wittyblather replied to your post: “congrats on finishing madoka! did you have a favorite scene or like…”:
idk, I really feel like Madoka’s sacrifice at the end sends the message of ‘see how bad everything got? see how everyone suffered? now, see how hope can win *anyway*?’ which is, imo, entirely what magical girls are about. The impact of that message is made that much more profound by the levels of shit everyone went through, to me. (I know you didn’t ask for my opinion but this show is like. my foundation.)
I mean, you know, YOU DO YOU. If Madoka is your foundation, more power to you. What I think and feel have absolutely nothing to do with how you should think and feel. You don’t need my approval for a goddamn thing.
BUT SINCE YOU MENTIONED IT. I didn’t get that at the end. I got the LIP SERVICE of that, I mean they sure used the word “hope” a lot. But the threat didn’t vanish, the need for magical girls wasn’t erased, it just altered. There were SO MANY things Madokusa could’ve wished for. The incubators to have never come to earth, like I said in a previous post. For them to have emotions, so they could understand the evil they were doing and maybe find another solution to the entropy problem. FOR A SACRIFICE-AND-BATTLE-FREE SELF-RENEWING ENERGY SOURCE TO AVOID THE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I don’t buy that Madokusa wouldn’t have been smart enough to figure this out when she seemed to have PERFECT comprehension of her solution which is so fucking complicated as to be laughable. There were perfectly good potential solutions that the story would’ve chosen. Instead, the series demands Yet One More Sacrifice: For Madokusa to fight always forever for all time and yet never have existed.
Which can’t even mean anything in and of itself because Madokusa barely existed to begin. She’s not even compelling as Intensealot’s focus, because it’s functionally “She was nice to me on my first day of school.” Even her power wasn’t because of her. Madokusa more than anyone was a prop in what is sold as her story, and for me that completely guts any possible emotional resonance in her being this figure of all hope. None of it comes from HER, it comes because the story says so, in the same way it said she had to sacrifice herself in the end.
AND I FRANKLY QUESTION THAT EVEN THAT WORKED
The little epilogue at the end is only a glimpse, but it’s a pretty fucking grim glimpse. We go from Intensealot shown with a group of teammates (Fang and Boom Boom still fighting the good fight) and sweeping into battle in the center of the city on wings of light
to her wandering alone through desolation and sweeping into battle on jagged wings of darkness and despair easily recognized as the domain of the witches.
And the very final shot? That despair consuming everything.
We hear Madokusa’s voice and that brings intensealot some kind of peace, but given that it’s Intensealot we’re talking about, I don’t find that particularly comforting.
Obviously there’s no hard answers (in the episode, anyway) about what any of this means. It’s open to whatever interpretation you want to take from it. But for me, the juxtaposition of these two scenes is deliberate. If you end the story where stories normally end, I can get that essence of hope. But if you press on, you get the “real” end, where really nothing has changed at all.
It’s still Homura, alone in a fight that’s impossible to win, with only the ghost of Madoka urging her ever onward.
All this pain, all this suffering, all this sacrifice, and really all anyone accomplished was a change of scenery.
BUT I STRESS AGAIN: It’s very open to interpretation. Even if it weren’t, it doesn’t matter. The give and take relationship we have with our stories is ultimately very personal. I’m correct for me, but that doesn’t mean I have to be correct for you.
YOU ARE SO VERY RIGHT.
I do feel like Madoka has accomplished /something/ - if you assume that the worst part of being a magical girl is then having all good you ever did balanced out by doing evil later, it has changed now, and maybe it's no longer a balance of hope&despair, and hope is winning now.
BUT YOUR POINT ABOUT PREVENTING THE WHOLE THING VERY MUCH STANDS. It wouldn't serve the message the same way, sure, but it just means the conjunction of plot&message doesn't work out. IF YOU FIND THAT A PROBLEM FOR YOUR CHARACTERS CAN BE SOLVED IN A MUCH EASIER WAY THAN IS NEEDED FOR YOUR IDEA, YOU MESS WITH THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNTIL YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA OR A BETTER PROBLEM, NOT JUST SAY "AH FUCK IT NO-ONE WOULD NOTICE". wtf @ madoka writers
I think the entire time I watched it I waited for Madoka to do emotionally satisfying and investment-worthy protagonist things, but... she just never did. SHE HAD SOLD HER SOUL FOR A KITTEN. Madoka was never anything, and even Homura's crush was never anything explained.
Sure, Homura was great, but she didn't even get it treated explicitly enough for all viewers to get the message without reading into it as deeply as you did (YOU CALLED ALL THE PLOT TWISTS BEFORE THEY HAPPENED GOOD JOB HOLY FUCK)
tl;dr i agree with this post and everything it stands for