manifests, whereas Charlotte's barrier slowly filled up with familiars over time.
-We know the energy collection apparatus is on, or in the soulgem itself, as Kyubey says it collects the energy from the moment a magical girl becomes a Witch, and theres no other visible apparatus than the soulgem's casing itself present when Sayaka turned into a Witch.
Ergo, Kyubey is likely using filled grief seeds for the following purposes:
-Re-seeding Witches in areas where the magical girl population is too low.
-Using filled grief seeds as incentive for a girl to make a hasty contract, faced with an immediate supernatural threat.
-Potentially extracting energy from a filled grief seed by unknown means, which, the simplest solution is that whatever energy collector is used to collect the energy of the witching out transition, is used to collect the energy from subsequent Grief Seed to Witch transformations. This would be most efficiently done on a planet with magical girls, as the Incubators do not need to perform any costly cleanup on the resultant witches, the Magical Girls will handle containment and decontamination at the cost of either recharging a used grief seed, or accelerating their own transformation.
The occasional grief seed is lost to misadventure, they're physically inside the Witch's form and sometimes this means that its destroyed along with the Witch.
If this is true, this would be an incredibly efficient energy gathering scheme. The only time Kyubey would make a loss is if a Magical Girl died by combat or suicide, but its very hard to actually lose to an insane creature spending most of its energy making artistic depictions of its trauma and lashing out wildly, while any emotional state which might lead to suicide would create a Witch first.
When Madoka snaps that they do it through deception, Kyubey replies that they don't understand the concept of lying - "Why is it that when humans regret a decision based on a misunderstanding, they feel resentment towards the other party?" When there are 6.9 billion humans in existence, a number constantly expanding, why do humans get so upset at the loss of a mere handful?
I'd observe that this is more of the clever non-answers the Incubators love.
Because they clearly have a strong grasp of human psychology.
Insufficient to truly predict a specific course of action, but they have very good statistics on what kind of stimuli produce what kind of reactions.
We see it with Kyouko. The Incubator nearly trivially manipulated her into a suicidal course of action so as to corner Madoka into contracting by the use of implications and phrasing.
All while claiming it doesn't understand.
Of course, if you understand how Entropy actually works, the Incubator is generating usable energy, which would then be used by its civilization. Its not unlike a renewable energy power plant selling its purpose as saving the environment - which is true, but its ultimate purpose is to produce energy for sale and use.
It would make sense for Kyubey to manipulate the Witch population to encourage high concentrations of Magical Girls to spread out or compete with each other so that one of them Witches out, yeah. I am curious what exactly happens to the soul of a Witch whose Grief Seed is eaten by Kyubey: Since Mami and Kyoko whose Soul Gems were destroyed before they became Witches are present in the "afterlife" Madoka converses with them shortly after her wish, but Sayaka who's Grief Seed was too isn't. You could say that's because Sayaka Witched out, but I refuse to believe there aren't timelines where Mami and Kyoko have become Witches. Do they just... cease to exist?
And yeah, I agree: The Incubators have clearly done this long enough that they (usually) know how humans react to X/Y/Z and could take a more humane tack accordingly. Their species might lack empathy (or emotions in general) but that doesn't stop the vast majority of sociopaths from being good people. The Incubators also leave Earth to die in timelines where Kriemhild Gretchen is born, so clearly they don't really care about humanity all that much as they claim.
ACT I - PMMM Episode Ten: I will never depend on anyone again.
ACT I - PMMM Episode Ten: I will never depend on anyone again.
Last episode: Sayaka transforms into the Witch Oktavia von Seckendorff. Kyoko mistakenly believes Sayaka has fallen under the Witch's influence and rescues her falling body, but is quickly overwhelmed by Oktavia. Homura intervenes, explaining to Kyoko that the Witch is Sayaka and revealing her ability to stop time. Faced with the options of either fleeing or killing Oktavia on the spot, Kyoko and Homura flee with Sayaka's corpse in tow. They meet up with a horrified Madoka on the train tracks outside of the station, where Homura coldly explains that eventually, all Magical Girls will become Witches.
That morning, Kyubey visits Madoka and reveals most of the truth to her: Kyubey is part of an alien species with a unified consciousness known as Incubators, which seeks to forestall the heat death of the Universe. They have discovered that emotions are the single form of energy not subject to entropy, but because Incubators do not have them, they needed to turn to other species, such as humanity. The most emotionally volatile humans are teenage girls, and thus the Magical Girl system is born. Whenever a Magical Girl becomes a Witch, an immense amount of energy is created and collected by the Incubators. Kyubey defends themselves from Madoka's protests by claiming that the Incubators obtain the consent of the girls, that they do not understand the concept of lying, and that they cannot comprehend why when there are so many humans, Madoka is so emotional at the loss of a mere handful - but is unable to convince Madoka of their perspective.
Elsewhere, a redeemed Kyoko expends magic to keep Sayaka's body from rotting and asks Kyubey if it is possible to reverse the transformation. In typical fashion, the Incubator says "not that I know of" but manipulates her into believing that it is possible since the existence of Magical Girls "already defies established logic." The next morning, Kyoko recruits Madoka to help appeal to Sayaka's conscience, which she believes is still buried inside Oktavia. The two open up to each other, and Kyoko reassures Madoka that she does not need to sign the contract and will "kick her ass" if she does.
The two girls track down Oktavia to her new Labyrinth, where her faceless Familiars play a neverending concert in her memory. Madoka repeatedly attempts to appeal to Sayaka as the Witch repeatedly attacks an increasingly despondent Kyoko. After Oktavia shatters the barrier protecting Madoka and grabs her, Kyoko chops off her arm, which prompts the Witch to attack the floor beneath them and causes the room to invert. Homura rescues a falling Madoka, and Kyoko tells Homura to flee and "focus on the one thing you really want to protect and keep it safe 'til the end." Kyoko kneels in prayer and then prepares a final suicide attack, reassuring Sayaka/Oktavia that she isn't alone anymore as she attacks her Soul Gem, which explodes and kills them both.
After reaching her apartment, Homura asks Kyubey if Kyoko had any chance at all of reaching out to Sayaka, to which they reply "of course not" and reveal that now that Kyoko is out of the picture, Homura is the only Magical Girl left to fight Walpurgisnacht...
And now for something completely different! The anime just drops you into this without any explanation, but the second movie moves the location of the conversation that ended the last episode to a crumbling graveyard under harsh red light, before depicting Homura walking through a misty grove of trees. As she does, the film glitches out to reveal a line of Homura silhouettes marching in a straight line, before a reversed countdown starts...
From the few pieces of information we've gotten about Homura up to this point, we can reconstruct the course of her life before she signed a contract. It's not a pretty one. Homura lives alone and never mentions any parents, which combined with her mention of a "Christian school" in episode 1 makes it likely she grew up in an orphanage - the reason I mentioned that the school she went to was "likely Catholic" is because the Catholic Church operates the largest number of orphanages in Japan.
Catholic orphanages are not nice places to grow up - the children they churn out are woefully undereducated and are often subject to physical or mental abuse, or worse. Homura never shows any signs of physical (or sexual) abuse, but her alarmingly poor mental state suggests her time there wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows. Combined with a severely debilitating heart condition and you have the perfect recipe for a very shy, undersocialized, and depressed girl who is unable to meaningfully pursue her interests (Rebellion suggests she was at one point interested in becoming a ballerina) or live any sort of normal life at all.
But enough sequence breaking. Back to the anime proper.
Homura fidgets nervously and stammers as she introduces herself to the class. The teacher explains that she's been hospitalized for half a year and will have likely fallen behind, and asks for the class to help her out when she needs it. Once again, Homura is fawned over by the girls in her class but while the Homura we're familiar with cooly brushed them off and sought out Madoka, this Homura has no mask to hide her discomfort and unfamiliarity with others. Fortunately, she is spared from their questioning by Madoka, who reminds her that she needs to go to the nurse's office. What follows is a conversation deliberately mirrored after Episode 1's, but with the roles literally and figuratively reversed: Madoka confidently leads while a timid Homura follows.
Madoka: while giggling Sorry about that! They don't mean any harm. They're just excited because we don't get many transfer students.
Homura: No, it's okay... Thank you very much.
Madoka: Hey, don't be so nervous! We're classmates, after all. My name's Kaname Madoka. Call me Madoka. Homura's eyes go wide with shock for a moment, before returning to her passive demeanor.
Homura: I...
Madoka: It's fine, really. Do you mind if I call you Homura-chan? Homura clutches her chest while walking.
Homura: People don't call me by my first name very often. It's a really weird name. [Homura means "flame" and can be used as both a first and last name.]
Madoka: What? That's not true. It feels really exciting and cool!
Homura: I guess I don't live up to my name. Madoka spins around to face Homura.
Madoka: You shouldn't say that! You already have such a wonderful name. You should be cool to match it! Homura's eyes go wide and she blushes slightly, before looking down at her feet.
(Remember how Homura winced when Madoka said her name was nice?)
But praise from a girl she barely knows isn't enough. Where the first incarnation of the next scene had Homura effortlessly solving complicated equations, casually breaking records with her athletic performance, etc. as a way to establish just how cool she is, this version seems determined to establish the opposite. Homura breaks down crying in front of the class when she can't solve a question she is called up for, she gets lightheaded just from warmups... By the time she's walking home from school that evening and remembering Madoka's words, she immediately begins self-flagellating, but in a way far harsher than Madoka ever did. She's not good at anything, all she ever does is cause trouble and embarrass herself...
And it soon gets a Witch's attention. It calls out to her as she starts to walk into its Labyrinth like a moth drawn to a flame, suggesting it would be better if she just died. She agrees, starts to close her eyes... and then suddenly opens them to a surrealist nightmare.
IZABEL
The artist witch. Her nature is vanity. Without the slightest doubt, she believes her existence is blessed. Wanting someone to see her work, she often interferes with the human world. However within her barrier only exist works that you have probably seen somewhere before. To defeat this witch, just bring a well-known critic with you.
The Witch herself takes the form of the Arc de Triomphe while her Familiars resemble poorly scribbled humanoids. They descend upon Homura, but before they can harm her, Credens Justitiam kicks up as she is saved by Mami... and Madoka, who wears the pink-and-white dress from the OP and uses a bow as her weapon. Homura looks in reverent awe at Madoka in particular, and Kyubey pops up behind them to give Homura the sales pitch. She confidently smiles at Homura as she tells her "not to tell anyone in class" and with Mami's help, she dispatches the Witch. She's cool and confident and was nice to her when no one was... and the seed is planted for a love that will redefine the trajectory of Homura's life forever.
In Mami's apartment, Homura asks Madoka if she always fights "those things" and Madoka bashfully says that she just made her contract last week - spin-off material reveals that her wish was to revive the cat she's briefly seen with in the OP, who had been run over by a car. Homura asks Madoka if she gets scared, and Madoka says that she does, but it's worth it knowing she can help other people. Homura smiles as Mami briefly mentions that Madoka needs to be a full-fledged Magical Girl before Walpurgisnacht arrives...
And we suddenly jump forward to the apocalyptic landscape we saw in Madoka's dream at the very beginning. Mami lays dead at Madoka and Homura's feet, and Madoka tells Homura she has to go. Homura whimpers that she doesn't have to, but Madoka shakes her head and says that she's the only one left to stop the Witch now. Homura protests that it's impossible! Nobody could fight that thing alone! Madoka knows it, but it's her duty as a Magical Girl to protect other people. This is where her true strength shines - Madoka is courageous, selfless, and willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of other people. With tears in her eyes, Homura pleads that they should run away... but Madoka smiles and says that she's glad she and Homura became friends. She's happy that they could save her from Izabel, so she doesn't regret becoming a Magical Girl at all. She smiles and says goodbye...
And it ends exactly how you would expect. The only person who's shown her any genuine affection has suddenly been taken from her... and it's something she refuses to accept.
Homura sobs over Madoka's corpse as the rain gently falls onto both of them from a grey sky.
Homura: Why... You knew you were going to die. I wish you could have lived... She buries her face into Madoka's chest.
Homura: ...instead of saving someone like me...
Kyubey: Do you truly mean those words, Akemi Homura? Would you be willing to trade your soul for that wish? If there's something you want badly enough to commit yourself to a life of battle, then... I can be of help to you. Homura looks up to see Kyubey perched on a shard of concrete overlooking them.
Homura: If I make a contract with you, can you grant any wish I want?
Kyubey: That's correct. It seems that you qualify. Now tell me, what is the wish that will make your Soul Gem shine?
Homura: I... She looks down at Madoka's body, takes off her glasses to wipe her tears away, and steels herself.
Homura: I want to redo my first encounter with Kaname-san. But this time, instead of her protecting me, I want to become strong enough to protect her! Silence for a moment, then Homura clutches her chest as Kyubey extracts her soul, a bright purple light.
Kyubey: The contract has been made. Your wish has prevailed over entropy. Now, release your new power!
Homura clutches her new Soul Gem, and on her arm forms her signature shield. Almost immediately, she flicks her wrist, the gears start to turn... and time rewinds!
(It's never outright explained how her shield works beyond vague implications, but production notes reveal that its hourglass has enough sand to cover the month-and-a-half her time loops cover. By turning the hourglass sideways, time stops so long as there is still sand in both chambers. By flipping it upside down when the bottom is full, it rewinds.)
Homura suddenly awakes in her hospital bed on the day she was discharged from the hospital (March 16th, 2011 a calendar on the wall reveals, as well as confirming the date she transfers into school is the 25th. Assuming Walpurgisnacht arrives on the day of the holiday in question, April 30th, a rudimentary timeline of the anime can thus be constructed) but as she feels her new Soul Gem in her hand, she realizes it wasn't a dream. She has her second chance!
The next morning, Homura confidently introduces herself to the class and then immediately runs over to a clueless Madoka, clutching her hands happily as she tells her she's also become a Magical Girl and that they'll be together from now on, which causes Madoka to blush profusely in front of the whole class.
Of course, Homura has no other weapons but her shield and no combat experience: when displaying her powers to Madoka and Mami, she has to resort to running awkwardly (and in heels!) in stopped time (tripping at least once) and using a golf club to bludgeon a barrel to death. Just the mere activity winds her, and as Mami assesses her performance, she calls Homura's magic incredible... if they can figure out how to use it. That night, Homura makes a crude pipe bomb (funnily enough the recipe she is using is derived from a Japanese New Left pamphlet that exclaims "even a middle-scholar could do it") in her much-less-ominous apartment, which she uses in her first fight with a Witch:
PATRICIA
The class representative witch. Her nature is to remain an onlooker. Using the spiderlike threads which she vomits forth, she created a school for herself alone within the sky of her barrier and endlessly acts out an ordinary daily student life there. If you ring the going-home bell, this witch will likely return to her house somewhere.
Her Labyrinth is one of clothes-lines crisscrossing an infinite sky, and the girls dodge falling desks and chairs (and Familiars resembling schoolgirls with ice skates, but are missing everything above the waist) as they prepare their assault. Mami uses her ribbons to create a bridge for Homura to run under the Witch in stopped-time, throwing the pipe bomb up her skirt and successfully dispatching it, and is then caught by Mami's ribbons as the Labyrinth starts to dissipate. Madoka happily embraces Homura while Mami looks on with a gentle smile.
Unfortunately, this happiness is short-lived. The camera immediately cuts to Madoka and Homura lying in the ruins left by Walpurgisnacht's wake, only this time Madoka's Soul Gem is fully corrupted. She writhes in pain and agony before a confused Homura as it transforms into a Grief Seed, which births an immenseWitch to Homura's horror. Time rewinds...
Homura awakes in her bed again, determined to warn the others. This time, the others include Sayaka who is skeptical of Homura's claim and accuses her of trying to drive a wedge between them and working with Kyoko. Madoka points out that Sayaka is being hypocritical, and Sayaka shrugs and says she doesn't trust Homura... and then complains about her pipe bombs going off in her face, which leads Homura to steal guns from the Yakuza by utilizing her stopped time. The camera then cuts to a slightly different Oktavia fight:
OKTAVIA VON SECKENDORFF (TIMELINE III)
The mermaid witch. Her nature is to fall in love. The witch continues to dream of a guitar resounding in the middle of a concert hall, a deeply moving impression from past days. Repeating within that time with little but sure differences, her wheels of fate move around calmly.
Where instead of a concert hall, it instead takes place on a stage. The Holgers have been replaced with a different kind of Familiar who resembles Hitomi (and the Witch allows to get run over by her wheels) - once more, Kyoko and Madoka attempt to appeal to Sayaka, and once more they are only met with the Witch's assault. Homura stops time before Madoka can be killed by her wheels, shoots each wheel to divert its trajectory, and apologizes to Sayaka as she uses an array of pipe bombs to kill the Witch that was her. Kyoko curses the situation, Madoka cries... and Mami snaps. She binds Homura with her ribbons to prevent her from using her shield, then shoots Kyoko's Soul Gem, causing her to crumple to the floor before she can even say anything.
"If the Soul Gems give birth to Witches, then we have to die! You, me, all of us!" she cries. But before she can pull the trigger, Madoka shoots Mami's Soul Gem instead before bursting into tears, wailing that she can't take this anymore. But Homura is slowly becoming the stronger (and colder) girl we're familiar with: she calmly walks over and reassures Madoka that everything is okay and that together, they can defeat Walpurgisnacht. The camera cuts forward once more to the ruins left in Walpurgisnacht's wake...
Homura and Madoka lay together in the ruins. Both their Soul Gems are fully corrupted, and they are both injured and tattered. Signum Malum (Bad Omen) plays, a more solemn and sinister rendition of Sis Puella Magi.
Madoka: I guess... this is the end for us too. Homura nods, her glasses cracked.
Homura: Do you have any Grief Seeds? Madoka shakes her head no. I see... Hey... How about we become monsters together... and lay waste to this awful world? We'll wipe out everything... all traces of evil or sadness... and just destroy, destroy, destroy... until there's nothing left but dust. Don't you think... that sounds nice? Homura sniffles as Madoka presses Oktavia's Grief Seed to her Soul Gem. Homura opens her eyes in shock as Madoka smiles.
Madoka: I lied before. I had one left.
Homura: You can't... Why did you use it on me?
Madoka: Because I need you to do something I can't. You can go back in time, right, Homura-chan? You can change history so it doesn't end like this, right? She begins to cry.
Madoka: Could you save me from my stupidity... before I get fooled by Kyubey?
Homura: She is also crying. I promise. I'll save you, no matter what! No matter how many times I have to try, I swear I will protect you!
Madoka: I'm glad... She writhes in pain as her Soul Gem pulses. Homura sits up and holds her.
Madoka: Could I ask you... for one more thing? Homura nods as tears roll down her face.
Madoka: I don't want to become a Witch. There are so many awful, sad things in this world... but there are lots of things... worth protecting... too...
Homura: Madoka!
Madoka: Homura-chan... You finally called me by my first name... I'm happy... She lifts her heavily scratched hand, her Soul Gem resting in her palm.
Homura cries as she transforms, pulls a pistol from her shield, and...
On that day, the old Homura died, and a new one was born.
She awakens in her bed with a determined expression. "No one will believe the future. No one will accept the future," she says internally as she uses her Soul Gem to heal her eyes and casts aside her glasses, then rips the ribbons from her braids. The next scene has the Homura we know and love to appear outside Madoka's bedroom window, clutching an Incubator's corpse, warning Madoka that if someone ever appears before her, promising her a miracle, to resist temptation, much to her confusion. And then...
Homura walks into a US military base in stopped time as Numquam Vincar (I Will Never Be Defeated) kicks into gear, a rock piece cementing her newfound commitment to saving Madoka. She walks into a room where dozens upon dozens of machine guns are stored...
Homura: I will never depend on anyone again. The camera cuts to Homura in a Witch's Labyrinth, standing on top of a revolving dias.
Homura: I will never need anyone to understand me again. She leaps onto a Familiar frozen in stopped time and empties her clip into the Witch.
Homura: I will never let Madoka fight again. I will destroy all the Witches by myself. Time briefly resumes, only for Homura to toss a grenade at the Witch. She lands on the floor and walks away as it explodes behind her.
Homura: And this time, I will stop Walpurgisnacht with my own hands.
We then cut to the "dream" at the very beginning of the anime, which wasn't a dream of things to come! It was a dream of something that's already happened. Homura leaps into battle against the Witch but isn't strong enough. Madoka watches as Homura is overcome... But this time, the scene is from Homura's perspective. Her "silent scream" is Homura pleading Madoka not to listen to Kyubey, but she's too far away for her words to reach her. Madoka nods, steels herself, and all Homura can do is scream...
In the ruins once more, Kyubey happily monologues to a downcast Homura that they never would have guessed that Madoka had the potential to one-shot Walpurgisnacht... but the immense expenditure of magic immediately transformed her into a Witch even more powerful in the process:
KRIEMHILD GRETCHEN
Witch of salvation. Her nature is mercy. She absorbs any life on the planet into her newly created heaven - her barrier. The only way to defeat this witch is to make the world free of misfortune. If there's no grief in this world, she will believe this world is already heaven.
Kriemhild is the immense silhouette that showed up at the very beginning of the anime, before the "dream." All that can be seen of her is that she is gigantic, her mountain-sized body towering over the ruined city. Kyubey notes at this rate, she'll destroy humanity in just ten days. But that's not their problem - with Madoka's transformation, the Incubators have met their energy quota. As Homura stands up and begins to walk away, Kyubey confusedly asks that shouldn't she be fighting the Witch? Homura replies in the negative - "This is not my battlefield." Kyubey asks Homura if she's a time traveler... but before they can finish their question, she rewinds time once more.
An indeterminate amount of timelines pass - approximately 100 as per Word of God, which would be about twelve years assuming the average loop is 45 days - but at this point, Homura has nothing else left. "I'll do it over... as many times as it takes. I'll relive the same time over and over, searching for the one way out. I'll find the one path that will save you from your fate of boundless despair," she says as the scene where she hunted down Kyubey in the first episode replays from her perspective. She kills one Kyubey, but a second just races past her, to be found by Madoka. The wheel of fate keeps turning on. As she slams her chain down, she looks at Madoka... her "one and only friend. If it's... if it's for you, I don't mind being trapped in this endless maze... for all eternity!"
(Homura definitely doesn't consider Madoka just a friend. That's not me reading gay subtext into this, it's canon. When exactly Homura's friendship with Madoka turned into love isn't exactly clear, but if I had to guess probably two or three timelines in... but it's going to be a while before she's willing to admit that's what it is. Rebellion suggests the aforementioned Christian upbringing has left her with some internalized homophobia/shame because of it.)
The episode ends... with the opening! Which as it turns out, is being sung from Homura's perspective (so is Magia, by the way)! Though not by her seiyuu.
I'll never forget the promises we exchanged
I still see it when I close my eyes
I'll move forward as I cast off this darkness engulfing me...
How long will it be before
I see that lost future again?
I'll walk upon this Earth,
and pierce this shadowy veil of unease,
as many times as necessary
The clock that's endlessly ticked away
now tells of the beginning
Let's open the once-closed door,
with these unwavering feelings
My heart started racing once again to paint the future
Even if I get stuck in a maze,
the beautiful blue sky will always be waiting for me
So I won't be afraid
Madoka: Did you really feel nothing while watching over those girls this whole time? Didn't you at least try to understand how much they were suffering? Episode Eleven: The one thing I have left to guide me.
So come take my hand and
Come make me feel what it's like
When love comes alive
And one day I wish that
I won't keep hiding the truth
But I'm just a fool,
Oh, I'm such a fool.
(Repeating, repeating...)
The reveal of this episode heavily recontextualizes all of Homura's actions up to this point: every grimace, every fumbled intervention, her resigned attitude as her other friends shuffle off this mortal coil. I think Homura did genuinely want to save all of them at some point, but after so many timelines, she's come to the conclusion that despite her best efforts, Sayaka, Kyoko, and Mami are all doomed one way or another. Not that it stops her from still trying to fight the inevitable every now and then.
Of course, this results in a paradox at the heart of Homura as a character. Homura fell in love with a Madoka brimming with confidence with the knowledge that now she is a Magical Girl, she can help other people. But with every loop, not only do Homura and Madoka get more distant from each other, without that confidence boost, Madoka resembles more and more Homura's old self - one she absolutely hates. Her wish embodies this simultaneously selfless desire to save her, and a selfish desire to protect her, and control her even. Homura's wrestling with these contradictory desires will define much of her character arc going forward, particularly in Rebellion.
(Another thing this episode establishes that will be explored in Rebellion: Homura and Sayaka have more in common than either is willing to admit. Maybe that's why they piss each other off so much.)
We have two episodes (and two mangas, and a movie,) left. Now, despite everything, do these girls still have a chance? The show has established that the hopes, the dreams, the despair, the curses, and the love of these girls are powerful enough to bend the laws of space and time... but we have yet to see if they can break them.
So like this is late, but I think that the wiki states that at any point where Sayaka ends up becoming a magical girl, she is doomed to become a Witch 100%. Also in a bit of cruel humor the director Gen Urobuchi more or less said that if she did end up getting Kyouskes attention and they dated, then it wouldn't work out between them.
So like Sayaka is just like multiple times doomed.
Her wish makes it so:
Homura: I want to redo my first encounter with Kaname-san. But this time, instead of her protecting me, I want to become strong enough to protect her!
It mus allow her to be stronger, so that means she always shows up before contract.
Also
Madoka: Could I ask you... for one more thing?
Homura nods as tears roll down her face.
Madoka: I don't want to become a Witch. There are so many awful, sad things in this world... but there are lots of things... worth protecting... too...
Homura: Madoka!
Madoka: Homura-chan... You finally called me by my first name... I'm happy...
She lifts her heavily scratched hand, her Soul Gem resting in her palm.
Homura cries as she transforms, pulls a pistol from her shield, and...
Homura's shield will always bring her back to March 16th, 2011 - the day she is discharged from the hospital. She transfers into school on March 25th, 2011, nine days later. Madoka says in her conversation with Homura and Mami in the first timeline that she made her contract "about a week ago," which gives Homura a window to presumably rescue the cat from getting run over.
ACT I - PMMM Episode Eleven: The one thing I have left to guide me.
ACT I - PMMM Episode Eleven: The one thing I have left to guide me.
Last episode: Homura Akemi was once a shy and clumsy meganekko, raised in a Catholic orphanage and suffering from a severely debilitating heart condition. On the way to the nurse's office for her daily medication, Madoka attempts to befriend her with mixed results. Homura struggles through the rest of the day, and on her way home from school, she falls prey to a Witch feeding off of her intense self-loathing. She is saved by Mami.... and Madoka, who has already become a Magical Girl in this timeline. Homura cannot help but find herself drawn to the confident and outgoing Madoka, who is everything she is not... and is utterly devastated when she dies in Walpurgisnacht a few weeks later, prompting her to make a contract with Kyubey, wishing for the ability to redo their first meeting and the strength to protect Madoka as she protected her. She receives a shield with the ability to stop and reverse time, and time rewinds.
Homura awakens in the hospital on the day she was discharged, Soul Gem in hand. Upon her first day at school, she gleefully informs Madoka that she has become a Magical Girl too. Despite her powerful ability to stop time, Homura has no combat experience and no other weapons apart from her shield, forcing her to resort to improvised pipe bombs. Homura becomes a valued member of Mami and Madoka's team... but is unable to stop Madoka's Soul Gem from fully corrupting during the fight with Walpurgisnacht. Madoka becomes a Witch, and time rewinds.
Homura attempts to reveal the true nature of Magical Girls to the group, but Sayaka (who was not present in previous timelines) refuses to believe her and complains about her use of pipe bombs, causing Homura to steal guns from the Yakuza. Homura uses these new weapons to protect Madoka during a fight with a slightly different Oktavia and dispatches the Witch with her pipe bombs. Upon realizing that Homura was correct, Mami attempts to commit murder-suicide, killing Kyoko and restraining Homura, only to be killed by Madoka. After the battle with Walpurgisnacht, Homura and Madoka's Soul Gems are fully corrupted, but Madoka uses Oktavia's Grief Seed to purify Homura's Soul Gem and asks Homura to prevent her from becoming a Magical Girl and to kill her so she does not become a Witch. She does, and time rewinds.
Homura assumes her current appearance and dons her cold facade, proclaiming she will not rely on anyone anymore and will become strong enough to kill Walpurgisnacht herself. But she is overwhelmed, and the "dream" from Episode One reveals itself to be a recollection of this timeline. Madoka contracts and defeats Walpurgisnacht with a single shot... but immediately transforms into the even stronger Kriemhild Gretchen, powerful enough to destroy humanity in ten days. Time rewinds...
Approximately one hundred timelines pass. Again and again, Homura throws herself into the fray in the name of Madoka, her "one and only friend..."
This episode:
She will turn all of fate's misfortune into nothing.
She will flood the earth with magic,
and take all of humankind into her play.
A moving stage construction.
If everything is a play, no unhappy things will exist.
It may be a tragedy, but it'll all be part of the script.
The play stops on Walpurgisnacht,
and the earth does not turn even once more.
The story will not change.
Tomorrow, and the day after, is the night of Walpurgis.
...
We snap back to the conversation with Kyubey, where they promptly drop one final bombshell into Homura's (and the audience's) lap. Madoka has such absurd potential because of Homura. A Magical Girl's potential is rooted in the "karmic destiny" she bears, but Madoka has lived an ordinary life. But by reversing time repeatedly in her name, all those abandoned timelines have converged and ensnared around a single person - Madoka. In her desperation to save Madoka from the Incubators, all she has done is make Madoka a more attractive target - "the most powerful Witch we've ever seen."
Rain falls on Mitakihara. Sayaka's body has been discovered in the hotel Kyoko left her in, and the authorities are unable to determine the cause of her death. Madoka, just as downcast as the weather, attends her funeral and then returns home - once warm and inviting, now cold and sterile. Her mother asks if she knows anything more about what has happened, and Madoka replies with a plaintive no. Kyubey has succeeded in completely isolating her, and as she retreats into her room once more, they make their final push.
Madoka lays back in her bed in her school uniform.
Madoka: Sayaka-chan and Kyoko-chan are both dead. Kyubey's shadow falls across her body as lightning strikes.
Kyubey: It's not really that surprising. The signs had been there for quite some time. Madoka angrily sits up and faces them, perched on her shelf of stuffed animals once more.
Madoka: So you're saying you don't care? Even though you practically caused their deaths?!
Kyubey: Tell me, do you ever feel guilty about what happens to livestock? Do you ever think about how their meat ends up on your table? Kyubey telepathically shows Madoka stylized visions of butchered livestock, captioned in runes. [I speculated way back in Episode One that the runes were the Incubator's language for this reason.]
Madoka: Stop it!
Kyubey: That's not a rational reaction. If you found that vision to be cruel, then you're not seeing the whole picture. Sis Puella Magica! begins to play. Depictions of cowscaptioned in runes slowly flash across the screen.
Kyubey: In exchange for one day becoming food for humans, livestock are provided for all their lives and sheltered from natural selection. Cows, pigs, and chickens all have far higher rates of reproduction in captivity than in the wild. Wouldn't you call that the ideal symbiotic relationship?
Madoka: Are you trying to say we're the same?
Kyubey: Actually, we're far more accommodating toward humanity than you are with livestock. Though we're not perfect at it, we at least negotiate with you as sentient beings. Madoka sighs.
Kyubey: You don't believe me? How about I show you, then? I'll show you the history that mankind has spent together with the Incubators. Two multicolored rings shoot from Kyubey's eyes. Madoka is engulfed in a Labyrinth-like vision of human history, from Cleopatra toHimiko toJoan of Arc, depicting their rise and fall.
Kyubey: We have been involved with your civilization since before your recorded history. Countless girls throughout history have formed contracts with Incubators, had their wishes granted, and ultimately succumbed to despair. That which begins with a prayer of hope ends with a curse of despair. Such is the cycle that countless Magical Girls have repeated to this day. Some changed history forever and elevated your society to new stages of development. Madoka begins to cry and curls into a ball as she is enveloped by Kyubey's onslaught. The camera slowly zooms in on her and Kyubey's face.
Madoka: Stop it! They... they all trusted you. They trusted you, and you betrayed them!
Kyubey: It was not we who betrayed them, but rather their wishes. No matter what their hopes were, anything that goes beyond reason will without fail cause some sort of distortion. It's only natural that this would result in disaster. If you consider a natural consequence like that to be "betrayal," then their mistake was to make those wishes in the first place. Madoka falls past pages covered in runes, crude drawings of Magical Girls past, and Stuka bombers flying upwards.
Kyubey: Not that I am calling them foolish. It can't be denied that their sacrifices have shaped human history. Madoka lands in her bed and snaps back to reality, crying and shaking. Sis Puella Magica! stops playing.
Kyubey: The current standard of living you enjoy was made possible by all those tears shed in the past. If you understand that, then how can you be so obsessed with the lives of a select few?
Madoka: Did you really feel nothing while watching over those girls this whole time? Didn't you at least try to understand how much they were suffering?
Kyubey: If we could, we wouldn't have come to this planet in the first place. In our society, the phenomenon known as "emotion" is nothing more than a rare mental disorder. That's why we were surprised when we found you, humans. We never imagined a world could exist where each individual possesses their own set of emotions and still managed to co-exist with others.
Madoka: If none of you had ever come to this planet...
Kyubey: Then you would still be living in caves.
At that, Kyubey departs, confident that they've clicked the last piece into place. They have, but not in the way they'd expect. And thus, the final chain of events is set in motion...
(Also, can I say, the implications of Incubators occasionally being born with emotions are both fascinating and horrifying? Like holy shit.)
We then jump to another conversation, an emotional one between Madoka's mother and her homeroom teacher at an otherwise empty bar as Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam hangs overhead as another symbol of inescapable fate. Madoka's teacher (who up to this point has been a joke character who continually complains about her love life) laments how tragic losing one of her students like this is, without even knowing the cause of death. She also briefly mentions that "one of the seniors" has gone missing as well in a brief reference to Mami. Hitomi has taken Sayaka's death pretty hard, and the police are going to rule it an accident exacerbated by stress from running away from home, and she asks Madoka's mother how Madoka is taking it.
She fearfully confesses that she doesn't know. She feels like Madoka knows something more about this, but it doesn't feel like Madoka is lying to her either, and she's sad that this is the first time she hasn't been able to understand what Madoka is thinking. Her teacher says that it must be a shock to turn around and suddenly see her daughter so grown-up, and says that her mother has to believe in her, that she just needs time to sort out her feelings.
Elsewhere, Madoka turns to the one person she has left: Homura. She strides up to Homura's apartment and asks if she can come in. Homura lets her in, and Madoka sees the depictions of Walpurgisnacht on the walls and correctly guesses what they are, telling Homura Kyoko had told her about Walpurgisnacht and that she knows Homura has been preparing to fight it. Homura reveals that Walpurgisnacht is strong enough that it doesn't need a Labyrinth to lure people in. Just by appearing in a certain area, thousands of people will die - but since the Witch is still invisible to non-Magical Girls, the deaths will just be written off as a freak natural disaster.
Madoka asks Homura what she's going to do now that Kyoko is dead. Homura remains determined to do this by herself, refusing to rely on another and claiming she didn't need Kyoko's help anyway... at least at first. But as Madoka keeps pressing her, she starts to break down:
Madoka takes a step closer to Homura, tears welling in her eyes while Puella in Somnio plays.
Madoka: I don't get it... I want to believe you. I don't want to think you'd lie to me. And yet, I just can't believe you're going to be alright. I just can't believe what you're saying is true. Homura grimaces and balls her fists. She is shaded in darkness, and her eyes are hidden behind her hair. Emotion starts to creep into her voice...
Homura: I don't know how to tell you what I really feel.
Madoka: Homura-chan...
Homura: Because... I'm... I'm not even... living in the same time as you! She turns around, her eyes overflowing with tears, and runs to hug Madoka tightly. Inevitabilis begins to play.
Homura: You see, I... I came from the future. I've met you over and over again, and every time, I've had to watch you die. How can I save you? How can I change your fate? I've gone back in time over and over again, searching for that answer.
Madoka: Wait... what?
Homura: I'm sorry. I must sound crazy, right? I must be creeping you out. To you, I'm just some transfer student you met a month ago. But to me... To me, you are... The camera cuts to show the panels on the wall again, but in the place of depictions of Walpurgisnacht are scenes from the previous episode.
Homura: The more I repeat this, the further in time we drift from one another. Our feelings also drift further apart, and my words don't reach you anymore. The truth is, I think I lost myself a long time ago.
Madoka: Homura-chan...
Homura: I will save you. That was all I had in mind when I began this. And now that I've come this far, it's the one thing I have left to guide me. It's alright if you don't understand. It's alright if my words don't reach you. Homura steps back from the hug and places her hands on Madoka's shoulders.
Homura: But please... I beg of you. Let me protect you.
The description of this scene on the Madoka wiki is incredibly funny, stating in complete seriousness that "this same scene has a different interpretation among yuri fans."
Madoka's compassionate nature finally prompts Homura's confession of the truth and an attempt at confessing her love. Homura still doesn't know "how to tell [her] what [she] really feels," but it's a significant development nonetheless. Homura has successfully done what Sayaka failed to do, burning herself away for the sake of a single goal/person, but at the end of the day, she's still a confused and scared teenage girl trying to save the one she loves. All she has left now is to press on.
Mitakihara is shrouded in darkness - the alley where Sayaka and Kyoko first met, the school, downtown, all buried under rolling thunderclouds. In their narrow-mindedness, meteorologists dub the growing storm a freak supercell and issue an evacuation order. As Madoka's family arrives in the designated shelter, Homura steels herself once more in preparation. Heavy mists roll in from the water, and as Homura presses forward to fight Fate once more, a carnival of Familiars marches past her...
The same curtains which heralded the anime's beginning now herald its climax. Surgam identidem (I Will Always Rise) blares, a clock counts down, buildings are ripped from the ground and set ablaze... Walpurgisnacht has come.
Interestingly, Walpurgisnacht is one of two Witches to not have her name given in runes. Nevertheless:
WALPURGISNACHT
The stage-constructing witch (alias: Walpurgisnacht / real name: unknown); her nature is helplessness. She symbolizes the fool who continuously spins in circles. The witch's mysteries have been handed down through the course of history. She will continue to rotate aimlessly throughout the world until she completely changes the whole of this age into a drama. When the doll's usual upside-down position reaches the top part of the witch, she completely roils the civilization on the ground in a flash through her gale-like flight.
The following fight is probably one of my favorites, and one of the most tragic, in any piece of media I've consumed. Everything about it - the music, which feels like a final swan song for Homura as a character, the muted greys and blacks that dominate the entire scene apart from Homura's explosions, setting the stage for a fight we know Homura can't win but we want her to, and all while the Witch laughs/cries to underscore the futility of it all.
Homura slams down dozens of AT-4s and RPG-7s, launching them at the Witch in stopped time. Time resumes, nothing happens. Dozens of mortars bombard her, and nothing happens. She detonates explosives at the base of two steel towers to drop them onto the Witch, and still, nothing happens. She drives an oil tanker into her face, leaps off it, and lands on a truck-mounted artillery battery, which blows Walpurgisnacht backward into a pit packed to the gills with C-4 explosives, and...
Still nothing.
Madoka feigns an excuse that she needs to use the restroom to talk to Kyubey one final time, as she begins to put together a plan of action. Does Homura have any chance of winning by herself? Kyubey says no, and invites her to see for herself if she doesn't believe them. Madoka asks Kyubey why she pushes herself so much, and Kyubey says it's because Homura hasn't given up, and knows she can't. She'll keep doing this as many times as necessary... because if she gives up, she'll immediately become a Witch - the camera cuts to a depiction of Homura tied in place by her Fate instead of Madoka, but as her body transmutes into a Grief Seed, the clock face behind her splits in half and the gears behind her fall to pieces.
Of course, Kyubey can only interpret this in their typical fatalist, amoral way: it's her hope that is her greatest enemy, just as it is for every Magical Girl to have ever lived, and will ever live. Once again, Kyubey fills her mind with images of Magical Girl's past, and once again it seems Madoka is about to burst into tears... but she doesn't. She refuses to believe that Kyubey is right, and she has all the pieces she needs. But before she can walk off, her mother stops her and asks where she thinks she's going.
Madoka insists she has to save "a friend" and refuses to "leave it to the firefighters" as her mother suggests. She slaps her and accuses her of thinking only for herself and not worrying about what the people who love her think... but she couldn't be farther from the truth. Madoka loves her family, her friends, everyone. At her core, she is a selfless and kind person who refuses to give up hope in other people. And she has to go, to protect them all. Her mother asks to go with her, and she refuses - it's something she knows she has to do by herself. Madoka pleas with her mother that if she believes that Madoka is a "good girl" like she says, she'll trust her and let her go. As if standing in for the audience at this moment, Madoka's mother asks if she's certain, that she's not being misled and manipulated by someone else. She is. And so she gives her a shove and lets her go.
Back into Homura's dance with death, and Homura desperately follows the Witch as it inches closer and closer to the shelter Madoka's family is staying in, leaping desperately and mowing down Familiars that resemble the starry silhouettes of Magical Girls with machine gunfire while Nux Walpurgis (Walpurgis Nut, not a typo of Nox Walpurgis) plays. Walpurgisnacht hurls a building at Homura, and Homura raises her shield to stop time once more... but it's run out of sand. She's knocked into a nearby building, resulting in a head injury and one of her feet being pinned under concrete debris.
Homura asks herself why she can't beat Walpurgisnacht, how many times she tries, then contemplates rewinding once again... but remembers Kyubey's words. If she rewinds once again, all she'll be doing is ensnaring Madoka more tightly. All she has done is increase Madoka's burden, make her a more lucrative target, and she can't even protect her. She's not strong enough. All of this has been for nothing... and as she realizes this, she slumps back and cries as her Soul Gem fills with darkness... but just before she too succumbs to despair, Madoka gently takes her hand.
Madoka: That's enough. She shakes her head while smiling. You've done enough, Homura-chan.
Homura: Madoka... Madoka pulls a cloth from her uniform pocket and gently wipes the blood from Homura's head. She then stands up with a determined expression as Magia starts early, facing Walpurgisnacht. Homura looks down and sees Kyubey at her feet...
Homura: Madoka... Don't tell me you're! She turns around and smiles at Homura.
Madoka: Homura-chan, I'm sorry.
Madoka: If someone says it's wrong to have hope, I will tell them they're wrong every single time. I know my determination will never waver. Episode 12: My very best friend.
Huh, didn't note the parallels. It's interesting how honest Homura's wish was in comparison to Sayaka's. She straight up wished to be the one protecting Madoka, compared to Sayaka just wishing Kyosuke's hand healed instead of being the one to heal his hands.
Huh, didn't note the parallels. It's interesting how honest Homura's wish was in comparison to Sayaka's. She straight up wished to be the one protecting Madoka, compared to Sayaka just wishing Kyosuke's hand healed instead of being the one to heal his hands.
It's also interesting how their character arcs unfold accordingly - Sayaka places increasingly harsh burdens upon herself and denies that she even has needs until she inevitably buckles under the pressure and becomes a Witch.
But Homura doesn't buckle, through a mixture of sheer determination and desperation. She's like a diamond: forged under extreme pressure and incredibly tough, but also extremely brittle and will shatter if struck at the right place.
Which only makes Rebellion more tragic: Sayaka's circumstances have changed in a way that allows her to pull herself up out of her downward spiral, and she tries to gently nudge Homura in the same direction. But Homura's circumstances haven't and are only deteriorating further over the course of the movie. By the end she's backed into a corner and has no other recourse but to keep doubling down - culminating in Homura symbolically erasing the progress Sayaka has made to prevent her new world from falling apart.
Its basically being born as an individual in a hivemind. If a cell in a body became independent and sought to pursue its own goals...well, thats cancer if the body doesn't purge the defect
Last episode: Kyubey reveals to Homura that Madoka's incredible potential lays at her feet - as the hinge upon which dozens of timelines revolve around, the "karmic destiny" of those abandoned timelines has entangled around her, giving her the potential to become the most powerful Magical Girl, and ultimately Witch, to ever exist. Elsewhere, Sayaka's dead body is discovered and a funeral is held for her on a rainy day, and when Madoka returns home from it, Kyubey confronts her one final time.
Kyubey compares their relationship to humanity as humanity to livestock, one that is supposedly mutually beneficial for both of them. They reveal that the Incubators have been making contracts with Magical Girls since the dawn of humanity, with some Magical Girls becoming prominent historical figures who propelled humanity forwards with their wishes before inevitably succumbing to despair. Kyubey says they cannot comprehend why Madoka is so emotional at the prospect of the suffering of a select few and blames the Magical Girls themselves for their downfall, claiming that any desire to irrationally modify reality will inevitably fail. When Madoka asks what would happen if the Incubators never came to Earth, Kyubey claims that humanity would "still be living in caves."
Madoka's homeroom teacher comforts Madoka's mother, who is afraid that she does not know what Madoka is thinking and feels that she knows something more about this, and reassures her she just needs time to process her emotions. Madoka visits Homura in her apartment and asks if she can defeat Walpurgisnacht alone. Homura claims she can but Madoka tearfully confesses that she doesn't believe her, which prompts Homura to break down and confess her past (and her feelings, sort of) with Madoka, begging her to let her protect her.
Mitakihara is evacuated due to the arrival of a freak supercell revealed to be the creation of Walpurgisnacht, who is so powerful she does not have to hide within a Labyrinth. Homura bombards the Witch with increasingly heavier artillery and other explosives but is unable to damage Walpurgisnacht. Within the storm shelter her family is hiding in, Madoka asks Kyubey if Homura has any hope of defeating Walpurgisnacht at all, which Kyubey denies. Homura will repeat this cycle over and over until she finally loses hope, and will then become a Witch on the spot. Madoka goes to save Homura but is briefly stopped by her mother who accuses her of being selfish. Madoka convinces her otherwise and is free to go.
Homura runs out of time in her fight with Walpurgisnacht, but with the knowledge that she is only worsening Madoka's fate by rewinding time, she begins to succumb to despair. Madoka arrives before she can become a Witch and turns to Walpurgisnacht, having finally decided on her wish...
Semari aisi isola matola
Soribia doche irora amita
Samaria dose ifa mio
lora fia
sia adora
...
"Homura-chan, I'm sorry. I'm going to become a Magical Girl."
Homura immediately protests. How can she just walk into the jaws of death like that, knowing what terrible fate awaits her if she does? But Madoka is certain that she knows what she is doing. Homura begs her once again - if she does, then what has she been fighting for all this time? Madoka cradles her gently and wipes the tears from her eyes, reassuring Homura that it hasn't been all for nothing, and though Homura didn't realize it, it was through her actions that Madoka has the power now to do what she is about to do, and asks her to trust her, just as she did her mother.
Kyubey eagerly reels Madoka in, unaware of what she is about to do. Due to her karmic potential as the nexus of dozens of abandoned timelines, Madoka can wish for anything and have it be granted. "Now, Kaname Madoka, what is the wish you will pay for with your soul?" the Incubator asks. She takes a deep breath, and gives her answer:
Madoka: I... She takes in a deep breath, steels herself, and presses her fist to her chest.
Madoka: I want to erase all Witches before they are born. I will erase every single Witch in every Universe, past and future, with my own hands! She begins to glow with an increasingly bright and powerful pink light. Kyubey gasps in surprise.
Kyubey: If that wish... If that wish were to come true, it wouldn't just be on the scale of temporal manipulation... You'd be opposing karmic destiny - the very laws of causality themselves! Do you truly intend to become a god? Madoka is now encased by a pillar of pink light.
Madoka: I don't care what you call it. All those Magical Girls who held onto their hopes and fought against Witches... I don't want to see them cry. I want them to stay smiling until the end. If any rule or law stands in my way... I will destroy it. I will rewrite it. That is my prayer. That is my wish. Now grant it, INCUBATOR! The tassel appendages dangling from Kyubey's ears blow backward as they are struck by a wave of pure magical force. The pillar of light expands and envelops the three of them.
No OP this time, just a title drop and an immediate cut to a conversation with Mami (and later Kyoko too) outside of space and time, or within some sort of afterlife, modeled after Mami's apartment.
Mami asks Madoka if she truly knows the power of the wish she's unleashed. It's the ultimate sacrifice - to take the karmic burden of every Magical Girl to ever live will mean she will be waging an unceasing war against despair as a concept. And to wage war against a concept, one must abandon one's individuality and become a concept too, a natural law in her own right. If a Magical Girl reaches maximum despair... well, you'll see what happens.
Madoka Magica up to this point has been governed by a dialectic of Hope and Despair that ultimately balances out to zero. "A prayer of hope ends as a curse of despair" as Kyubey said in the last episode. Madoka can't annihilate Despair itself, to do so would make human existence as we know it impossible, but she can make sure that when Hope and Despair come to blows, Hope will win every time. "If someone says it's wrong to have hope, I will tell them they're wrong every single time. I know my determination will never waver." Or as Mami puts it, she's becoming Hope itself.
Kyoko appears from nowhere and encourages Madoka - if she's certain that this is what she wants, then she has to do it, now that she's found her reason to fight, in a callback to episode ten where she tries to dissuade Madoka from making a wish. Mami hands Madoka her notebook filled with sketches, and then sends her off. She returns to the world, bathed in angelic pink light, finally a Magical Girl at long last. Her bow forms in her hand, and she fires a single arrow upwards, refracted through an array of circles into countless arrows, launching into various pasts, futures and presents. As she does, her theme finally plays at long last: Sagitta Luminus. Arrow of Light.
An unknown Magical Girl, injured and exhausted, slumps over and detransforms. Panting, she looks at her fully corrupted Soul Gem and begins to cry... only for an arrow to launch at her and materialize as Madoka.
Madoka gently takes her hand and takes the despair accumulated within the Soul Gem within herself. The Soul Gem disappears, and the Magical Girl dies with a smile on her face, her soul leaving with Madoka. This scene repeats itself a few times, with Madoka collecting various Magical Girls from various regions and periods - including the three historical figures depicted in Kyubey's slideshow. "I won't let your prayers end in despair," she tells them. "None of you have to hate anyone, or curse anyone... I'll bear the full, dreadful weight of your karmic destinies. So please, believe in yourselves until the very end."
As she does, the storm parts above Mitakihara, and Walpurgisnacht slowly comes crashing down to Earth in sobbing laughs, her body disintegrating as she falls. The gear remains aloft, and as Madoka reassures the Witch she doesn't have to curse anyone anymore, it is replaced with the silhouettes of Magical Girls dancing in a circle - it's strongly implied but never stated outright in the show (though it is extra-canonically) that Walpurgisnacht's sheer power comes from it absorbing other Witches. She disappears in a flash of light... and Homura and Kyubey are transported to the edge of the Universe. They gaze up at Madoka's immense, comet-sized Soul Gem streaking through the heavens, and Kyubey invites Homura to show her its end. Madoka has become Hope itself... which means she must eventually become Despair itself, as per the laws governing the existence of Magical Girls.
Her Soul Gem cracks and shatters over the Earth, birthing an unfathomably large, unnamed Witch:
????
The Witch of Despair. Her nature is direct petition. The mouthpiece for all the unfulfilled hopes of all spent magical girls. If hope is born that can rewrite the universe, then at the same time, it is born from the mud of despair. Everlasting wailing fills her body, a continuously swelling, empty doll. At the end of a magical girl's karma, this witch continues to swell to absurd sizes. And in the end, her body could even destroy the galaxy.
Homura falls to her knees and cries... but Madoka reassures her everything is alright. While petting an Anthony (one of Gertrud's Familiars), she reassures Homura that she wished to erase all Witches, including the Witch she would otherwise transform into. She takes a new form, one with long flowing hair, a massive white dress, and golden eyes as she slings her bow once more:
And promptly annihilates the Witch. Despair is forever subjugated to Hope. The dialectic has not been transcended, but it is the first step to overcoming it. The ensuing explosion fills the screen with white light...
The following conversation is set in a multicolored, star-filled void. The disembodied voice of Kyubey speaks:
Kyubey: Madoka, your life no longer has a beginning or an end. Not a single trace or memory of your life on Earth will remain here. Your existence has shifted onto a higher plane, and you remain only as a concept. No one can perceive you, and likewise, you cannot interact with anyone else. You are no longer a part of this universe. Homura appears, initially saturated in grey without any clothes.
Homura: What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying this is the ending Madoka wished for? Do you think this is a fair reward for everything she's done?! You can't be serious! This is worse than death... So much worse... She buries her face in her hands and cries.
Madoka appears behind her and embraces her. Homura looks up.
Madoka: No. You're wrong, Homura-chan. As I am now, I can see everything that ever has or will have happened. All the Universes that could have been, and those that may yet come to be. Every single one.
Homura: Madoka...
Madoka: That's why I know. I know just how hard you tried to help me across all those timelines. Memories from them flash across the screen.
Madoka: I know it all. I saw the countless tears you shed, and the countless wounds you bore, and yet you kept going, all for my sake. Madoka pulls Homura close to her for a hug.
Madoka: I'm sorry I never knew until now. I really am. Homura buries her face into Madoka's chest and cries.
Madoka: It wasn't until I became this way that I could truly know who you were. I found out that I had such a great friend by my side this whole time. I'm so glad I know now. Homura-chan, thank you. You were my very best friend.
Homura: But now you can't go back home, and you'll be separated from everyone you cared about! Will you really be trapped here all alone, for all eternity?! Madoka smiles.
Madoka: But I'm not alone. Everyone... Everyone will always be with me. Because from now on, I'll be everywhere, throughout all of time and space. So even if you can't see or hear me, I'll be right there by your side.
Homura: Are you alright with that, Madoka? Even though I'll forget you? Even though I won't know you're there? Madoka shakes her head.
Madoka: Hold on. It's too early to give up. You followed me all the way out here, after all. So even after you've gone back to your world, you just might be able to remember me. Madoka plucks the two red ribbons from her hair and places them in Homura's hand.
Madoka: It'll be alright. I just know it will. We just have to believe.
Homura: Madoka...
Madoka: After all, magical girls make hopes and dreams come true! She and Homura begin to drift apart.
Madoka: I'm sure if it's small enough, a real miracle just might happen. Don't you think?
Homura: Madoka, don't go! Her body begins to dissolve, starting with the hands and feet.
Madoka: I'm sorry. I have to go guide everyone else. I'll be able to see you again someday. So I'll just say goodbye to you until then, okay? Madoka disappears, and Homura begins to fall back to Earth.
Homura: MADOKA!
Madoka is a bit of a useless lesbian, even as God, but she'll get there eventually.
With Homura's struggles and feelings accepted unconditionally by Madoka, and the promise that one day, they will be reunited in each other's arms, Madoka's new world finishes stabilizing. But there's still one last character Madoka needs to comfort: her best friend, Sayaka. She comes for her in another place outside of time, where Sayaka watches Kyosuke perform Ave Maria one final time. Sayaka apologizes to Madoka for "all the trouble," but Madoka apologizes for being unable to change Sayaka's fate: to do so would annihilate the future she had sacrificed herself for, and she knows Sayaka wouldn't be happy with that.
Kyubey's philosophy, and the system they created, were fatalist and amoral. Hope and despair balance out to zero. Every prayer will ultimately go unanswered, every attempt to change things for the better is only doomed to create an equal and opposite reaction. Magical Girls are ground up in an uncaring system in the name of a threat so remote and abstract it hardly seems worth the human cost, and when confronted with the reality of their actions, Kyubey could only blame their victims: if they didn't want this to happen, they shouldn't have tried to irrationally alter reality.
But Madoka sees the values and hopes behind the wishes of Magical Girls, and the struggles they go through to make them come true. She refused to sit by and watch them be in vain. So she affirms Sayaka here: there was a point to her sacrifice, after all. Sayaka smiles and says she's fine with this outcome. In the end, she just wanted to hear Kyosuke play again, to see him bring hope to others as he once did to her, and she did to him (and Kyoko) - she's not totally happy with how things turned out (as she says this, the camera cuts to Hitomi eagerly watching him from the sidelines), but it's an outcome she can live with, and an outcome she's still willing to die for. She hopes Hitomi and Kyosuke can make each other happy as tears roll down her face... but she smiles as Madoka takes her into her loving embrace.
Homura is dropped into a new timeline - the train station where Sayaka became a Witch in the old one - alongside Kyoko and Mami, who do not retain their memories of the old. As they finish fighting an as of yet unknown threat, Kyoko asks where Sayaka is, and Mami says that Sayaka expended all of her power in her final attack and was thus collected by the Law of Cycles, the natural law Madoka has become. Kyoko angrily punches a column and laments that they had finally just become friends... and Homura grips the ribbons still in her hands and cries, to Mami and Kyoko's confusion.
The next evening, Homura kneels beside Madoka's brother Tatsuya and smiles as he draws a depiction of Madoka in the dirt with a stick, wearing one of Madoka's ribbons in her hair.
Tatsuya reaches for it but is pulled away by his father. Homura affirms that she knows what he is talking about, which causes him to smile, and a strange look to cross Madoka's mother's face. As she watches Tatsuya and her husband play, she tells Homura about Tatsuya's "imaginary friend" and wonders if she is "an anime character or something." Homura lies and says that it feels like a name she's heard before, but she can't place it, to which her mother confesses it sounds familiar. She complements the ribbon in Homura's hair, saying it's just the kind she likes. Homura offers it to her, but she plays it down - it's more something she'd give a daughter anyway.
That night, Homura converses with Kyubey while purifying her Soul Gem with strange black cubes, as the show gives a brief sketch of the new system Madoka has created. She has told Kyubey about the old world, a system the amnesiac Kyubey believes is theoretically possible, but since there's no way to confirm Homura's memories or try to experiment with it, it will just have to remain a fascinating concept, for now. Instead, Witches have been replaced with a new enemy known as "Wraiths" who are much less efficient in terms of energy collection - after all, humanity's despair has to go somewhere.
As Homura leaps down from a building towards a collection of Wraiths, she internally monologues that "this irredeemable world may be nothing but a cycle of sadness and hatred, but even so, this was a place that she wanted to protect." She breaks her fall by spreading angelic wings and whips out a black bow similar to Madoka's as she exclaims that she will never forget that, and that's why she keeps fighting.
Examined in a self-contained way, PMMM's ending is bittersweet, but with an emphasis on the sweet. The world Madoka has created is not perfect (far from it, actually), but even if being a Magical Girl remains tough and thankless work, they can rest peacefully knowing they were able to make the world a better place. Homura (and Madoka's other friends) and Madoka may be separated for now, but eventually, they will be reunited once more. God is in Her heaven, all is right with the world.
Of course, this isn't the end. Merely a new beginning.
But for now, Homura's - and the other Magical Girls - story is over. PMMM finishes with a depiction of first the five main girls, and then the featureless silhouettes of them and the Magical Girls the Witches encountered used to be, before Madoka's Soul Gem is displayed over a rune inscription reading "Oshimai (FIN) - PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA."
...
Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.
But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?
...who must, without opening his eyes hand her the kernel and take seven steps backwards without stumbling.
...but Drosselmeyer's nephew, on his seventh backward step, stepped on the Mouse Queen and stumbled, and the curse fell on him, giving him a large head, wide grinning mouth, and cottony beard; in short, making him a nutcracker.
BONUS ACT - The Different Story: Episodes One and Two
Chronologically, the next entry in the Madoka Magica canon is the Wraith Arc manga, written to bridge the gap between the anime and the Rebellion movie after the latter's release. But there's one other entry we should tackle first that's not strictly necessary, but gives Kyoko and Mami some much-needed additional characterization: The Different Story.
Disclaimer: I am putting this under the Sidestory category. However, don't read this if you haven't seen/read the first ten episodes of the PMMM anime: both for the sake of spoilers and also none of this is going to make any sense otherwise.
A manga consisting of three volumes and twelve chapters ("episodes") total, the first volume elaborates on Mami and Kyoko's backstories together before the anime and can thus be presumed fully canon. The second and third meanwhile depict an alternate timeline where Sayaka became a Magical Girl just in time to save Mami from Charlotte, one of the many failed timelines Homura went through to save Madoka. You already know how this is going to end.
(Also, this is the first time I've done this for a manga, so this might be touch and go for a bit. My apologies!)
With that disclaimer and brief synopsis squared away, onward!
...
The intro gag page for Volume One establishes that Mami and Kyoko will be our protagonists, and mentions that this manga is based on the drama CD Farewell Story which I am not familiar with. Homura, Sayaka, and Madoka are on the sidelines for now, and the former suggests that the subsequent volumes should be a rom-com between her and Madoka - complete with a "bath, dinner or me" joke:
That implies Urobuchi would allow you to be happy, Homura.
With the promise that everyone else will be showing up in volume 2, the actual manga begins with Mami and two unknown Magical Girls fighting an unknown Witch - Different Story doesn't name drop its Witches in runes, unfortunately. This one vaguely resembles Elly... if she were a flying, mechanical centipede with a plug under her television screen. Its Familiars are smaller, spider-like creatures that use helicopter blades to fly and shoot magnets as bullets at trespassers invading the Witch's circuit-board Labyrinth.
The other two Magical Girls (who are sisters) charge the Witch and attempt to stab it, but it just flicks them into a wall with its tail. They decide to bail and suggest Mami do so as well. The Witch strikes her with its tail as well and then lunges downwards. Mami rips the ribbon from her neck and uses her magic to entangle the Witch, declaring to herself that she has to protect the people of the city and she won't run away.
The Witch's Grief Seed falls onto the ground, and the two Magical Girls look on with astonishment that she was able to defeat the Witch all by herself, "apologizing" for running away. Mami detransforms and offers them the Grief Seed, which prompts the other girls to ask if she's new to this whole Magical Girl thing. They tell her that she earned it through her own efforts, so she should keep it. And besides, Magical Girls are all rivals competing for a limited resource anyway. If you keep being so nice to everyone, one day you're going to be used and discarded. Kyubey's system rewards adherence to their philosophy, after all.
A year passes. Mami packs up after the school day and two girls who seem to have been her friends before she became a Magical Girl ask if she wants to come to the mall with them. Mami has to decline yet again, and they sigh and lament that living by herself must be pretty hard. They hope they can see her again soon and express interest in trying her delicious cake again. Mami waves them off with a smile... but looks downcast as she pulls out her Soul Gem and monologues to herself that Magical Girls are those "who must bear the fate of fighting all the curses of the world in exchange for but a single miracle" as she tracks down another Witch.
But a certain Magical Girl is already fighting this Witch:
Kyoko utilizes an unknown ability to create a fake Kyoko that leaps upwards to attack the Witch and is promptly bisected by its ax, while the real one slashes it in half from behind. She happily expresses that she's "got her revenge" on the Witch, but Kyubey alerts her that the Witch is not dead and is reforming behind her.
Cut to Mami's perspective as she fights her way through the Labyrinth, while the Witch splits into multiple copies of itself - ensnaring Kyoko with its shadowy body while the real Witch hefts up its ax and winds up for a swing... but before it can connect, Mami restrains the ax with her ribbons. Mami says that it was bad luck for Kyoko to run into a Witch that also uses illusion magic, and with a two-cannon Tiro Finale blows the false Witches wrapped around Kyoko to bits. Mami helps Kyoko to her feet and suggests that the Witch's core is the ax, and proposes to Kyoko that she will take care of the body while Kyoko destroys the ax. Kyoko agrees.
With a flourish of her hat, Mami summons dozens of rifles from the floor and takes potshots at the Witch's Familiars, and then uses a cannon to destroy the Witch's body again - prompting Kyoko to descend and strike the Witch's ax through its eye-like heart. Sure enough, the ax promptly shatters and the Labyrinth begins to dissipate. Mami and Kyoko both smile at their handiwork and then introduce themselves. Kyoko mentions she's the Magical Girl of the next town over, Kasamino. Mami asks what brings Kyoko to Mitakihara, and she says it was because she was chasing after the first Witch she ever fought and had accidentally allowed to escape. She apologizes and turns to leave... but Mami offers her the Witch's Grief Seed to Kyoko's confusion.
Mami insists that since they both defeated the Witch, they both have rights to it, and so they purify their Soul Gems at the same time. Mami then invites Kyoko back to her apartment, where she makes Kyoko her "special order peach pie." Kyoko calls herself "shameless" for needing to both be saved and then treating herself to Mami's pie, but Mami waves away her concerns and says she's happy to have tea with another Magical Girl for the first time. Kyoko says that she's inexperienced and had been fighting recklessly, while Mami was analyzing and experimenting with her magic... and asks if Mami would be willing to take her as an apprentice.
The second chapter starts with one of Mami's classmates noticing that she seems awfully upbeat today and asks if something good happened, and takes a shot in the dark by suggesting she got a boyfriend. Mami says she made a friend, and when her friends are taken aback she clarifies that their relationship requires them to trust each other as "more than friends" and hopes that one day she'll be able to trust Kyoko with her life... which causes the girls to speculate if she's gotten a fiance.
(Different Story alternates between this ship teasing and casting Mami and Kyoko in a sisterly light, and I'm inclined to lean towards the latter given later events and Kyoko's attraction to Sayaka also being present in this timeline.)
The story cuts back to the conversation in Mami's apartment from yesterday, where Mami says she's not sure if she would be able to take Kyoko as an apprentice... but she would really like to take her as a friend, and will thus do whatever she can to advise Kyoko as her Magical Girl senpai, much to Kyoko's delight. We then snap back to the present, where Mami and Kyoko meet up after school and are briefly shown fighting a Witch together. At night, they talk outside of Mami's apartment and Mami asks if she'll be coming back to Mitakihara any time soon. Kyoko asks if she got in the way, and Mami says to the contrary, she was a big help, which prompts Kyoko to happily reply that she's looking forward to working with "Mami-senpai."
Mami blushes bashfully at this and expresses her happiness that even though she's been fighting alone all this time, now that she has a friend, it doesn't feel too bad. (She also asks Kyubey what Kyoko's final attack name should be, and the Incubator tells her not to ask them questions like this.)
The next time Mami and Kyoko are together, Kyoko comments that Mami seems to find Witches much faster than she ever did when she was alone. Mami says that since Witches are creatures of despair, they naturally tend to congregate around high concentrations of it. Finding Witches quickly is of utmost importance to limit their influence on human society as much as possible. Kyoko asks Mami how long Mami has been a Magical Girl - it must have been a long time, for Mami to be so skilled! And she's curious what wish could make Mami so passionate in her one-woman crusade against the Witches.
Mami explains that she only made the contract a year ago and repeats what we know from the anime - Kyubey found her after a terrible car accident, and she impulsively made the wish to live on, leaving her the only survivor and a newborn Magical Girl.
But Mami adds something new, explaining the source of her altruistic philosophy: if a Witch or Familiar kills someone, other people will be upset by their loss, just as she was by the loss of her parents. She would like to spare as many people as possible from such grief if possible. Kyoko is the first person she's told this. Kyoko considers something while Mami invites her back to her place for tea... so Kyoko invites her back to her place instead. Mami joins Kyoko and her family for dinner:
We see that Kyoko's family was a warm and loving one before their deaths, with Kyoko's younger sister Mami eager to play with "Mami-Onee-chan" and her mother and father genuinely polite and cordial. Mami apologizes for the lack of advanced warning, and Kyoko's mom says she would have made something more extravagant. Mami says she enjoyed it regardless, and Kyoko's father (wearing a jewel similar to Kyoko's Soul Gem) says it wasn't too long ago they'd be embarrassed to have a guest over. He explains that he was a priest preaching "that which would bring joy to the world" but for many years people wouldn't listen to his teachings - until one day people suddenly started turning out in droves to hear his teachings. Mami immediately realizes what Kyoko's wish was, but keeps it to herself for now.
Kyoko's mom says that Mami is the first friend she's brought over, and her dad asks for them to remain friends, which causes Mami to politely giggle. It's only until Mami and Kyoko walk back to Mami's apartment that Mami asks Kyoko what her wish was, and Kyoko confirms that she wished that "everyone would listen to what father has to say." Kyoko asks if that's a bad thing, to wish for someone else's sake, and Mami looks down with sadness and says no, but she wished that she could have made such a wish that could have also "fulfilled my wishes at the same time" - in other words, she regrets she didn't wish for her family to live alongside her.
Kyoko says that ever since she was little, she had seen her dad trying his hardest to make everyone happy, and believed that the first step to making that come true was making sure that he was happy. In the end, her true wish is to protect the happiness of others, and she happily expresses to Mami that they're fighting for the same reason as they press their hands together.
Suddenly, the Soul Gems in their rings react, and Kyubey races over to alert them that they've "found" a new Grief Seed and they need to go to it right away. As they race towards the Witch and defeat it, Mami thinks to herself that Kyoko is different from every other Magical Girl she's met, and she "didn't think Magical Girls could understand one another so well." A brief montage follows: Mami and Kyoko defeat the Witch and high-five, Kyoko's illusion ability continues to grow stronger and Mami names it Rosso Phantasma, all while Mami says she's happy she's finally met someone who shares her ideals - and her conception of what it means to be a Magical Girl.
Kyoko boasts that together, they could even take on Walpurgisnacht, and she feels like together they can save the world. Mami giggles and says she's "quite confident" which makes Kyoko bashfully rub the back of her head and wonder if she's gotten a bit full of herself. Mami says that she doesn't think so, and she thinks it's good she has such a tremendous goal while giggling... but says she's right, and that if Walpurgisnacht ever comes to Mitakihara City, they'll defeat it together.
Of course, we all know this is too good to be true, and the second half of the chapter flicks the first domino in Kyoko's downward spiral: while sleeping that night, her Soul Gem glows once again, and Kyubey tells her that a Witch has found its way into her father's church. She immediately covers her nose from a strange smell as she pushes the door open, and finds a crowd of people under the Witch's influence piling books at the foot of her father's altar and soaking them with gasoline. The man at the front pulls out a match... and Kyoko transforms and snatches the matchbox out of his hand and tells the Witch that she "won't get away with this easy!"
The Witch's Labyrinth is one of overflowing mailboxes, Familiars that resemble envelopes of mail that have sprouted black wings, and the Witch herself soon descends to confront Kyoko:
But the Witch is fast and dodges her various thrusts and slashes, and slams her into a wall of mailboxes. It's Familiars descend upon her, but as the Witch soars upwards to devour her, she extends a line of spears in its path and summons five copies of herself:
Kyoko: You're quite a glutton, aren't you? Did missing out on your dinner make you that angry? Sorry, but you're not going to eat a single person. Kyoko tears her spear from the wall and points it at the Witch.
Kyoko: You think I'm going to let a Witch like you chow down here? Father's church... my family... everyone... I'LL PROTECT THEM ALL! Kyoko and her copies slam their spears down into the Witch, skewing it and ripping it to pieces. She lands on the floor of the church as its Labyrinth disintegrates and its Grief Seed drops down to the floor. Internally, Kyoko speaks:
Kyoko: It left behind one heck of a mess. That's alright. There's some time until dawn. Before it becomes a big deal... Kyoko hears her father's footsteps behind her...
The fact that Mami and Kyoko got along so well before all this happened really underscores the tragedy of this whole thing. It's a shame that we already know how this is going to unfold.
None of this is really new characterization, virtually everything stated here out loud is either foreshadowed or implied in the anime. Still, it's nice to have verbal confirmation of my baseless speculation!
I don't particularly have anything else to add, so I'm signing off for now.
