History PuellaMagiMadokaMagica / TropesAToF

* CoolBigSis: Mami. The idea is exploited in that she admits to Madoka that she was anything but cool and collected during fights ([[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome being a middle-schooler fighting to the death regularly against otherworldly abominations]]), and she simply put on the appearance of the cool big sister/mentor role to endear herself to her younger companions and hide her fears from both them and herself.

* CoolGuns:
** Mami fights with a whole arsenal of these, created by magic.
** Homura uses (mundane) guns and explosives to deal with witches. Her primary weapon in Episode 10 is a Desert Eagle.

* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: [[spoiler:Homura's refusal to accept this trope is why she repeatedly goes back in time to save Modoka. Word of God says the total number of loops "approaches 100".]]

** Homura's Apartment: WordOfGod is that "the white walls, floating texts, and clockworks are all a holographic projection superimposed on a more mundane setting. At the same time, there is the suggestion that Homura's residence was intentionally drawn to resemble a witch's barrier."

* EatingTheEnemy: This ended up becoming the center point of the WhamEpisode that was episode 3. Mami was such an accomplished MagicalGirl that she wound up fighting [[LeeroyJenkins very recklessly]] against the witch Charlotte. This becomes her undoing as [[spoiler:just when it seems she won, the witch takes on a monstrous worm-like form and '''''bites her head off''''' and then eats the rest of the body soon after.]] It's very unsettling, even with the GoryDiscretionShot.

* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:In the anime, Homura's final fate is uncertain; it could be that she's gained new superpowers, or she's going to Heaven as soon as the series is over or both. Averted in the manga, when Madoka does indeed take her to Heaven, where they'll be together forever, along with Sayaka.]]

* ForWantOfANail: Episode 10: The incident where [[spoiler:Madoka saved Homura from a witch]] snowballed over the course of several [[spoiler:timeline resets]] and eventually results in [[spoiler:a ''CosmicRetcon'']].

* UsefulNotes/{{Dada}}: There is definitely some inspiration from this in the Witch Realms.

%%* UsefulNotes/{{Dada}}: There is definitely some inspiration from this in the Witch Realms.

** [[spoiler: If you count [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Walpurgis Night]] as a character and not a force of nature then it becomes a BigBadEnsemble, given its influence on the plot.]]

* CypherLanguage: The runes. They are not just a substitution cypher, they are also in German. See the [[Analysis/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Analysis page]] for the translations. TheWikiRule is ''filled to the brim'' with the translations.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: {{Deconstructed}}: The problem isn't in the literal granting of the wish, it's the fact that the wishers aren't asking for what they really want. The repeated warnings against making selfless wishes are there because ''there is no such thing as a selfless wish''. Each wish was made in the hope that it would result in something the magical girl would ultimately benefit from, but since that result isn't what they asked for, that isn't what they got. [[spoiler:This plays into Kyubey's plans since it means forcing the girls to realize that their pure dreams and wishes were never pure at all, and can only further divide them from the happiness they wanted after it's too late to change their minds]]. To go along with the show's treatment of entropy, and happiness and suffering balancing out to zero, the magical girls' wishes are an illustration: the amount of hope they create is equal to the pain they have to endure, but no matter what happens, ''they'' are the ones who have to endure the pain regardless of who gets the benefit of the hope.
-->'''Kyubey:''' You did accept the destiny of fighting witches, provided I grant one wish for you. That wish has come true, hasn't it?
** Mami's wish: [[spoiler:She wished to live, but what she really wanted was to continue living with her friends and family the way she did before. Since she was dying she didn't have time to carefully choose the ExactWords. Since Kyubey has no real understanding of human morality, it's not surprising he didn't even consider the possibility that she might not want to live alone.]]
** Sayaka's wish: She wished for the boy she loved to get better; he did, and no bad consequences came from it, but what Sayaka ''didn't'' wish for was for him to fall in love with her, which was what she really wanted. It doesn't help that Sayaka also came to consider herself unworthy of him once she found out that [[spoiler:magical girls are {{Lich}}es by any other name]], locking her in a hopeless situation of being unable to live without him yet also unwilling to confess her love to him. Kyoko pointed out that what she ''should'' have wished for was for him to never recover and become completely dependent on her.
** Kyoko's wish: [[spoiler:She wished for people to understand her father's preaching. It backfired when he discovered the truth, [[GoMadFromTheRevelation driving him insane]] and leading him to kill his entire family apart from her; she likely only survived because she was unknowingly a "zombie". This is how she knows to tell Sayaka what she should have wished for: what Kyoko ''wanted'' was a better family life.]]
** Homura's wish. [[spoiler:She wanted to save Madoka, but what she wished for was to be able to go back in time and do it over, and become strong enough to protect her. She [[TookALevelInBadass took several levels in badass]] and protected Madoka numerous times but repeatedly failed in saving her.]] Kyubey tells Madoka later that [[spoiler:if Homura keeps trying, she'll eventually realize she can't save Madoka; being stronger than Madoka doesn't mean being stronger than Walpurgisnacht or Madoka's destiny.]] So, like Sayaka, she didn't wish for exactly what she wanted, which was [[spoiler:to prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl. (Because, at the time she made it, she didn't realize that was the only way to save her; she only came to that realization later, after the third timeline.) Also similar to Sayaka, this realization would result in Homura's degradation into a witch as well but by that time Madoka's wish rewrites the rules of the game (it helps that she has a lot of mulligans handy should Madoka become a witch or expire for any reason).]]
** Finally {{averted}} for [[spoiler:Original-Timeline Madoka. The wish ''didn't'' backfire on her, just because her wish was simple, straightforward, and relatively petty. In the Drama CD, she wished for a cat to be saved after being hit by a car, and there's no indication that anything related to that wish ever went wrong.]]
*** [[spoiler:It could be considered as a form of subtle foreshadowing: The first time around, Madoka made a wish and was satisfied with the result, so whatever grief she endured because of it wasn't compounded by disappointment the way other wishes are. In the finale, she does the exact same thing: she makes a wish that couldn't possibly let her down because it really is what ''she'' wants, without pretense. Madoka's wishes are the only purely selfish ones in the entire story, it's just that what she wants for herself is the happiness of all magical girls.]]
** It's AllThereInTheManual, but it's PlayedStraight for [[spoiler:the magical girl who would become Charlotte]]. She wished to be able to share one last cheesecake with her dying mother, and that's exactly what she got: a ''single cheesecake'', and her mother immediately died ''before they would have the opportunity to get another cake to share''. It leads her to wonder if she should have just wished for her mother to get better. [[spoiler:Considering the circumstances under which her Grief Seed was found, Charlotte may have been a Magical Girl for a span of ''minutes''. It has been confirmed that she was a small child at the time and never fought a single witch.]]