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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Redshirt Army said:
As I see it, there's two primary reasons someone would wish to control grief, and they both lead to bad things.

Case 1: They knew about the system before wishing. They thought they could help people, or at least could live peacefully by cleansing themselves. But psyche, they can only cleanse by dumping the grief into other people!

At which point, without much direct combat utility (since most grief controllers don't get our Grief Lantern package), they can either use other people as scapegoats for their suffering, or they can die.

For obvious reasons, this tends to skew the population of surviving grief controllers towards the... selfish end of the spectrum.

Our IRC friend is particularly notable because she seems to have managed to step away from that slippery slope, which is... admirable, really. Very few people could manage that.

(She's, according to Homura, desperately trying to do good to atone for something, to the point of pushing her team to help fight WPN for free.)

So yeah, shattered expectations of trying to do good leading to deep despair and giving up on anything but using your power to the utmost to be a monster.

Case 2: They didn't know about the system, and just wished to control human suffering for kicks. This does not, uh, bode well for their mental state, obviously. That said, it's worth noting that among the less initiated magical girls, they'd assume that a lot of Case 1 girls fell into this group too, which would lower the general reputation of Grief Controllers even more.
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I generally agree with this, but this case admits the somewhat unique opportunity to apply a proper observation-based approach to our social activities and theorycrafting, which is actually fairly rare when it comes to the things we aren't already certain of (Does Kyubey lie? Does Kyubey directly employ groups for actions? What is the general process that degrades groups studying dewitching? Etc etc).
 
Raiseth said:
Madoka was pretty depressed by the end of the series.

Oriko was suicidally depressed.

Mami was dying.

Potential doesn't seem to be so easily quantifiable.
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Or maybe it is, depression certainly seems to be a factor that basically every (Mitakihara) magical girl contract shares, rather than the opposite. Homura, Kirika, and Kyouko were also pretty depressed and Sayaka was well on her way there even in the beginning.
 
memoryofglory said:
Or maybe it is, depression certainly seems to be a factor that basically every (Mitakihara) magical girl contract shares, rather than the opposite. Homura, Kirika, and Kyouko were also pretty depressed and Sayaka was well on her way there even in the beginning.
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The problem is, we don't know what Potential means, and whether it even directly affects the Meguca's power on contracting. There is a lot of fanon from many people, including me, but nothing concrete. Like, QB never said directly that Potential corresponds to power, and he could be making a working definition of parameters for a suitable contract, i.e. "Potential to be suckered into a contract with a manipulative alien", or "Potential to be a delicious, delicious energy-rich candy on Witching out".

What I'm saying is, contracting someone mentally unstable might be just easier for him, so he goes for such girls first. It's not like there's a shortage of depressed people in the world.
 
Qwertystop said:
Would a (chronically) depressed girl have enough potential for Kyubey to bother contracting her?
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Dude, Kyubey specifically targets the depressed.

Raiseth said:
The problem is, we don't know what Potential means, and whether it even directly affects the Meguca's power on contracting. There is a lot of fanon from many people, including me, but nothing concrete. Like, QB never said directly that Potential corresponds to power, and he could be making a working definition of parameters for a suitable contract, i.e. "Potential to be suckered into a contract with a manipulative alien", or "Potential to be a delicious, delicious energy-rich candy on Witching out".

What I'm saying is, contracting someone mentally unstable might be just easier for him, so he goes for such girls first. It's not like there's a shortage of depressed people in the world.
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Uh, we pretty much know exactly what Potential means. Kyubey describes it pretty directly. Potential corresponds to the karmic weight of a girl's lifetime; the amount of hope and despair she's destined to shoulder, and how much she influences people around her. A queen would have more Potential than a peasant, etc.

Like, Karmic Potential is STRAIGHT UP your emotional relevance to the rest of humanity, and it absolutely 100% directly corresponds to your power when you contract, since Karmic Potential is directly referenced to explain why Madoka is so fuckhuge powerful. Additionally, Tart literally gets a powerup in the manga when Kyubey observes that "her karmic potential changed" due to Melissa's wish.
 
AuraTwilight said:
Dude, Kyubey specifically targets the depressed.



Uh, we pretty much know exactly what Potential means. Kyubey describes it pretty directly. Potential corresponds to the karmic weight of a girl's lifetime; the amount of hope and despair she's destined to shoulder, and how much she influences people around her. A queen would have more Potential than a peasant, etc.

Like, Karmic Potential is STRAIGHT UP your emotional relevance to the rest of humanity, and it absolutely 100% directly corresponds to your power when you contract, since Karmic Potential is directly referenced to explain why Madoka is so fuckhuge powerful. Additionally, Tart literally gets a powerup in the manga when Kyubey observes that "her karmic potential changed" due to Melissa's wish.
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Yeah, but I've always believed that "karmic destiny" is an author's doublespeak for "how relevant this particular character is for the story", not any sane quantifiable metric.

For example, this girl has Potential X, because she's destined to do this and this. By contracting her, QB directly and drastically changes her destiny. How does her Potential change with it? Does it decrease, because she's soon to Witch Out and not to have any future outside of infinite suffering? Does it increase, because as a Witch she could kill a whole bunch of people, altering their karmic destinies? How do you count karmic destiny of Homura, who travels across timelines? How do you count karmic destiny of someone who's about to die and frankly doesn't have any more of destiny if QB doesn't contract her?

I don't believe in this explanation, because it's not explained at all, frankly.
 
Raiseth said:
Yeah, but I've always believed that "karmic destiny" is an author's doublespeak for "how relevant this particular character is for the story", not any sane quantifiable metric.

For example, this girl has Potential X, because she's destined to do this and this. By contracting her, QB directly and drastically changes her destiny. How does her Potential change with it? Does it decrease, because she's soon to Witch Out and not to have any future outside of infinite suffering? Does it increase, because as a Witch she could kill a whole bunch of people, altering their karmic destinies? How do you count karmic destiny of Homura, who travels across timelines? How do you count karmic destiny of someone who's about to die and frankly doesn't have any more of destiny if QB doesn't contract her?

I don't believe in this explanation, because it's not explained at all, frankly.
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Maybe potential is best described from the perspective of the oversoul? Like maybe in the vast majority of timeline, Mami becomes an idol, and potential is derived from the average Karmic Destiny of all possible Mamis? And the only reason we see timelines where she doesn't is because Homura's wish is filtering for timelines where she can 'redo her meeting'.
 
Raiseth said:
Yeah, but I've always believed that "karmic destiny" is an author's doublespeak for "how relevant this particular character is for the story", not any sane quantifiable metric.

For example, this girl has Potential X, because she's destined to do this and this. By contracting her, QB directly and drastically changes her destiny. How does her Potential change with it? Does it decrease, because she's soon to Witch Out and not to have any future outside of infinite suffering? Does it increase, because as a Witch she could kill a whole bunch of people, altering their karmic destinies? How do you count karmic destiny of Homura, who travels across timelines? How do you count karmic destiny of someone who's about to die and frankly doesn't have any more of destiny if QB doesn't contract her?

I don't believe in this explanation, because it's not explained at all, frankly.
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...I mean, it's pretty clear-cut even if it's fuzzy to quantify for a specific girl? This is a setting where karma is like, an actual tangible force that can be scientifically fucked with and magically observed and manipulated. Girls have a karmic potential of their entire lives, which is allegorically firewood, which is then burned up in a much shorter, much more magical life as a Puella Magi. The 'ashes' would be the Witch.

The amount of Karmic Destiny you have doesn't appear to be changed in the act of contracting, just changed from a potential to an actualized magical form. Your fate as a witch doesn't seem to matter save that girls with higher potential are stronger Puella Magi, and thus stronger Witches.

It's also not that predictive, because events can change your karmic potential. It seems to be actively tallied based on your current psychic circumstances.
 
Kaizuki said:
On the other hand, I'd say all indications are that these people are A) afraid of annoying us and B) afraid of being associated with us. I don't think they'd be too inclined to give us information about people like Iowa even if they knew it, for fear of annoying *them*. At least, that's how this is coming off to me.
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Could go both ways, I think. Depending on how manipulative they are, if they're scared of both us AND Iowa they may figure it would be fine just to point us at them and let us tear each other to pieces.
The Phoenixian said:
We may not have luck (Note to self, talk to Shiogama girls about enchantments today or tomorrow* :p) but I think that --- if we ask in the right way --- it's certainly worth the trouble and will cause only limited harm at most.

Dealing with "the right way" here is why my proposal is nonspecific as to who we're asking about. To flesh it out further...

- Ask if they keep themselves up to date about groups, politics, and dangers outside of Japan, as well as within.
-- As part of that, ask if they'd be willing to share or trade info, and whether they'd prefer such things to be now or after we've had a chance to meet in person.
--- If they know and are amenable depending on how they respond, we can then either ask about Iowa, or leave it until Tuesday.
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I'd certainly support this. Fishing can be done with a net, it doesn't always have to be a sharp, threatening harpoon. The more information we can drag up, the better.

It doesn't just have to be Iowa we ask about. We could ask about the Tokyo Council too. We're presumably meeting with the Council even sooner than any move against Iowa, so if they have any critical inside information on the Tokyo Council, it could end up making the difference between walking out the door amicably after meeting them or there being no proper building left to exit by the time we're done.
 
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I wonder, if we ask our friends if they think Christina Vee's voice sounds like Homura, would Homura realize the reference we were making with our choice of surname?

[x] Poke Mami and confirm she's up for a Tuesday trip.
-[x] Confirm meeting for Tuesday.
[x] Vote in abeyance
-[x] If the conversation goes in a way that fits heavier topics, ask #milesgloriosus if they know anyone that might have info on the Iowa group, since they might be headed your way.
 
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